Free To Speak

Comment is Free: Serving in Iraq killed my faith in God

2010-09-01T15:08:00.001+01:00

From The Guardian Comment is Free section, a very good read by a former Muslim solider on the eve of the Iraq invasion:

Luke Allsopp was a friend of mine. The last time we spoke for any length was in February 2003. Around three in the morning I woke hearing him struggling to stand and giggling. I saw him confused and braced against the wall. I called out, he turned and asked me why I was sleeping in the toilets. I told him it was my bedroom. He needlessly told me he was drunk.
We were both soldiers in the Royal Engineers. He was what you might imagine your average squaddie to be: hard-drinking and full of life. I was not so much your average squaddie: a Pakistani immigrant who had joined the British Army looking for adventure. He sat on the end of my bed and told me he was worried. We had just been told we were going to Iraq.
The lads had responded to this news by going out into the local town to drink the bars dry. Now, here was Luke, his behaviour the result of a heavy night numbing reality. I prepared myself to hear my friend talk about how he was worried about his family. But, he didn't want to talk to me about that. He told me he was worried about me.

Read the whole thing: HERE

The Guardian: Suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to be extradited to US

2010-08-21T18:59:00.006+01:00

From the Guardian yesterday:

The man known as the "merchant of death", the alleged black-market arms dealer Viktor Bout, could be on American soil to face terrorism charges within weeks after a Thai appeals court ruled he must face charges of conspiring to supply Colombian rebels with weapons.

The 43-year-old Russian, who has maintained his innocence throughout two years in a maximum security prison in Thailand, will continue to fight the US's extradition request. His lawyer said he would lodge a petition with the Thai government asking it to block the extradition.

"The defence believes Bout will not be safe in the US and he will not receive a fair trial," Lak Nittiwattanawichan said outside court.

The Thai government is not compelled to extradite Bout, but is almost certain to, given the high profile of the defendant, and strong American pressure. If he is not extradited within three months, he must be released.

Read the rest of the article here. Also read 2 more articles on the Guardian worth reading about Victor Bout:
Viktor Bout: five passports, half a dozen languages and alleged friend to all sides

Thailand to extradite suspected Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout

The Afghan War Logs Part 1: Don't phone home! The Taliban will phone your mum!

2010-08-06T01:05:00.001+01:00

In part 1 of some of my analysis of the leaked Afghan War logs I'll look at the concerns raised by one file posted from the ISAF HQ in Kabul about the use of the local GSM phone network and the capabilities of the Taliban to exploit it.

The file, which you can see here on the Guardian website. This file is of Type "Threat Report" and outlines how ISAF and other foreigners operating in the country could find the details of there phone calls been compromised by the Taliban, Taliban sympathizes or even foreign powers like Iran, Pakistan, China and India who's, according to the file embassies have a SIGINT or signals intelligence capacity, this means they have listening gear in there embassy that is capable of listening into foreign phone calls.

The files' background quotes this article from The Mirror, in which it claims Taliban sympathisers have been phoning up friends and family of British servicemen and woman and taunting them including death threats. The same thing happened in Iraq and like in Iraq this has lead to British soldiers having to hand in there mobile phones will there on tour in Afghanistan.

An US solider in a Afghan mobile phone shop

The concern is two fold. One-side there is a concern is that the foreign powers such as Russia, whom which had a SIGINT unit in Afghanistan assisting the Roshan GSM network in expanding its service to all provinces. It is reported that the Russian SIGINT have been listening into ISAF and communication via the Roshan network.

The second is not that like the Russian's, the Taliban doesn't have a particularly advanced SIGINT capability however they do have sympathisers inside the Roshan network whom have access to the information and pass it on to the Taliban. The Taliban have previously allowed Roshan engineerers into Zharey District of Kandahar through to Musa Qala and Sangin districts of Helmend. This is in area that the British have been fighting furiously to control.

This file shows a side of the Taliban we don't see in the media, they are able to take on a SIGINT role even though they aren't a large army and are normally considered to just be a group of religious nutters who lack the sophistication of been able to implement a signals intelligence, but this has clearly changed and coalition forces will have to react to this.

However, this tactic of phoning Bristish servicemen may back fire, as the comedian Rhod Gilbert, who encountered this very issue on a trip to Afghanistan explains:

The Defence Budget and Trident

2010-08-05T01:43:00.000+01:00

Trident missile been fired

George Osborne has made it very clear that the budget for the Trident will have to come from the already overspent MoD budget. This means Dr Liam Fox has to find a huge amount of money in the defence budget, this runs a risk of putting the already strained resources in Afghanistan. One big debate is do we replace Trident or retire it when it comes to its end of life.

The previous major 2 deployments by British Armed Forces have been in a Counter-Insurgency or COIN role. Which have been infantry lead with ground air support only. This is where operations by submarines have seen a VERY limited role. Royal Navy ships were part of the beginning of Operation Telic (the MoD name for the British deployment to Afghanistan) and fired Tomahawk cruise missiles into Afghanistan, however as Afghanistan is a landlocked country have no role or at least a limited role in Afghanistan. We will not be handing over security to the Afghans until 2014 and it is unknown when we will completely withdraw from the country.

However, it does not mean that next year, or in 10 years time Britain will still be only involved in COIN there are other threats including Islamist in Pakistan gaining control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons where again a nuclear deterrent would be necessarily. However, the MoD cannot at the moment afford to replace Trident, but Trident doesn't have to be the only type nuclear deterrent.

Minuteman missile been test fired

Cheaper land-based missiles on the British isles or our existing overseas territories such as the Falklands, Diego Garcia. These would be cheaper as there would not be a need to build, fuel and maintain the expensive missiles. The Americans already have a land-based nuclear deterrent in the Minuteman system in use. Another alternative could be to have air-based systems where a missile is fired from a large bomber, however this would require the development of a new bomber capable of firing such missiles.

My concern however is that the Chancellor and the Defence Secretary are forgetting or at least not trying to think about one thing, if he makes the wrong decision, it will cost british lives. If they move Britain away from been able of operating in environments like Afghanistan and Iraq and another COIN operation arises the armed forces will have to play catch up yet again but if it move the armed forces towards a expeditionary COIN op focused military and a nuclear power begins to threaten Britain it will once again be very difficult to defend british soil.

The Lab-Lib Coalition - Pros and Cons

2010-05-11T00:59:00.005+01:00

Today was a interesting day in politics. Gordon Brown making quite a shocking resignation and Labour attempting to beat the Conservatives with offers of coalitions. What we know as of Today is:

Gordon Brown will step down as Labour leader in time for conference season which is around October. This is to allow The Liberal Democrats to begin talks on forming a coalition. Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown have struggled to get along. It is believed from sources in the Labour Party, most notable Diane Abbot on BBC News that this is organised by Peter Mandelson.
Who will run for Labour leader is still not 100% certain, Harriet Harman has said she would not run, the current speculated front runners are Ed Balls and David Miliband. My bets would be on David Miliband.
Labour will offer the Lib Dems an Alternative Voting bill and a referendum on Proportional Voting. The Conservatives have offered a referendum on Alternative Voting but nothing on Proportional Voting. One of the core policies for the Lib Dems is voting reform, as they (and other smaller parties) would benefit most from this reform.
Talks are still ongoing for a Lib-Con and Lib-Lab Coalition. The Lib Dems haven't made their minds up.
A LibLab Coalition would see Gordon Brown has PM, even if it is for a short period of time. There would then be an leadership election in the Labour party and assumed that whoever wins that would take over as PM. However, it is the hope of this blogger that in that situation the power would be moved over to the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, with him becoming PM. Under a LibCon, David Cameron would be PM with no chances of that changing without extraordinary circumstances.

As Liberal Democrat voter, the upside of a Liberal Democrat coalition with Labour and other smaller parties is that more of the Liberal Democrat policies could be implemented in government because Labour would be more dependent on the Lib Dems to keep them in power than the Tories would be (who could technically speaking, still form a minority government). This means Labour would have to make more cohesion with the Liberal Democrats (an example of this is offering the referendum on Proportional Voting).

The problem with the LibLab coalition is that it wouldn't just be the Liberal Democrats that Labour would have to get on side. It would be the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the single Green Party MP and assuming that Sinn Finn won't take their seats in Parliament. This could make for a very unstable coalition, all it would take is a minor party to start withdrawing support and siding with the Tories and it would begin to fall apart, party by party. Another issue is public support, Labour lost the election in terms of votes. Gordon Brown would become PM again but only for a few months, then it would be another PM, who hasn't been through the debates and screened by the public during the election process. Remember that when Gordon Brown became PM, there was an expectation that an early election would be called.

John Reid (former Home Sec and MP) was make a quite frank view on the Lib-Lab Coalition who felt that the two losing parties are forming a coalition with the Labour party hanging on to power. He felt that the public would take it out on the Labour party causing them lose even more MPs at the next election. (See the video of John Reid on BBC News here)

One thing is important to take away from all of this: We will not have a new government soon, who will be PM is still up in the air and there is still a possibility of another election. In my opinion however, to my displeasure that David Cameron will be PM, but if he will be joined by the Liberal Democrats is another matter. I also predict the government will not last the whole 4 years and the possibility of an early election is high.

For more lovely stuff about politics, current events, and my daily antics follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gregdash

Met police scare the shit out of Londoners

2008-09-02T01:35:00.002+01:00

Found this pic on Digg:

It was taken outside a Tesco's in London. Another Digg user fixed it:
Ahh that's much better!

Darling: "People are pissed off with us."

2008-08-30T03:06:00.002+01:00

I wouldn't have noticed, Darling. (OK, up front apology, I will make Darling jokes I know there not that funny or clever) I'm sure that 20 point lead the Tories have is just a blip.

Darling has done an interview in the Guardian which appears to be the new place for Labour politicians to whine, David Miliband has published some articles in the paper. But Darling's interview was quite interesting. Darling, doesn't normally do interviews but I was quite impressed with him. He shows that he gets it, which is good because I don't want to see politicians just keep saying "Everything is fine" or even worse "I'm getting on with the job" - Yeah I'd be fucking pissed if you weren't with the free house in the middle of London!

Darling showed that he'll admit that things are going wrong, and that is important to admit mistakes and problems. He admits that the Government have a lot to do if they want to get re-elected, which is looking increasingly unlikely.

I'm hoping the next Labour politician will be the Home "Fuck up" Secretary. The totalitarian bitch Jacqui Smith who in the "War On Terror" is on the other side.

