The Sun of Saul Dawns

On Sunday February 28th (28/2/16) the Obama administration demanded that the Hungarian movie "Son of Saul" was awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Feature.

This was unfortunate because that movie struck me as an extremely cynical attempt by Hungary to use the issue of the Nazi Holocaust to embarrass Germany. At the same time Hungary along with Poland is trying very hard to deny it's own Nazi past and its increasingly Nazi present. 

Within European Union (EU) politics this tension is currently causing a lot of trouble in two key areas; The sanctions against Russia in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the refugee crisis that support for ISIL has created.

So right on cue on Monday February 29th (29/2/16) the EU refugee crisis once again exploded. This saw violence both in Calais, France on the border with the UK and in Greece on the border with Macedonia - a non-EU state.

Although this was news the situation is Calais is far from new. What really annoys me about the current refugee crisis is that it is nothing that the EU - particularly the original, core states - haven't had to deal with before. 

For example I actually went to school with a lot of Polish Catholics. Unlike today in the 1980's that had absolutely nothing to do with the EU's free movement of people policy. Instead it's because their families had been taken in by the UK as refugees from first the Nazi and then the Soviet occupation.

The next big wave of refugees came with the end of the Cold War and the numerous Balkan wars of the 1990's that created many of the newer EU member states. There was also something of a third wave in the late 1990's following the NATO invasion of Serbia and the occupation of its southern Kosovo province.

Due to a variety of reasons - particularly the global dominance of the English language - a lot of these refugees wanted to come to the UK. However while Britain seems to really enjoy smashing up countries it really doesn't like having to deal with the consequences. As a result it refused to take in many of these refugees leaving them stuck in Calais.

The French government did use to house them in a dedicated refugee centre in Sangatte which became known as the Sangatte Refugee Centre. However the UK was very opposed to even this arguing that providing humane conditions for refugees in Calais somehow encouraged more refugees to try and enter the UK. As a result after more than a decade of heated political argument the British government finally forced the French government to close the Sangatte centre in 2007.

Funnily enough this didn't solve the problem and large numbers of prospective refugees continue to congregate in Calais. However rather than being housed in a properly managed centre they are forced to live in a series of illegal squatter camps collectively known as "The Jungle." 

As you would expect conditions in these camps are pretty squalid with no proper housing, no proper sanitation and no rule of law subjecting the people forced to live in them to disease and violence. With the new waves of refugees caused by ISIL conditions in the Calais camps have begun to deteriorate dramatically.

So in the last couple of months the French authorities have set about building more formalised refugee camps in Calais with sanitation and comparatively sturdy buildings made out of shipping containers. They then ordered the demolition of the squatter camps to force people into the formal camps.

The problem is that the UK has viewed this building of formal camps in Calais as an precursor to re-opening the Sangatte refugee camp. As a result the Jungle camps suddenly became a cause celbre for Britain's 'caring liberals.' The band Coldplay even referenced it at the recent BRIT Awards. 

The UK's objective of this sort of multi-channel onslaught was of course to smear the French plan in order to keep the squalid squatter camps open and prevent the more formal camps being opened.

Key pawns in this effort have been the British protest group "No Borders." They like to refer to themselves as Anarchists although I suspect Anarchists tend to use a different term to refer to them. 

Salivating at the prospect of a big violent confrontation with the police No Borders have been going around the Jungle telling the the prospective refugees all sorts of lies to get them to refuse to move to the more formal camps and resist the eviction. Probably the most grievous of those lies is that the formal camps are in fact deportation camps when No Borders know full well that actual deportation camps are a lot more secure than that.

Despite decades of evidence that this beggar-thy-neighbour approach to refugees simply does not work it is still the approach that everyone in the EU is insisting on taking. This is what has forced Macedonia to close its border with Greece triggering the violent scenes seen there.

In part everyone has been forced into this by German Chancellor/Head of Government Angela Merkel's ridiculous and emotionally driven decision to invite all of the World's refugees and economic migrants to come to journey before the EU had drawn up a plan of how to deal with them.

However the much more serious problem has been Hungary's utter commitment to the beggar-thy-neighbour approach that has seen it time and time again block an EU-wide response to the crisis. 

Not only did they attempt to block that plan being agreed back in September 2015 when it was passed by a two-thirds majority they filed a legal challenge to prevent the plan being put into action. Hungary is now staging a referendum to reject the plan in the hope that it can be used to block the plan further when the Court eventually but inevitably rules against them.

With Hungary almost single handedly preventing the EU from responding to the refugee crisis this has left the other EU member states along with the neighbouring states with no option other than to follow Hungary's example and build border fences to keep the refugees out.

