In the past thirty minutes the UK has welcomed in 2016 by moving from New Years Eve (NYE) to New Years Day. Thus this post represents the sh*ttest New Years celebration in history.
As I mentioned yesterday and seem to mention every year NYE is a completely secular celebration with absolutely no religious element to it whatsoever.
By 1917 we had established that the earth takes 8,766 hours (365.25 days) to orbit the sun - the solar year. Obviously to stop these orbits blurring into one we had to set a specific hour on a specific day when one year would end and a new one would begin. We also had to set a specific location on earth where this hour would occur so everybody moved onto the new year at the same time.
So after 8 years of international negotiation it was decided that the year would end in the middle of winter when no-one in the northern hemisphere was that busy and the international date line would be put in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where very few people lived.
Therefore technically wherever you are in the world 2016 began more then 12 hours ago and all we are celebrating is a clock ticking over from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00 rather then any religious event. Saudi Arabia though does of course continue to dispute that the earth orbits around the sun.
As a result New Years Eve is an event that can be celebrated by all with little risk of offending anyone. Even the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK/North) made their celebrations available to the international pool this year. However they did pointedly celebrate an hour before the Republic of Korea (RoK/South).
Unfortunately in recent years the inclusiveness of the celebration has led to a degree of competition between nations to see who can put on the most spectacular celebration. A lot of the blame for this has to lay with the UK.
Although NYE is rarely time for accurate note taking I think it was in the mid-2000's that the UK took to putting on a large fireworks display on the River Thames in front of the London Eye Ferris wheel. The attraction here wasn't so much the fireworks themselves but the specially composed musical track that they were synchronised with.
For this the UK takes its inspiration from what is known as a "Numbers Station." This is an element of spy trade-craft that was extremely popular during the Cold War although its roots can be traced back further then that. Essentially covert operatives would be instructed to tune into a specific radio frequency at a specific time.
For five or so minute burst this otherwise unused frequency would broadcast seemingly random numbers, letters and words over short bursts of music and other sound effects. To everybody else this sounded like there was interference on the frequency.
However to those in possession of the right codebook the broadcast contained hidden messages. For example the "da, da, da, daaa" sequence in Beethoven's 5th symphony is Morse code for the letter "V."
While I didn't get my notebook out to give you an idea tonight's soundtrack featured a little burst of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" in reference to the 2015 Rugby World Cup. There was also a song by a band called "Apollo 440" which was a reference to the most important astronaut in history - Tim Peake. There was also a song called "Rio" in reference to the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Amid bursts of various party staples that could be references or just mis-directs there was also a small portion of the INXS song "Need You Tonight." I took this as both a reference to the Sandra Bland suicide and attempt to manipulate me into writing this.
To slow it down there was also a bit of Cilla Black in reference to the death of Cilla Black and a little bit of One Direction in reference to the death of One Direction. Sorry "Hiatus."
Obviously with computer technology advancing the old long wave radio numbers stations have fallen out of favour somewhat. The problem with this was highlighted earlier on NYE's when the BBC's Internet presence - the third largest in the UK - went down in an apparent hacking.
Prompted by the frankly disturbing Error message that the BBC put up this caused a degree of panic. After all it's an open secret that BBC Radio 4 being taken off air for 4 minutes is a signal to the UK's nuclear armed submarines that the Cold War had suddenly got hot and they should fire at will.
The London firework display ended with a very ominous looking mushroom cloud of smoke.
A big adopter of the idea of the competitive NYE celebration has been the Arab Emirate of Dubai. Unfortunately much like a chav that's just won the lottery Dubai has a huge budget but very little style.
In 2014 - at great expense - Dubai set the official world record for the largest fireworks display detonating some 500,000 shells - 1,332 per second - in and around the Burj Khalifa which happens to hold the world record for being the world's tallest building.
This year Dubai was clearly still struggling to pay off 2014's display. So they pulled the old trick of setting fire to a building for the insurance money. The building in question was the "Address Downtown" hotel which sits a few 100 metres/yards from the Burj Khalifa.
Obviously this fire made the entire world focus on Dubai for a full two hours. People were particularly interested to see if they would go ahead with their fireworks planned for the Burj Khalifa. They did but with a five minute delay that eked out their moment in the spotlight that little bit longer.
I gather that delay was repeated - to the second - by Russia in their Moscow firework display.
Then of course there is the terror alert that has shut down railway stations in the Bavarian city of Munich in Germany.
Some of you may have noticed that this plot sounds remarkably similar to the most recent, Season 5 of the US TV show "Homeland" which is set in Germany.
However I should point out that Homeland does have a reputation for being a very well researched show. Also when I said yesterday that NYE represents a prime target for a mass casualty terror attack I was thinking specifically of the large crowds being bottle-necked into railway stations on their way home. Mind you the crowd safety steward always worries about pouring that many drunk people into small railway stations.
One thing that may indicate that this threat is simply spies mucking about is that the intelligence was provided by France. Following the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres France is still waiting for US President Obama to attend a NATO Summit to invoke Article 5. Needless to say NYE celebrations in Paris were distinctly sombre and low key this year amid troops on the streets and a continuing state of emergency.
The warning may have been France reminding Germany of that fact. Germany acting on the warning may have been Germany indicating that it views France's concerns as legitimate. Although if the threat proves to be an empty one it will have the effect of making France looking a little paranoid and irrational.
That said I immediately decided not to comment on the matter until at least 02:00GMT (03:00 local time). Even now that deadline is past I'm still a little hesitant to press the "Enter" key and tell Germans they can ignore the police's instructions.
02:02 on 1/1/16 (UK date).
Edited at around 12:25 on 1/1/16 (UK date) to add;
I did have a bit of a debate whether it would be better to write this last night whilst I'll was a little bit drunk or write it today when I was tired and a little hungover. I think I made the right choice even if I did manage to conspire to miss out the main bit of the London celebrations.
Perhaps in contrast with the excess of places like Dubai the London celebrations were partnered with UNICEF to highlight the suffering of children - particularly the refugee children from Syria and Iraq. The soundtrack began with dozens of children saying the phrase; "Welcome to London" in various languages.
The game of course was to identify each specific language used. If you could manage that the next challenge would be guess if the person was a native speaker of that language, whether they had any regional accent and whether they were actually using the correct phrase.
After all as I sort of pointed out in the post title the same phrase can mean different things depending on the emphasis you place on specific words.
Also stations in Germany have re-opened without a terror attack. However that doesn't mean that the warning was false. By publicly announcing that they were aware of the plot the security services may simply have forced the terrorists to abandon the attack.
Thursday 31 December 2015
Wednesday 30 December 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 18, Week 1, Day 4.
In my post yesterday I explained how Turkey's plans to invade Syria in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had been thwarted by the international backlash against Turkey's small scale invasion of Bashika in northern Iraq.
I also explained how with the threat of Turkish invasion lifted the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) had been able to advance capturing the Tishan Dam across the Euphrates River. This cuts pretty much the last main supply route between Turkey and Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria.
Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's response to this latest loss by ISIL has been typically furious.
The first thing that Erdogan did was December 11th (11/12/15) he appeared to deploy the Turkish troops that would have been used in the December 16th (16/12/15) invasion of Syria to instead invade the predominately Kurdish province of Mardin in southern Turkey.
In doing this Erdogan seems to be following ISIL's longstanding advice to its supporters that if they cannot travel to Syria or Iraq to fight for ISIL they should carry out attacks on ISIL's behalf within their own countries.
On December 23rd (23/12/15) a bomb exploded on a Turkish passenger jet while it was sitting empty on the tarmac at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport. One cleaner who had been working on the aircraft was killed while another was injured.
The aircraft in question was being operated by the Turkish budget carrier "Pegasus Airlines." This seems to be a reference to the pan-Arab military alliance led by Saudi Arabia that has been codenamed "Pegasus."
In Greek mythology Pegasus is a warrior horse that can bring lightening and thunder from the skies. He was captured by Bellerophon who used Pegasus to defeat the Chimera - a creature with no dominante species. Among Pegasus' many powers was that wherever he stomped his hooves and spring of water would appear.
The so-called Arab Spring that created ISIL was Saudi Arabia trying to consolidate its power over the region by overthrowing governments and replacing them with puppet regimes. The purpose of the new military alliance is to make the process much easier for the Saudis.
On a visit to Ridyah, Saudi Arabia yesterday (29/12/15) Erdogan formally announced that Turkey was no only joining the Saudi-led alliance but was also forming a specific strategic alliance between the two countries. As such the Pegasus bomb seemed to be a clear Turkish threat that if the world continued to challenge Erdogan's support for ISIL that he and his Saudi friends would fight absolutely everyone.
Of course the bombing was eventually blamed on the Kurds. This was done in order to whip Turkish nationalists into an anti-Kurdish frenzy allowing Erdogan to justify his support for ISIL.
However it was blamed specifically on a group called the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK). This seemed to be Erdogan expressing his frustration over the end of the US train & equip program that Turkey exploited to support ISIL and the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition. One of the last groups the US trained and equipped before the program was shut down was the Falcons of Mount Zawiya.
On Friday (25/12/15) - Christmas Day - there was a particularly bizarre story in which it was reported that Erdogan had talked a man out of committing suicide by jumping off Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge.
What actually happened is that the man had been standing on the bridge waiting for the arrival of Erdogan's motorcade which crosses the bridge at the same time every day. When the motorcade arrived Erdogan's security detailed simply grabbed hold of the man and frog-marched him to Erdogan's limousine.
With Erdogan having been humiliated by being forced to cancel his invasion plans this little stunt allowed him to reassert his image as the heroic - almost Messianic - saviour of the Turkish people and the world's Muslims. At that point he may even have been feeling a little jealous of Jesus.
However it also allowed Erdogan to issue a threat to the QSD as they were undertaking their Tishan Dam operation. The message being that if the QSD were to take that fatal next step of crossing the dam/bridge Erdogan wouldn't hesitate to send his security forces to stop them.
The QSD went ahead and liberated the dam anyway.
Although we all knew what its true purpose was Turkey's official explanation for sending 1,200 troops uninvited into northern Iraq was to provide force protection at the Bashika base which is close to the Mosul frontline.
On the date assigned for the Syria invasion - December 16th (16/12/15) - ISIL launched a sustained rocket attack against the Bashika base. This seemed like a deliberate attempt by ISIL to prove Turkey's point in the hope of keeping the Syria invasion plan on track if delayed.
On Monday (28/12/15) ISIL again launched another rocket attack on the Bashika base. On this occasion Turkey almost immediately responded with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu - effectively Erdogan's deputy - announcing that the attack proved that Turkey was right to send its troops into Iraq and in response it would end the withdrawal that began on December 13th (13/12/15).
That contributes to a growing sense that Turkey considers its invasion plans as merely postponed rather then cancelled and will continue to press for the go ahead.
This really underlines what has been a long-running problem with Erdogan.
Even as far back as June 2012 when Turkey sent an F-4 Phantom to invade Syrian air-space in the hope the inevitable shooting down would provide an excuse for a Turkish invasion of Syria Erdogan has a habit of doing things that are both stupid and aggressive. This then forces everyone to work extra hard to put pressure on Erdogan to back down.
The US President Obama then comes along, undercuts everybody else and Erdogan goes back to being stupid and aggressive.
It would be nice that in his eighth year as President Obama could finally develop even a hint of situational awareness.
18:25 on 30/12/15 (UK date).
I also explained how with the threat of Turkish invasion lifted the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) had been able to advance capturing the Tishan Dam across the Euphrates River. This cuts pretty much the last main supply route between Turkey and Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria.
Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan's response to this latest loss by ISIL has been typically furious.
The first thing that Erdogan did was December 11th (11/12/15) he appeared to deploy the Turkish troops that would have been used in the December 16th (16/12/15) invasion of Syria to instead invade the predominately Kurdish province of Mardin in southern Turkey.
In doing this Erdogan seems to be following ISIL's longstanding advice to its supporters that if they cannot travel to Syria or Iraq to fight for ISIL they should carry out attacks on ISIL's behalf within their own countries.
On December 23rd (23/12/15) a bomb exploded on a Turkish passenger jet while it was sitting empty on the tarmac at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport. One cleaner who had been working on the aircraft was killed while another was injured.
The aircraft in question was being operated by the Turkish budget carrier "Pegasus Airlines." This seems to be a reference to the pan-Arab military alliance led by Saudi Arabia that has been codenamed "Pegasus."
In Greek mythology Pegasus is a warrior horse that can bring lightening and thunder from the skies. He was captured by Bellerophon who used Pegasus to defeat the Chimera - a creature with no dominante species. Among Pegasus' many powers was that wherever he stomped his hooves and spring of water would appear.
The so-called Arab Spring that created ISIL was Saudi Arabia trying to consolidate its power over the region by overthrowing governments and replacing them with puppet regimes. The purpose of the new military alliance is to make the process much easier for the Saudis.
On a visit to Ridyah, Saudi Arabia yesterday (29/12/15) Erdogan formally announced that Turkey was no only joining the Saudi-led alliance but was also forming a specific strategic alliance between the two countries. As such the Pegasus bomb seemed to be a clear Turkish threat that if the world continued to challenge Erdogan's support for ISIL that he and his Saudi friends would fight absolutely everyone.
Of course the bombing was eventually blamed on the Kurds. This was done in order to whip Turkish nationalists into an anti-Kurdish frenzy allowing Erdogan to justify his support for ISIL.
However it was blamed specifically on a group called the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK). This seemed to be Erdogan expressing his frustration over the end of the US train & equip program that Turkey exploited to support ISIL and the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition. One of the last groups the US trained and equipped before the program was shut down was the Falcons of Mount Zawiya.
On Friday (25/12/15) - Christmas Day - there was a particularly bizarre story in which it was reported that Erdogan had talked a man out of committing suicide by jumping off Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge.
What actually happened is that the man had been standing on the bridge waiting for the arrival of Erdogan's motorcade which crosses the bridge at the same time every day. When the motorcade arrived Erdogan's security detailed simply grabbed hold of the man and frog-marched him to Erdogan's limousine.
With Erdogan having been humiliated by being forced to cancel his invasion plans this little stunt allowed him to reassert his image as the heroic - almost Messianic - saviour of the Turkish people and the world's Muslims. At that point he may even have been feeling a little jealous of Jesus.
However it also allowed Erdogan to issue a threat to the QSD as they were undertaking their Tishan Dam operation. The message being that if the QSD were to take that fatal next step of crossing the dam/bridge Erdogan wouldn't hesitate to send his security forces to stop them.
The QSD went ahead and liberated the dam anyway.
Although we all knew what its true purpose was Turkey's official explanation for sending 1,200 troops uninvited into northern Iraq was to provide force protection at the Bashika base which is close to the Mosul frontline.
On the date assigned for the Syria invasion - December 16th (16/12/15) - ISIL launched a sustained rocket attack against the Bashika base. This seemed like a deliberate attempt by ISIL to prove Turkey's point in the hope of keeping the Syria invasion plan on track if delayed.
On Monday (28/12/15) ISIL again launched another rocket attack on the Bashika base. On this occasion Turkey almost immediately responded with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu - effectively Erdogan's deputy - announcing that the attack proved that Turkey was right to send its troops into Iraq and in response it would end the withdrawal that began on December 13th (13/12/15).
That contributes to a growing sense that Turkey considers its invasion plans as merely postponed rather then cancelled and will continue to press for the go ahead.
This really underlines what has been a long-running problem with Erdogan.
Even as far back as June 2012 when Turkey sent an F-4 Phantom to invade Syrian air-space in the hope the inevitable shooting down would provide an excuse for a Turkish invasion of Syria Erdogan has a habit of doing things that are both stupid and aggressive. This then forces everyone to work extra hard to put pressure on Erdogan to back down.
The US President Obama then comes along, undercuts everybody else and Erdogan goes back to being stupid and aggressive.
It would be nice that in his eighth year as President Obama could finally develop even a hint of situational awareness.
18:25 on 30/12/15 (UK date).
The NYE Terror Threat.
Throughout much of 2014 and 2015 the west and Europe in particular has been under constant and severe threat of terrorist attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups. This threat was called into sharp focus by the November 13th (13/11/15) massacres in Paris, France.
Just because we've all taken a few days off to celebrate Christmas does not mean that this threat has suddenly disappeared. In fact it will be with us until ISIL are destroyed.
Tomorrow's (31/12/15) New Years Eve (NYE) celebrations represent a prime target for a mass casualty terror attack. That is because they often involve huge crowds of people gathering out in the open at local landmarks.
Also despite the fact that it is a completely secular celebration with absolutely no religious dimension to it there is something of a misconception amongst the Islamic world that New Years Eve is a Christian festival. ISIL are also likely to accuse it of being Pagan.
I don't bring this up to alarm people or cause them to do anything other then celebrate as the would normally. After all we pay people to worry about this sort of thing and they are certainly aware of the increased threat and taking the appropriate precautions.
As part of doing that job on Saturday (26/12/15) Austria announced that it had received a warning that an attack was planned against NYE celebrations in Vienna. What is curious about this is that Austria did not reveal who had provided the intelligence leading to this warning describing it as simply coming from "a friendly nation."
This would suggest that it didn't come from one of Austria's formal NATO allies. As the birthplace of Adolf Hitler Austria along with Germany is very keen to let it be known that it is friends with Israel and this is often how Israeli intelligence is described.
However if the intelligence had been provided by Russia as part of its fight against ISIL it would be a big step for Austria to describe Russia as a friend. After all the US is currently refusing to read intelligence on ISIL provided by Russia.
Announcing to a group of spies that you know a secret but you're not going to tell them what it is is probably one of the worst things you can do. As a result over the past couple of days various other nations have been issuing their own security warnings in the hope of finding the source for Austria's warning.
Yesterday (29/12/15) authorities in Belgium announced that they'd arrested two men who were plotting an attack against NYE crowds in Brussels' Grand Place square.
In the past Belgium has been an enthusiastic supporter of ISIL not only sending many of its Muslims citizens to fight for the group in Syria and Iraq but also allowing them to return home. The Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 2015 along with the thwarted August 21st (21/8/15) attack aboard a Thalys train and the Paris Massacres all seem to have been organised in Belgium to some extent.
