6th May 2013
There was a very interesting contribution by a professor at the London School of Economics on the Sunday Programme yesterday analysing recent Middle East history in terms of Muslim sectarianism. It was Christian sectarianism of course that we found so difficult to deal with in Northern Ireland until recent times. He goes back to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 which empowered the Shia sect in that country, painting the scene really for everything that has happened since. He refers to the Taliban as extreme Salafist Sunni Muslims who besides hating the West also now pick on the Shia minority in Pakistan who represent 5% of the population. One reason Mr Assad is able to hang on in Syria he says is because the small minorites there look upon him as their protector against horrible larger forces. He himself though I think looks upon the Syrian regime as pretty powerless. The real fight is between Sunni Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey on one side and Shia Iran and Hezbollah on the other.
I was hoping the bombing of Syria was a thought through joint enterprise by America and Israel. News reports this morning indicate that is not the case. Israel acted all on it’s own. To look for a positive I feel that if Mr Obama had the opportunity to read the riot act to them beforehand, he did not take it. I think allowing someone to do what they want, all things being equal, should raise confidence in itself. Syria has complained loudly, however it seems they are impotent to do anything about it. It is due to them I know the targets the Israeli planes hit yesterday morning. Another thread might well be that whilst America is concerned about biological weapons Israel is not. It is Hezbollah that seems to worry them, and their ability to fire conventional missiles into Israel. After listening to Jeremy Bowen on Today this morning it seems there might have been an element of overkill in the Syrian bombings. As the Israelis are so secretive we really do not know if there was any strategic purpose or not. Then Hezbollah seems to be taking things very calmly. I suspect they feel their enemy acted through pique, because Hizbollah had got one over them. All part of their overall game. I feel the Gang will probably also be happy with the current state of play. Whatever happens in Syria they have already got all their pawn pieces in place.
It looks as though the recent building collapse in Dhaka might be a Gang prelude to something else. 15 people have been killed and 60 injured when protesters clashed with police there. The trouble makers are called Hefazat-e Islam a tightly knit coalition of about 12 Islamist groups, based in religious schools, wanting to change Bangledesh’s secular culture. They have only been causing waves since February so it is all pretty recent. Looking at the map I can only think it might have something to do with Burma, with which it shares a short border, and where there has also been relgious strife recently. We shall see what happens.
In the winter I use my garden tractor and trailor to move wood around for my open fire. A couple of months ago I used it for that purpose. It started and pulled off fine but after about three minutes, when I let the clutch out from a standing start it had no power. I was effectively stranded. I suspect it was caused by a liquid in my petrol tank, heavier than petrol, which was drawn into the carburetter after I was on my way. The Gang were hoping, in my view, that when it happened I would be in a certain place where they would be able to arrange an accident for me. By chance I was somewhere else when the trap was sprung. I was lucky.
I fear however it did not work that way for a senior BSkyB executive and founder of Channel 5 who was in a speedboat with his family yesterday in a river estuary in Cornwall. The boat suddendly veered to the right throwing them all into the water. That probably would have caused no harm at all but the terrible thing was the automatic cut out when the driver is dislodged, as I have on my sit on mower, did not work. The unmanned boat started going round in an exact circle. That means it passed through the six people who were already in the water. The man and his daughter were killed. His wife and his son have life changing injuries.
After my note this morning about Syria I now really do not know what to think. I had better just write down the significant bits and see where we go from here. Jeremy Bowen this morning said he was puzzled that Hezbollah wanted to bring in missiles through Syria. They control Bierut airport. Plane cargo would be much more straightforward for them. The Kremlin has told it’s media that Mr Putin has spoken to Mr Netanyahu on the phone about Israel’s attacks on Syria. Syria now are extremely upset with Israel. Some news agencies are saying over 100 troops were killed in the Israeli Sunday strikes. Syria calls it an act of war. President Obama, speaking in Costa Rica, says he fully supports the action Israel has taken. A UN envoy has said today there are indications the Syrian Opposition have used the nerve gas sarin. The UN itself I think have been surprised by the lady’s statement. A White House spokeman had disagreed with her conclusion. Sarin is cheap and easy to produce. John Kerry is travelling to Moscow tomorrow.
