In the previous part of this discussion that can be read here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/egypts-draft-constitution-part-1.html I noted that the first 100 articles of the 2013 draft of Egypt's constitution was generally very strong and didn't contain any problems significant enough to justify it being rejected at the upcoming public referendum.
Unfortunately though articles 184 to 221 covering the apparatus of state such the military, the Courts and the police force contain much more serious problems. I should start though by pointing out the areas where the constitution is particularly strong. The main one of these is the police force which the constitution mandates as an organisation whose loyalty is to the people rather then any branch of the government and whose duty is to uphold the constitution and the law above all else (Article 206/2013). This independence is guaranteed by the formation of the Supreme Police Council made up of senior police officers and a legal adviser from the State Council which the Minister of the Interior must consult before changing the way the police force operates (Article 207/2013). This is all a pretty standard, sensible and internationally recognised way of ensuring an independent police force. The only improvement I would make is to give the Supreme Police Council an explicit rather then implied right of veto over any instruction given by the Interior Minister or any other member of the government that contradicts the values of the constitution.
Another area where the constitution is very strong is the Judiciary which makes up all the Courts and Judaical bodies. Here the draft is quite clear that the Judiciary is wholly independent of government and the military (Article 184/2013). I though would be explicit that the powers of the Judiciary are defined by the constitution and the law rather then simply the law as the current draft reads. The independence of the Judiciary is further re-enforced by an obligation that they and they alone are responsible for managing their own affairs (Article 185/2013) and that its members cannot be dismissed under any circumstances and can only be disciplined by other members of the Judiciary (Article 186/2013). Finally to ensure that the people can see the Judiciary to be acting with integrity all Court sessions are to be held in public unless exceptional threats to public order or public morals require them to be held in closed session (Article 187/2013). Again this is a pretty standard requirement of Courts throughout the democratic world.
Obviously a nation's Judaical system is only as good as the laws it upholds. In the draft this is covered primarily by Chapter 4 made up of articles 94-100. Again here the draft is very strong with the rule of law being made the ultimate authority in the running of the nation (Article 94/2013). This means that the law applies to all Egyptians without exception regardless of race, gender, religion, political affiliation or profession. My only concern is that the current wording describes members of the Judiciary as being immune from the law. This is a problem because while the Judiciary need to be independent from political interference they still need to be bound by the laws they uphold.
The constitutional draft goes on to explicitly state that punishments can only be imposed on an individual after a Judaical ruling (Article 95/2013).This prevents a person being sent to prison without first being
convicted of a crime and prevents the friends or relatives of an
offender being punished for their crime. The draft goes on to explicitly states that punishments ordered by a Court have to be carried out (Article 100/2013). This prevents offenders using financial, political or other forms of influence to bribe public officials to avoid their punishment.The draft also explicitly grants an accused person a right to a defence and obligates the state to provide assistance to individuals who are financially unable to mount a defence (Article 98/2013). The draft explicitly states that a person is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty by a fair Court of law (Article 96/2013).
Exactly what constitutes a "fair Court of law" is more precisely defined by the provisions of Chapter three, articles 51 to 93 because any criminal investigation or Court ruling that violates these articles is by its definition unfair. The most important articles here are the right of personal freedom (Article 54/2013). Unless a person is caught in the act of committing a crime this prevents them being arrested without a Judge first being convinced that there is enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant. When a person is arrested they must be given a valid reason why, informed of their rights, have someone informed of their arrest and have a lawyer present during any questioning. An arrested person must be brought before an investigating authority (similar to a Magistrate) within 24 hours who will check that their arrest is justified and their rights are being respected. If an arrested person is to be detained beyond 24 hours this must be reviewed by a Judge every 7 days. This is a widely accepted democratic practice known as Habeus Corpus.
Whilst under arrest an individual has a guaranteed right to silence and may not be tortured, terrorised or coerced into breaking that silence (Article 55/2013). The right to private life (Article 57/2013) and the inviolability of homes (Article 58/2013) protect the individual from unlawful search and seizure such a wiretapping or searches of a private residence. These provisions are all stronger then the system I live under here in the supposedly free United Kingdom so rather then criticising them I'm actually tempted to try and copy them.
In terms of the Judaical system that protects all these rights and enforces the law the draft is again very sensible, reasonable and a bit dull. The Supreme Constitutional Court is the highest Court in the land with Jurisdiction to rule over all civilian legal decisions including disputes between lower Courts and Judaical bodies (Articles 194 & 192/2013). To ensure its independence the Supreme Constitutional Court chooses its own President and members subject to the approval of the President (Articles 193 & 194/2013).
In order to maintain the independence of the Supreme Constitutional Court and all other Judaical bodies matters relating to their administration and disciplinary matters of their staff are handled by the State Council (Article 190/2013). This all very standard seems simply to be an Egyptian name for what is known in other nations as the Bar Association.
In support of the Courts there is the Public Prosecution which deals with investigating and prosecuting crimes. It is headed by a Prosecutor General who is selected by the Supreme Judaical Council from either assistants to the Court of Cessation, assistants to the Court of Appeals or deputy Prosecutor Generals (Article 189/2013). Again this is all pretty standard and in the UK the similar body is known as the Crown Prosecution Service. Then there is the State Cases Authority which defends the government when it gets sued and offers legal advice to government departments to stop them getting sued in the first place (Article 196/2013). In the UK and the US the similar body is known as the Office of the Attorney General. Finally there is Administrative Prosecution which functions much the same as the Public Prosecution but deals exclusively with financial and administrative corruption (Article 197/2013). Personally I think this is a little redundant because I think its work could be done by the Public Prosecution but if Egyptians want a dedicated body to tackle corruption that is their choice.
The area where this draft constitution deals with the apparatus of state that gives me the most serious problems though is the provisions it makes for the military. The first problem is with the National Defence Council (Article 203/2013). This is set up to ensure the safety and security of the nation. Although given Egypt's history I think this body should have a power of veto over its head - the President - my main problem is that its work is duplicated by the National Security Council which is set up to ensure the security of the nation against all threats (Article 205/2013). While there is an unanswered question over whether the National Defence Council or the National Security Council is the superior body having two bodies mainly strikes me as needless bureaucracy and suggests the issue hasn't been given the level of thought and consideration it requires.
The second problem is with the role of the Military Judiciary (Article 204/2013). I have absolutely no problem with the military having its own codes of justice and a Judiciary to enforce them. However I have great problem with the military being able to exert its codes of justice over civilians. Ideally civilians should only be answerable to civilian Courts but given Egypt's history and current security situation I can appreciate that under certain circumstances terrorist groups who are mounting military attacks will need to be dealt with by military Courts. The problem is that the draft gives military Courts authority over all crimes against the military's equipment, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, documents, military secrets, public funds or whatever falls under [the military's] authority. This is far too broad and I think that military Courts should be limited only to attacks on military buildings, barracks and stipulated military or border zones. Civilians engaged in crimes against other aspects of the military should in the first instance be dealt with by civilian Courts. After all as the do in the US it only takes a matter of minutes for a civilian Judge to review a case and then decide that it is best handled by a military Court.
My main problem with the way the draft deals with the military is the provision that makes the Minister of Defence the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces (Article 201/2013). This directly contradicts the provision that makes the President the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (Article 152/2013). The Armed Forces can only have one ultimate commander therefore this glaring contradiction is totally unworkable and to my mind grounds alone for this constitutional draft to be rejected at the referendum.
22:10 on 30/12/13 (UK date).
Monday 30 December 2013
The Saudi War Against the Olympics Has Begun.
Back in July 2013 the head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence service Prince Bandar bin Sultan visited Russia to discuss the conflict in Syria. Prince Bandar's message was quite clear; If Russia gave Saudi Arabia everything it wanted on Syria Saudi Arabia would reward Russia by keeping the global oil price above USD100/barrel. If Russia refused to give Saudi Arabia everything it wanted Saudi Arabia would respond by equipping and instructing Islamist groups in Russia's North Caucasus region (Chechnya & Dagestan) to launch terrorist attacks against the 2014 Winter Olympics being in Sochi, Russia.
Russia has clearly not given into Saudi intimidation so the terrorist campaign against the winter Olympics has begun. On Friday (27/12/13) a car bomb exploded outside a police station in the Russia city of Pyatigorsk 250km east of Sochi killing two.
On Sunday (29/12/13) a female suicide bomber attacked the central railway station in Volgograd which is around 750km north-east of Sochi and is the main transport hub to the coastal town. 17 people were killed and countless more injured.
Today (30/12/13) another suicide bomber attacked a trolleybus/tram in Volgograd's Dzerzhinsky district. So far the death toll stands at 14 with at least 20 injured.
It really says something about the Saudis lunatic sense of entitlement that they cannot conceive of how these series of brutal attacks on what is essentially the global community could be a bit of a PR disaster for them.
It obviously goes without saying that due to these attacks there simply cannot be any negotiations of Syria until at least until the winter Olympics are over.
11:05 on 30/12/13 (UK date).
Russia has clearly not given into Saudi intimidation so the terrorist campaign against the winter Olympics has begun. On Friday (27/12/13) a car bomb exploded outside a police station in the Russia city of Pyatigorsk 250km east of Sochi killing two.
On Sunday (29/12/13) a female suicide bomber attacked the central railway station in Volgograd which is around 750km north-east of Sochi and is the main transport hub to the coastal town. 17 people were killed and countless more injured.
Today (30/12/13) another suicide bomber attacked a trolleybus/tram in Volgograd's Dzerzhinsky district. So far the death toll stands at 14 with at least 20 injured.
It really says something about the Saudis lunatic sense of entitlement that they cannot conceive of how these series of brutal attacks on what is essentially the global community could be a bit of a PR disaster for them.
It obviously goes without saying that due to these attacks there simply cannot be any negotiations of Syria until at least until the winter Olympics are over.
11:05 on 30/12/13 (UK date).
Saturday 28 December 2013
Egypt's Draft Constitution: Part 1.
On December 3rd 2013 (3/12/13) a new draft of the constitution was submitted to Egypt's interim President Adly Mansour and will go to public referendum on January 14th and 15th 2014 (14&15/1/14). As the document states in Article 227 the constitution represents a single, coherent unit with different articles interacting to compliment and counter-balance each other. However for the purposes of simplicity I will be conducting this discussion in several parts.
The first four chapters comprising of 100 articles covering The State, Basic Components of Society, Public Rights, Freedoms and Duties and The Rule of Law are all excellent work. So much so that it is difficult to criticise provisions that are reasonable, sensible and rather dull. After all when it comes to constitutional law reasonable, sensible and dull are what we aspire to. Therefore the first 100 articles are marked out more by what they don't contain rather then what they do.
The first big improvement on the 2012 constitution is that gone are all the subtle and not so subtle attempts to turn Egypt into a Sunni Islamic state. For example there is no longer a constitutional prohibition of insulting the Prophets and Messengers of Islam (Article 44/2012). Of course the 2013 draft does make Islam the official state religion and makes the principles of Sharia the primary source of legislation (Article 2/2013). In itself this is not a problem because at it's core Sharia is merely a moral code that is universal to all human standards. Also the majority of Egyptians are Muslims so it is more acknowledging that fact rather then trying to change the nation.
The constitution goes on to to protect the rights of Christians and Jews by making their religious principles the source for legislation governing their personal affairs (Article 3/2013). This should be sufficient to prevent Egypt moving from laws inspired by the principles of Sharia to all out Sharia law. The sale and consumption of alcohol is a rather good example of how this would work. Muslims are of course forbidden to consume alcohol and will be free to continue to resist temptation under this constitution. However Christians and Jews and under no such religious obligation and the consumption of alcohol is actually required under Christianity as one of the sacraments. Therefore any attempt to pass a law banning the sale or consumption of alcohol in Egypt would impinge on Christians and Jews personal status and religious affairs violating Article 3 making any such law unconstitutional and therefore invalid. The rights of Egypt's religious minorities and those of no religion at all are further strengthened by a provision ensuring equal opportunity to all citizens without discrimination (Article 9/2013).
Also missing from the 2013 draft are articles relating to incredibly specific aspects of economic and social policy such as an obligation for the foster small handicraft industries (Article 17/2012). As I commented at the time these issues may well be perfectly valid but their specific nature means that they have no place in a constitution. The essence of a written constitution is that it is very difficult to change meaning that it acts as a constant under-pinning the day to day, year to year government policies and ensuring the equity and fairness of all laws. As a result it needs to focus on vague principles and ideals rather then specific details. Fortunately the 2013 draft has been mindful of this distinction between constitutional law and everyday legislation with certain articles being excluded entirely and others being re-written. For example where the 2012 Constitution obligated the state to support workers co-operatives "in all forms" (Article 23/2012) the 2013 draft talks more vaguely about the state caring for worker's co-operatives and co-operative property being protected and supported under the law (Article 37/2013).
This shift away from specifics towards more general principles means that many articles in the 2013 draft now end with variants of the phrase; "The forgoing is regulated by law." For the most part this is entirely sensible because it allows the government of the day a degree of discretion in passing laws while staying within the principles of the constitution. A perfect example of why this discretion is necessary is the use of DNA evidence in criminal trials. Forty years ago DNA profiling simply was not possible so recently many legal systems have had to change the laws and regulations to allow DNA evidence to be used while still maintaining the principle of due process. This has recently been a specific issue in the US where arguments have abounded over whether a compulsion for suspects to provide DNA samples is compatible with the 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination.
However the amount of discretion given to a government of the day can be too broad and allow it to undermine the constitutional principle. An example of this would be the provision in the 2012 constitution that guaranteed the right to establish places of worship as regulated by law (Article 43/2012). This was inserted specifically to persecute Egypt's Christians because it was well known that the existing law made it extremely difficult for Christians to build Churches for worship. For the most part the 2013 draft deals with this problem by having complimentary provisions providing a sort of double lock on certain constitutional principles. For example a government of the day can pass new laws regulating the way the National Election Commission conducts elections and referenda (Article 208/2013). However those laws must uphold the principle that every citizen has the right to vote, run in elections and express their opinion in referendums (Article 87/2013). However there are other areas where the inclusion of variants of the phrase; "regulated by law" creates more problems then it solves. For example I think its inclusion is totally superfluous in dealing with protections for aides to the judiciary (Article 199/2013).
On a related note I consider the current wording on legal continuity (Article 224/2013) to be a significant problem. The current phrasing talks about all laws passed before the adoption of this constitution to "remain valid and in force." While it is essential that existing laws to remain in force until new ones can be passed the insistence that they remain valid seems to prevent them being challenged no matter how wildly they contradict the values of the constitution - the current laws governing the building of Churches being a specific example. On that issue specifically I would re-write the obligation on the National Assembly to issue a new law on the subject (Article 235/20/13) so that the existing laws expire at the end of the first session regardless of whether a new law has been passed or not.
The main problem with the first 100 articles is the over representation of trade unionist and other socialist special interest groups that has been carried over from the 2012 constitution. Significant work has been done to limit this influence. For example gone is the obligation on the state to "divide revenues between capital and labour" (Article 14/2012) replaced with a more flexible obligation to ensure "a fair distribution of development returns" (Article 27/2013). However serious problems exist such as the obligation to give workers a share in the management of projects and their profits (Article 27/2012 & Article 42/2013) and the obligation on the state to "buy basic agricultural crops at prices to ensure a profit for farmers" (Article 29/2013). These are attempts to cling onto a Marxist command style economy and are things that I think Egyptians will come to regret and even resent over time. After all far more then Rihanna what caused the Egyptian revolution was the fact that its command style economy simply wasn't working causing high rates of unemployment.
That said although I completely disagree with them I don't think these economic articles alone represent sufficient reason to reject the entire constitutional draft. After all while written constitutions should be incredibly difficult to alter they should not be impossible to change. The 2013 draft sets out a framework by which the Constitution can be amended that requires first a two thirds majority in the National Assembly and then an overall majority at public referendum. The economic articles particularly the obligation on the state to preserve food subsidies (Article 79/2013) are all prime candidates for national discussion and public vote as part healthy, functioning democracy.
21:55 on 28/12/13 (UK date).
The first four chapters comprising of 100 articles covering The State, Basic Components of Society, Public Rights, Freedoms and Duties and The Rule of Law are all excellent work. So much so that it is difficult to criticise provisions that are reasonable, sensible and rather dull. After all when it comes to constitutional law reasonable, sensible and dull are what we aspire to. Therefore the first 100 articles are marked out more by what they don't contain rather then what they do.
The first big improvement on the 2012 constitution is that gone are all the subtle and not so subtle attempts to turn Egypt into a Sunni Islamic state. For example there is no longer a constitutional prohibition of insulting the Prophets and Messengers of Islam (Article 44/2012). Of course the 2013 draft does make Islam the official state religion and makes the principles of Sharia the primary source of legislation (Article 2/2013). In itself this is not a problem because at it's core Sharia is merely a moral code that is universal to all human standards. Also the majority of Egyptians are Muslims so it is more acknowledging that fact rather then trying to change the nation.
The constitution goes on to to protect the rights of Christians and Jews by making their religious principles the source for legislation governing their personal affairs (Article 3/2013). This should be sufficient to prevent Egypt moving from laws inspired by the principles of Sharia to all out Sharia law. The sale and consumption of alcohol is a rather good example of how this would work. Muslims are of course forbidden to consume alcohol and will be free to continue to resist temptation under this constitution. However Christians and Jews and under no such religious obligation and the consumption of alcohol is actually required under Christianity as one of the sacraments. Therefore any attempt to pass a law banning the sale or consumption of alcohol in Egypt would impinge on Christians and Jews personal status and religious affairs violating Article 3 making any such law unconstitutional and therefore invalid. The rights of Egypt's religious minorities and those of no religion at all are further strengthened by a provision ensuring equal opportunity to all citizens without discrimination (Article 9/2013).
