Marched to Death For Mali.

I apologise for the delay. It's just rather appropriately going to the gym in the hottest part of the day with a hangover rather wiped me out yesterday.

Anyway on Sunday (14/7/13) it emerged that on Saturday (15/7/13) two British Territorial Army reservists had died of heat exhaustion during a speed march on the Breacon Beacons in Wales as part of the selection process for the reserve regiment of the Special Air Service (SAS) special forces. Along with the almost exclusively loyalist rioting in Belfast, the big shop fire in Manchester and the attack on the home of Francis Cory-Wright in Hertfordshire this was meant to contribute to general confused concern about my personal safety and security while Rihanna was in the UK. The SAS story would have caused particular confusion because the UK have been telling the local networks in Croydon that it's their job to train me up. However a lot of people who've been looking at the scorecard think it's the other way around. Also a few years back the UK was trying to convince everyone that my maternal cousin who is in the army had the same genetic heart defect as my paternal grandmother. The main bit of evidence for this is that he reported feeling faint after one of the these speed marches - something that is clearly not that unreasonable.

Beyond the connections to me the SAS story also touches on some wider arguments. For example the UK recently announced that it intends to shrink the size of the regular armed forces and replace the shortfall with reservists. This is obviously not popular within the regular military who have long viewed reservists as inferior. Two reservists failing selection by dying does obviously raise questions about whether they're up to the required standard.

Mainly though the incident seems to feed into a long running argument between the UK and France over the operation in Mali. The French are actually being very professional about the operation simply wanting to get in, get the job done and get out again. As a result even with a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force beginning to deploy France will be keeping a force of around 1000 in Mali made up mainly for elite/special forces to carry out raids against Islamist terrorist bases. The UK on the other hand seems more interested in dragging out the conflict for as long as possible in order to use it to put pressure on the predominately African nations that make up the UN force. With operating temperatures in Mali being almost double what they were on the Breacon Beacons on Saturday the incident seems to be the UK arguing that it won't been sending special forces to Mali because African troops are better acclimatised to the environment. However it must be said I don't think anyone has been pushing for UK troops to be deployed because they're viewed as more of a hindrance then a help.

Added to this you have the death on Sunday of Susan Taylor who died in French waters after trying to swim the English Channel in a effort to raise money for Hospice Care and Diabetes treatment. That obviously put immediate pressure on the French authorities who had to take Ms Taylor into hospital in an attempt at life saving treatment. The inquiry into her death opens up a bridge of dialogue between the UK and France which will be quite difficult for the French because Hospice care is the medical treatment you give to the terminally ill in order to allow them to die peacefully. It was this type of care the UK controversially gave to my paternal grandmother over a number of years even though she wasn't suffering from any form of terminal illness. The UK have of course also argued for years that I suffer from Diabetes despite there not being any medical evidence to support that. The incident is also highly reminiscent of the death of Claire Squires at the 2012 London Marathon and all the pre-Olympic controversy that involved.

Finally on Sunday the body of Phillpe Verdon was discovered in Mali. Verdon was a French geologist who kidnapped by Islamic terrorists in Mali in 2011. In March 2013 Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) announced they'd executed him in response to France's intervention in Mali. The discovery of the body that had apparently been left out in an effort to send a message obviously puts immediate pressure on the French authorities to identify the body and establish a cause of death. Coinciding with the UK's co-ordinated efforts on Mali it also raises questions about the strength of the links between the UK and AQIM. Finally it seemed intent on showing that AQIM have fight left in them in an effort to get the French to withdraw it's forces from Mali in order to avoid further causalities.

11:10 on 16/7/13