I wrote about the neo-Nazi trial in Germany on 16th April 2013. Perhaps it was delayed as it has started today. The indications are that German intelligence originally thought the killings were down to a Turkish mafia group. Making that wrong assumption, in their culture, it seems they were not then particularly interested. After my notes last week about the ‘Ndrangheta I supect it was American-European Gang warfare. The 38 year old lady in court does not look like a mastermind terrorist. My guess is that, after her two colleagues were found dead, she decided her best bet was to give herself in to the police.
Nigel Evans spoke to the media yesterday. He said the claims against him are completely false. What has happened to him has been incredulous. He remarked that he did look upon the two men as friends. He met one of them socially the week before when nothing was said.
On election day last week two vials of a liquid yet to be analysed were found in a ballot box in Herne Bay. A man from Whitstable has been arrested on suspicion of doing it. I can only imagine Kent police must have had some form of prior intelligence about him.
Which said yesterday that last month they reckon one in five UK households borrowed money or used savings in order to buy food.
There was an interesting BBC webpage up yesterday on North Korea to go with their From Our Own Correspondent radio series. It seems the population are not nearly so isolated as we think. The trade in smuggled South Korean DVDs is huge and mobile phones, some able to make international calls, are not uncommon. In this evening’s news it was reported the country have said they will not allow any prominent American to visit in relation to the sentencing of the tourist guide.
Apparantly a significant amount of Gang cocaine, entering the continent along the traditional route through the Iberian peninsular, is beginning to turn up in Eastern Europe. The scientific director of the EU’s drug agency was on Today this morning saying particular destinations can be verified by testing input pipes to sewage farms for residues of the drug.
I have never heard of them before but 3D printers are in fact home manufacturing tools. They build up objects layer by layer out of plastic that is melded and fed via a controlled nozzle to form a shape. The programme had a piece on a tiny Texan firm that has worked out how to produce a viable gun using the technology.
7th May 2013
Between 2002 and 2004 thre young women aged 19, 16 and 14 disappeared in Cleveland, Ohio. No trace had every been found of them, until yesterday. There were being kept in a house in an urban street in the city by three hispanic brothers aged 50, 52 and 54, one of whom lived there. At least one child was conceived I believe. The escape came about apparently through none of the men being present in the house. That allowed one of the woman to shout for all she was worth through the front door which she managed to get ajar. Neighbours came round and broke the door down.
An indication that the Gang knew all about it, in my view, was the silly game played last year when a prison inmate told authorities one of the women had been murdered and buried in Cleveland. I expect it was a Gang order he felt he was not in a position to refuse. He was found guilty of providing false information. But of course there is a much deeper point than that. In chapter 6 of my book I relate the story of a lady who contacted police in the Austrian town of Amstetten in April 2008. She had been held captive by her father in their home for 24 years and had borne him seven children. I offer the opinion that it would have been impossible for various people in the town, such as healthcare and teaching professionals, not to have known what was going on. However they chose to look the other way. It was the lady herself who eventually summoned the courage to free herself. Even though I believe, for reasons I do not wish to go into, that the Cleveland opportunity to escape was Gang given, the two do appear to be uncannily similar. President Obama told his people the other day, in relation to Guantanamo Bay, that that situation is a false image of who Americans are. I hope he does not find it necessary to say the same thing about Cleveland.
It is reported this morning that the Queen, 87 years old, will not be attending the Commonwealth heads of government conference in Sri Lanka in November. Prince Charles will represent her.
Lord Lawson has written an article in today’s Times, I understand, that we should have an imminent rerendum on EU membership hopefully so we can leave as soon as possible. He says there is no point in David Cameron trying to negotiate better terms for us as he will not get anywhere. Lord lawson is entirely entitled to his opinion. He has chosen to express it now and I have listened to him. However I believe it to be a counsel of despair and a line which is both arrogant and disrepectful. Arrogant because Lord Lawson says he knows what is best for us and disrepectful because he assumes British and European ministers do not have it in them to talk positively to each other.
The news has broken this morning that a comedian living just outside London was arrested on 26th April, the same day as the publicist I have previously mentioned was charged, for a single act of suspected child abuse against one male individual in the late 1970s in Harrogate. I heard Danny Shaw say on Today this morning that it is strange the story should come out now. Nothing is happening on it at the moment. I think it might be relevant the investigating force is North Yorkshire police.