Also missing from the 2013 draft are articles relating to incredibly specific aspects of economic and social policy such as an obligation for the foster small handicraft industries (Article 17/2012). As I commented at the time these issues may well be perfectly valid but their specific nature means that they have no place in a constitution. The essence of a written constitution is that it is very difficult to change meaning that it acts as a constant under-pinning the day to day, year to year government policies and ensuring the equity and fairness of all laws. As a result it needs to focus on vague principles and ideals rather then specific details. Fortunately the 2013 draft has been mindful of this distinction between constitutional law and everyday legislation with certain articles being excluded entirely and others being re-written. For example where the 2012 Constitution obligated the state to support workers co-operatives "in all forms" (Article 23/2012) the 2013 draft talks more vaguely about the state caring for worker's co-operatives and co-operative property being protected and supported under the law (Article 37/2013).
This shift away from specifics towards more general principles means that many articles in the 2013 draft now end with variants of the phrase; "The forgoing is regulated by law." For the most part this is entirely sensible because it allows the government of the day a degree of discretion in passing laws while staying within the principles of the constitution. A perfect example of why this discretion is necessary is the use of DNA evidence in criminal trials. Forty years ago DNA profiling simply was not possible so recently many legal systems have had to change the laws and regulations to allow DNA evidence to be used while still maintaining the principle of due process. This has recently been a specific issue in the US where arguments have abounded over whether a compulsion for suspects to provide DNA samples is compatible with the 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination.
However the amount of discretion given to a government of the day can be too broad and allow it to undermine the constitutional principle. An example of this would be the provision in the 2012 constitution that guaranteed the right to establish places of worship as regulated by law (Article 43/2012). This was inserted specifically to persecute Egypt's Christians because it was well known that the existing law made it extremely difficult for Christians to build Churches for worship. For the most part the 2013 draft deals with this problem by having complimentary provisions providing a sort of double lock on certain constitutional principles. For example a government of the day can pass new laws regulating the way the National Election Commission conducts elections and referenda (Article 208/2013). However those laws must uphold the principle that every citizen has the right to vote, run in elections and express their opinion in referendums (Article 87/2013). However there are other areas where the inclusion of variants of the phrase; "regulated by law" creates more problems then it solves. For example I think its inclusion is totally superfluous in dealing with protections for aides to the judiciary (Article 199/2013).
On a related note I consider the current wording on legal continuity (Article 224/2013) to be a significant problem. The current phrasing talks about all laws passed before the adoption of this constitution to "remain valid and in force." While it is essential that existing laws to remain in force until new ones can be passed the insistence that they remain valid seems to prevent them being challenged no matter how wildly they contradict the values of the constitution - the current laws governing the building of Churches being a specific example. On that issue specifically I would re-write the obligation on the National Assembly to issue a new law on the subject (Article 235/20/13) so that the existing laws expire at the end of the first session regardless of whether a new law has been passed or not.
The main problem with the first 100 articles is the over representation of trade unionist and other socialist special interest groups that has been carried over from the 2012 constitution. Significant work has been done to limit this influence. For example gone is the obligation on the state to "divide revenues between capital and labour" (Article 14/2012) replaced with a more flexible obligation to ensure "a fair distribution of development returns" (Article 27/2013). However serious problems exist such as the obligation to give workers a share in the management of projects and their profits (Article 27/2012 & Article 42/2013) and the obligation on the state to "buy basic agricultural crops at prices to ensure a profit for farmers" (Article 29/2013). These are attempts to cling onto a Marxist command style economy and are things that I think Egyptians will come to regret and even resent over time. After all far more then Rihanna what caused the Egyptian revolution was the fact that its command style economy simply wasn't working causing high rates of unemployment.
That said although I completely disagree with them I don't think these economic articles alone represent sufficient reason to reject the entire constitutional draft. After all while written constitutions should be incredibly difficult to alter they should not be impossible to change. The 2013 draft sets out a framework by which the Constitution can be amended that requires first a two thirds majority in the National Assembly and then an overall majority at public referendum. The economic articles particularly the obligation on the state to preserve food subsidies (Article 79/2013) are all prime candidates for national discussion and public vote as part healthy, functioning democracy.
21:55 on 28/12/13 (UK date).
Thursday 26 December 2013
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 19, Week 1, Day 4.
I have just finished a cursory reading of Egypt's proposed new constitution. Obviously it will take several more readings and some quiet contemplation before I'm able to form a full opinion. However it is immediately clear that this is a far stronger and improved document then the attempt that was made under Mohamed Morsi. For example it doesn't raise any immediate concern about the Islamification of Egypt or a threat to Egypt's religious minorities.
One area I am having great trouble understanding is the concept of an elected President, an elected Parliament (House of Representatives) and then a Government as a separate, unelected entity. That is not to say that there is anything right or indeed wrong about this model it's just I don't as yet understand it. Also my interpretation of the wording of Article 124 which states the national budget cannot incur new burdens on citizens is that it is impossible for any branch of government to ever raise taxes. Even the US Tea Party will agree that this will present a problem.
Hopefully over the coming days my understanding of the document will improve to the point where I am able to give a fuller opinion. However I think it is only right to raise for discussion the possibility of the constitutional draft being rejected at referendum so it can be sent back to committee for - say a further three months - so some of the kinks can be worked out. After all it would be better to delay things for a short time rather then to try to press ahead with a flawed constitution.
21:30 on 26/12/13 (UK date).
One area I am having great trouble understanding is the concept of an elected President, an elected Parliament (House of Representatives) and then a Government as a separate, unelected entity. That is not to say that there is anything right or indeed wrong about this model it's just I don't as yet understand it. Also my interpretation of the wording of Article 124 which states the national budget cannot incur new burdens on citizens is that it is impossible for any branch of government to ever raise taxes. Even the US Tea Party will agree that this will present a problem.
Hopefully over the coming days my understanding of the document will improve to the point where I am able to give a fuller opinion. However I think it is only right to raise for discussion the possibility of the constitutional draft being rejected at referendum so it can be sent back to committee for - say a further three months - so some of the kinks can be worked out. After all it would be better to delay things for a short time rather then to try to press ahead with a flawed constitution.
21:30 on 26/12/13 (UK date).
Tuesday 24 December 2013
Bah Hum-Zzzzzzz!
Sub-titled "Oh f*ck it's Christmas Eve!"
Having retired in the past year my mothers decided they wanted to spend Christmas at their very nice Salisbury along with their new puppy. The problem is that I've been really busy this year and that's culminated in the type of deeply ingrained exhaustion that takes weeks to shift. You may have noticed that there has been a slight drop-off in my workload.
As I result I simply didn't have the energy to go Christmas shopping and co-ordinate getting my complex family down to the Salisbury and back again before writing an incident report on the whole thing. So instead I'll be staying in Croydon with my father where we'll be doing an extremely low key Christmas which essentially means just means having a roast lunch.
Anyway since I decided all that the UK has been hit by severe storms that have more or less crippled the transport infrastructure. We are currently at the point of waiting to see whether my brother will be able to make it down to Salisbury or will give up and join my father and I.
So in summary I'm feeling rather vindicated.
16:45 on 24/12/13.
Having retired in the past year my mothers decided they wanted to spend Christmas at their very nice Salisbury along with their new puppy. The problem is that I've been really busy this year and that's culminated in the type of deeply ingrained exhaustion that takes weeks to shift. You may have noticed that there has been a slight drop-off in my workload.
As I result I simply didn't have the energy to go Christmas shopping and co-ordinate getting my complex family down to the Salisbury and back again before writing an incident report on the whole thing. So instead I'll be staying in Croydon with my father where we'll be doing an extremely low key Christmas which essentially means just means having a roast lunch.
Anyway since I decided all that the UK has been hit by severe storms that have more or less crippled the transport infrastructure. We are currently at the point of waiting to see whether my brother will be able to make it down to Salisbury or will give up and join my father and I.
So in summary I'm feeling rather vindicated.
16:45 on 24/12/13.
Tuesday 17 December 2013
Operation Misery: Month 10, Week 2, Day 6.
Yesterday (15/12/13) the video was released to support the Eminem & Rihanna song "The Monster." The release of this video will obviously draw fresh attention to the song which I, personally, think is a bad idea. Although The Monster is without a doubt the strongest song that Rihanna has released in 2013 from start to finish the whole song has been quite a big joke at Rihanna's expense.
You may remember that Rihanna recorded her part of the single in London, UK just before embarking on the third and final leg of the Diamonds World Tour. A lot of people think that it would have been a better idea for Rihanna to use this time to meet up with me in preparation. Then the fact that I've long been acknowledged as Eminem's psychological 'monster' meant that the song featuring Rihanna singing lyrics like "I'm friends with the monster" was Rihanna being tricked into publicly admitting that she is friends with me. That of course reinforces the idea that Rihanna really should have met up with me in person by now. The video for the song continues in this mocking theme.
The concept shows Eminem in a sort of psychiatric hospital setting (lots of straight jackets and padded cells etc) reviewing aspects from his life. The main aspects included feature the film "8 Mile" which is about Eminem's life which was released in 2002/3 just as I was exploding onto the global stage and being assigned the pseudonym "Eminem.". It also features snippets from the video for "The Way I Am" which features Eminem leaping from a tall building in an apparent suicide attempt. According to my medical/police records I once attempted suicide by leaping off a tall building. The video also features snippets of Eminem performing live with renowned homosexual and British gay rights activist Elton John. I'd hazard a guess that this collaboration was imposed on Eminem in order to send out the message that I am not homophobic. So the aspects of Eminem's life shown in the video are intended to highlight exactly why I'm acknowledged as his psychological 'monster'. All these events of course occurred during the Presidency of George W Bush during which time members of the US intelligence community were, in all seriousness, talking about sending one of the 'Eminems' to the actual Guantanamo Bay. Hence all the caged/prison and military imagery although I believe Eminem has an endorsement deal with one of the "Call of Duty" video games.
Apart from some obligatory hand dancing in a darkened room Rihanna's main role in the video is that of Eminem's psychiatrist/therapist. This is a reference to something I amongst others have picked up on during my time in contact with Rihanna. It seems that as far as she is concerned Rihanna has absolutely no problems in her life and every decision she makes is nothing short of perfect. However the rest of us - all the South Africans, the Filipino victims of Typhoon Haiyan, every victim of domestic violence/sexual violence worldwide and in particular me - we all have very serious problems and we need Rihanna to help us and look after us.
That makes Rihanna a perfect example of what Sigmund Freud termed "Psychological Projection." This is a phenomenon in which a person with significant emotional/personal problems seeks to avoid them by denying their existence and instead projecting them onto the people around them. Often the person doing the projecting will then attempt to solve these imagined problems by helping that other person. They cast themselves in the role of the person's therapist so to speak. Therefore the video for The Monster is clearly attempting to highlight this flaw in Rihanna's personality. If Rihanna is in on the joke this could have been an attempt at something positive. However in my experience when people realise they've been engaging in psychological projection it is often a humiliating experience that leaves them feeling emotionally vulnerable. Therefore having several million people point and laugh at you whilst it's happening has got to be the worst way to go about it. As such I hope there are plenty of people prepared to show Rihanna warmth for reasons other then the video. After all she seems intent on insisting that I can't be that person for her.
This reference to psychological projection actually leads me onto a wider concern I have about Rihanna at present. Having been developed in the 19th Century Freud's work on psychoanalysis has been discredited to the point of being useless to people suffering from genuine mental illness. However Freud inspired psychotherapies are still of use to people suffering from deep seated emotion problems - such as Rihanna. The problem is that psychotherapy is a very subtle process in which the intention is really for a person to realise certain things about themselves without really noticing that it is happening. By moving to New York City to avoid Chris Brown and indicating that she is smoking less marijuana Rihanna appears to be attempting to treat herself. This rarely works and can sometimes lead to a person going on to develop genuine mental illness such as personality disorders. With the risk of mental illness being quite low I think the best outcome of Rihanna's current situation is that nothing changes. The worst outcome is that Rihanna develops an over-analytical personality which destroys her ability to form meaningful relationships in the future and robs her of the warmth that helps make her so popular. I find this particularly frustrating because I know how easily all this could have been avoided if Rihanna had just picked up the phone following the 2012 para-Olympic closing ceremony.
The release of the Monster video was of course timed to coincide with a Court appearance by Chris Brown. Basically what happened here is that Judge Brandlin Gluber stuck to the script he followed at Chris Brown's last Court appearance. Brown had his probation revoked but no further action was taken because he is currently in a rehabilitation facility. The Court heard from that rehab facility which claimed that - against all prevailing scientific knowledge - it is successfully treating Chris Brown. Rather then blaming Brown's errant behaviour on a deep rooted personality disorder the rehab facility instead blamed it all on his marijuana use and claimed he is being responsive to psychotropic drugs. Although the exact nature of these psychotropic drugs was not disclosed I suspect they are remarkably similar to the psychotropic drugs I myself take. With Brown being magically rehabilitated the Court of course saw now need to impose a restraining order keeping Brown away from Rihanna or indeed any other woman. Brown is next scheduled to appear in Court in Washington D.C to answer an assault charge on January 8th 2014 (8/1/14) and will reappear in front of Brandlin Gluber at a yet to be specified date in February 2014. If justice is allowed to run its course Brown should be making that appearance via video link from a Washington D.C prison.
In order to maximise the drama surrounding his Court appearance Chris Brown yesterday released the record "Loyal" on the Internet. Featuring lyrics like "These B*tches aren't loyal!" this was supposed to give the impression that Brown was insulting Rihanna. The intention being that there is no need for a restraining order to be imposed because Brown is clearly over Rihanna and moving on with Kerruche Tran. However you don't need to be a psychoanalyst to know that a person who is constantly badmouthing their ex clearly isn't over that ex. The deeper analysis of the song "Loyal" which I somehow doubt the song writer told Chris Brown about is that it is a reference to Brown's CIA handler. This handler may or may not be a woman but I have assigned them the pseudonym "Carrie Mathison" - the mentally unstable character from the TV Show "Homeland." With this operation now having done substantial and practical damage to US interests internationally the intention being to promote discussion about whether 'Carrie' is been disloyal to the US by continuing to protect Chris Brown?
In a transparent attempt to reinforce the idea that there is no need for Chris Brown's restraining order to be reinstated Rihanna last night attended a party with A$AP Rocky in an attempt to fuel speculation that the two are now dating. As I've said before I think this is extremely unlikely but as with Drake before him the fact that A$AP Rocky is prepared to play along with this game means that in my book he now has a big, black mark against his name.
Also while I'm here it appears that I'm being blocked on Twitter by Kerruche Tran following some comments I made about her lack of an invitation to the American Music Awards. I think this is a shame because the point I was trying to make it that I think she is talented enough to make it in the industry without having to sully herself by dating Chris Brown.
17:10 on 17/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:25 on 18/12/13 (UK date) to add;
Also on Monday it was announced that Rihanna is to be the face of the French fashion house Balmain's Spring/Summer 2014 advertising campaign. In itself this is great news because it shows that Rihanna's reputation is still strong enough to enhance high end brands.
The problem is that is was leaving this photoshoot last Thursday (12/12/13) that Rihanna was photographed sporting a new Zindzi Mandela style haircut. Along with Rihanna's use of a picture of Nelson Mandela as her Twitter avatar this was quite offensive because it placed extra pressure on the South Africans to find out what, if any, message Rihanna and the US were trying to send just as the South Africans were preparing for Nelson Mandela's logistically challenging funeral. To make matters worse this photoshoot was accompanied by rumours that US Vogue magazine is to fly Rihanna to World Cup host Brazil in January 2014 for a photoshoot that will also help reduce the pressure for a career ending South American leg of the Diamonds World Tour. That of course created speculation that the story of the Brazil trip was just a lie and the whole thing was being used as a coded reference to the Balmain photoshoot actually being a Vogue photoshoot.
Therefore I think the way that Balmain not only announced their Rihanna campaign on the next working day but also identified everybody involved the photoshoot suggests that they came under a lot of peer pressure to admit to their role. This is generally a bad thing for Rihanna because if every endorsement campaign she's involved in gets surrounded by this sort of controversy pretty soon the offers will stop coming in a Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) will have succeeded in destroying her career despite the best efforts of everybody.
You may remember that Rihanna recorded her part of the single in London, UK just before embarking on the third and final leg of the Diamonds World Tour. A lot of people think that it would have been a better idea for Rihanna to use this time to meet up with me in preparation. Then the fact that I've long been acknowledged as Eminem's psychological 'monster' meant that the song featuring Rihanna singing lyrics like "I'm friends with the monster" was Rihanna being tricked into publicly admitting that she is friends with me. That of course reinforces the idea that Rihanna really should have met up with me in person by now. The video for the song continues in this mocking theme.