Therefore while I don't doubt there was genuine criminal intent with no weapons being found I think that this latest Belgian terror plot was more at the aspirational stage rather then a plan that was ready to go into action. Apart from shutting down an active terror cell the timing of the arrests seem to be an enquiry as to whether this was the plot the Austrians were referring to.
Later yesterday a shopping mall near the city of Basel in Switzerland had to be evacuated after a bomb threat that later turned out to be a hoax. Again this seemed to be an enquiry as to the nature of the Austrian intelligence. However it also seemed to be a reference to an incident that happened at a shopping mall in the Bromley area of South London, UK on Saturday (26/12/15).
Essentially what happened is that two men got into a knife fight within the shopping mall. This caused the police to be called and the mall evacuated. Bromley is the next area London borough over from where I live in Croydon. In fact close to Crystal Palace Park there is a one-way road system that forces you to drive from Croydon into Southwark, into Bromley and back into Croydon all within 100 metre/yards or so.
Knowing the area as I do I'm aware that this type of incident isn't actually that uncommon. In fact if it hadn't occurred on what was a very slow news day I doubt it would have made the frontpage of the local newspaper let alone the national news. As such I almost immediately disregarded it as irrelevant.
Today Turkey has announced that it has arrested two men it claims were plotting suicide bomb attacks against NYE crowds in Ankara.
The last month has been spent trying to prevent Turkey invading Syria in support of ISIL and there are still the unresolved questions over Turkey's involvement in the October 31st (31/10/15) bombing of Kogalymavia flight 7K9268 over Egypt and the Paris Massacres. Therefore Turkey is keen to convince Europe that it is its ally against ISIL rather than ISIL's ally against Europe by showing that it too is threatened by ISIL.
Also Turkey definitely did shoot down an Russian Su-24 jet on November 24th (24/11/15) and is widely suspected of downing flight 7K9268. Therefore it would be very interested to know if Europe is now considering Russia to be "a friendly nation."
The US also seems to be getting in on the act. Yesterday its controversial Justice Department announced that it had successfully prosecuted a man for attacking an Islamic centre and defacing copies of the Qu'ran in Missouri back in 2011. This seemed to be a reference to events on the French island of Corsica over the weekend.
Essentially what happened is that on Christmas Eve (24/12/15) a group of Muslim Arab youths attacked firefighters and the police officers guarding them while they tackled a blaze that appears to have been set on purpose in order to ambush first responders.
This prompted a lot of local anger and on Christmas Day (25/12/15) a group of around 300 local residents ran riot through the predominately Arab housing estate where the attack took place. During the course of this riot an Islamic centre was attacked and copies of the Qu'ran were destroyed.
There is obviously no excusing this. However over the past year ISIL - in the name of Islam - have been almost attacking Europeans - particularly in France. For example I think quite a few people considered the Paris Massacres to be somewhat offensive. It is a fact of life that there is only so long you can be perceived to be poking someone in the eye before eventually they turn round and punch you in the face.
To my mind this rise in Islamaphobia and the backlash against Muslims who have absolutely nothing to do with ISIL is yet another reason why we need to destroy ISIL and associated groups sooner rather then later.
By highlighting how it is cracking down on Islamaphobic hate crime the US instead seems to be lecturing France that it shouldn't be concerned about ISIL but instead should focus on the people who are outraged by what ISIL are doing.
Given that US President Obama's response to the Paris Massacres was to blow off America's oldest ally in order to effectively go on holiday to Turkey and Malaysia I don't think the US is in much of a position to lecture anybody on anything.
17:00 on 30/12/15 (UK date).
Just because we've all taken a few days off to celebrate Christmas does not mean that this threat has suddenly disappeared. In fact it will be with us until ISIL are destroyed.
Tomorrow's (31/12/15) New Years Eve (NYE) celebrations represent a prime target for a mass casualty terror attack. That is because they often involve huge crowds of people gathering out in the open at local landmarks.
Also despite the fact that it is a completely secular celebration with absolutely no religious dimension to it there is something of a misconception amongst the Islamic world that New Years Eve is a Christian festival. ISIL are also likely to accuse it of being Pagan.
I don't bring this up to alarm people or cause them to do anything other then celebrate as the would normally. After all we pay people to worry about this sort of thing and they are certainly aware of the increased threat and taking the appropriate precautions.
As part of doing that job on Saturday (26/12/15) Austria announced that it had received a warning that an attack was planned against NYE celebrations in Vienna. What is curious about this is that Austria did not reveal who had provided the intelligence leading to this warning describing it as simply coming from "a friendly nation."
This would suggest that it didn't come from one of Austria's formal NATO allies. As the birthplace of Adolf Hitler Austria along with Germany is very keen to let it be known that it is friends with Israel and this is often how Israeli intelligence is described.
However if the intelligence had been provided by Russia as part of its fight against ISIL it would be a big step for Austria to describe Russia as a friend. After all the US is currently refusing to read intelligence on ISIL provided by Russia.
Announcing to a group of spies that you know a secret but you're not going to tell them what it is is probably one of the worst things you can do. As a result over the past couple of days various other nations have been issuing their own security warnings in the hope of finding the source for Austria's warning.
Yesterday (29/12/15) authorities in Belgium announced that they'd arrested two men who were plotting an attack against NYE crowds in Brussels' Grand Place square.
In the past Belgium has been an enthusiastic supporter of ISIL not only sending many of its Muslims citizens to fight for the group in Syria and Iraq but also allowing them to return home. The Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 2015 along with the thwarted August 21st (21/8/15) attack aboard a Thalys train and the Paris Massacres all seem to have been organised in Belgium to some extent.
Therefore while I don't doubt there was genuine criminal intent with no weapons being found I think that this latest Belgian terror plot was more at the aspirational stage rather then a plan that was ready to go into action. Apart from shutting down an active terror cell the timing of the arrests seem to be an enquiry as to whether this was the plot the Austrians were referring to.
Later yesterday a shopping mall near the city of Basel in Switzerland had to be evacuated after a bomb threat that later turned out to be a hoax. Again this seemed to be an enquiry as to the nature of the Austrian intelligence. However it also seemed to be a reference to an incident that happened at a shopping mall in the Bromley area of South London, UK on Saturday (26/12/15).
Essentially what happened is that two men got into a knife fight within the shopping mall. This caused the police to be called and the mall evacuated. Bromley is the next area London borough over from where I live in Croydon. In fact close to Crystal Palace Park there is a one-way road system that forces you to drive from Croydon into Southwark, into Bromley and back into Croydon all within 100 metre/yards or so.
Knowing the area as I do I'm aware that this type of incident isn't actually that uncommon. In fact if it hadn't occurred on what was a very slow news day I doubt it would have made the frontpage of the local newspaper let alone the national news. As such I almost immediately disregarded it as irrelevant.
Today Turkey has announced that it has arrested two men it claims were plotting suicide bomb attacks against NYE crowds in Ankara.
The last month has been spent trying to prevent Turkey invading Syria in support of ISIL and there are still the unresolved questions over Turkey's involvement in the October 31st (31/10/15) bombing of Kogalymavia flight 7K9268 over Egypt and the Paris Massacres. Therefore Turkey is keen to convince Europe that it is its ally against ISIL rather than ISIL's ally against Europe by showing that it too is threatened by ISIL.
Also Turkey definitely did shoot down an Russian Su-24 jet on November 24th (24/11/15) and is widely suspected of downing flight 7K9268. Therefore it would be very interested to know if Europe is now considering Russia to be "a friendly nation."
The US also seems to be getting in on the act. Yesterday its controversial Justice Department announced that it had successfully prosecuted a man for attacking an Islamic centre and defacing copies of the Qu'ran in Missouri back in 2011. This seemed to be a reference to events on the French island of Corsica over the weekend.
Essentially what happened is that on Christmas Eve (24/12/15) a group of Muslim Arab youths attacked firefighters and the police officers guarding them while they tackled a blaze that appears to have been set on purpose in order to ambush first responders.
This prompted a lot of local anger and on Christmas Day (25/12/15) a group of around 300 local residents ran riot through the predominately Arab housing estate where the attack took place. During the course of this riot an Islamic centre was attacked and copies of the Qu'ran were destroyed.
There is obviously no excusing this. However over the past year ISIL - in the name of Islam - have been almost attacking Europeans - particularly in France. For example I think quite a few people considered the Paris Massacres to be somewhat offensive. It is a fact of life that there is only so long you can be perceived to be poking someone in the eye before eventually they turn round and punch you in the face.
To my mind this rise in Islamaphobia and the backlash against Muslims who have absolutely nothing to do with ISIL is yet another reason why we need to destroy ISIL and associated groups sooner rather then later.
By highlighting how it is cracking down on Islamaphobic hate crime the US instead seems to be lecturing France that it shouldn't be concerned about ISIL but instead should focus on the people who are outraged by what ISIL are doing.
Given that US President Obama's response to the Paris Massacres was to blow off America's oldest ally in order to effectively go on holiday to Turkey and Malaysia I don't think the US is in much of a position to lecture anybody on anything.
17:00 on 30/12/15 (UK date).
Tuesday 29 December 2015
Operation Featherweight: Month 18, Week 1, Day 3.
Due to the COP21 climate change summit it has been three weeks since my last dedicated update on the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups in Iraq and Syria. At that time the big concern was over Turkish plans to invade Syria.
These concerns date back to the summer of 2015 and centre on the town of Marea. This sits in Aleppo Province some 30km (18 miles) north of Aleppo City. It also sits 20km (12 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Up until early August it was controlled by the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist group.
Then on August 9th (9/8/15) the Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the two largest factions in JAF - the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) and the Al Qaeda affiliate the Al Nusra Front (ANF) - to abandon Marea. This allowed ISIL to seize control of the town.
Henceforth the town became known as "Erdogan's Pocket."
Turkey's hope was that the prospect of ISIL advancing so close to the Turkish border would provide an excuse for Turkey to invade a large section of northern Syria stretching from the town of Jarablus on the banks of the Euphrates River to the Latakia Mountains which sit on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Rather than fighting ISIL the purpose of this Turkish invasion would be to clear the anti-ISIL Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) from Aleppo and Idlib Provinces. It would then re-establish ISIL's supply lines through Turkey by by-passing the roughly 800km^2 (480 miles^2) buffer-zone that the QSD has established between ISIL and Turkey across the north-east of Syria.
On September 30th (30/9/15) Russia entered the fight in Syria against ISIL and associated groups. This substantially disrupted Turkey's invasion plans.
In the first instance Russia's involvement has dramatically shifted the momentum of the conflict against ISIL and the JAF.
On December 8th (8/12/15) ISIL and JAF fighters in the city of Homs - 150km (90 miles) north of the Syrian capital Damascus and 180km (110 miles) south of Aleppo City - finally surrendered to Syrian government forces. As part of their surrender they were allowed to leave along with their families to Aleppo Province.
The more moderate groups were allowed to remain in the city on condition that they stop attacking civilians and Syrian government forces. They appear to have violated that agreement yesterday (28/12/15) with twin car bombings in the city which killed 32.
Also yesterday ISIL and JAF chose to surrender the towns of Foua and Kafraya and the city Zabadani which all sit between Damascus and the border with Lebanon. You may remember that this was originally scheduled to take place in late-September. Unfortunately ISIL and JAF took some ill-advised American comments on the imminent collapse of the Syrian government a little too literally and continued to fight on. This hastened Russia's involvement.
As with in Homs City ISIL and JAF fighters in Foua and Kafraya and Zabadani have been allowed to take their families and leave for Aleppo Province. More moderate groups have been allowed to remain on condition that they stop attacking civilians and Syrian government forces.
On December 26th (26/12/15) ISIL and JAF were supposed to surrender control of the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the suburbs of Damascus under a similar agreement to Homs City, Foua and Kafraya and Zabadani.
However on December 25th (25/12/15) a targeted Russian air-strike killed Zahran Alloush - the leader of the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) which is a small but particularly nasty faction within the JAF coalition which is very active around Damascus.
It was JAI who on July 1st (1/7/15) released a 20 minute ISIL-style propaganda video in which 18 ISIL fighters were beheaded. JAI's reason for doing this was that it considered ISIL far too moderate and not brutal enough in its attempts to ethnically cleanse the Levant region.
Surrendering Yarmouk so soon after the death of Alloush would seem too much like complete defeat for JAI so they have decided to fight on. Obviously this continuation of fighting prevents the evacuation of wounded civilians from Yarmouk and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the camp.
This run of defeats means that ISIL's occupation of Marea is now much less of a concern. It seems likely that Syrian government will soon be able to fully liberate Aleppo City and then move up to liberate Marea.
Failing that Russia has been looking at working with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who based in what is termed the Afrin Canton north-west of Aleppo City to move east to liberate Marea and link up with the QSD coalition east of the Euphrates.
Turkey's shooting down of a Russian Su-24 over the Latakia Mountains on November 24th (24/11/15) was intended to reverse ISIL and JAF's run of defeats by getting the international community to prevent further Russian air-strikes. Fortunately this attempt failed.
Russia's involvement also of course presents the much more immediate problem to Turkey that if it were to launch an invasion of Syria Russian aircraft would simply destroy the invasion force.
So with Turkey's window for action closing they set a provisional date of December 16th (16/12/15) for this invasion to take place.
In preparation Turkey decided to test the diplomatic waters by sending a 1,200 strong force into northern Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi government on December 4th (4/12/15). They then set up camp near the town of Bashika
Fortunately this aggressive Turkish move prompted something of a furious diplomatic backlash. Numerous nations voiced their opposition through various hoax security threats to passenger aircraft. The issue was even raised at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) although the US blocked a resolution formally condemning Turkey's actions.
However this didn't stop Russia from flying strategic bombers low and aggressively over the Bashika camp to send the message that they could bomb the Turkish troops out of Iraq if they wished to. This was followed by the US 'accidentally' bombing a Syrian government camp in north-east Syria. That could well have been interpreted as the US sending Russia the message that if it wanted to solve the Bashika problem the US wouldn't complain too loudly.
It seems that by December 13th (13/12/15) Turkey finally got the message that it's planned invasion of Syria would not be tolerated and withdrew the bulk - roughly 1000 - of it's troops from Iraq.
It was a full six days after this on December 19th (19/12/15) that US President Barack Obama finally felt confident enough to criticise Turkey's actions and call for the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Iraq.
No-one seemed more upset at the cancellation of the Turkish invasion then ISIL themselves. On the provisional invasion date (16/12/15) ISIL launched a sustained rocket attack on the Bashika camp injuring at least 4 Turkish troops. Turkey's excuse for sending so many troops to Bashika was to provide force protection for Turkish trainers already at the base. A significant attack on the base would seem to strengthen that claim.
With the threat of Turkish invasion lifted the QSD have been able to cross the Euphrates and push west towards ISIL positions around Jarablus.
Following an operation that began on December 23rd (23/12/15) by December 26th (26/12/15) the QSD had succeeded in clearing a roughly 200km^2 (120 mile^2) area made up of some 20 farms, 8 villages and numerous bridges between the town of Sarrin and the Tishan dam including the dam itself.
The Tishan Dam sits around 30km (18 miles) south-west of the town of Manbij and around 90km (55 miles) north-west of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. With the exception of the bridge at the town of Al Tabqah which sits some 55km (30 miles) to the south it represents that last main river crossing linking Raqqa with ISIL positions across the north-west of Syria including Jarablus and Marea.
As a result it is a huge strategic victory for the QSD which will certainly hasten ISIL's defeat by cutting their remaining supply lines with Turkey.
Erdogan's response to this latest defeat for ISIL has been typically furious.
For example on December 25th (25/12/15) in a buttock-clenchingly awful attempt to portray himself as the heroic saviour of all mankind Erdogan was keen to send the message that he is more then prepared to send his security forces to stop people taking that fatal next step over the river.
However as I'm still finding my feet after the festive break I will be back to add more detail on that tomorrow.
18:05 on 29/12/15 (UK date).
These concerns date back to the summer of 2015 and centre on the town of Marea. This sits in Aleppo Province some 30km (18 miles) north of Aleppo City. It also sits 20km (12 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey. Up until early August it was controlled by the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist group.
Then on August 9th (9/8/15) the Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the two largest factions in JAF - the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML) and the Al Qaeda affiliate the Al Nusra Front (ANF) - to abandon Marea. This allowed ISIL to seize control of the town.
Henceforth the town became known as "Erdogan's Pocket."
Turkey's hope was that the prospect of ISIL advancing so close to the Turkish border would provide an excuse for Turkey to invade a large section of northern Syria stretching from the town of Jarablus on the banks of the Euphrates River to the Latakia Mountains which sit on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Rather than fighting ISIL the purpose of this Turkish invasion would be to clear the anti-ISIL Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) from Aleppo and Idlib Provinces. It would then re-establish ISIL's supply lines through Turkey by by-passing the roughly 800km^2 (480 miles^2) buffer-zone that the QSD has established between ISIL and Turkey across the north-east of Syria.
On September 30th (30/9/15) Russia entered the fight in Syria against ISIL and associated groups. This substantially disrupted Turkey's invasion plans.
In the first instance Russia's involvement has dramatically shifted the momentum of the conflict against ISIL and the JAF.
On December 8th (8/12/15) ISIL and JAF fighters in the city of Homs - 150km (90 miles) north of the Syrian capital Damascus and 180km (110 miles) south of Aleppo City - finally surrendered to Syrian government forces. As part of their surrender they were allowed to leave along with their families to Aleppo Province.
The more moderate groups were allowed to remain in the city on condition that they stop attacking civilians and Syrian government forces. They appear to have violated that agreement yesterday (28/12/15) with twin car bombings in the city which killed 32.
Also yesterday ISIL and JAF chose to surrender the towns of Foua and Kafraya and the city Zabadani which all sit between Damascus and the border with Lebanon. You may remember that this was originally scheduled to take place in late-September. Unfortunately ISIL and JAF took some ill-advised American comments on the imminent collapse of the Syrian government a little too literally and continued to fight on. This hastened Russia's involvement.
As with in Homs City ISIL and JAF fighters in Foua and Kafraya and Zabadani have been allowed to take their families and leave for Aleppo Province. More moderate groups have been allowed to remain on condition that they stop attacking civilians and Syrian government forces.
On December 26th (26/12/15) ISIL and JAF were supposed to surrender control of the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the suburbs of Damascus under a similar agreement to Homs City, Foua and Kafraya and Zabadani.