Somalia has been a broken state for over 20 years. Since 2010 however it has had a goverment suppoorted by the IMF, the USA and ouselves. There is a conference in London today to try and keep the momentum going. The country though is still not a unified whole. Independent fiefdoms predominate and the representatives of Somaliland and Puntland in the north have refused to attend. I heard our ambassador in Mogadishu say on the World at One at lunchtime that somehow the terrorist group al-Shabab need to be drawn into the political process.
For a time yesterday I got quite panicky about Syria. It seemed that everthing was falling apart. However in fact people are still talking to each other which is the main thing. I saw on BBC TV news last night a White House spokesman say that Israel did consult with them about the air raids. Both Russia and America agree that the use of chemical weapons is reprehensible. I am sure there will be no breakthrough in Moscow today. We are not there yet. But the sideways movement continues. I heard a Syrian National Council spokesman on Today this morning and he seemed well briefed on how the American government see things at the moment. Interestingly I see Mr Kerry will be travelling onto Rome on Thursday to meet with Italian, Israeli and and Jordanian officials to discuss Middle East issues including the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
I wasn’t aware the Church of England kept stastistics on attendance at church but a BBC weebpage today says the decrease in 2011 was much less than hitherto. Baptisms and Cathedral service turnout rose as did Christmas churchgoing, the latter by 14%. It seems the church also wish to encourage those who do not see themselves as church members but recognise they have a spiritual side within them.
An article in Today’s FT tells me we are a hub for fibre optic cables laid on the sea bed from America, which then go under our land surface on their way to mainland Europe. They are used for such things as high frequency financial market trading. We are increasing our investment in them. Apparently 95% of all our email, internet and telephone communications use physical cable as it is cheaper and more reliable than satellite technology.
The sense is coming through that business is beginning to pick up at last. The paper says that the number of available city jobs increased 19% last month.
President Obama is back in Washington from his Central American trip and has been visited by the new South Korean President, Park Geun-hye. They agree it is about time North Korea grew up. In future they will not be rewarded in any way for provocative behaviour. Separately Pyongyang have taken away two missiles from a coastal luanching site, easing tension.
8th May 2013
The night before the Queens Speech in parliament this morning, there has been a bad fire in the centre of Windsor. An empty building undergoing renovation work went up causing attendance by 80 firefighters. No one was injured and no Royal properties affected.
Then following my notes on the ‘Ndrangheta on 2nd May 2013 an Italian container ship was leaving the northern port of Genoa last night with the assistance of tugs. It veered off course and crashed into the harbour’s 150 foot high control tower which, with a change of shifts, had extra people in at the time. Three are so far known to have died. The ship was on it’s way down the Italian coast to the Sicilian port of Messina, within view of Calabria. I think one reason the accident will have been arranged is to frighten some people with connections to both Genoa and Corsica, due south of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea.
The defence team for for the man who killed 12 in the Denver cinema last July have just decided to plead insanity for him. It seems he was being seen by a psychiatrist before the shootings.
The Cleveland escapes are about three women who disappeared off the face of the earth, without trace, for ten years. One task of my diary notes, I feel, is to make appropriate connections. I have no way of knowing whether this suggestion might be right. I have no wish to raise the hopes of others unnecessarily. However I do feel it should be recorded that the bodies of Madeline McCann and April Jones have never been found. If they are alive I believe they are being well looked after.
One thing about the Cleveland situation I am pretty sure is that there will be a massive amount of intelligence for the authorities to glean about how these things work. Whether we will ever be informed of all those details seems unlikely. I suggest it is all about unconcious fear and the feeling of impotence even if you did try and do the right thing. I understand all the windows in the house were blacked out yet the majority, it seems, still chose to believe the man who lived there was one of them. There was a report from Jonny Dymond this morning on Today as he was standing in Seymour Avenue. The was a melody from an ice cream van playing not far away. It reminded me of my own village. Every Sunday afternoon in the summer, at the same time, a similar van tours some of the village estates always playing the same tune. I do not live particularly near but the sound carries well when I am out gardening. It always gives me an uneasy feeling.
Imran Khan received some quite bad injuries in a fall yesterday. Fortunately I think he will make a good recovery. The incident was caught on videotape so I can give an accurate desrciption. He was standing on a hydraulic platform big enough for about four, without a guard rail, which was being lifted to a stage where he was about to give a speech. As it rose a man chose to join them with the hydraulic arm moving upwards. It was not big enough to take him as well. They all fell about 15 feet. That extra man was the last to drop. The bodies of the others broke his fall.
