Over the past 24 hours the rebels have continued their retreat with little encouragement from Libyan government forces. Having abandoned Brega they now occupy positions on the western outskirts of a Ajdabiya meaning that they only need to fall back another 200km to Benghazi until they meet their obligations under resolution 1973(2011). This is probably what prompted the British Prime Minister, David Cameron to last night (30/3/11) call a meeting of Conservative MP's where he is reported to have told them to prepare for failure in Libya.
Clearly not everyone got that message because at around 20:30 the British Foreign Office announced that the Libyan Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa had defected to Britain.
Despite having a delightful name Moussa Koussa is a man with a very dark past. In 1979 he was assigned to the Libyan Embassy in London where he headed a department charged with monitoring Libyan exiles in London, many of whom were even then suspected of working for Britain's MI6. In 1980 the British police investigating the murders of two of these exiles uncovered evidence directly linking Mr Koussa to the killings. As is usual for cases involving foreign diplomats rather then issuing an arrest warrant Britain got Koussa to leave the country although rather then simply requesting that he left the country I believe Britain went as far as to have Koussa declared persona non grata - in effect deporting him and banning him from ever re-entering the country.
On his return to Libya Koussa was assigned to the much feared Libyan intelligence service and rose to the post of service chief in the early 1990's. However during the early 1980's Koussa was tasked with anti-terrorism working to protect Libya from terrorist attack. Obviously this gave him great knowledge of how to carry out terrorist attacks and it is widely accepted that it was Koussa who conceived and planned the Lockerbie bombing. It was only after the 1987 US bombing of Tripoli that Qaddafi finally gave him permission to carry out the attack which is why Koussa is known as the father of the Lockerbie bomb. As he was also the man who negotiated the handing over of those responsible for the attack with the British and US authorities it appears that he saved his own skin by sacrificing al-Megrahi.
Due to his close links with Britain and his success in getting Libya taken off George Bush's axis of evil list Koussa was appointed Libyan Foreign Minister in 2009 and held the post until, well yesterday. He continued though to maintain close links with the Libyan intelligence service who are accused of carrying out many of the recent atrocities. At some point between the first reports of the Libyan uprising and the passing of 1973(2011) there was a huge argument at the centre of the Libyan government between Moussa Koussa and Saif Qaddafi who is believed to have accused Koussa of being a British agent. This led to Koussa being effectively exiled by being sent on a endless diplomatic tour outside of Libya. As both the International Criminal Court and Interpol had already indicated that they were very keen to speak to Koussa about his inolvement in alleged war crimes in eastern Libya this should be viewed as a very hazardous job.
It's no surprise then that Koussa pretty much limited his diplomatic tour to Tunisia where he most certainly had contact with members of MI6 who still have a very strong presence in the country due to their long support for the dictator Ben Ali. Then for reasons that are not yet clear Koussa decided to fly to the UK. On landing he was reminded of the international arrest warrants that had been issued against him and the several British arrest warrants that could very easily be issued against him. He was then asked if he wished to be a prisoner or an exile. Funnily enough he decided to be an exile although the British will call him a defector because they've got a propaganda war to fight.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
The Dr Freddie Patel Sentencing is In.
Dr Freddie Patel is the pathologist whose flawed autopsy report helped shield PC Simon Hardwood from manslaughter charges relating to the death of Mr Ian Tomlinson at the anti-G20 protests in London in 2009. In 1999 Dr Patel's flawed autopsy report helped shield police officers from prosecution over the death of Mr Roger Silvestre. In 2006 his flawed autopsy report help shield a north London psychiatric hospital from prosecution over the death of Mrs Sandra Allen.
However the sentence handed down today (31/3/11) by the General Medical Council (GMC) relate to Dr Patel's role in the murder of Ms Sally White in a case that became known as the Camden Ripper case. By ignoring significant head injuries, abdominal injuries and bite marks to intimate parts of Ms White's body Dr Patel ruled that the death was the result of natural causes. As a direct result of this flawed autopsy a murder investigation was never opened and Ms White's killer, Anthony Hardy was shielded from prosecution for long enough to go on to murder two further women.
After being found guilty on March 17th the GMC today passed sentence on Dr Patel. For committing 27 offences of professional misconduct which contributed to the deaths of two people Dr Patel has been suspended for just four months.
Meanwhile the Coroner's inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson is continuing. On Tuesday (29/3/11) the jury where shown videos which tracked the movements of PC Simon Hardwood on the day of the protests. In one video PC Hardwood is shown punching a BBC cameraman to the ground. In another he is shown smashing another protester head into a brick wall. The videos are so incriminating that before they were shown the Coroner was forced to instruct the jury to remember that PC Hardwood was not on trial for the killing. That suggests that the jury won't even be given the option of returning a verdict of unlawful killing in the case.
I suppose that does rather raise the question of why not but does answer the question of why some of the real psychopaths in the Libyan government are suddenly deciding that they'd feel more at home in Britain.
However the sentence handed down today (31/3/11) by the General Medical Council (GMC) relate to Dr Patel's role in the murder of Ms Sally White in a case that became known as the Camden Ripper case. By ignoring significant head injuries, abdominal injuries and bite marks to intimate parts of Ms White's body Dr Patel ruled that the death was the result of natural causes. As a direct result of this flawed autopsy a murder investigation was never opened and Ms White's killer, Anthony Hardy was shielded from prosecution for long enough to go on to murder two further women.
After being found guilty on March 17th the GMC today passed sentence on Dr Patel. For committing 27 offences of professional misconduct which contributed to the deaths of two people Dr Patel has been suspended for just four months.
Meanwhile the Coroner's inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson is continuing. On Tuesday (29/3/11) the jury where shown videos which tracked the movements of PC Simon Hardwood on the day of the protests. In one video PC Hardwood is shown punching a BBC cameraman to the ground. In another he is shown smashing another protester head into a brick wall. The videos are so incriminating that before they were shown the Coroner was forced to instruct the jury to remember that PC Hardwood was not on trial for the killing. That suggests that the jury won't even be given the option of returning a verdict of unlawful killing in the case.
I suppose that does rather raise the question of why not but does answer the question of why some of the real psychopaths in the Libyan government are suddenly deciding that they'd feel more at home in Britain.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 2. Day 5.
Foreign air attacks against Libya have continued but the rebels have retreated from the outskirts of Sirte to the outskirts of Brega. While I'm sure that all sides would like to claim that the rebels have been beaten back by Libyan government troops those troops do not appear to have advanced in any meaningful way creating something of a no mans land between Sirte and Brega. Therefore what I think has happened is that the British commanders of the rebels have ordered them to fall back in order to reduce the pressure for resolution 1973(2011) to be revoked which has increased with China and India both adding their voices to Russia's accusation that foreign forces have exceeded their UN mandate.
Meanwhile, led by the Americans, foreign powers are debating whether or not 1973(2011) allows them to arm the Libyan rebels. As the the resolution was passed in order to protect civilians by reducing conflict it clearly doesn't. However since Qatar started to act as the rebels oil merchant the Qatari based news channel, Al Jazeera has begun to vigorously campaign against what it is describing as American sanctions against the Libyan people. Therefore I suspect that while Britain hasn't worked it out yet when other foreign powers talk about arming the rebels they're using it as code for allowing the rebels to sell oil and be armed with oil revenues rather then weapons because they can quite easily use that money to buy in weapons from across Africa where NATO is not enforcing the arms embargo. On something of a side note it is a shame that as a result of action against Libya Al Jazeera appears to have lost most of it's editorial independence because it was one of if not the only independent news voices in the Arab world.
With it being almost a certainty that the situation in Libya will be referred back to the UN in one form or another I've been reading up on Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN. A career civil servant it turns out that she was on the staff of the American National Security Council (NSC) in 1994 at the time of the Rwandan genocide. If you are unfamiliar with this particularly dark period in African history it saw Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo rise up and slaughter each other in the hundreds of thousands. As most of the killing was done with simple weapons such as machetes and rocks and were often accompanied by mass rapes the brutality of the genocide shocked even people who were familiar with African civil wars. The international community's failure to act to stop the slaughter is still considered one of it's greatest failures. In response to her role in the NSC's failure to intervene in Rwanda Susan Rice went on the record to say; "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."
Sadly the guilt that Ms Rice clearly still feels over the Rwandan genocide made her all too easy a mark for those who wanted to pursue a war of aggression against Libya. All they needed to do was tell her a few horror stories and use a few, well placed Twitter rumours to convince her that the situation in Benghazi would be even a fraction as bad as the situation in Rwanda and she would not only vote for swift military action she would also campaign for even stronger action. It's a shame then that Libya in 2011 is not and never will be Rwanda in 1994. In fact as the newest member of the British Commonwealth Rwanda in 2011 is how Britain intends to control the flow of minerals like cobalt, copper and cadmium out of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I cannot see how allowing them to add Libyan oil to that plunder could ever be in America's geo-political interest.
Meanwhile, led by the Americans, foreign powers are debating whether or not 1973(2011) allows them to arm the Libyan rebels. As the the resolution was passed in order to protect civilians by reducing conflict it clearly doesn't. However since Qatar started to act as the rebels oil merchant the Qatari based news channel, Al Jazeera has begun to vigorously campaign against what it is describing as American sanctions against the Libyan people. Therefore I suspect that while Britain hasn't worked it out yet when other foreign powers talk about arming the rebels they're using it as code for allowing the rebels to sell oil and be armed with oil revenues rather then weapons because they can quite easily use that money to buy in weapons from across Africa where NATO is not enforcing the arms embargo. On something of a side note it is a shame that as a result of action against Libya Al Jazeera appears to have lost most of it's editorial independence because it was one of if not the only independent news voices in the Arab world.
With it being almost a certainty that the situation in Libya will be referred back to the UN in one form or another I've been reading up on Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN. A career civil servant it turns out that she was on the staff of the American National Security Council (NSC) in 1994 at the time of the Rwandan genocide. If you are unfamiliar with this particularly dark period in African history it saw Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo rise up and slaughter each other in the hundreds of thousands. As most of the killing was done with simple weapons such as machetes and rocks and were often accompanied by mass rapes the brutality of the genocide shocked even people who were familiar with African civil wars. The international community's failure to act to stop the slaughter is still considered one of it's greatest failures. In response to her role in the NSC's failure to intervene in Rwanda Susan Rice went on the record to say; "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."
Sadly the guilt that Ms Rice clearly still feels over the Rwandan genocide made her all too easy a mark for those who wanted to pursue a war of aggression against Libya. All they needed to do was tell her a few horror stories and use a few, well placed Twitter rumours to convince her that the situation in Benghazi would be even a fraction as bad as the situation in Rwanda and she would not only vote for swift military action she would also campaign for even stronger action. It's a shame then that Libya in 2011 is not and never will be Rwanda in 1994. In fact as the newest member of the British Commonwealth Rwanda in 2011 is how Britain intends to control the flow of minerals like cobalt, copper and cadmium out of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I cannot see how allowing them to add Libyan oil to that plunder could ever be in America's geo-political interest.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 2. Day 4.
The international conference on Libya that was held in London has just broken up. Despite much talk of the conference aiming to deepen international support for military operations against Libya, increase humanitarian aid for Libyan civilians and drawing up plans for Qaddafi to leave power the whole conference only lasted for three hours. With 35 nations and international bodies represented this gave each delegation just 5 minutes to speak.
The conference though did find time to achieve it's main objective. Qatar will now, very kindly, act as the Libyan rebels oil merchant. That means Qatar will now sell the small amounts of oil that are produced in rebel held areas of Libya on the world market and collect the money from those sales on the rebels behalf. Obviously UN resolution 1973(2011) prevents Qatar from then passing on any of that money to the rebels. Qatar has also offered to host the first meeting of a contact group with the rebels at a date yet to be announced. The purpose of this contact group is to assist some of the rebels, most likely Mustafa Abdul Jalil, to form themselves into enough of a governing body to get the UN to consider lifting sanctions. In the meantime the oil gets pumped and the rebels don't get paid.
The conference though did find time to achieve it's main objective. Qatar will now, very kindly, act as the Libyan rebels oil merchant. That means Qatar will now sell the small amounts of oil that are produced in rebel held areas of Libya on the world market and collect the money from those sales on the rebels behalf. Obviously UN resolution 1973(2011) prevents Qatar from then passing on any of that money to the rebels. Qatar has also offered to host the first meeting of a contact group with the rebels at a date yet to be announced. The purpose of this contact group is to assist some of the rebels, most likely Mustafa Abdul Jalil, to form themselves into enough of a governing body to get the UN to consider lifting sanctions. In the meantime the oil gets pumped and the rebels don't get paid.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 2. Day 3.
After advancing through Brega and Ras Lanuf the Libyan rebels are now preparing to attack Sirte, the birthplace of Qaddafi and the seat of his tribe. Obviously this places the civilians in Sirte in danger and under the terms of UN resolution 1973(2011) places an obligation on foreign forces to bomb the rebels in order to halt and turn back their advance. Foreign forces have yet to take any steps to meet that obligation and instead have been bombing Libyan government positions in and around Sirte. This has prompted Russia to publicly accuse NATO of breaching the terms of the UN resolution. We are yet to see if Russia will continue to limit itself to simply shouting criticism from the sidelines or whether it will now table a motion at the UN to have resolution 1973(2011) revoked and review it's authors places on the Security Council.
Meanwhile Britain is preparing to host a meeting of the coalition of foreign powers taking military action against Libya in London tomorrow (29/3/11). You may have been tipped off to this fact by the discovery today (28/3/11) of a "dissident Republican" bomb which failed to explode in LondonDerry, Northern Ireland. The main problem at the London meeting is that it is now rather redundant. When it was first called it's purpose was to allow the coalition partners to decide how much of Libya's oil they would have to take control of in order to make military action economically viable. Now NATO have assumed full control of operations in Libya that decision should have been taken out of the coalition's hands. The second problem is how Canada will be represented. Since the meeting was called the Canadian Parliament has been dissolved after the minority Conservative government lost a vote of no confidence and the Prime Minister, Stephan Harper was personally found to be in contempt of Parliament. With a general election not scheduled until May 2nd while Canada is bombing Libya in order to bring democracy to the middle east Canada itself is back under direct rule from the Queen of England meaning that the Canadian people have no democratic representation of their own.
In related political news over the past weekend which saw people in Britain stage a large protest against the British government the political party of French President, Nicholas Sarkozy did very badly in local elections despite a small bounce in popularity brought about by the bombing of Libya. Today (28/3/11) Silvo Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, another coalition partner made his first court appearance in one of four active criminal prosecutions against him for charges ranging from fraud and abuse of office to sex with an underage girl. It is not yet clear if the American political leadership have realised that their mistake at the UNSC has put them within a hairsbreadth of undoing 40 years hard work trying to bring peace to Israel and Palestine. However we are sure that Mrs Clinton will have some interesting views on the tactic of starting a foreign war in order to distract attention from a domestic sex scandal.
Meanwhile Britain is preparing to host a meeting of the coalition of foreign powers taking military action against Libya in London tomorrow (29/3/11). You may have been tipped off to this fact by the discovery today (28/3/11) of a "dissident Republican" bomb which failed to explode in LondonDerry, Northern Ireland. The main problem at the London meeting is that it is now rather redundant. When it was first called it's purpose was to allow the coalition partners to decide how much of Libya's oil they would have to take control of in order to make military action economically viable. Now NATO have assumed full control of operations in Libya that decision should have been taken out of the coalition's hands. The second problem is how Canada will be represented. Since the meeting was called the Canadian Parliament has been dissolved after the minority Conservative government lost a vote of no confidence and the Prime Minister, Stephan Harper was personally found to be in contempt of Parliament. With a general election not scheduled until May 2nd while Canada is bombing Libya in order to bring democracy to the middle east Canada itself is back under direct rule from the Queen of England meaning that the Canadian people have no democratic representation of their own.
In related political news over the past weekend which saw people in Britain stage a large protest against the British government the political party of French President, Nicholas Sarkozy did very badly in local elections despite a small bounce in popularity brought about by the bombing of Libya. Today (28/3/11) Silvo Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, another coalition partner made his first court appearance in one of four active criminal prosecutions against him for charges ranging from fraud and abuse of office to sex with an underage girl. It is not yet clear if the American political leadership have realised that their mistake at the UNSC has put them within a hairsbreadth of undoing 40 years hard work trying to bring peace to Israel and Palestine. However we are sure that Mrs Clinton will have some interesting views on the tactic of starting a foreign war in order to distract attention from a domestic sex scandal.