The concept shows Eminem in a sort of psychiatric hospital setting (lots of straight jackets and padded cells etc) reviewing aspects from his life. The main aspects included feature the film "8 Mile" which is about Eminem's life which was released in 2002/3 just as I was exploding onto the global stage and being assigned the pseudonym "Eminem.". It also features snippets from the video for "The Way I Am" which features Eminem leaping from a tall building in an apparent suicide attempt. According to my medical/police records I once attempted suicide by leaping off a tall building. The video also features snippets of Eminem performing live with renowned homosexual and British gay rights activist Elton John. I'd hazard a guess that this collaboration was imposed on Eminem in order to send out the message that I am not homophobic. So the aspects of Eminem's life shown in the video are intended to highlight exactly why I'm acknowledged as his psychological 'monster'. All these events of course occurred during the Presidency of George W Bush during which time members of the US intelligence community were, in all seriousness, talking about sending one of the 'Eminems' to the actual Guantanamo Bay. Hence all the caged/prison and military imagery although I believe Eminem has an endorsement deal with one of the "Call of Duty" video games.
Apart from some obligatory hand dancing in a darkened room Rihanna's main role in the video is that of Eminem's psychiatrist/therapist. This is a reference to something I amongst others have picked up on during my time in contact with Rihanna. It seems that as far as she is concerned Rihanna has absolutely no problems in her life and every decision she makes is nothing short of perfect. However the rest of us - all the South Africans, the Filipino victims of Typhoon Haiyan, every victim of domestic violence/sexual violence worldwide and in particular me - we all have very serious problems and we need Rihanna to help us and look after us.
That makes Rihanna a perfect example of what Sigmund Freud termed "Psychological Projection." This is a phenomenon in which a person with significant emotional/personal problems seeks to avoid them by denying their existence and instead projecting them onto the people around them. Often the person doing the projecting will then attempt to solve these imagined problems by helping that other person. They cast themselves in the role of the person's therapist so to speak. Therefore the video for The Monster is clearly attempting to highlight this flaw in Rihanna's personality. If Rihanna is in on the joke this could have been an attempt at something positive. However in my experience when people realise they've been engaging in psychological projection it is often a humiliating experience that leaves them feeling emotionally vulnerable. Therefore having several million people point and laugh at you whilst it's happening has got to be the worst way to go about it. As such I hope there are plenty of people prepared to show Rihanna warmth for reasons other then the video. After all she seems intent on insisting that I can't be that person for her.
This reference to psychological projection actually leads me onto a wider concern I have about Rihanna at present. Having been developed in the 19th Century Freud's work on psychoanalysis has been discredited to the point of being useless to people suffering from genuine mental illness. However Freud inspired psychotherapies are still of use to people suffering from deep seated emotion problems - such as Rihanna. The problem is that psychotherapy is a very subtle process in which the intention is really for a person to realise certain things about themselves without really noticing that it is happening. By moving to New York City to avoid Chris Brown and indicating that she is smoking less marijuana Rihanna appears to be attempting to treat herself. This rarely works and can sometimes lead to a person going on to develop genuine mental illness such as personality disorders. With the risk of mental illness being quite low I think the best outcome of Rihanna's current situation is that nothing changes. The worst outcome is that Rihanna develops an over-analytical personality which destroys her ability to form meaningful relationships in the future and robs her of the warmth that helps make her so popular. I find this particularly frustrating because I know how easily all this could have been avoided if Rihanna had just picked up the phone following the 2012 para-Olympic closing ceremony.
The release of the Monster video was of course timed to coincide with a Court appearance by Chris Brown. Basically what happened here is that Judge Brandlin Gluber stuck to the script he followed at Chris Brown's last Court appearance. Brown had his probation revoked but no further action was taken because he is currently in a rehabilitation facility. The Court heard from that rehab facility which claimed that - against all prevailing scientific knowledge - it is successfully treating Chris Brown. Rather then blaming Brown's errant behaviour on a deep rooted personality disorder the rehab facility instead blamed it all on his marijuana use and claimed he is being responsive to psychotropic drugs. Although the exact nature of these psychotropic drugs was not disclosed I suspect they are remarkably similar to the psychotropic drugs I myself take. With Brown being magically rehabilitated the Court of course saw now need to impose a restraining order keeping Brown away from Rihanna or indeed any other woman. Brown is next scheduled to appear in Court in Washington D.C to answer an assault charge on January 8th 2014 (8/1/14) and will reappear in front of Brandlin Gluber at a yet to be specified date in February 2014. If justice is allowed to run its course Brown should be making that appearance via video link from a Washington D.C prison.
In order to maximise the drama surrounding his Court appearance Chris Brown yesterday released the record "Loyal" on the Internet. Featuring lyrics like "These B*tches aren't loyal!" this was supposed to give the impression that Brown was insulting Rihanna. The intention being that there is no need for a restraining order to be imposed because Brown is clearly over Rihanna and moving on with Kerruche Tran. However you don't need to be a psychoanalyst to know that a person who is constantly badmouthing their ex clearly isn't over that ex. The deeper analysis of the song "Loyal" which I somehow doubt the song writer told Chris Brown about is that it is a reference to Brown's CIA handler. This handler may or may not be a woman but I have assigned them the pseudonym "Carrie Mathison" - the mentally unstable character from the TV Show "Homeland." With this operation now having done substantial and practical damage to US interests internationally the intention being to promote discussion about whether 'Carrie' is been disloyal to the US by continuing to protect Chris Brown?
In a transparent attempt to reinforce the idea that there is no need for Chris Brown's restraining order to be reinstated Rihanna last night attended a party with A$AP Rocky in an attempt to fuel speculation that the two are now dating. As I've said before I think this is extremely unlikely but as with Drake before him the fact that A$AP Rocky is prepared to play along with this game means that in my book he now has a big, black mark against his name.
Also while I'm here it appears that I'm being blocked on Twitter by Kerruche Tran following some comments I made about her lack of an invitation to the American Music Awards. I think this is a shame because the point I was trying to make it that I think she is talented enough to make it in the industry without having to sully herself by dating Chris Brown.
17:10 on 17/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 14:25 on 18/12/13 (UK date) to add;
Also on Monday it was announced that Rihanna is to be the face of the French fashion house Balmain's Spring/Summer 2014 advertising campaign. In itself this is great news because it shows that Rihanna's reputation is still strong enough to enhance high end brands.
The problem is that is was leaving this photoshoot last Thursday (12/12/13) that Rihanna was photographed sporting a new Zindzi Mandela style haircut. Along with Rihanna's use of a picture of Nelson Mandela as her Twitter avatar this was quite offensive because it placed extra pressure on the South Africans to find out what, if any, message Rihanna and the US were trying to send just as the South Africans were preparing for Nelson Mandela's logistically challenging funeral. To make matters worse this photoshoot was accompanied by rumours that US Vogue magazine is to fly Rihanna to World Cup host Brazil in January 2014 for a photoshoot that will also help reduce the pressure for a career ending South American leg of the Diamonds World Tour. That of course created speculation that the story of the Brazil trip was just a lie and the whole thing was being used as a coded reference to the Balmain photoshoot actually being a Vogue photoshoot.
Therefore I think the way that Balmain not only announced their Rihanna campaign on the next working day but also identified everybody involved the photoshoot suggests that they came under a lot of peer pressure to admit to their role. This is generally a bad thing for Rihanna because if every endorsement campaign she's involved in gets surrounded by this sort of controversy pretty soon the offers will stop coming in a Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) will have succeeded in destroying her career despite the best efforts of everybody.
Saturday 14 December 2013
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: 1918 - 2013.
On December 5th 2013 (5/12/13) Nelson Mandela died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Johannesburg, South Africa at the age of 95. As with the assassination of John F Kennedy and the September 11th terrorist attacks this is one of those moments that you will always remember where you were when you heard the news. However this is not the first such world stopping moment that Mandela provided us with. That came on February 11th 1990 (11/2/90) when he was finally released from prison. I vividly remember that moment but being only 8 years old my main memory is of being very annoyed that the cartoons had been cancelled so we could watch this old man walk along a road. Since then though I've come to learn that Mandela was truly important.
Born in 1918 Mandela was born into a world white men were considered superior to all and black men were considered to be the lowest of the low. This was true to the extent that the Methodist missionaries who schooled Mandela decided that his given name Rolihlahla simply wasn't up to their standards so re-named him Nelson. Throughout the 1920's and 1930's this belief in racial superiority dominated with Germany's Nazis taking it to it's natural conclusion with the holocaust during which the 'inferior' races were simply exterminated. During the holocaust the Nazis also carried out a range of horrific medical experiments to prove their 'science' of eugenics. Fortunately though all the Nazis achieved was to completely disprove their theories.
So from the 1940's onwards this belief in racial superiority began to die out in most parts of the world. Everywhere that is except Mandela's South Africa which continued to insist on the innate superiority of white people over blacks and operated a system of apartheid to keep whites, coloureds and blacks apart in all areas of life such as employment, housing and even public bathrooms. Being both a black man and clever enough to qualify as a lawyer before the introduction of apartheid Mandela obviously objected to this and joined the African National Congress (ANC) which was set up to resist apartheid. Mandela eventually became a member of the ANC's national executive committee in 1950.
On March 21st 1960 (21/3/60) as part of the ANC's peaceful campaign against apartheid some 7000, mainly black, protesters gathered outside a police station in the Township of Sharpeville. The all white police officers responded to this by opening fire on the crowd killing 69 people in just 40 seconds. Later becoming known as the Sharpeville massacre this highlighted to Mandela and others that peaceful protest and civil disobedience simply would not be enough to end apartheid. So on March 26th 1961 (26/3/61) Mandela formed the "Spear of the Nation" (MK) group which was a guerrilla force based heavily on the tactics used by Che Guevara.
Over the following year the MK carried out multiple acts of sabotage against military buildings and government infrastructure including 57 co-ordinated bombings on Dingane's Day 1961 (16/12/61). Although the South African government had already declared the ANC to be an illegal organisation jailing many of its leaders including Mandela it took a very hard line with the MK and 1962 Mandela and 9 others were arrested on charges of sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government. Initially the Judge threw out the case but the government simply tried again and following what became known as the Rivonia trial 9 of the 10, including Mandela, were convicted in June 1964 and sentenced to life in prison very narrowly escaping the death penalty.
Mandela spent the first 18 years of his prison sentence in Robben Island where the forced labour permanently damaged his lungs leading to him contracting tuberculosis and the glare of the sunlight permanently damaged his eyesight. From that prison cell where he was often kept in solitary confinement Mandela continued to play a leading role in the anti-apartheid struggle helping to keep it on just the right side of Communism and the just the right side of terrorism to be acceptable to western liberals. That campaign grew into the first and largest worldwide political campaign in history with people across the world protesting against the South African government, boycotting companies that traded with South Africa and many nations imposing sanctions on the South African government.
Due to that world wide campaign and the prisoners own protests Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison alongside other jailed ANC leaders in 1982. Taking advantage of the improved conditions in Pollsmoor Mandela began to negotiate directly with the South African President P.W Botha. With South Africa being crippled by international sanctions and being driven to the point of civil war with violent protests being crushed ever more violently by the police Botha offered to release Mandela in 1985 on the condition that Mandela gave up on his struggle. Mandela refused.
With the Cold War coming to an end and it becoming possible for western powers to drop their support for the South African government who - on a continent where the Cold War was often a real life shooting war - were massively strategically important Mandela was moved again to the comparatively luxurious Victor Verster prison in 1988. Finally being afforded the comforts befitting a man of his stature from prison Mandela successfully negotiated with South African President F.W de Klerk first for his own release and then the dismantling of the apartheid system.
Following his release in 1990 Mandela set about transitioning South Africa from apartheid rule to democratic rule. This was without doubt his greatest achievement. Firstly he resisted calls from many in the ANC to set up a socialist style government that would have seen South Africa's natural resources nationalised. He also resisted calls for white owned property to be seized and given to blacks as reparations as Robert Mugabe had done so disastrously in neighbouring Zimbabwe. Mandela also managed to keep the peace as South Africa was rocked by a series of massacres carried out by both supporters of apartheid and rivals to the ANC. Finally Mandela resisted calls for members of the apartheid regime to be tried and punished for their role in numerous atrocities instead setting up truth and reconciliation committees which allowed for people to admit to their crimes and be forgiven.
On May 10th 1994 (10/5/94) Mandela took up office as the first black President of South Africa following the first election in which all South Africans had been allowed to vote regardless of race. Aged 81 Mandela stepped down as President on June 14th 1999 following a hugely successful single term. After his retirement from politics Mandela remarried and set up the 46664 campaign against HIV/AIDS and the Nelson Mandela Foundation to combat HIV/AIDS, rural poverty and a lack on educational opportunity.
Tomorrow he finally gets to go home.
21:50 on 14/12/13 (UK date).
Born in 1918 Mandela was born into a world white men were considered superior to all and black men were considered to be the lowest of the low. This was true to the extent that the Methodist missionaries who schooled Mandela decided that his given name Rolihlahla simply wasn't up to their standards so re-named him Nelson. Throughout the 1920's and 1930's this belief in racial superiority dominated with Germany's Nazis taking it to it's natural conclusion with the holocaust during which the 'inferior' races were simply exterminated. During the holocaust the Nazis also carried out a range of horrific medical experiments to prove their 'science' of eugenics. Fortunately though all the Nazis achieved was to completely disprove their theories.
So from the 1940's onwards this belief in racial superiority began to die out in most parts of the world. Everywhere that is except Mandela's South Africa which continued to insist on the innate superiority of white people over blacks and operated a system of apartheid to keep whites, coloureds and blacks apart in all areas of life such as employment, housing and even public bathrooms. Being both a black man and clever enough to qualify as a lawyer before the introduction of apartheid Mandela obviously objected to this and joined the African National Congress (ANC) which was set up to resist apartheid. Mandela eventually became a member of the ANC's national executive committee in 1950.
On March 21st 1960 (21/3/60) as part of the ANC's peaceful campaign against apartheid some 7000, mainly black, protesters gathered outside a police station in the Township of Sharpeville. The all white police officers responded to this by opening fire on the crowd killing 69 people in just 40 seconds. Later becoming known as the Sharpeville massacre this highlighted to Mandela and others that peaceful protest and civil disobedience simply would not be enough to end apartheid. So on March 26th 1961 (26/3/61) Mandela formed the "Spear of the Nation" (MK) group which was a guerrilla force based heavily on the tactics used by Che Guevara.
Over the following year the MK carried out multiple acts of sabotage against military buildings and government infrastructure including 57 co-ordinated bombings on Dingane's Day 1961 (16/12/61). Although the South African government had already declared the ANC to be an illegal organisation jailing many of its leaders including Mandela it took a very hard line with the MK and 1962 Mandela and 9 others were arrested on charges of sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government. Initially the Judge threw out the case but the government simply tried again and following what became known as the Rivonia trial 9 of the 10, including Mandela, were convicted in June 1964 and sentenced to life in prison very narrowly escaping the death penalty.
Mandela spent the first 18 years of his prison sentence in Robben Island where the forced labour permanently damaged his lungs leading to him contracting tuberculosis and the glare of the sunlight permanently damaged his eyesight. From that prison cell where he was often kept in solitary confinement Mandela continued to play a leading role in the anti-apartheid struggle helping to keep it on just the right side of Communism and the just the right side of terrorism to be acceptable to western liberals. That campaign grew into the first and largest worldwide political campaign in history with people across the world protesting against the South African government, boycotting companies that traded with South Africa and many nations imposing sanctions on the South African government.
Due to that world wide campaign and the prisoners own protests Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison alongside other jailed ANC leaders in 1982. Taking advantage of the improved conditions in Pollsmoor Mandela began to negotiate directly with the South African President P.W Botha. With South Africa being crippled by international sanctions and being driven to the point of civil war with violent protests being crushed ever more violently by the police Botha offered to release Mandela in 1985 on the condition that Mandela gave up on his struggle. Mandela refused.
With the Cold War coming to an end and it becoming possible for western powers to drop their support for the South African government who - on a continent where the Cold War was often a real life shooting war - were massively strategically important Mandela was moved again to the comparatively luxurious Victor Verster prison in 1988. Finally being afforded the comforts befitting a man of his stature from prison Mandela successfully negotiated with South African President F.W de Klerk first for his own release and then the dismantling of the apartheid system.
Following his release in 1990 Mandela set about transitioning South Africa from apartheid rule to democratic rule. This was without doubt his greatest achievement. Firstly he resisted calls from many in the ANC to set up a socialist style government that would have seen South Africa's natural resources nationalised. He also resisted calls for white owned property to be seized and given to blacks as reparations as Robert Mugabe had done so disastrously in neighbouring Zimbabwe. Mandela also managed to keep the peace as South Africa was rocked by a series of massacres carried out by both supporters of apartheid and rivals to the ANC. Finally Mandela resisted calls for members of the apartheid regime to be tried and punished for their role in numerous atrocities instead setting up truth and reconciliation committees which allowed for people to admit to their crimes and be forgiven.
On May 10th 1994 (10/5/94) Mandela took up office as the first black President of South Africa following the first election in which all South Africans had been allowed to vote regardless of race. Aged 81 Mandela stepped down as President on June 14th 1999 following a hugely successful single term. After his retirement from politics Mandela remarried and set up the 46664 campaign against HIV/AIDS and the Nelson Mandela Foundation to combat HIV/AIDS, rural poverty and a lack on educational opportunity.
Tomorrow he finally gets to go home.
21:50 on 14/12/13 (UK date).
Friday 13 December 2013
Operation Misery: Month 10, Week 2, Day 2.
Yeah frankly I'm getting a bit bored of writing these.
However it appears that after being sent gifts from most of the world's top designers Rihanna has decided to move out of her New York City hotel room and move into her New York City apartment. My main concern of course is whether this apartment is being rented or is now owned outright. Obviously though I would hate for that question to be answered via the Internet. After all it does raise legitimate UK tax issues.