You can read Darling's darling interview at guardian.co.uk

Dennis Kucinich speech to the DNC

2008-08-27T20:25:00.004+01:00

Dennis Kucinich gave an interesting speech to the DNC, none of the mass media have really reported his speech but I guess he's not that well known in Europe, however I'm sure Europeans would like his policies and interesting speech giving style:

the speech makes a lot of very valid points about the current American government, a pity Kucinich didn't get the nomination or VP I hope Obama gives him a role if he gets elected

Craig Murray gives a FAQ on the Georgia/Russia crisis

2008-08-26T19:42:00.004+01:00

The former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was removed from his post for leaking a report to the FT regarding torture used to gain evidence for MI6 has written an interesting post on his blog on this current crisis, he is properly a better judge of the situation that most people in the "blogosphere" (I hate that term....) he's a quick extract: from "Uncle Craig's" post

Are We Entering A New Cold War?

Possibly. Although thankfully less people are now dying in Georgia, in diplomatic terms the crisis is in fact worsening fast. The formal US signing of the agreement to station missiles in Poland was rapidly followed by recognition by the Russian parliament of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Those are both major inflammatory acts for the other side, and it is difficult to see how the current administrations in Russia and USA can pull back on either the missiles or the recognitions.

More significantly, Russia announced it was increasing its troop numbers in the port of Poti. This effectively kills the six point peace treaty Russia signed. Almost certainly, Russia will argue that its commitment to withdraw troops from Georgia does not include Abkhazia or South Ossetia as it now views them as not part of Georgia. But Poti is not in Abkhazia or South Ossetia, so there is no figleaf of justification for the Russian occupation there. This is straightforward military aggression against a sovereign state.

You can read the rest here I recommend you read the rest of his blog as it is very interesting!

The Russian have withdrawn.....kind of

2008-08-23T18:44:00.005+01:00

Russian troops have now left Gori, the city that was bombed and then was under Russian control for a while. Russia troops have apparently withdrawn into South Ossetia but a buffer zone has been created around South Ossetia to stop Georgian troops from advancing into South Ossetia. Not quite sure why this is needed as the Georgians have ammunition and I don't think the Americans will be willing to send them arms while the Russians are watching, at least not visibly, could we see a return to the proxy wars of the Cold War?

The ceasefire agreement states that Russian forces have to move back to August 7th positions, however because Russian "peacekeepers" were in the area on August 7th Russia is perfectly in there right to keep those troops there as the ceasefire does not define any numbers of troops that had to withdraw from the area. This is a significant flaw in the peace plan and shows how rushed it was put together. The Russians however are clearly playing games to show there strength, they must know that Tibilsi would not be stupid enough to try and take South Ossetia again!

the USA and EU nations are angry at Russia as they feel this isn't a full withdrawal, but there is little they can do. The status of South Ossetia is still questionable, its a small area and properly would struggle to be a single nation, most likely spend time like Kosovo as a part of a country that doesn't quite know where it stands. But it been part of Georgia is very unlikely, it most likely to become part of the Russian Federation.

Mikhail Gorbachev on the Larry King show gives his opinion on the Gerogian Crisis

2008-08-17T18:55:00.003+01:00

An interesting view, the huge scale of bias on both sides is still making it difficult to get an accurate opinion on what is going on.

Russia 20 miles from Tbilisi

2008-08-17T03:03:00.002+01:00

Russian soldiers have been seen as close as 20 miles from the capital of Tbilisi even though Russia has signed a ceasefire with Georgia. Russia claims it is "neutralizing" Georgian ammo stores and "security operations" are still on going in Georgia, outside of both of the breakaway regions. Russia has not given a timetable of leaving Georgia. Russia says it will withdraw it troops to its previous positions. Will that be in Russia or will it be in the breakaway regions? I suspect it will be the latter.

South Ossetian War’s virtual battlefield: The Internet

2008-08-15T07:42:00.003+01:00

During the South Ossetian conflict there have been a number of cyber attacks against both Russian and Georgian websites including a number of government websites and media outlets. This is not the first time malicious hacking has been used against a country. In 2007 another former soviet republic came under attack over the internet after Estonia moved the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn. the attack was believed to be done by pro-Kremlin groups, however there were suspicion that Russia maybe behind the attack. The sites were attacked with DDoS attacks using botnets, 100s of computers infected with malicious software form a virtual network used to hammer the victims servers making the website inaccessible. Other tactics included defacing websites, this is when a website’s home page (or all pages) are switched with an alternative, normally quite offensive, sometimes this can be quite harmless and just a prank or only show some propaganda, other times it can use malicious web pages that install malware on the visitors computers.

These same tactics have been used on Russian and Georgian websites. Websites attacked on the Georgian side include the Georgians presidents website. The website of the National Bank of Georgia was defaced with a gallery of dictators including the Georgian president. Several news websites have also been attacked including civil.ge, a website sponsored by USAID and the Swiss government. To keep going they set up a blogger blog where they are still posting articles. The Georgian foreign ministry was also attacked by DDoS attack and also had to set up a Blogger account to remain accessible to the outside world. In Russia the RIA Novosti news agencies website was unavailable for several hours due to attacks on there website and DNS server. Russia Today’s website was also attacked by a DDoS attack, security specialists said the IP address for the attacked was traced to Georgia.

There is speculation that the attacks could be state-sponsored by both sides. Russia has already been accused of state-sponsored cyberwarfare but there have been no evidence that the Kremlin has been behind any attacks. However Russia is believe to be home to a number of authors of worms that are capable of building huge botnets. Most notable been the Russian Business Network that is a cybercrime business, selling web hosting and internet access to all kinds of criminals. It operates under several alias in a number of countries from the UK to Panama. The leader and founder of the group “flyman” is believed to be a “powerful and well-connected Russian politician”. This is why many believe these attacks may be Russian back, this is because RBN are believed to be the authors of the Storm (or small.dam) worm, which is was first discovered in January 17, 2007 and is still spreading via e-mail today. This worm has built up a huge botnet that could be used to attack sites effectively. The Storm botnet is believed to be about 160,000 infected computers, but some estimates put the botnet’s site at 1,000,000 machines. Getting accurate figures of the botnet is difficult due to large growth.

Additionally censorship has been used in Georgia. All .ru domain names were blocked in Georgia but are now believed to be accessible again. Georgian websites civil.ge and other news websites were also blocked. Russian television channels were shut off, according to the Georgian government this was to avoid misinformed reports and Russian propaganda. It is not known if these channels are accessible again

Turkish journalist attacked by Russian troops

2008-08-15T04:15:00.003+01:00

A group of Turkish journalists were attacked in South Ossetia (all according to Sky News, I don't speak Turkish) by Russian soldiers. According to Sky they were then taken driven to North Ossetia and questioned by Russian officials.

British media have also had a run in, a Sky News team and there Georgian driver were carjacked by militia in Gori. According to there report that you can read here they were Ossetians. The reporter speculates that they may be volunteers with there own weapons (not uncommon for someone to own a AK-47 in that part of the world) or mercenaries out to make some money. Its not unheard of for mercenaries to turn to stealing when the war ends.

HRW finds use of Cluster bombs

2008-08-15T04:04:00.002+01:00

Human Rights Watch have found use of Cluster bombs in Georgia by the Russians. Russia has used RBK-250 cluster bombs dropped from aircraft. You can read the Human Rights Watch article here

Human Rights Watch talks of indiscriminate attacks on both sides

2008-08-15T02:29:00.002+01:00

Human Rights Watch has investigated the civilian deaths in the the 2008 South Ossetia War. It has found very concerning reports of attacks indiscriminate attacks mainly by rocket and shelling attacks. It also have reports BMP infantry fighting vehicles been used to blast into basements where civilians were hiding.

As I blogged in a post about the weapons used by Georgians during this war the BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers were used by the Georgian during the battle for Tskhinvali. There is a big problem with using these rockets in an urban area. There targeting is very simple and is more commonly used in battlefields not in city warfare. These rockets have hit a number of civilian homes most likely causing casualties, but I can’t give any accurate numbers of these. a BM-21 Grad rocket also hit a kindergarten, however the children had been evacuated already, however South Ossetian forces told HRW that militia had been hiding there.

Shelling from artillery has also caused vast amounts of damage and civilian deaths. Shells have hit buildings and Hospitals. Basements have been breeched by shells killing the civilians that were hiding inside. The artillery used by both Russia and Georgia does not have accurate targeting. None of this weaponry is like the US smart missiles which have GPS targeting, which even with this can still go off course. These weapons are more suited to battlefield warfare, out in countryside or desert, not in large cities with apartment blocks and other tall buildings.

HRW has also reported that BMP infantry fighting vehicles used its 30 mm automatic cannon to breach basements where civilians were fighting. Both sides have been seen to use these vehicles. Georgia has around 200 and Russia has around 3,250.

If these stories are true and it can be identified who shot into the basements this would be seen as a direct attack against civilians. The use of BM-21 Grad in an urban environment could be seen as a direct attack against civilians as there is no accurate way of targeting just military targets. Georgia is a member of the ICC so its leadership could be brought before the court if there is enough evidence of these allegations.

You can read Human Rights Watch’s report here

Gori still under Russian control, US and Poland agree sheild deal!

2008-08-14T18:52:00.004+01:00

Gori is still under Russian control today. Despite this, Russian troops have been seen in 2 other towns. The bombed port of Poti has seen some Russian ground forces and there are also reports that Russian troops are in the western town of Zugdidi. This is against the 6-point plan that the French president managed to negotiate between Russian and Georgian leaders. Georgian police have failed to enter Gori but according to the Russians, will be allowed to enter tomorrow.

South Ossetian rebels have been looting, including shooting at the press while trying to steal there cameras, a Canadian TV crew were carjacked and a UN team were held at gun point (I may be wrong but I believe that is a violated of the Geneva Convention). OSCE Land Cruisers have also been hit, unknown if any of the OSCE observers have been hurt. Human Rights Watch has picked up on the use of BM-21 Grad rocket launchers in an urban environment. The big problem is that both sides are using the same Soviet weapons which makes it difficult to identify which side the rockets were from.

Poland and the US have agreed a US missile shield deal which has been angering Moscow greatly. the deal would allow 10 US missile interceptors to be based in Poland. the US plans to have it operational by 2012. As part of the deal, Poland has asked for greater security from the USA.

Russian Army in Gori

2008-08-13T15:59:00.003+01:00

Despite the ceasefire that President Sakorzy managed to negotiated a number of journalists have seen, filmed and interviewed a number of Russian soldiers. These soldiers were from Checnya and some of the hardest fighters in the Russian army. They told British journalists they were there to occupy and restore peace. Gori is well outside the break away region of South Ossetia. South Ossetian separatists are looting the town of Gori and scaring what residents are left.

As I have done for the past few days I will update this post with more information as I can find it. Any tips or criticism please leave in the comments. Praise is also welcome ;-)

UPDATE 1: A USAF C-17 is to send aid to Georgia. Additionally Condoleezza rice will be travelling to Tbilisi and Paris to try and find an agreement of peace. Which is currently very fragile.