Unfortunately this is not an option for Greece because their main border is not a land border that can be sealed with razor wire but sea border. Specifically the 11th largest sea border in the World made up 14,000km (8,500 miles) spread across thousands of islands. Therefore if Greece wants to behave like everyone else in the EU and seal its border to refugee it will have to persuade Turkey to stop the refugees taking to the sea in the first place.

The problem with this is that Turkey is deliberately and intentionally flooding the EU with refugees for political gain. I believe the term NATO Commander for Europe General Phillip Breedlove used was "Weaponised" even if for a NATO commander Breedlove does seem to have an extremely poor understanding of both geography and time keeping.

In the first instance Turkey's weaponisation of refugees is to sow division and discord amongst the EU member states. With EU governments at each other's throats it becomes much more difficult for the EU to put unified pressure on Turkey to end its support for ISIL, the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) and associated groups. This is despite Turkey's support for such terrorist groups posing a clear and present threat to the safety and security of the EU and its citizens.

In the second instance Turkey's weaponisation of predominately Muslim refugees is to radicalise the Islamist base of the Justice & Development Party (AKP). By showing Muslim refugees being beaten by police in squalid border camps the AKP and their leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is hoping to send the message that the EU hates Muslims. This of course makes it even more difficult for the EU to put pressure on Turkey to end its support for terrorism. It also makes it much more difficult Turks who share EU values such as rights for women and press freedom to complain when Erdogan tries to take those rights away. 

It should hardly come as a surprise to anyone that the flow of refugees from Turkey massively increased in the summer of 2015. 

This of course was the same time that Turkey was coming under increased pressure to close its border to ISIL to deny them fighters and equipment. It was also the time where the AKP failed to win a majority in the General Election forcing Erdogan to launch attacks against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in order to prop up support for his plans for an Executive Presidency.

In the third instance Turkey's weaponisation of refugees is simply to extort concessions from the EU.

Therefore the notion that the EU should negotiate with Turkey over the refugee issue reminds me of that old adage that you should never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty but only the pig will enjoy it.

Unfortunately due to Hungary's intransigence and frankly political naivety that is exactly what the EU has been forced to do. On Monday (7/3/16) the EU meet with Turkey to provisional agree a 6 point plan to tackle the refugee crisis.

It is testament to how bad that deal is that you will struggle to find an EU based news report that is prepared to tell you what those 6 points are. However the one point that everyone is prepared to champion is a mechanism that will see Turkey take back an irregular migrant for every refugee that the EU accepts from camps in Turkey. This is simply not going to happen.

Turkey has already made clear that it will not accept a single irregular migrant until all existing irregular migrants have been evacuated from Greece. That process cannot begin until Hungary drops its legal challenge and the EU migrant quota system goes into action. 

Even then it will take a substantial amount of time to clear that backlog because there are currently around 1 million irregular migrants in Greece. Adjusted for population that is around five times as many refugees as there are currently in Turkey. You can guarantee that while the EU is working to clear the backlog Turkey will continue sending more irregular migrants at at least the current rate of 2,300 per day.

If by some miracle the backlog is cleared and Turkey does officially start accepting returning irregular migrants you can be assured the first irregular migrants to be sent back will be fully supported by Turkish *ahem* human rights groups to launch a legal challenge that could take years to resolve.

In return for Turkey not, in any way, stemming the flow of irregular migrants or accepting back a single one the EU has decided to pay an extremely heavy price to leave the situation exactly the same at it is.

The first part of this price is clear. It is E3bn (USD3bn/GBP2bn) to be paid directly to Turkey. As the deal progresses the EU will pay a further E3bn to Turkey giving a total of E6bn of blood money to Turkey.

The second price the EU will pay is slightly more complicated. It will re-open EU membership negotiations with Turkey. The problem is that between the support for terrorism, the crushing on internal dissent and press freedoms and the continued Turkish military occupation of EU memberstate Cyprus there is not a single thing that qualifies Turkey to be a member of the EU. As such in order for those negotiations continue the EU will have to permanently scrap the core values on which it was founded.

The third price however is almost as clear as the first. Even without Turkey becoming an EU member state the EU will grant free access to Turkey's population of 80 million to the EU's Schengen passport free zone from June 2016. This means that the entire population of Turkey including all the refugees/irregular migrants will be free to enter every EU state without a security check or even a passport check.  

I suppose though technically that last concession will end all irregular/illegal migration from Turkey into the EU. By making all migration in effect legal.  

So rather than engaging in anymore discussions with Turkey over the refugee crisis the EU first needs to get its own house in order. This involves Hungary dropping its legal challenge and the quota system going into force. What will really help that along is Chancellor Merkel finally conceding that she made a mistake rather than carrying on in the vain hope that her peers and her voters will somehow be fooled into thinking otherwise.