The specific UK tax issue raises relates to the - I think - 2012 Budget in which 'we' decided to cut down on tax evasion by imposing stamp duty (sales tax) on properties owned by corporations. At the time I believe I opposed this on the grounds that certain corporations did need - from time to time - to bring in specialised staff on temporary contracts. Live Nation is a perfect example of such a corporation. I mean not only last year did they bring in Justin Beiber, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Beyonce but this year they intend to bring in Beyonce and Miley Cyrus to name but a few. So surely rather then renting just the same hotel suite in my name it would just be much easier for them to buy a few O2 adjacent apartments in the London Docklands and stock them with staff as needs be.
The big problem though is that Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) don't appear to have accepted that the long since dead Diamonds World Tour (DWT) won't be resurrected in South America. As a result they seem to be keeping Rihanna pepped on pre-tour energy. So she's recently been kept busy in a recording studio and summoned to a photoshoot for US Vogue Magazine where she had her hair set up like Zindzi Mandela. Personally I like to think of this as just Rihanna's natural hair. After all this was rumoured as Rihanna travelling to Brazil for a photoshoot. I stand by my Twitter (@Sovereignaka) comments that US Vogue are now getting seriously tired of digging Rihanna out of the sh't.
Anyway in response to Beyonce's surprise iTunes album launch I believe Rihanna took to Instagram to blink - in morse code - that she is; "Totally Happy With Her Life!"
Unfortunately I then looked at what the rest of her crew stuck up on Instagram and decided that - much like the fresh pine on my new UPVC porch - sadly it's going to rot in place.
21:30 on 13/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 01:20 on 14/12/13 to add;
Back somewhere in the late 1970's this new music know as punk was born.
Somewhere in the fire and fury of that DIY ethos those who were good at music decided to play some.Those who were good at photography decided to take some. And those who were good at scribbling decided to write about it.
Sadly though amongst all those people there were some who were only good at partying. After they'd drunk, smoked, smiled and snorted those 'people' fell into the gutter. And they became known as;
The Gutter Punks!
However it appears that after being sent gifts from most of the world's top designers Rihanna has decided to move out of her New York City hotel room and move into her New York City apartment. My main concern of course is whether this apartment is being rented or is now owned outright. Obviously though I would hate for that question to be answered via the Internet. After all it does raise legitimate UK tax issues.
The specific UK tax issue raises relates to the - I think - 2012 Budget in which 'we' decided to cut down on tax evasion by imposing stamp duty (sales tax) on properties owned by corporations. At the time I believe I opposed this on the grounds that certain corporations did need - from time to time - to bring in specialised staff on temporary contracts. Live Nation is a perfect example of such a corporation. I mean not only last year did they bring in Justin Beiber, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Beyonce but this year they intend to bring in Beyonce and Miley Cyrus to name but a few. So surely rather then renting just the same hotel suite in my name it would just be much easier for them to buy a few O2 adjacent apartments in the London Docklands and stock them with staff as needs be.
The big problem though is that Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) don't appear to have accepted that the long since dead Diamonds World Tour (DWT) won't be resurrected in South America. As a result they seem to be keeping Rihanna pepped on pre-tour energy. So she's recently been kept busy in a recording studio and summoned to a photoshoot for US Vogue Magazine where she had her hair set up like Zindzi Mandela. Personally I like to think of this as just Rihanna's natural hair. After all this was rumoured as Rihanna travelling to Brazil for a photoshoot. I stand by my Twitter (@Sovereignaka) comments that US Vogue are now getting seriously tired of digging Rihanna out of the sh't.
Anyway in response to Beyonce's surprise iTunes album launch I believe Rihanna took to Instagram to blink - in morse code - that she is; "Totally Happy With Her Life!"
Unfortunately I then looked at what the rest of her crew stuck up on Instagram and decided that - much like the fresh pine on my new UPVC porch - sadly it's going to rot in place.
21:30 on 13/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 01:20 on 14/12/13 to add;
Back somewhere in the late 1970's this new music know as punk was born.
Somewhere in the fire and fury of that DIY ethos those who were good at music decided to play some.Those who were good at photography decided to take some. And those who were good at scribbling decided to write about it.
Sadly though amongst all those people there were some who were only good at partying. After they'd drunk, smoked, smiled and snorted those 'people' fell into the gutter. And they became known as;
The Gutter Punks!
Crisis in the Ukraine.
Throughout the Cold War western powers funded and co-ordinated anti-Communist pro-nationalist movements across the Soviet bloc such as the Solidarity movement in Poland. Equally the USSR funded and co-ordinated anti-Capitalist movements across the west such as the National Union of Miners (NUM) in the UK.
When the Cold War ended with the collapse of the USSR the Soviet money flowing into the west obviously ended with it. However the west continued to support groups within the old Soviet bloc in order to limit the political power of loyalists to Russia and to contain Russia by encircling the nation first with an ever expanding NATO military alliance and then an ever expanding European Union (EU) political and economic alliance.
The most notable of these was the 2004/5 Orange Revolution in the Ukraine which set about to oust the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and replace him with the pro-western Viktor Yushchenko. Almost immediately after seizing power in 2005 Yushchenko's government began to fall to pieces and was replaced by popular vote at the earliest opportunity in 2010. Unfortunately the Orange revolutionaries who are essentially made up of extreme right-wing Ukrainian nationalists/fascists led by Yuschenko's American wife continue to attempt to overthrow the Ukrainian government to this day taking the epically corrupt Yulia Tymoshenko as their unlikely heroine.
Perhaps the only good thing to come out of the Syria conflict has been a growing understanding in both the EU and Russia that this constant confrontation between the two regional powers does nobody any good. So in the run up to Ukraine signing a contentious economic co-operation deal with the EU the EU decided to make the immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko a condition of the agreement. The EU did this knowing full well that the Ukrainian government simply could not release Tymoshenko if for no other reason then she was rightfully convicted and jailed for stealing some USD188million from both Russia and the Ukrainian people. This was done by forcing Naftogaz to sign a supply deal with Russian Gazprom that Naftogaz then failed to honour with the money instead going into Tymoshenko's pockets. The intention being that the failure of the EU trade deal would trigger a small wave of anti-Yanukovych protests that would quickly burn out as the Orange revolutionaries would be exposed as western stooges and finally realise the error of their ways.
The problem was that the Orange revolutionaries are still so caught up in their own hype that they failed to realise that the failure of the trade deal was the EU withdrawing its support of them. Also the Orange revolutionaries are still very heavily dependent on US intelligence for funding and support. The US has a vested interested in keeping both the EU and Russia weak by keeping them in conflict with each other. Due to the conflict in Syria the US is also under great pressure from the Gulf Monarchies to keep up the pressure on Russia. The US seems unable to resist this pressure from the Gulf so the protests in the Ukraine look set to stumble on into a third week.
11:45 on 13/12/13 (UK date).
When the Cold War ended with the collapse of the USSR the Soviet money flowing into the west obviously ended with it. However the west continued to support groups within the old Soviet bloc in order to limit the political power of loyalists to Russia and to contain Russia by encircling the nation first with an ever expanding NATO military alliance and then an ever expanding European Union (EU) political and economic alliance.
The most notable of these was the 2004/5 Orange Revolution in the Ukraine which set about to oust the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and replace him with the pro-western Viktor Yushchenko. Almost immediately after seizing power in 2005 Yushchenko's government began to fall to pieces and was replaced by popular vote at the earliest opportunity in 2010. Unfortunately the Orange revolutionaries who are essentially made up of extreme right-wing Ukrainian nationalists/fascists led by Yuschenko's American wife continue to attempt to overthrow the Ukrainian government to this day taking the epically corrupt Yulia Tymoshenko as their unlikely heroine.
Perhaps the only good thing to come out of the Syria conflict has been a growing understanding in both the EU and Russia that this constant confrontation between the two regional powers does nobody any good. So in the run up to Ukraine signing a contentious economic co-operation deal with the EU the EU decided to make the immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko a condition of the agreement. The EU did this knowing full well that the Ukrainian government simply could not release Tymoshenko if for no other reason then she was rightfully convicted and jailed for stealing some USD188million from both Russia and the Ukrainian people. This was done by forcing Naftogaz to sign a supply deal with Russian Gazprom that Naftogaz then failed to honour with the money instead going into Tymoshenko's pockets. The intention being that the failure of the EU trade deal would trigger a small wave of anti-Yanukovych protests that would quickly burn out as the Orange revolutionaries would be exposed as western stooges and finally realise the error of their ways.
The problem was that the Orange revolutionaries are still so caught up in their own hype that they failed to realise that the failure of the trade deal was the EU withdrawing its support of them. Also the Orange revolutionaries are still very heavily dependent on US intelligence for funding and support. The US has a vested interested in keeping both the EU and Russia weak by keeping them in conflict with each other. Due to the conflict in Syria the US is also under great pressure from the Gulf Monarchies to keep up the pressure on Russia. The US seems unable to resist this pressure from the Gulf so the protests in the Ukraine look set to stumble on into a third week.
11:45 on 13/12/13 (UK date).
Tuesday 10 December 2013
I'll Let You Into a Secret
Rather then watching the painfully long Mandela memorial service I may have gone to the gym instead.
However I think the Obama/Castro handshake may have begun life as the ANC trying to remind America which side supported Apartheid and which side supported Mandela during the Cold War. Rather then simply taking it on the chin and snubbing Castro Obama instead decided to build his part by making it appear that this handshake symbolised something of great significance. The next person in the line-up might like to insist on a Rihanna concert if she wants to find out what exactly it signified.
Or to put it another way; "Isn't sweet when the Rihanna's, Miley Cyrus' and the American Music Awards of this world think they can come out and play(!)"
18:50 on 10/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 11:30 on 12/12/13 (UK date) to add;
It has now emerged that the sign language interpreter who was standing next to all the speakers during the memorial ceremony was just randomly waving his hands around rather then translating anything for deaf viewers. This of course has sent out the message globally that all the signs given out during the ceremony were in fact nonsense. This seems to be a specific reference to Obama's handshake with Castro and in particular its attempts to sell a Rihanna tour to the South Americans.
Inititally the South African government denied any knowledge of who the alleged sign language translator was prompting speculation of security failings and whether Obama actually knew to Castro was. Those arguments are of course nonsense because while the South African authorities might allow a stranger that close to the US President the US Secret Service most certainly would not.
The 'translator' has since come forward and attempted to explain away his behaviour as the product of a Schizophrenic episode. To anyone with even basic knowledge of psychology this is instantly recognisable as nonsense. However if you were so lacking in psychological knowledge to believe this excuse you may also have had serious trouble working out what was going on in Rihanna and Chris Brown's 'relationship' or find yourself believing that Chris Brown could be rehabilitated.
So yeah if the US wants any clearer indication that it should terminate Operation Misery and put Rihanna in direct contact with me so I can assist with her recovery it's that all the nations Rihanna visited on her tour along with a fair few she didn't now passionately dislike the US. In fact at least one is actively trying to overthrow the government that helped bring Rihanna to them.
However I think the Obama/Castro handshake may have begun life as the ANC trying to remind America which side supported Apartheid and which side supported Mandela during the Cold War. Rather then simply taking it on the chin and snubbing Castro Obama instead decided to build his part by making it appear that this handshake symbolised something of great significance. The next person in the line-up might like to insist on a Rihanna concert if she wants to find out what exactly it signified.
Or to put it another way; "Isn't sweet when the Rihanna's, Miley Cyrus' and the American Music Awards of this world think they can come out and play(!)"
18:50 on 10/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 11:30 on 12/12/13 (UK date) to add;
It has now emerged that the sign language interpreter who was standing next to all the speakers during the memorial ceremony was just randomly waving his hands around rather then translating anything for deaf viewers. This of course has sent out the message globally that all the signs given out during the ceremony were in fact nonsense. This seems to be a specific reference to Obama's handshake with Castro and in particular its attempts to sell a Rihanna tour to the South Americans.
Inititally the South African government denied any knowledge of who the alleged sign language translator was prompting speculation of security failings and whether Obama actually knew to Castro was. Those arguments are of course nonsense because while the South African authorities might allow a stranger that close to the US President the US Secret Service most certainly would not.
The 'translator' has since come forward and attempted to explain away his behaviour as the product of a Schizophrenic episode. To anyone with even basic knowledge of psychology this is instantly recognisable as nonsense. However if you were so lacking in psychological knowledge to believe this excuse you may also have had serious trouble working out what was going on in Rihanna and Chris Brown's 'relationship' or find yourself believing that Chris Brown could be rehabilitated.
So yeah if the US wants any clearer indication that it should terminate Operation Misery and put Rihanna in direct contact with me so I can assist with her recovery it's that all the nations Rihanna visited on her tour along with a fair few she didn't now passionately dislike the US. In fact at least one is actively trying to overthrow the government that helped bring Rihanna to them.
Friday 6 December 2013
Nelson Mandela
Last night (5/12/13) Nelson Mandela passed away peacefully at his home in Johannesburg aged 95. What I should be doing now is writing a tribute to mark the remarkable life of a remarkable man. Today though as with last night I still don't know where to start.
That is because unlike with the recent death of one of Mandela's contemporaries Margaret Thatcher there is no great controversy surrounding his life and death with one side mourning and another side celebrating. Instead there is just a universal sadness that one of the truly great figures of history is no longer with us.
So I will add to this over the coming days but in the meantime do not take my silence as a sign of disrespect or that I don't think this is important. It is just that I simply don't know what to say.
In fact I think the greatest tribute to Mandela is that as the news broke last night my entire neighbourhood fell silent as did many, many neighbourhoods across the world.
11:55 on 6/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:05 on 6/12/13 to add: Technically this is me on holiday.
Born in 1918 just weeks after the end of the First World War Nelson Mandela lived through the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Nazi holocaust, the start of the Cold War, the end of the Cold War and the fall of apartheid - something in which I believe he played a large part. He also ceded power to Thabo Mbeki and watched him fall. So I do not think that is a life that I can do justice to tonight.
However I think due respect must go to F.W De Klerk. After all he was South Africa's last apartheid President.
That is because unlike with the recent death of one of Mandela's contemporaries Margaret Thatcher there is no great controversy surrounding his life and death with one side mourning and another side celebrating. Instead there is just a universal sadness that one of the truly great figures of history is no longer with us.
So I will add to this over the coming days but in the meantime do not take my silence as a sign of disrespect or that I don't think this is important. It is just that I simply don't know what to say.
In fact I think the greatest tribute to Mandela is that as the news broke last night my entire neighbourhood fell silent as did many, many neighbourhoods across the world.
11:55 on 6/12/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:05 on 6/12/13 to add: Technically this is me on holiday.
Born in 1918 just weeks after the end of the First World War Nelson Mandela lived through the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Nazi holocaust, the start of the Cold War, the end of the Cold War and the fall of apartheid - something in which I believe he played a large part. He also ceded power to Thabo Mbeki and watched him fall. So I do not think that is a life that I can do justice to tonight.
However I think due respect must go to F.W De Klerk. After all he was South Africa's last apartheid President.
Wednesday 4 December 2013
Well That Was Jarring.
Since I've been about 16 my father (and actually initially my mother) has been providing me with a cellphone contract and every year the fixed cost part of the contract has been rolled over as a birthday gift. Since about 2009 I've been thinking I should take this contract over if for no other reason then the fact my father really hasn't come to terms with the concept of mobile Internet. The problem is that ever since 2009 I've been really busy around the time that the contract has come up for renewal mainly dealing with my father's chronic mismanagement of my grandmother's affairs so the contract kept getting rolled over.
Now inspite of the fact I've just come off the back of the busiest and most intense three weeks of my year my father decided this had to be done today. That gave me roughly 18 hours to learn everything there is to know about cellphone tariffs, network coverage and mobile device technology. This would have been achievable expect for the fact that yesterday afternoon I asked my father the very simple question of what is the existing contract was. He replied that he simply didn't have any idea so has apparently just been giving money to a cellphone provider over the years with no understanding of why.
This morning father did some research and managed to dig out some completely irrelevant information. So from the moment I woke up he has been bombarding me with this new information and a barrage of stupid questions as if I would be able to process any of it before he dragged me into a store and forced me to make a decision. Somehow I managed to turn this into a limited success by signing up for an affordable 12 month SIM only contract and a picking up a cheap second hand device to run it in until I'm able to sort out something more permanent.
The whole purpose of me taking over the contract was that I would be able to keep the same number. However since we've got back - and while I thought he was checking his emails - my father has been engaged in some marathon 2 hour webchat with the cellphone provider in which he managed to cancel the existing contract and get my number transferred over to a new pay as you go contract. Fortunately I was able to intervene at the last moment to cancel all that and will try again tomorrow by which point my father will hopefully have gained even the slightest hint of a clue about what he is trying to do.
So I have most certainly not spent today sitting around doing nothing. However it still feels a lot like my life has been wasted.
Incidentally while we were in town getting all this sorted we noticed that the new pedestrian walkway at East Croydon station had its grand opening today. All also having its grand opening today was the Green Climate Fund (GCF) which is headquartered in Korea. Coming on one of the anniversaries of my grandmother's death I can't help but worry that this is only going to make the UK more opposed to taking action on global warming.
18:20 on 4/12/13.
Now inspite of the fact I've just come off the back of the busiest and most intense three weeks of my year my father decided this had to be done today. That gave me roughly 18 hours to learn everything there is to know about cellphone tariffs, network coverage and mobile device technology. This would have been achievable expect for the fact that yesterday afternoon I asked my father the very simple question of what is the existing contract was. He replied that he simply didn't have any idea so has apparently just been giving money to a cellphone provider over the years with no understanding of why.