However on December 25th (25/12/15) a targeted Russian air-strike killed Zahran Alloush - the leader of the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) which is a small but particularly nasty faction within the JAF coalition which is very active around Damascus.
It was JAI who on July 1st (1/7/15) released a 20 minute ISIL-style propaganda video in which 18 ISIL fighters were beheaded. JAI's reason for doing this was that it considered ISIL far too moderate and not brutal enough in its attempts to ethnically cleanse the Levant region.
Surrendering Yarmouk so soon after the death of Alloush would seem too much like complete defeat for JAI so they have decided to fight on. Obviously this continuation of fighting prevents the evacuation of wounded civilians from Yarmouk and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the camp.
This run of defeats means that ISIL's occupation of Marea is now much less of a concern. It seems likely that Syrian government will soon be able to fully liberate Aleppo City and then move up to liberate Marea.
Failing that Russia has been looking at working with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who based in what is termed the Afrin Canton north-west of Aleppo City to move east to liberate Marea and link up with the QSD coalition east of the Euphrates.
Turkey's shooting down of a Russian Su-24 over the Latakia Mountains on November 24th (24/11/15) was intended to reverse ISIL and JAF's run of defeats by getting the international community to prevent further Russian air-strikes. Fortunately this attempt failed.
Russia's involvement also of course presents the much more immediate problem to Turkey that if it were to launch an invasion of Syria Russian aircraft would simply destroy the invasion force.
So with Turkey's window for action closing they set a provisional date of December 16th (16/12/15) for this invasion to take place.
In preparation Turkey decided to test the diplomatic waters by sending a 1,200 strong force into northern Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi government on December 4th (4/12/15). They then set up camp near the town of Bashika
Fortunately this aggressive Turkish move prompted something of a furious diplomatic backlash. Numerous nations voiced their opposition through various hoax security threats to passenger aircraft. The issue was even raised at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) although the US blocked a resolution formally condemning Turkey's actions.
However this didn't stop Russia from flying strategic bombers low and aggressively over the Bashika camp to send the message that they could bomb the Turkish troops out of Iraq if they wished to. This was followed by the US 'accidentally' bombing a Syrian government camp in north-east Syria. That could well have been interpreted as the US sending Russia the message that if it wanted to solve the Bashika problem the US wouldn't complain too loudly.
It seems that by December 13th (13/12/15) Turkey finally got the message that it's planned invasion of Syria would not be tolerated and withdrew the bulk - roughly 1000 - of it's troops from Iraq.
It was a full six days after this on December 19th (19/12/15) that US President Barack Obama finally felt confident enough to criticise Turkey's actions and call for the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Iraq.
No-one seemed more upset at the cancellation of the Turkish invasion then ISIL themselves. On the provisional invasion date (16/12/15) ISIL launched a sustained rocket attack on the Bashika camp injuring at least 4 Turkish troops. Turkey's excuse for sending so many troops to Bashika was to provide force protection for Turkish trainers already at the base. A significant attack on the base would seem to strengthen that claim.
With the threat of Turkish invasion lifted the QSD have been able to cross the Euphrates and push west towards ISIL positions around Jarablus.
Following an operation that began on December 23rd (23/12/15) by December 26th (26/12/15) the QSD had succeeded in clearing a roughly 200km^2 (120 mile^2) area made up of some 20 farms, 8 villages and numerous bridges between the town of Sarrin and the Tishan dam including the dam itself.
The Tishan Dam sits around 30km (18 miles) south-west of the town of Manbij and around 90km (55 miles) north-west of Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. With the exception of the bridge at the town of Al Tabqah which sits some 55km (30 miles) to the south it represents that last main river crossing linking Raqqa with ISIL positions across the north-west of Syria including Jarablus and Marea.
As a result it is a huge strategic victory for the QSD which will certainly hasten ISIL's defeat by cutting their remaining supply lines with Turkey.
Erdogan's response to this latest defeat for ISIL has been typically furious.
For example on December 25th (25/12/15) in a buttock-clenchingly awful attempt to portray himself as the heroic saviour of all mankind Erdogan was keen to send the message that he is more then prepared to send his security forces to stop people taking that fatal next step over the river.
However as I'm still finding my feet after the festive break I will be back to add more detail on that tomorrow.
18:05 on 29/12/15 (UK date).
Monday 28 December 2015
COP21 Terrorism Update #14.
On December 12th (12/12/15) the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ended in Paris, France.
Unfortunately the draft agreement it produced for consideration by national governments was so terrible I've got a nasty feeling that I'm going to be using this title designation right up until the COP22 Summit in Morocco at the end of 2016.
One of the main problems with the draft agreement produced in Paris is that it sets in stone what is known as the principle of binary differentiation for all eternity.
This means that under the agreement only the 38 nations listed in Annex I of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) are obligated to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (ghg). Nations not included in that annex such as India and China are free to grow their ghg emissions as much as they please.
Despite all the claims at COP21 that nations would reduce their emissions even if they weren't obligated to - US President Obama's claim that he'd received such a guarantee from China for example - we got a clear indication of how China intends to proceed under the Paris draft.
On December 23rd (23/12/15) China announced that it was cutting the price of electricity produced by ghg emitting fossil fuels. They actually went so far as to claim that this move would reduce ghg emissions. However I'm not sure how making electricity produced by fossil fuels is going to discourage people from using more of it.
The comparative cost of green, renewable energy versus energy produced by fossil fuels has long been cited as a reason why it is economically impossible to cut ghg emissions. However this is rather a deceptive argument because fossil fuels aren't actually that cheap. What keeps the price down for the end user is vast government subsidies - USD500bn in 2011 alone.
Once you strip out these subsidies and consumers are left paying the true price the cost gap between fossil fuels and renewables isn't so large. In some cases the renewable sources actually work out cheaper.
Aside from the effort to draw up a new global agreement one of the main focus' in the run-up to COP21 has been to get governments to end these fossil fuel subsidies. By announcing that it is increasing its subsidies China is clearly signally that it has been going in the exact opposite direction.
Since COP21 a large part of the focus has been on Saudi Arabian led attempts to intimidate developing nations - particularly in East/Central Africa - to sign up to an agreement that will kill off all future attempts to combat climate change.
As such there has been renewed unrest in nations such as Burundi, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic (CAR) alongside plenty of international discussion such as the Air France passenger jet from Mauritius to France that had to be diverted to Kenya amid a bomb hoax on December 20th (20/12/15).
Last Wednesday (23/12/15) the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which for December is under the Presidency of the United States was forced to sit through a presentation by UN staffers on the effects of climate change on food security in East Africa.
The prospects are looking particularly grim with Ethiopia set for it's worst drought in 50 years - far worse then the drought which caused the 1984 famine that prompted then Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas" which is now synonymous with Christmas in the UK. Already in Ethiopia some 350,000 children are classed as severely malnourished while the man-made famine in Yemen more then 530,000 children are severely malnourished.
On December 24th (24/12/15) Saudi Arabia responded to this apparent pressure from the UNSC with a fire at a maternity hospital in the southern city of Jazan which killed 24 and injured 123. Jazan sits right on Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen so this was a clear reference to Saudi Arabia's attempts to secure control of Yemen to use it as a launchpad against nations across East/Central Africa.
The fact that is was a maternity hospital and that many of the victims were infants in their cribs was a reference to a part of the Christmas story known as; "The Massacre of the Innocents."
Although we can dispute whether Jesus Christ is the son of God or not certainly at the time of his birth the middle-east region was under the control of King Herod the Great. Rather like Saudi Arabia's ruling al-Saud family Herod became King by doing a deal with the Roman Empire to keep the Jews in line in return for his fiefdom.
The story goes that upon being told that the new King of Kings had been born in Bethlehem Herod became intensely jealous and ordered all the baby boys born in Bethlehem during that month. Having been warned of this Jesus and his family were forced to flee as refugees to Egypt. There is some debate as to whether the Massacre of the Innocents actually happened but King Herod was that vicious and violent you certainly wouldn't put it past him.
Therefore Saudi Arabia's recreation of the Massacre of the Innocents in Jazan was a clear threat that it would continue to use terrorism to prevent the al-Saud's rule being usurped.
What made Saudi Arabia's threat seem all the more sinister is that the following day (25/12/15) the UK Queen delivered her traditional Christmas Day speech to the nation and the Commonwealth including nations such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda.
Speaking about the refugee crisis that has gripped Europe this year the Queen reminded us that shortly after his birth Jesus himself had been forced to seek refuge. This was an oblique reference to the Massacre of the Innocents.
Also that day the Archbishop of Canterbury - the second in command of the Protestant Christian Church of England - gave his Christmas Day sermon. His reference to the Massacre of the Innocents was much more explicit with the Archbishop comparing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to a modern day King Herod.
The Queen's speech is of course pre-recorded and although he delivers it live I don't think the Archbishop of Canterbury simply knocks out his sermon the morning he delivers it.
Therefore through the Jazan fire Saudi Arabia was not only trying to sending the message that its terror campaign will continue it was also trying to send the message that the UK Commonwealth couldn't protect its members because Saudi Arabia is so powerful it had advance knowledge of both the UK Queen's and the Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas messages.
I should point out then that although it is considered bad manners to report on the Queen's speech before it is broadcast it is far from a state secret. In fact the Monarchy doesn't actually produce the broadcast itself instead working with the UK's main news broadcasters on a rotating basis. This year it was Independent Television News (ITN).
As always when media-types involved there is always quite a bit of gossip. As a commercial broadcaster ITN doesn't have quite the same reverence for the Monarchy as the BBC is run under a Royal Charter and is part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) news pool. Plus all journalists in the UK get a preview copy of the speech at least a day in advance.
Therefore getting advance knowledge of either the UK Queen's or the Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas messages is far from the intelligence coup that Saudi Arabia would like you to believe.
In response to the Jazan fire on Christmas morning (25/12/15) there was a fire at the birthplace of former US President Bill Clinton which is now a protected historical site in Hope, Arkansas. This was quickly confirmed as an act of arson which allowed the US to signal that the Jazan fire was also an arson and therefore a threat.
One of the main issues raised during recent discussions is that the US has become so detached from reality that it is unable to participate. Hence the UN feeling the need to give them a special briefing.
"Hope" was of course the big election campaign slogan of current US President Barack Obama while his first Secretary of State - dealing with foreign affairs - was Bill Clinton's wife Hillary. Hillary Clinton is now all but confirmed as the Democrat's 2016 Presidential Candidate and her unconventional running-mate Donald Trump is working hard to make sure she wins.
Alongside the arson the house was also daubed with some quite childish graffiti. For example the was a large "XX" which could well be a reference to the female chromosomal pairing. Hillary Clinton's seemingly only qualification to be President is that she is a woman.
There was also text-speak such as "55" which means "Ha Ha" and emoji such as the "Razz" symbol of a smiley face sticking its tongue out in mockery.
That could well be a reference to the fact that while the World is facing one of the greatest threats to its safety and stability since the second world war Obama and Hillary seem intent to continue behaving like sulky teenagers.
The biggest contribution to the climate debate over recent days though seems to have come from the climate itself.
As I've mentioned before the northern hemisphere is experiencing unseasonably warm, spring-like weather.
In the US this has caused cold weather to move further south causing intense snow storms over the north-west. This is meeting warmer weather that has been moving up from the Atlantic. Where the two weather systems have met they are producing violent storms, tornadoes and flooding.
In South America this warm Atlantic weather is causing violent storms around the border areas between Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. This has produced some of the worst flooding in 15 years.
At the other side of the Atlantic this warming weather has brought violent storms and heavy rainfall to the Republic of Ireland and the UK.
On Christmas Eve (24/12/15) the appropriately named "Storm Eva" knocked out power to 6000 households in Ireland. By the time it reached the UK the following day (25/12/15) it caused widespread flooding that over-topped flood defences in large sections of the country. This included the Cumbria region which was previously flooded just two weeks ago during "Storm Desmond."
This of course was all entirely predictable amongst people who have accepted that global warming is manmade and it is causing the climate to change.
However people who refuse to accept the realities of climate change will instead try to blame it all on the "El Nino" weather phenomenon. This is really a redundant argument.
For reasons we don't really understand sea temperatures in the central/eastern Pacific Ocean go through a cycle from a warm peak to a cold trough and back again. El Nino describes the peak of this warming cycle and is defined by a three month period where sea temperatures are 0.5C above average. Sea temperatures are currently four times greater then the 0.5C El Nino rise at 2C and have been for quite some time.
Therefore the El Nino argument seems to be that this extreme weather is not being caused by global warming. Instead it is being caused by the globe being warmer than it should be.
18:05 on 28/12/15 (UK date).
Unfortunately the draft agreement it produced for consideration by national governments was so terrible I've got a nasty feeling that I'm going to be using this title designation right up until the COP22 Summit in Morocco at the end of 2016.
One of the main problems with the draft agreement produced in Paris is that it sets in stone what is known as the principle of binary differentiation for all eternity.
This means that under the agreement only the 38 nations listed in Annex I of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) are obligated to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (ghg). Nations not included in that annex such as India and China are free to grow their ghg emissions as much as they please.
Despite all the claims at COP21 that nations would reduce their emissions even if they weren't obligated to - US President Obama's claim that he'd received such a guarantee from China for example - we got a clear indication of how China intends to proceed under the Paris draft.
On December 23rd (23/12/15) China announced that it was cutting the price of electricity produced by ghg emitting fossil fuels. They actually went so far as to claim that this move would reduce ghg emissions. However I'm not sure how making electricity produced by fossil fuels is going to discourage people from using more of it.
The comparative cost of green, renewable energy versus energy produced by fossil fuels has long been cited as a reason why it is economically impossible to cut ghg emissions. However this is rather a deceptive argument because fossil fuels aren't actually that cheap. What keeps the price down for the end user is vast government subsidies - USD500bn in 2011 alone.
Once you strip out these subsidies and consumers are left paying the true price the cost gap between fossil fuels and renewables isn't so large. In some cases the renewable sources actually work out cheaper.
Aside from the effort to draw up a new global agreement one of the main focus' in the run-up to COP21 has been to get governments to end these fossil fuel subsidies. By announcing that it is increasing its subsidies China is clearly signally that it has been going in the exact opposite direction.
Since COP21 a large part of the focus has been on Saudi Arabian led attempts to intimidate developing nations - particularly in East/Central Africa - to sign up to an agreement that will kill off all future attempts to combat climate change.
As such there has been renewed unrest in nations such as Burundi, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic (CAR) alongside plenty of international discussion such as the Air France passenger jet from Mauritius to France that had to be diverted to Kenya amid a bomb hoax on December 20th (20/12/15).
Last Wednesday (23/12/15) the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which for December is under the Presidency of the United States was forced to sit through a presentation by UN staffers on the effects of climate change on food security in East Africa.
The prospects are looking particularly grim with Ethiopia set for it's worst drought in 50 years - far worse then the drought which caused the 1984 famine that prompted then Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas" which is now synonymous with Christmas in the UK. Already in Ethiopia some 350,000 children are classed as severely malnourished while the man-made famine in Yemen more then 530,000 children are severely malnourished.
On December 24th (24/12/15) Saudi Arabia responded to this apparent pressure from the UNSC with a fire at a maternity hospital in the southern city of Jazan which killed 24 and injured 123. Jazan sits right on Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen so this was a clear reference to Saudi Arabia's attempts to secure control of Yemen to use it as a launchpad against nations across East/Central Africa.
The fact that is was a maternity hospital and that many of the victims were infants in their cribs was a reference to a part of the Christmas story known as; "The Massacre of the Innocents."
Although we can dispute whether Jesus Christ is the son of God or not certainly at the time of his birth the middle-east region was under the control of King Herod the Great. Rather like Saudi Arabia's ruling al-Saud family Herod became King by doing a deal with the Roman Empire to keep the Jews in line in return for his fiefdom.
The story goes that upon being told that the new King of Kings had been born in Bethlehem Herod became intensely jealous and ordered all the baby boys born in Bethlehem during that month. Having been warned of this Jesus and his family were forced to flee as refugees to Egypt. There is some debate as to whether the Massacre of the Innocents actually happened but King Herod was that vicious and violent you certainly wouldn't put it past him.
Therefore Saudi Arabia's recreation of the Massacre of the Innocents in Jazan was a clear threat that it would continue to use terrorism to prevent the al-Saud's rule being usurped.
What made Saudi Arabia's threat seem all the more sinister is that the following day (25/12/15) the UK Queen delivered her traditional Christmas Day speech to the nation and the Commonwealth including nations such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda.
Speaking about the refugee crisis that has gripped Europe this year the Queen reminded us that shortly after his birth Jesus himself had been forced to seek refuge. This was an oblique reference to the Massacre of the Innocents.
Also that day the Archbishop of Canterbury - the second in command of the Protestant Christian Church of England - gave his Christmas Day sermon. His reference to the Massacre of the Innocents was much more explicit with the Archbishop comparing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to a modern day King Herod.
The Queen's speech is of course pre-recorded and although he delivers it live I don't think the Archbishop of Canterbury simply knocks out his sermon the morning he delivers it.
Therefore through the Jazan fire Saudi Arabia was not only trying to sending the message that its terror campaign will continue it was also trying to send the message that the UK Commonwealth couldn't protect its members because Saudi Arabia is so powerful it had advance knowledge of both the UK Queen's and the Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas messages.
I should point out then that although it is considered bad manners to report on the Queen's speech before it is broadcast it is far from a state secret. In fact the Monarchy doesn't actually produce the broadcast itself instead working with the UK's main news broadcasters on a rotating basis. This year it was Independent Television News (ITN).
As always when media-types involved there is always quite a bit of gossip. As a commercial broadcaster ITN doesn't have quite the same reverence for the Monarchy as the BBC is run under a Royal Charter and is part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) news pool. Plus all journalists in the UK get a preview copy of the speech at least a day in advance.
Therefore getting advance knowledge of either the UK Queen's or the Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas messages is far from the intelligence coup that Saudi Arabia would like you to believe.
In response to the Jazan fire on Christmas morning (25/12/15) there was a fire at the birthplace of former US President Bill Clinton which is now a protected historical site in Hope, Arkansas. This was quickly confirmed as an act of arson which allowed the US to signal that the Jazan fire was also an arson and therefore a threat.
