Operation Oil Theft: Month 7, Week 4, Day 1.

With the rebel's Transitional National Council (TNC) claiming that victory will be declared once Sirte falls all eyes this past week have been on the battle for the coastal city. The only problem is that the residents of Sirte don't seem to want the TNC taking over and have been fighting back hard.

Last Thursday (6/10/11) the defenders of Sirte mounted a counter offensive that pushed the rebels back to positions in the Bouhadi district and the city's sea and air ports. On Saturday (8/10/11) the rebels opened up a new front by attacking from the south. By Sunday (9/10/11) they'd succeeded in capturing the main hospital, the university and the Ouagadougo conference centre. By Tuesday (11/10/11) the rebels had succeeded in capturing the police headquarters trapping government forces in a small area of a few streets near to the harbour. However yesterday (12/10/11) government forces again rallied forcing the rebels back to the police headquarters from where they've been forced to resort to long range artillery and rocket fire. As usual the TNC have tried to cover up this set back by announcing the killing or capture of one of Qaddafi's sons.

Away from the fighting Amnesty International today (13/10/11) published a report into the abuse of people detained by the TNC. The report found that the rebels routinely rounded up men, women and children without any justification and that black Libyans were most likely to be targeted on account of their skin colour. Once detained the men were bound, blindfolded, beaten - sometimes to death, burned and occasionally shot. The women were raped and sexually assaulted. Prisoners of both genders were routinely mocked and verbally abused with "Slave" seeming to be the most popular insult.

This report comes despite Amnesty International officials meeting with senior members of the TNC to remind them of their obligations under international law following the publication of their "The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances and Torture.

Dale Farm: What a Surpise.

After a delay following the end of the United Nations General Assembly in which Britain had hoped the issue would be forgotten Mr Justice Ouseley has rejected all three applications for Judicial Review brought by residents of the Dale Farm traveller site over their eviction.

The full details of the ruling have yet to emerge and when they do they should make interesting reading. The Judge appears to have ruled that an eviction that would neither stop Dale Farm being residentially occupied of returned to a greenfield site is not disproportional. He also appears to be claiming that the applications were made too late even though the applications were made before the October 3rd ruling which determined that large parts of Basildon Council's eviction plan was illegal.

Needless to say I don't think the actual eviction will begin for some time yet as the residents will take out an injunction while they appeal Mr Justice Ouseley's rather irrational decision.

That Could Do With Some More Detail.

Yesterday (11/10/11) Israel and Hamas announced an Egyptian brokered deal that will see the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Shalit will be released immediately and the Palestinian prisoners will be released in stages begining with 427 on the same day Shalit is released.

Also yesterday the United States announced that it has charged two Iranian men over an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US. What appears to have happened is a federal agent who was posing as an assassin for a Mexican drugs cartel approached Manassar Arbabsiar, a US/Iranian dual national and suggested to him a number of potential terrorist plots. Arbabsiar then contacted his cousin Gholan Shakuri who lives in Iran and Arbabsiar claims is a member of the Revolutionary Guard. Arbabsiar then went on to send the federal agent US$100,000 as a down payment on the plan to assassinate the Ambassador. Obviously Iran are not going to hand over Shakuri and Arbabsiar is going to plead guilty so don't expect to see and aspect of this allegation tested in court.

According to Israel Hamas is nothing more then an extension of the Iranian government and Arbabsiar was actually arrested on September 29th. So by timing the Arbabsiar announcement to co-incide with the announcement of the prisoner exchange the US was trying to claim the glory for the deal by making it look like they used Arbabsiar as leverage to pressure Iran into ordering Hamas to free Shalit. Of course they are also trying to undermine Hamas' credibility by enforcing the false claim that Hamas takes it's orders from Iran.

I'm Back.

It's Tuesday (11/10/11) at around 19:30 and I'm back from the pub early. That's because I went to visit my grandmother in hospital and went straight to dinner from there. Apart from that there's not really much to report at my end.