Peace in sight for Georgia?....Maybe!

2008-08-12T17:18:00.006+01:00

Russia's Puppet President Dmitry Medvedev has announced that operations in Georgia have ended....sort of, Russian troops are still in South Ossetia. However Moscow is supporting an EU agreement to end the conflict, the EU envoy has one last hurdle which is to get Georgian approval which may be difficult.

There has been a legal aspect to this war. Georgia is suing Russia for ethnic cleansing at the International Court of Justice how effective Georgia will be there is unknown. I would imagine this means Georgia has some evidence of ethnic cleansing by the Russians, however it could be a PR stunt by the Georgians to gain support for its role in the War. Only time will tell!

A sign of peace is that finally UNHCR and ICRC have started flying in supplies for the civilian population affected by this five-day conflict that managed to uproot nearly 100,00 people. UNCHR have visited Gori, a town just outside of South Ossetia that was struck by Russian bombs and have said that 80% of the population has left fearing furth attacks. Both UNHCR and ICRC have managed to land cargo planes carrying humanization aide. ICRC has said there main aim is to get safe drinking water to Tskhinvali.

Image from UNHCR.org.uk

UPDATE 1: Georgia has withdrawn from the a disputed gorge in the other breakaway region of Abkhazia as it is now under Abkhazian and Russian forces control that area.

UPDATE 2: Sarkozy says Georgia on ceasefire "in principle". The French President has been stressing that this agreement is just the beginning and it may take longer for a full peace agreement to be signed.

UPDATE 3: The Six points of the ceasefire are:

No more use of force
Stop all military actions for good
Georgian troops return to their places of permanent deployment
Russian troops return to pre-conflict positions
International talks about future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
Free access to humanitarian aid

Russia moving into Georgia

2008-08-11T19:34:00.008+01:00

Russia is now moving away from the break away regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgian soldiers have left very quickly from the Georgian (outside of the break away regions) town of Gori with fears that the Russians will take Gori they have also closed all roads into Gori, this means there is no way to know what is happening in Gori but some soldiers told reporters they think the Russians may have taken the town of Gori. The soldiers also think the Russians may head to the capital, but this can't be confirmed. Russian troops have also been seen in the Georgian town of Zugdidi. America has hinted that Russia may be aiming to remove the Georgian government.

All diplomatic channels appear to be used to stop this conflict. Russia is claiming Gerogia is trying to wipe out South Ossetia, which would be a war crime and as Georgia is a member of the ICC it could mean the Georgian leaders could be taken to The Hague if this is true. Georgia is claiming Russia is trying to defeat "small Georgia" who is actually right? Who knows? Properly neither party.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy will visit both Moscow and Tibilisi in an effort to broker a peace agreement. Additionally NATO will hold an emergency meeting with Russia to try and move towards a peace agreement. the UN security council is meeting for the 5th time to try and get a peace agreement.

Cyberattacks appear to be a new weapon in this War, both Russian and Georgian websites have been defaced or suffered DDoS attacks.

UPDATE 1: More on Cyberattacks: Civil.ge a site sponsored by USAID and the Swiss Government is suffering from DDoS and has set up a blog as an alternative. This is lookng similar to the Estonia cyberattack in 2007 which Russia is believed to be behind. This would make sense as the Russian Buisness Network (RBN) is known to have a huge botnet capable of DDoS attacks.

UPDATE 2: UN Security Council have independent report that Russian troops have moved outside of the breakaway areas. Are they heading for the capital? Lets hope not!

UPDATE 3: The French appear to be taking the lead of diplomacy. However the Russians have rejected the French ceasefire proposal at the UN, I believe the French President will be in Moscow later today.

Peace in sight for Georgia?....Nah!

2008-08-10T14:39:00.018+01:00

According to the Georgians, there troops are out of South Ossetia which is one of the requirements of the Russian ceasefire proposal. However the Russians claim there still there and will not declare a ceasefire. However fighting is flaring up in the other breakaway region of Abkhazia according to the Georgian government Russian and separatists are fighting Georgian soldiers there. These Russian troops are most likely the 4,000 that landed by sea early this morning.

the BBC (who have been accused of been biased by some other blogs towards the Russians) have a report from a South Ossetian separatist government spokeswoman in Tskhinvali saying that on Thursday (before the Russians got involved) houses and apartment blocks were been hit by shells and rockets (most likely from BM-21 as I blogged in the weapons post). This is obviously quite important as if they were hitting civilians that is enough motivation for another country react. But it is still hard to get a non-bias or confirmed report from media sources, there all quoting the Russians, or the South Ossetians, or the Georigan government, who been politcians will add some spin to a problem.

UNHCR is seeking access to South Ossetia. The UN say they estimate about 10,000 to 20,000 people are displaced in Georgia and South Ossetia from the fighting and there is most likely more displaced people in North Osseta, Russia. Modern warfare does sure know how to make life difficult for people.

UPDATES:

16:45: Reuters TV crew have heard a number of explosions in South Ossetia after Georgian Government said there troops had ceased fire. Russia has also reported that they have received a note from Georgia at 0100GMT saying fighting as stopped and troops are been withdrawn, Russia says this is not true and fighting is continuing. Russia has accused Georgia is playing a PR game to get support.

17:15: Civil.ge reporting that Russians have bombed the outskirts of Tibilisi. Bombs were dropped on unpopulated areas. No casualties reported.

18:32: After rumours last night, the International Airport in Tbilisi has now been hit by Russian bombs. Just before the French foreign minister was due to arrive for talks. Reuters Cameraman saw smoke rising from near the runway. The airport also have a military installation near by, it could have been a stray bomb. If Georgian soldiers have left South Ossetia, why are the bombs still dropping? You can see the report here

19:01: Russia is denying reports that the airport was bombed and that Georgia has withdrawn from South Ossetia. A Russian government official from either the UN envoy or Foreign ministry (didn't quite hear which one) that Georgian President has to be "gone". Is this about Georgians Pro-west stance? Ukraine as also made threatening comments about Russian Navy ships in the Black Sea.

19:05: It was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Condolezza Rice that Georgian President "must go", the US UN envoy revealed at the Security Council Reuters is reporting.

19:14: Russia has said Georgians president is no longer a partner in foreign relations. It also has said that to stop this crisis he does not have to go.

19:43: Vague reports of Russian Navy sinking a Georgian ship carrying missiles showing up on AlertNet. Russia to set up military Hospital in South Ossetia, Looks like there moving on for the long term.

20:00: Russian media is reporting that civilians were killed by Georgian troops. Including a church been burnt with people hiding inside and Georgian troops going on to basements and shooting civilians....Truth? Or Kremlin propaganda? No western news agencies reporting this.

21:08: Jotman has an interesting post on western media bias. Some say there bias towards Georgia, others say there bias towards Russia. The BBC seems to be struggling to get reports out, they have cut down on there foreign correspondents in recent BBC cut backs. BBC also now reporting than Tbilisi's international airport was bombed by the Russians.

22:16: A blogger in Poti tells an interesting story of the bombing and his/her shock. Hope he/she is safe! You can read the translated blog at Global Voices Online

23:50: The AFP news agency has been told by the Georgian government that Gori is under attack by artillery and aircraft and Russia groud forces are preparing an attack.

00:10: The BBC is showing footage of there reporters coming under attack by a Russian Su-25. They appear to have targeted there black SUV. Both sides are saying there killing civilians. I won't speculate on who done what until its more clear and things can be confirmed.

03:00: Georgian government says Russian war planes have bombed a Radar station near the capital of Tbilisi about an hour ago. The explosions were heard in the city centre of the capital. The French foreign minister is in Tbilisi to try and get a peace talk, he will go to Moscow.

3:05: Georgian politician is on BBC News saying the the military base hit was in a Tbilisi suburb. Also says the reason why Georgia attacked was becuase separatists killed police officers (however I didn't manage to note the rest of the interview)

Tbilisi airport bombed?

2008-08-10T03:01:00.014+01:00

Reuters is reporting explosions have been heard at the International Airport near Tbilisi

UPDATE 1: US Embassy is evacuating to Yerevan in Armenia on August 10th and again on the 11th. Urges Americans in the region to join them.

UPDATE 2: Russian jets have dropped three bombs on the Airport in Tbilisi. Russian troops are building up in Georgia, a long with tanks. Some been delivered by sea. According to Georgian government officials, they are waiting until Dawn to attack.

UPDATE 3: Reuters given more reports Russian troop levels - 6,000 troops have been moved in Georgia, 2,000 more coming by Sea. A total of 8,000 troops moving into Georgia. Russia is still claiming 2,000 civilians have died, other sources, including Putin has said that is lower. Despite that its still be quoted at the UN. The death toll of civilians is still mainly unknown.

UPDATE 4: Georgian official was wrong, it was a military airfield hit not the International Airport

"Three bombs were dropped on a military airfield belonging to Tbilaviastroi plant. There were no casualties," Shota Utiashvili, the head of the Georgian Interior Ministry's information department, told Reuters.

The plant use to make Su-25s during the Soviet union, now they might be attacking it.

UPDATE 5: 4,000 troops now coming in by sea according to Reuters AlertNet I would take a guess to say the dawn attack is happening now, or very soon.

UPDATE 5: BBC saying they can't get independent confirmation of any details but a gov't official has said there are no Georgian troops on South Ossetian land. This is one of the Russian demands. My speculation is that the Russian troops are to sure South Ossetia.

Weapons and aircraft used in the South Ossetia War

2008-08-09T18:01:00.020+01:00

A pretty wide range of weapons and aircraft are been used in this War, most are former Soviet weapons however some more modern aircraft and guns are been used that were developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Aircraft
The Russians have been using Sukhoi Su-27 to control the airspace. This was developed in the late 1970s and began production in 1984. Its a air superiority aircraft, its main aim is to keep control of air space. It is able to perform almost all combat operations. Its very similar to the American F-15 Eagle.

The Russian and Georgians are also using the Sukhoi Su-25. This is a single seater close air support jet. Main role is to provide support for ground forces and can be equipped with a wide range of weapons, a part from the standard machine gun with 250 rounds it can be equipped with up to 11 disposable-ordinance (or bombs as most people know them). These may be air-to-air missiles or air-to-ground. It can also carry cluster bombs and laser guided missiles. Georgia has around 7 of these. Russia has significantly more. This plane was built during the Soviet Union in Georgia when it was part of the Union.

One of the jets shot down by the Georgians was a Tupolev Tu-22M. This is a very interesting aircraft. Its a swing-wing strategic and marine bomber. it was developed in the late 60s/early 70s. Its actually a supersonic jet with a maximum speed of march 2.3. It can carry Kh-22 anti-ship missiles (which may have been used in the Poti bombing) and KSR-5 which is a cruise missile these may have been used during the Poti bombing but I cannot confirm that!