One of the main issues raised during recent discussions is that the US has become so detached from reality that it is unable to participate. Hence the UN feeling the need to give them a special briefing.
"Hope" was of course the big election campaign slogan of current US President Barack Obama while his first Secretary of State - dealing with foreign affairs - was Bill Clinton's wife Hillary. Hillary Clinton is now all but confirmed as the Democrat's 2016 Presidential Candidate and her unconventional running-mate Donald Trump is working hard to make sure she wins.
Alongside the arson the house was also daubed with some quite childish graffiti. For example the was a large "XX" which could well be a reference to the female chromosomal pairing. Hillary Clinton's seemingly only qualification to be President is that she is a woman.
There was also text-speak such as "55" which means "Ha Ha" and emoji such as the "Razz" symbol of a smiley face sticking its tongue out in mockery.
That could well be a reference to the fact that while the World is facing one of the greatest threats to its safety and stability since the second world war Obama and Hillary seem intent to continue behaving like sulky teenagers.
The biggest contribution to the climate debate over recent days though seems to have come from the climate itself.
As I've mentioned before the northern hemisphere is experiencing unseasonably warm, spring-like weather.
In the US this has caused cold weather to move further south causing intense snow storms over the north-west. This is meeting warmer weather that has been moving up from the Atlantic. Where the two weather systems have met they are producing violent storms, tornadoes and flooding.
In South America this warm Atlantic weather is causing violent storms around the border areas between Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. This has produced some of the worst flooding in 15 years.
At the other side of the Atlantic this warming weather has brought violent storms and heavy rainfall to the Republic of Ireland and the UK.
On Christmas Eve (24/12/15) the appropriately named "Storm Eva" knocked out power to 6000 households in Ireland. By the time it reached the UK the following day (25/12/15) it caused widespread flooding that over-topped flood defences in large sections of the country. This included the Cumbria region which was previously flooded just two weeks ago during "Storm Desmond."
This of course was all entirely predictable amongst people who have accepted that global warming is manmade and it is causing the climate to change.
However people who refuse to accept the realities of climate change will instead try to blame it all on the "El Nino" weather phenomenon. This is really a redundant argument.
For reasons we don't really understand sea temperatures in the central/eastern Pacific Ocean go through a cycle from a warm peak to a cold trough and back again. El Nino describes the peak of this warming cycle and is defined by a three month period where sea temperatures are 0.5C above average. Sea temperatures are currently four times greater then the 0.5C El Nino rise at 2C and have been for quite some time.
Therefore the El Nino argument seems to be that this extreme weather is not being caused by global warming. Instead it is being caused by the globe being warmer than it should be.
18:05 on 28/12/15 (UK date).
At Least I Was Generally Quiet.
It was around 8pm on November 13th (13/11/15) that I realised I'd need a second double espresso just to make it through to midnight. It was pretty much as I was putting that empty coffee cup back in its saucer that news of the Paris Massacres started to break. I don't feel like I've stopped since.
As a result I didn't really do anything for Christmas. Instead I used it as an opportunity to take a break. Christmas is generally a good time to do this because most of Europe, the Americas and large parts of Africa were also taking a break meaning that it's the quietest time of the year.
For example at the height of COP21 I was getting around 140/50 Tweets per hour. Recently that has dropped to a much more manageable 30/40 although it has started to creep up again.
Rather than rushing around doing things and generating news at this time of year people in the UK tend to stay home watching the big Christmas TV events. The main one of these this year was the last ever episode of worldwide hit "Downton Abbey" being broadcast on ITV on Christmas Day (25/12/15) itself.
Although I've never been much of a fan this is such a big show that none of the other networks even attempted to compete. The BBC in particular seems to have instead focused on stretching its efforts out across the other 11 days of Christmas with a show called "Dickensian."
Set probably a year before Charles Dicken's classic "A Christmas Carol" this begins with the murder of Ebeneezer Scrooge's business partner Jacob Marley explaining how he became a ghost. It then tries to solve the murder mystery bringing in many of Dicken's other classic characters such as Oliver Twist, Miss Haversham, Little Nell etc as potential suspects.
This struck me as rather an interesting idea. Unfortunately the BBC have set aside 10 hours to tell this story. Even at a quiet time of year that's quite a significant time commitment over the course of 11 days. To make matters worse the BBC have decided not to show it as 10 one hour episodes but as 20 thirty minute episodes.
If that wasn't annoying enough they're not even showing an episode a day nor a double bill of episodes each day. Instead they're showing two episodes a day broken up by an hour in between. Therefore managing to catch all the episodes requires the sort of effort and organisation that no TV show is good enough to justify.
The reason for this strange scheduling is that Dickensian has been sandwiched around the BBC's premier soap opera "Eastenders." This is a show that doesn't so much have fans as addicts. The hope seems to be that the BBC will trap Eastenders viewers into also watching Dickensian and in the process show them what proper TV drama looks like.
This strikes me as an extremely poor decision because the BBC seems to be insulting its target audience while at the same time making it far too complicated for people like me who might watch Dickensian casually to bother.
Anyway now I've got my eye in I might attempt some actual work later.
14:50 on 28/12/15 (UK date).
As a result I didn't really do anything for Christmas. Instead I used it as an opportunity to take a break. Christmas is generally a good time to do this because most of Europe, the Americas and large parts of Africa were also taking a break meaning that it's the quietest time of the year.
For example at the height of COP21 I was getting around 140/50 Tweets per hour. Recently that has dropped to a much more manageable 30/40 although it has started to creep up again.
Rather than rushing around doing things and generating news at this time of year people in the UK tend to stay home watching the big Christmas TV events. The main one of these this year was the last ever episode of worldwide hit "Downton Abbey" being broadcast on ITV on Christmas Day (25/12/15) itself.
Although I've never been much of a fan this is such a big show that none of the other networks even attempted to compete. The BBC in particular seems to have instead focused on stretching its efforts out across the other 11 days of Christmas with a show called "Dickensian."
Set probably a year before Charles Dicken's classic "A Christmas Carol" this begins with the murder of Ebeneezer Scrooge's business partner Jacob Marley explaining how he became a ghost. It then tries to solve the murder mystery bringing in many of Dicken's other classic characters such as Oliver Twist, Miss Haversham, Little Nell etc as potential suspects.
This struck me as rather an interesting idea. Unfortunately the BBC have set aside 10 hours to tell this story. Even at a quiet time of year that's quite a significant time commitment over the course of 11 days. To make matters worse the BBC have decided not to show it as 10 one hour episodes but as 20 thirty minute episodes.
If that wasn't annoying enough they're not even showing an episode a day nor a double bill of episodes each day. Instead they're showing two episodes a day broken up by an hour in between. Therefore managing to catch all the episodes requires the sort of effort and organisation that no TV show is good enough to justify.
The reason for this strange scheduling is that Dickensian has been sandwiched around the BBC's premier soap opera "Eastenders." This is a show that doesn't so much have fans as addicts. The hope seems to be that the BBC will trap Eastenders viewers into also watching Dickensian and in the process show them what proper TV drama looks like.
This strikes me as an extremely poor decision because the BBC seems to be insulting its target audience while at the same time making it far too complicated for people like me who might watch Dickensian casually to bother.
Anyway now I've got my eye in I might attempt some actual work later.
14:50 on 28/12/15 (UK date).
Wednesday 23 December 2015
The Trump Backlash.
In recent weeks US Presidential candidate Donald Trump has faced an international backlash over comments he is alleged to have made calling for Muslims to be banned from the US.
In the UK alone a Parliamentary petition calling for Trump to be banned from the UK has received 564,529 signatures. This is more then five times the number it requires for the issue to be discussed in Parliament and for the UK government to issue a formal response.
I do not like Donald Trump. As a close friend of fellow Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and member of the Democrat Party since 2001 I think it is obvious to all that his attempts to seek the Republican nomination are simply a ruse to get Hillary Clinton elected in 2016.
The idea being that every time Trump says something ridiculous it makes the Republicans look bad which allows Hillary to present herself as the reasonable option rather then simply a Saudi shill. Then when Trump fails to win the Republican nomination he will run as an independent candidate. So even if most Americans vote against Hillary she'll still end up being President.
So I've actually disliked Trump long before it became fashionable.
However it must be said that at no point did he actually say what he is being condemned for. Trump didn't suggest banning Muslims from visiting the US nor did he say that Muslim Americans should be kicked out. Instead he said that the US should stop issuing visas to Muslims and other high risk visitors until the US has sorted out the problems in its visa system.
This is a rather reasonable point.
It's emerged that the US born San Bernardino attacker - Syed Rizwan Farook - had been planning to carry out terror attacks as far back as 2012. During this time he contacted various terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) over the Internet in the hope of travelling to join them. However he kept getting the brush off.
Then suddenly he was introduced to his co-attacker - Tashfeen Malik - on an Internet dating site. The two soon married and Malik was granted permission to live and work in the US.
To people in intelligence circles this looks as though the marriage was false and Malik was an AQAP sleeper agent who'd exploited a gap in the visa system to enter the US specifically to carry out terrorist attacks. It is something that visa controls are supposed to pick up on.
Then there is the issue of visa-free travel between the European Union (EU) and the US. These means that any one of the attackers in the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres or any other terrorist with an EU passport could fly into the US no questions asked.
When governments identify gaps this big in their security measures it is expected that they will suspend normal operations until those gaps are plugged.
We saw this after the October 31st (31/10/15) bombing of Kogalymavia flight 7K9268 over Egypt. This exposed gaps in Egyptian airport security so the UK and others responded by suspending all flights to and from Egypt - effectively banning their citizens from Egypt.
It's testament to how sensible Trump's recommendation is that while Trump is being widely criticised for saying it US President Obama is very quietly taking Trump's advice and putting the policy into effect.
Today the lead story in the UK has been of the British Muslim Mahmood family. They arrived at Gatwick airport last Tuesday (15/12/15) expecting to fly to California for a family holiday to Disneyland. At the airport they were informed that their visa to travel to the US had been revoked at the last minute with no explanation.
This is only one of several such stories I've heard about in the 20 days since the San Bernardino attack.
However I've not heard any liberals complaining about it.
That's because to do so would force them to admit that their heroes - Obama and Clinton's - undying love for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is making life extremely difficult for Muslims across the world.
17:45 on 23/12/15 (UK date).
In the UK alone a Parliamentary petition calling for Trump to be banned from the UK has received 564,529 signatures. This is more then five times the number it requires for the issue to be discussed in Parliament and for the UK government to issue a formal response.
I do not like Donald Trump. As a close friend of fellow Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and member of the Democrat Party since 2001 I think it is obvious to all that his attempts to seek the Republican nomination are simply a ruse to get Hillary Clinton elected in 2016.
The idea being that every time Trump says something ridiculous it makes the Republicans look bad which allows Hillary to present herself as the reasonable option rather then simply a Saudi shill. Then when Trump fails to win the Republican nomination he will run as an independent candidate. So even if most Americans vote against Hillary she'll still end up being President.
So I've actually disliked Trump long before it became fashionable.
However it must be said that at no point did he actually say what he is being condemned for. Trump didn't suggest banning Muslims from visiting the US nor did he say that Muslim Americans should be kicked out. Instead he said that the US should stop issuing visas to Muslims and other high risk visitors until the US has sorted out the problems in its visa system.
This is a rather reasonable point.
It's emerged that the US born San Bernardino attacker - Syed Rizwan Farook - had been planning to carry out terror attacks as far back as 2012. During this time he contacted various terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) over the Internet in the hope of travelling to join them. However he kept getting the brush off.
Then suddenly he was introduced to his co-attacker - Tashfeen Malik - on an Internet dating site. The two soon married and Malik was granted permission to live and work in the US.
To people in intelligence circles this looks as though the marriage was false and Malik was an AQAP sleeper agent who'd exploited a gap in the visa system to enter the US specifically to carry out terrorist attacks. It is something that visa controls are supposed to pick up on.
Then there is the issue of visa-free travel between the European Union (EU) and the US. These means that any one of the attackers in the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres or any other terrorist with an EU passport could fly into the US no questions asked.
When governments identify gaps this big in their security measures it is expected that they will suspend normal operations until those gaps are plugged.
We saw this after the October 31st (31/10/15) bombing of Kogalymavia flight 7K9268 over Egypt. This exposed gaps in Egyptian airport security so the UK and others responded by suspending all flights to and from Egypt - effectively banning their citizens from Egypt.
It's testament to how sensible Trump's recommendation is that while Trump is being widely criticised for saying it US President Obama is very quietly taking Trump's advice and putting the policy into effect.
Today the lead story in the UK has been of the British Muslim Mahmood family. They arrived at Gatwick airport last Tuesday (15/12/15) expecting to fly to California for a family holiday to Disneyland. At the airport they were informed that their visa to travel to the US had been revoked at the last minute with no explanation.
This is only one of several such stories I've heard about in the 20 days since the San Bernardino attack.
However I've not heard any liberals complaining about it.
That's because to do so would force them to admit that their heroes - Obama and Clinton's - undying love for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is making life extremely difficult for Muslims across the world.
17:45 on 23/12/15 (UK date).
Tuesday 22 December 2015
The Las Vegas Run-Over Attack.
Since COP21 ended on December 12th (12/12/15) there seems to have been an intensified effort to destabilise developing nations - particularly in East/Central Africa.
The intention seems to be to intimidate those nations into ratifying the draft agreement that COP21 produced which will permanently stop any effective action being taken to combat climate change.
This has obviously prompted lots of frantic global discussion. The US' contribution to these discussions has been so poor that it gives the impression that the administration of US President Barack Obama is actually on a completely different planet to everybody else.
On Sunday (20/12/15) the US effectively threw its hands up in frustration and conceded the point that Obama is in fact completely useless when a car repeatedly drove into a crowd of pedestrians outside the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. This left one person dead and 36 injured.
I really covered all of this in my posts yesterday. However by the time I got to events in Las Vegas I was in a rush to finish so really only provided the bare bones. I hope to correct that now.
The fact the incident occurred outside the Paris Hotel was a clear reference to the COP21 Summit that took place in Paris, France. More specifically it was a reference to the terrorist threat that has become synonymous with attempts to combat climate change.
For example COP21 was proceeded by the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres and the November 20th (20/11/15) attack on a hotel in Bamako, Mali which was intended as a threat to the hotels that COP21 delegates would be staying at.
The vehicle involved in the Las Vegas crash was registered in the US state of Oregon which is almost at the opposite end of the country to Nevada.
In highlighting the undue burden that the COP21 draft places on developing nations I've frequently referred to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The COP21 draft would require the DRC to keep a complete IPCC standard inventory of the entire Congo Rainforest.
This is an area twice the size of the US state of Oregon. If you're that interested Oregon is itself twice the size of the US state of Kentucky.
The incident was initially investigated as a terror attack and although this now seems less likely I understand that this possibility has not been completely ruled out.
The reason why it had to be investigated as a potential terror attack is because this tactic of driving motor vehicles into crowds of pedestrians in an attempt to kill them is a very common terrorist tactic in Israel.
Although you may certainly disagree with some of the conclusions they reach - I often do - you cannot deny that Islamic inspired terrorism is a daily part of life in Israel. As a result the Israelis have a lot of experience in how to fight terrorism.
If US President Barack Obama were to pay closer attention to Israel and benefit from their experience it would be increasingly obvious to him what is wrong with his own fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Take for example the December 2nd (2/12/15) ISIL attack on San Bernardino, California. Obama's initial reaction to this was to call for greater gun control to protect America by keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists.
The facts that the guns used in San Bernardino were obtained illegally and that gun control measures Obama was suggesting wouldn't have affected the attackers anyway didn't seem to matter to Obama.
Therefore it is unlikely that it would matter to Obama that Israel provides a good example of why tight gun control doesn't prevent terrorism.
Although it might surprise some right-wing Americans gun-control is actually very strict in Israel. In order to obtain a firearms permit you essentially have to served in either the Israeli military or the police. Obviously due to conscription that means that most Jewish Israelis are entitled to apply for a license.
However in order to be granted one Israelis still have to be recommended by a serving, senior police or military officer and undergo medical and weapons proficiency tests. These tests include a written exam on how and when lethal force can be used.
These tests have to be repeated every year when each license is renewed and the police can carry out warrantless, snap inspections on all license holders to ensure their weapons are being stored safely.
Although there are rare exceptions for Arab Israelis (I prefer the term; "Palestinians") who have been cleared for military service generally Palestinians simply aren't allowed firearms.
However this has not stopped the terror attacks. In 2014 the fashion was very much for the type of run-over attack seen in Las Vegas while in 2015 they've moved more towards knife attacks. These attacks are currently occurring at a rate of around several times a week.
One of - if not the - main driving force behind this latest upsurge in violence has been the rise of ISIL just across Israel's border in Syria.
As I think we all know ISIL produce a vast amount of online propaganda. This revels in their violence and how that violence has helped them to produce what they claim is a ideal Islamic State.
This propaganda has found an fertile audience amongst young Palestinians who have become frustrated at attempts to establish a Palestinian state through peaceful negotiation and instead have opted to choose ISIL's path of violence.
Initially they attempted to justify their violence by claiming that Israel was about to demolish the Al Asqa Mosque and build a Jewish Temple in its place atop what is known as the Temple Mount. This simply isn't true.
Apart from the annual tightening of security around Jewish New Year there has been absolutely no indication of any attempts to change the status of Temple Mount.
After months of being asked to produce evidence of why they thought Israel was going to demolish Al Asqa and failing the Palestinians simply switched to try to justify their violence by claiming it was a response to Israelis killing Palestinians while they were carrying out their attacks.
As such there have been numerous false claims of innocent Palestinians being murdered only for the Israelis to plant weapons on them to cover it up.
A particular case in point was that of Ahmed Mansara which occurred in October. Initially the Palestinians claimed that the 13-year old Mansara had been murdered by the Israelis. So Israel responded by releasing photographs of Mansara in hospital very much alive.
The Palestinians then claimed that he shouldn't have been shot at all because he was innocently playing in the street at the time. So the Israelis responded by releasing video footage of Mansara stabbing two people and then being shot.
Another case in point occurred on November 11th (11/11/15) when Israeli police stormed a hospital in Hebron to arrest Azzam Shalaldeh who had been shot whilst carrying out a stabbing attack. In the process they shot and killed Azzam's brother Abdallah Shalaldeh when he attacked them. The Palestinians responded by condemning it as a war crime.