The Ian Tomlinson Inquest.
Today, March 27th sees the start of the Coroner's Inquest into the death of Mr Ian Tomlinson. Being held at the International Dispute Resolution Centre (IDRC) in London the inquest is expected to last for 5 -6 weeks.
For those who have forgotten Ian Tomlinson was the man who died after being struck by a policeman at the anti-G20 protests in London in April 2009. The initial autopsy was preformed by pathologist called Dr Freddie Patel who ruled that Mr Tomlinson had died of a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease and that the police had nothing to do with his death. Although two subsequent autopsies carried out at the request of the Tomlinson family and PC Simon Hardwood, the police officer who struck Mr Tomlinson both ruled that Mr Tomlinson died of internal bleeding caused by a traumatic injury, like a punch, to his abdomen the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) controversially decided that the confusion created by Dr Patel's autopsy report made it impossible to pursue a manslaughter charge against PC Simon Hardwood and the case was dropped.
While all that was being decided it emerged that this was not the first time that Dr Patel had provided controversial evidence in a controversial case. In 1999 he preformed the autopsy on Roger Silvestre, a young black man who died after being restrained by members of the police's Territorial Support Group (TSG) in North London. Ignoring all the evidence of physical abuse on the body Dr Patel ruled that Mr Silvestre had died of a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease. During this case Dr Patel was reprimanded by the General Medical Council (GMC) for making false and misleading statements. In 2002 Dr Patel preformed the autopsy on the body of a young woman who had been found dead in a stranger's apartment. Although the body showed head injuries, extensive bruising and a human bite mark on the woman's inner thigh Dr Patel ruled that the death was caused by a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease. The male occupant of the apartment went on to murder and dismember two further women in a case that became known as the Camden Ripper. In 2006 Dr Patel preformed the autopsy on Mrs Sandra Allen who suddenly dropped dead whilst being detained at a North London psychiatric hospital. Although the doctor who pronounced Mrs Allen dead reported that she was unable to breathe as her airway was blocked Dr Patel ruled that Mrs Allen died of a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease. Dr Patel's ruling cleared the hospital of any wrongdoing in Mr Allen's death by preventing an independent investigation being carried out.
After the CPS decided not to prosecute PC Simon Hardwood over Ian Tomlinson's death Dr Freddie Patel was once again investigated by the GMC, this time over his role in the Camden Ripper case. On March 17th 2011 the GMC found Dr Patel guilty of 27 charges of misconduct including gross misconduct and bringing the profession into disrepute. Although the GMC has yet to pass sentence given the severity and the sheer scale of the offences it is hard to imagine how they will avoid striking Dr Patel of the medical register, a move that will prevent him from describing himself as a doctor ever again. When this happens it should force the CPS to review the Tomlinson case because it will make the conflict over the cause of Mr Tomlinson's death a conflict between two properly qualified pathologists and a random member of the public. Something that will dramatically increase the chances of a successful prosecution.
In the meantime the Coroner's Inquest has begun. If you look at the specially selected location where the inquest is being held and it's dedicated website http://www.tomlinsoninquest.org.uk it's quite clear that the whole process is simply a charade to convince the world that Britain is a peaceful, democratic country which takes the killing of political protesters very seriously. The problem is that in Britain Coroner's Inquests are not normally held in cases where the is a chance of a criminal prosecution being brought until that criminal prosecution has been completed. This is to prevent evidence presented to the inquest prejudicing the criminal prosecution.
So by holding the Ian Tomlinson inquest now Britain is actually further helping a police officer escape prosecution for killing a protester and in doing so is endorsing the killing of political protesters by the police.
For those who have forgotten Ian Tomlinson was the man who died after being struck by a policeman at the anti-G20 protests in London in April 2009. The initial autopsy was preformed by pathologist called Dr Freddie Patel who ruled that Mr Tomlinson had died of a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease and that the police had nothing to do with his death. Although two subsequent autopsies carried out at the request of the Tomlinson family and PC Simon Hardwood, the police officer who struck Mr Tomlinson both ruled that Mr Tomlinson died of internal bleeding caused by a traumatic injury, like a punch, to his abdomen the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) controversially decided that the confusion created by Dr Patel's autopsy report made it impossible to pursue a manslaughter charge against PC Simon Hardwood and the case was dropped.
While all that was being decided it emerged that this was not the first time that Dr Patel had provided controversial evidence in a controversial case. In 1999 he preformed the autopsy on Roger Silvestre, a young black man who died after being restrained by members of the police's Territorial Support Group (TSG) in North London. Ignoring all the evidence of physical abuse on the body Dr Patel ruled that Mr Silvestre had died of a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease. During this case Dr Patel was reprimanded by the General Medical Council (GMC) for making false and misleading statements. In 2002 Dr Patel preformed the autopsy on the body of a young woman who had been found dead in a stranger's apartment. Although the body showed head injuries, extensive bruising and a human bite mark on the woman's inner thigh Dr Patel ruled that the death was caused by a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease. The male occupant of the apartment went on to murder and dismember two further women in a case that became known as the Camden Ripper. In 2006 Dr Patel preformed the autopsy on Mrs Sandra Allen who suddenly dropped dead whilst being detained at a North London psychiatric hospital. Although the doctor who pronounced Mrs Allen dead reported that she was unable to breathe as her airway was blocked Dr Patel ruled that Mrs Allen died of a heart attack brought about by pre-existing coronary artery disease. Dr Patel's ruling cleared the hospital of any wrongdoing in Mr Allen's death by preventing an independent investigation being carried out.
After the CPS decided not to prosecute PC Simon Hardwood over Ian Tomlinson's death Dr Freddie Patel was once again investigated by the GMC, this time over his role in the Camden Ripper case. On March 17th 2011 the GMC found Dr Patel guilty of 27 charges of misconduct including gross misconduct and bringing the profession into disrepute. Although the GMC has yet to pass sentence given the severity and the sheer scale of the offences it is hard to imagine how they will avoid striking Dr Patel of the medical register, a move that will prevent him from describing himself as a doctor ever again. When this happens it should force the CPS to review the Tomlinson case because it will make the conflict over the cause of Mr Tomlinson's death a conflict between two properly qualified pathologists and a random member of the public. Something that will dramatically increase the chances of a successful prosecution.
In the meantime the Coroner's Inquest has begun. If you look at the specially selected location where the inquest is being held and it's dedicated website http://www.tomlinsoninquest.org.uk it's quite clear that the whole process is simply a charade to convince the world that Britain is a peaceful, democratic country which takes the killing of political protesters very seriously. The problem is that in Britain Coroner's Inquests are not normally held in cases where the is a chance of a criminal prosecution being brought until that criminal prosecution has been completed. This is to prevent evidence presented to the inquest prejudicing the criminal prosecution.
So by holding the Ian Tomlinson inquest now Britain is actually further helping a police officer escape prosecution for killing a protester and in doing so is endorsing the killing of political protesters by the police.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Week 2. Day 2.
Over the past 24 hours with the assistance of British and French air strikes the Libya rebels have managed to advance out of Ajdabiya through Brega and into Ras Lanuf. So on the map below they now occupy positions up to and including the broken blue line.
Also today (27/3/11) NATO have voted to assume full command of coalition air strikes against ground targets in Libya. This adds to NATO's control of the naval blockade of Libya and the enforcement of the no-fly zone over Libya. This is what the United States from the start but NATO control has been opposed by two significant groups within NATO. Firstly Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Germany have been opposed to NATO involvement because they don't want to be associated with yet another western war against a predominately Muslim country with vast oil reserves. Secondly France and Britain have been opposed to NATO involvement because they don't want their hands tied by other NATO members as they wage a war of aggression against the Libyan government.
However from now on NATO's 28 member political council will decide what targets foreign aircraft will be able to engage on the ground in Libya although I suspect that those decisions will be reviewed retrospectively rather then before the bombs are dropped. Or to put it another way what happens now it Libya has absolutely nothing to do with either the Libyan government or the rebels.
In the meantime the UN's decision to intervene in Libya has sent to message to anti-government protesters across the middle east that whatever the rights wrongs of their cause all they need to do is keep protesting and the international community will intervene eventually. So far this has caused the governments of Syria and Yemen to come under severe pressure. Technically Syria is still at war with Israel and Yemen is home to Al Qeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAB) so I'm sure that this can only end well(!)
Also today (27/3/11) NATO have voted to assume full command of coalition air strikes against ground targets in Libya. This adds to NATO's control of the naval blockade of Libya and the enforcement of the no-fly zone over Libya. This is what the United States from the start but NATO control has been opposed by two significant groups within NATO. Firstly Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Germany have been opposed to NATO involvement because they don't want to be associated with yet another western war against a predominately Muslim country with vast oil reserves. Secondly France and Britain have been opposed to NATO involvement because they don't want their hands tied by other NATO members as they wage a war of aggression against the Libyan government.
However from now on NATO's 28 member political council will decide what targets foreign aircraft will be able to engage on the ground in Libya although I suspect that those decisions will be reviewed retrospectively rather then before the bombs are dropped. Or to put it another way what happens now it Libya has absolutely nothing to do with either the Libyan government or the rebels.
In the meantime the UN's decision to intervene in Libya has sent to message to anti-government protesters across the middle east that whatever the rights wrongs of their cause all they need to do is keep protesting and the international community will intervene eventually. So far this has caused the governments of Syria and Yemen to come under severe pressure. Technically Syria is still at war with Israel and Yemen is home to Al Qeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAB) so I'm sure that this can only end well(!)
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Britain's Protest.
Today, March 26th the Trade Union Congress (TUC) organised a large protest in London against the British government and it's policies. March organisers are claiming that 500,000 people attended while the police and the BBC are claiming that 250,000 turned out. What we do know is that it took over three hours for all of the march to past the starting point so we are looking at of figure of at least 300,000 with a reasonable estimate of 425,000.
Although the vast majority of the march passed off peacefully there was also a highly effective black bloc action alongside the main march. In part this was due to the 4500 police officers on duty being totally overwhelmed by the size of the protest. It was also though due to the fact that rather then just standing around gawping and waiting for the police to turn up the black bloc used the much more effective tactic of attacking a target and then swiftly moving on to the next target. This meant that multiple banks and branches of multinational corporations such as Starbucks and McDonalds were damaged across central London. The most high profile targets attacked though were Topshop's flagship Oxford Street store and the Ritz Hotel in Regents Street. However if you look closely at the BBC footage of the attack on Topshop you can quite clearly see the moment when one of the most aggressive protesters (in a gray hoodie) has to duck behind police lines because his police radio has just fallen off his belt.
At around 15:30 Chris Knight's group, this time calling themselves the armed wing of the TUC, attempted to gather everyone into Oxford Circus to watch an effigy of a horse being burnt. The idea was that the police would then be able to kettle the protesters and contain them within Oxford Circus much as the did on Mayday 2001. The black bloc were too smart for that though and at the first sign of the kettle forming quickly left the area and continued their game of cat and mouse with the police. At around the same time members of the UKUncut campaign staged a peaceful occupation of the luxury food store, Fortnum & Masons in Piccadilly. This was done in protest against what UKUncut perceive to be tax evasion by Whittington Investments, the investment company behind Fortnum & Masons as well as other high street brands like Primark. Although no damage was done the occupation succeeded in closing the store for several hours.
By around 17:30 the main march had arrived in Hyde Park and begun to disperse. This freed up police resources to tackle the black bloc and the UKUncut occupation. While short of a full scale riot this led to some violent scenes as the police appeared to be taking revenge on those protesters who had failed to fall into the cunning little trap that the police and Chris Knight had spent so long setting up. All those who were occupying Fortnum & Masons were arrested for aggravated trespass contrary to sections 68&69 of the 1994 criminal justice and police act.
As of 21:30 things appeared to have calmed down considerably although protesters continued to occupy camps in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square. There are now (23:00) reports just coming in that things have started to kick off again as the police attempt to clear Trafalgar Square. As the events are still going on details of arrests and injuries are still emerging but current totals stand at 75 arrests and 38 injuries including 5 police officers and there are unconfirmed reports that one protester has been seriously injured after being knocked down by a police van.
Although the vast majority of the march passed off peacefully there was also a highly effective black bloc action alongside the main march. In part this was due to the 4500 police officers on duty being totally overwhelmed by the size of the protest. It was also though due to the fact that rather then just standing around gawping and waiting for the police to turn up the black bloc used the much more effective tactic of attacking a target and then swiftly moving on to the next target. This meant that multiple banks and branches of multinational corporations such as Starbucks and McDonalds were damaged across central London. The most high profile targets attacked though were Topshop's flagship Oxford Street store and the Ritz Hotel in Regents Street. However if you look closely at the BBC footage of the attack on Topshop you can quite clearly see the moment when one of the most aggressive protesters (in a gray hoodie) has to duck behind police lines because his police radio has just fallen off his belt.
At around 15:30 Chris Knight's group, this time calling themselves the armed wing of the TUC, attempted to gather everyone into Oxford Circus to watch an effigy of a horse being burnt. The idea was that the police would then be able to kettle the protesters and contain them within Oxford Circus much as the did on Mayday 2001. The black bloc were too smart for that though and at the first sign of the kettle forming quickly left the area and continued their game of cat and mouse with the police. At around the same time members of the UKUncut campaign staged a peaceful occupation of the luxury food store, Fortnum & Masons in Piccadilly. This was done in protest against what UKUncut perceive to be tax evasion by Whittington Investments, the investment company behind Fortnum & Masons as well as other high street brands like Primark. Although no damage was done the occupation succeeded in closing the store for several hours.
By around 17:30 the main march had arrived in Hyde Park and begun to disperse. This freed up police resources to tackle the black bloc and the UKUncut occupation. While short of a full scale riot this led to some violent scenes as the police appeared to be taking revenge on those protesters who had failed to fall into the cunning little trap that the police and Chris Knight had spent so long setting up. All those who were occupying Fortnum & Masons were arrested for aggravated trespass contrary to sections 68&69 of the 1994 criminal justice and police act.
As of 21:30 things appeared to have calmed down considerably although protesters continued to occupy camps in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square. There are now (23:00) reports just coming in that things have started to kick off again as the police attempt to clear Trafalgar Square. As the events are still going on details of arrests and injuries are still emerging but current totals stand at 75 arrests and 38 injuries including 5 police officers and there are unconfirmed reports that one protester has been seriously injured after being knocked down by a police van.
Operation Oil Theft: Week 2. Day 1.
Things must be serious I've drawn a map. More accurately I've stolen a map off the CIA and then coloured it in in a really sloppy fashion.
On the map you can hopefully see above the area hatched in gray broadly represents the area of Libya's main oil fields. The unbroken blue line represents the front line between Libyan government troops and the rebels at the time resolution 1972(2011) was passed. The broken blue line represents where foreign military intervention intends to move that front line too.
Over the past 24 hours British aircraft and only British aircraft have been bombing Libyan government tanks, trucks and troops outside Ajdabiya. This has allowed rebel fighters to advance into the town, retake it and move the front line closer to the line of objective. I'm sorry but that is not foreign military intervention to protect civilians nor is it foreign military intervention to enforce a ceasefire. Instead it is foreign military intervention in order to provide close air support to allow one faction in a civil war to attack another faction in a civil war.
It is also being reported that the rebels are not only able to predict the targets of British air attacks they are also able to predict the times that the attacks will take place with an accuracy of around 10 minutes. At the very least this indicates that there is direct communication between the rebels and the British air force and as is much more likely that British troops are in eastern Libya and are directing British air strikes and commanding rebel forces. While this is a clear breach of 1973(2011) it should come as no surprise because a lot of these "Libyan" rebels actually hold British passports and have addresses like Manchester, UK and Fulham, UK.
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets calling for the overthrow of their unelected and illegitimate government. That's in Britain though and it doesn't look like the students and anarchists have woken up yet.
On the map you can hopefully see above the area hatched in gray broadly represents the area of Libya's main oil fields. The unbroken blue line represents the front line between Libyan government troops and the rebels at the time resolution 1972(2011) was passed. The broken blue line represents where foreign military intervention intends to move that front line too.
Over the past 24 hours British aircraft and only British aircraft have been bombing Libyan government tanks, trucks and troops outside Ajdabiya. This has allowed rebel fighters to advance into the town, retake it and move the front line closer to the line of objective. I'm sorry but that is not foreign military intervention to protect civilians nor is it foreign military intervention to enforce a ceasefire. Instead it is foreign military intervention in order to provide close air support to allow one faction in a civil war to attack another faction in a civil war.
