May 2004

Our friend Richard Chichakli, Texan accountant and business identity, would surely agree that some of his customers have been other than controversial. After all, in his capacity as president of San Air General Trading he would surely have been delighted to see some US$925,000 in two months come into the company. The source of these…

Off to buy the newspapers this morning, I passed a huge red Chrysler Cruiser (the one that tries to look like a thirties gangster wagon) with – what? – a UK Independence Party poster plastered to the window. And a UKIP sticker in the rear windscreen. And another on the opposite side, and UKIP literature…

The Royal Geographical Society is going to open its archive to the public. And if you are a map freak like me, that’s very good news. Two million of them, in fact.

It is reported that agreement has been reached to terminate the US offensive in Najaf and to hand over security to a force drawn from local tribal militias. Moqtada al-Sadr’s army will, supposedly, evacuate the city and cease operations, though not necessarily disband. All very good, but why didn’t it all happen much earlier? Back…

Our favourite defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, surprised everyone recently when he announced a further deployment of British troops to Iraq. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise, because every media source in the kingdom has trailed the deployment of some 3,000 additional soldiers for weeks, and the idea of calling on Britain for more…

Another of those fuel contracts was signed with Air Bas Transportation, UAE. The only address given is a Sharjah PO box number (8299), and the billing details are the same. Oddly enough, the DODAAC contract is number TBTC02. The British Gulf one is TBTC03! Now, the best known Bout airline, Air Cess, was made to…

Due to very bad Blogger/Blogspot performance during an edit, much of the sidebar was lost this morning. It should now be working again, but progress has been very slow, not least due to the incredibly poor service from Blogger (did I mention that?) – dropping out during publish attempts 7 times out of 10, incredibly…

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The Centre for Public Integrity, some time ago now, ran this story: Link to saved copy “From 1979 to 1986, Chichakli lived most of the time in Saudi Arabia, first studying at Riyadh University, and later working for a variety of businesses. During his university days, he told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that…

An Austrian report suggests that the new members of the EU will see something like 4.2% GDP growth this year and 4.4% next, which implies a rapid catching-up process between them and the rich EU. (What of those migrant hordes now? If you’re reading this and you spotted a horde, can you make yourself known?…