The attorney general was under intense pressure tonight to order a wider series of police investigations into British complicity in torture after one of the world's leading human rights organisations said there was clear evidence of the UK government's involvement in the torture of its own citizens.

After an investigation spanning more than a year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) today condemned Britain's role in the torture of terror suspects detained in Pakistan as cruel, counter-productive and in clear breach of international law.

Critically, a report published today by HRW – entitled Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-treatment of Terror Suspects – draws upon corroborative evidence received from the Pakistani torturers themselves.

Researchers at the New York-based NGO spoke to Pakistani intelligence agents directly involved in the torture who say their British counterparts knew they were mistreating British terrorism suspects. These agents said British officials were "breathing down their necks for information" while they were torturing a medical student from London, and that British intelligence officers were "grateful" they were "using all means possible" to extract information from a man from Luton being beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill.

"UK complicity is clear," the report says, adding that it had put the government in a "legally, morally and politically invidious position".

The attorney general, Lady Scotland, has already asked Scotland Yard to investigate two alleged cases of British complicity in torture, one involving Binyam Mohamed, a British resident tortured in Pakistan and Morocco, and a second involving an unnamed MI6 officer and an alleged victim not identified.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said it was vital that Scotland be asked to examine all cases where there is credible evidence of British complicity. "We believe that any credible allegations of UK complicity in torture should be referred to the attorney general to establish whether police investigation is necessary," he said.

"The prime minister made a commitment to do just that. It is up to the government now to say what it will do in light of the allegations contained in the report."

The former shadow home secretary David Davis said the report was "astonishing", in that it "destroys the last remnants of any defence the government might have". He called on the government to hold an independent judicial inquiry.

HRW added to the growing number of calls for an inquiry into Britain's role in the torture. Among those issuing demands are parliament's joint committee on human rights, the Liberal Democrats, Amnesty International, and the former director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald. Lord Carlile, the government's independent reviewer of counterterrorism legislation, Lord Guthrie, a former chief of defence staff, and Lord King of Bridgwater, a former Conservative defence and Northern Ireland secretary, have also called for an inquiry.

HRW pointed out todaythat the government may have little choice but to investigate British complicity, not only because a failure to do so is threatening to undermine its core values, but because it is a requirement of international law.

"The convention against torture requires states to reinforce the prohibition against torture through legislative, administrative, judicial and other measures," the report says.

Privately the Conservatives are aware that they may inherit this problem if they win the next election.

Asked todaywhether the government's repeated insistence that it does not condone, encourage or solicit torture was any longer credible, a Foreign Office spokesperson replied with the prepared statement: "There is no truth in the more serious suggestion that it is our policy to collude in, solicit, or even directly participate in abuses of prisoners." Human Rights Watch had not suggested any direct British participation in torture.

The Guardian reported this year that an official government policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured, and that Tony Blair, when prime minister, was aware of the existence of this policy.

The Guardian has repeatedly asked Blair about any role he played in approving the policy, whether he knew that it led to people being tortured, whether he personally authorised interrogations that took place in Guantánamo and Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, and whether he made any effort to change the policy. Blair's spokesman responded by saying: "It is completely untrue that Mr Blair has ever authorised the use of torture. He is opposed to it in all circumstances. Neither has he ever been complicit in the use of torture."

When the Guardian pointed out to Blair that it had not suggested that he had authorised the use of torture – as opposed to asking him whether he had authorised a policy that led to people being tortured – and that his spokesman had not answered the questions that were asked, his spokesman replied: "Tony Blair does not condone torture, has never authorised it nor colluded in it. He continues to think our security services have done and continue to do a crucial and very good job."

• Damning report reveals complicity in torture
• The Guardian's torture investigations
• Torture and the UK: 2002-09
• Editorial: Complicity in torture

Scotland Yard believes it has uncovered enough evidence to bring criminal charges against four MPs and peers for allegedly abusing their expenses. Police announced they had sent files of evidence concerning four parliamentarians to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, will now oversee the decision on whether any MPs or peers should be charged, and for what alleged offences.

The offences being investigated – fraud and false accounting – carry sentences of up to 10 years on conviction.

Britain’s Digital Economy Bill: Bought and Paid For?

The shit is really hitting the fan in Britain with the introduction of the government’s new Digital Economy Bill. Just about everyone, except the people running the entertainment industry, is up in arms about the draconian restrictions and penalties that can be leveled against Internet users considered to be doing stuff that will now put you in the same category as serial killers.

All it requires for you and your entire family to be cut off from Internet access… For [fing] ever! Is to be accused of copyright infringement. Note: I said accused. The accuser i.e. music or film company, can make your life hell without evidence, or taking you to trial. You can also be fined $75,000 if you are accused of file sharing. ISP’s are required to spy on their customers in an effort to root out these “criminals.” Failure to do so can result in fines for the ISP of up $400,000.

...

Lord, Peter Mandelson, the Business Secretary, who has had to resign from office twice in the past few years for highly dubious activities, but always comes back… Just like herpes, will now be able to ask for any penalties (even jail) and enforcement mechanisms he sees fit. He has also said he will appoint private militias financed by the music and film industries to enforce these measures. [F] me, sounds like Blackwater in Iraq!

