2004

Le Monde reports extensively on the background of the Ivory Coast crisis. Interestingly, it seems that an embarrassing situation was narrowly avoided when the French occupied the Hotel Ivoire (the best in town, naturally) as their HQ and evacuee registration point. On the 21st floor, they discovered a telephone-tapping centre operated by some 46 Israeli…

Eric Umansky picks out a New York Times story concerning the performance or otherwise of the New Iraqi security forces. The key para: “Colonel Gubler said things had gotten so bad that when the Americans attacked Falluja, the Ramadi police were told not to come to work “just so we could differentiate them” from revenge-minded…

The Gaurdina covers the announcement that our Foreign Secretary was aware in January of the coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. This, of course, was the one that involved well-known mercenaries and Mark Thatcher. The Conservatives are now pushing hard on this on the grounds that this was “unlawful”. It may just be poor writing, but…

Kos reporting some interesting figures about the counts that are still going on in Ohio/

It’s about control. And we don’t have it. An oil pipeline from the northern Iraqi oilfields to the main refinery in Baiji was blown up, and what happened? “The secondary pipeline about 60km west of Kirkuk, which carries oil to refineries in the city of Baiji, was bombed at around 3am (0000 GMT) on Monday,…

The Sunday Times reports that two unmarked civil aircraft have allegedly been used by US agents to transfer prisoners to such countries as Egypt, Uzbekistan and Syria, allegedly in order for them to be interrogated under torture. Witnesses to transfers describe the prisoners being handcuffed, dressed in nappies and sedated by suppository before their departure.…

Back in early 2000, if you had barged into Tommy’s Bar at Royal Holloway, University of London, and demanded of me who had most impressed me in the last six months, I would have unhesitatingly told you that John Towers, the former production director of Rover Group who had just saved the Rover plant from…

Have just begun using Mozilla/Firefox! And have discovered that the Ranter looks weird in it! And that the clock doesn’t work! (Cue Mozilla users saying “Clock? There’s a clock?”) Just another reason to begin the long delayed Ranter Redesign…

In the wake of Yasser Arafat’s death, many well-informed voices have raised concerns that a damaging factional struggle might break out and possibly damage the peace process. On one side, a hard-line sect united in adulation of their leader and in their trust in force. On the other, the forces of an established bureaucracy hoping…

It now seems that, just as predicted, the insurgents have been slipping out of Fallujah. As predicted, they headed north towards Kurdistan….where the state of emergency doesn’t apply. And, as predicted, they created mayhem. The Guardian reports on the eruption of fighting in Mosul, where rebels have apparently gained control of the streets at least…