It is also being reported that the rebels are not only able to predict the targets of British air attacks they are also able to predict the times that the attacks will take place with an accuracy of around 10 minutes. At the very least this indicates that there is direct communication between the rebels and the British air force and as is much more likely that British troops are in eastern Libya and are directing British air strikes and commanding rebel forces. While this is a clear breach of 1973(2011) it should come as no surprise because a lot of these "Libyan" rebels actually hold British passports and have addresses like Manchester, UK and Fulham, UK.
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets calling for the overthrow of their unelected and illegitimate government. That's in Britain though and it doesn't look like the students and anarchists have woken up yet.
Friday, 25 March 2011
March 26th.
This is actually the date of my brother's birthday. That meant that tonight I've had to be out with my mother, her partner and my brother to celebrate. On Sunday I'll have to be out to celebrate again with my brother, father and grandmother. As a result it is unlikely that I'll be able to get it together enough to attend the March for the Alternative.
That's a shame because it looks like Saturday will be a big one. Everyone my brother knows will be going and everybody my mother knows will be going. Not only that but everyone my mother's partner knows will be going and they're all high level civil servants who normally are not allowed to express a political opinion let alone attend a protest march. The rumour that's going around is that a group calling themselves the Legal Defence Monitoring Group have released a telephone number; 07946 541 511 for anyone arrested during the protest.
This really takes me back to the old days when people used to write a number like on that on their arms in case they were arrested and needed to have the police inform someone of their detention.
As for dinner tonight it went well. The only problem was you know these cuts to the front line NHS that the government is definitely not making well my mother who's a front line NHS manager is defiantly not having to make a lot of people redundant.
That's a shame because it looks like Saturday will be a big one. Everyone my brother knows will be going and everybody my mother knows will be going. Not only that but everyone my mother's partner knows will be going and they're all high level civil servants who normally are not allowed to express a political opinion let alone attend a protest march. The rumour that's going around is that a group calling themselves the Legal Defence Monitoring Group have released a telephone number; 07946 541 511 for anyone arrested during the protest.
This really takes me back to the old days when people used to write a number like on that on their arms in case they were arrested and needed to have the police inform someone of their detention.
As for dinner tonight it went well. The only problem was you know these cuts to the front line NHS that the government is definitely not making well my mother who's a front line NHS manager is defiantly not having to make a lot of people redundant.
Operation Oil Theft: Day 7.
On March 24th the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met again to discuss it's decision to impose resolution 1973(2011) on Libya. This meeting was held behind closed doors. That meant that no cameras or members of the public were allowed into the meeting, there were no press briefings or even briefings for UN member states who are not members of the UNSC. In fact you'd struggle to get the UN to even acknowledge that the meeting took place.
This level of secrecy normally indicates that there are deep divisions between the members of the UNSC and the meeting would be a forum for what is diplomatically termed a frank exchange of views. Also on this occasion I think it was quite embarrassing for the UNSC to admit that this time when the British asked it for permission to attack another oil rich nation and claimed that the world was just 45 minutes for disaster the UNSC fell for the pressure sell trick.
Obviously the level of secrecy makes it impossible to tell what was discussed at the meeting let alone what was decided. However we do know that in the hours prior to the meeting the UN Secretary General made a speech in which he announced that 1973(2011) was having little impact of protecting civilians because neither side was respecting a the ceasefire. He went on to separately state that Qaddafi was not meeting the conditions imposed on him by the resolution. This is important because one of the implied conditions in 1973(2011) which was made explicit by President Obama's speech of March 19th is that Qaddafi will have to withdraw his troops and supporters a distance of around 300km back from Benghazi to positions close to Sirte. Apart from possibly representing ethnic cleansing this is a problem because unless the foreign force intervene to prevent it this will allow the rebel tribesmen to advance into a separate tribal area*. If that happens and the different tribes start killing each other it brings into play complex tribal honour systems that involve things like blood feuds and honour killings. Also you'll never guess what's beneath those 300km of Libyan sand.
We also know that NATO has not taken command of the operation due to deep splits in the alliance over 1973(2011). In the hours before the UNSC meeting Turkey, who had been strongly opposed to NATO involvement, indicated that they could possibly be persuaded to support NATO involvement. This prompted the NATO Secretary General to prematurely announce that NATO will be taking command of operations against Libya. Therefore it looks as though the UNSC meeting was to change the objectives of 1973(2011) and the conditions it imposes to make it lawful and allow NATO to support the operation. The presumptive nature of the NATO Secretary General's announcement was either a sign of confidence that an agreement would be reached or an attempt to rail road Turkey into compliance without an agreement being reached using the old diplomatic trick of; "If we say it loudly enough and often enough we will make it true."
Today (25/3/11) the UN Secretary General appears to have had his tune changed and now thinks that 1973(2011) is being effective in reducing civilian deaths. This indicates that Britain, France and possible the USA have been throwing their weight around. So while accepting that I, possibly, don't have a right to know what happened at the UNSC meeting the UN should at least brief Turkey and the other non-represented NATO members because surely no-one actually trusts Britain and France to be honest with them.
*I know that there has been fighting in multiple areas of Libya. This is because after taking power Qaddafi has actually worked very hard trying to break down tribal barriers. As a result, 40 years on, there is a level of integration amongst Libya's tribes especially in the cities. It's a shame Qaddafi didn't realise that trying to make the world a better place is normally what gets the Brits reaching for their guns.
This level of secrecy normally indicates that there are deep divisions between the members of the UNSC and the meeting would be a forum for what is diplomatically termed a frank exchange of views. Also on this occasion I think it was quite embarrassing for the UNSC to admit that this time when the British asked it for permission to attack another oil rich nation and claimed that the world was just 45 minutes for disaster the UNSC fell for the pressure sell trick.
Obviously the level of secrecy makes it impossible to tell what was discussed at the meeting let alone what was decided. However we do know that in the hours prior to the meeting the UN Secretary General made a speech in which he announced that 1973(2011) was having little impact of protecting civilians because neither side was respecting a the ceasefire. He went on to separately state that Qaddafi was not meeting the conditions imposed on him by the resolution. This is important because one of the implied conditions in 1973(2011) which was made explicit by President Obama's speech of March 19th is that Qaddafi will have to withdraw his troops and supporters a distance of around 300km back from Benghazi to positions close to Sirte. Apart from possibly representing ethnic cleansing this is a problem because unless the foreign force intervene to prevent it this will allow the rebel tribesmen to advance into a separate tribal area*. If that happens and the different tribes start killing each other it brings into play complex tribal honour systems that involve things like blood feuds and honour killings. Also you'll never guess what's beneath those 300km of Libyan sand.
We also know that NATO has not taken command of the operation due to deep splits in the alliance over 1973(2011). In the hours before the UNSC meeting Turkey, who had been strongly opposed to NATO involvement, indicated that they could possibly be persuaded to support NATO involvement. This prompted the NATO Secretary General to prematurely announce that NATO will be taking command of operations against Libya. Therefore it looks as though the UNSC meeting was to change the objectives of 1973(2011) and the conditions it imposes to make it lawful and allow NATO to support the operation. The presumptive nature of the NATO Secretary General's announcement was either a sign of confidence that an agreement would be reached or an attempt to rail road Turkey into compliance without an agreement being reached using the old diplomatic trick of; "If we say it loudly enough and often enough we will make it true."
Today (25/3/11) the UN Secretary General appears to have had his tune changed and now thinks that 1973(2011) is being effective in reducing civilian deaths. This indicates that Britain, France and possible the USA have been throwing their weight around. So while accepting that I, possibly, don't have a right to know what happened at the UNSC meeting the UN should at least brief Turkey and the other non-represented NATO members because surely no-one actually trusts Britain and France to be honest with them.
*I know that there has been fighting in multiple areas of Libya. This is because after taking power Qaddafi has actually worked very hard trying to break down tribal barriers. As a result, 40 years on, there is a level of integration amongst Libya's tribes especially in the cities. It's a shame Qaddafi didn't realise that trying to make the world a better place is normally what gets the Brits reaching for their guns.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Day 5.75.
I should start by correcting something I said in my earlier post. The coalition of foreign powers have not been meeting today (23/3/11). Instead they were using today to announce the date when they will be meeting. They will now be meeting on Tuesday March 29th although according to the French Foreign Minister the meeting will take place in Paris while according to the British Foreign Minister the meeting will be taking place in London so it should be an interesting meeting.
Today has also seen a sudden and dramatic change in US military operations in Libya. They have announced that they will resume bombing Libyan government forces in western Libya and tonight that bombing appears to have re-started.
The American announcement came just hours after a large terrorist bombing in Israeli occupied Jerusalem which killed at least one and injured 30 more. Although I haven't had the time to take a proper look at the incident it appears to be either an Israeli false flag or the work of a Palestinian terrorist group linked to Fatah which are pretty much the same thing these days. This bombing is just the latest in a series of increasingly violent incidents in the country. This latest cycle of blood letting began after the Israelis announced that they are to build more Jewish settlements on occupied land. This prompted two Palestinians to carry out a particularly brutal murder of a settler family. While to my knowledge no-one has been caught it is believed that the two men were linked, at a low level, to Fatah. In retaliation Jewish settlers started stabbing and shooting random Palestinians. In retaliation Palestinians in Gaza started firing rockets into Israel. In retaliation the Israeli Defence Force carried out air strikes against Gaza and round again we go.
Therefore it's obvious that at this point America's policy towards Libya is largely being dictated to it by Israel. Israel want to see the conflict in Libya go on for as long as possible in the hope it will divert western eyes from the Israeli conflict and inflame anti-Israeli feeling in the Arab world ahead of this summers big war. The last thing Israel wants is for the Libyan rebels to be confined to a small strip of desert on the shores of the Mediterranean sea. That would make it far too easy to draw comparisons between Qaddafi's treatment of the rebels and Israel's treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.
On a related subject following what can only be described as a series of embarrassing incidents on a recent foreign tour international support for Sarah Palin's bid to become President in 2012 is at an all time high. Or to put it another way Obama finally needs to man up or just accept that he's going the same way as Jimmy Carter.
Today has also seen a sudden and dramatic change in US military operations in Libya. They have announced that they will resume bombing Libyan government forces in western Libya and tonight that bombing appears to have re-started.
The American announcement came just hours after a large terrorist bombing in Israeli occupied Jerusalem which killed at least one and injured 30 more. Although I haven't had the time to take a proper look at the incident it appears to be either an Israeli false flag or the work of a Palestinian terrorist group linked to Fatah which are pretty much the same thing these days. This bombing is just the latest in a series of increasingly violent incidents in the country. This latest cycle of blood letting began after the Israelis announced that they are to build more Jewish settlements on occupied land. This prompted two Palestinians to carry out a particularly brutal murder of a settler family. While to my knowledge no-one has been caught it is believed that the two men were linked, at a low level, to Fatah. In retaliation Jewish settlers started stabbing and shooting random Palestinians. In retaliation Palestinians in Gaza started firing rockets into Israel. In retaliation the Israeli Defence Force carried out air strikes against Gaza and round again we go.
Therefore it's obvious that at this point America's policy towards Libya is largely being dictated to it by Israel. Israel want to see the conflict in Libya go on for as long as possible in the hope it will divert western eyes from the Israeli conflict and inflame anti-Israeli feeling in the Arab world ahead of this summers big war. The last thing Israel wants is for the Libyan rebels to be confined to a small strip of desert on the shores of the Mediterranean sea. That would make it far too easy to draw comparisons between Qaddafi's treatment of the rebels and Israel's treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.
On a related subject following what can only be described as a series of embarrassing incidents on a recent foreign tour international support for Sarah Palin's bid to become President in 2012 is at an all time high. Or to put it another way Obama finally needs to man up or just accept that he's going the same way as Jimmy Carter.
The Budget.
In 2010 Britain's new ConDem government coalition announced the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). With the stated aims of reducing Britain's national debt and returning the British economy to growth the CSR unleashed a program of tax rises and spending cuts so savage they caused the British public to howl in pain and riot in the streets.
Today (23/3/11) the Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne gave us the first real assessment of how that plan is working when he unveiled the 2011 Budget. The news is not good. The forecast for economic growth has been downgraded from 2.1% to 1.7% and inflation is running at around 4.5%, more then double the government's estimate of 2%. The only positive is that the national debt is slightly less then predicted however as the rate of borrowing is actually rising this appears to be the result of the government getting it's initial prediction wrong rather then any improvement in the economic situation. So while I think it's still too early to say that the ConDem's economic policy has failed it has certainly yet to achieve it's stated aims.
Faced with a situation like this the Chancellor had little choice other then to make this budget all about trying to gouge as much money as possible out of people in taxes while giving away treats to keep his corporate backers from withdrawing their support. He began with;
Reforms to the Tax System.
Although once most people in Britain have paid PAYE income tax, National Insurance Contributions (NIC's) and VAT they simply don't have any money left to tax Britain actually has the worlds most comprehensive and complicated tax system. With a view to increase revenues this budget sets out to simplify this system by doing away with 43 tax reliefs that could be described as tax loopholes. Obviously this is a complicated and technical subject in itself and I still need to read the details but at first glance it appears that charities and middle income earners will be hardest hit by these changes because unlike the rich they can't afford to pay accountants to go over the new system with a fine tooth comb in order to find new loopholes.
The other major change is plans to merge the twin payroll taxes of PAYE income tax and NIC's. I have yet to read the specifics of this plan but because many of the Conservative parties backers despise the mere notion of being asked to pay NIC's I suspect that in practice the word "merge" will translate into "shift the burden of NIC's off the employer and on to the employee."
There are also plans to introduce a carbon tax on energy production (gas & electricity bills). This plan bears no resemblance to any idea associated with the IPCC's efforts to combat climate change and considering the Conservatives views on the environment seems to be an effort to raise ever more tax revenue while damaging the reputation of the environmental lobby.
If all the dry talk of complicated changes to the inner workings of the worlds most complicated tax system didn't put you brain into neutral then you'll be relieved to hear that amid all this talk of tax rises there is still plenty of room for tax cuts for the rich. Corporation tax will be cut by 2% this years and by 0.5% every year in the following year. There will also be a cut in the rate of tax levied on private overseas loans to British businesses. In an act of wanton populism these tax cuts will be funded through taxes on the banks. Therefore the government seems to be trying to force all the banks overseas so the government can then tax any money being lent to British businesses.
Growth.
In order to avoid appearing like an economic sociopath at war with his own people George Osborne was also forced to include plans that at least sound like they're going to help the British economy to grow. These include a £100million grant and a 200% tax credit for the science & technology sector along with Enterprise Zones to encourage hi-tech manufacturing. The idea being that Britain will be able to grow itself out of recession by becoming a global hub for science & technology and hi-tech manufacturing which will be great if it works. However the science & technology sector is highly competitive and joining it will pit Britain against nations like the USA, Japan, China, South Korea, Germany and Israel. Also due to advances in science & technology hi-tech manufacturing is an industry that is expected to shrink rather then grow in the coming years. Therefore what is much more likely to happen is that Britain will end up competing with similar Enterprise Zones in countries like Thailand, Bangladesh and Haiti in a never ending quest to drive down the wages and working conditions in jobs that even the Chinese are starting to think of as beneath them.
This race to the bottom can also be seen in another of the budget's plans for growth. The idea is to do away with a range of employment and health & safety legislation while cutting the legal aid budget and preventing lawyers from working on a no win no fee basis. The argument is that this will promote growth by freeing small and medium sized employers from laws that they don't understand. In reality it encourages managerial incompetence and shifts the balance of power between the employer and the employee by allowing large employers to force people to work in dangerous working environments and removing their right compensation should they get injured. In this policy it's nice to seen that the spirit of Victorian Britain is still alive and well in the Conservative Party.
The Sweeteners.
Obviously having just announced to the British people that he intends to sell their children to the Chinese George Osborne was forced to thrown in a few crumbs in order to distract and sweeten the deal.
Chief amongst these is the headline grabbing announcement of a 1 penny per litre cut in the fuel duty at the pumps. Although it sounds like it this does not mean that the government has cut the tax on petrol. All they've done is shift the tax burden up the supply chain meaning that while the petrol consumer pays less tax the petrol supplier pays more tax and will simple pass the extra cost onto the consumer. Therefore I wouldn't be too surprised the 1p/litre cut actually translates as a 1p/litre rise. While we are on the subject of the cost of fuel I should point out that although I call the situation in Libya Operation Oil Theft what we're actually talking about is who wins the concession to develop Libya's oil fields. That means that it will be the length of the conflict plus 10-15 years before Libya's oil actually becomes petrol. In the meantime the conflict and the instability is driving up the price of oil and it is only the drop in production caused by Japan's earthquake that is keeping it below an eye-watering $150 per barrel. Although terrible for the consumer this would be great for the government because the tax on petrol is charged as a percentage of the price so the higher the price the more money the government makes in tax. To put it another way it is Japan's earthquake not George Osborne that is keeping the price of petrol down and George Osborne is giving British money to Japan to help the boost production and force the oil price up.