This morning father did some research and managed to dig out some completely irrelevant information. So from the moment I woke up he has been bombarding me with this new information and a barrage of stupid questions as if I would be able to process any of it before he dragged me into a store and forced me to make a decision. Somehow I managed to turn this into a limited success by signing up for an affordable 12 month SIM only contract and a picking up a cheap second hand device to run it in until I'm able to sort out something more permanent.
The whole purpose of me taking over the contract was that I would be able to keep the same number. However since we've got back - and while I thought he was checking his emails - my father has been engaged in some marathon 2 hour webchat with the cellphone provider in which he managed to cancel the existing contract and get my number transferred over to a new pay as you go contract. Fortunately I was able to intervene at the last moment to cancel all that and will try again tomorrow by which point my father will hopefully have gained even the slightest hint of a clue about what he is trying to do.
So I have most certainly not spent today sitting around doing nothing. However it still feels a lot like my life has been wasted.
Incidentally while we were in town getting all this sorted we noticed that the new pedestrian walkway at East Croydon station had its grand opening today. All also having its grand opening today was the Green Climate Fund (GCF) which is headquartered in Korea. Coming on one of the anniversaries of my grandmother's death I can't help but worry that this is only going to make the UK more opposed to taking action on global warming.
18:20 on 4/12/13.
Tuesday 3 December 2013
More Snowden Drivel.
Today the editor of the Guardian 'Newspaper' is appearing in front of a UK House of Commons select committee to answer questions about information it was provided with by US National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden. This has been billed very much as the UK government taking a tough line against those who jeopardise national security. This is of course all nonsense.
You may remember that shortly after I was arrested on that unfounded criminal damage allegation the US dispatched Snowden to Russia. Generally this was to exert pressure on Russia over Syria however it posed specific questions about whether I would skip police bail by attempting to seek asylum in a London Embassy. The fact that Katy Perry had already decided to name her album "Prism" by that point was just sort of the icing on the cake.
After I'd answered bail rather seeking asylum the Guardian newspaper arranged for David Miranda - the Brazilian partner of US journalist Glenn Greenwald - to be detained by UK police under anti-terrorism legislation. Apart from causing a lot of confusion the intention here was to promote discussion about an individuals legal rights whilst under police detention in the UK. Specifically it was to draw attention to the parts of the Police And Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984 that the police had wilfully violated during my detention.
Despite all this Snowden documents are still being released and people are still reading them as if the NSA hadn't intended for them to be in the public domain. The latest round of these included a revelation that the NSA had been spying on Islamists Internet porn habits. This was a reference to the fact when I'm watching Internet porn it's more a case of loads of people watching me watching Internet porn. The timing of this revelation was intended to exert pressure on people in Muslim nations - specifically Egypt - by making them feel very uncomfortable about watching me watching porn.
Slightly more interesting was the revelation that Brazil had signed a multi-million dollar deal to launch a secure communications satellite. The Snowden leak forced the Brazilian government to confirm this. Obviously this all occurred around the time of the COP19/CMP9 where satellites and technology transfers are always hot topics. It was also intended to make Brazil's neighbours paranoid that it was becoming the regional military power.
The really interesting bit though was they way that the satellite is to be built and launched used technology sourced from a variety of different nations. This sounded a lot like the way the Abdul Qadeer Khan network tried to sell nuclear weapons around the globe in the 1980's. Therefore the intention was to make Argentina jealous that Brazil was being included in the Iran negotiations and insist on a Rihanna concert in an effort to find out what was going on.
16:40 on 3/12/13 (UK date).
You may remember that shortly after I was arrested on that unfounded criminal damage allegation the US dispatched Snowden to Russia. Generally this was to exert pressure on Russia over Syria however it posed specific questions about whether I would skip police bail by attempting to seek asylum in a London Embassy. The fact that Katy Perry had already decided to name her album "Prism" by that point was just sort of the icing on the cake.
After I'd answered bail rather seeking asylum the Guardian newspaper arranged for David Miranda - the Brazilian partner of US journalist Glenn Greenwald - to be detained by UK police under anti-terrorism legislation. Apart from causing a lot of confusion the intention here was to promote discussion about an individuals legal rights whilst under police detention in the UK. Specifically it was to draw attention to the parts of the Police And Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984 that the police had wilfully violated during my detention.
Despite all this Snowden documents are still being released and people are still reading them as if the NSA hadn't intended for them to be in the public domain. The latest round of these included a revelation that the NSA had been spying on Islamists Internet porn habits. This was a reference to the fact when I'm watching Internet porn it's more a case of loads of people watching me watching Internet porn. The timing of this revelation was intended to exert pressure on people in Muslim nations - specifically Egypt - by making them feel very uncomfortable about watching me watching porn.
Slightly more interesting was the revelation that Brazil had signed a multi-million dollar deal to launch a secure communications satellite. The Snowden leak forced the Brazilian government to confirm this. Obviously this all occurred around the time of the COP19/CMP9 where satellites and technology transfers are always hot topics. It was also intended to make Brazil's neighbours paranoid that it was becoming the regional military power.
The really interesting bit though was they way that the satellite is to be built and launched used technology sourced from a variety of different nations. This sounded a lot like the way the Abdul Qadeer Khan network tried to sell nuclear weapons around the globe in the 1980's. Therefore the intention was to make Argentina jealous that Brazil was being included in the Iran negotiations and insist on a Rihanna concert in an effort to find out what was going on.
16:40 on 3/12/13 (UK date).
Friday 29 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 4, Day 4.
On Wednesday (27/11/13) evening Rihanna returned to a New York City hotel on the pretence of helping to support her brother's career as a DJ. However if I was to politicise this for a western audience I would say that it looked a lot like a glamorous version of a female victim of domestic violence being sent to local council run emergency Bed & Breakfast (B&B) accommodation. However if I were to say that experience tells me Rihanna would only use it to reaffirm her life choices by convincing herself that rather then f*cking up her life she is instead making a bold protest in support of the less fortunate.
Anyway just as I was waking up on Thursday (28/11/13), switching off one Blackberry, transferring the SIM card to another Blackberry and waiting for the Blackberry to boot up Rihanna took to Twitter/Instagram to confirm that not only is she in a New York even the hotel staff think she really needs to sort her life out. I of course responded in the most obscure way I could manage at the time.
Shortly after that the New York Police Department (NYPD) had to make the final decision over whether the nationally famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade could go ahead. Basically over the last week to ten days a winter storm has been making its way across the east coast of the US creating the possibility that wind speeds in New York could exceed the maximum safe limit for flying the balloons that the Macy's Day Parade is famous for. Although this storm had been weakening significantly over recent day someone from the NYPD still had to make the decision that the wind was within safe limits and give the balloons permission to fly. I like to think that the wind suddenly dropped off at the last minute in order to mock the notion that it is controlled by Rihanna by giving her permission to fly on to somewhere else.
That is of course the same NYPD who had to deal with Chris Brown getting beaten up by Drake. However I believe there is at least one rape investigation they bungled. I decided to highlight this point by Tweeting Chris Brown a picture of a stick man that was supposed to indicate the anatomical diagrams that are used in police investigations and trials to highlight where a victim has been injured. After all with my fingers still sore from the COP19/CMP9 post that was so much easier then simply typing all this up(!)
In between the start of the Macy's Day Parade and my COP19/CMP9 post the Twitter account of the British Monarchy posted an open invitation to visit the state apartments at Buckingham Palace that had been decorated especially for Christmas. This appeared to me to be the British Monarchy saying that it would quite literally roll out the red carpet for Rihanna to come and visit me especially if they were able to bug the room. I'm not sure if the British Monarchy realise that actually makes it far less likely that Rihanna will visit or whether we're just dealing with their usual level of stupidity.
Anyway long before that happened Justin Bieber decided to recreate the scandal he caused by spraying graffiti in Brazil by spraying some Chris Brown style graffiti on a wall in Australia. This was obviously intended to convince the South Americans (Brazil and Argentina are really the key markets) that Bieber was being used to have a very exciting discussion between the US and Australia about Rihanna. The idea being that the South Americans would be so intrigued by all this they would beg for Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour to be extended to they can have a good look at her.
Australia's response to this was nothing short of amazing. Firstly it fell to the local Mayor of the Gold Coast Tom Tait to respond. Local government such as Mayors was a big element of the COP19/CMP9 and apparently has also been something of an issue in Toronto in the fellow UK Commonwealth nation of Canada. Tait began by pointing out that Bieber was setting a bad example to local children all of whom would be sentenced to community service if they were caught doing the same thing. He then went on to announce that he was sending cleaning equipment to Bieber's hotel so he could remove the graffiti. Tait went on to list all the things he would put in that cleaning kit. For example there would be goggles to protect Bieber's beautiful eyes and gloves to prevent him from injuring his soft and delicate hands. So basically the extent of the bilateral was Australia telling the US to "F*ck off and grow up" whilst having a bit of a giggle their expense.
In the meantime the hotel has claimed that it owned the wall and had given Bieber permission to spray graffiti so I can't help but think Bieber is going to be mailed a revised bill after his stay. Ideally from the Sydney harbour hotel that Rihanna was forced to stay (twice).
15:55 on 29/11/13 (UK date).
Anyway just as I was waking up on Thursday (28/11/13), switching off one Blackberry, transferring the SIM card to another Blackberry and waiting for the Blackberry to boot up Rihanna took to Twitter/Instagram to confirm that not only is she in a New York even the hotel staff think she really needs to sort her life out. I of course responded in the most obscure way I could manage at the time.
Shortly after that the New York Police Department (NYPD) had to make the final decision over whether the nationally famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade could go ahead. Basically over the last week to ten days a winter storm has been making its way across the east coast of the US creating the possibility that wind speeds in New York could exceed the maximum safe limit for flying the balloons that the Macy's Day Parade is famous for. Although this storm had been weakening significantly over recent day someone from the NYPD still had to make the decision that the wind was within safe limits and give the balloons permission to fly. I like to think that the wind suddenly dropped off at the last minute in order to mock the notion that it is controlled by Rihanna by giving her permission to fly on to somewhere else.
That is of course the same NYPD who had to deal with Chris Brown getting beaten up by Drake. However I believe there is at least one rape investigation they bungled. I decided to highlight this point by Tweeting Chris Brown a picture of a stick man that was supposed to indicate the anatomical diagrams that are used in police investigations and trials to highlight where a victim has been injured. After all with my fingers still sore from the COP19/CMP9 post that was so much easier then simply typing all this up(!)
In between the start of the Macy's Day Parade and my COP19/CMP9 post the Twitter account of the British Monarchy posted an open invitation to visit the state apartments at Buckingham Palace that had been decorated especially for Christmas. This appeared to me to be the British Monarchy saying that it would quite literally roll out the red carpet for Rihanna to come and visit me especially if they were able to bug the room. I'm not sure if the British Monarchy realise that actually makes it far less likely that Rihanna will visit or whether we're just dealing with their usual level of stupidity.
Anyway long before that happened Justin Bieber decided to recreate the scandal he caused by spraying graffiti in Brazil by spraying some Chris Brown style graffiti on a wall in Australia. This was obviously intended to convince the South Americans (Brazil and Argentina are really the key markets) that Bieber was being used to have a very exciting discussion between the US and Australia about Rihanna. The idea being that the South Americans would be so intrigued by all this they would beg for Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour to be extended to they can have a good look at her.
Australia's response to this was nothing short of amazing. Firstly it fell to the local Mayor of the Gold Coast Tom Tait to respond. Local government such as Mayors was a big element of the COP19/CMP9 and apparently has also been something of an issue in Toronto in the fellow UK Commonwealth nation of Canada. Tait began by pointing out that Bieber was setting a bad example to local children all of whom would be sentenced to community service if they were caught doing the same thing. He then went on to announce that he was sending cleaning equipment to Bieber's hotel so he could remove the graffiti. Tait went on to list all the things he would put in that cleaning kit. For example there would be goggles to protect Bieber's beautiful eyes and gloves to prevent him from injuring his soft and delicate hands. So basically the extent of the bilateral was Australia telling the US to "F*ck off and grow up" whilst having a bit of a giggle their expense.
In the meantime the hotel has claimed that it owned the wall and had given Bieber permission to spray graffiti so I can't help but think Bieber is going to be mailed a revised bill after his stay. Ideally from the Sydney harbour hotel that Rihanna was forced to stay (twice).
15:55 on 29/11/13 (UK date).
I Will Go to the Gym.
And I will also clean the bathroom, cook dinner and have a relaxing evening in front of the TV. If I get time I will also try and add detail the US' SpaceX tantrum. Basically during the COP19/CMP9 the US scheduled a launch of it's new public/private partnership Space X rocket. This was obviously an attempt to inflame the COP19/CMP9 by the US claiming that it does enough to combat climate change by funding all the satellites. After now two failed launches and the US attacking one of it's own military bases in Japan with bottle rockets this has sort of turned into the US screaming at the entire Asia-Pacific region; "We should have won! WE SHOULD HAVE WON!!!!!!"
Before I do that though I feel I have to point out that whilst I was trying to put together all the REDD+ stuff I chanced upon a promoted Tweet from the Terrence Higgans Trust offering a free postal HIV test. I obviously clicked on it to find out what the hell a postal HIV test is. Turns out it's just your standard 4th generation 20 minute HIV test. However after performing the test at home you then have to post it off so someone can read the result for you and then post you back a letter containing the result.
In fact I strongly suspect that the Terrence Higgans Trust only paid for the promoted Tweet and indeed the scheme in order to protest UK legislation that prevents someone receiving a HIV test result without medical supervision. After all posting the test off to a medical professional who reads the result before communicating the result to the test subject certainly gets around the legislation but also makes the legislation look a bit silly in the process.
13:00 on 29/11/13.
Before I do that though I feel I have to point out that whilst I was trying to put together all the REDD+ stuff I chanced upon a promoted Tweet from the Terrence Higgans Trust offering a free postal HIV test. I obviously clicked on it to find out what the hell a postal HIV test is. Turns out it's just your standard 4th generation 20 minute HIV test. However after performing the test at home you then have to post it off so someone can read the result for you and then post you back a letter containing the result.
In fact I strongly suspect that the Terrence Higgans Trust only paid for the promoted Tweet and indeed the scheme in order to protest UK legislation that prevents someone receiving a HIV test result without medical supervision. After all posting the test off to a medical professional who reads the result before communicating the result to the test subject certainly gets around the legislation but also makes the legislation look a bit silly in the process.
13:00 on 29/11/13.
The Things That Keep Me Up at Night.
Subtitled; CAR 101.
Basically there is this central African region that is rich in natural assets such as diamonds. So a little while ago a group of Seleka (literally "rebel") formed an Alliance (I kid you not) to sweep across the Central African Republic (CAR) to install Michel Djotodia as the coup prone nations latest President. Turns out this was a bit of a mistake because Djotobia's government quickly ran out of money so Seleka were dispatched to loot and steal anything they could lay their hands on to fill the government coffers.
This state run looting quickly developed into just general looting, raping and killing. In response people began to organise through friends and relatives to set up loose neighbourhood defence groups. So far this has managed to keep the carnage within the regional averages of bloodshed. The worry though is that an event such as that which recently occurred in the Dominican Republic could occur in the CAR.
Basically what happened in the Dominican Republic was that a woman was beaten and killed in her home during a botched robbery. The local crowds decided that the murder was committed by Haitian immigrants causing a wave of anti-Haitian protests. The Dominican government responded by stripping roughly 200,000 Haitians of their Dominican citizenship in what very closely resembles an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
If a similar flash point were to occur in the CAR the worry is that these neighbourhood defence groups would quickly turn on each other creating a situation that is exactly like the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Officially it was the prospect of a repeat of the Rwandan genocide that prompted the world to intervene in Libya.
Needless to say the situation in the CAR is now being picked up on the fringes of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Nations such as the US seem to be in favour of increasing the funding of the African force that has been in the nation throughout all of this including 13 South African troops who were killed when Djotobia was swept to power. However a lot of other people have suggested deploying a UN peacekeeping force of around 9000 and France has already deployed 1000 troops.
As the French troops are in the nation with the nominal permission of the CAR government there is strictly speaking no need for a UN mandate however it seems likely that the UNSC is going to have to vote soon on a Chapter 7 resolution authorising the use of military force. On one hand local African troops would certainly benefit from the leadership and oversight of a UN mission in what is largely going to be a policing operation to keep the lid on things. On the other hand though the main problem is going to be separating the CAR's government from the people who are going to need to be on the receiving end of some hardcore violence.
11:10 on 29/11/13 (UK date).
Basically there is this central African region that is rich in natural assets such as diamonds. So a little while ago a group of Seleka (literally "rebel") formed an Alliance (I kid you not) to sweep across the Central African Republic (CAR) to install Michel Djotodia as the coup prone nations latest President. Turns out this was a bit of a mistake because Djotobia's government quickly ran out of money so Seleka were dispatched to loot and steal anything they could lay their hands on to fill the government coffers.
This state run looting quickly developed into just general looting, raping and killing. In response people began to organise through friends and relatives to set up loose neighbourhood defence groups. So far this has managed to keep the carnage within the regional averages of bloodshed. The worry though is that an event such as that which recently occurred in the Dominican Republic could occur in the CAR.
Basically what happened in the Dominican Republic was that a woman was beaten and killed in her home during a botched robbery. The local crowds decided that the murder was committed by Haitian immigrants causing a wave of anti-Haitian protests. The Dominican government responded by stripping roughly 200,000 Haitians of their Dominican citizenship in what very closely resembles an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
If a similar flash point were to occur in the CAR the worry is that these neighbourhood defence groups would quickly turn on each other creating a situation that is exactly like the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Officially it was the prospect of a repeat of the Rwandan genocide that prompted the world to intervene in Libya.