More came out of the meeting in Moscow yesterday than I thought. Russia and America are going to try and get the sides talking again, after the last attempt failed in June last year. There is a photo on the BBC webpage showing Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov to have positive respect and rapport with each other. The difficulty of course is about whether the opposition are willing to contemplate Mr Assad remaining as leader, at least until democratic elections can be arranged. Their stance until now reminds me of our press editors here. Their distrust for the other side runs so deep it is a badge of honour for them not to agree to anything they want. As far as Syria is concerned though the stakes are very high. Unless something is sorted we are talking about the inevitable future loss of many innocent lives.
A BBC webpage I have only picked up by chance was published late last night. Using the pressure group Peace Now as it’s source it says that apparently Mr Netanyahu has ordered a pause to Jewish settlement construction on the West Bank. If the report is right it is an essential confidence building measure in my view, prior to Mr Kerry’s visit to Rome. The Israeli government has refused to comment.
On 9th February 2013 I wrote a note about a man from the Chetham School of Music in Manchester who was found guilty of sexual assault against a girl in the 1970’s. A BBC webpage reports this morning that 30 more women have reported allegations of abuse occuring at the school which the police are investigating. The current school management are fully cooperating with the authorities.
Then last night Channel 4 News led their programme with a report relating how a lot of apparent victims had spoken to them alleging scores of improper sexual relations over decades between music teachers and pupils. They said it occured in all five sprecialist music teaching schools in this country, including the Yehudi Menuin School in Cobham, Surrey
When I was up in London today I went into a small sandwich bar, completely at random, just north of Oxford Street. It was staffed by a pleasant foreign proprietor and his male assistant. I sat at one of the tables in the cramped space. After about ten minutes the proprietor carried out a classic piece of crowding. He sat down side-on with some food of his own at another table so he was looking directly at me. He was asked to do that no doubt by text message. He will have not have understood why but thought, I am sure, if he did not do as requested something bad would happen to him or his business. I looked at his helper once from which it was obvious he knew something odd was going on involving me. However I can imagine he would not say a word to anyone. His job would be too important to him.
71 year old Sir Alex Ferguson let it be known this morning that he will be retiring as manager of Manchester United next weekend after taking charge of his 1500’th game for the club. He is leaving on a high having just won the Premiership and with an impressive squad of young players. I expect his decision also fits in with his personal circumstances. Sir Alex has said he thinks there is nothing wrong with losing your temper so long as you do it for the right reasons. You should not let things fester. I have never mentioned it before but I sent a letter to the club in April 2011. I would like to think it had a beneficial effect.
I heard on the BBC radio news this evening that David Cameron told the Commons today he will be visiting the Russian resort of Sochi on Friday to discuss Syria with Mr Putin. Our media are not very interested in his statement.
The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries had her Party’s whip withdrawn last November for going to Australia to appear on the TV reality programme I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. She thought she had asked for permission. Andrew Mitchell, the then Party Whip, did not. I expect that was a genuine misunderstandinging. The Gang though can smell a potential split a mile away. Following Ukip’s electoral success last week rumours started circultating that Ms Norris might defect to them. Today she has had the whip unconditionally offered back to her, on the basis she had previously apologised. She immediately accepted.
I suppose we get there eventually but you really do wonder sometimes if we deserve to. I have just been watching a programme on BBC 2 called Bankers, about the Libor scandal. It paints a picture so like the old relationship between our politicians and the press. The ones who were supposed to be in charge weren’t. In reality they were afraid of the power of those they perceived as oiling the wheels of our society, making lots of money for us all. Morality, in those circumstances, went out of the window.
I write about Libor in chapters 10 and 11 of my book. For historical reasons it is fixed in London and is an estimate of what banks say they can borrow funds for. Being a value judgement therefore it is open to manipulation. Andrew Tyrie MP said on the programme that 40/50 people in the Swiss bank UBS had been untrthful about it for a decade. However one bad apple in a barrel doesn’t have too much of an effect on the whole. As it spreads tough you do begin to notice. That impetus, the programme says, was the start of our financial troubles in August 2007. Fear and distrust was starting to take hold and the effect on Barclays traders was that their Libor estimates became artificially low so their competitor banks would think their business was more solid than it was. Immediately rumours started circulating about what was going on. They were picked up by the New York Federal Reserve who became so concerned they asked the Bank of England to investigate in May 2008. At the same time a Barclays executive told Bloomberg TV that Libor was no longer based on reality. Unfortunately our most senior financial regulator did nothing. Traders had come to regard Libor fixing as a game of cheating and lying. To use it as a means of getting yourself a bonus and earning false profit for your bank. So the inevitable happened. The pack of cards came down that autumn when credit markets completely seized up.