Once the EU has its own plan up and running it can then go back to Turkey. Not to beg that the flow of irregular migrants stops but to demand it. Oneway to go about that is to levy a E200,000 charge to pay for the upkeep of every irregular migrant Turkey tries to impose on the EU. That will be paid out of tax levied on every Turkish import to the EU including the tourism sector.  

As soon as Turkey realises it will be paying a price for its misbehaviour rather than receiving a reward its weaponisation of migrants will stop in the blink on an eye. 

16:55 on 11/3/16 (UK date).

Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 2, Day 6

On Friday February 26th (26/2/16) a ceasefire went into effect in Syria. 

That ceasefire obviously does not apply to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) or any group associated with either ISIL or ANF.

With all armed groups in Syria either being associated with ISIL or ANF in some way or actively fighting against them the challenge has been to find a group that the ceasefire does apply to. The only group I can think of is Turkey. They are prevented by the ceasefire from attacking either the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) or the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) in defence of ISIL and ANF.

The problem is that alongside the ceasefire agreement Russia and Syrian government forces have unilaterally decided to cease almost all military action in Syria. Including against ISIL, ANF and the groups associated with them.

The reason for this seems to quite simply be fear on the part of the Russians.

Back in August of 2013 then head of Saudi intelligence Prince Bandar bin Sultan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his country residence near Moscow. During that meeting Prince Bandar explicitly threatened Putin that unless Russia dropped its opposition to groups like ISIL and ANF Saudi Arabia would use Islamist terror groups to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics being held in Sochi. Saudi Arabia then leaked this threat to the World's media making the threat extremely public.

On December 29th 2013 (29/12/13) Saudi Arabia made good on its threat and Islamist terrorists carried out a suicide bombing at one of Volgograd's main railway stations killing 18. The following day (30/12/13) another suicide bombing was carried out on a trolley bus/tram in Volgograd that killed 16. Volgograd was of course the main transport hub for visitors to the Sochi Olympics.

It was only after the intelligence agencies from almost all members of the Olympic community got involved that bodies started mysteriously turning up dead and an attack on the Olympics itself was prevented. The destruction of Sochi's neighbour Ukraine during the Olympics and the sanctions on Russia that followed was of course a US apology to the Saudis for stopping them attacking the Olympics.

As such it seems obvious that Russia has once again been threatened by Saudi Arabia. Either they leave groups like ISIL and ANF in peace or the terror attacks will return.

For example just yesterday we had this curious story regarding Sochi born Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova. For the past 10 years Sharapova has been using a drug called Meldonium to control atrial fibrillation. Throughout she has kept the sports governing body - the International Tennis Federation (ITF) - informed of this fact.

Then on January 1st (1/1/16) the ITF added Meldonium to it's list of banned substances. As with all banned substances the ITF prevents it's use 28 days prior to competition to allow it to pass out of the body. On January 18th (18/1/16) Sharapova competed in the Australian Open competition and tested positive for Meldonium which had only been on the banned list for 18 days.

So it does look exactly as if the ITF has passed a rule specifically to target Sharapova and then made it impossible for her to comply with that new rule in order smear her. 

This of course comes hot on the heels of last autumn's World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation into doping in Athletics. That WADA investigation was of course limited only to Russian athletes.

It's as if ISIL supporters are trying to ban Russia from the Olympics but don't want to admit they're doing it because they're ISIL supporters.

So on Monday February 29th (29/2/16) Gulchekhra Bobokulova beheaded a 4 year old child in her care and paraded with the severed head through the streets of Moscow close to the Oktyabrskoye Polye underground railway station. These were clearly the actions of an insane person. 

However at the time Mrs Bobokulova was wearing traditional Islamic dress, declaring herself to be a terrorist and threatening to detonate a suicide bomb as revenge for Russian air-strikes in Syria. 

Mrs Bobokulova is originally from Uzbekistan in the Caucuses. This region has sent a lot of fighters to join ISIL and is where the attackers in Volgograd originated from. As such Russia has played up the possibility of a link to ISIL in order to highlight the threat they find themselves under.

Funnily enough no Russian news channels were prepared to broadcast live footage of a woman waving an infant’s severed head about in the middle of the day. This prompted something of a discussion about media censorship within Russia. Some accused the Russian government of censoring the media to cover up the incident while others called on the Russian government to do more to censor the media to prevent the gruesome footage being shown.

This feeds into the wider cessation of hostilities agreement - particularly the way that the western media reports on Russia's actions. 

Over the five years that the war in Syria has been dragging on western politicians and the media have told so many lies about the nature of the conflict they seem to have lost the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. The October 25th 2015 (25/10/15) reporting of a Russian air-strike on a hospital in Sarmin near Idlib City that simply did not happen being a particular case in point.