Needless to say the situation in the CAR is now being picked up on the fringes of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Nations such as the US seem to be in favour of increasing the funding of the African force that has been in the nation throughout all of this including 13 South African troops who were killed when Djotobia was swept to power. However a lot of other people have suggested deploying a UN peacekeeping force of around 9000 and France has already deployed 1000 troops.
As the French troops are in the nation with the nominal permission of the CAR government there is strictly speaking no need for a UN mandate however it seems likely that the UNSC is going to have to vote soon on a Chapter 7 resolution authorising the use of military force. On one hand local African troops would certainly benefit from the leadership and oversight of a UN mission in what is largely going to be a policing operation to keep the lid on things. On the other hand though the main problem is going to be separating the CAR's government from the people who are going to need to be on the receiving end of some hardcore violence.
11:10 on 29/11/13 (UK date).
Thursday 28 November 2013
COP19/CMP9: A Review.
Ever since Svante Arrhenius quantified the way in which greenhouse gases (ghg's) trap heat back in 1896 scientists have speculated that increasing the amount of ghg's in the earth's atmosphere could cause global temperatures to rise. Following the start of the space race in the 1950's which saw us put increasing numbers of satellites into orbit to measure things like the volume of ghg's in the atmosphere and global temperature the volume of evidence to support this theory has only increased.
So much so that in 1995 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held it's first Conference of Parties (COP) Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Unfortunately many developing nations saw this as an opportunity to try and con large amounts of money out of developed nations while developed nations saw it as an opportunity to give developing nations small amounts of money in return for trapping the developing nations into complex negotiations they didn't really understand.
While the politicians had their fun though the levels of ghg gases continued to increase and the earth's temperature continued so rise bringing us to a point where UNFCCC negotiations couldn't really continue without the developed nations actually doing something. So in 2012 the developed nations insisted that the 18th COP (COP18/CMP8) should be held in Doha, Qatar - a nation whose entire existence is dependent on other nations continuing to release ghg gases by burning the fossil fuels that Qatar produces. The hope being that this Summit would go so badly that no-one would turn up for the 2013 Summit and the whole issue could be quietly forgotten about.
Fortunately though the process just about survived and the 2013 COP Summit (COP19/CMP9) took place between November 11th (11/11/13) and November 23rd (23/11/13) in Warsaw, Poland. Unfortunately though rather then making any major leaps forward in the battle against climate change the COP19/CMP9 was all about steadying the ship after the storm, checking for damage and trying to agree in which direction to sail next.
This task was not made any easier by the fact that many seemed intent for the maelstrom to continue. Lead amongst these was the US who - as I've explained at great length - sent the popstar Rihanna on a 9 month world tour with the intention of getting everybody so confused, frustrated and angry that they would have spent the summit arguing about whether it is ghg gases or Rihanna's mood swings that are the main driving force behind climate change. Then there was the UK who put me on trial over allegations of criminal damage on the second of the COP19/CMP9. After the case was dismissed through a lack of evidence the UK proceeded to attempt to further disrupt the summit by wildly speculating which criminal conspiracy was responsible for bringing me to trial. Then of course the Gulf and European Monarchies were continuing to try and bash Russia and Iran over Syria's continuing attempts to repel the Saudi and Qatari invasion of their county.
Under those circumstances you wouldn't imagine that anybody would be able to get anything done but still the COP19/CMP9 set about it's task of adding flesh to the bones of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) which was established at the COP17/CMP7 Summit in Durban, South Africa to provide a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. Prior to the start of the COP19/CMP9 six main areas were identified as needing progress in order to allow the ADP to take shape;
Mitigation; This covers all the ways in which nations can reduce their ghg emissions through for example capping the emissions from power stations or designing new cities so they use less energy to begin with.
Adaptation; This covers all the ways that nations can adapt to the increased environmental hazards such as desertification, flooding and typhoons/hurricanes that increased global temperatures bring.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This covers finding technological solutions to both mitigation and adaptation problems and finding a way to meet the cost of implementing those new technologies.
Economic Instruments; This covers all the economic mechanisms such as simple donations from one nation to another through to things such as loan guarantees and carbon credit trading schemes that are supposed to help pay for the technical solutions mentioned above.
Transparency; This covers the oversight of all the data required in the above four areas such as money spent and emissions reduced in order to make sure that it is accurate and not fraudulent.
Periodic Review; This highly technical area simply covers the way in which all the technical data is periodically reviewed in order assess what if any effect all the mitigation and adaptation actions are having in order to give us a clearer understanding of the world around us.
While it was wrestling with these complex topics the COP19/CMP9 was also stung by some inflammatory announcements by nations on matters actually relating to the UNFCCC;
On Wednesday November 12th (12/11/13) the Australian government announced that it was introducing a Parliamentary bill to scrap a ghg emissions tax and replace it with an incentive scheme that would reward business for voluntarily reducing their ghg emission. This obviously looked like Australia giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However the bill is not expected to pass the upper house of Parliament so seems intended to promote discussion within Australia about whether the vaguely Communist carbon tax is the best way to proceed when the ADP favours carbon credit trading schemes.
On Friday November 15th (15/11/13) the Japanese government announced that is scrapping it's target to reduce its ghg emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020 and instead introducing a target of 3.8% which actually represents a 3% increase on 1990 levels. Again this looked very much like Japan giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However this is something we've all really known Japan was going to have to do since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima nuclear power plant forcing Japan to replace all 50 of its nuclear power plants with coal and natural gas fired power plants simply to keep the lights on. Therefore I think this was Japan making its shameful admission while apologetically trying to highlight the importance of having a diverse energy policy and drawing attention to the fact nuclear is such a dangerous form on energy that should not be considered a technological solution under the ADP. That last point also seemed to be an effort to discourage non-nuclear nations from getting to caught up with the Iran nuclear talks that both the US and the European Union (EU) were trying to disrupt the COP19/CMP9 with.
On Monday November 18th (18/11/13) the Canadian government admitted that it had only succeed in cutting its ghg emissions by 4.8% of 2005 levels meaning they are only one quarter of the way to the 17% cut on 2005 levels they'd pledged to achieve by 2020. This was simply Stephen Harper's government giving COP19/CMP9 the finger.
Despite all this and an unscheduled extra day of negotiations the COP19/CMP9 did succeed in making significant and real if highly technical progress in some significant areas;
Mitigation; In this critical area there was sadly very little progress. That is because with sadly too many people clinging to the Kyoto Protocol notion of Annex I developed nations and Annex II developing nations progress here would require developed nations to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMCs) which essentially means emissions cuts. Developing nations would have to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) which are essentially green development plans. Unfortunately the developed nations have no real desire to submit NAMCs and the developing nations are holding off submitting NAMAs in an attempt to leverage developed nations into action. This strikes me as an extremely foolish negotiating position by the developing nations because deadlocking negotiations actually gives the developed nations exactly what they want. Also it prevents the developing nations taking advantage of the benefits that NAMAs offer them. Take Nigeria as an example that I'm just familiar with. One of their main economic development problems is that they lack a national power grid which forces people to generate their own electricity using kerosene powered generators. This is both very expensive and very polluting. Therefore by classing building a national power grid as a mitigation action in its NAMA Nigeria could take advantage of the technical expertise, technology and funding mechanisms available through the ADP.
Adaptation; This is the area that saw the most, erm, exciting progress with the adoption of the "Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism." This is important because it creates a mechanism in which the way that loss and damage caused by climate hazards can be properly quantified. Primarily this gives us a much clearer idea of exactly what the problems created by climate change are and how effective our solutions to those problems are being. With the Warsaw mechanism being overseen by an executive committee of experts this also helps bring technologically advanced and less technologically advanced nations together offering the less advanced nations technical assistance. The increased oversight also helps build confidence amongst donor nations and private sector partners that their investments are producing results rather then helping line the pockets of corrupt local officials.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This is another area where progress is extremely hard work. Essentially the problem is that developing nations are still insisting that donations from developed nations should be the primary source of all funding (Capacity building is often used as a codeword for "more funding"). Developed nation are simply not agreeing to this.
However the COP19/CMP9 was successful in making progress in consolidating the various funds into the single Adaptation Fund and placing it under the control of the Adaptation Committee to increase the fiduciary oversight of how its funds are dispersed. In return developed nations not only met the Adaptation Funds target of USD180million but exceeded it by USD4million. Further more at COP19/CMP9 great effort was made to involve the private sector in the Green Climate Fund (GCF) although this drew some ire from certain developing nations for being too capitalist.
Again I think this is the developing nations making a mistake by trading help that is available for help that is unlikely to ever arrive. Take for example the Sahara which is a case study always comes up in climate negotiations because something is causing that desert to expand. All there is in the Sahara is sand, sunlight and the occasional Islamic terrorist. The human race is now at the point where it can turn sunlight into electrical energy. Obviously country specific, inter alia work needs to be done but many have suggested that building solar farms in the Sahara could not only produce enough electricity for north Africa and the Sahel belt but also parts of southern Europe. The problem is that often the nations that surround the Sahara that lack basic power grids and certainly don't have the money to build solar farms. What the GCF is set up to do is put any one of these nations in contact with a private company that builds solar farms and provide loan guarantees that would allow the nation to pay back the cost of the construction through the revenue from the sale of the electricity over a period of 25-50 years in what is essentially a very complicated mortgage deal.
Economic Instruments; This is an area where absolutely no direct progress was made. Although there are issues tied up with the GCF the primary economic instrument that everybody is pursuing is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which is funded through the capping of ghg emissions and the trading of permits to exceed those caps. The primary problem is that with that very few nations imposing caps on ghg emissions the market for permits and therefore the revenue they generate has collapsed. The other main problem is that socialist nations, primarily ones in South America along with full blown Communist nations in South-East Asia refuse to participate in the CDM because it's Capitalist and instead prefer to use negotiations about it as a way to rage against America.
As if to highlight how stupid these nations are being on Tuesday (26/11/13) the world's largest Communist nation, China opened a carbon trading market in Shanghai that will serve around 22 million people. Today China opened a carbon trading market in Beijing that will serve 20 million people. In December China will open a carbon trading market in Guangdong that will serve around 100million people making it the world's second largest carbon trading market behind the EU. With Mexico also opening a carbon trading market on Tuesday this growing global commitment to the principles of the CDM seems to have shamed certain European nations into actions with Switzerland buying up USD109million worth of carbon permits, the UK buying up USD80million worth and Norway buying up USD50million. These nations don't really have any need for those permits but the extra USD239million should help keep the CDM afloat until something more permanent can be worked out.
Although they are important in their own right the areas of Transparency and Periodic Review tend to be covered through negotiations about the other areas so I won't give a specific progress report on them. However the increased transparency achieved through the setting up of the Warsaw mechanism on Loss and Damage and the Adaptation Committee will certainly make progress in the quality of the data that is available for periodic review.
A sort of progress was also made on the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation plus (REDD+) project. Throughout its history - long before humans turned up - the earth has regulated the amount of ghg's in it's atmosphere through forests absorbing the ghg's emitted by things like volcanoes and turning it into oxygen and ever bigger trees. Therefore as something of an oxygen addict I think it is absolutely essential that developing nations are given an incentive to leave their forests intact rather then cutting them down for economic development as we did in the developed world. Ideally this would be done through an emissions trading scheme that allows nations with large forests to charge nations without large forests for doing the job of cleaning up their ghg emissions. Unfortunately we're having a bit of trouble putting that together so instead we're left with REDD+ which has got to be the most dodgy of all the projects to tackle global warming.
The main problem is that while most people are happy for this to be funded through a market-based carbon trading mechanism (especially if it doesn't cost them any money) the predominately socialist South American nations where most of the worlds forest are located instead want it to be funded through donations from capitalist nations - sort of 'Red Fund' if you will. This failure to agree how anti-deforestation projects should be funded has meant that up to now REDD+ has operated on an extremely ad-hoc basis with specific developed nations doing specific bilateral deals with specific developing nations over specific bits of forest.
In certain areas this approach has had limited success. However in South America it has largely resulted in corrupt officials taking money from donor nations to protect areas of forest whilst at the same time taking even larger sums of money from loggers and ranchers to cut down those same areas of forest. As a result in 2012 the rate of South American deforestation rose by about 30% despite all these very large sums of money.
In central Africa where the second largest amount of forests are located REDD+ has been even more devastating. Here rather then tackling deforestation developed nations have largely been using relatively small REDD+ donations to trick relatively weak governments into complex negotiations that have nothing whatsoever to do with deforestation or climate change.
The obvious sexual innuendo of asking things like; "Whose got the most wood? What are you going to do with your wood? and Can you keep your wood up?" means that more often then not REDD+ discussions actually turn into discussions about HIV/AIDS. Incase the sexual innuendo wasn't enough REDD+ also shares it's name with Live Nation supported "(RED)" charity set up to deal with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Discussions about HIV/AIDS in Africa are complicated enough on their own because they touch on issues such as colonial powers using contraception to control indigenous populations, sexual politics, homosexuality and religion to name but a few.
Also when we say that central Africa is one of the most resource rich regions on earth the resource we are primarily talking about is wood and timber. The illegal cutting, smuggling and sale of timber is often used to fund the myriad of vicious little conflicts that are going on in the region. So although I have no evidence to support it I have strong suspicions that REDD+ money has been used to fund groups like the M23, Seleka and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA).
So although there is some good work being done I personally would have liked to have seen REDD+ scrapped entirely. However with the CDM on its knees the scrapping of REDD+ would have caused many developing nations to completely lose faith and pull out of the UNFCCC entirely. So instead what happened is that REDD+ became a formal project with all funds being disbursed by the World Bank's BioCarbon fund. Before a project can be considered for funds it must first be submitted for assessment by a panel of technical experts who will consider it against defined benchmarks. If a project is successful and receives funds it will be periodically reviewed by both the technical panel and the World Bank who despite their many faults do not have a reputation for tolerating corruption. To incentivise this cleaning up of REDD+ Norway (USD135million), the UK (USD120million) and the US (USD25million) eventually agreed to allow the USD280m they'd contributed to the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) to be used to fund REDD+.
So in summary although it produced nothing in the way of headline grabbing or campaign slogan satisfying big announcements and while there is clearly still a lot of work to do COP19/CMP9 was an extremely successful summit that far exceeded both mine and I think anyone's expectations of what could be achieved.
20:20 on 28/11/13 (UK date).
So much so that in 1995 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held it's first Conference of Parties (COP) Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Unfortunately many developing nations saw this as an opportunity to try and con large amounts of money out of developed nations while developed nations saw it as an opportunity to give developing nations small amounts of money in return for trapping the developing nations into complex negotiations they didn't really understand.
While the politicians had their fun though the levels of ghg gases continued to increase and the earth's temperature continued so rise bringing us to a point where UNFCCC negotiations couldn't really continue without the developed nations actually doing something. So in 2012 the developed nations insisted that the 18th COP (COP18/CMP8) should be held in Doha, Qatar - a nation whose entire existence is dependent on other nations continuing to release ghg gases by burning the fossil fuels that Qatar produces. The hope being that this Summit would go so badly that no-one would turn up for the 2013 Summit and the whole issue could be quietly forgotten about.
Fortunately though the process just about survived and the 2013 COP Summit (COP19/CMP9) took place between November 11th (11/11/13) and November 23rd (23/11/13) in Warsaw, Poland. Unfortunately though rather then making any major leaps forward in the battle against climate change the COP19/CMP9 was all about steadying the ship after the storm, checking for damage and trying to agree in which direction to sail next.
This task was not made any easier by the fact that many seemed intent for the maelstrom to continue. Lead amongst these was the US who - as I've explained at great length - sent the popstar Rihanna on a 9 month world tour with the intention of getting everybody so confused, frustrated and angry that they would have spent the summit arguing about whether it is ghg gases or Rihanna's mood swings that are the main driving force behind climate change. Then there was the UK who put me on trial over allegations of criminal damage on the second of the COP19/CMP9. After the case was dismissed through a lack of evidence the UK proceeded to attempt to further disrupt the summit by wildly speculating which criminal conspiracy was responsible for bringing me to trial. Then of course the Gulf and European Monarchies were continuing to try and bash Russia and Iran over Syria's continuing attempts to repel the Saudi and Qatari invasion of their county.
Under those circumstances you wouldn't imagine that anybody would be able to get anything done but still the COP19/CMP9 set about it's task of adding flesh to the bones of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) which was established at the COP17/CMP7 Summit in Durban, South Africa to provide a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. Prior to the start of the COP19/CMP9 six main areas were identified as needing progress in order to allow the ADP to take shape;
Mitigation; This covers all the ways in which nations can reduce their ghg emissions through for example capping the emissions from power stations or designing new cities so they use less energy to begin with.
Adaptation; This covers all the ways that nations can adapt to the increased environmental hazards such as desertification, flooding and typhoons/hurricanes that increased global temperatures bring.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This covers finding technological solutions to both mitigation and adaptation problems and finding a way to meet the cost of implementing those new technologies.
Economic Instruments; This covers all the economic mechanisms such as simple donations from one nation to another through to things such as loan guarantees and carbon credit trading schemes that are supposed to help pay for the technical solutions mentioned above.
Transparency; This covers the oversight of all the data required in the above four areas such as money spent and emissions reduced in order to make sure that it is accurate and not fraudulent.