This actually highlights the wider issue of the cowardly and deceitful way that George Osborne has gone about raising tax revenue. Rather then being honest and raising things like income tax and council tax he has instead chosen to increase things like VAT. This is because VAT is paid at the point of use rather then a bill that is sent out yearly making it harder for anyone to challenge the tax rises with something like a poll tax style tax strike. It is also deeply unfair because VAT is 20% whether you earn £10,000 or £100,000 whereas income tax is calculated based on your income and council tax is calculated on the size and therefore price of your house. In light of this approach it is no surprise that two of the other sweeteners in the budget was a promise that council tax will not rise and a promise that central government will give local councils £100million to fix pot holes in the roads meaning that the wheels of a millionaires Bentley in Buckinghamshire will be protected from damage by the tax paid by someone in Tower Hamlets who can't afford a car.
The other sweetener that caught my eye because it really sums up the ethos of the budget was the announcement of a £250million fund to help home buyers. That should make a lot of people happy because until you think about it it sounds as though the government is helping hard pressed first time buyers get on the property ladder. However the fund only applies to new build properties meaning that what the government is actually doing is using taxpayers money to subsidise the profits of feckless property developers who overestimated the housing market and should now be getting forced to drop their prices.
So yeah like I said yesterday; Bend over, here it comes again.
Today (23/3/11) the Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne gave us the first real assessment of how that plan is working when he unveiled the 2011 Budget. The news is not good. The forecast for economic growth has been downgraded from 2.1% to 1.7% and inflation is running at around 4.5%, more then double the government's estimate of 2%. The only positive is that the national debt is slightly less then predicted however as the rate of borrowing is actually rising this appears to be the result of the government getting it's initial prediction wrong rather then any improvement in the economic situation. So while I think it's still too early to say that the ConDem's economic policy has failed it has certainly yet to achieve it's stated aims.
Faced with a situation like this the Chancellor had little choice other then to make this budget all about trying to gouge as much money as possible out of people in taxes while giving away treats to keep his corporate backers from withdrawing their support. He began with;
Reforms to the Tax System.
Although once most people in Britain have paid PAYE income tax, National Insurance Contributions (NIC's) and VAT they simply don't have any money left to tax Britain actually has the worlds most comprehensive and complicated tax system. With a view to increase revenues this budget sets out to simplify this system by doing away with 43 tax reliefs that could be described as tax loopholes. Obviously this is a complicated and technical subject in itself and I still need to read the details but at first glance it appears that charities and middle income earners will be hardest hit by these changes because unlike the rich they can't afford to pay accountants to go over the new system with a fine tooth comb in order to find new loopholes.
The other major change is plans to merge the twin payroll taxes of PAYE income tax and NIC's. I have yet to read the specifics of this plan but because many of the Conservative parties backers despise the mere notion of being asked to pay NIC's I suspect that in practice the word "merge" will translate into "shift the burden of NIC's off the employer and on to the employee."
There are also plans to introduce a carbon tax on energy production (gas & electricity bills). This plan bears no resemblance to any idea associated with the IPCC's efforts to combat climate change and considering the Conservatives views on the environment seems to be an effort to raise ever more tax revenue while damaging the reputation of the environmental lobby.
If all the dry talk of complicated changes to the inner workings of the worlds most complicated tax system didn't put you brain into neutral then you'll be relieved to hear that amid all this talk of tax rises there is still plenty of room for tax cuts for the rich. Corporation tax will be cut by 2% this years and by 0.5% every year in the following year. There will also be a cut in the rate of tax levied on private overseas loans to British businesses. In an act of wanton populism these tax cuts will be funded through taxes on the banks. Therefore the government seems to be trying to force all the banks overseas so the government can then tax any money being lent to British businesses.
Growth.
In order to avoid appearing like an economic sociopath at war with his own people George Osborne was also forced to include plans that at least sound like they're going to help the British economy to grow. These include a £100million grant and a 200% tax credit for the science & technology sector along with Enterprise Zones to encourage hi-tech manufacturing. The idea being that Britain will be able to grow itself out of recession by becoming a global hub for science & technology and hi-tech manufacturing which will be great if it works. However the science & technology sector is highly competitive and joining it will pit Britain against nations like the USA, Japan, China, South Korea, Germany and Israel. Also due to advances in science & technology hi-tech manufacturing is an industry that is expected to shrink rather then grow in the coming years. Therefore what is much more likely to happen is that Britain will end up competing with similar Enterprise Zones in countries like Thailand, Bangladesh and Haiti in a never ending quest to drive down the wages and working conditions in jobs that even the Chinese are starting to think of as beneath them.
This race to the bottom can also be seen in another of the budget's plans for growth. The idea is to do away with a range of employment and health & safety legislation while cutting the legal aid budget and preventing lawyers from working on a no win no fee basis. The argument is that this will promote growth by freeing small and medium sized employers from laws that they don't understand. In reality it encourages managerial incompetence and shifts the balance of power between the employer and the employee by allowing large employers to force people to work in dangerous working environments and removing their right compensation should they get injured. In this policy it's nice to seen that the spirit of Victorian Britain is still alive and well in the Conservative Party.
The Sweeteners.
Obviously having just announced to the British people that he intends to sell their children to the Chinese George Osborne was forced to thrown in a few crumbs in order to distract and sweeten the deal.
Chief amongst these is the headline grabbing announcement of a 1 penny per litre cut in the fuel duty at the pumps. Although it sounds like it this does not mean that the government has cut the tax on petrol. All they've done is shift the tax burden up the supply chain meaning that while the petrol consumer pays less tax the petrol supplier pays more tax and will simple pass the extra cost onto the consumer. Therefore I wouldn't be too surprised the 1p/litre cut actually translates as a 1p/litre rise. While we are on the subject of the cost of fuel I should point out that although I call the situation in Libya Operation Oil Theft what we're actually talking about is who wins the concession to develop Libya's oil fields. That means that it will be the length of the conflict plus 10-15 years before Libya's oil actually becomes petrol. In the meantime the conflict and the instability is driving up the price of oil and it is only the drop in production caused by Japan's earthquake that is keeping it below an eye-watering $150 per barrel. Although terrible for the consumer this would be great for the government because the tax on petrol is charged as a percentage of the price so the higher the price the more money the government makes in tax. To put it another way it is Japan's earthquake not George Osborne that is keeping the price of petrol down and George Osborne is giving British money to Japan to help the boost production and force the oil price up.
This actually highlights the wider issue of the cowardly and deceitful way that George Osborne has gone about raising tax revenue. Rather then being honest and raising things like income tax and council tax he has instead chosen to increase things like VAT. This is because VAT is paid at the point of use rather then a bill that is sent out yearly making it harder for anyone to challenge the tax rises with something like a poll tax style tax strike. It is also deeply unfair because VAT is 20% whether you earn £10,000 or £100,000 whereas income tax is calculated based on your income and council tax is calculated on the size and therefore price of your house. In light of this approach it is no surprise that two of the other sweeteners in the budget was a promise that council tax will not rise and a promise that central government will give local councils £100million to fix pot holes in the roads meaning that the wheels of a millionaires Bentley in Buckinghamshire will be protected from damage by the tax paid by someone in Tower Hamlets who can't afford a car.
The other sweetener that caught my eye because it really sums up the ethos of the budget was the announcement of a £250million fund to help home buyers. That should make a lot of people happy because until you think about it it sounds as though the government is helping hard pressed first time buyers get on the property ladder. However the fund only applies to new build properties meaning that what the government is actually doing is using taxpayers money to subsidise the profits of feckless property developers who overestimated the housing market and should now be getting forced to drop their prices.
So yeah like I said yesterday; Bend over, here it comes again.
Operation Oil Theft: Day 5.
In Libya no-one is respecting the ceasefire with fighting around Ajdabiya in the east of the country as the rebels attempt to advance against government troops and at multiple locations in the west of the country as government forces attempt to consolidate their position. This problem has been created by the rebels decision not to respect the ceasefire and use it as an opportunity to advance out of Benghazi. This left government forces with no other option then to fight back because a one sided ceasefire is more commonly known as a surrender.
The only area in Libya where there has been a reduction in the level of violence is with the foreign forces who have dramatically reduced the number of attacks since the UNSC reconvened to assess how resolution 1973(2011) is being applied in practice. Foreign aircraft are still patrolling the skies over Libya and those aircraft are still carrying live weapons but they are hesitant to engage ground targets until either their rules of engagement have been clarified or the UN stop checking that the rules of engagement are being adhered too.
More details have also begun to emerge about the USAF F-15 that crashed on 21/3/11. The USAF have released a statement saying that one of their F-15 Strike Eagle aircraft was operating over rebel territory near Benghazi when it suffered mechanical failure causing it to crash. The two crewmen both successfully ejected and landed in a field of sheep. Due to the strength of that statement the USAF were making sure that no-one involved would be unaware of the meaning of the incident.
The USAF deliberately crashed one of their ancient F-15 aircraft in order to send out two messages. The first was to make sure that foreign forces engaged in operations against Libya were drilled in what to do if an aircraft was shot down. As the shooting down of an American F-117 over Serbia caused America so many problems this was also an attempt to get a reaction from the Chinese observers however due to the cost of the operation I'm not sure what of equal or greater value the Americans were hoping to gain.
The second message was to the Libyan rebels telling them to withdraw back to Benghazi. This is because the UNSC is currently assessing the legality of 1973(2011). If the rebels remain in Benghazi then the resolution is legal however if they attempt to advance into Libya proper the resolution becomes a threat to the territorial integrity of Libya and therefore illegal under Chapter VII. I know that this is a contradiction with statements made by US Secretary of State but America's position on this issue is confused and they are trying to make people roar.
In preparation for the UNSC meeting on Thursday (24/3/11) where the area of operation in 1972(2011) is expected to significantly reduced members of the foreign coalition are meeting to discuss how much of Libya's oil fields will have to go to them in order to make it worth their while continuing operations. So basically Britain, France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands will today be meeting in Europe to decide where to draw a line of partition across Africa. Based on the history of the continent what could possibly go wrong(!)
The only area in Libya where there has been a reduction in the level of violence is with the foreign forces who have dramatically reduced the number of attacks since the UNSC reconvened to assess how resolution 1973(2011) is being applied in practice. Foreign aircraft are still patrolling the skies over Libya and those aircraft are still carrying live weapons but they are hesitant to engage ground targets until either their rules of engagement have been clarified or the UN stop checking that the rules of engagement are being adhered too.
More details have also begun to emerge about the USAF F-15 that crashed on 21/3/11. The USAF have released a statement saying that one of their F-15 Strike Eagle aircraft was operating over rebel territory near Benghazi when it suffered mechanical failure causing it to crash. The two crewmen both successfully ejected and landed in a field of sheep. Due to the strength of that statement the USAF were making sure that no-one involved would be unaware of the meaning of the incident.
The USAF deliberately crashed one of their ancient F-15 aircraft in order to send out two messages. The first was to make sure that foreign forces engaged in operations against Libya were drilled in what to do if an aircraft was shot down. As the shooting down of an American F-117 over Serbia caused America so many problems this was also an attempt to get a reaction from the Chinese observers however due to the cost of the operation I'm not sure what of equal or greater value the Americans were hoping to gain.
The second message was to the Libyan rebels telling them to withdraw back to Benghazi. This is because the UNSC is currently assessing the legality of 1973(2011). If the rebels remain in Benghazi then the resolution is legal however if they attempt to advance into Libya proper the resolution becomes a threat to the territorial integrity of Libya and therefore illegal under Chapter VII. I know that this is a contradiction with statements made by US Secretary of State but America's position on this issue is confused and they are trying to make people roar.
In preparation for the UNSC meeting on Thursday (24/3/11) where the area of operation in 1972(2011) is expected to significantly reduced members of the foreign coalition are meeting to discuss how much of Libya's oil fields will have to go to them in order to make it worth their while continuing operations. So basically Britain, France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands will today be meeting in Europe to decide where to draw a line of partition across Africa. Based on the history of the continent what could possibly go wrong(!)
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Day 4.5
It's Tuesday and I'm home from the pub.
The only small issue is that today (22/3/11) the people from the Queens Road Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) visited my grandmother and informed my father that they want to discharge my grandmother back to her GP's care. As my father is opposed to this idea and because it came on the same day that Croydon Council sent him a letter informing him that they are to pay my grandmother an £800 tax rebate which is about 80% of the amount of my grandmother's money that my father has wasted since gaining a lasting power of attorney he is all of a jitter. As a result he did his trick of eating his dinner really, really slowly in the hope that it would force me to drink more.
Also I've had my haircut so if anything has happened in Libya I either haven't had the time to find out about or got drunk and forgotten about it. I should point out though that in April 1993 the UN authorised a no-fly zone over the former Yugoslavia. This developed into a full scale bombing campaign that lasted for 21 months until December 1995 although Yugoslavia continued to disintegrate into ever smaller pieces for a long time after that.
In March 1999 NATO decided to bite a chunk out of Serbia in an operation that started with a bombing campaign and rapidly progressed into a full scale land invasion. Technically this situation is still going on 12 years later as Kosovar clans fight it out and the Serbs riot.
In December 1992 the UN authorised a no-fly zone over Iraq which lasted for 11 years until America and Britain launched a full scale invasion and occupation. Although the occupation formally ended 18 years later in 2010 the number of car and suicide bombings suggest that there's still a lot of fight left in that story.
Basically the point I'm trying to make is that the current action against Libya may go on for a lot longer then is practical to keep giving twice daily updates.
For example tomorrow (23/3/11) is Budget day which will see the first large scale assessment of Britain's finances since 2010's Comprehensive Spending Review. With growth below target and inflation above target I hope that the Chancellor, George Osborne wasn't hoping that we'd all suddenly forget about this just because there's a war on.
However if you are a UK resident my advice is to fill your car up with petrol, stock up on luxury goods like shoes and remember to bend over because here it comes again.
The only small issue is that today (22/3/11) the people from the Queens Road Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) visited my grandmother and informed my father that they want to discharge my grandmother back to her GP's care. As my father is opposed to this idea and because it came on the same day that Croydon Council sent him a letter informing him that they are to pay my grandmother an £800 tax rebate which is about 80% of the amount of my grandmother's money that my father has wasted since gaining a lasting power of attorney he is all of a jitter. As a result he did his trick of eating his dinner really, really slowly in the hope that it would force me to drink more.
Also I've had my haircut so if anything has happened in Libya I either haven't had the time to find out about or got drunk and forgotten about it. I should point out though that in April 1993 the UN authorised a no-fly zone over the former Yugoslavia. This developed into a full scale bombing campaign that lasted for 21 months until December 1995 although Yugoslavia continued to disintegrate into ever smaller pieces for a long time after that.
In March 1999 NATO decided to bite a chunk out of Serbia in an operation that started with a bombing campaign and rapidly progressed into a full scale land invasion. Technically this situation is still going on 12 years later as Kosovar clans fight it out and the Serbs riot.
In December 1992 the UN authorised a no-fly zone over Iraq which lasted for 11 years until America and Britain launched a full scale invasion and occupation. Although the occupation formally ended 18 years later in 2010 the number of car and suicide bombings suggest that there's still a lot of fight left in that story.
Basically the point I'm trying to make is that the current action against Libya may go on for a lot longer then is practical to keep giving twice daily updates.
For example tomorrow (23/3/11) is Budget day which will see the first large scale assessment of Britain's finances since 2010's Comprehensive Spending Review. With growth below target and inflation above target I hope that the Chancellor, George Osborne wasn't hoping that we'd all suddenly forget about this just because there's a war on.
However if you are a UK resident my advice is to fill your car up with petrol, stock up on luxury goods like shoes and remember to bend over because here it comes again.
Operation Oil Theft: Day 4.
