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…I became withdrawn. The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin’ on, like a bird that flew. Well, that’s enough Bob Dylan. The original advice issued by Lord Goldsmith on the legality or otherwise of an invasion of Iraq, the one issued before the infamous “page of A4”, the one…

Al-Jaz has got hold of a confidential forecast by some French investment bankers that suggests the oil price may reach $380 a barrel by 2015. Now, there seems to be something of a competition among bankers at the moment to see who can do the most terrifying Oil Price Deathwatch, what with the Goldman Sachs…

Why can’t they just play nicely? A maritime incident has occurred in the Aegean, where Greek and Turkish coastguard vessels confronted each other after a Greek fishing boat allegedly infringed Turkish territorial waters. At the same time, a Turkish general announced that certain confidence building measures might be suspended after a Turkish flag was defaced.…

Ye may recall my obituary on French crook Alfred Sirven, the former World’s Most Wanted Man and kingpin of the Elf-Aquitaine scandals. There’s an interesting report (French) in Le Figaro on a new development in one of the scandal’s many wings. Renaud van Ruymbeke, the judge who is still investigating the “frigates affair” section of…

Read this, and also this. It’s worth it. Then ask yourself why a Bulgarian helicopter full of mercenaries was clattering around with Fijian security guards aboard to guard the security of the security guards travelling in it. Then read this Washington Post story regarding life as a mercenary in Iraq, and enjoy the following stupidity…

John Robb says interesting things about Iraq, as does Steve Gilliard.

Some SAS men have been detected by local cops outside the PM’s residence, on a “Routine training exercise”. God knows what that was about.

This of people posing as hospital inspectors is deeply sick and Ballardlike.

Michael Howard, it seems, wants to say that his father came not from “refugee stock” but from “immigrant stock”. Let us leave the point that the very phrase suggests a genetic superiority of one over the other, and move on. As one says. Howard initiated the Great Asylum Cry back in the mid-90s when he…

Years ago, I asked why the aircraft belonging to the new Iraqi Airways were all registered under 9L-, that is, Sierra Leonean registration. Stranger yet, some of the well-travelled Boeing 737s involved had Sierra Leone registrations sequential with various VB ships. 9L-LEG, serial no. 22885, for example, had seen service at Trans Air Congo with…