2005

Well, this is the end of the second week of my career. So far, we’ve had good moments, like interviewing chief executives at Claridges – and less good ones, like proof correcting articles on telephone billing systems. You will no doubt have noticed light blogging, which is hardly surprising given that my previous existence as…

The Washington Post picks up on gathering doubt about the claims of 80+ guerrillas killed in a fight near Samarra earlier this week. I previously blogged (briefly) on the droll fact that AFP was reporting that some 40 guerrillas were still hanging around the scene of the supposed firefight, and their leader denied any knowledge…

So said Homer Simpson. The Home Office sometimes seems to me like some crippled retainer or mangy hound, that the king whistles for and sees it keel over embarrassingly before reaching the throne. “Homeoffice!” “Here, sire..” “Urgh..not again!” This impression is in no way dispelled by reports of a succession of ridiculous acts displaying egregious…

The mighty Martin van Creveld has a sizeable essay in the Boston Review on Iraq by way of Moshe Dayan’s stint as a war correspondent in South Vietnam. (I personally didn’t know he’d been one, so there you go.) Dayan prepared meticulously for his assignment – being a world-famous hero tends to get you good…

In the continuing story of the vanishing AS-15/Kh55 cruise missiles, it emerges thanks to the Ukrainian investigation and a commenter to this site that one Oleg Orlov is implicated in the affair of the missing missiles. Orlov is mentioned in a seminal UNSC report by the team around Johan Perelmans on arms trafficking into West…

Yesterday, the Unidentified Gunmen attempted to kill Anatoly Chubais, former Russian cabinet minister and head of UES, the Russian electricity monopoly. Apparently there was an explosion by the roadside – funny how these things get around – followed by small arms. Chubais’s bodyguards shot it out with the attackers and he survived. It should never…

A little while ago I had some fairly harsh things to say about the French national library’s response to Google’s project to put major library collections on the internet (Google Print). I basically said that their objections were based on chauvinism, and asked why they were doing nothing constructive in placing their own collections in…

Via IT Week’s in-house blogger, I learn that Apple are going to introduce a mouse with two buttons. This is good news, I suppose, but I’m not going to jump for joy, because I’m currently experiencing my first extended use of the computer designed for graphic designers by graphic designers. And it’s like rolling in…

Why is it that only Soj and me seem that worried about the events in Pakistan, where it is reported that serious fighting is going on between the Pakistani army and Baluch rebels. Al-Jazeera is reporting that at least eight soldiers were killed (it isn’t clear whether that includes casualties suffered by the Frontier Corps…

A little while ago I blogged that an unusual arms deal had been exposed in the Ukraine – the sale of some eighteen Kh-55 (Russian terminology)/AS-15 KENT (Western) strategic cruise missiles to China and Iran by the Kuchma government, back at the time of the 1999 agreement on the handover of strategic air materiel to…