Edited at 20:30: While I was out and about it was reported that the Israeli cabinet are meeting to discuss a possible prisoner exchange that would see Israel release 1000 Palestinian prisoners and Hamas release Ghalid Shailt. Apparently the deal was arranged by the Egyptians and has not yet been finalised however the United States are already claiming responsibility with a story about two Iranians being arrested for a state sponsor plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US. So what was I saying about Egypt's interim military rulers facing a really difficult job at the moment?

Oh and Britain has crashed Blackberry's servers with a virus to prove they could shut down Blackberry Messenger if they wanted.

Egypt Riots.

On Sunday (9/10/11) Coptic Christians held a protest march in Cairo, Egypt's capital. As the march entered Maspero square it was attacked by thugs in plainclothes. Although the identity of these thugs is not known many of the protesters assumed them to be secret police like those who were used by the ex-president before the revolution so the protesters responded by attacking uniformed police officers who were guarding the near by state TV headquarters. The violence quickly escalated to petrol bombs and machetes and the rioting spread into surrounding areas including Tahrir square. The police were quickly overwhelmed so the army responded with tear gas and eventually by driving armoured vehicles into the crowd - a tactic that was used during London's riots in August. At present 25 people have been confirmed killed and over 200 have been injured. This includes both Muslim and Christian civilians along with soldiers and police officers.

Following the rioting and burning of a Coptic Church in Cairo's Imbada neighbourhood in May which was instigated in part by an Israeli spy Egypt's interim military rulers have been quick to blame Sunday's violence on foreign provocateurs. Although I can't rule that out entirely I think that on this occasion the violence was purely an Egyptian problem with the Christians themselves having the bear their share of responsibility. Part of the way that Mubarak was able to hold onto power for so long was by playing Egypt's Christians and Muslims off against each other and a false flag attack on a Coptic Church in Alexandria actually fuelled the revolution itself. While Mubarak has gone it will take time for this ingrained hostility to fade. Also nine months after the revolution many people are frustrated over how long it is taking for the interim military rulers to hand over power to a civilian government. Amongst them there is a hardcore of anti-military protesters who want to see the army go now without really understanding how difficult a task the generals are facing. Holding a large march in this sort of climate was provocative bordering on the irresponsible and was always likely to end in trouble. Also for what I've read in English from the Christians in the run up to the march there seemed to be an element within the organisers intent on making the march as confrontational as possible.

However the Christians themselves were reacting to some extreme provocation. In the Aswan region there has been an ongoing local dispute over the renovation of a Coptic Church. This prompted the provincial governor Mustafa al-Sayaad to declare that the Church had been built without the proper permits and permissions and therefore the renovation work was illegal. While I'm not aware of the context in which al-Sayaad made his comments it is very difficult not to interpret them as anti-Christian rhetoric designed to inflame and provoke. A local Iman went on to use al-Sayaad's comments to justify telling his followers to take the law into their own hands and on 3/10/11 a Muslim mob burnt down the Church along with a number of Christian owned homes and businesses. This comes on top of an increase in isolated and generally un-coordinated attacks on Christians by Muslims that have largely gone un-investigated and unpunished by the interim military rulers creating a feeling amongst Egypt's Christians that they are being left out of post-revolution Egypt.

There are a number of factors contributing to this feeling of isolation including the new constitution which declares Islam to be the official state religion and makes some small concessions to Sharia law. Although the constitution also guarantees religious, intellectual and political freedoms it can be quite difficult to understand how the constitution will balance the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims and even with that understanding it still requires a high degree of trust that this will actually happen in practice. Also Egypt's interim military rulers recently backed down over an amendment to electoral law that would have seen one third of seats in parliament reserved for independent candidates. Although I cannot see how this amendment would have protected democracy or limited the power of Islamist parties and was opposed by a broad coalition of political parties the mildly Islamist Muslim Brotherhood were seen to lead the opposition. So by backing down the interim military rulers looked as though they were doing the Islamist's bidding even if the rule was a bit silly to begin with.