That's simply a nonsense because war crimes can only occur when a state or war exists. No such state currently exists in Israel.
Also while they are protected from military attack hospitals certainly aren't safe havens of sanctuaries. That means that the police can go into them to arrest people. If their lives or the lives of bystanders are threatened they can use lethal force to remove that threat just the same as they could anywhere else.
Just before the incident in Las Vegas occurred a man was shot an killed by the police in a hospital in Los Angeles, California, US after he attacked them. Rather then being declared a war crime this received very little press coverage because it's a perfectly normal thing to happen.
{Consigned to the draft folder at around 18:05 on 22/12/15 (UK date)}
{Rescued from the draft folder at around 20:15 on 22/12/15 (UK date)}
Although US President Obama has made so many mistakes in his fight against ISIL it is quite hard to identify just a single one amongst his main mistakes has been to take the terrorists claims at face value.
For example Obama seems to genuinely believe that ISIL are some sort of humanitarian organisation committed to rescuing Syrian Muslims from their brutal oppression at the hands of the Syrian government. Therefore if he were to overthrow the Syrian government ISIL would simply wither and die.
Likewise Obama seemed to genuinely believe that ISIL's Nigerian franchise - Boko Haram - were simply angry at the way they were being oppressed by the brutal Christian dictatorship of Goodluck Jonathan.
Therefore all the US needed to do was stage an electoral coup to force out Jonathan and replace him with known Boko Haram sympathiser Muhammadu Buhari and Boko Haram would simply beat their swords into ploughshares and the world would live in harmony.
On the issue of the terrorist threat to the US homeland Obama seems to genuinely believe that the world's Muslims are simply angry because of Guantanamo Bay. Therefore all he needs to do is fulfil his campaign promise the close Guantanamo and the threat simply disappear.
There he may have a point but I think someone should remind him that Guantanamo Bay was only opened in response to Al Qaeda's September 11th (11/9/01) attacks on the US homeland that killed 2,977.
This was done in protest of the US' establishment of the false nation of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and its continuing support for the occupation of the holy city of Mecca by the al-Saud family.
If he had been prepared to learn the lessons from Israel Obama would understand that various terrorist groups each have their own agenda.
In the case of the Palestinians it is to establish a viable nation state. However in the case of nihilists such as ISIL is to cleanse the Levant region of Shia-Muslims in order to bring about the return of the Messiah to earth triggering the great war that will bring about the end of the world.
Regardless of what their true objective is terrorists will also lie to justify their actions.
If you make concessions to remove that justification the terrorists will simply invent a new lie. You can then either make more concessions to remove that lie or you can simply eliminate the terrorists to prevent them from inventing another lie.
The driver in the Las Vegas incident has since been identified as Lakeisha Holloway - a a 24 year old black female. Apparently she was travelling through Nevada to Texas to confront the absentee father of her 3 year old daughter.
This is clearly a reference to the Sandra Bland case.
If you are not familiar with that story on July 10th (10/7/15) Sandra Bland - a heavy marijuana user - was Driving Under the Influence (DUI) in the state of Texas on her way to a new job at Prairie View A&M University.
After being seen driving erratically Ms Bland was stopped by the police and became physically abusive leading to her arrest. Despite the police charitably dropping the DUI charge whilst in custody Ms Bland crashed psychologically and committed suicide in her cell.
Unfortunately the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign couldn't cope with this so made up increasingly elaborate stories to explain Ms Bland's death and therefore justify their protests.
Although it is hard to follow BLM's train of thought generally the theory seems to be that the police officer simply beat Ms Bland to death at the scene. The police then covered it up by staging Ms Bland's corpse for a mugshot and inventing a story about her committing suicide.
The fact that the police were able to produce video of Ms Bland - very much alive - being booked into custody and having her mugshot taken didn't seem to quieten BLM's howls of; "RACIST!!!" much.
Yesterday (21/12/15) a Grand Jury was convened under a Special Prosecutor to assess the Sandra Bland case. To the surprise of absolutely no-one it decided not to indict anyone on any criminal charges. If I'm being totally honest I can't even imagine any possible charges they could indict under.
BLM however of course took to Twitter to express their outrage at the racist verdict. Some even went so far as to claim that Ms Bland hadn't done anything wrong. This is despite Las Vegas providing them with a clear example of the consequences of DUI or otherwise driving erratically.
The Sandra Bland case of course provides a window onto the wider BLM campaign.
If US President Obama still can't see through their lies to their terrorism and instead chooses to continue engage in the grubby racial politics that have blighted African nations both during and after the colonial era then he is clearly incapable of being part of the solution.
And once again I have become bored of my own post.
21:35 on 22/12/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 16:00 on 23/12/15 (UK date) to add;
The fact that Ms Holloway was homeless, jobless and a single parent is a reference to the problems within America's black communities which suffer from high rates of poverty, broken families, unemployment, drug abuse and low rates of high school graduation.
The question is whether by blaming everything on racism Obama and BLM are helping to solve these problems or simply helping to perpetuate them.
The Las Vegas incident occurred close to where the Miss Universe pageant was being held. The climax of this event was marred by a 'mistake' in which the host announced the wrong winner. This seems to be an intentional reference to something that happened just after the Paris Massacres.
Like many other news outlets Britain's Sky News decided to anchor their coverage from the Place de Republic in Paris where an impromptu memorial had been set up.
I've complained about this type of sensationalist media coverage before because terrorists are very focused on what is known as; "The Propaganda of the Deed." That is to say that because they can't sustain a widespread military campaign they instead carry out limited scale atrocities in the hope that it will terrify an audience far wider then the actual victims of the attack.
Therefore by covering the attacks in such a mawkish way the media is effectively doing the terrorists job for them.
Obviously the media do need to cover what are important news stories. I just think though they could anchor that coverage from the news room rather than constantly sticking camera's in the faces on grieving relatives.
Rather pointing out the problem with this type of coverage by Sunday (15/11/15) Sky News anchor Kay Burley discovered that she'd run out of things to report. So instead she took a photograph of a Labrador dog and posted it on the Internet claiming that you could "see the sadness in his eyes."
The rest of the Internet spent the rest of the day mercilessly mocking her for this.
Not wanting to be left out I joined in by posting a picture of a Jack Russell Terrier down a rat hole. I said something along the lines of there being no sadness in his eyes because he'd had a little sniff.
Jack Russells are of course bred to hunt rats. Therefore in their tiny little terrier minds there is nothing more awesome then the prospect of fighting and killing a rat.
When the terrorist violence first broke out in eastern Libya in early 2011 then President Muammer Qaddafi announced that he was sending in troops to kill the rats.
The US and others claimed that this was evidence that Qaddafi was going to engage in genocide and used it as an excuse to declare war on Libya. However Qaddafi was never a man who said exactly what he meant so I took the same quote as an indication that he was simply going to kill the terrorists ending the insurgency.
With the Paris Massacres giving us a clear example of what these terrorist rats are capable of I thought it was obvious to all that we should have just let Qaddafi get on with it and end the rats there and then.
It obviously wasn't obvious to US President Obama because culminating in a signing ceremony of December 17th (17/12/15) the US and others have once again being trying to overthrow the Libyan government in order to put the rats in power.
I once knew a woman who owned a Jack Russell. As is rather routine one of the contestants in this year's UK season of X-Factor was a reference to that woman. On that Sunday this contestant came in the bottom two and was facing being voted off. Although I didn't watch it was at this point the host made a similar mistake by either announcing that the wrong contestant had been voted off or making the announcement to early.
This 'mistake' gave everybody involved in the X-Factor ample opportunity to apologise for the incident and by extension trying to use my reputation to sell their particularly crappy show.
The 'mistake' at Miss Universe revisited all those discussions.
Despite even the US throwing its hands up in frustration at Obama the international criticism has not stopped. Yesterday (22/12/15) France announced that it had foiled a terrorist plot in the city of Orleans.
Obama's response to the Paris Massacres was particularly despicable. Rather then immediately convening a NATO Summit to devise a response to this attack on a NATO member Obama effectively blew France off to go on an 11 day holiday.
What made matters even worse is that France is one of if not the US' oldest ally. Since the Paris Massacres this has been highlighted by the Marquis de Lafayette who was George Washington's right-hand man during America's war of independence.
In tribute there are numerous districts, streets and buildings in America bearing the name "Lafayette." Probably the most famous of these is the in the city of New Orleans which the likes of Obama claim was destroyed by racism in 2005 in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. New Orleans is of course named after the French city of Orleans in much the same way New York City is named after the English city of York.
Today the news has come through that Yassin Salhi who carried out a terrorist attack at a French factory on June 26th (26/6/15) has committed suicide whilst in prison. Although I don't think that this was planned or in anyway anything other than a genuine suicide it is related.
In carrying out his attack Salhi was heavily influenced by BLM and in particular Obama's handling of the February 10th (10/2/15) Chapel Hill shootings. It's clear that Salhi intended to use his trial to further his terrorist agenda by claiming that he had simply been involved in a work place dispute and therefore portraying the accusations of terrorism as Islamaphobia.
It turns out though that 6 months in solitary confinement gives you a lot of time to think. Clearly in that time Salhi decided that he didn't have the strength of character to complete his mission so took the cowards way out.
17:00 on 23/12/15 (UK date).
The intention seems to be to intimidate those nations into ratifying the draft agreement that COP21 produced which will permanently stop any effective action being taken to combat climate change.
This has obviously prompted lots of frantic global discussion. The US' contribution to these discussions has been so poor that it gives the impression that the administration of US President Barack Obama is actually on a completely different planet to everybody else.
On Sunday (20/12/15) the US effectively threw its hands up in frustration and conceded the point that Obama is in fact completely useless when a car repeatedly drove into a crowd of pedestrians outside the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. This left one person dead and 36 injured.
I really covered all of this in my posts yesterday. However by the time I got to events in Las Vegas I was in a rush to finish so really only provided the bare bones. I hope to correct that now.
The fact the incident occurred outside the Paris Hotel was a clear reference to the COP21 Summit that took place in Paris, France. More specifically it was a reference to the terrorist threat that has become synonymous with attempts to combat climate change.
For example COP21 was proceeded by the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres and the November 20th (20/11/15) attack on a hotel in Bamako, Mali which was intended as a threat to the hotels that COP21 delegates would be staying at.
The vehicle involved in the Las Vegas crash was registered in the US state of Oregon which is almost at the opposite end of the country to Nevada.
In highlighting the undue burden that the COP21 draft places on developing nations I've frequently referred to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The COP21 draft would require the DRC to keep a complete IPCC standard inventory of the entire Congo Rainforest.
This is an area twice the size of the US state of Oregon. If you're that interested Oregon is itself twice the size of the US state of Kentucky.
The incident was initially investigated as a terror attack and although this now seems less likely I understand that this possibility has not been completely ruled out.
The reason why it had to be investigated as a potential terror attack is because this tactic of driving motor vehicles into crowds of pedestrians in an attempt to kill them is a very common terrorist tactic in Israel.
Although you may certainly disagree with some of the conclusions they reach - I often do - you cannot deny that Islamic inspired terrorism is a daily part of life in Israel. As a result the Israelis have a lot of experience in how to fight terrorism.
If US President Barack Obama were to pay closer attention to Israel and benefit from their experience it would be increasingly obvious to him what is wrong with his own fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Take for example the December 2nd (2/12/15) ISIL attack on San Bernardino, California. Obama's initial reaction to this was to call for greater gun control to protect America by keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists.
The facts that the guns used in San Bernardino were obtained illegally and that gun control measures Obama was suggesting wouldn't have affected the attackers anyway didn't seem to matter to Obama.
Therefore it is unlikely that it would matter to Obama that Israel provides a good example of why tight gun control doesn't prevent terrorism.
Although it might surprise some right-wing Americans gun-control is actually very strict in Israel. In order to obtain a firearms permit you essentially have to served in either the Israeli military or the police. Obviously due to conscription that means that most Jewish Israelis are entitled to apply for a license.
However in order to be granted one Israelis still have to be recommended by a serving, senior police or military officer and undergo medical and weapons proficiency tests. These tests include a written exam on how and when lethal force can be used.
These tests have to be repeated every year when each license is renewed and the police can carry out warrantless, snap inspections on all license holders to ensure their weapons are being stored safely.
Although there are rare exceptions for Arab Israelis (I prefer the term; "Palestinians") who have been cleared for military service generally Palestinians simply aren't allowed firearms.
However this has not stopped the terror attacks. In 2014 the fashion was very much for the type of run-over attack seen in Las Vegas while in 2015 they've moved more towards knife attacks. These attacks are currently occurring at a rate of around several times a week.
One of - if not the - main driving force behind this latest upsurge in violence has been the rise of ISIL just across Israel's border in Syria.
As I think we all know ISIL produce a vast amount of online propaganda. This revels in their violence and how that violence has helped them to produce what they claim is a ideal Islamic State.
This propaganda has found an fertile audience amongst young Palestinians who have become frustrated at attempts to establish a Palestinian state through peaceful negotiation and instead have opted to choose ISIL's path of violence.
Initially they attempted to justify their violence by claiming that Israel was about to demolish the Al Asqa Mosque and build a Jewish Temple in its place atop what is known as the Temple Mount. This simply isn't true.
Apart from the annual tightening of security around Jewish New Year there has been absolutely no indication of any attempts to change the status of Temple Mount.
After months of being asked to produce evidence of why they thought Israel was going to demolish Al Asqa and failing the Palestinians simply switched to try to justify their violence by claiming it was a response to Israelis killing Palestinians while they were carrying out their attacks.
As such there have been numerous false claims of innocent Palestinians being murdered only for the Israelis to plant weapons on them to cover it up.
A particular case in point was that of Ahmed Mansara which occurred in October. Initially the Palestinians claimed that the 13-year old Mansara had been murdered by the Israelis. So Israel responded by releasing photographs of Mansara in hospital very much alive.
The Palestinians then claimed that he shouldn't have been shot at all because he was innocently playing in the street at the time. So the Israelis responded by releasing video footage of Mansara stabbing two people and then being shot.
Another case in point occurred on November 11th (11/11/15) when Israeli police stormed a hospital in Hebron to arrest Azzam Shalaldeh who had been shot whilst carrying out a stabbing attack. In the process they shot and killed Azzam's brother Abdallah Shalaldeh when he attacked them. The Palestinians responded by condemning it as a war crime.
That's simply a nonsense because war crimes can only occur when a state or war exists. No such state currently exists in Israel.
Also while they are protected from military attack hospitals certainly aren't safe havens of sanctuaries. That means that the police can go into them to arrest people. If their lives or the lives of bystanders are threatened they can use lethal force to remove that threat just the same as they could anywhere else.
Just before the incident in Las Vegas occurred a man was shot an killed by the police in a hospital in Los Angeles, California, US after he attacked them. Rather then being declared a war crime this received very little press coverage because it's a perfectly normal thing to happen.
{Consigned to the draft folder at around 18:05 on 22/12/15 (UK date)}
{Rescued from the draft folder at around 20:15 on 22/12/15 (UK date)}
Although US President Obama has made so many mistakes in his fight against ISIL it is quite hard to identify just a single one amongst his main mistakes has been to take the terrorists claims at face value.
For example Obama seems to genuinely believe that ISIL are some sort of humanitarian organisation committed to rescuing Syrian Muslims from their brutal oppression at the hands of the Syrian government. Therefore if he were to overthrow the Syrian government ISIL would simply wither and die.
Likewise Obama seemed to genuinely believe that ISIL's Nigerian franchise - Boko Haram - were simply angry at the way they were being oppressed by the brutal Christian dictatorship of Goodluck Jonathan.
Therefore all the US needed to do was stage an electoral coup to force out Jonathan and replace him with known Boko Haram sympathiser Muhammadu Buhari and Boko Haram would simply beat their swords into ploughshares and the world would live in harmony.
On the issue of the terrorist threat to the US homeland Obama seems to genuinely believe that the world's Muslims are simply angry because of Guantanamo Bay. Therefore all he needs to do is fulfil his campaign promise the close Guantanamo and the threat simply disappear.
There he may have a point but I think someone should remind him that Guantanamo Bay was only opened in response to Al Qaeda's September 11th (11/9/01) attacks on the US homeland that killed 2,977.
This was done in protest of the US' establishment of the false nation of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and its continuing support for the occupation of the holy city of Mecca by the al-Saud family.
If he had been prepared to learn the lessons from Israel Obama would understand that various terrorist groups each have their own agenda.
In the case of the Palestinians it is to establish a viable nation state. However in the case of nihilists such as ISIL is to cleanse the Levant region of Shia-Muslims in order to bring about the return of the Messiah to earth triggering the great war that will bring about the end of the world.
Regardless of what their true objective is terrorists will also lie to justify their actions.
If you make concessions to remove that justification the terrorists will simply invent a new lie. You can then either make more concessions to remove that lie or you can simply eliminate the terrorists to prevent them from inventing another lie.
The driver in the Las Vegas incident has since been identified as Lakeisha Holloway - a a 24 year old black female. Apparently she was travelling through Nevada to Texas to confront the absentee father of her 3 year old daughter.
This is clearly a reference to the Sandra Bland case.
If you are not familiar with that story on July 10th (10/7/15) Sandra Bland - a heavy marijuana user - was Driving Under the Influence (DUI) in the state of Texas on her way to a new job at Prairie View A&M University.
After being seen driving erratically Ms Bland was stopped by the police and became physically abusive leading to her arrest. Despite the police charitably dropping the DUI charge whilst in custody Ms Bland crashed psychologically and committed suicide in her cell.
Unfortunately the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign couldn't cope with this so made up increasingly elaborate stories to explain Ms Bland's death and therefore justify their protests.
Although it is hard to follow BLM's train of thought generally the theory seems to be that the police officer simply beat Ms Bland to death at the scene. The police then covered it up by staging Ms Bland's corpse for a mugshot and inventing a story about her committing suicide.
The fact that the police were able to produce video of Ms Bland - very much alive - being booked into custody and having her mugshot taken didn't seem to quieten BLM's howls of; "RACIST!!!" much.