The Russians have been seen to be using Mil Mi-24 "Hind" helicopter gun ship. The Hind was designed during the Soviet Union in 1968 and has been operating since 1974. It was one of the last aircraft the Helicopter design genius Mikhail Mil. Like a lot of Soviet war-machines it has evolved over time with many variants and upgrades some for certain types of fighting and for export. It is also now known as the Mi-35.

The Hind is one of the few gun ships that are capable of both carrying troops and been a gun ship. It is also fast, the stub wings on each side of the aircraft provide lift, the retractable landing gear lower the drag, this gives the Mi-24 a Maximum speed of 335km/h (205MPH). This is quicker than the American AH-64 Apache which only manages 293km/h!

The Hind is capable of carrying a wide range of armament. Internal weapons include a twin-barrel machine gun capable of carrying 750 rounds and a door-mounted PKT machine gun. A wide selection of guide anti-tank missiles and it is even capable of dropping bombs.

The Hind's conflict history is long and not just by the Former Soviet Union, 2 Hinds were used in the Sierra Leone civil war by South African mercenaries to drive back the RUF. It was used extenisvely in the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan but also suffered heavy losses after the US exported Stinger missiles to the Afghan fighters. The same fighters that struck the US on September 11th, 2001.

Tanks
Both sides appear to be mainly using the T-72 main battle tank. This is a very popular tank in the former soviet countries and some African countries. 25,000+ of T-72 is many different variants. Judging by images coming in from news sources the tanks have been equipped with reactive armour. Both Russian and Georgian tanks will have been updated. Georgian tanks have been fitted with GPS navigation and friend or foe detection system to avoid friendly fire incidents.

Guns
Unlike the British Army or American army, which mainly use just one rifle, like the M4 used by the Americans and the SA80 used by the British, Georgia and Russia mix it up a bit.

Georgia is using, mainly AK-47s and AK-74s. The AK-47 is the most popular assault rifle on earth and has been built in the millions, it is never a surprise to see this weapon in a war zone. The AK-74 is a more modern rifle, it was built in, you guessed it 1974! it is a clear evolution of the AK-47. The Ak-74 is the main gun of choice for the Russian Army.

Georgian "Special Police" have been photographed with some other guns. As Georgia's ties with the west improve it has brought some weapons from these countries. Some M16s have been brought from the Americans. This is a very modern weapon and is still used by the Americans in some areas. The Georgians have also purchased a some H&K G36s from the Germans, this is a highly modern rifle used by law enforcement agencies, the German army and special forces. It can be added with a under slung grade launcher. The Georgians have also brought some IMI Tavor TAR-21 assault rifles from Israel, this can also have a grenade launcher attached to it. These all appear to be used by Special forces.

Russian military have been seen to be carrying SVD sniper rifles in Gori. This is one of the standard equipment used by the Russians and is a very popular sniper rifle with Warsaw Pact nations, Africa, Asia and the middle east. It was designed as part of a contest in the Soviet Union to design a new sniper rifle for the Red Army, it was won by Evgeny Dragunov in 1958. Extensive testing of the rifle followed and the rifle was finally introduced into the Red Army in 1964, it is still been produced today. The SVD features a adjustable iron sights but is also given a standard issue “PSO-1” optical sights that has 4x magnification and 6 degrees field of view. The SVD uses a 7.62x54mm which is mainly only used in the SVD. Like all Soviet weapons there have been variants. There is the SVDS that features a folding stock for greater portability. The SVDSN was also developed that is a night-capable variant.

Other weapons
During the initial fighting (before Russia stepped up its involvement) Georgia began firing on the Capital of South Ossetia with rockets. These rockets were fired from BM-21 a multiple-launch rocket system. These rockets can cause a lot of damage to buildings and may be why the Russians felt they need to increase there troops in South Ossetia if these were been fired at the city. There not the most accurate missiles and can't be used for pinpoint firing.

Wikipedia says that Georgians actually used RM-70s to attack Tskhinvali. This is an updated version of the BM-21 giving increased performance over the BM-21. It is designed to cover fire over a large area in one volley. It was originally designed in the Czechoslovakia and is basted on a Tatra T813. Despite the upgrades it doesn't offer huge upgrades over the older design BM-21.

Russian jets bomb pipeline in Georgia

2008-08-09T17:01:00.006+01:00

A important pipeline in Georgia has been bombed by the Russians. It is believed this pipeline isn't in use as it has already been bombed in a terrorist attack in Turkey. This is an oil pipeline that is used to bypass Russia in getting oil from the Caspian sea. A EU, US, NATO delegation is heading to Georgia to try and broker a deal to stop this violence. How effective they will be debatable.

Will update soon, I'll try and do a full analysis of events (despite there ever changing events). There is a lot of accusation of bias reporting going on so its difficult to get from here what's actually happening on the ground.

Map from BBC News

Updated: More on the situation in South Ossetia

2008-08-09T05:23:00.003+01:00

The BBC is reporting that fighting in South Ossetia is intensifying. Three Georgian military bases have been hit by Russian jets. However the ground fight appears to be keeping itself inside South Ossetia. This good news as early in the night CNN reported that bombs may be dropping on the capital, Tbilisi. Additionally Russian and Georgian have exchanged words (but not bothered to form a ceasefire at the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Corporation in Europe)

Annoyingly there are still no reports from the port of Poti that was bombed by Russian Jets. However it is still quite early and a lot (if not all) air traffic in and out of Georgia has been cancelled. Which makes getting foreign journalists in quite difficult. It does seem the world (and more so in Europe) is to busy with the Olympics to notice what is going on in Georgia. Some may look at this as just another little battle in a country they don't understand or know. But if Russia is willing to hit out at a ally of the west like Georgia, a nation that could have been a member of NATO it shows that it could attack another nation if it feels it has to.

NATO will not intervene in this battle with force at least out of fear of starting a NATO vs Russia war, something people feared during the cold war due to the 100s of nuclear missile Russia still posses and could use on EU countries or the USA. This conflict can only really end one way and that is a ceasefire.

UPDATE: The Town of Gori was bombed by Russian jets, according to the Georgian government 60 civilians were killed. Gori is not inside South Ossetia but is very close to that area. Also the port of Poti (key for oil exports) has been described as "devastated" a long with the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali where civilians are hiding out in basements without access to food, water, power or any form of communication with the outside world. The UN is still unable to work out a ceasefire.

The situation in Georgia

2008-08-08T20:20:00.027+01:00

Between the Olympics opening and other less important news you may have seen that things have kicked off in Georgia. This has gone overnight from an internal battle which has been going on for years to a full out war with Georgia and Russia. Reports are coming in saying that the Russians have bombed a Military base about 10kms from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

Georgia has also withdrawn 2,000 troops from Iraq amid the "Russian aggression". Now there are reports of Russians bombs dropping inside Georgia and not the break away region it starts to get more serious that full blown war will (or is) break(ing) out. The UN Security Council is due to meet soon, maybe this will bring an end to the violence.

I will try and update this post as things develop.
EDITS:
(All times are UK time)
20:45: The Russians say 15 of there "peacekeepers have been killed and 150 wounded by Georgian fire.

21:47: Georgia to only remove half of its troops from Iraq, not the full 2,000 as previously stated

22:01: Georgia shot down 2 Russian jets (unknown model) according to AP and BBC

22:07: E.U & US to send Ceasefire envoy to Georgia. There are also reports of an airport been damaged so it might be hard for them to get in

22:14: BBC reporting that the Georgian government will pose marshal law. Russia has also bombed a port in near the Black sea. More soon (hopefully)

22:22: Reuters AlertNet is reporting that the port that was bombed is Poti. Georgian Government believe Russia is going to bomb civil and economic infrastructure.

22:30: Sky news is reporting that Russia has now started bombing civilian targets - looks like the War is on!

22:35: Georgia's National Security Council to declare a state of emergency in the next few hours. No one has declared war yet. UK newspapers all running a front page of "a day of war and peace" in reference to the opening of the Olympics and the violence that has really kicked off today.

22:55: AlertNet reporting ICRC are attempting to get all sides to allow aid agencies in to civilians and to evacuating any injured civilians

23:05: Georgian Government official assume capital will be attacked, has evacuated officials from Tbilisi. Reports of more bombings of targets outside of South Ossetia. Very much so feels like War, lets hope its short.

23:09: 3 hours of talks at the UN, no agreements. Gone from a closed session to an open session.

23:21: Civil.ge is reporting that the Georgian military base in Vaziani was bombed 4 times and a train station has also been bombed additionally a military base in Senaki has also been bombed by Russian jets.

23:30: Bit of research, Russia is properly using Sukhoi Su-24's (NATO Reporting name: Fencer) to bomb targets in Georgia. Russia has about 458 of these. Its similar to the Panavia Tornado or F-111

00:20: CNN reporting bombing of Georgian capital by Russian jets. Deputy Defence Minister tells CNN that 5 Russian jets have been shot down. Russian bombing has injured civilians, and killed 2 civilians. American government have been in contact with the Georgian government

00:56: Would appear both the Russians and the Georgians are using Sukhoi Su-25's. These aircraft are close ground support, so they have the ability to take out both ground and air targets. It can carry a wide range of air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles, from cluster bombs to laser targeting missiles. Don't expect "humane" accuracy from either sides however. It is ironic that the Russians are using the Su-25 as it was built in Georgia during the days of the USSR.

01:07: Despite what CNN said, no bombing of the capital but ministers are said to be "expecting" it, even though there is no intelligence to suggest this is happening. Lots of unconfirmed numbers of dead are flying around. between 1,500 and 30.

03:10: Very little news now.......an interesting opinion from this Blog though. Some of it makes sense, some of it is a little fair fetched. Make your own mind up. Also, this blogger based in Tbilisi says there is no fighting on the streets. Reports from CNN about bombing must have been over-exaggerated (you can never trust the American media) or I read them wrong (you can also never trust me while tired)

03:15: Still no pictures or video, or reports from the town of Poti. This is the home to the Georgian Navy but also a quite busy port and properly contributes to the Georgian economy quite a bit. Maybe that's why Russia bombed it.

04:17: Got some more info from a blog set up by one of the newspapers in Georgia. The Messenger has set up a blog. They say that at least seven buildings are on fire in Tskhinvali (the provisonal capital of South Ossetia) and there have also been reports of gun fire.

And I'm going to call it a night on live blogging on this issue, Hopefully I'll be able to do it again but for something more cheery.

The Demise Of Freedom - Part Two: The Database State

2008-08-08T04:01:00.003+01:00

The database state is a term coined in the UK very recently. It is because of the increasing use of Databases to store vast amounts of data on its citizens under the pre-tense of “national security” there are a number of these in existence in the UK. The biggest is properly the National DNA database which is currently the largest DNA database in the World with over 4 million individual samples. One thing from his is that not all of those people have been convicted of any crimes but were arrested and had there DNA taken once they were let go there DNA details were not deleted.