The two main factors though that seem to be causing Egypt's Christians to feel isolated are anti-Christian laws like one requiring a presidential permission for any building work on a Church and the interim military rulers failure to investigate the criminal attacks on Christians. Although it sounds a strange thing to say these two things actually further convince me of the interim military rulers commitment to democracy and their desire to hand over power to a civilian government as quickly as possible. The anti-Christian laws are very old laws that even Mubarak was trying to get rid of so I think they will be overturned quite soon. However in a democracy it is the people who make the law through an elected parliament/senate not unelected generals. Therefore it is not the place of the interim military rulers to repeal those laws. Likewise in a democracy crimes against anybody should be investigated by an independent and impartial civilian police force who will collect evidence and present it to an independent and impartial civilian court so a fair trial can be held. If that court finds the evidence presented sufficient to prove the accused guilt then the court will sentence that person to a humane and civilian punishment.

However for that to happen in Egypt the interim military rulers first need to build an independent and impartial court system and police force along with doing unpopular but essential things like doing away with the current system of food and fuel subsidies. They can't do any of these things if they're spending all their time breaking up riots.

Oh Yeah the Doctor Fox Thing.

Britain's Defence Minister Dr Liam Fox MD is currently at the centre of a political scandal. Apparently he helped a personal friend mis-represent himself as a government advisor in order to win private business contracts and possibly undermined national security in the process.

The important thing to remember about this story is that the British Prime Minister David Cameron is soon expected to re-shuffle his political cabinet and has been told by someone higher up that Dr Fox must go. So this scandal has been created to force Fox to resign to avoid the Prime Minister the embarrassment of actually sacking him and all those difficult questions about why Britain still insists on calling itself a democracy. The reason why Fox has to go is that he is far too close the Sri-Lankens. Both the United Nations and the United States want to see Sri-Lanka investigated for crimes against humanity committed during the final days of their war against the Tamils. Britain of course is fully supported that war and even actively participated in it but obviously Britain would prefer if that support was kept a discreet secret in case the matter does end up with people being prosecuted.

Secondly the story contains lots of elements - doctors, foxes etc - that might give you the impression that it has something to do with my grandmother's current situation. Apart from distracting from the scandal's primary purpose there is a hope that this will provoke people to ask questions about that situation. In turn this puts pressure on me and others to answer those questions and in the process reveal what options may or may not be available to the Brits at this time. All I can think of saying to that is to point out that if you're relying on your opponent to explain to you how to fight them it kind of looks like you've already lost.

Feel The Greed.

At their recent meeting the International Monetary Fund (IMF) discussed ways to protect the Eurozone from Greece's continuing economic problems. The key proposal agreed upon was to increase the size of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) and expand it's remit to allow it to make payments to private financial institutions like banks rather then just national governments. Since then we've seen the threatened collapse of a Franco-Belgian bank, Dexia and the downgrading of Spain's and Italy's sovereign credit ratings along with the downgrading of the credit worthiness of a range of European banks including Britain's Lloyds TSB/HBOS behemoth.

This is all pretty obviously the financial sector trying to position itself to suck as much money as possible out of the European (mainly German) taxpayer as part of a second banking bailout.

The British Finance Minister George Osborne spoiled the party though by responding to the British banks downgrade by effectively announcing that Britain won't be spending anymore money to bail out banks. This prompted the French based Euromillions pan-European lottery to award the £101million top prize to a British ticket holder. Or treat Britain to Finance: 101 if you prefer.

Although to be expected from France this reaction was very disappointing because while there are a handful of mainly Italian banks which will require some level of limited support from the EFSF to prevent a second global banking crisis the vast majority of European banks will either have to rely on their own national governments for support or actually have to make a loss because they've made bad investments. The fact that the other members of the Euromillions cell haven't accepted this and were prepared to endorse France's message to Britain indicates that there are still plenty of European political leaders intent to keep hammering away at that self-destruct button.

So now they've been reclaimed by genuine activists and begun to regain some credibility it's seems the perfect time for the Occupy Wall Street protests to spread though out the Eurozone countries but become protests against another banking bailout like the one that created the current sovereign debt crisis.