I don't think anyone is calling for the censorship of the media that would ban them on reporting the lies of ISIL, ANF and associated groups. However to avoid promoting the terrorist's cause they do need to make clear to their audience that those lies are indeed lies rather than presenting them as fact. They could also start referring to these groups by their proper names rather simply using the collective term; "Rebels."

The inaction of Russia and others is now starting to present a serious problem. ISIL, ANF and associated terror groups have now had almost two weeks of peace and quiet in which they have been able to regroup and become stronger. If the proposed UN backed peace-talks go ahead this situation risks becoming permanent.

That means that groups like ISIL and ANF will be granted permanent sanctuary within Syria from where they can plot attacks like the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres. It also means that the refugees that have been forced to flee those areas will be unable to return making the refugee crisis equally permanent.

With no-one actually doing anything at the moment everyone is instead sitting, waiting and watching everybody else to try and work out what they're going to do next. This is the type of situation that I find better suited to cryptic Tweets rather than long essays of explanation.

For it's part Turkey has completely failed to meet it's obligations under the ceasefire.

The most serious violation occurred less then 24 hours after the ceasefire went into force. 

On Saturday (27/2/16) Turkey allowed it's territory - specifically the Akcakale border town - to be used by ISIL to launch an attack against QSD forces in the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad. This ISIL assault was supported by artillery fire by the Turkish military.

On March 3rd (3/3/16) journalists embedded with the YPG witnessed convoys of vehicles guarded by the Turkish military travelling through the Bab al-Salam border crossing into ANF camps just outside Azaz in northern Syria. 

The contents of those convoys are believed to be the same as the convoy of weapons including artillery shells that was stopped by Turkish police in January 2014. The Turkish police officers who stopped that convoy and the journalists who reported on it have since been charged with treason.

Those Turkish supplied weapons have been used by ANF to attack the YPG in both Aleppo City and the near-by city of Afrin on an almost daily basis. 

Although it will take too long for me to list them here I have in front of me a list of 10 specific attacks on the YPG by ANF and associated groups between February 26th (26/2/16) and March 3rd (3/3/16). That list includes the specific firing locations, the specific type of weapons used and the specific names of each group along with the names of the commanding officers responsible. 

Knowing exactly what it is doing Turkey expects that action will be taken to prevent it's continued aggressive and wholly illegal actions. As such it has been hunkering down in preparation for the backlash.

You may remember that back on January 6th 2015 (6/1/15) a female suicide bomber attacked a police station in Istanbul. At the time we were assured that this attack had been carried out by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C). 

With the DHKP-C largely being a fictional group associated with the mythical Ergenekon group in Turkey's murky politics the implication was that the attack was carried by members of the so-called "Deep State" linked to the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) to oust the Justice & Development Party (AKP) of Turkish Prime Minister/President/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Therefore voters should rally around the AKP at the upcoming election.

The problem was that the attacker was very quickly identified as Diana Ramazova - a Muslim from the Russian Caucus region of Dagestan. She had previously travelled to Syria via Turkey in June 2014 to marry an ISIL fighter from Norway who was then killed in battle.

On March 3rd (3/3/16) five people were committed to trial for assisting Ms Ramazova in the attack. Despite three of the five being Turkish nationals much is being made of the fact that Ms Ramazova was technically a Russian citizen. The implication being that it was actually a Russian attack against Turkey. Therefore Turkish voters should rally around Erdogan and the AKP against Russian aggression.

Also on March 3rd (3/3/16) two women launched a grenade and gun attack against a police bus in Istanbul in which there were no casualties. Although the attackers were conveniently killed shortly afterwards we were again assured that they were members of the DHKP-C. 

This time much was made of the DHKP-C's Hammer & Sickle logo which is inspired by the Communist flag of Soviet Russia. The implication again being that it was a Russian attack against Turkey. Therefore Turkish voters should rally around Erdogan and the AKP against Russian aggression.

Since then barely an hour has gone by without the Turks announcing that they've uncovered some sort of terrorist weapons stash belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). These are all described as "Russian Weapons" and have been claimed to included anti-aircraft missiles to imply a PKK attack against Incirilk airbase. Judging by events in Northern Ireland since March 3rd (3/3/16) I think it's fair to assume that British intelligence does not believe a word of this.

The reason why Turkey has suddenly become very sensitive to the issue of anti-aircraft missiles is the air-strikes it's been conducting against anti-ISIL forces in northern Iraq since July 2015. Sometime towards the end of February/start of March the PKK managed to shoot down one of the Turkish attack helicopters conducting those strikes killing both crew members.

If you are not familiar with the T129 type attack helicopter in question there is a reason for that. 

It began life as a pan-European project to build an attack helicopter to rival the US AH-64 Apache. Then the UK and the Netherlands got permission to buy Apache's from the US so pulled out of the project. Realising the technology was already seriously out of date Germany, France and Spain also pulled out in favour of developing the EC665 Tiger. This left Turkey with the T129.

