2004

The Sindy reports on our old friend, Jonathan/Kenneth/Jack Idema, the man who was arrested in Afghanistan for running his own jail. Idema, as previously blogged, claims to have been working for the US government. When apprehended, apart from the two men hanging by their ankles from the roof, he was surrounded by a weird entourage…

The Grauniad’s Jonathan Steele has produced a frankly silly article in yesterday’s paper in which he basically decides that the Ukrainian revolution is an evil CIA plot. Steele has already been roundly cursed by the blogosphere for this particularly dodgy argument: “Nor is there much evidence to imagine that, were he the incumbent president facing…

I’ve just realised that, in some kind of outburst of unremitting creativity, I’ve updated 10 times today. And when this post hits, that’ll make it 11. This means two things: a) someone should be paying me for this b)like the end of the Beatles’ Helter Skelter, I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!

On the draining-away of authority theme, a round-up via Der Standard (note-German speaking) of state organisations changing sides. Apparently at least 400 Foreign Ministry staff have signed a declaration to that effect. 6 generals are reported to have come out for the opposition, as well as a former minister of defence, 40 employees of the…

In Iraq, meanwhile, four ex-Gurkhas working for a security company (Global Risk Strategies) have been killed and 15 wounded in an attack inside the Green Zone’s perimeter. This doesn’t say much for the degree of coalition security right outside its headquarters, although reports suggest the men were killed by a volley of rockets fired from…

Right – as well as the Kievbloggers, there have been some new blogs linking to the Ranter recently. Fraternal greetings, Charlie’s Diary, Smidsy, London and the North, Howling Spoons.

It appears that negotiations have begun in the Ukraine under (heavy) EU/OSCE mediation. Probably a good thing, but as stated below, I think it’s of limited relevance. The only result of negotiations that would have decisive effect would be if the government agreed to resign or to a solution equivalent to their resignation (for example,…

Yesterday’s Guardian Online featured a column by Dave Birch which, astonishingly, advocated the integration of RFID chips into sheets of blank paper. Birch quoted a variety of consumer/convenience gains of a “one day we’ll get all nourishment in pill form” kind, suggesting that “If you couldn’t find your credit card bill, you would just wander…

The Guardian covers Tony Blair’s much-blogged “text conversation” set up by a mobile phone company. Just like most articles about this, it entirely misses an important point by sniggering about Blair’s familiarity or otherwise with technology. What I find more worrying is his evident lack of familiarity with his own policy. In the text of…

The right-wing Middle East Media Research Institute is trying to sue Juan Cole of Informed Comment for suggesting they were biased. Now, I was involved in a row at Fistful of Euros about the validity or otherwise of a MEMRI “Special Dispatch” containing a variety of rather wild and alarmist statements about Iran, so I…