A recent government-funded inquiry found that the public think that innocent people’s DNA should be deleted from the database. Despite this the Home Office want to continue there hoarding of data on citizens, guilty or not! A report will be released next year into the DNA database and it is expected to outline concerns about the vast amount of data on people who have done nothing wrong.

The second database is the NIR (National Identity Register) database this is still not quite in operation but it will store 50 categories of data about all adult individuals. All other databases will be linked to this, so it will be fully centralized. That creates a big security risk as if/when that database is compromised by a malicious hacker. The most secure computer is one that is turn off, note that it not completely secure, but of course someone could use Social Engineering skills to tell someone to go turn it on. Recent Government leaks of personal data show how easy it is for the most sensitive data (such as bank details!) how long is it before a server is broken into, or maybe it has already happened and the government hasn’t informed us.

Recently the The Times newspaper revealed that the “e-passports” can easily be cloned. This was unsurprisingly as a number of “hackers” had revealed this when e-passports were first implemented.

The database state won’t make us safer as no computer is 100% secure. If one of these databases is compromised and the data is stolen it will mean that very citizens personal information will be stolen, this could aid terrorism, organized crime. In the modern age the big weapon will be information, if you have the address of every person in an entire country that is certainly a step up.

A cyber attack on a nation has now started occurring. In 2007 Estonia suffered a number attacks against organizations such the Estonia Parliament, banks, ministers, newspapers and broadcasters. This could easily happen in the UK and it is unknown if the UK has enough personnel with the experts to deal deal with an attack. A way to avoid this data from been stolen is not to gather data that you don’t need, which is something the government have decided they will gather data that they do not require.

Image from NO2ID.net

The Demise of Freedom - Part 1: The power of the media companies

2008-07-30T20:58:00.000+01:00

Things have changed dramatically in the Western world in the small number of years we have been in the 21st century. Violence and War are dominating our news and new laws are been brought into to counter terrorism. however it has not just stopped at terrorism, we see new strategies to police copyright violations, these crimes to not result in deaths in fact the record industry is still making more and more money. However this has meant that measures typically been used to counter terrorism are been used to catch so called “pirates” this includes monitoring internet connections, searching laptops, MP3 Players and even mobile phones for copyrighted material.

But why do I think this is wrong? First off it’ll make millions of people guilty up to 6 million download music in the UK alone. That figure properly tells you enough about how the current copyright laws are out of date and unfit for purpose. However they can make profit for record companies because they can sue individual downloaders for large amounts, due to there large legal teams they almost always win! This gains them more money, in most cases more money than they claim they have lost in the process of the users so called piracy.

I respect and understand why the record companies feel they must do something about piracy but how long does the record industry honestly think it can keep selling plastic disks in cases? The music industry must evolve to keep itself alive and not act like thugs and taking away our freedoms in the name of making more money. the major labels that claim that piracy is hurting there business will not go bust anytime soon.

My concern is that because large corporations like Sony BMG and Universal Music both huge legal teams and a lot of cash they can just buy (or sue) governments into conforming to there demands such as searching devices at airports and borders. Forcing ISPs to begin censoring the internet in the name of economic gain.

Corporations having power is a big threat and is beginning to show that it is taking effect. take News Corp, in 2007 at the World Economic Forum Rupert Murdoch confessed (See: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0K2pLo8JV5Y) he used his news network to gain support for the Iraq War. Fox News take a right-wing bias and typically support a Republican candidate in the elections, this is been shown in the number lies made up by Fox News regarding the Democrat nominee Barack Obama. There has also been concerns highlighted in the award-winning film by Michael Moore Fahrenheit 9/11 of Fox News reporting of the 2000 Presidential Election. This kind of Corporations dictating the opinions of people during an election is of course dangerous and could great a environment of a dictatorship.

Newspapers have done this for years, take the Daily Mail which is heavily biased towards the right. The Independent is very much so towards the left and takes a liberal bias in its reporting. The Telegraph takes a quite conservative stance and is very traditional. The Guardian takes a very liberal stance and is a big on environmental topics. But with the advent of 24 hour news channels beamed into every home it makes voicing the opinions of a corporation much easier and much more effective.

ACTA’s secret negotiations revealed by Wikileaks.

2008-07-30T00:15:00.003+01:00

Wikileaks has published a document from the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement Talks which begin soon. The document that can be downloaded here is deeply concerning on the privacy and civil liberties of people travelling with items such as Laptops, MP3 players, mobile phones and other storage device as under these proposals they will be searched for “pirated” content. This is a huge security risk as now a user is forced to lets someone use there laptop without a warrant or a lawyer present, how can this person be trusted?

ISPs would also be asked to provide information on copyright infringers without a warrant to make it easier for them to be sued by “copyright” holders. It would also make it easier to close down websites like the Pirate Bay as there legal right to exist (which they have, there not hosting the content, just linking to it). This will resulted in a censored internet on economic and political grounds. That’s not very fit of the “free” world.

ACTA Leaked documents from 2007

ACTA on Wikipedia

The “War On Terrorism” has cost us our Freedom

2008-07-16T05:37:00.002+01:00

After the 9/11 attacks on New York we all remember George Bush announcing that the War on Terror will fight for “freedom”. It has now been 7 years of “fighting for our freedom” and any idiot (who isn’t in the Government of the UK or the USA of course!) will tell you its a load of bullshit. The threat of terrorism has resulted in lots of new laws and offensives. An example of this is the Patriot Act in the US, the 42-day detention in the UK, the fingerprints been taken at US airports and the EU sending data about EU citizens to the US who are flying to the USA (the so called, Land Of The Free!). This is of course to build up intelligence on terrorist suspect but it means the majority of data gathered is that of innocent people going to the US for holiday or a business trip. In the UK the expansion of the CCTV network, the stop and search policy that allows police to stop anyone in the street and search them. Recently the police announced that the number of people stopped and searched increased by 9% to nearly a million people!

Terrorist laws have been used for more than just tackling terrorism, local councils have been found to be using anti-terrorism laws to monitor people who have tried to get there child into a different school by using questionable methods, or even for not picking up dog mess. This is why a growing majority are against terrorism laws as they can be exploited so easily by power-hungry officials. Councils do appear to be the worst offenders of exploiting these laws. It might be because of a lack of understanding of the laws or maybe because councils are a quite power hungry.

What is the point in the War In Terrorism if its actually making our freedom WORSE. I do not support the war on terrorism in its current form, its not protecting our freedom but is actually deteriorating our freedoms. In modern times no new freedoms have been given back to the people but just taking away the freedom that our ancestors fought so hard for.

Recently David Davis won a by election, triggered by his surprise resignation to debate the issue of 42-days detention and others civil liberties issues. David Davis has managed to highlight the issue of civil liberties and maybe show to people who have not really thought about civil liberties that the current governments policies are destroying our freedoms.

However, how long this will continue is unknown, Labour Parties support has slumped and both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are against policies such as 42-days, ID Cards. It is very unlikely that Labour will win the next general election, however the next election is not expected until 2010 (the idea of a 2009 election has been proposed but Brown will most likely old on to power for longer). Will this see an improvements in our freedoms? Or is it just vote grabbing?

BBC News: MEPs back contested telecoms plan

2008-07-09T03:29:00.001+01:00

BBC News: Ex-MI5 chief attacks 42-day plan

2008-07-08T17:29:00.002+01:00

From the BBC News website:

The former head of MI5 has dismissed government plans to extend the time terror suspects can be held to 42 days as not "workable".

Baroness Manningham-Buller, who stepped down from the role last year, told peers she disagreed on a "practical basis as well as a principled one".

But the government said terror attacks were a "clear and present danger".

The House of Lords is widely expected to block the plan, which passed through the Commons by just nine votes in June.

The government wants to extend the maximum period a terror suspect can be detained without charge from 28 to 42 days - it says this is needed to deal with increasingly complex plots.

'Ridiculous'

But a rebellion by Labour MPs in the Commons meant the measure was passed there only thanks to DUP MPs' backing.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plan looks set to face an even tougher battle in the Lords, where the combined total of Tory and Lib Dem peers outnumber Labour members.

Lady Manningham-Buller, in her maiden speech to the House of Lords, said: "I don't see, on a principled basis, as well as a practical one, that these proposals are in any way workable."

She added that a "broad cross-party consensus" on fighting terror was needed.

Lady Manningham-Buller also said it was essential there was a "balance between the right to life", "the fact that there is no such thing as complete security" and "the importance of our hard-won civil liberties".

She added that "therefore, on principle, I cannot support 42 days' pre-charge detention in this bill".

Lord Goldsmith, who was attorney general when Tony Blair was prime minister, also opposed the plan, saying it risked "giving away the very freedoms that terrorists are trying to take from us".

He told peers: "We don't take away freedoms that people, and our ancestors, have fought for without very good cause..."

Former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said he would oppose the plans "root and branch".

He said: "I'm absolutely clear that there's no advantage for fighting terrorism that will be obtained from extending detentions to 42 days."

He added that an extra 14 days available to question suspects and gather evidence would "make no difference" to the police, and that to say so was a "ridiculous assertion".

You can read the rest of this story here. its good to hear that senior lords and former security officials are speaking out against 42-days.

Additionally you can see David Davis campaign website DavidDavisforfreedom.com Who, despite been a...tory! I do support, as he has put his job on the line to campaign on the topic of civil liberties, something that is lacking in the current UK Government.

OPG: Write to your MEP: say no to “3 strikes” through the backdoor

2008-07-03T15:52:00.002+01:00

Could Europe be drafting a new law to disconnect suspected filesharers from the internet? MEPs have already signalled their condemnation of this approach. But last-minute amendments to telecommunications legislation could bring the so-called “3 strikes” approach in by the backdoor. If you want your MEP to stick to their guns on 3 strikes, write to them today to voice your concerns.

Back in February, we reported that the UK Government was considering a law to ban illicit filesharers from the ‘net. A promised consultation on proposed legislation is yet to materialise (although we’re still hoping it will appear before the Summer recess). Meanwhile, pressure on ISPs and rightsholders to come to a voluntary arrangement has had some effect, with both Virgin and BT recently starting to “educate” those customers they believe are infringing copyright in their use of p2p networks.

As we pointed out at the time, neither the voluntary nor the statutory approach will put a penny in artists’ pockets unless accompanied by viable legal alternatives that deliver consumers what they want. A recent survey commissioned by British Music Rights [pdf] indicates that 80% of those currently downloading music would pay for so-called “legal p2p” - properly licensed and competitive filesharing alternatives. Rumours that industry is close to developing such an offer are yet to be confirmed. But without it, any enforcement move is likely only to drive illicit filesharing further underground.