You don't need an anti-aircraft missile to take down a T129. In fact if you're skilled and lucky enough you can bring one down with an assault rifle.

Curiously the US appeared to mock Turkey for the loss of its helicopter by staging the crash landing of light aircraft near Erbil in northern Iraq on Saturday (5/3/16). One assumes the next step is to provide the Peshmerga with anti-aircraft missiles to ensure Turkey's compliance with international law.

Perhaps sensing that pressure is mounting Erdogan has set about silencing dissent. 

On March 4th (4/3/15) a Turkish Court ordered the government to take control of the Zaman newspaper and on March 5th (5/3/16) Turkish police stormed the building to enforce the court order. With Zaman long being the biggest selling newspaper in Turkey this is the equivalent of the US government shutting down of the New York Times because it didn't like an article it had printed.

Today Turkish police have raided the offices of the Cihan News Agency in an apparent effort to close it down. Cihan distributes the CNN International, BBC News, CBS, MSNBC, ABC and Bloomberg cable news channels within Turkey.

As such the European Union's (EU) decision to meet with the Turkish Prime Minister yesterday can only be described as bizarre. However I think that is a topic I will need to deal with fully and separately.

18:15 on 8/3/16 (UK date).

 

The Game Continues.

As I've mentioned the UK's BBC1 is currently broadcasting a mini-series called "The Night Manager" on Sunday evenings at 9pm.

Based on a John le Carre novel of the same name it centres on the efforts of an almost accidental spy - played by Tom Hiddleston - to infiltrate the operation of illegal arms dealer Richard Roper - played by Hugh Laurie. The first time the two meet Hiddleston's character - who goes by various names - is working as the night manager of a luxury hotel in Switzerland.

This six episode mini-series has a budget of around USD35 million. With roughly $100,000 being spent every single minute it almost goes without saying that the production has a very grand cinematic style to it. In fact you get the impression everyone involved thinks they're making the next James Bond movie.

The problem is that in my house at least it is being broadcast on a 50 inch TV screen rather than a 50 foot cinema screen. As a result a lot of the action ends up feeling squashed with you rarely getting the full effect of what the director was trying to do.

This problem is made much worse for me because I end watching it with my father who is deaf. As such he needs to use onscreen subtitles to understand what is going on. These two thick black bars end up covering roughly the bottom third of the entire picture. They are the bane of my life particularly during live sport.

The subtitles had already begun to irritate me in the first two episodes of The Night Manager. However they really got on my nerves in last night's third episode.

In that episode there's a scene where Hiddleston's character walks into the bedroom of Roper's girlfriend "Jed" played by Elizabeth Debicki while she's sitting nude on the bed crying. As she glances over her shoulder to look at him I think her left nipple is very briefly shown on screen. I say I think because with the subtitles covering that section of the screen it was hard to tell.

Normally this wouldn't bother me but since the start of 2016 the 9pm on a Sunday slot seems to have become a forum to discuss UK TV's attitudes to sex and nudity that due to the US influence seem to have become more prudish of late. The two main shows involved in this were the BBC's "War & Peace" and a German show called "Deutschland 83" that was broadcast against it on Channel 4.

A notable contribution to this discussion came from Deutschland 83. With the Germans having a much more liberal attitude to nudity in particular this featured a scene in which a nude woman who was being filmed from behind at a distance ran into a lake to go swimming. In the top right hand corner her underwear is shown inexplicably hanging from the branch of a tree.

This is an area of the screen traditionally reserved for warnings that either the reel of film is going to run out or a commercial break is about to be cut to. Therefore this shot seemed to be the Germans having a little joke about the British needing to warned about the possibility of upcoming nudity.

In last night's episode of The Night Manager there is a very similar scene. The Jed character seductively strips of her dress in front of Hiddleston's character before going to swim in the sea. However it then cuts away to a far away shot in which Jed stops and very awkwardly removes her underwear and places it on top of her other clothes on the beach. I think that artistically it probably would have been better to just infer that Jed is not the sort of woman who wears underwear.

This struck me as the director of The Night Manager looking at the director of Deutschland 83 and going;

"Oh, mocking us are you?"

Demonstrating that perhaps we've found the nation's level even the subtitlers seem to be getting in on the joke.

I like to think that The Night Manager was scheduled so the hashtag #TheNightManager would trend on Twitter in the run-up to the Oscars. This would serve to remind people of British actress Charlotte Rampling's role in the similarly titled 1974 movie "The Night Porter."

In last night's episode whenever the characters were outside and you could hear birds chirruping in the background the subtitles would needlessly caption this as; "(BIRDS TWEET)."

To me that seemed to be more of an instruction then a description.