Yesterday (21/3/11) the lower house of the UK Parliament voted in favour of British military action against Libya by a margin of 557 votes to 13. As Britain has been involved in military action for three days before MP's were permitted to even debate the matter this vote comes as no great surprise. In fact British MP's are rarely allowed to vote the way the want on issues and instead have the way they will vote dictated to them by the leader of their political party. On this occasion the order to vote for military action appears to have come down from a higher authority then a mere party leader. I will try and find out the names of the MP's who voted against because we expect be hearing about them in an expenses scandal in the not to distant future. In fact the new system of MP's expenses actually makes it a lot easier for the state to punish MP's who express undesirable opinions but that's a complicated matter that's probably best left for another time.
Although the BBC have yet to report a single word of it moments after being passed the Commons vote was almost rendered a moot point as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reconvened to discuss resolution 1973(2011) for a second time. As the UK has the power to veto any UNSC proposal no new proposal was tabled but there was a general discussion of the matter. Due to what appears to be a total UK news blackout it is difficult to know exactly what was discussed. However I gather topics discussed included the technical aspects of the resolution such as the rules of engagement, the area of operations and if there is any defined end point for the operation along with matters such as could the resolution be considered an unlawful act of aggression - perhaps matters that the UNSC should have discussed before voting on the matter. UN staff will now prepare a report on how resolution 1973(2011) is being implemented. The UNSC will then reconvene on Thursday (24/3/11) to be presented with this report and discuss how to proceed.
Meanwhile in Libya a US Air Force (USAF) F-15 has crashed in eastern Libya amid confusion over whether it was shot down or brought down by a mechanical fault. The crew escaped before the crash and were swiftly handed back to the US military. Britain have also flown their first Eurofighter missions over Libya under the watchful eyes of the Chinese Navy. Therefore from a purely intelligence perspective NATO has already sustained significant losses as a result of this operation.
Although the BBC have yet to report a single word of it moments after being passed the Commons vote was almost rendered a moot point as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reconvened to discuss resolution 1973(2011) for a second time. As the UK has the power to veto any UNSC proposal no new proposal was tabled but there was a general discussion of the matter. Due to what appears to be a total UK news blackout it is difficult to know exactly what was discussed. However I gather topics discussed included the technical aspects of the resolution such as the rules of engagement, the area of operations and if there is any defined end point for the operation along with matters such as could the resolution be considered an unlawful act of aggression - perhaps matters that the UNSC should have discussed before voting on the matter. UN staff will now prepare a report on how resolution 1973(2011) is being implemented. The UNSC will then reconvene on Thursday (24/3/11) to be presented with this report and discuss how to proceed.
Meanwhile in Libya a US Air Force (USAF) F-15 has crashed in eastern Libya amid confusion over whether it was shot down or brought down by a mechanical fault. The crew escaped before the crash and were swiftly handed back to the US military. Britain have also flown their first Eurofighter missions over Libya under the watchful eyes of the Chinese Navy. Therefore from a purely intelligence perspective NATO has already sustained significant losses as a result of this operation.
Monday, 21 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Day 3.5. Yellow Card.
There has been some serious confusion in the UK over whether or not resolution 1973(2011) gives foreign armed forces the lawful authority to kill Qaddafi. This morning the head of the defence staff, a soldier who has read and understood the military rules of engagement in UN peacekeeping operations, stated that it didn't. Then some politicians claimed that it did. This led to a long pause during which time I assume that at least one senior person at the heart of the British government uttered the phrase; "How can we not know what it means, we f*cking wrote it?!"
Eventually the answer came back that it would be lawful for foreign forces to kill Qaddafi but only under a very specific set of circumstance which are similar to the principles of self-defence as they operate in British law. That is to say that Qaddafi could only be killed if at time the shot was fired it could be demonstrated beyond doubt that he was engaged in or instructing another to engage in a serious physical assault, serious sexual assault or attempted murder of an unarmed civilian. I'm neither a pilot nor lawyer but I think that would be a very difficult decision to make from 10,000 feet away at speeds in excess of 1000kmph. Therefore if Qaddafi were to be killed in an air strike I suspect the whole complex legal argument would come down on the individual pilot like a tonne of bricks with a high probability that they would be sent to prison.
The second area of confusion today has come from whether or not the current ceasefire is being respected. It appears that in the west of the country it is being respected by conventional Libyan government forces if not by civilian militias. However in the east of the country the rebels appear to be viewing the air strikes as foreign air support for their advance on Tripoli and have taken the opportunity to advance from Benghazi into Ajdabiya using tanks, heavy artillery and heavy machine guns. Obviously news outlets operating in countries that are actively engaged in military action against Libya (BBC, SkyUK, France24, Al Jazeera, CNN etc) are not keen to report the number of civilians that have been killed. However from the nods and winks I gather that the number was significant enough for members of the UNSC, who do have access to a fairly accurate death toll, to seriously consider reconvening the Security Council to either re-write, suspend or revoke resolution 1973(2011).
So before British MP's vote on whether to authorise military action against Libya at around 22:30GMT I suggest they ask the Ministry of Defence for something known as The Yellow Card. Issued to all UK service personnel it explains in clear, easy to understand bullet points the personal consequences that an individual can expect to face if they engage in or authorise another to engage in an act that is later determined to be a war crime. These rules apply to soft-handed civilians too and the final decision is rarely made in a Crown Court.
Eventually the answer came back that it would be lawful for foreign forces to kill Qaddafi but only under a very specific set of circumstance which are similar to the principles of self-defence as they operate in British law. That is to say that Qaddafi could only be killed if at time the shot was fired it could be demonstrated beyond doubt that he was engaged in or instructing another to engage in a serious physical assault, serious sexual assault or attempted murder of an unarmed civilian. I'm neither a pilot nor lawyer but I think that would be a very difficult decision to make from 10,000 feet away at speeds in excess of 1000kmph. Therefore if Qaddafi were to be killed in an air strike I suspect the whole complex legal argument would come down on the individual pilot like a tonne of bricks with a high probability that they would be sent to prison.
The second area of confusion today has come from whether or not the current ceasefire is being respected. It appears that in the west of the country it is being respected by conventional Libyan government forces if not by civilian militias. However in the east of the country the rebels appear to be viewing the air strikes as foreign air support for their advance on Tripoli and have taken the opportunity to advance from Benghazi into Ajdabiya using tanks, heavy artillery and heavy machine guns. Obviously news outlets operating in countries that are actively engaged in military action against Libya (BBC, SkyUK, France24, Al Jazeera, CNN etc) are not keen to report the number of civilians that have been killed. However from the nods and winks I gather that the number was significant enough for members of the UNSC, who do have access to a fairly accurate death toll, to seriously consider reconvening the Security Council to either re-write, suspend or revoke resolution 1973(2011).
So before British MP's vote on whether to authorise military action against Libya at around 22:30GMT I suggest they ask the Ministry of Defence for something known as The Yellow Card. Issued to all UK service personnel it explains in clear, easy to understand bullet points the personal consequences that an individual can expect to face if they engage in or authorise another to engage in an act that is later determined to be a war crime. These rules apply to soft-handed civilians too and the final decision is rarely made in a Crown Court.
The March for the Alternative.
In light of recent events I probably should have posted this earlier.
Months ago the British Trade Union Congress (TUC) which is a body that represents all of Britain's trade unions called a march against the ConDem coalition government's policy of savage spending cuts and steep tax increases calling the march "The March For The Alternative." http://marchforthealternative.org.uk
The original plan was to gather people on Victoria Embankment in London and take them on a long, dull walk to Hyde Park where they would be forced to listen to speeches telling them why they should vote for the Labour Party instead.
However so great is public opposition to the government's policies that plan has grown and been added too. Now on March 26th (this Saturday) the TUC march will assemble at Blackfriars Bridge on the Victoria Embankment at 11AM before marching off towards Hyde Park at 12PM. There will also be four feeder marches;
Obviously with students, anarchists and the police all meeting each other in central London there will be at least one group who will be going intent on violence. They may though be in for a surprise. The TUC are hoping that 500,000 people will attend this march and based on the number of coaches that have been booked across the UK the police are estimating that at least 100,000 people with attend. With the exception of the anti-Iraq war march a big demonstration in London is normally considered to be made up of around 20,000 people and anything over 50,000 people is rarely heard of. So if only 100,000 people attend on Saturday the police and the protesters may find that any violence will be impossible because the sheer volume of people ends up containing the march in a sort of self-kettling effect. That said it's probably a good idea to leave any planned shopping trips to Oxford Street to next weekend.
In light of recent events though I should add that for most people in Britain the moment when they got to choose whether they wanted to be free citizens of a prosperous democracy or just David Cameron's bitch was when the first reports of a war in Libya started to emerge. If they chose wrong then they shouldn't use this march to take out their frustrations. Also I should point out that throughout his world tour in support of military action against Libya David Cameron repeatedly used variations of the phrase; "Can we allow a tyrant on the fringes of Europe to continue to attack his own people long after he has lost his legitimacy to govern?" The hypocrisy of that statement is purely intentional because the British state is trying to gauge how it is viewed by the international community.
Months ago the British Trade Union Congress (TUC) which is a body that represents all of Britain's trade unions called a march against the ConDem coalition government's policy of savage spending cuts and steep tax increases calling the march "The March For The Alternative." http://marchforthealternative.org.uk
The original plan was to gather people on Victoria Embankment in London and take them on a long, dull walk to Hyde Park where they would be forced to listen to speeches telling them why they should vote for the Labour Party instead.
However so great is public opposition to the government's policies that plan has grown and been added too. Now on March 26th (this Saturday) the TUC march will assemble at Blackfriars Bridge on the Victoria Embankment at 11AM before marching off towards Hyde Park at 12PM. There will also be four feeder marches;
- The Student March. While all are welcome this is mainly for students and will assemble outside the University of London Union (ULU) in Malet street at 11AM before moving off to join the TUC march.
- The South London March. This is simply to allow protesters who live in South London to march to join the TUC march without having to pay to use the trains or underground where police spotters are expected to be operating. It will assemble in Kennington Park at 11AM.
- The Pink & Black March. This is mainly for gay and gay friendly protesters. However it will also be a fluffy, fun and family friendly march. While there is a great risk of cutting sarcasm there is no risk of any violence. It will assemble in Soho Square at 11AM before moving off to join the TUC march.
- The Anti-Racist March. Mainly for anti-racists, anti-fascists and anarchists this march will be viewed by the police as "the Black Bloc" and heavily policed. It will assemble at the historically important ant-fascist battle ground of Cable Street in east London at 11AM. Assuming that the police don't just automatically start beating people up it will move off to join the TUC march.
Obviously with students, anarchists and the police all meeting each other in central London there will be at least one group who will be going intent on violence. They may though be in for a surprise. The TUC are hoping that 500,000 people will attend this march and based on the number of coaches that have been booked across the UK the police are estimating that at least 100,000 people with attend. With the exception of the anti-Iraq war march a big demonstration in London is normally considered to be made up of around 20,000 people and anything over 50,000 people is rarely heard of. So if only 100,000 people attend on Saturday the police and the protesters may find that any violence will be impossible because the sheer volume of people ends up containing the march in a sort of self-kettling effect. That said it's probably a good idea to leave any planned shopping trips to Oxford Street to next weekend.
In light of recent events though I should add that for most people in Britain the moment when they got to choose whether they wanted to be free citizens of a prosperous democracy or just David Cameron's bitch was when the first reports of a war in Libya started to emerge. If they chose wrong then they shouldn't use this march to take out their frustrations. Also I should point out that throughout his world tour in support of military action against Libya David Cameron repeatedly used variations of the phrase; "Can we allow a tyrant on the fringes of Europe to continue to attack his own people long after he has lost his legitimacy to govern?" The hypocrisy of that statement is purely intentional because the British state is trying to gauge how it is viewed by the international community.
Operation Oil Theft: Day 3.
In an attempt to Islamify the military action against Libya it has been announced that Qatar is to send 4 fast jets to join the conflict. It is not yet clear how Muslims who are not members of the Qatari Royal family will react to the news. Meanwhile the United States have announced that in 2-3 days they are to hand over command of and cease military action against Libya. There are also rumours of rumours that we are about to see a significant change to US foreign policy because the current progressive-liberal interventionist set up appears to be doing more harm then good.
In Libya itself the ceasefire appears to be holding with both government and rebel forces respecting it. Foreign bombings missions however are continuing. The most significant of these incidents was a British cruise missile attack against Qaddafi's Presidential residence in Tripoli. Britain is claiming that this attack was an attack against a military command & control compound rather then a failed assassination attempt against Qaddafi. They have to say that though because a Chapter VII UN resolution does not allow for attacks against civilian political institutions or attempts to kill political leaders. In fact it explicitly prohibits them. Therefore if resolution 1973(2011) is being used to kill Qaddafi or collapse Libya's government it is invalid regardless of who voted for it in much the same way you can't take someone to court for a speeding offence and then have a jury convict them of murder.
However when you consider that various British government spokesmen have repeatedly stated that they have no interest in helping the Libyan people build a new government and the British and French authors of 1973(2011) inserted a clause that protects them from being called upon to send ground troops into Libya to carry out nation building this appears to be Britain's plan for Libya. They will bomb the nation until the government collapses and Qaddafi is killed. This will create a power vacuum and cause a tribal war. Britain will then go into the chaos and pay local warlords pennies on the dollar to pump oil out of the country via oil platforms that will be protected by private military security contractors. They won't even bother install a puppet government.
The only positive from the situation is that due to the actions of the Libyan rebels repressive governments across the world are learning that if they deny their people a rounded education and access to the outside world you end up with a dumb ass population and that can really backfire.
In Libya itself the ceasefire appears to be holding with both government and rebel forces respecting it. Foreign bombings missions however are continuing. The most significant of these incidents was a British cruise missile attack against Qaddafi's Presidential residence in Tripoli. Britain is claiming that this attack was an attack against a military command & control compound rather then a failed assassination attempt against Qaddafi. They have to say that though because a Chapter VII UN resolution does not allow for attacks against civilian political institutions or attempts to kill political leaders. In fact it explicitly prohibits them. Therefore if resolution 1973(2011) is being used to kill Qaddafi or collapse Libya's government it is invalid regardless of who voted for it in much the same way you can't take someone to court for a speeding offence and then have a jury convict them of murder.
However when you consider that various British government spokesmen have repeatedly stated that they have no interest in helping the Libyan people build a new government and the British and French authors of 1973(2011) inserted a clause that protects them from being called upon to send ground troops into Libya to carry out nation building this appears to be Britain's plan for Libya. They will bomb the nation until the government collapses and Qaddafi is killed. This will create a power vacuum and cause a tribal war. Britain will then go into the chaos and pay local warlords pennies on the dollar to pump oil out of the country via oil platforms that will be protected by private military security contractors. They won't even bother install a puppet government.
The only positive from the situation is that due to the actions of the Libyan rebels repressive governments across the world are learning that if they deny their people a rounded education and access to the outside world you end up with a dumb ass population and that can really backfire.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Operation Oil Theft: Day 2.5.
Libyan government forces have called a ceasefire to effective as of 21:00 GMT. Based on how the last ceasefire went I give it until about 21:03 before the rebel forces take this as sign of weakness and started attacking government troops.
I should also explain that the official name for the international operation in Libya is Operation Odyssey Dawn. The word Odyssey refers to a long and eventful journey. The word Dawn refers to either the start of something or the moment when the meaning of something becomes apparent. So in the naming of the mission France and Britain appear to be giggling and asking each other; "How long do you think it will take for the Americans to work it out?"
So in order to speed that process along I should point out that one on the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) that voted in favour of resolution 1973(2011) was Bosnia & Herzegovina. Between 1992 and 1995 Bosnia & Herzegovina along with Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro was under a similar UN no-fly zone as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated. Under the command of then British Army Colonel, now Conservative MP, Bob Stewart hundreds of thousand of Bosnian tribesmen were massacred by Serbian tribesman and tens of thousands of Serbian tribesmen were massacred by Bosnian tribesmen while all sides had a bloody good go at wiping out the Muslim minority.
Serbia is currently trying to join the European Union (EU) and due to the ethnic tensions that started the war in the first place Bosnia & Herzegovina want to stop them. Promoting discussion about UN no-fly zones and Serbian atrocities that were committed under them is a good way for Bosnia & Herzegovina to achieve this aim. After his recent visit to China I'm sure that US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates is more then familiar with the F117 Nighthawk stealth bomber that Serbia managed to shoot down.
So I'm sorry but the Libyans didn't seriously think that resolution 1973(2011) had anything to do with them did they?