You can read more about this issue on the Open Rights Group's Website

I will certainly attempt to get hold of my MEP to urge him/her to not back this 3 strikes rule and I will keep an eye on this new law

Fuel Price in Europe

2008-06-29T17:57:00.003+01:00

In recent months there have been a number of protests over the price of petrol and diesel. Fisherman from France, Spain and the UK have been blocking ports, motorcyclists have been taking part in "slow rides" on main motorways blocking or slowing traffic. In Spain & Portugal truckers have gone on strike and blocking roads. In Spain and Portugal, this tension has flared into violence, windscreens of truck drivers not taking part in the protest have been smashed and two people have been killed.

The price of a barrel of oil has been bouncing up and down by a few dollars each day, but each week or month it will increase at the time of writing this a barrel of oil has hit a new record high of $140 a barrel. This has been blamed on a number of factors, one been the weak dollar and a lack of supply. OPEC claim the lack of supply is because consumption is lower that before. That may be the case but clearly it is affecting the price of a barrel.

So what I the solution. One could be to reduce Fuel Duty. Europe has quite high rate of fuel duty. In the UK fuel duty is at 57p (1.135USD, 0.72EUR) a litre, the highest in Europe. However fuel duty is not profit for the government, it pays for public services like health care and education. Reducing this would result in a tax hole. Meaning less money for public services. A way round this would be to increase another tax, such as income tax, but this is unpopular with the public. Freeing up money from unpopular projects such as the I.D Card scheme would assist in allowing for a slight drop in Fuel Duty, and would also make me quite happy.

Increasing the income tax on the top 10% of earners could help raise revenue for the treasury. Yes these people would properly not vote for that party again but they would help to the overall economic affect of the country, improving living conditions for some of the less well off.

The Government in the UK at least does not want to back down on its current policy for two reasons. One been it has already had policies that have proven to be flawed, the 10p tax band been an example in which the government had to perform a rather costly U-turn in which they had to borrow money to assist the people who would be affected by abolishing of the 10p income tax band. Secondly the government does not want to appear "un-green" by reducing fuel duty and in the eyes of some green pressure groups, promoting the use of cars. Even though a reduction in Fuel Duty would most likely be popular with the voter. But it would upset green pressure groups, who appear to have more power than the voter in modern politics.

The issue with high-fuel duty is that it has a greater effect that is not sometimes obvious, high fuel duty means that it costs more to transport food, this drives up food costs. Green pressure groups will tell you that lorries need to be taken off the road and put on the rail network. A few problems one been that the rail network currently can't carry people to work, let alone a load of trucks, second how long is that going to take to implement and how expensive is it going to be, this will drive up costs further.

The Labour government in the UK should be committed to helping out the less well off, its what the Labour Party do, its often why people vote them in. However they are not making it harder for the poor to put food on the table and run a car. The wealthy will simply buy a second or new car, such as a VW Polo BlueMotion which is exempt from Tax in the UK, however this is a £8,000 and there are not many families that can afford to spend that much money currently. They will also not reduce or help out lorry firms and fishermen unlike other European nations, this will cause food prices to rise and result in fishermen been unemployed.

This is why the government should offer support to fisherman and hauler firms and not just ignore them as they currently are. Because other government has assisted when the fisherman and haulers run out of money to pay there fuel bills they will just be replaced by foreign firms, increasing unemployment in the UK.

BBC: 'Respect atheists', says Cardinal

2008-05-08T20:12:00.005+01:00

From the BBC:

The Archbishop of Westminster has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with "deep esteem".

Believers may be partly responsible for the decline in faith by losing sense of the mystery and treating God as a "fact in the world", he said in a lecture.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor called for more understanding and appreciation between believers and non-believers.

The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales said that a "hidden God" was active in everyone's life.

The Cardinal's lecture at Westminster Cathedral comes after a spate of public clashes over issues such as stem-cell research, gay adoption and faith schools.

Clearly he's been reading my blog! It's also good to see an understanding that religion may not be pure fact from a Cardinal and not atheist's which makes it a bit hypocritical. Living in the UK I have not meet a lack of an understanding to lack of faith, however in the USA atheist are some of the most untrusted people in society. However this article is the same old, A Cardinal moaning because Britain is becoming "too secular" and that there is "an increasing acceptance" of anti-religious views. Personally I believe this anti-religious views are fueled by the backward nature of the Church, It appose Stem Cell research that could help people with devastating diseases, and still believes that god created the earth in 6 days .You can read the rest of the article at BBC News here

Is religion dead in Europe?

2008-05-05T19:25:00.003+01:00

The above map shows something quite interesting. It shows the people who replied to a Eurobarometer poll in 2005 that they believe "there is a good". The results show that in Northern/Western Europe, Religion is dying out! In the UK, only 38% of the people polled said they believed there is a god, in the new EU states, Czech Republic and Estonia ranked lowest with 19% and 16%[1] saying they believe there is a god.

This is also seen in our politicians, the Daily Mail (So this is properly bullshit, if anyone has proof otherwise please leave it in the comments so I can correct it.) reported in December 2007 that only 8 of the 22 ministers said they believed in God. Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Health Secretary Alan Johnson both said they do not believe in God. While Alistair Darling, Geoff Hoon, Ed Miliband said it was a private matter[2]. Additionally the leader of the Liberal Democrats said he did not believe in God, but did not state if he was an atheist or agnostic.

However the big question is this: Is it a good thing? Well Gordon Brown believes that religion gives him a "moral compass", Yet he presses ahead with quite unmoral policies such as the ID Card (And no, I won't stop on this) and the extended detention without charge . Religion can be a guide on how to live ones life, not committing crime, treating others and you would expect others to treat you. But you can do that without having to go to church, believing that the earth was created in 6 days and then he took a break on the 6th. So what purpose does religion really have. Science has disproved a lot of its claims, very little people in Europe believe that there is really a good. I think religion is on borrowed time!

But why is this a good thing? Well I (and you might not agree with this, some might find it a bit extreme) firmly believe it divides us. Its split us up into groups, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists etc . Why can't be unit under one group - Humans. Were all Humans in Europe (Except for me when drunk, which is why I don't drink) if we unite under the great things the human race has achieved. Think about it, we (humans) have invited aircraft, nuclear power, the computer, the Internet, mobile phones, the automobile, Wind power, cures for diseases. We are such a great species us Humans, but if I only we stopped fighting, and fighting our petty things like Religion, when we've clearly proven the likely hood of religion been true is very low.

But then again, couldn't you replace this argument for ditching religion with everyone embracing Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism - Well no, Having No Religion (and I mean, No religion, no labels, no boxes saying what religion you are) would just make life simpler, You'd get Sunday free for a start (You could do what I do, write a blog!). I firmly believe that without religion we, the human race would be better off, we'd be safer, more productive, happier, and more peaceful!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe#Religiosity
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=504229&in_page_id=1770&ito=1490

New Statesman: Is this what a police state looks like?

2008-05-04T21:51:00.002+01:00

The New Statesman have an interesting article or the activities of "FIT" or Forward Intelligence Team that are used in the UK to monitor, bully, detain and photograph protesters. From my research they seem like a nasty bunch! The article covers how outside City Hall in London a number of anti-fascist protesters (Protesting over the BNP getting a seat on the assembly, I'll post about that soon) and other protesters were penned (oh and some Italian Tourists, spiacente!) in and not allowed to leave for 3 hours without water or access to a toilet (have these people not heard of Basic Human Rights??). You can read the New Statesmen article here and read the "FIT Watch" blog here, a team of people who aim to watch the watchers.

Labour are doing badly.....very...very...badly

2008-05-02T17:21:00.004+01:00

The local elections and London Mayor elections results have been released..and its not going well for Labour. They have lost (as of 17:22, with 2 councils still to give there vote) 310 councillors and 9 councils. Mostly to The Conservatives. The London Mayor election results are due in any time now, but the results so far show that Boris Johnson is ahead but not by a great margin.

Good news for civilised Human beings - The BNP have less votes than last local elections! and Lib Dems, typically very civilised, Guardian readers, have begin to gain on Labour, according to BBC "research", there the 2nd most popular party in the UK with 25%, ahead of (by a 1%) Labour (24%) and the Tories are on top with 44%.

Labour have now said its time to listen to the voter - Why weren't you doing that before? My hope now is that in a effort to cut there losses they'll drop the Ultra-Evil national ID card scheme and spend the money on something more useful.

Wikileaks ordered to shut down in the USA

2008-02-19T02:28:00.003Z

A Californian court has ordered Wikileaks, a controversial wiki that has posted many leaked goverment and private business documents, including an operating manual for the US Army used in Gitmo.

Strangely this wasn't the US goverment who shut the site down, annoyed at some of the leaked data on the website but a Swiss Banking group Julius Baer who claim that the documents on wikileaks could affect and on going legal case in Switzerland

The UK version of wikileaks is still available at www.wikileaks.org.uk

BBC:Northern Rock to be Nationalised

2008-02-17T15:15:00.004Z

Just breaking, The stricken incompetent bank Northern Rock is to be Nationalised according to the BBC. Despite efforts to sell it to a private bidder, the likely choice been Virgin Money it appears the only option is to nationalises it!

This is the first nationalisation since 1970 and ministers felt it was the only option. Northern Rock is continuing to be held up with Tax payers money. Ministers "felt that the offers on the table did not offer enough to the taxpayer" said Robert Pestons, BBC's Business editor

You can read more here at the BBC

White House threatens to veto anti-torture bill

2008-02-14T17:37:00.000Z

The White House has threaten to veto an anti-torture bill that will limit what interrogation techniques the CIA can use, the Senate passed on Wednesday but the white house can still veto the bill. The bill which is actually just part of a bill authoring intelligence activities for 2008 limits the CIA to 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. This would mean that the technique known as waterboarding that simulates drowning will no longer be legal to use.

The bill will also not allow the CIA to use sensory deprivation (e.g. leaving someone in a pitch black room). CIA Director General claims however that waterboarding has not been used since 2003 and he prohibited its use in 2006.

Despite Waterboarding been a torture technique that the media has focused on there are still a number of different methods that are believed to be used by the CIA such as head slapping, which is just that, a violent and hard slap to the head, and using freezing temperatures, this could involve leaving someone naked in a room or standing them on a block of ice. All of these torture methods would be illegal under international law.

Six years since the first Guantanamo inmates arrived

2008-01-11T13:36:00.000Z

Today (11th January 2008) Guantanamo Bay turns six years old! The base in Cuba is well known (for all the wrong reasons) around the world as one of the symbols for the War On Terror. Guantanamo Bay started the ball rolling, It wasn't long before the rendition flights took off and torture, something that is illegal in most western nations reared its ugly head.