Yesterday (21/12/15) a Grand Jury was convened under a Special Prosecutor to assess the Sandra Bland case. To the surprise of absolutely no-one it decided not to indict anyone on any criminal charges. If I'm being totally honest I can't even imagine any possible charges they could indict under.
BLM however of course took to Twitter to express their outrage at the racist verdict. Some even went so far as to claim that Ms Bland hadn't done anything wrong. This is despite Las Vegas providing them with a clear example of the consequences of DUI or otherwise driving erratically.
The Sandra Bland case of course provides a window onto the wider BLM campaign.
If US President Obama still can't see through their lies to their terrorism and instead chooses to continue engage in the grubby racial politics that have blighted African nations both during and after the colonial era then he is clearly incapable of being part of the solution.
And once again I have become bored of my own post.
21:35 on 22/12/15 (UK date).
Edited at around 16:00 on 23/12/15 (UK date) to add;
The fact that Ms Holloway was homeless, jobless and a single parent is a reference to the problems within America's black communities which suffer from high rates of poverty, broken families, unemployment, drug abuse and low rates of high school graduation.
The question is whether by blaming everything on racism Obama and BLM are helping to solve these problems or simply helping to perpetuate them.
The Las Vegas incident occurred close to where the Miss Universe pageant was being held. The climax of this event was marred by a 'mistake' in which the host announced the wrong winner. This seems to be an intentional reference to something that happened just after the Paris Massacres.
Like many other news outlets Britain's Sky News decided to anchor their coverage from the Place de Republic in Paris where an impromptu memorial had been set up.
I've complained about this type of sensationalist media coverage before because terrorists are very focused on what is known as; "The Propaganda of the Deed." That is to say that because they can't sustain a widespread military campaign they instead carry out limited scale atrocities in the hope that it will terrify an audience far wider then the actual victims of the attack.
Therefore by covering the attacks in such a mawkish way the media is effectively doing the terrorists job for them.
Obviously the media do need to cover what are important news stories. I just think though they could anchor that coverage from the news room rather than constantly sticking camera's in the faces on grieving relatives.
Rather pointing out the problem with this type of coverage by Sunday (15/11/15) Sky News anchor Kay Burley discovered that she'd run out of things to report. So instead she took a photograph of a Labrador dog and posted it on the Internet claiming that you could "see the sadness in his eyes."
The rest of the Internet spent the rest of the day mercilessly mocking her for this.
Not wanting to be left out I joined in by posting a picture of a Jack Russell Terrier down a rat hole. I said something along the lines of there being no sadness in his eyes because he'd had a little sniff.
Jack Russells are of course bred to hunt rats. Therefore in their tiny little terrier minds there is nothing more awesome then the prospect of fighting and killing a rat.
When the terrorist violence first broke out in eastern Libya in early 2011 then President Muammer Qaddafi announced that he was sending in troops to kill the rats.
The US and others claimed that this was evidence that Qaddafi was going to engage in genocide and used it as an excuse to declare war on Libya. However Qaddafi was never a man who said exactly what he meant so I took the same quote as an indication that he was simply going to kill the terrorists ending the insurgency.
With the Paris Massacres giving us a clear example of what these terrorist rats are capable of I thought it was obvious to all that we should have just let Qaddafi get on with it and end the rats there and then.
It obviously wasn't obvious to US President Obama because culminating in a signing ceremony of December 17th (17/12/15) the US and others have once again being trying to overthrow the Libyan government in order to put the rats in power.
I once knew a woman who owned a Jack Russell. As is rather routine one of the contestants in this year's UK season of X-Factor was a reference to that woman. On that Sunday this contestant came in the bottom two and was facing being voted off. Although I didn't watch it was at this point the host made a similar mistake by either announcing that the wrong contestant had been voted off or making the announcement to early.
This 'mistake' gave everybody involved in the X-Factor ample opportunity to apologise for the incident and by extension trying to use my reputation to sell their particularly crappy show.
The 'mistake' at Miss Universe revisited all those discussions.
Despite even the US throwing its hands up in frustration at Obama the international criticism has not stopped. Yesterday (22/12/15) France announced that it had foiled a terrorist plot in the city of Orleans.
Obama's response to the Paris Massacres was particularly despicable. Rather then immediately convening a NATO Summit to devise a response to this attack on a NATO member Obama effectively blew France off to go on an 11 day holiday.
What made matters even worse is that France is one of if not the US' oldest ally. Since the Paris Massacres this has been highlighted by the Marquis de Lafayette who was George Washington's right-hand man during America's war of independence.
In tribute there are numerous districts, streets and buildings in America bearing the name "Lafayette." Probably the most famous of these is the in the city of New Orleans which the likes of Obama claim was destroyed by racism in 2005 in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. New Orleans is of course named after the French city of Orleans in much the same way New York City is named after the English city of York.
Today the news has come through that Yassin Salhi who carried out a terrorist attack at a French factory on June 26th (26/6/15) has committed suicide whilst in prison. Although I don't think that this was planned or in anyway anything other than a genuine suicide it is related.
In carrying out his attack Salhi was heavily influenced by BLM and in particular Obama's handling of the February 10th (10/2/15) Chapel Hill shootings. It's clear that Salhi intended to use his trial to further his terrorist agenda by claiming that he had simply been involved in a work place dispute and therefore portraying the accusations of terrorism as Islamaphobia.
It turns out though that 6 months in solitary confinement gives you a lot of time to think. Clearly in that time Salhi decided that he didn't have the strength of character to complete his mission so took the cowards way out.
17:00 on 23/12/15 (UK date).
Monday 21 December 2015
COP21 Terrorism Update #13.
The defining feature of negotiations over a new global climate change agreement has been Saudi Arabia's use of Islamist terrorism to intimidate nations.
With the atrocity of a draft agreement that COP21 delegates produced on December 12th (12/12/15) this has become an even more important factor. In order to come into force the COP21 draft needs to be ratified by 55 nations.
India and China are practically guaranteed to ratify the draft because it is massive biased in their favour. The US is also likely to ratify it through executive order because it allows US President Barack Obama to once again claim that he's saved the world.
As the draft prevents any meaningful action to combat climate change being taken at any point in the future the Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia are also practically guaranteed to ratify it. They are likely to bring with them the 22 nations that make up the Arab League.
This however still leaves the draft 30 votes short of coming into force. Obviously this puts the 28 nation European Union (EU) effectively in the position of deciding whether the COP21 draft comes into force or whether we can re-start work on an agreement that might actually work.
Rather then waiting to see what the EU will decide though it seems clear that Saudi Arabia will be using terrorism to scare up the 30 necessary votes.
With the possible exception of South America there is not a continent on earth that hasn't been threatened by Saudi Arabia's terrorism in someway. However the main focus has always been on East/Central Africa which is located just across the Gulf of Aden from Saudi Arabia. It is these nations that have rather rudely decided to stand between the al-Sauds and the vast mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
So on Saturday (19/12/15) there was yet another terrorist bombing in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. Apparently this car bomb attack which killed three attacked a cinema and a shopping mall/supermarket. It has been claimed by Al Shabaab who it is well established are being supplied by Saudi Arabia via Yemen. That is why Saudi Arabia is desperate to keep Yemen under its control.
As such the attack was yet another show of force by Saudi Arabia to remind East/Central African nations that it can come and get them anytime it likes. In case anyone missed this threat Italy flagged it up with hoax bomb threats against a museum of cinema and a shopping centre in Turin on Sunday (20/12/15).
Although a short and sharp display the Mogadishu bombing was intended as a reminder to governments in the region that terrorism isn't the only way that Saudi Arabia can get to them. More specific plans to remove troublesome governments are already underway.
So in Somalia's neighbour Ethiopia the tensions with the Oromo ethnic group has suddenly flared up again into violent protests.
Tension between ethnic groups has long been the mark of many African nations but these specific problems began in April 2014 when the Ethiopian government announced plans to bring the Oromia region where the Oromo live into the administrative control of the capital Addis Ababa. Fearing that will reduce their power Oromo tribal leaders have been sending people out onto the streets in protest.
Violence has also flared in the DRC's neighbour Burundi. This really started out in April 2015 as popular protests against plans by the President Pierre Nkurunziza to scrap constitutional term limits and run for a third term. However save for a failed coup attempt in September things did really calm down after Nkurunziza won that third term in a July election.
As we've come to expect the US' response to all this has been at best utterly shambolic.
On the situation in Ethiopia the US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Samantha Power has announced support for the Oromo protests. She was particularly critical of Ethiopian attempts to use anti-terror measures to bring and end to the violence.
The message there seems to be quite clearly that not only won't America protect African nations from Saudi terrorism it will actually aid the terrorists by condemning nations that try to protect themselves.
Particularly during his trip to Kenya in July US President Obama has made the situation in Burundi one of his pet projects. As a result that international response the latest crisis which began on December 11th (11/12/15) - the scheduled closing date of COP21.
On Friday (18/12/15) the African Union (AU) announced that it was sending 5000 peacekeepers to Burundi. If the Burundi government refuses then the AU will send them anyway under a clause that was brought in after the 1994 Rwandan genocide to prevent war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. That is hugely controversial because while the situation in Burundi is bad it is nowhere near that bad.
In response to this announcement the UN Security Council (UNSC) discussed the matter on Saturday (19/12/15). Not only did Ambassador Power express the US' full support for the AU's move she went further warning that if President Nkurunziza doesn't work with the AU the US will simply seek a new mediation partner.
The threat to African governments was quite clear; "Do as America says and sign what America tells you to sign or America will simply replace with someone who will."
Ambassador Power's comments caused a lot of shock because they gave the impression that her understanding of the situation in Burundi is so poor that it is doubtful she could point to the nation on a map.
A lot of people have suggested that this recent round of unrest has been caused by agitators who are being sponsored by the government of Paul Kagame in Burundi's neighbour to the north Rwanda which in turn is Kenya's neighbour to the west. A common reaction to the AU's announcement was; "If you want to stop the violence in Burundi send the peacekeepers to Rwanda."
So on Sunday (20/12/15) an Air France passenger jet flying from Mauritius to Paris, France had to be diverted to Mombasa, Kenya amid what turned out to be an elaborate bomb hoax.
In climate change negotiations Mauritius is what is referred to as a Small Island, Developing State (SIDS). This group of nations are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change such as rising sea levels and more violent storms. Due to their small size - Mauritius is relatively large with a population of 1.2 million - they are also the least able to deal with the effects of climate change.
Many of the SIDS are particularly concerned by the permanent effects of climate change which are known in the jargon as "Loss & Damage." Although it has recently been incorporated into the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss & Damage" much of the work in this area has been done as part of the "Nairobi Work Program on Loss & Damage" which was set up in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
As a result bordering Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda etc Kenya is very much ground zero for this type of discussion.
The hoax bomb - which had been prepared by the French police - was nothing more then a stack of blank paper with an electronic timer taped to the top. In an effort to pass any agreement by executive action US President Obama has stripped out anything meaningful to the point where it may as well be a stack of blank paper.
In fact because the COP21 draft prevents meaningful action being taken at any point in the future it may have been better if COP21 had simply produced a stack of blank paper.
Therefore the whole incident seemed to be France asking if the US was in any way aware of any of these issues
In response to the backlash Ambassador Power tried to salvage her credibility by on Sunday (20/12/15) by issuing a statement condemning Paul Kagame's attempts to scrap constitutional term limits in Rwanda. Sadly though she just dug herself deeper into the hole.
Ever since he fought for Yoweri Museveni during Uganda's civil war in 1980 Kagame has earned a reputation as someone you've got to keep an eye on.
In 1990 he invaded Rwanda from Uganda as part of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). It was the suspected RPF assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana that triggered the 1994 genocide. Kagame did very well out of that genocide assuming the role of vice President before becoming President in 2000. As President he has long supported groups fighting in the neighbouring DRC's numerous civil wars including the diamond rich Kivu region.
In fact you might go so far as to say that the only thing that is keeping Kagame away from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and therefore prison is the fact that he has brought Rwanda into the UK Commonwealth.
Therefore I don't trust him. However even I understand that in the current climate in East/Central that if he were to be overthrown the person who would replace him would be much worse.
Unfortunately the US doesn't seem to understand these things. Take for example Nigeria. The US foolishly assumed that the Boko Haram insurgency was simply oppressed Muslims rising up. So if they replaced Goodluck Jonathan with Muhammadu Buhari it would simply end.
That hasn't happened but I'm sure Saudi Arabia can now count on Nigeria ratifying the COP21 draft.
Overnight the US effectively threw up its hands and conceded the point that President Obama is in fact useless.
This took the form of a car ploughing into a group of pedestrians outside the Paris hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. The connection with COP21 Paris and the preceding Paris Massacres should be obvious.
The reason why this was initially investigated as a potential terrorist attack because this type of attack - known as a run-over attack - has become common in Israel over that past two years. In his supposed fight against terrorism US President Obama could learn a lot from what is going on in Israel.
For example Obama's response to the December 2nd (2/12/15) San Bernardino terror attack was to call for tighter gun control.
Israel actually has very tight gun control with firearms permits only really being available to those who have served in either the military or the police. Even then they have to be recommended for one by a serving, senior military or police officer and undergo yearly medical and proficiency tests. Palestinians aren't allowed guns at all.
However the terror attacks continue - currently at the rate of several a week. Instead of guns the attackers simply use knives or cars.
Also Obama seems to have got it into his head that these terrorists are simply good Muslims protesting about the way they're being oppressed. So if he brings in Buhari Boko Haram will disappear, if he gets rid of Assad Syria will suddenly be peaceful and if he closes Guantanamo Bay Muslims will no longer try and attack America.
It's long been claimed that the current wave of terrorism in Israel is being caused by plans to close down the Al Asqa Mosque. This simply isn't true. It is merely something the Palestinians have made up to justify their violence.
So Obama can continue making concessions to the terrorists but they will simply invent new excuses for their terrorism. Therefore Obama's only option is to confront and defeat the terrorists rather then constantly trying to appease them.
The driver in the Las Vegas incident has been identified as a black female. This is a reference to Obama's support for the terrorism of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. By supporting BLM Obama has been engaging in the sort of grubby ethnic politics that has long blighted many African nations such as the DRC, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia etc.
If Obama can't see that is what he is doing then he is incapable of being part of the solution to Africa's problems.
21:45 on 21/12/15 (UK date).
With the atrocity of a draft agreement that COP21 delegates produced on December 12th (12/12/15) this has become an even more important factor. In order to come into force the COP21 draft needs to be ratified by 55 nations.
India and China are practically guaranteed to ratify the draft because it is massive biased in their favour. The US is also likely to ratify it through executive order because it allows US President Barack Obama to once again claim that he's saved the world.
As the draft prevents any meaningful action to combat climate change being taken at any point in the future the Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia are also practically guaranteed to ratify it. They are likely to bring with them the 22 nations that make up the Arab League.
This however still leaves the draft 30 votes short of coming into force. Obviously this puts the 28 nation European Union (EU) effectively in the position of deciding whether the COP21 draft comes into force or whether we can re-start work on an agreement that might actually work.
Rather then waiting to see what the EU will decide though it seems clear that Saudi Arabia will be using terrorism to scare up the 30 necessary votes.
With the possible exception of South America there is not a continent on earth that hasn't been threatened by Saudi Arabia's terrorism in someway. However the main focus has always been on East/Central Africa which is located just across the Gulf of Aden from Saudi Arabia. It is these nations that have rather rudely decided to stand between the al-Sauds and the vast mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
So on Saturday (19/12/15) there was yet another terrorist bombing in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. Apparently this car bomb attack which killed three attacked a cinema and a shopping mall/supermarket. It has been claimed by Al Shabaab who it is well established are being supplied by Saudi Arabia via Yemen. That is why Saudi Arabia is desperate to keep Yemen under its control.
As such the attack was yet another show of force by Saudi Arabia to remind East/Central African nations that it can come and get them anytime it likes. In case anyone missed this threat Italy flagged it up with hoax bomb threats against a museum of cinema and a shopping centre in Turin on Sunday (20/12/15).
Although a short and sharp display the Mogadishu bombing was intended as a reminder to governments in the region that terrorism isn't the only way that Saudi Arabia can get to them. More specific plans to remove troublesome governments are already underway.
So in Somalia's neighbour Ethiopia the tensions with the Oromo ethnic group has suddenly flared up again into violent protests.
Tension between ethnic groups has long been the mark of many African nations but these specific problems began in April 2014 when the Ethiopian government announced plans to bring the Oromia region where the Oromo live into the administrative control of the capital Addis Ababa. Fearing that will reduce their power Oromo tribal leaders have been sending people out onto the streets in protest.
Violence has also flared in the DRC's neighbour Burundi. This really started out in April 2015 as popular protests against plans by the President Pierre Nkurunziza to scrap constitutional term limits and run for a third term. However save for a failed coup attempt in September things did really calm down after Nkurunziza won that third term in a July election.
As we've come to expect the US' response to all this has been at best utterly shambolic.
On the situation in Ethiopia the US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Samantha Power has announced support for the Oromo protests. She was particularly critical of Ethiopian attempts to use anti-terror measures to bring and end to the violence.
The message there seems to be quite clearly that not only won't America protect African nations from Saudi terrorism it will actually aid the terrorists by condemning nations that try to protect themselves.
Particularly during his trip to Kenya in July US President Obama has made the situation in Burundi one of his pet projects. As a result that international response the latest crisis which began on December 11th (11/12/15) - the scheduled closing date of COP21.
On Friday (18/12/15) the African Union (AU) announced that it was sending 5000 peacekeepers to Burundi. If the Burundi government refuses then the AU will send them anyway under a clause that was brought in after the 1994 Rwandan genocide to prevent war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. That is hugely controversial because while the situation in Burundi is bad it is nowhere near that bad.
In response to this announcement the UN Security Council (UNSC) discussed the matter on Saturday (19/12/15). Not only did Ambassador Power express the US' full support for the AU's move she went further warning that if President Nkurunziza doesn't work with the AU the US will simply seek a new mediation partner.
The threat to African governments was quite clear; "Do as America says and sign what America tells you to sign or America will simply replace with someone who will."
Ambassador Power's comments caused a lot of shock because they gave the impression that her understanding of the situation in Burundi is so poor that it is doubtful she could point to the nation on a map.