Periodic Review; This highly technical area simply covers the way in which all the technical data is periodically reviewed in order assess what if any effect all the mitigation and adaptation actions are having in order to give us a clearer understanding of the world around us.
While it was wrestling with these complex topics the COP19/CMP9 was also stung by some inflammatory announcements by nations on matters actually relating to the UNFCCC;
On Wednesday November 12th (12/11/13) the Australian government announced that it was introducing a Parliamentary bill to scrap a ghg emissions tax and replace it with an incentive scheme that would reward business for voluntarily reducing their ghg emission. This obviously looked like Australia giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However the bill is not expected to pass the upper house of Parliament so seems intended to promote discussion within Australia about whether the vaguely Communist carbon tax is the best way to proceed when the ADP favours carbon credit trading schemes.
On Friday November 15th (15/11/13) the Japanese government announced that is scrapping it's target to reduce its ghg emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020 and instead introducing a target of 3.8% which actually represents a 3% increase on 1990 levels. Again this looked very much like Japan giving the COP19/CMP9 the finger. However this is something we've all really known Japan was going to have to do since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima nuclear power plant forcing Japan to replace all 50 of its nuclear power plants with coal and natural gas fired power plants simply to keep the lights on. Therefore I think this was Japan making its shameful admission while apologetically trying to highlight the importance of having a diverse energy policy and drawing attention to the fact nuclear is such a dangerous form on energy that should not be considered a technological solution under the ADP. That last point also seemed to be an effort to discourage non-nuclear nations from getting to caught up with the Iran nuclear talks that both the US and the European Union (EU) were trying to disrupt the COP19/CMP9 with.
On Monday November 18th (18/11/13) the Canadian government admitted that it had only succeed in cutting its ghg emissions by 4.8% of 2005 levels meaning they are only one quarter of the way to the 17% cut on 2005 levels they'd pledged to achieve by 2020. This was simply Stephen Harper's government giving COP19/CMP9 the finger.
Despite all this and an unscheduled extra day of negotiations the COP19/CMP9 did succeed in making significant and real if highly technical progress in some significant areas;
Mitigation; In this critical area there was sadly very little progress. That is because with sadly too many people clinging to the Kyoto Protocol notion of Annex I developed nations and Annex II developing nations progress here would require developed nations to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMCs) which essentially means emissions cuts. Developing nations would have to submit Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) which are essentially green development plans. Unfortunately the developed nations have no real desire to submit NAMCs and the developing nations are holding off submitting NAMAs in an attempt to leverage developed nations into action. This strikes me as an extremely foolish negotiating position by the developing nations because deadlocking negotiations actually gives the developed nations exactly what they want. Also it prevents the developing nations taking advantage of the benefits that NAMAs offer them. Take Nigeria as an example that I'm just familiar with. One of their main economic development problems is that they lack a national power grid which forces people to generate their own electricity using kerosene powered generators. This is both very expensive and very polluting. Therefore by classing building a national power grid as a mitigation action in its NAMA Nigeria could take advantage of the technical expertise, technology and funding mechanisms available through the ADP.
Adaptation; This is the area that saw the most, erm, exciting progress with the adoption of the "Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism." This is important because it creates a mechanism in which the way that loss and damage caused by climate hazards can be properly quantified. Primarily this gives us a much clearer idea of exactly what the problems created by climate change are and how effective our solutions to those problems are being. With the Warsaw mechanism being overseen by an executive committee of experts this also helps bring technologically advanced and less technologically advanced nations together offering the less advanced nations technical assistance. The increased oversight also helps build confidence amongst donor nations and private sector partners that their investments are producing results rather then helping line the pockets of corrupt local officials.
Finance, Technology and Capacity Building; This is another area where progress is extremely hard work. Essentially the problem is that developing nations are still insisting that donations from developed nations should be the primary source of all funding (Capacity building is often used as a codeword for "more funding"). Developed nation are simply not agreeing to this.
However the COP19/CMP9 was successful in making progress in consolidating the various funds into the single Adaptation Fund and placing it under the control of the Adaptation Committee to increase the fiduciary oversight of how its funds are dispersed. In return developed nations not only met the Adaptation Funds target of USD180million but exceeded it by USD4million. Further more at COP19/CMP9 great effort was made to involve the private sector in the Green Climate Fund (GCF) although this drew some ire from certain developing nations for being too capitalist.
Again I think this is the developing nations making a mistake by trading help that is available for help that is unlikely to ever arrive. Take for example the Sahara which is a case study always comes up in climate negotiations because something is causing that desert to expand. All there is in the Sahara is sand, sunlight and the occasional Islamic terrorist. The human race is now at the point where it can turn sunlight into electrical energy. Obviously country specific, inter alia work needs to be done but many have suggested that building solar farms in the Sahara could not only produce enough electricity for north Africa and the Sahel belt but also parts of southern Europe. The problem is that often the nations that surround the Sahara that lack basic power grids and certainly don't have the money to build solar farms. What the GCF is set up to do is put any one of these nations in contact with a private company that builds solar farms and provide loan guarantees that would allow the nation to pay back the cost of the construction through the revenue from the sale of the electricity over a period of 25-50 years in what is essentially a very complicated mortgage deal.
Economic Instruments; This is an area where absolutely no direct progress was made. Although there are issues tied up with the GCF the primary economic instrument that everybody is pursuing is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which is funded through the capping of ghg emissions and the trading of permits to exceed those caps. The primary problem is that with that very few nations imposing caps on ghg emissions the market for permits and therefore the revenue they generate has collapsed. The other main problem is that socialist nations, primarily ones in South America along with full blown Communist nations in South-East Asia refuse to participate in the CDM because it's Capitalist and instead prefer to use negotiations about it as a way to rage against America.
As if to highlight how stupid these nations are being on Tuesday (26/11/13) the world's largest Communist nation, China opened a carbon trading market in Shanghai that will serve around 22 million people. Today China opened a carbon trading market in Beijing that will serve 20 million people. In December China will open a carbon trading market in Guangdong that will serve around 100million people making it the world's second largest carbon trading market behind the EU. With Mexico also opening a carbon trading market on Tuesday this growing global commitment to the principles of the CDM seems to have shamed certain European nations into actions with Switzerland buying up USD109million worth of carbon permits, the UK buying up USD80million worth and Norway buying up USD50million. These nations don't really have any need for those permits but the extra USD239million should help keep the CDM afloat until something more permanent can be worked out.
Although they are important in their own right the areas of Transparency and Periodic Review tend to be covered through negotiations about the other areas so I won't give a specific progress report on them. However the increased transparency achieved through the setting up of the Warsaw mechanism on Loss and Damage and the Adaptation Committee will certainly make progress in the quality of the data that is available for periodic review.
A sort of progress was also made on the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and forest Degradation plus (REDD+) project. Throughout its history - long before humans turned up - the earth has regulated the amount of ghg's in it's atmosphere through forests absorbing the ghg's emitted by things like volcanoes and turning it into oxygen and ever bigger trees. Therefore as something of an oxygen addict I think it is absolutely essential that developing nations are given an incentive to leave their forests intact rather then cutting them down for economic development as we did in the developed world. Ideally this would be done through an emissions trading scheme that allows nations with large forests to charge nations without large forests for doing the job of cleaning up their ghg emissions. Unfortunately we're having a bit of trouble putting that together so instead we're left with REDD+ which has got to be the most dodgy of all the projects to tackle global warming.
The main problem is that while most people are happy for this to be funded through a market-based carbon trading mechanism (especially if it doesn't cost them any money) the predominately socialist South American nations where most of the worlds forest are located instead want it to be funded through donations from capitalist nations - sort of 'Red Fund' if you will. This failure to agree how anti-deforestation projects should be funded has meant that up to now REDD+ has operated on an extremely ad-hoc basis with specific developed nations doing specific bilateral deals with specific developing nations over specific bits of forest.
In certain areas this approach has had limited success. However in South America it has largely resulted in corrupt officials taking money from donor nations to protect areas of forest whilst at the same time taking even larger sums of money from loggers and ranchers to cut down those same areas of forest. As a result in 2012 the rate of South American deforestation rose by about 30% despite all these very large sums of money.
In central Africa where the second largest amount of forests are located REDD+ has been even more devastating. Here rather then tackling deforestation developed nations have largely been using relatively small REDD+ donations to trick relatively weak governments into complex negotiations that have nothing whatsoever to do with deforestation or climate change.
The obvious sexual innuendo of asking things like; "Whose got the most wood? What are you going to do with your wood? and Can you keep your wood up?" means that more often then not REDD+ discussions actually turn into discussions about HIV/AIDS. Incase the sexual innuendo wasn't enough REDD+ also shares it's name with Live Nation supported "(RED)" charity set up to deal with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Discussions about HIV/AIDS in Africa are complicated enough on their own because they touch on issues such as colonial powers using contraception to control indigenous populations, sexual politics, homosexuality and religion to name but a few.
Also when we say that central Africa is one of the most resource rich regions on earth the resource we are primarily talking about is wood and timber. The illegal cutting, smuggling and sale of timber is often used to fund the myriad of vicious little conflicts that are going on in the region. So although I have no evidence to support it I have strong suspicions that REDD+ money has been used to fund groups like the M23, Seleka and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA).
So although there is some good work being done I personally would have liked to have seen REDD+ scrapped entirely. However with the CDM on its knees the scrapping of REDD+ would have caused many developing nations to completely lose faith and pull out of the UNFCCC entirely. So instead what happened is that REDD+ became a formal project with all funds being disbursed by the World Bank's BioCarbon fund. Before a project can be considered for funds it must first be submitted for assessment by a panel of technical experts who will consider it against defined benchmarks. If a project is successful and receives funds it will be periodically reviewed by both the technical panel and the World Bank who despite their many faults do not have a reputation for tolerating corruption. To incentivise this cleaning up of REDD+ Norway (USD135million), the UK (USD120million) and the US (USD25million) eventually agreed to allow the USD280m they'd contributed to the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) to be used to fund REDD+.
So in summary although it produced nothing in the way of headline grabbing or campaign slogan satisfying big announcements and while there is clearly still a lot of work to do COP19/CMP9 was an extremely successful summit that far exceeded both mine and I think anyone's expectations of what could be achieved.
20:20 on 28/11/13 (UK date).
Wednesday 27 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 4, Day 2.
Although I'm pretty sure there's actual, proper work I could be doing I feel I have to tell the Taylor Swift story.
A few years back I was sitting in a pub talking with friends when the topic of Taylor Swift came up because either one of her songs was playing on the jukebox or there was a picture of her in a newspaper or something. As the alternative was just sitting there in silence I sort of went into a long rant about how I couldn't find anything remotely attractive about the beautiful multi-millionairess and I wouldn't date her even if she begged.
Fast forward to October 2012 and just as Rihanna was performing at the para-Olympic closing ceremony Taylor Swift was in the UK doing a big marketing push for her "Red" album. Obviously due to the Olympics, the para-Olympics and what I believe is now known as the Rihanna effect this all sort of passed me by. However it did mark the beginning of a British obsession with Taylor Swift. Firstly she had BRIT school wannabe Ed Sheeran imposed on her for much of the "Red" Tour. Although he's reasonably talented Ed Sheeran really offended me by taking quite a dark story from my life and using it for his song "The A Team." He went on to release "Small Bump" about abortion/miscarriage which he no doubt stole from someonelse's life. Therefore I think Ed Sheeran owes us all an apology for being fake because no matter what song he's singing all I hear is him going; "Your so dumb. Now give me all your money." over and over again.
Even with the Red tour going on the UK has repeatedly found excuses to keep bring Taylor Swift back to the country attempting to book her for everything including Establishment events attended by members of the Royal Family. This culminated yesterday with Taylor Swift performing alongside Jon Bon Jovi and the heir to the British throne William Duke of Cambridge at Kensington Palace in London. I think this was intended to give the impression that the UK is demanding to know if Taylor Swift was being used as a distraction while the Rihanna operation was going on because the UK certainly didn't get what it wanted out of that operation. Personally I just think the US were just covering the spread because no-one really got what they wanted from the Rihanna operation.
On the topic of random things I've said about female celebrities whilst she was touring US movie theatres to promote I think the final Hannah Montana movie I joked that Miley Cyrus was only doing so to cover up the fact that she was homeless. What made me think of it now is that I'm pretty sure that Rihanna is technically homeless at the moment which when you consider the amount she's spent on property over the last 6-9 months is quite an achievement.
12:15 on 27/11/13 (UK date).
A few years back I was sitting in a pub talking with friends when the topic of Taylor Swift came up because either one of her songs was playing on the jukebox or there was a picture of her in a newspaper or something. As the alternative was just sitting there in silence I sort of went into a long rant about how I couldn't find anything remotely attractive about the beautiful multi-millionairess and I wouldn't date her even if she begged.
Fast forward to October 2012 and just as Rihanna was performing at the para-Olympic closing ceremony Taylor Swift was in the UK doing a big marketing push for her "Red" album. Obviously due to the Olympics, the para-Olympics and what I believe is now known as the Rihanna effect this all sort of passed me by. However it did mark the beginning of a British obsession with Taylor Swift. Firstly she had BRIT school wannabe Ed Sheeran imposed on her for much of the "Red" Tour. Although he's reasonably talented Ed Sheeran really offended me by taking quite a dark story from my life and using it for his song "The A Team." He went on to release "Small Bump" about abortion/miscarriage which he no doubt stole from someonelse's life. Therefore I think Ed Sheeran owes us all an apology for being fake because no matter what song he's singing all I hear is him going; "Your so dumb. Now give me all your money." over and over again.
Even with the Red tour going on the UK has repeatedly found excuses to keep bring Taylor Swift back to the country attempting to book her for everything including Establishment events attended by members of the Royal Family. This culminated yesterday with Taylor Swift performing alongside Jon Bon Jovi and the heir to the British throne William Duke of Cambridge at Kensington Palace in London. I think this was intended to give the impression that the UK is demanding to know if Taylor Swift was being used as a distraction while the Rihanna operation was going on because the UK certainly didn't get what it wanted out of that operation. Personally I just think the US were just covering the spread because no-one really got what they wanted from the Rihanna operation.
On the topic of random things I've said about female celebrities whilst she was touring US movie theatres to promote I think the final Hannah Montana movie I joked that Miley Cyrus was only doing so to cover up the fact that she was homeless. What made me think of it now is that I'm pretty sure that Rihanna is technically homeless at the moment which when you consider the amount she's spent on property over the last 6-9 months is quite an achievement.
12:15 on 27/11/13 (UK date).
Tuesday 26 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 4, Day 1.
You would think that after the humiliation of the American Music Awards (AMAs) Rihanna and her people would have wanted to spend a few days quietly relaxing and reflecting on what they've done with their lives over the last 12 months. However if Rihanna and her people were to sit down and list what they set out to achieve with the Diamonds World Tour versus what they've actually achieved along with the roughly 1/3rd of their fortune they've spent on dodgy property deals on Barbados it is likely they would just be hit with an overwhelming desire to kill themselves.
So instead on Monday night (local) Rihanna attended and was seen to attend Drake's concert at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California. This was obviously intended to fuel speculation that Rihanna and Drake are now dating and promote discussion about whether this is a suitable strategy to contain the threat posed to society in general by Chris Brown.
Things got much worse on Tuesday though when it was announced that Rihanna would be the public face of the US fund for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) campaign to raise money for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. You may remember that Rihanna recently visited the Philippines on her Diamonds World Tour.
This concert was made extremely controversial because in preparation someone encouraged the Moro Nation Liberation Front (MNLF) to launch a full scale military assault on the city of Zamboanga on Mindanao island. This took the Filipino army about a month to repel and resulted in the deaths of 150+ people. To add insult to injury the US used this conflict as an excuse so Rihanna only really spent the duration of her concert in the city of Manila on Luzon island. As the entire South-East Asian region were supposed to be speculating about Rihanna's mood and general mental condition during this time this was a grievous insult to the Filipino government especially Rihanna apparently found time to make not one but two visits to Thailand where the Monarch is currently trying to overthrow the elected government.
This performance in the Philippines was so shockingly bad that some have suggested that it angered the earth's quantum field to the extent that it caused Typhoon Haiyan to tear through the parts of the Philippines between Luzon and Mondano islands in order to suggest that despite her ego Rihanna does not control the weather through her moods. It also provided the US with an opportunity to correct it's error of judgement by providing lots of emergency aid to the Filipino people.
As such you would think that Rihanna would be the absolute last person that the US fund for UNICEF would want fronting their Haiyan appeal. After all the general discomfort that Rihanna causes many in the US to feel is only likely to discourage donations. A much better idea would have been to create an umbrella campaign with various celebrities each tapping up their own fanbase for donations.
It is clear though that rather then helping the US' intention here is to disrupt the Haiyan relief effort as much as possible. As a result the US State Department has recruited the rapper "Ludacris" for its rival fundraising campaign. The intention is to give the entirely false impression that the State Department had no involvement in the ludicrous decision to involve Rihanna in the US fund for UNICEF campaign. The idea being that I would then start a campaign calling for the State Department to stop funding the US fund for UNICEF until the people who involved Rihanna are sacked from the organisation. The intention being to promote discussion about US funding for other UN bodies such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is a shame because with European and Gulf nations hijacking UNICEF to politicise the victims of the conflict in Syria I would have thought the US would want the biggest dog it's got in the UNICEF fight.
