More Anti-Terror Arrests in Northern Ireland

As Rihanna arrives in the mainland UK for her post holiday with Chris Brown inspection there have been more anti-terror arrests in Northern Ireland. On Sunday evening three men suspected of being dissident Republicans were arrested following the discovery of a van in LondonDerry containing a home made four barrelled mortar. The suspicion being that they were about to fire those mortars at a local police station. The van in question is not dissimilar to the van my friend brought to start his courier business.

However if you failed to make the connection with the IRA's 1991 mortar attack on Downing Street rather helpfully at around the same time a man was tasered and arrested by police close to Downing Street after waving knives about. Therefore Britain seems to be saying that something represents a threat to the stability of the state. However I can't work out if I'm the threat, Rihanna's the threat or Britain being asked to offer an opinion of the validity of the Rihanna/Chris Brown reunion is the threat.

Basically there's a lot of noise going on at the moment. For example schizophrenic Nicola Edgington was today sentenced for the murder of Sally Hodkin. A report on the case by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has criticised police and health-care providers for failing to prevent the death of the grandmother by not correctly using their powers to detain under the Mental Health Act. Also the UK Queen has left hospital. As Rihanna is provocatively not providing information on her movements it is hard to be sure but the Queens discharge appears to have happened some two hours after Rihanna's arrival in London. That said I think the plan to use the Queen's hospitalisation as a metaphor for Rihanna's visit has been under urgent review since the moment I spoke.

In slightly more important news the trial of Sergei Magnitsky for tax evasion has resumed in Russia. This is interesting because Magnitsky has been dead for three years after suffering significant mistreatment in prison. This is of course a direct reference to the situations in Libya and Syria. After all in both cases we've been told we must go to war because Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria were both committing crimes against humanity. However Muammar Qaddafi was killed before he could stand trial while his son Saif al-Islam Qaddafi remains in prison in Libya with no-one showing any sort of interest in having the allegations against him being tested in a court of law.

Coming as US Secretary of State John Kerry begins the Gulf leg of his maiden tour this is the Russians further registering their displeasure at the US' conduct.

15:30 on 4/3/13.