Guantanamo Bay has now processed 775 detainees have been brought to the US Navy base and around 420 have been released. Around 355 detainees remain at the base. A number have been released without charge and were not detain on return to there countries of residents. Terrorism is a pointless and barbaric crime, If history has taught us anything is that violence is not a solution. However I do not support Governments stooping to the level of these barbaric terrorists by torturing suspects to get information. This will only escalate problems, it does not take a genius to work that out.

However, in November America chooses a new president. Social news sites like Digg are already alive with talk of rigged votes even in in this early in the voting, So will America be making the choice of who leads there country in November or will someone else?

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion."

2008-01-05T23:14:00.000Z

The title from this post was taken from "The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig I think it explains how I see religion very well.

I was going to avoid writing about religion on this blog but its an issue that appears to be affecting my everyday life more and more these days. This could be age or it could be the current climate, with extremist terrorists committing there violent crimes in the name of religion it is getting more attention than maybe it deserves.

From the out set I should say I am an atheist and have been from a very young age (about 9 or 10) its not that I was brought up without religion, I was baptised as a baby and I went to a Church of England primary school - This is where I found religion was clearly false. To me it was as clear as day that religion was a bit of a false.

My theory is this - When religion's such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam was a method to explain how the earth was created, why people shouldn't kill and rape others, cheat on your wife, kind of thing that in our modern society is considered wrong. Religion was needed to explain to a simpler society in those years how things like the earth was created.

However, as the human race got more intelligent and the science community grew and did more research. People such as the naturalist Charles Darwin who while on his travels around the world discovered the theory of evolution and how we came to be. More and more scientists found answers to questions like how the animals, plants and us became to be like we are, why the sun sets and rises, why the sky is blue. Question that were previously answered with the ignorant answer of "God created it - That is why".

So you'd think as the human race got smarter and managed to answer the question that religion previously answered would be answered by Science and rational thought, religion would eventually become obsolete and just be rendered to the history books. But religion is bigger than ever, with huge mega churches and mega mosques dominating cities around the world. Men, Women and Children blowing themselves up in markets, or on buses, tube trains, flying aircraft into buildings, killing doctors, attacking young women on there way to abortion clinics, attacking homosexuals, the list goes on. Never think that its just certain religions that commit these crimes - All religions are as bad as each other.

My dispute with religion is that it teaches people inaccurate fact. Lets take the homosexual example, I'm straight but I have no issues with homosexuals, however religious people do, according to both Islam and Christianity claim homosexuality is a sin and is unnatural - But Why? There is no evidence on either way that says early man or women had a fondness for the same sex. So how can it be unnatural if maybe, its been going on from the start of the human race but it has been made taboo by the invention of religion.

However I do believe that religion is on its last legs, as Science answers more questions on how we became to be, and as religious myth is proven wrong less and less people are been convinced by Science. The age of religion is coming to an end, this may be why the delusional people are so desperate to hold onto it. So much that they'd take there lives in the belief of an after life.

BBC Documentary: Access Of Evil

2008-01-05T16:33:00.000Z

A fantastic documentary by the BBC on North Korea, the North Korean goverment wanted the BBC to show "there side of the story". This documentary covers the human rights abuses the DPRK subject political prisoners to, including testimony from defectors.

Video:

Huckabee and Obama win in Iowa

2008-01-04T22:04:00.000Z

Mike Huckabee the republican caucuses in Iowa, and Barack Obama won the democratic caucuses in Iowa last night. Despite the fact this is only one of many caucuses to come in this historically important election it is very good publicity for both candidates.

A personal regard from a foreign policy stances is that Mike Huckabee could me similar to the current president when it comes to foreign policy. He for example has not called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, he also supports the Iraq War which has also been very unpopular in the International community.

On more domestic issues, Huckabee is also devout Christian been a former Southern Baptist. He has voiced his support for creationism and does not believe in evolution. In 1992 he also said "
I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk". In my opinion: This is a very ignorant view on homosexuality.

Obama was a surprise candidate to come to the front running as he has very little experience, however this does not appear to affected him. It is still all to play for however - It does not mean either will Huckabee or Obama will be the candidates, It should be better to predict who will be the candidates when more votes have been taken.

Happy New Year!!

2007-12-31T23:07:00.000Z

Happy new year everyone - Lets hope the political situation world-wide improves. Violence in Iraq, Corruption in Governments, Human Rights violations in the US.

Goodbye 2007 - Hello 2008!

DVLA Missing Data Update

2007-12-17T17:34:00.000Z

A few more facts have been found out about the DVLA missing data saga. The data was lost on a hard drive, it is believed to have been thrown out as rubbish and is currently unknown if it was encrypted or in plaintext. The data on the hard drive was, Names, Addresses and phone numbers but no financial data was stored on the disc.

Question I have is this: Why is our data been sent to the US? How did it get to the US? Should Private contractors be dealing with personal details of British Citizens? If this happened in May, What was been done to find the details? Why weren't we informed earlier?

Oh and, When can I have your resignation, Gordon?

Update: The data was meant to be in a "Security Facility" in Iowa, USA but has not been found. The Information Commission has judged the loss to not be "substantial", As no D.O.Bs or National Insurance numbers have been lost.

Millons of Personal Records missing......AGAIN!

2007-12-17T17:13:00.000Z

The goverment can't appear to keep hold of its data these days! first, In NI the DVLNI (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland) lost over 7500 drivers records went missing, again on CDs. Now it has turned out that the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) here in England have lost 3 million records of candidates for the Driving theory test, a test required to get a Driving Licence in the UK.

These details were lost in.....The United States! The data is stored on a hard drive that went missing in May of this year. So they have been missing for 8 months now, and know one thought to let us know?

The reason why I'm partially annoyed at this is because I did my theory test not long ago and I suspect my details may be on it. My details were also on the HMRC discs that went missing. Despite these catastrophic failures the goverment continues with its National ID card scheme.

This current Government is a disgrace! Brown should call on election so the British people can choose a party that will put the Great back into Great Britain.

I will update with more facts when I get them and my anger has been controlled!!

Bush: Iran still a threat, despite report

2007-12-03T22:17:00.000Z

George W Bush has said he still thinks Iran is a threat, despite a report been released that says Iran is less determined to build a nuclear bomb than previously thought. However, Mr Bush who is in his last year in power still maintains Iran is a threat and Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

The reports says Iran could technically be capable of developing enough highly enriched Uranium (HEU) for a weapon in late 2009, but it also says it is very unlikely. There is hope this will play down threats from the US of military action against Iran. Mr Bush did say that all options were on the table for dealing with the Iran nuclear crisis, this includes military action.

Petition to stop Child Information Sharing Index

2007-11-30T17:01:00.001Z

A Petition to the Prime Minister has been posted on the pm.gov.uk calling for the PM to scrap all plans for the controversial DfES (Department for Education & Skills) Informing Sharing Index. This will be yet another government database storing information on all children from Birth to Eighteen. I have have signed this petition and I urge you to do the same, You can sign the petition if your a British citizen or a resident in the UK. To sign the petition click here

I will write more about this issue when I have the time....so keep checking for that!

Uranium found in Slovakia could be used for a "dirty bomb"

2007-11-29T20:29:00.000Z

Reports from Slovakia say a police raid netted just under 500g of uranium powder. This uranium was enriched enough to create a dirty bomb.

A Dirty bomb is a commonly used name for a improvised explosive that also contains radioactive substances, when the bomb is exploded the radioactive substances would be spread over an area. It could be quite vast, especially if it gets on peoples clothes, they move around and it would spread. Set off in a big financial city like New York or London, it would cause serious damage.

You can read more in this discovery at the BBC

Lib Dems: Discs worth £1.5Bn to criminals

2007-11-28T20:28:00.000Z

Another event in the Government incompetence saga, according the acting Liberal Democrat leader Vincent Cable. The missing discs containing 25 million families personal details could be worth £1.5billion to criminals. The discs have still yet to be found.

Not reported is that HMRC is now sending out letters to all affected, I know this because ours came yesterday!! As you can imagine been personally affected I'm quite angry, it epically annoys me in the fact that encrypting a CD is cheap and easy these days. There is no excuse for this mess.

The only good thing about this is that the ID Card scheme must be dead now, and no one will trust the government after the missing disc disaster.

UN: Tasers are a form of torture

2007-11-24T23:49:00.000Z

A UN committee has declared that tasers to be a form of torture. The Committee said that these weapons can cause acute pain and is therefore a form of torture. Recently there has been a number of deaths in North America involving Tasers, 3 men, all in there early 20s died in the US after been tasered and a polish man died at Vancouver airport after been tasered by Canadian police.

the UN Commitee has advised Portorgual against using the TASER international X26 (pictured) which is used by many police forces world wide, It is also believed to be the taser used on the 4 men killed recently.

Yet More Government incompetence: Six more data discs have gone missing

2007-11-24T17:41:00.000Z

HMRC have confirmed that six more discs have gone missing in transit between there Preston and London offices. These discs this time containing recordings of conversations between HMRC staff and customers making complaints. There is of course potential that these conversations could contain a lot of personal information.

HMRC believe these discs are still at the HMRC offices. But isn't sending data via dics in a the post a bit old fashion and a bit unsecure. So what alternatives could HMRC use?

Secure FTP
Or File Transfer Protocol is often used to upload data, standard FTP is insecure but SFTP uses SSH to encrypt and secure the data going over the internet. This not only would be quicker than sending discs it also would be more secure you can read more here

Private Network
A secure private network between the buildings could also create a method of transferring data quickly and securely, though it would be very costly - and the government hates spending money!

Encrypted USB device
The government could use these IronKey USB sticks that has hardware encryption (insted of software encryption) and if the password is entered incorrectly 5-times it will erase all the data on the drive. Perfect if it falls into the wrong hands!

For now however, they could always download a copy of TrueCrypt which is free and also very secure!

Unsubscribe me

2007-11-24T11:33:00.000Z

Amnesty International is lunching a new campaign to get people to Unsubcribe from torture in the name of the "War of Terror". They have also released a rather disturbing video of a man in the stress position which can be seen below, Warning: This video is very disturbing, you may find what you see very upsetting!

You can read the background story on the film here, This film is truly shocking and hopefully it has inspired you to take action against this barbaric behaviour! Visit Unsubcribe-Me.org to unsubcribe yourself from torture in the name of "freedom"

Update on HMRC Leak

2007-11-21T15:17:00.000Z

The HMRC leak has really caused a big mess - this is what I've found out in the past 24hrs

There were 2 CDs, both in the same package
Both were password protected but not encrypted[1]
My family is not affected - Only family's with a child under 16 are affected
I was unsure if it was 25million individual records or 7.5million it is now believed to be 25million individual records - this means around 41%* of the population is affected[2]
No cabinet minster is going to Resign[3]

I was thinking about how many people I know personally who's names would be those CDs and its a huge amount of people. I hope that shows to the public that the government shouldn't be trusted with huge amounts of personal data, this in turn should bring on more objection to the National Identity Register and ID card scheme.