I should also explain that the official name for the international operation in Libya is Operation Odyssey Dawn. The word Odyssey refers to a long and eventful journey. The word Dawn refers to either the start of something or the moment when the meaning of something becomes apparent. So in the naming of the mission France and Britain appear to be giggling and asking each other; "How long do you think it will take for the Americans to work it out?"
So in order to speed that process along I should point out that one on the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) that voted in favour of resolution 1973(2011) was Bosnia & Herzegovina. Between 1992 and 1995 Bosnia & Herzegovina along with Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro was under a similar UN no-fly zone as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated. Under the command of then British Army Colonel, now Conservative MP, Bob Stewart hundreds of thousand of Bosnian tribesmen were massacred by Serbian tribesman and tens of thousands of Serbian tribesmen were massacred by Bosnian tribesmen while all sides had a bloody good go at wiping out the Muslim minority.
Serbia is currently trying to join the European Union (EU) and due to the ethnic tensions that started the war in the first place Bosnia & Herzegovina want to stop them. Promoting discussion about UN no-fly zones and Serbian atrocities that were committed under them is a good way for Bosnia & Herzegovina to achieve this aim. After his recent visit to China I'm sure that US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates is more then familiar with the F117 Nighthawk stealth bomber that Serbia managed to shoot down.
So I'm sorry but the Libyans didn't seriously think that resolution 1973(2011) had anything to do with them did they?
Operation Oil Theft: Day 2.
In the 21 hours following the Paris meeting French, British and American forces have attacked in excess of 20 targets across western Libya. The Libyan government are claiming that 64 civilians have been killed in these attacks but Britain is denying that as propaganda. However as more then 110,000lbs of explosives have just been dropped on the civilian centers in and around Tripoli and Misrata that seems like a fair estimate.
On the topic of wild propaganda claims after being forced to admit that they shot down their own aircraft yesterday (19/3/11) the Libyan rebels are now claiming that Colonel Qaddafi has committed suicide and the entire conflict is now over. As everyone has seen a clearly not dead Colonel Qaddafi on TV most right thinking people are asking what hallucinogenic drugs the rebels are on because their grip on reality is tenuous at best.
Despite the all the claims of success the coalition of international forces is having great difficulty speaking with one voice. Britain is claiming that the United States is in charge of the operation because they want America to have the starring role in Al Qeda's next recruitment film. America is claiming that they're not in charge of the operation for exactly the same reason. France is desperate to claim that they're in charge because the unpopular Nicholas Sarkozy is facing a Presidential election soon. Meanwhile everyone in the coalition is trying to find a tactful way of declaring exactly which Arab governments are supporting the operation. That's because the Arab governments that are supporting it are the autocratic and corrupt governments that the Arab people are currently trying to overthrow.
Also the Chinese warships the Guangzhou and the Chaohu are still in the Mediterranean which is no surprise because that's the deal Britain and France made with China. In return for China's abstention at the UN vote the Chinese military would be given front row seats to America's military capacity and a big share of Libya's oil. That's why Britain and France have only been using their Mirage, Rafale and Tornado jets rather then the more technologically advanced Eurofighter.
So in light of this and other recent fiasco's I think from now on the director of the big bad CIA should be known by the call sign "Lola" because America appears to have just declared war on itself and not even George W Bush managed that.
On the topic of wild propaganda claims after being forced to admit that they shot down their own aircraft yesterday (19/3/11) the Libyan rebels are now claiming that Colonel Qaddafi has committed suicide and the entire conflict is now over. As everyone has seen a clearly not dead Colonel Qaddafi on TV most right thinking people are asking what hallucinogenic drugs the rebels are on because their grip on reality is tenuous at best.
Despite the all the claims of success the coalition of international forces is having great difficulty speaking with one voice. Britain is claiming that the United States is in charge of the operation because they want America to have the starring role in Al Qeda's next recruitment film. America is claiming that they're not in charge of the operation for exactly the same reason. France is desperate to claim that they're in charge because the unpopular Nicholas Sarkozy is facing a Presidential election soon. Meanwhile everyone in the coalition is trying to find a tactful way of declaring exactly which Arab governments are supporting the operation. That's because the Arab governments that are supporting it are the autocratic and corrupt governments that the Arab people are currently trying to overthrow.
Also the Chinese warships the Guangzhou and the Chaohu are still in the Mediterranean which is no surprise because that's the deal Britain and France made with China. In return for China's abstention at the UN vote the Chinese military would be given front row seats to America's military capacity and a big share of Libya's oil. That's why Britain and France have only been using their Mirage, Rafale and Tornado jets rather then the more technologically advanced Eurofighter.
So in light of this and other recent fiasco's I think from now on the director of the big bad CIA should be known by the call sign "Lola" because America appears to have just declared war on itself and not even George W Bush managed that.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
And Some More Fail.
In a fiendishly cunning move Britain and France now appear have strong armed the United States into the coalition against Libya.
At around 20:30 GMT is was announced that two American submarines and an American warship stationed in the Mediterranean launched 110 Cruise missiles against targets in Tripoli about 600km away from where civilians and rebel fighters are being killed. There has finally been some honesty though with the United States declaring that it has no interest in launching attacks to protect the rebels in eastern Libya and Britain has declared that it has no interest in building a stable and democratic government in Libya.
I do need to check though are the Chinese warships Guangzou and Chaohu still stationed in the Mediterranean? If they are then America has just given Chinese military intelligence a very good look at some of it's "unique military assets" in action. So I guess all those rumours about the British spending the last two years trying to feed the Americans to the Chinese must be true then.
At around 20:30 GMT is was announced that two American submarines and an American warship stationed in the Mediterranean launched 110 Cruise missiles against targets in Tripoli about 600km away from where civilians and rebel fighters are being killed. There has finally been some honesty though with the United States declaring that it has no interest in launching attacks to protect the rebels in eastern Libya and Britain has declared that it has no interest in building a stable and democratic government in Libya.
I do need to check though are the Chinese warships Guangzou and Chaohu still stationed in the Mediterranean? If they are then America has just given Chinese military intelligence a very good look at some of it's "unique military assets" in action. So I guess all those rumours about the British spending the last two years trying to feed the Americans to the Chinese must be true then.
See More Fail.
Following the passing of UN resolution 1973(2011) some national leaders gathered today (19/3/11) in Paris to draw up a military plan to attack Libya. This was not a NATO meeting and it wasn't a UN meeting so I'm at a bit of a loss of how to describe it.
Apart from providing the unedifying spectacle of soft handed civilians getting all excited at the prospect of playing war this meeting gave the first real indication of the depth of support amongst the international community for 1972(2011). Despite all the talk of international agreement and a global consensus it appears that only two nations actively support the resolution. These are France and Britain and because it lacks the military resources Britain will have to rely on it's Canadian colony to do most of any fighting for it. I assume though that the other NATO members will be picking up the slack in Afghanistan as British and Canadian forces are redeployed.
The meeting also revealed that French aircraft have already been flying reconnaissance missions over Libya. Once this intelligence has been collated and analysed French, British and Canadian aircraft are expected to begin combat operations either today (19/3/11) or tomorrow (20/3/11). For the purposes of the operation legitimate targets are being defined as anti-aircraft weapons, radar stations, airfields, aircraft, tanks, armoured vehicles, unarmoured vehicles and buildings. Basically the international forces will be able to engage pretty much anything in Libya either on the ground or in the air. Although the official justification for the operation is to protect civilians in eastern Libya the first waves of the attack will probably be against targets in civilian populated areas in the west of the country as the bombing campaign tries to effect regime change. In what could be a worrying indication of what's to come Libyan government forces appear to have already shot down a fast jet but it is believed to have belonged to rebel forces then French forces.
Meanwhile it is being reported that Libyan forces have been attacking Benghazi. Although war reporting is difficult and I believe four journalist have already been killed in this conflict that is sloppy reporting bordering on propaganda. In Libya there is a highway that runs across the entire northern coast all the way from the Egyptian border to the Tunisian border. As this road is really the only way of quickly moving men, equipment and supplies across Libya it is of vital strategic importance and essential to maintaining the territorial integrity of Libya. So what the Libyan government forces are attempting to do is re-take this road which unfortunately runs through the centre of towns like Benghazi and Tobruk. If the rebel commanders want to avoid civilian casualties and accusations that they're using human shields they should declare the area around this road a closed military zone and evacuate civilians.
Likewise although it is much more difficult to travel across the desert then it is to travel on tarmac the Libyan forces should give up on trying to re-take this road. Instead they should drive out east roughly along the line of the 33N parallel and set up a defensive line. As these will be defensive positions that are 100's of km's away from civilian population centres international forces will be breaking the terms of the already legally questionable UN resolution if they attack them. Also once the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) realise that the rebels don't have access to Libya's oil reserves they'll start beating down the security council's door in an effort to get 1973(2011) revoked.
Apart from providing the unedifying spectacle of soft handed civilians getting all excited at the prospect of playing war this meeting gave the first real indication of the depth of support amongst the international community for 1972(2011). Despite all the talk of international agreement and a global consensus it appears that only two nations actively support the resolution. These are France and Britain and because it lacks the military resources Britain will have to rely on it's Canadian colony to do most of any fighting for it. I assume though that the other NATO members will be picking up the slack in Afghanistan as British and Canadian forces are redeployed.
The meeting also revealed that French aircraft have already been flying reconnaissance missions over Libya. Once this intelligence has been collated and analysed French, British and Canadian aircraft are expected to begin combat operations either today (19/3/11) or tomorrow (20/3/11). For the purposes of the operation legitimate targets are being defined as anti-aircraft weapons, radar stations, airfields, aircraft, tanks, armoured vehicles, unarmoured vehicles and buildings. Basically the international forces will be able to engage pretty much anything in Libya either on the ground or in the air. Although the official justification for the operation is to protect civilians in eastern Libya the first waves of the attack will probably be against targets in civilian populated areas in the west of the country as the bombing campaign tries to effect regime change. In what could be a worrying indication of what's to come Libyan government forces appear to have already shot down a fast jet but it is believed to have belonged to rebel forces then French forces.
Meanwhile it is being reported that Libyan forces have been attacking Benghazi. Although war reporting is difficult and I believe four journalist have already been killed in this conflict that is sloppy reporting bordering on propaganda. In Libya there is a highway that runs across the entire northern coast all the way from the Egyptian border to the Tunisian border. As this road is really the only way of quickly moving men, equipment and supplies across Libya it is of vital strategic importance and essential to maintaining the territorial integrity of Libya. So what the Libyan government forces are attempting to do is re-take this road which unfortunately runs through the centre of towns like Benghazi and Tobruk. If the rebel commanders want to avoid civilian casualties and accusations that they're using human shields they should declare the area around this road a closed military zone and evacuate civilians.
Likewise although it is much more difficult to travel across the desert then it is to travel on tarmac the Libyan forces should give up on trying to re-take this road. Instead they should drive out east roughly along the line of the 33N parallel and set up a defensive line. As these will be defensive positions that are 100's of km's away from civilian population centres international forces will be breaking the terms of the already legally questionable UN resolution if they attack them. Also once the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) realise that the rebels don't have access to Libya's oil reserves they'll start beating down the security council's door in an effort to get 1973(2011) revoked.
Friday, 18 March 2011
Mistake From Libya.
Sorry to go on about it but following Americas facepalm at the UN yesterday there is likely to be a whole cascade of fail over the coming days.
The Libyan government have started things off by announcing a ceasefire in response to UN resolution 1973(2011). This is based on a misjudgement that the resolution was passed out of a concern for human rights or democracy. It's not. Either Russia or China automatically veto any resolution that could be viewed as promoting human rights or democracy. In reality this resolution is all about oil.
I know that's an often overused slogan but in this case it is wholly accurate. Libya has the worlds largest untapped reserves of oil and natural gas. Up until yesterday this oil was earmarked for an American energy company. So Britain and France supported the resolution in order to steal the oil off the Americans because Qaddafi had tricked British and French energy companies into doing the expensive exploration work. The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) supported the resolution because if the Libyan oil reserves are brought to market it will allow them to cut the amount of oil they pump daily and in doing so extend the life of their oil reserves and increase the amount of time the are able to control the global economy by inflating the oil price. Quite why America supported the resolution is still a bit of a mystery but I suspect there was a Republican involved in there somewhere.
Calling a ceasefire is a massive mistake for the Libyan government because by acknowledging Britain and France's deceit they are giving it credibility and therefore allowing their enemy to dictate the terms of the conflict. This is a mistake that Libya has been making from the start but one that is going to become every more critical over the next few days as the morale of the rebels is expected to drop off dramatically.
The Libyan government have started things off by announcing a ceasefire in response to UN resolution 1973(2011). This is based on a misjudgement that the resolution was passed out of a concern for human rights or democracy. It's not. Either Russia or China automatically veto any resolution that could be viewed as promoting human rights or democracy. In reality this resolution is all about oil.
I know that's an often overused slogan but in this case it is wholly accurate. Libya has the worlds largest untapped reserves of oil and natural gas. Up until yesterday this oil was earmarked for an American energy company. So Britain and France supported the resolution in order to steal the oil off the Americans because Qaddafi had tricked British and French energy companies into doing the expensive exploration work. The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) supported the resolution because if the Libyan oil reserves are brought to market it will allow them to cut the amount of oil they pump daily and in doing so extend the life of their oil reserves and increase the amount of time the are able to control the global economy by inflating the oil price. Quite why America supported the resolution is still a bit of a mystery but I suspect there was a Republican involved in there somewhere.
Calling a ceasefire is a massive mistake for the Libyan government because by acknowledging Britain and France's deceit they are giving it credibility and therefore allowing their enemy to dictate the terms of the conflict. This is a mistake that Libya has been making from the start but one that is going to become every more critical over the next few days as the morale of the rebels is expected to drop off dramatically.
Now That's Just Sick.
The resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council (1973[2011]) against Libya on 17/3/11 was a Chapter VII resolution. A Chapter VII resolution allows the UN to identify and take action against a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace or an act of aggression that undermines the territorial integrity, political independence or sovereignty of a state. In short Chapter VII is there to prevent one nation waging an overt or covert war against another state in order to gain control of their land of natural resources. Therefore the only legal application Chapter VII has in the Libya situation is to authorise military action against France and Britain. The UN's second mistake was to apply the resolution to all of Libya rather then just the rebel area which is limited to approx 33N and 25E.
My mistake was to say that the resolution passed by a majority of 1 vote. In fact it passed by a majority of 2 votes. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is a 15 vote body with 5 permanent members, all of whom have nuclear weapons, and 10 lesser members who rotate every two years. In order for a resolution to be passed it needs to be voted for by a minimum of 9 members and not be vetoed by any 1 of the 5 permanent members. 1973(2011) was passed by 10 votes with 5 abstentions and 0 vetoes. At first glance the erroneous votes appear to have come from The US, South Africa and Colombia. Although I think they were expecting either Russia or China to use their veto as punishment I think these nations should be given the task of ensuring that none of Libya's oil enters the market until the civil war has ended, Libya's territorial integrity has been restored and those who have engaged in war crimes have been arrested including the rebel commanders who have been conscripting 15 year old boys into their army.
In an ironic twist Britain will tonight (18/3/11) will be hosting the Comic Relief charity appeal. As an off-shoot of the Live Aid movement this non-governmental charity was set up specifically to help people in war torn African sh*tholes. However in order to get it on TV this year the British government has insisted the organisers give a high proportion of the money raised to British charities because we've got a Royal wedding to pay for.
The event itself involves British celebrities, especially the ones with BBC contracts, being subjected to stressful and humiliating situations, including sleep deprivation, for the entertainment of the public. So everyone needs to be on best behaviour today because the list of people who need help is about to get a whole lot longer.
My mistake was to say that the resolution passed by a majority of 1 vote. In fact it passed by a majority of 2 votes. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is a 15 vote body with 5 permanent members, all of whom have nuclear weapons, and 10 lesser members who rotate every two years. In order for a resolution to be passed it needs to be voted for by a minimum of 9 members and not be vetoed by any 1 of the 5 permanent members. 1973(2011) was passed by 10 votes with 5 abstentions and 0 vetoes. At first glance the erroneous votes appear to have come from The US, South Africa and Colombia. Although I think they were expecting either Russia or China to use their veto as punishment I think these nations should be given the task of ensuring that none of Libya's oil enters the market until the civil war has ended, Libya's territorial integrity has been restored and those who have engaged in war crimes have been arrested including the rebel commanders who have been conscripting 15 year old boys into their army.