15:40 on 7/3/16 (UK date).  

The Oscars 2016: The Bear Thing.

Okay, this is my last bit on the Oscars. I promise.

Last Sunday (28/2/16) Leonardo DiCaprio one the Best Actor Award at the Oscars for his role in "The Revenant." It was obviously to reflect his role in that movie along with a 25 year career that has seen him unsuccessfully nominated for the award five times.

However I like to think that it was equally for his role in combating climate change which has seen him appointed a Global Ambassador for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of which the 2015 COP21 Summit was part.

To put that role in perspective in UNFCCC negotiations - particularly in the areas of finance and technology - people often end up arguing about what are termed International Intellectual Property Rights (IIPR's). These are essentially the patents on climate technology that people must pay to use.

For a number of these green technologies the patent holder is actually Leonardo DiCaprio because his eponymous foundation invented them. He is certainly a lot easier to negotiate with then entities such as Monsanto.

The Best Movie award of course went to "Spotlight." I like to think that this was to reflect the contribution of all the anonymous people who quietly work on green technologies and the agreement itself in contrast with DiCaprio's star power.

The Oscars for Best Director and Best Cinematography went to Alejandro González Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki respectively for their work on The Revenant. I think it should be obvious why this was deserved.

Back in 1998 everybody was raving about the movie "Saving Private Ryan" which won 5 Oscars including the Best Director and Best Cinematography awards for Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski. What impressed everybody was a 20 minute tracking shot at the start of the battle at Normandy. This revolutionary technique really helped to convey the horror and chaos of those beach landings.

Watching Saving Private Ryan for the first time now it is hard to understand just how ground-breaking that technique was because absolutely everybody has attempted to copy it numerous times ever since.

Early on in The Revenant there is a battle scene between DiCaprio's fur trapping party and Native American warriors. People who know about this sort of thing compare it to the scene in Saving Private Ryan but talk about how Iñárritu and Lubezki have taken it to a whole new level with techniques that will no doubt be extensively copied over the next 15-20 years.

I like to think that this connection to Saving Private Ryan was entirely deliberate. That's because it invokes memories of a specific moment in the 2012 COP18 Summit in Doha that makes me look amazing and all powerful.

With Doha supposed to be the place that the UNFCCC went to die the COP18 summit was going horrifically. With I think one day left on the clock everybody was at everybody else's throats there was a real danger of nothing being agreed. 

Then in a moment of drunken inspiration I invoked the song "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by "The Pogues." This is a song about an Australian soldier lamenting on his experiences of the Gallipoli beach invasion of 1915.

There is something about the slow, repetitive bassline that has quite a calming, almost metronomic effect. I like to think that it was this effect that helped COP18 come together right at the end and extend itself for a further three days to produce the Doha Amendment that kept the process alive until COP21 where sadly it finally died.

So the big contrast between DiCaprio's star power and the anonymous diligence of Spotlight was even referenced within The Revenant. I think Iñárritu's going to find himself banned next year.

I should also take a moment to put to bed this rumour that Leonardo DiCaprio was raped by a bear during the making of The Revenant. After all it is a perfect example of how sometimes people can project their own issues on to art.

It all started when the movie was show to journalists at - I think - the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. One Italian journalist saw the movie and concluded that DiCaprio was being raped by the bear. He then went off and wrote a long explanation about how this was a metaphor for man's rape of nature.

He brought this theory up at a Q&A session with the cast and crew of the movie. This prompted the entire room to stop and stare at him as if to say;

"No. That's not what we meant. Dude, I think you need some therapy."

17:05 on 6/3/16 (UK date)


   

Well That Was Stupid.

On Friday (4/3/16) I tried my hand at multi-tasking. I was trying to clean the bathroom at the same time as preparing dinner.

In my haste I accidentally mixed a number of common household cleaning products. Given the current climate it's probably best that I don't tell you exactly which ones. However the consequence is that I ended up producing chlorine gas - that infamous chemical weapon.

Although I had the option of quickly going somewhere the gas wasn't this nearly completely incapacitated me for a good 30-40 minutes. I spent that time coughing violently with my eyes and nose streaming. I remain rather proud of the fact that I didn't vomit. The coughing became so violent that it triggered a bout of hiccoughs. You've never lived until you've had a severe coughing fit and a severe bout of hiccoughs at the same time.

On the plus side I can now legitimately say that I was gassed during the war against ISIL.

I'm sure that somewhere a special medal is being struck just for me.

11:55 on 6/3/16 (UK date).

Oscars 2016: The Terrorism.

On Sunday (28/2/16) night the 88th Academy Awards - The Oscars - were held in Hollywood, California.

As part of the show Lady Gaga appeared on stage to perform the song; "Till It Happens To You" as part of the "It's On Us" campaign against rape and other forms of sexual violence. She was introduced by Vice President of the United States Joe Biden.