The programme also concentrates on Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays from 1st January 2011. A key unknowing Gang helper, in my view, carefully chosen for his unflinching belief in himself and supremely competitive nature. His culture became Barclay’s culture. A few years after he joined the bank in 1996 it became acceptable to make money out of clients rather than for clients. So when Lehmans went bankrupt in September 2008 he saw it as an opportuinity to make profit out of the crisis. He bought the firm for a knock down price. At the beginning of 2011 he told the Commons Treasury Select Committe that it was time banking got back to business as normal. It was not until the authorities completed their Libor investigations in June 2012 that things started to unravel. At the end of that month, in view of the activities exposed, the chairman of Barclays thought he should resign. But the balance of power had finally shifted. The following Monday evening Barclays were contacted by the Bank of England and told that Mr Diamond no longer held their confidence. He immediately resigned.
9th May 2013
I had a doctor’s appointment this morning. The 60’ish man sitting opposite me in the waiting room was, in my view, a Gang Member. When he was called in his name came up on the visual display on the wall. I took a note of it. However as it is also the name of a famous singer I do not necesaarily believe it to be authentic.
In May 2005 a science teacher with joint Guyanese-Dutch nationality was sentenced in a New York court, in his absence, to 15 years imprisonment for attemping to kidnap and murder a 22 year old woman there in 2004. He had absconded however whilst on bail and was rumoured to be living in Trinidad and Tobago. The Daily Mail says he moved here in 2010 living in Basildon with his wife and two young sons. Kent Police arrested him on Monday at an address in Chatham. Kent neighbours told the paper the family were just about to move back to America. The man will now be extradited back to the States. We are told the police were tipped off about his presence by a concerned member of the public. I think that is unlikely. Some media this morning refer to him as one of America’s most wanted men. He has been been described as a violent criminal. Armed officers arrested him. From all that it seems likely he is an important figure within American Organised Crime. He was employed in the same workplace as one of my sons.
Ariel Castro has had his first appearance in court where bail of $8 million has been fixed. That means practically it seems he will not be leaving prison before his trial. He has waived his right to remain silent when the police speak to him. He has been charged with kidnapp and rape of all three women. Surprisingly no charges have yet been brought against his two brothers. Obviously they were not involved in any sexual abuse but it seems a bit strange if they were not helping him over the years. You cannot keep four adults and a child captive in a building for ten years whilst holding down a job, all on your own. It seems the Castros are quite a large family, well known in the area.
The Today programme reported yesterday that about 2000 Kurdish PKK rebels have started leaving Turkey back to Iraq as part of the ceasfire arrangements and peace plans between them and Turkey. Full withdrawal might take up to four months.
Before 7am there was an interesting contribution on the broadcast by a gentleman from of the Adam Smith think tank. He said one item he would like to see in that day’s Queens Speech would be a provision that hard drugs should be medicalised; and soft drugs legalised. Addicts would then be able to get their supplies, and help, from professionally trained people. The great advantage of that of course is you squeeze the criminals out of the system.
I wrote about the debilitating effect of the 2010 ash cloud fiasco in chapter 7 of my book. Immediately after that on the progamme was a piece on the subject. Apparently two Icelandic volcanoes could erupt at any time. The Norwegian Institute for Air Research are working on a sensor for planes to carry so they can detect an ash cloud over 1000 kilometres ahead or six minutes flight away. That would allow avoiding action to be taken. Certification of eqipment however is a long process and might be two years away.
Sometimes the world is stranger than fiction. Amazingly enough there is an established condition known as sexsomnia, the ability for a man to have sex with a woman in his sleep without consciously being aware. Apparently it has been sucessfully used as a defence in at least one court case. That makes me feel a bit uncomfortable as surely there can be no way an act of sexsomnia can be proved or not. I also feel it a reason why courts might not be the best forums for dealing with allegations of rape, as I suggest in chapter 8 of my book.