In an ironic twist Britain will tonight (18/3/11) will be hosting the Comic Relief charity appeal. As an off-shoot of the Live Aid movement this non-governmental charity was set up specifically to help people in war torn African sh*tholes. However in order to get it on TV this year the British government has insisted the organisers give a high proportion of the money raised to British charities because we've got a Royal wedding to pay for.
The event itself involves British celebrities, especially the ones with BBC contracts, being subjected to stressful and humiliating situations, including sleep deprivation, for the entertainment of the public. So everyone needs to be on best behaviour today because the list of people who need help is about to get a whole lot longer.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Well Done the UN.
You have just voted for a state of constant war in Libya.
By a majority of 1 with 5 abstentions the United Nations Security Council have today (17/2/11) voted for a package of measures including a no fly zone to protect the "popular" uprising in Libya. In reality this popular uprising is actually limited to little more then 1 million people or less then 10% of the population based in three cities in a north eastern tribal region. At current estimates these rebels have less then three weeks of cash and five to seven weeks of food, water and ammunition left. That meant that prior to today's vote they would have been forced to surrender in a maximum of eight weeks with no need for Libyan government troops to ever enter Benghazi.
Now British and French warplanes are going to start bombing the majority population of Libya probably leading to the collapse of both the Libyan government and the rebels alternative government that has yet to be formed. The most likely outcome of this is that a lot of people will die as Libya descends into Somalia or Democratic Republic of Congo style anarchy and the countries oil wealth is plundered.
So yeah feel free to hang your heads in shame as you leave.
By a majority of 1 with 5 abstentions the United Nations Security Council have today (17/2/11) voted for a package of measures including a no fly zone to protect the "popular" uprising in Libya. In reality this popular uprising is actually limited to little more then 1 million people or less then 10% of the population based in three cities in a north eastern tribal region. At current estimates these rebels have less then three weeks of cash and five to seven weeks of food, water and ammunition left. That meant that prior to today's vote they would have been forced to surrender in a maximum of eight weeks with no need for Libyan government troops to ever enter Benghazi.
Now British and French warplanes are going to start bombing the majority population of Libya probably leading to the collapse of both the Libyan government and the rebels alternative government that has yet to be formed. The most likely outcome of this is that a lot of people will die as Libya descends into Somalia or Democratic Republic of Congo style anarchy and the countries oil wealth is plundered.
So yeah feel free to hang your heads in shame as you leave.
Nuclear Panic
At Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant the core containment vessels at reactors numbers 1, 2 and 3 are all intact, being cooled and experiencing pressures that are fluctuating within the safety zone. With nothing to worry about at those reactors everyone's attention has begun to focus on reactor number 4. Strictly speaking reactor number 4 doesn't actually have a functioning nuclear reactor within it but it does contain something called a cooling pond.
After nuclear fuel rods have been in the reactor core for a long time they run out of radioactive energy and need to be replaced. Once they've been removed from the reactor they are placed in something called a cooling casket which is basically just a metal box usually made up of a mixture of steel, aluminium, zinc and cadmium. The cooling casket is then placed into a large pool of water called a cooling pond to cool down from around 500C. As the cooling casket itself is more then capable of preventing any radiation leak these cooling ponds are often just deep pools of water in the grounds of the power plant that are left open to the air rather like an outdoor swimming pool. At Fukushima Daiichi though the cooling pond has been included inside the building that houses the reactor in order to protect the pool from the elements. According to some (American) reports the cooling pond at number 4 reactor has drained of water exposing the cooling caskets to the air causing them to heat up to a temperature of around 85C. Although cooling caskets are designed to deal with temperatures of around 500C and the ignition point of steel is around 800C the fact that the caskets are no longer being cooled by water creates a very slight risk that the fuel rods may cause the caskets to catch fire releasing radioactive smoke into the air. In order to calculate the exact risk you need to know the exact composition of both the fuel rods and the cooling caskets.
The exact composition of the fuel rods and the cooling caskets is something of a closely guarded trade secret. To some extent all nuclear power stations use something called Uranium as fuel. Much like coal uranium is basically just a rock that appears naturally in the earth's surface and needs to be mined and processed before it can be used to generate electricity. Also like coal uranium is a limited, non-renewable, resource meaning that eventually it will all be used up. However the processes that go on within a nuclear reactor create something called Plutonium as a by product. What the Japanese have managed to do is blend this plutonium with other substances to create a uranium substitute. This increases the Japan's energy security by reducing their dependency on foreign uranium imports by making the uranium they do import last longer.
So what appears to have happened at the number 4 reactor is that the Americans have called up the Japanese and told them that according to the American data there is no more water in the cooling pool so the Japanese need to tell the Americans the recipe of their plutonium blend so the Americans can calculate the risk of the situation.
The Japanese then responded by telling the Americans not to worry because if the cooling pond was empty they could always use Chinook helicopters to refill it. Before they attempt that though they wanted to know how the electrically charged ion cloud would affect the electronics on these American made helicopters.
The Americans then told the Japanese that they couldn't possibly assess the effect of the ion cloud on the aircraft electronics until the Japanese told them the recipe for the plutonium blend.
So the Japanese told the Americans that if the helicopters were going to have problems they could always refill the cooling pond with police water cannon much like the police water cannons that middle eastern governments could use to break up protests in their countries.
Then the Americans told the Japanese if that was going to be their attitude they should get on with it before warning them that they will continue monitoring the situation using one of their Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) just like the one's they're using in Pakistan and could use in Libya to enforce a no fly zone.
Meanwhile the Japanese have been working to hook the power plant up to the mains electricity supply so they can pump water into the cooling pond using an electric water pump.
So basically the situation at the Fukushima plant is so far away from a crisis the people whose job it is to deal with it have started mucking about and the Americans are trying to use the situation to provoke a discussion at today's (17/3/11) UN Security Council meeting about Iran's nuclear program with a with a view to getting permission for Israel to bomb it. So like I said nuclear power plants are designed to cope with a few explosions.
After nuclear fuel rods have been in the reactor core for a long time they run out of radioactive energy and need to be replaced. Once they've been removed from the reactor they are placed in something called a cooling casket which is basically just a metal box usually made up of a mixture of steel, aluminium, zinc and cadmium. The cooling casket is then placed into a large pool of water called a cooling pond to cool down from around 500C. As the cooling casket itself is more then capable of preventing any radiation leak these cooling ponds are often just deep pools of water in the grounds of the power plant that are left open to the air rather like an outdoor swimming pool. At Fukushima Daiichi though the cooling pond has been included inside the building that houses the reactor in order to protect the pool from the elements. According to some (American) reports the cooling pond at number 4 reactor has drained of water exposing the cooling caskets to the air causing them to heat up to a temperature of around 85C. Although cooling caskets are designed to deal with temperatures of around 500C and the ignition point of steel is around 800C the fact that the caskets are no longer being cooled by water creates a very slight risk that the fuel rods may cause the caskets to catch fire releasing radioactive smoke into the air. In order to calculate the exact risk you need to know the exact composition of both the fuel rods and the cooling caskets.
The exact composition of the fuel rods and the cooling caskets is something of a closely guarded trade secret. To some extent all nuclear power stations use something called Uranium as fuel. Much like coal uranium is basically just a rock that appears naturally in the earth's surface and needs to be mined and processed before it can be used to generate electricity. Also like coal uranium is a limited, non-renewable, resource meaning that eventually it will all be used up. However the processes that go on within a nuclear reactor create something called Plutonium as a by product. What the Japanese have managed to do is blend this plutonium with other substances to create a uranium substitute. This increases the Japan's energy security by reducing their dependency on foreign uranium imports by making the uranium they do import last longer.
So what appears to have happened at the number 4 reactor is that the Americans have called up the Japanese and told them that according to the American data there is no more water in the cooling pool so the Japanese need to tell the Americans the recipe of their plutonium blend so the Americans can calculate the risk of the situation.
The Japanese then responded by telling the Americans not to worry because if the cooling pond was empty they could always use Chinook helicopters to refill it. Before they attempt that though they wanted to know how the electrically charged ion cloud would affect the electronics on these American made helicopters.
The Americans then told the Japanese that they couldn't possibly assess the effect of the ion cloud on the aircraft electronics until the Japanese told them the recipe for the plutonium blend.
So the Japanese told the Americans that if the helicopters were going to have problems they could always refill the cooling pond with police water cannon much like the police water cannons that middle eastern governments could use to break up protests in their countries.
Then the Americans told the Japanese if that was going to be their attitude they should get on with it before warning them that they will continue monitoring the situation using one of their Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) just like the one's they're using in Pakistan and could use in Libya to enforce a no fly zone.
Meanwhile the Japanese have been working to hook the power plant up to the mains electricity supply so they can pump water into the cooling pond using an electric water pump.
So basically the situation at the Fukushima plant is so far away from a crisis the people whose job it is to deal with it have started mucking about and the Americans are trying to use the situation to provoke a discussion at today's (17/3/11) UN Security Council meeting about Iran's nuclear program with a with a view to getting permission for Israel to bomb it. So like I said nuclear power plants are designed to cope with a few explosions.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
The Dreaded Sievert.
Amid the problems at Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station much is being made of a unit of measurement known as the Sievert (Sv) in attempts to explain any radiation. This can actually be a little misleading because rather then being strictly a measure of radiation the Sievert is an attempt to quantify the effect that radiation will have on a known element at the atomic level and is defined as the energy of the element in joules divided by the weight of the element in kilograms (j/kg). While this measure is very useful in the controlled environment of the laboratory or theoretical physics it is much less useful in the wider world where there are many different things made up of many different elements all with different atomic weights.
Regardless of the unit of measurement used beta radiation is measured the same way using something called a Geiger tube which is connected to a Geiger counter. A Geiger tube is simply a metal tube with a thin mica window at one end. The tube is filled with a gas, usually argon, of which the atomic weight is a known constant. When a radioactive particle enters the tube through the window it loses it's radioactivity by colliding with the gas particles and ionizes them giving some of them a positive electric charge and others a negative electric charge. Within the tube there is a positive electrical terminal and a negative electrical terminal and when the charged ions get attracted to the corresponding terminal it completes the circuit and creates an electrical pulse. Each one of these electrical pulses represents a radioactive particle entering the tube and in the Geiger counter a rate meter is used to calculate the number of pulses per second. As the atomic weight of the gas is a known constant the voltage of these electrical pulses is used to calculate the Sieverts per second of the radioactive gas.
As air and humans are made up of a variety of elements such as hydrogen, oxygen and carbon all of which have different atomic weights I think that generally it is more useful to think in terms of the electron voltage (eV) and particle per second rate of the radiation rather then it's Sievert value. This allows you to better calculate how far the radiation will travel and how long it will it will last which are more important factors in assessing how much damage it will do. However to put the Sievert counts into some sort of perspective at yesterday's (15/3/11) peak Tokyo was reporting levels of 0.8 microsieverts per hour which is around 0.0000002 radioactive particles per second. When I went to the pub last night because I drank a few beers, smoked a couple of cigarettes and ate a portion of red meat I was exposed to around 26 microsieverts per hour or 0.0000072 radioactive particles per second.
Therefore the health risk from radiation in Japan is only a possibly slightly increased risk of cancer at some point in the future rather then immediate death from radiation poisoning.
However this has not stopped France, Britain and Germany to either order the evacuation or suggest the evacuation of their passport holders from Tokyo. It is worth remembering that all of these countries have nuclear power programs of their own. By threatening to evacuate their passports holders these countries put pressure on Japan's superior nuclear power program to share the details and therefore trade secrets of their operations. So basically Britain, France and Germany are worried about money, not people.
Regardless of the unit of measurement used beta radiation is measured the same way using something called a Geiger tube which is connected to a Geiger counter. A Geiger tube is simply a metal tube with a thin mica window at one end. The tube is filled with a gas, usually argon, of which the atomic weight is a known constant. When a radioactive particle enters the tube through the window it loses it's radioactivity by colliding with the gas particles and ionizes them giving some of them a positive electric charge and others a negative electric charge. Within the tube there is a positive electrical terminal and a negative electrical terminal and when the charged ions get attracted to the corresponding terminal it completes the circuit and creates an electrical pulse. Each one of these electrical pulses represents a radioactive particle entering the tube and in the Geiger counter a rate meter is used to calculate the number of pulses per second. As the atomic weight of the gas is a known constant the voltage of these electrical pulses is used to calculate the Sieverts per second of the radioactive gas.
As air and humans are made up of a variety of elements such as hydrogen, oxygen and carbon all of which have different atomic weights I think that generally it is more useful to think in terms of the electron voltage (eV) and particle per second rate of the radiation rather then it's Sievert value. This allows you to better calculate how far the radiation will travel and how long it will it will last which are more important factors in assessing how much damage it will do. However to put the Sievert counts into some sort of perspective at yesterday's (15/3/11) peak Tokyo was reporting levels of 0.8 microsieverts per hour which is around 0.0000002 radioactive particles per second. When I went to the pub last night because I drank a few beers, smoked a couple of cigarettes and ate a portion of red meat I was exposed to around 26 microsieverts per hour or 0.0000072 radioactive particles per second.
Therefore the health risk from radiation in Japan is only a possibly slightly increased risk of cancer at some point in the future rather then immediate death from radiation poisoning.
However this has not stopped France, Britain and Germany to either order the evacuation or suggest the evacuation of their passport holders from Tokyo. It is worth remembering that all of these countries have nuclear power programs of their own. By threatening to evacuate their passports holders these countries put pressure on Japan's superior nuclear power program to share the details and therefore trade secrets of their operations. So basically Britain, France and Germany are worried about money, not people.
Welcome to the Maelstrom
Amid the murky timezones in which covert forces operate on 15/3/11 Israeli forces intercepted a Liberian flagged ship on route from Iran to Egypt via Turkey. On boarding the vessel the Israeli commandos found it to be carrying a significant but undisclosed cargo of weapons believed to be bound for Palestinian militants in Gaza. Everyone is now trying to work out if Israeli intelligence have successfully infiltrated a Iranian weapons smuggling operation or whether Iranian intelligence tipped off the Israelis about a one off shipment in order to promote discussion with their friends and enemy's because there are similarities between this incident and Qaddafi's attempts to arm the IRA.
Added to this incident there is the deteriorating security situation in Bahrain and other oil producing Gulf states along with the ongoing international debate over whether to intervene in Libya to overthrow Colonel Qaddafi.
Meanwhile Japan has experienced a huge earthquake that has killed 200 and a tsunami that has killed an estimated 8000. These two natural disaster combined have caused an estimated US$180bn worth of damage. To make matters worse there is also some sort of meltdown going on at one of Japan's nuclear power stations. Although I still think everyone is being overly dramatic about the radiation risk this incident has had an immediate and dramatic impact on Japan's capacity to generate electricity. This has led to a series of rolling black outs to make sure that any available electricity is directed to essential services such as hospitals, water treatment plants and disaster co-ordination centres. To hamper the rescue effort further it has also started to snow in Japan.
Against this backdrop of chaos I think the Japanese government should start to seriously think about temporarily shutting down Japan's stock market. With so many global unknowns and the situation in Japan changing constantly the Japanese stock market is running the risk of becoming the global economic whipping boy being forced to absorb losses that have nothing to do with them and may not even exist. This will obviously have a negative impact on Japan's long term reconstruction effort.
Added to this incident there is the deteriorating security situation in Bahrain and other oil producing Gulf states along with the ongoing international debate over whether to intervene in Libya to overthrow Colonel Qaddafi.
Meanwhile Japan has experienced a huge earthquake that has killed 200 and a tsunami that has killed an estimated 8000. These two natural disaster combined have caused an estimated US$180bn worth of damage. To make matters worse there is also some sort of meltdown going on at one of Japan's nuclear power stations. Although I still think everyone is being overly dramatic about the radiation risk this incident has had an immediate and dramatic impact on Japan's capacity to generate electricity. This has led to a series of rolling black outs to make sure that any available electricity is directed to essential services such as hospitals, water treatment plants and disaster co-ordination centres. To hamper the rescue effort further it has also started to snow in Japan.
Against this backdrop of chaos I think the Japanese government should start to seriously think about temporarily shutting down Japan's stock market. With so many global unknowns and the situation in Japan changing constantly the Japanese stock market is running the risk of becoming the global economic whipping boy being forced to absorb losses that have nothing to do with them and may not even exist. This will obviously have a negative impact on Japan's long term reconstruction effort.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
It's Tuesday I'm Back From the Pub.
I think there's too much seriousness going on in the world at the moment to start messing about so allow to just confirm that I'm home safe and there have been no problems.
All Bahrain's a Stage
and it's people merely players.