As I mentioned yesterday amid around 9000 other words I think the Academy originally intended to embarrass Biden by handing the Best Foreign Feature trophy to the French movie "Mustang" right before he took to the stage.

Mustang is a film that is all about rape and sexual violence in Turkey - particularly the rise in rape and sexual violence that has occurred under the rule of Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Biden is currently the US' diplomatic point man on Turkey. Despite frequently claiming to be opposed to rape and sexual violence Biden has not yet seen fit to raise the issue with Erdogan.

In an effort to save Biden's blushes the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) played up the threat of a terrorist attack on the Oscars in order to pressure the Academy into backing down.

However caught in the middle as police officers often find themselves the DHS also seemed to be putting pressure on the Obama administration to do more to reduce the threat of terrorism from both the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) group. Particularly where the two overlap.

So on Thursday (25/2/16) there was a shooting spree in Hesston, Kansas. The state of Kansas is synonymous with the movie "The Wizard of Oz." By bringing the issue of racist lynchings into the mainstream as far back as 1939 The Wizard of Oz has frequently been cited as an example of why perhaps those accusing the Oscars of racism are perhaps choosing the wrong target.

I think this year's trend was actually started by Will Smith whose wife - Jada Pinkett-Smith - was one of the lead voices accusing the Oscars of racism. Asked about the race issue on a UK press tour to promote his movie "Concussion" Smith talked about how he hoped people could move beyond the issue and build a sort of rainbow industry.

Proving why he's qualified to be a member of the Academy Smith was essentially using the interviews to sing; "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." The title song to The Wizard of Oz.

The Hesston spree centred about "Excel Industries." The Oscars are sort of the centre of excellence for the movie industry. With Cedric Larry Ford the gunman who was killed in the course of the spree being black this was obviously intended to highlight concerns that a disgruntled black person might try and shoot up the 'racist' Oscars.

The main weapon that Ford used was an AK-47 assault rifle. Although I've personally always had more of an affinity with the AR-18 the AK-47 has become the iconic terrorist weapon. As such it raised the possibility that not only might a BLM supporter attack the Oscars but an ISIL supporter might too.

Ford was a multiple felon and the shooting seems to have been triggered by a domestic violence protection order being served on him. As such he should not have been able to pass a background check to obtain the weapons used either now or under Obama's enhanced background check system. However as with the San Bernardino terror attack and the Newtown massacre Ford didn't undergo any sort of background check. He simply got someone to illegally act as a straw purchaser to buy the weapons for him.

The spree nature of the shooting was a reference to the previous Saturday (22/2/16) shooting spree in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This was primarily the US laying down the equivalent of covering fire for US Secretary of State John Kerry's trip to Jordan the following day. The main objective seemed to be to disassociate the US from my support for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the associated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) who are currently trying to fight ISIL.

For the first time ever this year Jordan also had a movie in the Best Foreign Feature category called "Theeb." It seems the Obama administration have completely missed the point of that movie.

On Saturday (27/2/16) there was a stabbing incident involving members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and BLM in Anaheim, California. BLM seem to be under the impression that it is the Oscars who are in fact the California branch of the KKK.

Now the dust has settled it seems that BLM violently attacked the KKK forcing them to defend themselves stabbing several members of BLM in the process. This obviously highlights the fact that civil rights protections such as free speech and due process almost apply doubly to the people whom you don't like. A fact that sadly seems to be utterly beyond BLM and the Obama administration.

However in the initial moments of the incident it invoke memories of all those lone-wolf stabbing attacks that have occurred in Israel, France, the UK and Ohio, US. It is sadly a very long list. Somehow I don't think a lunatic with a machete running along the red carpet is quite the visual the Academy were hoping for.

On Saturday (27/2/16) night/Sunday (28/2/16) morning a female police officer was shot and killed on a domestic violence call in Virginia. The surprising detail is that the alleged shooter was a US Army Staff Sergeant assigned to the Pentagon. The message there seems to be that while it is the civilian police have to protect the Oscars and the wider US public from terrorism the military and those in Washington D.C could be doing a lot more to defeat terrorism overseas.

With Biden ordering that Mustang be denied its Oscar the Best Supporting Actor trophy had to go to Mark Rylance for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in the movie "Bridge of Spies." In the early part of that movie Abel is of course a metaphor for alleged Charleston Church shooter Dylann Roof.

Right before the Oscars ceremony began there was another shooting at a black Church. This time in Ohio. However because the shooter was black no-one seemed that interested. Aside from the reference to Dylann Roof the Ohio location also referenced the February 11th (11/2/16) terror attack at the Nazareth restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. In case you didn't hear about the Ohio Church shooting there was a very small school shooting in Ohio yesterday.