Later on the broadcast concentrated on increasing testimony that male rape is deliberated carried out on anti-government activists by prison and police officers in Iran to humiliate and break men. That takes place apparently even though homosexuality is illegal in the country. As I pointed out in appendix 10/7 of my book the advantage in a Gang influenced world is that it leaves no physical scar which the men can refer to as evidence. Of course the same crime also occurs against women, apparently in about equal numbers. Systematic male rape in detention is also alleged for Sri Lanka.
When I wrote about the Cleveland sexual kidnappings on Tuesday I referred to the Joseph Fritzel case. However the transmission did a much more comprehensive job than I in additionally referring to the Natasha Kampusch enslavement also in Austria ending in 2006; the Belgic serial sexual kidnapper of girls Marc Dutroux, eventually sentenced in 2004 after being apprehended in 1996; and the American John Wayne Gacy who was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978. Neither should we think we are immune. I recall that after the breaking of the Amstetten case an English businessman was convicted in Sheffield in November 2008 of committing undetected incestuous rape against two of his daughters over a period of 25 years, resulting in seven surviving children.
Just before the 7am news on Today this morning appeared a lady from Manchester City Council talking on behalf of all the agencies involved about their Community Trigger trial. The trigger is activated when a certain number of residents in a locality conplain about a situation which has not previously been picked up by the professionals in the area. As I see it therefore it is a form of backstop in our social and policing system. She said they have dealt with 11 submissions in that category in addition to the 2500 instances they themselvs investigated last year under normal arrangements.
I wrote about pressures in hospitals in East Kent on 13th April 2013. This morning’s radio news reports that over the last few months pressures on Accident and Emergy Departments generally in the country have increased considerably. The Chairman of the Care Quality Commission has said that the trend is continuing at an unsustainable rate. He is obviously concerned that something needs to be done. It is not a time for putting your head in the sand.
The government have announced today that they wish to give 12 months support to all offenders leaving prison no matter how short their sentence. Except for the most serious crimes they wish that be be effected by the voluntary sector. However it sounds like a massive exercise which is bound to cost a lot, if only in administration. The trouble is no extra money is available for the scheme. Indeed the probation service is being slimmed down, possibly to pay for it, which is not pleasing them.
I see from yesterday’s FT that Russia and America are aiming to get a Syrian peace conference going by the end of the month. They want the starting point for the talks to be the Geneva communique of June 2012 saying that any future government should be a fusion of both sides.
I wrote about the eight man Brussels airport gem raid on 19th February 2013. Today’s FT reports 31 people have just been arrested in connection with it, one in France, six in Switzerland and 24 in Belgium. The Frence suspect apparently is one of the 8 at the airport.
10th May 2013
Moodys have today downgraded the debt of the Cooperative Bank to junk status. It seems that has happened because they took over Britannia Building Society in 2009 which had a lot of bad loans. Moodys feel the bank could need outside support if it’s financial position worsens. Robert Peston comments that banking is not a core business for the Coop Group and wonders whether it has ever been appropriate for it to be in it. Afterwards it was announced the bank’s chief executive had resigned.
Justin King was on the financial section of Today on Wednesday speaking to the good year-end results his company have just posted. He made a point of saying that Sainsbury’s bank is just about to buy out it’s 50% partner Lloyds Banking Group. I am not entirely sure myself that is a good idea.
Yesterday Prince Harry started a seven day tour of America. From the video clips it looks as though he was shown around the Congress building by Senator John McCain. He then went to the White House and joined a reception Michelle Obama was giving for some miltary wives and chilren. On his first day the Prince wished to promote the workings of the landmine Halo charity, a cause strongly supported by his Mum.
Tony Barber in last Saturday’s FT went through some of the extremist political parties currently on the up in Europe: from France’s National Front and Finland’s True Finns to the Five Star Movement in Italy and Hungary’s Jobbik. However they do tend to come and go. Italy’s anti-immigration Northern League saw it’s vote halve in February’s election.
On the next page is related the rise in importance of the unpiloted drone. Apparently it has massive commercial application with a global marker set to be worth $62 billion by 2020. Small drones are already used by estate agents and farmers. Future roles could be fighting fires, to assess storm damage and deliver human organs for transplant. Neither do the aircraft have to be small. The article cited current tests on a 18 seat aircraft piloted from a desk miles away. For the moment a reserve pilot is kept on board just in case something goes wrong.
