2005

A few days ago, the Grauniad carried a report from Baghdad quoting a briefing given by the departing UK senior officer in Iraq, Lieutenant-General John Kiszely. Kiszely has the reputation of being a brain, and I was keen to see what he had to say. He argued that the insurgents were on the back foot…

Well, as if it hadn’t been trailed enough, Rover is now an ex-business. 6,000+ jobs are toast, Thatcher’s life mission to deindustrialise the UK is complete (you can die now, Maggie, it’s done!). I’d like to point up some things about this, some of which I’ve written about before. Basically, the first thing to remember…

Remember that Antonov 12 full of “fish” that crashed in al-Riyan, Yemen, flying for an airline that didn’t exist? I was pretty sure it was one of Viktor Bout’s, but I couldn’t be certain. Now, I am. The Aviation Safety Network reports that the aircraft involved was none other than UN-11007, serial no. 9346509 not…

Without going too deeply into the City Academies beloved of Tony Blair, what with their darling arrangements where any private interest who puts up 10% of the money gets 51% of the votes, and it has to be a private interest, not a group of parents nor a local council even if they have the…

There’s been a small upburst of unrelated mystery-jet stories in the last couple of days. For a start, there’s the strange case of an Antonov 28, a little light twin with 10 or 12 seats, that turned up in the DR Congo apparently with something called “Butembo Airlines” and fell out with the UN. It…

I’ve been informed that electronic tags may be a more robust system than I implied in my post on Mahmoud Abu Rideh, the terrorist who’s only dangerous at night. Apparently, there are indeed tags that use GSM methods to give constant coverage. I’m sorry if anyone got arrested following my advice. But, whatever tags are…

This post is going to hark back to one of the very first posts on the Ranter, back in Hutton-rocking June, 2003, so stand by. Back then I briefly noted a report by another blogger that a group calling itself the Minuteman Project was using a drone of sorts to look for suspected illegal immigrants…

I’m sure everyone in Britain has by now seen at least one of the Conservative Party’s exciting “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” hoardings. For my part, I only ever seem to see the immigration one, but obviously this is mere chance and not a sign that there are more of them than the others.…

….from the US Army’s Strategic Studies Institute. Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency. Off you go and read.

An Ilyushin-76TD belonging to suspected Boutco Jet Line International has crashed into Lake Victoria immediately after take-off from Mwanza. All 8 crew were killed. The aircraft was ER-IBR, serial number 43454623, belonging to Jet Line of Chisinau, but apparently operating as Airline Transport, another suspect outfit from Moldova. Unlike Aerocom and Jet Line, Airline Transport…