18:10 on 1/3/15 (UK date).

Edited at round 16:45 on 2/3/16 (UK date) to add;

In what has been a rather slow burning story on Wednesday (24/2/16) three young Sudanese men were found to have been every professionally killed at a deserted house in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

One of the main accusations of racism levelled against the Oscars was the failure to nominate Idris Elba for the movie "Beasts of No Nation" which tells the story of child soldiers in Ghana. The people who complained about that were clearly not into movies enough to have seen the 2008 genre defining classic "Johnny Mad Dog." They were also far too pretentious to enjoy the US TV Show "NCIS: Los Angeles" starring "Oz" alum LL Cool J.

One of the recurring storylines in the first two season of NCIS: Los Angeles is LL Cool J's character's attempts to mentor a young Sudanese refugee. That character is one of the child soldiers from Sudan's various civil wars that are sometimes referred to as; "The Lost Boys of Sudan." Initially LL Cool J's character stops the boy being caught up into the world of gangs and drugs. Unfortunately he is not able to prevent him being recruited by an Islamist terror group that eventually take him to Yemen.

Due to the link with the NCIS tribe I have to say that I'm surprised that the movie "The 33" wasn't put in the mix at this years Oscars with a couple of nominations. After all it seems unlikely that this Hispanic dominated Hollywood movie would have been commissioned without the attention given to and earned by Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

One of the wilder claims made by BLM is that the US police have adopted a shoot-to-kill policy against black people. 

During the Northern Irish Troubles the British government did operate a shoot-to-kill policy. This meant that members of the elite SAS Special Forces unit of the British Army were tasked with hunting down and executing Republican terrorists even if they were British citizens. The most famous of these incidents occurred on Gibraltar in 1988 and the story was told in the documentary "Death on the Rock" which can be found on YouTube.

There is very little difference between the British shoot-to-kill policy and how Britain and others deal with ISIL fighters - particularly in terms of drone strikes.

So when people like me hear about things like the events in Forth Wayne our first thought is either drug crime or something out of a James Bond movie.

However it seems that as has been their position over the last couple of years CNN's first instinct is to scream; "Racism!!!" and "Islamaphobia!!!!"

On Saturday (27/2/16) night/Sunday (28/2/16) police were called to a fight between members of Salt Lake City, Utah's large Somali refugee community. They were attacked by a young boy with a metal bar who they shot and severely wounded. As has become the routine this prompted anti-police riots.

The intention seemed to be to make the point that within black Muslim communities the lies of BLM backed up by media outlets such as CNN are combining with the propaganda of ISIL and associated groups to radicalise lone-wolf terrorists. The hope being that common sense prevails before more formal action has to be taken because distributing terrorist propaganda is most certainly not protected by the 1st Amendment.

This issue of orphan refugees and child soldiers is becoming increasingly relevant to the war in Syria. After all ISIL are extremely proud of their use of child soldiers which they refer to as; "The Cubs of the Caliphate." 

Plus if a 12 year old boy was orphaned in the early stages back in 2011 they will now be 17 years old having gone through those critical teenage years without any adult supervision. So where in the early-2000's we were talking about the Lost Boys of Sudan we're now talking about the Lost Boys of Syria.

Somalia actually provides an interesting case study into the problem. After years of war the Islamic Courts Union was formed in 2006 in an effect to bring some level of stability to the country. One of the main things they did was set up Al-Shabaab - literally "The Youth" - to provide some level of mentoring to the nation's lost boys and child soldiers. 

Unfortunately they had the word "Islamic" in their title so US President George W. Bush ordered them destroyed.

The fact that in it's new form Al-Shabaab have spent the weekend carrying out a series of attacks wrongly celebrating the anointment of Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa as FIFA President should show you that we are now dealing with a very different beast.

Finally on the Oscars fashion the big trend for women this year seems to have been plunging necklines and lots of exposed cleavage. This seems to have been done in tribute to Charlotte Rampling and her performance in "The Night Porter."

In the main publicity shot for that movie Rampling is shown wearing nothing but a Nazi officer's cap, leather S&M-type gloves and a pair of men's trousers. The braces or suspenders of the trousers are positioned to cover up her otherwise naked breasts.

I think the most obvious example was Olivia Wilde who of course got her big break in the US TV Show "House." The main star of that show - Hugh Laurie - is currently appearing in the UK TV Show "The Night Manager." Although the storylines couldn't be more different I think the similarity between the titles means that the Night Manager has been scheduled so it will climb the Twitter trend lists to remind people of The Night Porter in the run-up to the Oscars.

I was also impressed by Miranda Kerr's dress. Rather then going for the obvious vertical strips her breasts were covered by interconnected squares of fabric making for a more subtle reference. Her dress was also red which invoked the red of the Nazi flag.