We may think we’ve got trouble with horsemeat but the paper says in China criminal gangs are selling meat from rats, foxes and mink, passing it all off as mutton.
An optimistic article by Simon Kuper in last weekend’s FT Magazine on how nice it is to live in Europe. Even with our economic woes average incomes in Greece are still twice that of developing countries like Russia, Brazil and China. In comparison with how it could have been we have got through the last few years relatively unscathed. It was only in 1981 that shots were fired in the Spanish parliament. All in all we have a lot to be grateful for. We should step back sometimes and see the larger picture perhaps.
I also saw in that periodical that there is a Chinese proverb which says that happiness is having something to do, someone to love and something to hope for.
I go though the murder of Daniel Morgan, and later details, in chapter 6 of my book. Theresa May has today announced, 26 years after Daniel’s death, that there will be a Hillsborough-style inquiry into the whole sorry story led by a judge and independent panel of experts. Getting to that point it seems is almost entirely down to Daniel’s brother, Alastair, who was interviewed on Newsnight last night. He said the initial corrupt cover up to protect the murderer was bad enough but after that continual denial arose within the police convincing themselves such corruption could never have occurred. As the years went by the weight of immobilisation became so effective it made him feel, no doubt, completely impotent whilst seeing with greater and greater clarity how bad the whole situation was. For that reason, I am sure, he says police corruption today is as bad as it ever was. He now wants a forensic analysis of how it all worked, from start to finish. Hopefully that might show the true anatomy of the hidden beast.
11th May 2013
Another one of those stories which we are told has come about due to the actions of a concerned member of the public but which seems unlikely to me. The coincidence is how similar it is the pieces that must have been in place prior to the 9/11 attacks. If you are a dishonest pilot and strange things start happening in you airborne life you are not really in a position to say anything to anyone. A BBC webpage reports this morning that a former US Air Force Pilot living in Hampshire was arrested in February 2011 for forging fake papers when he got a job with a Libyan airline flying into Gatwick airport. He had raised the suspicions of another pilot on an internet forum. A week yesterday he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for the offence. However he did not turn up for that hearing and is on the run. Perhaps he thinks he will have a guardian angel watching over him.
On my theme of good gangs and bad gangs I would like to think that Mr Obama, Mr Putin and Mr Cameron have formed themselves into a good grouping. One though that specifically excludes their security and intelligence services. I have just watched a video clip on a BBC webpage of yesterday’s meeting in Sochi. Mr Putin looks tense and uncomfortable. I do not think that had got anything to do with Mr Cameron standing next to him though. Kind old Beeb also shows me a clip of them relaxing when visiting the site of next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi. Mr Cameron will fly to Washington on Monday to give Mr Obama feedback on the meeting.
At a court hearing yesterday Abu Qatada’s lawyer said, unexpectedly to all apparaently, that once the Jordanian parliament have ratified a UK law standard treaty, he will voluntarily go back to Jordan. When he heard the news David Cameron said that if it comes off he will be one of the happiest people in Britain.
I see that the two day G7 group of industrial nations meeting just finished was held at Hartwell House just outside Aylesbury. The UK, USA, Germany, Japan, Italy, France and Canada have all said they want meaningful action this year against international tax evasion and avoidance. They also want to put measures in place so that no bank can be too big to fail.
I think that will be connected to a HMRC announcement a couple of days ago that over a hundred of Britain’s wealthiest individuals have been discovered, employing some two hundred accountants and financial advisers, hiding billions of pounds in offshore tax havens. The BBC webpage says it has been a joint investigation with the US and Australia and funds have been found in such places as Singapore, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands. The authorities have not disclosed the souce of their information but I believe they began to pick up the details at the start of my main story in 2007 and 2008 as I relate in chapter 5 of my book.
I believe Save the Children to be a well connected charity. Today yesterday reported on their tie up with our largest drug manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, with the aim of saving a million young African lives. GSK will give Save the Children £15 million over the next few years, and supply at least two products at cost price for them to use in the project. Besides the humanitarion side, I imagine for a commercial company the advantage of such an initiative is to create goodwill in up and coming countries.
