October 2004

Human Rights Watch report on the men detained at “undisclosed locations” by the US intelligence services. (Thanks to Nick Barlow) [Unfounded Speculation]I have a little theory about this, which I won’t push too hard without corroboration. If you had to move prisoners around the world secretly, wouldn’t a couple of aircraft not belonging to the…

Answering heavy criticism of his speech to the effect that he walked around Brixton for two hours without seeing a policeman, Michael Howard yesterday penned an article in the Guardian ranting against what he calls “selective statistics”. He is angry about the British Crime Survey, the scheme created by the Thatcher government in 1981 which…

Reuters It seems that the looting of Iraqi nuclear facilities went as far as dismantling whole buildings. “Satellite imagery shows that entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the…

A curious tale reaches the Ranter from darkest Papua New Guinea, that nation the size of Germany but without roads and with betel nut, rugby league, over 700 mutually incomprehensible languages and a lot of pigs. It all started when a Cessna Citation business jet landed without telling anybody at the airstrip on Bougainville, home…

Robert Kilroy Silk is quoted by the Torygraph as giving his reasons for supporting foxhunting, thus: “When pressed, he declared himself against the death penalty, in favour of private health insurance (because he has it) and a supporter of hunting (because a vixen recently ate his 30 rare Vietnamese pheasants which were imported at great…

FT link One of those stories that never goes away. Yes, the US-EU trade dispute over both sides’ alleged subsidies for civil aircraft builders is back on. “In a dispute settlement case filed at the Geneva headquarters of the WTO, the US alleged that Airbus had received a total of at least $15bn in illegal…

If Michael Howard thinks two of his “10 words” for Tory campaigners should be “cleaner hospitals”, and that if they don’t fulfil their promises they will resign, doesn’t that imply a commitment to end the practice of contracting out cleaning services in the NHS and to reintegrate all NHS cleaners on the same T&Cs as…

An interesting question, brought up by the vote at the Labour Party conference last week. The conference delegates were faced with a choice between two motions – one demanding that a date be set for the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq, and one stating that British forces should “be withdrawn if the Iraqi government…

And here is the picture that places 9L-LEC in Baghdad on the 18th of January. (Note: the photographer requested that I obscure his name)

..rolls out at the US-run airport, with its Australian air traffic controllers and piles of junked Iraqi aircraft, high-security PX store and high-value detainee camp. The aircraft was an Ilyushin Il-76MD, serial number 83485313, registered S9-DAE and carrying the markings of an airline called Skylink. S9- is the international registration prefix for Sao Tome and…