A lot of people have suggested that this recent round of unrest has been caused by agitators who are being sponsored by the government of Paul Kagame in Burundi's neighbour to the north Rwanda which in turn is Kenya's neighbour to the west. A common reaction to the AU's announcement was; "If you want to stop the violence in Burundi send the peacekeepers to Rwanda."
So on Sunday (20/12/15) an Air France passenger jet flying from Mauritius to Paris, France had to be diverted to Mombasa, Kenya amid what turned out to be an elaborate bomb hoax.
In climate change negotiations Mauritius is what is referred to as a Small Island, Developing State (SIDS). This group of nations are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change such as rising sea levels and more violent storms. Due to their small size - Mauritius is relatively large with a population of 1.2 million - they are also the least able to deal with the effects of climate change.
Many of the SIDS are particularly concerned by the permanent effects of climate change which are known in the jargon as "Loss & Damage." Although it has recently been incorporated into the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss & Damage" much of the work in this area has been done as part of the "Nairobi Work Program on Loss & Damage" which was set up in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
As a result bordering Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda etc Kenya is very much ground zero for this type of discussion.
The hoax bomb - which had been prepared by the French police - was nothing more then a stack of blank paper with an electronic timer taped to the top. In an effort to pass any agreement by executive action US President Obama has stripped out anything meaningful to the point where it may as well be a stack of blank paper.
In fact because the COP21 draft prevents meaningful action being taken at any point in the future it may have been better if COP21 had simply produced a stack of blank paper.
Therefore the whole incident seemed to be France asking if the US was in any way aware of any of these issues
In response to the backlash Ambassador Power tried to salvage her credibility by on Sunday (20/12/15) by issuing a statement condemning Paul Kagame's attempts to scrap constitutional term limits in Rwanda. Sadly though she just dug herself deeper into the hole.
Ever since he fought for Yoweri Museveni during Uganda's civil war in 1980 Kagame has earned a reputation as someone you've got to keep an eye on.
In 1990 he invaded Rwanda from Uganda as part of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). It was the suspected RPF assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana that triggered the 1994 genocide. Kagame did very well out of that genocide assuming the role of vice President before becoming President in 2000. As President he has long supported groups fighting in the neighbouring DRC's numerous civil wars including the diamond rich Kivu region.
In fact you might go so far as to say that the only thing that is keeping Kagame away from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and therefore prison is the fact that he has brought Rwanda into the UK Commonwealth.
Therefore I don't trust him. However even I understand that in the current climate in East/Central that if he were to be overthrown the person who would replace him would be much worse.
Unfortunately the US doesn't seem to understand these things. Take for example Nigeria. The US foolishly assumed that the Boko Haram insurgency was simply oppressed Muslims rising up. So if they replaced Goodluck Jonathan with Muhammadu Buhari it would simply end.
That hasn't happened but I'm sure Saudi Arabia can now count on Nigeria ratifying the COP21 draft.
Overnight the US effectively threw up its hands and conceded the point that President Obama is in fact useless.
This took the form of a car ploughing into a group of pedestrians outside the Paris hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. The connection with COP21 Paris and the preceding Paris Massacres should be obvious.
The reason why this was initially investigated as a potential terrorist attack because this type of attack - known as a run-over attack - has become common in Israel over that past two years. In his supposed fight against terrorism US President Obama could learn a lot from what is going on in Israel.
For example Obama's response to the December 2nd (2/12/15) San Bernardino terror attack was to call for tighter gun control.
Israel actually has very tight gun control with firearms permits only really being available to those who have served in either the military or the police. Even then they have to be recommended for one by a serving, senior military or police officer and undergo yearly medical and proficiency tests. Palestinians aren't allowed guns at all.
However the terror attacks continue - currently at the rate of several a week. Instead of guns the attackers simply use knives or cars.
Also Obama seems to have got it into his head that these terrorists are simply good Muslims protesting about the way they're being oppressed. So if he brings in Buhari Boko Haram will disappear, if he gets rid of Assad Syria will suddenly be peaceful and if he closes Guantanamo Bay Muslims will no longer try and attack America.
It's long been claimed that the current wave of terrorism in Israel is being caused by plans to close down the Al Asqa Mosque. This simply isn't true. It is merely something the Palestinians have made up to justify their violence.
So Obama can continue making concessions to the terrorists but they will simply invent new excuses for their terrorism. Therefore Obama's only option is to confront and defeat the terrorists rather then constantly trying to appease them.
The driver in the Las Vegas incident has been identified as a black female. This is a reference to Obama's support for the terrorism of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. By supporting BLM Obama has been engaging in the sort of grubby ethnic politics that has long blighted many African nations such as the DRC, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia etc.
If Obama can't see that is what he is doing then he is incapable of being part of the solution to Africa's problems.
21:45 on 21/12/15 (UK date).
COP21 Terrorism Update #12
Between November 29th (29/11/15) and December 12th (12/12/15) the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Paris, France.
This should have provided a forum to allow nations to address the outstanding issues in what has been a five year negotiation over the structure of a new global agreement to combat climate change. The hope was that this final discussion would allow COP21 to end with an agreement that could then be presented to nations for ratification in replacement of the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
Unfortunately back at the UNFCCC's October meeting the US hijacked the process by introducing a brand new negotiating text that completely ignored the outstanding issues. This prevented those issues being discussed at COP21 and instead the meeting became all about putting pressure on nations to agree to a draft that was so weak US President Barack Obama could pass it through executive order and claim all the glory for once again saving the world.
As a result it seems that only now that COP21 has ended can the issues that should have been discussed at the meeting are being discussed.
On Wednesday (16/12/15) came the news from Peru that a Canadian national - Joshua Stevens - had stabbed and killed a British national - Unais Gomes - in apparent self-defence while both were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug as part of a spiritual/religious ceremony.
Peru of course hosted the 2014 COP20 Summit. Although the summits themselves only last for two weeks negotiations continue throughout the year between the summits. Therefore the tradition is that the previous host and the next host share the Presidency throughout the year. Having picked up the co-presidency after the 2013 COP19 Summit in Poland and carried it forward to COP21 Peru has invested two years in the process and therefore wishes it to succeed.
Also in my eighth update I used the example of the Congo Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as an example of how the requirements that nations keep full IPCC standard inventories and submit new INDC's every 5 years is simply unworkable.
Despite being roughly the size of Spain or twice the size of the US state of Oregon the Congo Rainforest is only the world's second largest Rainforest. The largest of course is the Amazon Rainforest. Contrary to popular opinion this isn't located exclusively in Brazil and instead stretches across several South American nations including Peru.
The way that what are termed "Global Commons" such as Rivers, Lakes, Oceans and Rainforests completely disregard national boundaries in this way really highlights the futility of the KP's focus on reducing national greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions rather then global emissions.
Although he was a British citizen at the time of his death the deceased - Unais Gomes - was working as an economist for a private environmental investment company based in San Francisco, US. Also in my eighth update I explained how the COP21 draft threw open the door to private environmental investment even though that seems set to benefit the investors far more than the nations being invested in.
Although I've not been able to identify the specific company that Mr Gomes was working for and therefore am unable to confirm whether they were represented at COP21 they are certainly the type of company that stands to benefit.
The killer - Joshua Stevens - is a Canadian. In terms of global action on climate change Canada is a particularly interesting nation.
As I've said numerous times before the big problem with the draft agreement presented at COP21 is that it establishes the principle of binary differentiation in perpetuity. This means that only nations defined as "Developed" have to reduce their ghg emissions while nations defined as "Developing" are free to do as they please. The nations that are defined as "Developed" are the 38 nations listed in Annex I of the KP.
Initially Canada was included in this annex. However in 2011 the government of Stephan Harper withdrew Canada from the KP. Therefore along with the US which never ratified the KP Canada are a bit of a wildcard with there being plenty of room for debate as to whether they are actually bound by the draft agreement put forward by COP21.
The reason why Harper withdrew Canada from the KP was to allow the country to massively expand its tar sands industry. This involves using huge amounts of ghg emitting energy to extract tar sands from the ground before using even more ghg emitting energy to convert those tar sands into oil which is then burnt to produce energy emitting even more ghg's in the process. In environmental terms it is extremely nasty stuff.
The long running debate in the US over the building of the Keystone XL pipeline has been about whether to make it easier and therefore more profitable for Canada to export its tar sands oil by building a pipeline down to the US' Gulf of Mexico coast.
While withdrawing from the KP and massively expanding its tar sands operations Canada has also been heavily promoting Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology as a technological solution to climate change. CCS centres around the idea that carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels can be captured at source and then stored underground where under pressure it turns into more fossil fuels.
If CCS can be made to work then it is the holy grail of climate change technology by allowing fossil fuels to be turned into carbon neutral renewable fuels. However CCS is a very long way off from being a viable technology.
Nations like Canada and the Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are really the only ones interested in CCS because they've discovered that they can use the captured gases to pump more oil out of the ground more cheaply boosting the profits of their fossil fuel sales.
Also the science of CCS is eye wateringly complicated making the research difficult to follow. Trying to identify coded negotiated positions within discussions about CCS is a large part of the reason why people like me end up drinking far too much coffee at this time of year. Therefore it is a useful topic to disrupt and derail negotiations.
The world of course already has a highly effective CCS system known as "Rainforests." These absorb vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide converting it into Carbon which is stop in the body of the trees which can be used as a renewable fuel source and Oxygen which is emitted back into the atmosphere allow life on earth to exist.
Unfortunately because you can't slap a patent on a Rainforest the people who are prepared to spend trillions of dollars researching artificial CCS aren't prepared to spend a cent making sure that Rainforests aren't cut down.
Just after the UNFCCC's October meeting the Canadian government of Stephen Harper was sensationally voted out of power in favour of the centre-left Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.
Since then Trudeau has been making a steady stream of announcements intended to appeal to his lefty-liberal base. For example he's going to withdraw those nasty warplanes from the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and instead defeat them with humanitarian aid. He also seems intent of legalising Marijuana.
What I think Trudeau is doing is trying to bank a lot of good will amongst his core supporters. That way they are unlikely to be too critical of him when he shies away from taking action on climate change and instead simply continues Harper's tar sands policies.
On Friday (18/12/15) the Peruvian authorities released Mr Stevens after determining that he had acted in self-defence and therefore no crime had been committed. This prompted lots of discussion about the concept of self-defence.
The big issue throughout climate change negotiations has been Saudi Arabia's use of terrorist violence against nations that would stand to gain a lot from a viable climate change agreement. The hope being that rather then signing up to such an agreement these nations would try to defend themselves either refusing to sign up or signing up to an agreement like the one put forward by COP21 that permanently blocks a viable agreement.
There is though substantial debate as whether nations who allow themselves to be intimidated by terrorism are acting rationally in their self-defence.
For example in Pakistan 219 people have been killed by terrorism in 2015. However in the summer alone more then 1000 people died in Pakistan as a result of extreme heat related to climate change. Therefore climate change is five times a bigger threat to Pakistanis then terrorism.
However the 1000 people who died due to climate change did so quietly mourned by only their own families with scant news coverage. However the 219 who died due to terrorism did so very publicly in a blaze of publicity that heaped pressure on Pakistani politicians.
This does rather pose the question of whether the politicians who allow themselves to be intimidated are actually concerned about the safety of their citizens or simply about their own selfish political careers?
The fact that both Mr Gomes and Mr Stevens were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug at the time of the incident poses the question of what drugs the COP21 delegates were on when the agreed the Paris draft. After all they were clearly operating in an entirely different reality from everybody else.
Although extremely limited reports didn't begin to emerge until Saturday (19/12/15) also on Friday (18/12/15) a ship capsized in Lake Mai-Ndombe in the DRC killing at least 14 people. To give you an idea of how vast a country the DRC is this actually sits in the half of the country which isn't covered by the vast Congo Rainforest.
In an effort to energise delegates throughout COP21 Executive Secretary to the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres kept calling for "All Hands On Deck!" This is a really outdated nautical reference dating back to the days of sailing ships when all the crew would be called onto the deck of the ship to engage in hand-to-hand combat to repel borders such as pirates.
I responded by pointing out that the only reason why you would need everybody on the deck of the COP21 ship is because it had been holed below the waterline and everybody needed to rush to the lifeboats. I then took things further by comparing COP21 to a Mary Celeste style ghost ship and suggesting that the Coast Guard needed to be alerted to rescue.
Therefore the Lake Mai-Ndombe sinking could have been an acknowledgement that due to the the massive burdens it places on nations like the DRC while doing nothing to tackle climate change the COP21 ship has indeed sunk amid massive loss of life.
It is hard to tell though because the DRC is an extremely undeveloped nation. It barely has a functioning government let alone a Department of Transport to make sure ships are safe. Therefore accidents of this type are really quite common with poorly maintained or overloaded ships sinking quite frequently.
The DRC's almost complete lack of infrastructure actually makes it near impossible to find out what happened. The single report I've been able to find on Friday's (18/12/15) sinking is in French. According to the Google Translation the sinking was caused by a whale surfacing too close to the ship causing it to capsize.
The presence of whales in Lake Mai-Ndombe is either a translation error of the most exciting discovery in the study of aquatic wildlife in generations.
So even if it was just a completely random accident Friday's sinking does serve to highlight how completely unrealistic it is for nations like the DRC to keep a complete IPCC standard inventories and submit new INDC's every 5 years.
It seems that Indonesia thought there was something in the Lake Mai-Ndombe sinking because on Saturday (19/12/15) they had a sinking of their own. There a ferry carrying passengers across the Gulf of Bone off of the island of Sulawesi disappeared. Citing bad weather Indonesian authorities have so far been unable to confirm whether or not the ship has sunk leaving the question open for discussion.
Within climate change circles Indonesia is another quite interesting nation. For example it is the most populous Muslim nation on Earth which would certainly make it very susceptible to Saudi Arabia's terrorist threats. However unlike its near neighbour Malaysia it hasn't yet started openly issuing threats itself.
Indonesian farmers have also long engaged in slash and burn farming. This involves them setting fire to the farmland used last year so the ashes go into the soil enriching it with nutrients before moving onto a fresh patch of land. Although technically carbon neutral this practice creates huge amounts of air pollution which causes smog across the region.
The fact that the smoke created in Indonesia refuses to stay within Indonesia has actually been central to the work supporting the concept of global commons.
Some of Indonesia's neighbours have even go so far as to attempt to include specific clauses in any climate change agreement that would prevent nations engaging in activity that pollutes their neighbours in an effort to get Indonesia to end this practice.
17:00 on 21/12/15 (UK date).
This should have provided a forum to allow nations to address the outstanding issues in what has been a five year negotiation over the structure of a new global agreement to combat climate change. The hope was that this final discussion would allow COP21 to end with an agreement that could then be presented to nations for ratification in replacement of the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
Unfortunately back at the UNFCCC's October meeting the US hijacked the process by introducing a brand new negotiating text that completely ignored the outstanding issues. This prevented those issues being discussed at COP21 and instead the meeting became all about putting pressure on nations to agree to a draft that was so weak US President Barack Obama could pass it through executive order and claim all the glory for once again saving the world.
As a result it seems that only now that COP21 has ended can the issues that should have been discussed at the meeting are being discussed.
On Wednesday (16/12/15) came the news from Peru that a Canadian national - Joshua Stevens - had stabbed and killed a British national - Unais Gomes - in apparent self-defence while both were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug as part of a spiritual/religious ceremony.
Peru of course hosted the 2014 COP20 Summit. Although the summits themselves only last for two weeks negotiations continue throughout the year between the summits. Therefore the tradition is that the previous host and the next host share the Presidency throughout the year. Having picked up the co-presidency after the 2013 COP19 Summit in Poland and carried it forward to COP21 Peru has invested two years in the process and therefore wishes it to succeed.
Also in my eighth update I used the example of the Congo Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as an example of how the requirements that nations keep full IPCC standard inventories and submit new INDC's every 5 years is simply unworkable.
Despite being roughly the size of Spain or twice the size of the US state of Oregon the Congo Rainforest is only the world's second largest Rainforest. The largest of course is the Amazon Rainforest. Contrary to popular opinion this isn't located exclusively in Brazil and instead stretches across several South American nations including Peru.
The way that what are termed "Global Commons" such as Rivers, Lakes, Oceans and Rainforests completely disregard national boundaries in this way really highlights the futility of the KP's focus on reducing national greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions rather then global emissions.
Although he was a British citizen at the time of his death the deceased - Unais Gomes - was working as an economist for a private environmental investment company based in San Francisco, US. Also in my eighth update I explained how the COP21 draft threw open the door to private environmental investment even though that seems set to benefit the investors far more than the nations being invested in.
Although I've not been able to identify the specific company that Mr Gomes was working for and therefore am unable to confirm whether they were represented at COP21 they are certainly the type of company that stands to benefit.
The killer - Joshua Stevens - is a Canadian. In terms of global action on climate change Canada is a particularly interesting nation.
As I've said numerous times before the big problem with the draft agreement presented at COP21 is that it establishes the principle of binary differentiation in perpetuity. This means that only nations defined as "Developed" have to reduce their ghg emissions while nations defined as "Developing" are free to do as they please. The nations that are defined as "Developed" are the 38 nations listed in Annex I of the KP.
Initially Canada was included in this annex. However in 2011 the government of Stephan Harper withdrew Canada from the KP. Therefore along with the US which never ratified the KP Canada are a bit of a wildcard with there being plenty of room for debate as to whether they are actually bound by the draft agreement put forward by COP21.
The reason why Harper withdrew Canada from the KP was to allow the country to massively expand its tar sands industry. This involves using huge amounts of ghg emitting energy to extract tar sands from the ground before using even more ghg emitting energy to convert those tar sands into oil which is then burnt to produce energy emitting even more ghg's in the process. In environmental terms it is extremely nasty stuff.
The long running debate in the US over the building of the Keystone XL pipeline has been about whether to make it easier and therefore more profitable for Canada to export its tar sands oil by building a pipeline down to the US' Gulf of Mexico coast.
While withdrawing from the KP and massively expanding its tar sands operations Canada has also been heavily promoting Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology as a technological solution to climate change. CCS centres around the idea that carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels can be captured at source and then stored underground where under pressure it turns into more fossil fuels.
If CCS can be made to work then it is the holy grail of climate change technology by allowing fossil fuels to be turned into carbon neutral renewable fuels. However CCS is a very long way off from being a viable technology.