* Calculated on the Basis that there are 60 million people in the UK

Government Incompetence : Bank details of 7m families lost!

2007-11-20T16:04:00.000Z

The British government admitting to making a nice big balls up today - It lost a CD containing 25milllion Family Tax Credit recipients . This included 7million families bank details. That means a potential 25million stolen identities if the CD is in the wrong hands.

The CD was sent by the Revenue and Customs, in Washington, Tyne and Wear by unrecorded delivery to the National Audit Office, in London when it went missing. According to the banks there is not enough data on the disc for money to be stolen. But it is still a worrying data leak. It is unknown if the data is encrypted - I doubt very much it was.

According to the BBC ministers have known about this problem for 9 to 10 days and did not inform anyone about this huge leak of data which went missing on November 8th! This all comes as the government continues with its National ID card scheme that would have even more personal details.

Edit: SpyBlog has confirmed what I suspected that the data was not encrypted but was password protected - However a password very simple to crack.

Camp Delta - Standard Operating Procedures manual

2007-11-19T12:53:00.000Z

A very interesting incite has been posted on the website www.wikileaks.org which is an unclassified manual for operating standards and the controversial prison in Cuba. to download it click here. The manual also reveals how some prisoners were not allowed to be seen by the Red Cross. For example on Page 91 section 17-4 it gives details of restrictions put on in-mates for seeing ICRC personnel:

There is obliviously debate over whither or not this manual is genuine and how genuine wikileaks, there are many rumours this site is government-run.

Burma: The Crisis mass media got bored of!

2007-11-15T23:11:00.000Z

I'm not going to blog to much about Burma because people like Jotman (Make sure to check out his blog - its very good!) can do a much better job than my grammatically challenged rants. However, the Mass Media have gone off this horrific crisis very quickly. Even though the military Junta countinue to cause pain to Burmese people.

I do, however see articles on the BBC regarding UN envoy in Burma but it does not make the evening news for example. But then again the world is a busy place, Military rule in Pakistan, the Iran nuclear issue cropping up, continuing violences in Iraq and many other problems around the world. So there just isn't time to cover all the stories or does Mass Media just get bored of a story and wants something "fresh". I guess this is where independent media like blogging comes in. If it wasn't for many blogs I would be completely in the dark about the current crisis in Burma, thinking its all just calmed down, and everyone is in perfect harmony.

Why does America think waterboarding is ok?

2007-11-13T16:28:00.000Z

Waterboarding is a form of torture that simulates drowning, it can be applied in a number of ways such as putting a cloth down someone's throat and pouring water onto that cloth, this will make the victim gag, like they would if they were drowning. It is a sicking and horrible method of torture that Dick Cheney, US Vice President admitted the United States carries out on terror suspects.

I have read a number of articles from US conservatives with alarming lines such as "Waterboarding is something of which every American should be proud." - Americans should be proud that there Administration allows this barbaric form of torture?

An article that partially alarmed me was by Deroy Murdock in the National Review Online, the online version of the Conservative magazine the National Review. In this article Murdock attempts to explain why Waterboarding is not a barbaric form of torture, but something that's just fine.

Waterboarding is illegal under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment as this convention sees torture as:

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

I'm sure most of you will agree, Waterboarding is defiantly causes suffering and partially mental suffering for the victim. However the United States rarely recognizes international conventions. The only way to stop this barbaric behaviour is for the American people to put a stop to it. This could take a long time and for the mean time the CIA are able to roam the planet torturing who they like.

Does anyone care about our freedom?

2007-11-10T00:23:00.000Z

No, In the UK there is little regard for freedom, the government plan to bring in a highly expensive and intrusive ID card scheme that could cost Fifty Six billion pounds. That could build a lot of schools, a lot of hospitals and a lot of prisons. The Government claim this is to stop terrorism, however they also say it won't stop terrorism - So what's its purpose? Stopping terrorism is a big challenge, I can't help but think that more police, or police with radios that work in The Underground would a better use of that money, And many UK citizens would agree with me but it appears not enough do...

Despite 28,000 people signing a petition to scrap the ID card scheme its still going ahead. The people of Britain also don't seem to understand the ID scheme. 69,105 people signed a petition to stop "proposed" changes to public photography that didn't exist.

The ID scheme will take 50 pieces of data about you, including your fingerprints and retina scan, Normally this data is only taken if your arrested. All of this data will be stored in the NIR (National Identity Record) this will be a large database that police, Security Service, Hospitals etc. can access if needed. This exchange of data creates a security risk that the data could be accessed by malicious hacker resulting in a vast amount of sensitive data been placed in the wrong hands.

Is the problem that the people of the UK don't care about the ID cards? Or they like the ID Cards? Or they don't know about the ID cards? Its not a regular issue in House of Commons debates. Instead there bitching about who thought of lowering inheritance tax first, a tax that only affects a small percentage of the population where as ID cards will affect 100% of the population. Lets hope for all of our sakes - ID Cards get scrapped. Becuase its one big waste of £56Bn

If you wish to get involved with stopping this £56Bn scheme the best group has to be www.no2id.net the best, it has a great source of information on the ID scheme and news. They also have posters and leaflets, some of which are a good laugh.

By the way: I'm new to the blogging lark, if you've got a feed back please leave it in the comments. Be nice I'm still learning!

Rant: America Needs to Modernize

2007-10-30T16:58:00.000Z

America is in dire need of modernization. Not in its infrastructure or technology, but its its society. America is still a relatively young country yet it is a "superpower" and is Society is still modernizing, Compare it to some 3rd-world country where racism and homophobia is rampant you see the similarities.

Take the death penalty - America is the only NATO country that still has the death penalty and one of a hand full in the West that still does. In 2007 should this barbaric penalty be completely abolished? But its not all bad news, the death penalty is slowly, but surely been abolished all over the world, not just in the USA.

Another issue is nationalism, America takes been proud of your country to a bit of an extreme. I am British and fairly proud of that, I like the impact we've had on the World, the amazing British inventions and thinkers we've had. However I will be the first in line to criticize the government. Why shouldn't I? We vote them in, if they fail us, we should tell them where they can shove it! However increasingly it is not OK to criticize the Government is your an American. its considered unpatriotic and if your not a patriot, then you must me a terrorists. Simple Eh? A bit too simple.

So who is the real enemy? Iran? Iraq? Syria? Nope...The United States Of America.

But is it the peoples fault. Nope! Not at all its people like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter, George Bush (both of them) and all those other Neo-Cons who prompt stuff like "Family Values" and Nationalism that causes people to blindly agree as Private army's kill innocent civilians on the streets of some Middle eastern country that they can't pronounce, let alone point out on a map.

NATO considers using smaller bombs

2007-07-30T15:51:00.001+01:00

NATO is considering to use smaller bombs against the Taleban in Afghanistan in an attempt to curb the rising civilians death toll caused by operations against the Taleban. Aid agencies say that NATO forces have killed 230 civilians so fair this year and between 700 and 1,000 civilians were killed by NATO and the Taleban in 2006.

Source: BBC News

Eight million in urgent need of aid according to new report

2007-07-30T02:22:00.000+01:00

According to a new report from Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi NGOs nearly a third of the population of Iraq require urgent aid. It was warned that the continuing violence is masking the humanitarian crisis that has been growing since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by US-led forces.

The report has also found that four million Iraqis have been uprooted. and 2million have fled to neighbouring countries mainly Syria and Jordan making it one of the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world

According to the report, 80% of Iraqis lack effective sanitation 70% lack access to an adequate water supply. Adding to this Iraq is also experience a 'Brain drain' with many professionals such as teachers, medical staff, engineers are leaving the country, according to the report 40% have already left!

To download the report click here (in PDF format)

Revealed: MI5's role in torture flight hell

2007-07-29T16:11:00.000+01:00

An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider's account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal 'torture flight' under the programme known as extraordinary rendition.
In a remarkable interview for The Observer, British resident Bisher al-Rawi has told how he was betrayed by the security service despite having helped keep track of Abu Qatada, the Muslim cleric accused of being Osama bin Laden's 'ambassador in Europe'. He was abducted and stripped naked by US agents, clad in nappies, a tracksuit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear ear mufflers, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a CIA 'black site' jail near Kabul in Afghanistan.

Source: Guardian Unlimited

Gorbachev speaks out against the Bush and US Govt

2007-07-29T02:40:00.000+01:00

Former Soviet President and Noble Peace Prize Winner Mikhail Gorbachev has criticized the Bush Administration, saying that Washington had sought to build a new Empire after the Cold War but did not understanding the changing world.

"The Americans gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed?" he asked reporters at a news conference in Moscow.

"What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed are wars, what has followed is ignoring the U.N. Security Council, ignoring international law and ignoring the will of the people, even the American people."

"I don't think the current president of the United States and his administration will be able to change the situation as it is developing now -- it is very dangerous,"

As someone who watches what the Bush Administration do very closely I agree with Gorbachev. The current administration's foreign policy is best described as dangerous not only to the American people but also to people of countries that it may wish to attack, such as Iran and Syria.

However it is not just the Bush Administration that has ignored the will of the people, during the Blair years he also ignored the will of the British people regarding a number of issues. The main issue been the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However leadership has now changed in the UK and hopefully the new PM will listen to the will of the people.

Britain will still stand side by side with the US

2007-07-29T02:10:00.000+01:00

Gordon Brown has reassured the Bush Administration that the relationship between the US and the UK will still be as strong as when Mr Blair was running the shop. This comes after speculation that the new British PM would distance himself from George W Bush.

Gordon Brown and George Bush will be meeting at Camp David early next week where they will be discussing a issues on trade, Climate Change, Darfur, Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Russia. This is the first visit to the US Gordon Brown has made as the Prime Minister, it has also been reported that the Bush Administration is annoyed at the choice of Lord Malloch-Brown, the former deputy general secretary to the UN and an opponent to the war in Iraq as Foreign Office Minister.

Lord Malloch-Brown was one of the first to suggest that Brown and Bush would not be "joined together at the hip" in the same way Blair and Bush were.

Sources: The Independent
Offical PMS press briefing

New Blog!

2007-07-29T02:04:00.001+01:00

Welcome to my new blog - this is my 3rd (or 4th I lose count) attempt to start a good blog, however this time I have a reason. See I think about politics, the future of the human race and the political system that governs us and I can tell you know - I'm bloody scared!

So in this blog I will be ranting about issues such as Global Warming, Neocons, Socialism, Communism, War, Freedom of Speech, freedom of religion and lots of other topics that are starting to affect the way we go about our everyday lives mainly in the West.