While I was 'discussing' all this with the State Department on Twitter they brought up a World Health Organisation (WHO) report on the impacts of violence on women globally. This was a reference to a shocking recent report in which the WHO claimed people in Greece were choosing to infect themselves with HIV in order to claim E700 per month in welfare benefits. In a near unprecedented move the WHO today retracted that claim because it turns out that while many people had heard the rumour there was no evidence that it was in any way true. Therefore I should explain to the US that this was the WHO openly mocking your claim that Rihanna must be kept away from me in case I infect her with the full blown AIDS, diabetes, long QT syndrome, hepatitis, liver failure, kidney disease etc that I'm absolutely riddled with.
So yes after complaints from multiple nations Boeing has finally accepted that it's 787 Dreamliner does indeed lose significant power at higher altitudes. After all it turns out the people who attend inter-governmental conference aren't the same teenage boys and girls who buy Rihanna and Chris Brown records.
21:05 on 26/11/13 (UK date).
So instead on Monday night (local) Rihanna attended and was seen to attend Drake's concert at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California. This was obviously intended to fuel speculation that Rihanna and Drake are now dating and promote discussion about whether this is a suitable strategy to contain the threat posed to society in general by Chris Brown.
Things got much worse on Tuesday though when it was announced that Rihanna would be the public face of the US fund for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) campaign to raise money for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. You may remember that Rihanna recently visited the Philippines on her Diamonds World Tour.
This concert was made extremely controversial because in preparation someone encouraged the Moro Nation Liberation Front (MNLF) to launch a full scale military assault on the city of Zamboanga on Mindanao island. This took the Filipino army about a month to repel and resulted in the deaths of 150+ people. To add insult to injury the US used this conflict as an excuse so Rihanna only really spent the duration of her concert in the city of Manila on Luzon island. As the entire South-East Asian region were supposed to be speculating about Rihanna's mood and general mental condition during this time this was a grievous insult to the Filipino government especially Rihanna apparently found time to make not one but two visits to Thailand where the Monarch is currently trying to overthrow the elected government.
This performance in the Philippines was so shockingly bad that some have suggested that it angered the earth's quantum field to the extent that it caused Typhoon Haiyan to tear through the parts of the Philippines between Luzon and Mondano islands in order to suggest that despite her ego Rihanna does not control the weather through her moods. It also provided the US with an opportunity to correct it's error of judgement by providing lots of emergency aid to the Filipino people.
As such you would think that Rihanna would be the absolute last person that the US fund for UNICEF would want fronting their Haiyan appeal. After all the general discomfort that Rihanna causes many in the US to feel is only likely to discourage donations. A much better idea would have been to create an umbrella campaign with various celebrities each tapping up their own fanbase for donations.
It is clear though that rather then helping the US' intention here is to disrupt the Haiyan relief effort as much as possible. As a result the US State Department has recruited the rapper "Ludacris" for its rival fundraising campaign. The intention is to give the entirely false impression that the State Department had no involvement in the ludicrous decision to involve Rihanna in the US fund for UNICEF campaign. The idea being that I would then start a campaign calling for the State Department to stop funding the US fund for UNICEF until the people who involved Rihanna are sacked from the organisation. The intention being to promote discussion about US funding for other UN bodies such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is a shame because with European and Gulf nations hijacking UNICEF to politicise the victims of the conflict in Syria I would have thought the US would want the biggest dog it's got in the UNICEF fight.
While I was 'discussing' all this with the State Department on Twitter they brought up a World Health Organisation (WHO) report on the impacts of violence on women globally. This was a reference to a shocking recent report in which the WHO claimed people in Greece were choosing to infect themselves with HIV in order to claim E700 per month in welfare benefits. In a near unprecedented move the WHO today retracted that claim because it turns out that while many people had heard the rumour there was no evidence that it was in any way true. Therefore I should explain to the US that this was the WHO openly mocking your claim that Rihanna must be kept away from me in case I infect her with the full blown AIDS, diabetes, long QT syndrome, hepatitis, liver failure, kidney disease etc that I'm absolutely riddled with.
So yes after complaints from multiple nations Boeing has finally accepted that it's 787 Dreamliner does indeed lose significant power at higher altitudes. After all it turns out the people who attend inter-governmental conference aren't the same teenage boys and girls who buy Rihanna and Chris Brown records.
21:05 on 26/11/13 (UK date).
Monday 25 November 2013
Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 3, Day 7 - The AMA's
Yesterday Rihanna attended the American Music Awards (AMA's) at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California. This was supposed to be a celebration of American music over the past 12 months so obviously it wasn't entirely about Rihanna. However;
The show was opened by Katy Perry, Rihanna's sometimes friend and opponent of her relationship with Chris Brown. It was closed by Miley Cyrus who has been frequently compared to Rihanna over the past 12 months or so as both a rival and possible replacement. Somewhere in the middle Lady Gaga performed "Do What You Want (With my Body)" alongside R Kelly who was playing the role of a black President. This was a none too subtle reference to how US President Barack Obama has endorsed the horrors that have been inflicted on Rihanna over the past year in order to further his own political agenda. The show was hosted throughout by Cuban/American rapper Pitbull and featured Puerto Rican Jennifer Lopez performing a tribute to Celia Cruz a Cuban singer who was dubbed "The Queen of Salsa." This was all to appeal to the Hispanic audience that is so central to the immigration reforms Obama is trying to use Rihanna to force through.
Despite my best advice Rihanna not only attended the award ceremony but sat in the audience throughout. I suppose we should be thankful for the small mercy that Rihanna was seated away from anyone controversial such as Miley Cyrus although she was just across the aisle from Katy Perry. I suspect that physical gap was supposed to represent the rift between the pair caused by Chris Brown. For the early part of the ceremony Rihanna wore a black custom Jean Paul Gaultier bra top and mini-skirt with lace trim that gave the impression of a much longer skirt. Throughout Rihanna's hair was worn short, slicked back and pinned down in a style known as a "Dominican Doobie Wrap." This was obviously better then the Whitney Houston/Winnie Mandela style Rihanna had been sporting over the last week but was a none to subtle reference to the immigration issue.
Despite being nominated for four awards Rihanna only succeeded in winning "Favourite R&B/Soul Female Artist." This was a surprise because I would have thought in order to get Rihanna to attend the AMA's the organisers would have had to at least guarantee that she would win everything she was nominated for. The reason why most people would have expected Rihanna to miss the AMA's is because the organisers were openly mocking her by presenting her with the special, and unique "Icon" award. This type of award for which there is only ever one nominee is normally reserved for people at the end of their lives and is sometimes dubbed the "Quick Give Them Something Before They Die" or "Epitaph" Award. Therefore by presenting Rihanna with the Icon Award the AMA organisers were trying to send the signal that Rihanna's time is up and her career is now over.
Prior to accepting the Icon Award Rihanna changed into a full length inky grey silk gown and performed "Diamonds" with a full orchestral accompaniment. "Diamonds" is of course the title track of Diamonds World Tour that was intended to destroy Rihanna's career and still might with Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) continuing to push for it to be extended with a South American leg. The act of Rihanna performing "Diamonds" at the AMA's was itself intended to be another nail in the coffin of Rihanna's career by reminding us of the really nasty element of the tour strategy that involved turning the mineral rich nations of central Africa into an even worse hell hole. Fortunately due to the raising of several quite large armies that element of the plan failed to materialise.
Rihanna was presented with the Icon Award by her mother Monica Braithwaite. This was obviously intended to raise all the issues about Rihanna's childhood such as her violent father and the impact on Rihanna's own relationships especially with Chris Brown. Those who have a greater depth of knowledge of the subject will also have picked up on the reference to the ongoing Berdon LLP case and the associated Inland Revenue Service (IRS) investigation into Rihanna. After all while I don't know the truth both Rihanna and her mother's apparent evasiveness in giving depositions of evidence has been used to imply that the pair are guilty of tax evasion and therefore the IRS audit is justified rather then merely a mechanism to allow the management to exert control over Rihanna through fear.
In her acceptance speech Rihanna talked about growing up in Barbados and her journey to America and fame and fortune. This obviously has quite a strong relevance to the immigration debate. However when you consider it alongside the IRS issue it seems to also touch on the issue of slavery and people trafficking. By talking about how at 15 years old she had to battle her mother in order to be allowed to audition for strange men in their hotel room wearing her school uniform Rihanna appeared to be arguing in favour of child prostitution. However on what was clearly a difficult evening I think we might let that one slide.
In case anyone failed to pick up on the fact the AMA's were marking the end of Rihanna's career - and hey Rihanna turned up - later in the show two of the original members of the band TLC performed "Waterfalls" with Lil' Mama assisting. The third original member of TLC - Lisa 'left eye' Lopez - was killed in a car crash in 2002 meaning that the band is now forever associated with death. Also before the start of the Diamonds World Tour I made reference to the song "Waterfalls" in order to highlight the espionage 'waterfall' technique that the management were intending to use to destroy Rihanna's career by turning her fans against her.
As for Miley Cyrus she closed the show by singing "Wrecking Ball" wearing basically panties and a sports bra in front of a computer animation of a giant pussy cat that was singing along with her. Even by my standards this was a really tasteless reference to the fact that since Miley Cyrus has started appear wearing not many clothes literally millions of people have started commenting on her 'Camel Toe.' A 'camel toe' is the outline of the outer lips of the vagina or 'pussy' as they press up against tight fabric. I believe there is now even a Twitter hashtag #MileysCamelToe.
So in closing the only good thing I can say about the AMA's is that now Chris Brown has been given Court mandated rehab Rihanna now has a little under three months to stop, breathe and consolidate her position in LA. Alternatively she could press ahead with the move to the east coast.. I of course though think that Rihanna should come to London, UK to see me for a bit. That's because part of the reason I'm so p*ssed off by all this is that it has always been so easy to avoid.
16:45 on 25/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:30 on 25/11/13 to add;
Writing the above was an experience akin to having your teeth pulled out. So for the sake of brevity I left out Katy Perry's performance because it struck me as obvious. However I've now decided that might have been remiss of me.
All the Japanese iconography was clearly a reference to Japan. However I think the main theme of Katy Perry's performance was that of the Geisha. Although there is slightly more to it then that Geisha's are essentially prostitutes so this brings up the prostitution element of the slavery/human trafficking debate which has been a central element of Rihanna's life recently especially in her relationship with Chris Brown. Also the issue of "comfort women" who were essentially Chinese women who were kidnapped to have sex with Japanese soldiers during the second world war is still a major source of tension between China and Japan. Therefore it seemed an appropriate way to start a ceremony that was intended to exert pressure on people in the eastern hemisphere who were getting up and starting their working week while all this was going on.
As for my performance apart from screwing up my sleep patterns the management were hoping that I'd be watching and giving a live Olympic ceremony style Twitter commentary in order to make sure all the issues were raised and discussed by the audience. In protest I decided to just muck about in the most confusing and offensive way I could manage in. So for example when I announced I was following Katy Perry on Twitter I was merely pointing that I was actually listening to Orpheous' "The Can-Can" at the time. When I asked Miley Cyrus if she'd had any large incursions recently I was trying to hint that I was listening to Massive Attack in the smuttiest way possible.
The show was opened by Katy Perry, Rihanna's sometimes friend and opponent of her relationship with Chris Brown. It was closed by Miley Cyrus who has been frequently compared to Rihanna over the past 12 months or so as both a rival and possible replacement. Somewhere in the middle Lady Gaga performed "Do What You Want (With my Body)" alongside R Kelly who was playing the role of a black President. This was a none too subtle reference to how US President Barack Obama has endorsed the horrors that have been inflicted on Rihanna over the past year in order to further his own political agenda. The show was hosted throughout by Cuban/American rapper Pitbull and featured Puerto Rican Jennifer Lopez performing a tribute to Celia Cruz a Cuban singer who was dubbed "The Queen of Salsa." This was all to appeal to the Hispanic audience that is so central to the immigration reforms Obama is trying to use Rihanna to force through.
Despite my best advice Rihanna not only attended the award ceremony but sat in the audience throughout. I suppose we should be thankful for the small mercy that Rihanna was seated away from anyone controversial such as Miley Cyrus although she was just across the aisle from Katy Perry. I suspect that physical gap was supposed to represent the rift between the pair caused by Chris Brown. For the early part of the ceremony Rihanna wore a black custom Jean Paul Gaultier bra top and mini-skirt with lace trim that gave the impression of a much longer skirt. Throughout Rihanna's hair was worn short, slicked back and pinned down in a style known as a "Dominican Doobie Wrap." This was obviously better then the Whitney Houston/Winnie Mandela style Rihanna had been sporting over the last week but was a none to subtle reference to the immigration issue.
Despite being nominated for four awards Rihanna only succeeded in winning "Favourite R&B/Soul Female Artist." This was a surprise because I would have thought in order to get Rihanna to attend the AMA's the organisers would have had to at least guarantee that she would win everything she was nominated for. The reason why most people would have expected Rihanna to miss the AMA's is because the organisers were openly mocking her by presenting her with the special, and unique "Icon" award. This type of award for which there is only ever one nominee is normally reserved for people at the end of their lives and is sometimes dubbed the "Quick Give Them Something Before They Die" or "Epitaph" Award. Therefore by presenting Rihanna with the Icon Award the AMA organisers were trying to send the signal that Rihanna's time is up and her career is now over.
Prior to accepting the Icon Award Rihanna changed into a full length inky grey silk gown and performed "Diamonds" with a full orchestral accompaniment. "Diamonds" is of course the title track of Diamonds World Tour that was intended to destroy Rihanna's career and still might with Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) continuing to push for it to be extended with a South American leg. The act of Rihanna performing "Diamonds" at the AMA's was itself intended to be another nail in the coffin of Rihanna's career by reminding us of the really nasty element of the tour strategy that involved turning the mineral rich nations of central Africa into an even worse hell hole. Fortunately due to the raising of several quite large armies that element of the plan failed to materialise.
Rihanna was presented with the Icon Award by her mother Monica Braithwaite. This was obviously intended to raise all the issues about Rihanna's childhood such as her violent father and the impact on Rihanna's own relationships especially with Chris Brown. Those who have a greater depth of knowledge of the subject will also have picked up on the reference to the ongoing Berdon LLP case and the associated Inland Revenue Service (IRS) investigation into Rihanna. After all while I don't know the truth both Rihanna and her mother's apparent evasiveness in giving depositions of evidence has been used to imply that the pair are guilty of tax evasion and therefore the IRS audit is justified rather then merely a mechanism to allow the management to exert control over Rihanna through fear.
In her acceptance speech Rihanna talked about growing up in Barbados and her journey to America and fame and fortune. This obviously has quite a strong relevance to the immigration debate. However when you consider it alongside the IRS issue it seems to also touch on the issue of slavery and people trafficking. By talking about how at 15 years old she had to battle her mother in order to be allowed to audition for strange men in their hotel room wearing her school uniform Rihanna appeared to be arguing in favour of child prostitution. However on what was clearly a difficult evening I think we might let that one slide.
In case anyone failed to pick up on the fact the AMA's were marking the end of Rihanna's career - and hey Rihanna turned up - later in the show two of the original members of the band TLC performed "Waterfalls" with Lil' Mama assisting. The third original member of TLC - Lisa 'left eye' Lopez - was killed in a car crash in 2002 meaning that the band is now forever associated with death. Also before the start of the Diamonds World Tour I made reference to the song "Waterfalls" in order to highlight the espionage 'waterfall' technique that the management were intending to use to destroy Rihanna's career by turning her fans against her.
As for Miley Cyrus she closed the show by singing "Wrecking Ball" wearing basically panties and a sports bra in front of a computer animation of a giant pussy cat that was singing along with her. Even by my standards this was a really tasteless reference to the fact that since Miley Cyrus has started appear wearing not many clothes literally millions of people have started commenting on her 'Camel Toe.' A 'camel toe' is the outline of the outer lips of the vagina or 'pussy' as they press up against tight fabric. I believe there is now even a Twitter hashtag #MileysCamelToe.
So in closing the only good thing I can say about the AMA's is that now Chris Brown has been given Court mandated rehab Rihanna now has a little under three months to stop, breathe and consolidate her position in LA. Alternatively she could press ahead with the move to the east coast.. I of course though think that Rihanna should come to London, UK to see me for a bit. That's because part of the reason I'm so p*ssed off by all this is that it has always been so easy to avoid.
16:45 on 25/11/13 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:30 on 25/11/13 to add;
Writing the above was an experience akin to having your teeth pulled out. So for the sake of brevity I left out Katy Perry's performance because it struck me as obvious. However I've now decided that might have been remiss of me.
All the Japanese iconography was clearly a reference to Japan. However I think the main theme of Katy Perry's performance was that of the Geisha. Although there is slightly more to it then that Geisha's are essentially prostitutes so this brings up the prostitution element of the slavery/human trafficking debate which has been a central element of Rihanna's life recently especially in her relationship with Chris Brown. Also the issue of "comfort women" who were essentially Chinese women who were kidnapped to have sex with Japanese soldiers during the second world war is still a major source of tension between China and Japan. Therefore it seemed an appropriate way to start a ceremony that was intended to exert pressure on people in the eastern hemisphere who were getting up and starting their working week while all this was going on.
As for my performance apart from screwing up my sleep patterns the management were hoping that I'd be watching and giving a live Olympic ceremony style Twitter commentary in order to make sure all the issues were raised and discussed by the audience. In protest I decided to just muck about in the most confusing and offensive way I could manage in. So for example when I announced I was following Katy Perry on Twitter I was merely pointing that I was actually listening to Orpheous' "The Can-Can" at the time. When I asked Miley Cyrus if she'd had any large incursions recently I was trying to hint that I was listening to Massive Attack in the smuttiest way possible.
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