Yesterday (14/3/11) troops from Saudi Arabia entered Bahrain at the the request of Bahrain's Royal Family ostensibly to help quell anti-Monarchy protests in the country. Over the coming days the Saudi troops are expected to be joined by police from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and further troops from Kuwait. The troops have been sent as part of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), a regional co-operation group set up to help defend the Gulf's Arab Monarchies.
The previous day (13/3/11) the GCC played a central role in getting the wider Arab League to support calls for foreign military intervention in Libya in order to overthrow Colonel Qaddafi. In 1969 Qaddafi himself overthrew the Arab Monarch in Libya and the current Libyan rebels have been taking a distinctly anti-democracy/pro-Monarchy stance.
Therefore the arrival of GCC troops in Bahrain appears to be an attempt by the GCC to open an international discussion about the possibilities of sending foreign troops into Libya to overthrow Qaddafi. Although the main purpose of the exercise is for the GCC to find out what everybody else is thinking it is also an attempt to increase the chances of an international intervention by re-assuring western nations who are concerned about invading yet another predominately Muslim country that Arab troops would be available to assist in the operation. As these Arab Monarchies are Sunni Muslims this moves also seems to be an attempt to provoke an aggressive response from Shia Iran.
It is worth noting that Bahrain is the regional banking hub for the middle east so has a vested interest in being at the centre of the flow of information and global discussion. If I was one of Bahrain's Shia protesters I would stop protesting now but as, in terms of population, Bahrain is about 1/8th the size of New York I suspect that most of the protesters are in on the act.
Yesterday (14/3/11) troops from Saudi Arabia entered Bahrain at the the request of Bahrain's Royal Family ostensibly to help quell anti-Monarchy protests in the country. Over the coming days the Saudi troops are expected to be joined by police from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and further troops from Kuwait. The troops have been sent as part of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), a regional co-operation group set up to help defend the Gulf's Arab Monarchies.
The previous day (13/3/11) the GCC played a central role in getting the wider Arab League to support calls for foreign military intervention in Libya in order to overthrow Colonel Qaddafi. In 1969 Qaddafi himself overthrew the Arab Monarch in Libya and the current Libyan rebels have been taking a distinctly anti-democracy/pro-Monarchy stance.
Therefore the arrival of GCC troops in Bahrain appears to be an attempt by the GCC to open an international discussion about the possibilities of sending foreign troops into Libya to overthrow Qaddafi. Although the main purpose of the exercise is for the GCC to find out what everybody else is thinking it is also an attempt to increase the chances of an international intervention by re-assuring western nations who are concerned about invading yet another predominately Muslim country that Arab troops would be available to assist in the operation. As these Arab Monarchies are Sunni Muslims this moves also seems to be an attempt to provoke an aggressive response from Shia Iran.
It is worth noting that Bahrain is the regional banking hub for the middle east so has a vested interest in being at the centre of the flow of information and global discussion. If I was one of Bahrain's Shia protesters I would stop protesting now but as, in terms of population, Bahrain is about 1/8th the size of New York I suspect that most of the protesters are in on the act.
Monday, 14 March 2011
More Fun at Fukushima
Following Saturday's (12/3/11) explosion at the number 1 reactor today (14/2/11) there has been another explosion at the number 3 reactor at Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant. Both explosions appear to have occurred because of attempts to cool the reactors with sea water rather then the normal chemical coolant.
Nuclear reactors normally operate at temperatures above 500C which is hot enough both to generate steam and actually break water (H2O) down into it's constituent parts such as Hydrogen and Oxygen both of which are highly explosive. In both number 1 and number 3 reactor some of these gases appear to have seeped out into the concrete building that houses the concrete encased reactor and exploded blowing the roofs of the buildings. Although this is not how a nuclear power station is supposed to operate it isn't actually much of a problem. The concrete buildings surrounding a nuclear reactor are designed to operate much like a cars crumple zone absorbing the energy of any explosion and in the process protecting the reactors concrete skin and the core containment vessel preventing any release of radioactive material. While you can't exactly just stick your head into a reactor core to check it for damage the plant operators aren't reporting any damage to either the reactor skin or core containment vessels on either number 1 or number 3 reactor. As there have been no reports of significantly increased radiation levels following either event I believe them.
What is slightly more alarming is the situation at the number 2 reactor where it has been reported that the cooling system has either partially or totally failed leaving the reactor core exposed on at least two occasions. Even this is nowhere near as dramatic as it sounds though because when they say the core has been exposed they mean that the water levels have dropped exposing the nuclear fuel rods to the core containment vessel not the outside world. If the reactor was functioning normally rather then being cooled you would expect the fuel rods to be exposed to the core containment vessel. However without a functioning coolant system the temperature of the solid state fuel rods will continue to rise until they eventually melt down into a radioactive sludge at the bottom of the containment vessel. This is known as a nuclear meltdown and creates the risk that the radioactive sludge will then melt through the containment vessel.
Long before this happens though the plant operators may attempt to remove the fuel rods from the core and place them into individual cooling caskets that are then placed into cooling ponds to cool down. As nuclear fuel rods need to be replaced every 6-12 months this is part of the normal operation of a nuclear power plant and something the plant operators will have done hundreds of times before. It is though a very complicated process that places the individuals carrying it out at extreme personal risk. As aftershocks are still striking Japan and because the temperature and state of the fuel rods is constantly changing the plant operators may decide that it is safer to opt for a controlled meltdown. This involves just letting the fuel rods melt down to sludge because it is highly unlikely that they will actually melt all the way through the containment vessel and if they do at Fukushima they will only melt into another containment vessel that has been designed for this exact purpose. However to prevent the reactor core from exploding while this happens the operators will have to vent gases containing radioactive particles from the reactor.
As Fukushima is a predominately plutonium fuelled reactor all but a tiny fraction of these radioactive particles will be beta type radiation which is electromagnetically charged. This means that if the right equipment is in place the plant operators should be able to filter most of these radioactive particles out of the gases before they are released into the air around the plant. If the radioactive particles are released into the air they will immediately start smashing into other, non-radioactive, particles much like balls on a snooker table. Once enough collisions have taken place the radioactive particles will lose their energy, stop being radioactive, and fall harmlessly too the ground. While the particles they've collided with will become ionized they won't become radioactive and will also fall harmlessly to the ground. Exactly how long this will take and how far the radioactive particles will travel depends on the specific electron voltage (eV) of the specific particles but I think we're talking in terms of hours and tens of metres rather then years and kilometres. The Japanese authorities have already evacuated everybody from within 20km of the Fukushima plant.
By contrast what happened at Chernobyl is that the Soviets didn't want to admit that there was a problem so took no action to fix it. This resulted in an uncontrolled meltdown and a massive explosion which sent highly radioactive core materials hundred of km's into the sky. To make matters worse the Chernobyl reactor was built from flammable materials meaning that it then caught fire sending up plumes of radioactive smoke for several days. The Fukushima plant is not made out of flammable material so I don't think it's even possible for this to turn into a disaster of the scale of Chernobyl.
Or to put it another way I'm so not alarmed by the situation at Fukushima that I found time to go to the gym, have lunch and read the newspaper before writing this up.
Nuclear reactors normally operate at temperatures above 500C which is hot enough both to generate steam and actually break water (H2O) down into it's constituent parts such as Hydrogen and Oxygen both of which are highly explosive. In both number 1 and number 3 reactor some of these gases appear to have seeped out into the concrete building that houses the concrete encased reactor and exploded blowing the roofs of the buildings. Although this is not how a nuclear power station is supposed to operate it isn't actually much of a problem. The concrete buildings surrounding a nuclear reactor are designed to operate much like a cars crumple zone absorbing the energy of any explosion and in the process protecting the reactors concrete skin and the core containment vessel preventing any release of radioactive material. While you can't exactly just stick your head into a reactor core to check it for damage the plant operators aren't reporting any damage to either the reactor skin or core containment vessels on either number 1 or number 3 reactor. As there have been no reports of significantly increased radiation levels following either event I believe them.
What is slightly more alarming is the situation at the number 2 reactor where it has been reported that the cooling system has either partially or totally failed leaving the reactor core exposed on at least two occasions. Even this is nowhere near as dramatic as it sounds though because when they say the core has been exposed they mean that the water levels have dropped exposing the nuclear fuel rods to the core containment vessel not the outside world. If the reactor was functioning normally rather then being cooled you would expect the fuel rods to be exposed to the core containment vessel. However without a functioning coolant system the temperature of the solid state fuel rods will continue to rise until they eventually melt down into a radioactive sludge at the bottom of the containment vessel. This is known as a nuclear meltdown and creates the risk that the radioactive sludge will then melt through the containment vessel.
Long before this happens though the plant operators may attempt to remove the fuel rods from the core and place them into individual cooling caskets that are then placed into cooling ponds to cool down. As nuclear fuel rods need to be replaced every 6-12 months this is part of the normal operation of a nuclear power plant and something the plant operators will have done hundreds of times before. It is though a very complicated process that places the individuals carrying it out at extreme personal risk. As aftershocks are still striking Japan and because the temperature and state of the fuel rods is constantly changing the plant operators may decide that it is safer to opt for a controlled meltdown. This involves just letting the fuel rods melt down to sludge because it is highly unlikely that they will actually melt all the way through the containment vessel and if they do at Fukushima they will only melt into another containment vessel that has been designed for this exact purpose. However to prevent the reactor core from exploding while this happens the operators will have to vent gases containing radioactive particles from the reactor.
As Fukushima is a predominately plutonium fuelled reactor all but a tiny fraction of these radioactive particles will be beta type radiation which is electromagnetically charged. This means that if the right equipment is in place the plant operators should be able to filter most of these radioactive particles out of the gases before they are released into the air around the plant. If the radioactive particles are released into the air they will immediately start smashing into other, non-radioactive, particles much like balls on a snooker table. Once enough collisions have taken place the radioactive particles will lose their energy, stop being radioactive, and fall harmlessly too the ground. While the particles they've collided with will become ionized they won't become radioactive and will also fall harmlessly to the ground. Exactly how long this will take and how far the radioactive particles will travel depends on the specific electron voltage (eV) of the specific particles but I think we're talking in terms of hours and tens of metres rather then years and kilometres. The Japanese authorities have already evacuated everybody from within 20km of the Fukushima plant.
By contrast what happened at Chernobyl is that the Soviets didn't want to admit that there was a problem so took no action to fix it. This resulted in an uncontrolled meltdown and a massive explosion which sent highly radioactive core materials hundred of km's into the sky. To make matters worse the Chernobyl reactor was built from flammable materials meaning that it then caught fire sending up plumes of radioactive smoke for several days. The Fukushima plant is not made out of flammable material so I don't think it's even possible for this to turn into a disaster of the scale of Chernobyl.
Or to put it another way I'm so not alarmed by the situation at Fukushima that I found time to go to the gym, have lunch and read the newspaper before writing this up.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Finally Haiti's Election.
Following January 2010's devastating earthquake, a cholera outbreak, a chaotic election that failed to produce a winner and a twice delayed run-off vote it looks as though Haiti will finally be able to get on with it's reconstruction effort after a Presidential run-off poll is held on March 20th. As the Haitian constitution only allows for two candidates in a run-off the choice for Haiti's next President will be between Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly.
As a front runner since campaigning begun much is already known about the Marxist former First Lady, Mirlande Manigat and her dedication to a development model that has failed time and time again. However much less is known about her opponent, Michel Martelly. With no previous political experience and no major academic qualifications Martelly is probably best known by his stage persona - a singer of riotous songs who is famous for showing off his er, assets on stage. It would all too easy then to dismiss him as some sort of joke candidate or a low rent Wyclef Jean and I have to confess that in the early stages of the campaign I made that mistake and did just that. However after looking at his policies in more detail it's clear that behind the showman there is an intelligent man who understands the problems that Haiti faces and how to go about solving them.
In his post disaster exit module Martelly highlights that the two things the Haitian government needs to provide for the people to have a prosperous future are homes for the homeless and security for all citizens. More importantly he also understands that in order to provide these two things Haiti must first reform it's courts so innocent men no longer have to spend years in disgusting prisons waiting for a trial that may never come and the rich are no longer able to buy whatever verdict they want regardless of what the law says. In order to achieve this Martelly intends to reform the prison system so prisoners can no longer just get lost in the system and set up travelling courts that with bring justice to the rural areas where the law is rarely seen or heard. Most importantly he intends to reform the Judiciary in order to do away with corrupt judges.
Once Haiti has been given a functioning legal system Martelly intends to introduce lots of new environmental legislation. Not only will this make Haiti less vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms by reducing environmental damage it will allow the government to build new homes for those made homeless by the earthquake and those who were already living in the slums. Crucially these new houses will be planned developments meaning that they won't be built in areas that are at risk from floods and landslides and will have proper sewer systems to prevent the spread of diseases like cholera. In order to allow many ordinary Haitians to own and take pride in their homes for the first time Martelly is proposing tax breaks for the employed and government loans for the unemployed to help them buy these new properties.
In order to find jobs for the unemployed Martelly also intends to pass new business laws that will encourage foreign investment and make sure that the profits from this investment and from Haiti's natural resources are shared equally amongst the Haitian people. To make sure that Haiti stops becoming dependent on foreign investment and foreign aid Martelly intends to spend most of the development money on boosting Haiti's education and health care systems by building new schools and hospitals and re-equipping the existing ones while re-training and increasing the pay of teachers and medical staff.
The main criticism of Martelly is that he fully supports the role that the international aid agencies will have to play in Haiti's development and there is a suggestion that some of his policies come more from them then they do from him. Personally I think that's just a sign that Martelly is the sort of man who can recognise good advice when it's given to him and that's an essential quality for any President anywhere in the world. By contrast Mirlande Manigat's only plan for Haiti seems to be to get her elected as President because she can fix everything all by herself.
So if I was voting in the Haitian election I would vote for Michel Martelly.
As a front runner since campaigning begun much is already known about the Marxist former First Lady, Mirlande Manigat and her dedication to a development model that has failed time and time again. However much less is known about her opponent, Michel Martelly. With no previous political experience and no major academic qualifications Martelly is probably best known by his stage persona - a singer of riotous songs who is famous for showing off his er, assets on stage. It would all too easy then to dismiss him as some sort of joke candidate or a low rent Wyclef Jean and I have to confess that in the early stages of the campaign I made that mistake and did just that. However after looking at his policies in more detail it's clear that behind the showman there is an intelligent man who understands the problems that Haiti faces and how to go about solving them.
In his post disaster exit module Martelly highlights that the two things the Haitian government needs to provide for the people to have a prosperous future are homes for the homeless and security for all citizens. More importantly he also understands that in order to provide these two things Haiti must first reform it's courts so innocent men no longer have to spend years in disgusting prisons waiting for a trial that may never come and the rich are no longer able to buy whatever verdict they want regardless of what the law says. In order to achieve this Martelly intends to reform the prison system so prisoners can no longer just get lost in the system and set up travelling courts that with bring justice to the rural areas where the law is rarely seen or heard. Most importantly he intends to reform the Judiciary in order to do away with corrupt judges.
Once Haiti has been given a functioning legal system Martelly intends to introduce lots of new environmental legislation. Not only will this make Haiti less vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms by reducing environmental damage it will allow the government to build new homes for those made homeless by the earthquake and those who were already living in the slums. Crucially these new houses will be planned developments meaning that they won't be built in areas that are at risk from floods and landslides and will have proper sewer systems to prevent the spread of diseases like cholera. In order to allow many ordinary Haitians to own and take pride in their homes for the first time Martelly is proposing tax breaks for the employed and government loans for the unemployed to help them buy these new properties.
In order to find jobs for the unemployed Martelly also intends to pass new business laws that will encourage foreign investment and make sure that the profits from this investment and from Haiti's natural resources are shared equally amongst the Haitian people. To make sure that Haiti stops becoming dependent on foreign investment and foreign aid Martelly intends to spend most of the development money on boosting Haiti's education and health care systems by building new schools and hospitals and re-equipping the existing ones while re-training and increasing the pay of teachers and medical staff.
The main criticism of Martelly is that he fully supports the role that the international aid agencies will have to play in Haiti's development and there is a suggestion that some of his policies come more from them then they do from him. Personally I think that's just a sign that Martelly is the sort of man who can recognise good advice when it's given to him and that's an essential quality for any President anywhere in the world. By contrast Mirlande Manigat's only plan for Haiti seems to be to get her elected as President because she can fix everything all by herself.
So if I was voting in the Haitian election I would vote for Michel Martelly.
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