I remember that Jimmy Saville fronted a seat belt campaign in the 1970s with the slogan Clunk Click Every Trip. The Gang are a clever lot. They knew, in my view, that with respectability like not many people would stick their head above the parapet and openly challenge him. He lived in the West Yorkshire police area and yesterday morning they published a detailed report into their relationship with him. As always there was no corruption as such, they just looked the other way all the time. Apparently he had on duty police officers round to his flat every Friday for his coffee mornings. If you are doing things like that there is no way you can do your job properly. Indeed I suspect Jimmy soon picked up he was a bit of a pivileged individual. Apparently he even recorded in his autobiograhy that he had a young runaway lady stay at his flat once overnight before he handed her over to searching police. He did it because he knew he could. When he wrote it down in his book the Gang knew there was no need to tell him to remove it.
The radio news reported this morning that a paramedic who attended the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion has been arrested on suspicion of holding materials for the making of a pipebomb. It is alleged he gave the stuff to a friend about a week after the incident.
The same bulletin said that the world’s benchmark mountain site in Hawii has just registered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 400 parts per million. In 1960 it was about 315 parts and has gone up at a constant rate ever since. The worry is that when a critical level has been reached glabal warming will become irreversible.
Today interviewed an American jounalist this morning who has been told by sources that in 2004, soon after he kidnapped his third victim I think, Ariel Castro wrote a form of suicide note which has been found in the house. It records that he is a sexual predator, is sick and needs help. He is almost despairing that the girls were so easy to persaude to get into his vehicle. That however was nine years ago. Perhaps like Jimmy Saville he subsequently found that to keep his depravity hidden was remarkably easy. It was almost as if everyone wanted him to do it. The trouble with that sort of arrangemnt though is when a little person like him is no longer flavour of the month he gets found out.
One of my neighbours told me once that the Kray twins had close contacts with my village. As it was hearsay I didn’t put it in my book. From the newspaper review on this morning’s transmission I have been able to look into the High Court libel case currently taking place where 52 year old Mr David Hunt from Canning Town is suing the Sunday Times for writing in May 2010 that he is a crime lord so powerful that Scotland Yard have considered him too big to take on for two decades. He accepts that he visited Reggie Kray when he was ill in hospital once or twice. Yesterday’s Times said apparently that an underworld criminal conspiracy has existed in the Metroplitan Police providing protection for Mr Hunt. Three Met police officers have told the paper of the nuts and bolts of how that operation has worked.
12th May 2013
Rowan Williams was a guest on Good Morning Sunday on Radio 2 this morning. The record he picked was Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. He said you could look at it two ways. One message is the isolation of loneliness when the silence bears in on you. The other is you use the sounds of the song to help you move forward. He has just given his inaugural speech in the House of Lords as a Cambridge University theologian and Baron. It was on the goodness and solidarity of the Commonwealth.
Prince Harry has been to the opening of the American Warrior games in Colorado Springs for service personnel who have lost their limbs, and the like, in combat. He said he hoped we could host similar events. He may have been thinking of the limbs lost by some at the Boston Marathon.
In Pakistan’s general election yesterday the Muslim League got most votes but probably not enough to rule outright. That means their leader Nawaz Sharif will become their prime minister for the third time. He was last deposed by a military coup in 1999 and had to flee abroad. Imran Khan’s new grouping, the Movement of Justice, did well although not to the extent he hoped. Nevertheless Pakistan will now have a three party parliament to include the president’s Pakistan People’s Party who haf a poor showing.
There was a bomb outrage yesterday in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli used as a transit point by many Syrian refugees. At least 43 people died. Turkey says it suspects a Syrian intelligence agency to have been involved. The Turkish foreign minister has said he looks upon it as a diversionary tactic as Syrian peace efforts strengthen. He was speaking in Berlin where no doubt he has had talks with Angela Merkel.
A BBC webpage this morning gives publicity to the action group Worldwide Lyme Protest UK who wish to highlight the existence of the bacterial lyme disease, caused through being bitten by infected mites. They want doctors to have full knowledge of it so there can be better diagnosis. I read an FT Magazine article once, as referred to in the chapter 12 appendix of my book, that it is particularly prevalent in Connecticut.
The Sunday programme had a report from Newtown in New England this morning who lost 20 of their children in December. A lady was saying the community have pulled together well but unresolved fear still exists whichever side of the gun control argument you are on. Some are not yet ready to heal. She said she had a meltdown the other day with some demonstrators of the opposing view and her husband got flipped off by an old lady at a meeting. I hope the pressure gradually gets less for both of them.