Nations like Canada and the Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are really the only ones interested in CCS because they've discovered that they can use the captured gases to pump more oil out of the ground more cheaply boosting the profits of their fossil fuel sales.
Also the science of CCS is eye wateringly complicated making the research difficult to follow. Trying to identify coded negotiated positions within discussions about CCS is a large part of the reason why people like me end up drinking far too much coffee at this time of year. Therefore it is a useful topic to disrupt and derail negotiations.
The world of course already has a highly effective CCS system known as "Rainforests." These absorb vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide converting it into Carbon which is stop in the body of the trees which can be used as a renewable fuel source and Oxygen which is emitted back into the atmosphere allow life on earth to exist.
Unfortunately because you can't slap a patent on a Rainforest the people who are prepared to spend trillions of dollars researching artificial CCS aren't prepared to spend a cent making sure that Rainforests aren't cut down.
Just after the UNFCCC's October meeting the Canadian government of Stephen Harper was sensationally voted out of power in favour of the centre-left Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.
Since then Trudeau has been making a steady stream of announcements intended to appeal to his lefty-liberal base. For example he's going to withdraw those nasty warplanes from the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and instead defeat them with humanitarian aid. He also seems intent of legalising Marijuana.
What I think Trudeau is doing is trying to bank a lot of good will amongst his core supporters. That way they are unlikely to be too critical of him when he shies away from taking action on climate change and instead simply continues Harper's tar sands policies.
On Friday (18/12/15) the Peruvian authorities released Mr Stevens after determining that he had acted in self-defence and therefore no crime had been committed. This prompted lots of discussion about the concept of self-defence.
The big issue throughout climate change negotiations has been Saudi Arabia's use of terrorist violence against nations that would stand to gain a lot from a viable climate change agreement. The hope being that rather then signing up to such an agreement these nations would try to defend themselves either refusing to sign up or signing up to an agreement like the one put forward by COP21 that permanently blocks a viable agreement.
There is though substantial debate as whether nations who allow themselves to be intimidated by terrorism are acting rationally in their self-defence.
For example in Pakistan 219 people have been killed by terrorism in 2015. However in the summer alone more then 1000 people died in Pakistan as a result of extreme heat related to climate change. Therefore climate change is five times a bigger threat to Pakistanis then terrorism.
However the 1000 people who died due to climate change did so quietly mourned by only their own families with scant news coverage. However the 219 who died due to terrorism did so very publicly in a blaze of publicity that heaped pressure on Pakistani politicians.
This does rather pose the question of whether the politicians who allow themselves to be intimidated are actually concerned about the safety of their citizens or simply about their own selfish political careers?
The fact that both Mr Gomes and Mr Stevens were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug at the time of the incident poses the question of what drugs the COP21 delegates were on when the agreed the Paris draft. After all they were clearly operating in an entirely different reality from everybody else.
Although extremely limited reports didn't begin to emerge until Saturday (19/12/15) also on Friday (18/12/15) a ship capsized in Lake Mai-Ndombe in the DRC killing at least 14 people. To give you an idea of how vast a country the DRC is this actually sits in the half of the country which isn't covered by the vast Congo Rainforest.
In an effort to energise delegates throughout COP21 Executive Secretary to the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres kept calling for "All Hands On Deck!" This is a really outdated nautical reference dating back to the days of sailing ships when all the crew would be called onto the deck of the ship to engage in hand-to-hand combat to repel borders such as pirates.
I responded by pointing out that the only reason why you would need everybody on the deck of the COP21 ship is because it had been holed below the waterline and everybody needed to rush to the lifeboats. I then took things further by comparing COP21 to a Mary Celeste style ghost ship and suggesting that the Coast Guard needed to be alerted to rescue.
Therefore the Lake Mai-Ndombe sinking could have been an acknowledgement that due to the the massive burdens it places on nations like the DRC while doing nothing to tackle climate change the COP21 ship has indeed sunk amid massive loss of life.
It is hard to tell though because the DRC is an extremely undeveloped nation. It barely has a functioning government let alone a Department of Transport to make sure ships are safe. Therefore accidents of this type are really quite common with poorly maintained or overloaded ships sinking quite frequently.
The DRC's almost complete lack of infrastructure actually makes it near impossible to find out what happened. The single report I've been able to find on Friday's (18/12/15) sinking is in French. According to the Google Translation the sinking was caused by a whale surfacing too close to the ship causing it to capsize.
The presence of whales in Lake Mai-Ndombe is either a translation error of the most exciting discovery in the study of aquatic wildlife in generations.
So even if it was just a completely random accident Friday's sinking does serve to highlight how completely unrealistic it is for nations like the DRC to keep a complete IPCC standard inventories and submit new INDC's every 5 years.
It seems that Indonesia thought there was something in the Lake Mai-Ndombe sinking because on Saturday (19/12/15) they had a sinking of their own. There a ferry carrying passengers across the Gulf of Bone off of the island of Sulawesi disappeared. Citing bad weather Indonesian authorities have so far been unable to confirm whether or not the ship has sunk leaving the question open for discussion.
Within climate change circles Indonesia is another quite interesting nation. For example it is the most populous Muslim nation on Earth which would certainly make it very susceptible to Saudi Arabia's terrorist threats. However unlike its near neighbour Malaysia it hasn't yet started openly issuing threats itself.
Indonesian farmers have also long engaged in slash and burn farming. This involves them setting fire to the farmland used last year so the ashes go into the soil enriching it with nutrients before moving onto a fresh patch of land. Although technically carbon neutral this practice creates huge amounts of air pollution which causes smog across the region.
The fact that the smoke created in Indonesia refuses to stay within Indonesia has actually been central to the work supporting the concept of global commons.
Some of Indonesia's neighbours have even go so far as to attempt to include specific clauses in any climate change agreement that would prevent nations engaging in activity that pollutes their neighbours in an effort to get Indonesia to end this practice.
17:00 on 21/12/15 (UK date).
Thursday 17 December 2015
COP21 Terrorism Update #11.
On Saturday (12/12/15) the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ended with what has been widely and wrongly reported as the signing of a new global climate change agreement.
What actually happened is that COP21 delegates agreed the text of a draft agreement to be presented to their respective governments. Those governments now have until April 21st 2017 (21/4/17) to review the draft agreement and decide whether they wish to sign up to it.
In the days since COP21 the reason for this cooling off period has become increasingly apparently. A number of nations have indicated that there are problems with the agreement. This includes COP21 host nation France.
The most serious problem to emerge with the draft is that it enshrines in perpetuity what is known in the jargon as the principle of binary differentiation. Essentially this means that only nations who are designated as "Developed" have to make cuts to their greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions while nations that are designated as "Developing" don't.
Only 36 nations are designated as developed and this is essentially just the 28 member European Union (EU). The other 159 nations can carry on emitting as much ghg's as they like. This "developing" group includes the World's 2nd largest economy China and the World's 9th largest economy India.
It should come as little surprise then that both China and India are extremely keen for everybody to sign up to an agreement that will not only allow global ghg emissions and therefore global warming to increase but will also hold back the economies of China and India's main rivals.
Yesterday at Mumbai International Airport in southern India an airport worker was killed after being sucked into the jet engines of an Air India passenger jet. The incident occurred while the aircraft was being moved away from the terminal in a manoeuvre that is commonly known as; "Pushback."
As a result the incident seemed to be a rather threatening warning from India for nations not be drawn into the pushback against the COP21 draft.
While I'm here I should also take the opportunity to comment properly on the shooting dead of a man by police in the Wood Green area of London, UK last Friday (11/12/15).
Although this happened right at the death of the COP21 Summit I don't think it was related to the summit in any way.
On November 13th (13/11/15) 130 people were massacred in Paris, France by the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This group has been trying to attack the UK for the past 18 months now.
Fortunately up until now ISIL's attacks on the UK have been small scale like the attack at Leytonstone Underground railway station on December 5th (5/12/15) and have largely been thwarted by the police and security services.
However on June 26th (26/6/15) ISIL were able to murder 38 civilians on a beach in Sousse, Tunisia including 30 Britons. That was the worst terror attack on British citizens since the July 7 2005 (7/7/05) bombings in London.
Although I think that warning should have come a lot sooner the Paris Massacres were a massive wake up call to nations across Europe. As the attack leader appears to have links with the Britain's second city Birmingham it has created a degree of alarm that the UK is going to be the next nation to experience an ISIL attack on that scale.
The UK of course has some of the tightest gun control laws in the World. However despite this I have been lead to believe that if you move in the right circles it easier to obtain battlefield weapons such as assault rifles and grenades along with large quantities of ammunition then it is in many American cities such as San Francisco.
Therefore in response to the Paris Massacres police in the UK appear to have been cracking down hard on the illegal arms market. Where before they may have overlooked the low-level guys in the hope of gathering intelligence to take down the wider network the police now appear to be acting on everything they can get a search warrant for.
During the course of this crackdown the police uncovered a plot to help two men - Erwin Amoyaw-Gyamfi and Erun Izzet - they'd previously arrested for possessing/supplying illegal firearms escape from custody during an appearance at Wood Green Crown Court.
It appears the plan involved four country men of the Turkish Amoyaw-Gyamfi and Izzet conducting an armed hijacking of the prison van transporting them to and from Court. Obviously the police moved in to prevent this from happening and while four Turks were arrested a fifth man - Jermaine Baker - was shot and killed.
This is obviously under investigation but it appears that Mr Baker was literally a hired gun and it almost goes without saying that a man who was participating in an armed hijacking was both armed and prepared to use lethal force.
Unlike in much of the rest of the World the British police are not routinely armed.
The small number who are know full well that the moment they discharge their weapon they will be suspended from duty - particularly if they haven't hit anything. If a person is killed or even wounded by a police officer the incident will be automatically investigated as a potential murder and the officer will likely be arrested.
However more often then not the investigation will quickly determine that the officer acted lawfully, the investigation will be closed and the officer will return to duty.
As a result it is quite hard to understand quite why the UK media have got so excited by the news that the Wood Green shooting is being investigated as a potential murder and that the officer has been suspended from duty and this evening arrested so he can be interviewed under caution in the presence of an attorney.
A large part of the reason for this is the way that the US has recently been tearing itself apart with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign. Although policing in the UK is very different to how it is in America it appears that the British media just want to feel included.
The police though do also appear to have been building their part. For example London's Metropolitan Police Commissioner has certainly been on hand to provide a quote every time the press ask for one which has certainly helped keep the story moving along.
The reason for this appears to be twofold;
Firstly the fact that the illegal gun traffickers in this specific case are Turkish helps to remind people that Turkey is currently one of the main security threats to Europe rather then one of Europe's allies.
For example the forged Syrian passports that two of the Paris attackers used to enter the EU's Schengen zone at the very least suggest that Turkey is still not doing anywhere near a good enough job disrupting the flow of ISIL fighters.
Secondly it serves to underline how US President Barack Obama's response to the December 2nd (2/12/15) terror attack in San Bernardino, California was not only poor also grossly negligent.
As is happening in response to the Wood Green shooting even if it is highly unlikely that a crime has been committed incidents of this type are investigated as the absolute worst crime they could possibly be. This is done to preserve evidence because it is much easier to disregard something at a later date then go back to find what is missing.
In response to the San Bernadino attack Obama seemed to do everything in his power to disguise the fact that it was an ISIL inspired attack and instead present it as an incident of work place violence that would support his gun control agenda. This included delaying the opening of a terrorism investigation for several days.
To see how the investigation was undermined by Obama's orders you need to look no further then Enrique Marquez who as I write has just been charged with trafficking the guns used in the San Bernardino attacks to the attackers in complete defiance of existing gun control laws.
While the San Bernardino attacks were still going on Marquez - a recent convert to Islam - was checking himself into a psychiatric hospital. As the attacks were not immediately being investigated as an act of terrorism this prevented the local and state police from interviewing Marquez.
However if a terrorism investigation had been immediately opened the FBI would have brought in their own psychiatrist and immediately questioned Marquez as hard as the law and that psychiatrist allowed.
We will probably never no what if any evidence was destroyed by co-conspirators during the delay in Marquez's questioning.
20:45 on 17/12/15 (UK date).
What actually happened is that COP21 delegates agreed the text of a draft agreement to be presented to their respective governments. Those governments now have until April 21st 2017 (21/4/17) to review the draft agreement and decide whether they wish to sign up to it.
In the days since COP21 the reason for this cooling off period has become increasingly apparently. A number of nations have indicated that there are problems with the agreement. This includes COP21 host nation France.
The most serious problem to emerge with the draft is that it enshrines in perpetuity what is known in the jargon as the principle of binary differentiation. Essentially this means that only nations who are designated as "Developed" have to make cuts to their greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions while nations that are designated as "Developing" don't.
Only 36 nations are designated as developed and this is essentially just the 28 member European Union (EU). The other 159 nations can carry on emitting as much ghg's as they like. This "developing" group includes the World's 2nd largest economy China and the World's 9th largest economy India.
It should come as little surprise then that both China and India are extremely keen for everybody to sign up to an agreement that will not only allow global ghg emissions and therefore global warming to increase but will also hold back the economies of China and India's main rivals.
Yesterday at Mumbai International Airport in southern India an airport worker was killed after being sucked into the jet engines of an Air India passenger jet. The incident occurred while the aircraft was being moved away from the terminal in a manoeuvre that is commonly known as; "Pushback."
As a result the incident seemed to be a rather threatening warning from India for nations not be drawn into the pushback against the COP21 draft.
While I'm here I should also take the opportunity to comment properly on the shooting dead of a man by police in the Wood Green area of London, UK last Friday (11/12/15).
Although this happened right at the death of the COP21 Summit I don't think it was related to the summit in any way.
On November 13th (13/11/15) 130 people were massacred in Paris, France by the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This group has been trying to attack the UK for the past 18 months now.
Fortunately up until now ISIL's attacks on the UK have been small scale like the attack at Leytonstone Underground railway station on December 5th (5/12/15) and have largely been thwarted by the police and security services.
However on June 26th (26/6/15) ISIL were able to murder 38 civilians on a beach in Sousse, Tunisia including 30 Britons. That was the worst terror attack on British citizens since the July 7 2005 (7/7/05) bombings in London.
Although I think that warning should have come a lot sooner the Paris Massacres were a massive wake up call to nations across Europe. As the attack leader appears to have links with the Britain's second city Birmingham it has created a degree of alarm that the UK is going to be the next nation to experience an ISIL attack on that scale.
The UK of course has some of the tightest gun control laws in the World. However despite this I have been lead to believe that if you move in the right circles it easier to obtain battlefield weapons such as assault rifles and grenades along with large quantities of ammunition then it is in many American cities such as San Francisco.
Therefore in response to the Paris Massacres police in the UK appear to have been cracking down hard on the illegal arms market. Where before they may have overlooked the low-level guys in the hope of gathering intelligence to take down the wider network the police now appear to be acting on everything they can get a search warrant for.
During the course of this crackdown the police uncovered a plot to help two men - Erwin Amoyaw-Gyamfi and Erun Izzet - they'd previously arrested for possessing/supplying illegal firearms escape from custody during an appearance at Wood Green Crown Court.
It appears the plan involved four country men of the Turkish Amoyaw-Gyamfi and Izzet conducting an armed hijacking of the prison van transporting them to and from Court. Obviously the police moved in to prevent this from happening and while four Turks were arrested a fifth man - Jermaine Baker - was shot and killed.
This is obviously under investigation but it appears that Mr Baker was literally a hired gun and it almost goes without saying that a man who was participating in an armed hijacking was both armed and prepared to use lethal force.
Unlike in much of the rest of the World the British police are not routinely armed.
The small number who are know full well that the moment they discharge their weapon they will be suspended from duty - particularly if they haven't hit anything. If a person is killed or even wounded by a police officer the incident will be automatically investigated as a potential murder and the officer will likely be arrested.
However more often then not the investigation will quickly determine that the officer acted lawfully, the investigation will be closed and the officer will return to duty.
As a result it is quite hard to understand quite why the UK media have got so excited by the news that the Wood Green shooting is being investigated as a potential murder and that the officer has been suspended from duty and this evening arrested so he can be interviewed under caution in the presence of an attorney.
A large part of the reason for this is the way that the US has recently been tearing itself apart with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign. Although policing in the UK is very different to how it is in America it appears that the British media just want to feel included.
The police though do also appear to have been building their part. For example London's Metropolitan Police Commissioner has certainly been on hand to provide a quote every time the press ask for one which has certainly helped keep the story moving along.
The reason for this appears to be twofold;
Firstly the fact that the illegal gun traffickers in this specific case are Turkish helps to remind people that Turkey is currently one of the main security threats to Europe rather then one of Europe's allies.
For example the forged Syrian passports that two of the Paris attackers used to enter the EU's Schengen zone at the very least suggest that Turkey is still not doing anywhere near a good enough job disrupting the flow of ISIL fighters.
Secondly it serves to underline how US President Barack Obama's response to the December 2nd (2/12/15) terror attack in San Bernardino, California was not only poor also grossly negligent.
As is happening in response to the Wood Green shooting even if it is highly unlikely that a crime has been committed incidents of this type are investigated as the absolute worst crime they could possibly be. This is done to preserve evidence because it is much easier to disregard something at a later date then go back to find what is missing.
In response to the San Bernadino attack Obama seemed to do everything in his power to disguise the fact that it was an ISIL inspired attack and instead present it as an incident of work place violence that would support his gun control agenda. This included delaying the opening of a terrorism investigation for several days.
To see how the investigation was undermined by Obama's orders you need to look no further then Enrique Marquez who as I write has just been charged with trafficking the guns used in the San Bernardino attacks to the attackers in complete defiance of existing gun control laws.
While the San Bernardino attacks were still going on Marquez - a recent convert to Islam - was checking himself into a psychiatric hospital. As the attacks were not immediately being investigated as an act of terrorism this prevented the local and state police from interviewing Marquez.
However if a terrorism investigation had been immediately opened the FBI would have brought in their own psychiatrist and immediately questioned Marquez as hard as the law and that psychiatrist allowed.
We will probably never no what if any evidence was destroyed by co-conspirators during the delay in Marquez's questioning.
20:45 on 17/12/15 (UK date).
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