The really juicy bit is that Mandelson only got gung ho about all this Internet shit after spending time with zillionaire, David Geffen. It seems that they had a long chat over dinner with members of the Rothschild banking dynasty at the family’s holiday villa on the Greek island of Corfu.

British newspapers reported in August that: “Until the past week Mandelson had shown little personal interest in the Digital Britain agenda. Then suddenly Lord Mandelson returned from holiday and effectively issued this edict that the regulation needs to be tougher.” As usual, the mealy-mouthed politico (who has never actually been elected to office, usually being appointed by uber mealy-mouthed Tony Blair) denied that the Champaign and caviar, along with the TBE (Thick Brown Envelope) passed under the table had any influence on his sudden interest in the Internet.

Iraq report: Secret papers reveal blunders and concealment

The “appalling” errors that contributed to Britain’s failure in Iraq are disclosed in the most detailed and damning set of leaks to emerge on the conflict.

On the eve of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels.

They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.

The reports disclose that:

Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.

The need to conceal this from Parliament and all but “very small numbers” of officials “constrained” the planning process. The result was a “rushed”operation “lacking in coherence and resources” which caused “significant risk” to troops and “critical failure” in the post-war period.

Operations were so under-resourced that some troops went into action with only five bullets each. Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage. Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.

Commanders reported that the Army’s main radio system “tended to drop out at around noon each day because of the heat”. One described the supply chain as “absolutely appalling”, saying: “I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert.”

The Foreign Office unit to plan for postwar Iraq was set up only in late February, 2003, three weeks before the war started.

The plans “contained no detail once Baghdad had fallen”, causing a “notable loss of momentum” which was exploited by insurgents. Field commanders raged at Whitehall’s “appalling” and “horrifying” lack of support for reconstruction, with one top officer saying that the Government “missed a golden opportunity” to win Iraqi support. Another commander said: “It was not unlike 1750s colonialism where the military had to do everything ourselves.”

The documents emerge two days before public hearings begin in the Iraq Inquiry, the tribunal appointed under Sir John Chilcot, a former Whitehall civil servant, to “identify lessons that can be learnt from the Iraq conflict”.

Senior military officers and relatives of the dead have warned Sir John against a “whitewash”.

It says that coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation, which turned out to be “the defining stage of the campaign”. It condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians.

The leaked documents bring into question statements that Mr Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion. On July 16 2002, amid growing media speculation about Britain’s future role in Iraq, Mr Blair was asked: “Are we then preparing for possible military action in Iraq?” He replied: “No.”

Introducing the now notorious dossier on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, on Sept 24, 2002, Mr Blair told MPs: “In respect of any military options, we are not at the stage of deciding those options but, of course, it is important — should we get to that point — that we have the fullest possible discussion of those options.”

In fact, according to the documents, “formation-level planning for a [British] deployment [to Iraq] took place from February 2002”.

The documents also quote Maj Gen Graeme Lamb, the director of special forces during the Iraq war, as saying: “I had been working the war up since early 2002.”

The leaked material also includes sheaves of classified verbatim transcripts of one-to-one interviews with commanders recently returned from Iraq – many critical of the Whitehall failings that were becoming clear. At least four commanders use the same word – “appalling” – to describe the performance of the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.

Documents describe the “inability to restore security early during the occupation” as the “critical failure” of the deployment and attack the “absence of UK political direction” after the war ended.

One quotes a senior British officer as saying: “The UK Government, which spent millions of pounds on resourcing the security line of operations, spent virtually none on the economic one, on which security depended.”

Many of the documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph deal with key questions for Sir John Chilcot and his committee, such as whether planning was adequate, troops properly equipped and the occupation mishandled, and will almost certainly be seen by the inquiry.

However, it is not clear whether they will be published by it.

The Foreign Office has repeatedly claimed that the disclosure of seven paragraphs relating to the mistreatment of former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan in 2002 would harm the public interest.

However Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones, in their sixth ruling on the case, rejected the Foreign Secretary's Public Interest Immunity request in respect of the redacted material.

The judges reiterated that "what is contained in those seven redacted paragraphs gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

They also stated categorically that "there is nothing secret or of an intelligence nature in the seven paragraphs."

The Foreign Office had argued that disclosure of intelligence material shared between intelligence agencies must always remain secret.

This too was dismissed by the judges. They stated: "Of itself the treatment to which BM (Mr Mohamed) was subjected could never properly be described in a democracy as 'a secret'."

The sixth judgement reinstated two paragraphs purged from the fifth judgement which relate to CIA memos published by the US government earlier this year.

The first reads: "One of these memoranda, dated August 1, 2002, from Mr J S Bybee, assistant attorney general, to Mr John Rizzo, acting general counsel for the CIA, made clear that the techniques described were employed against Mr Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of Al-Qaida."

Although specific details of the treatment of Mr Mohamed remain suppressed pending appeal, this memo is in the public domain and gives an insight into the ordeal Mr Mohamed may have suffered.

It refers to torture techniques proposed for use on Mr Zubaydah, which the judges acknowledge are "akin" to those suffered by Mr Mohamed.

The memo states that 10 techniques could be used "in some combination to convince Zubaydah that the only way he can influence his surrounding environment is through co-operation."

The Foreign Office has been granted leave to appeal the decision, saying "the issues at stake go to the heart of the UK's intelligence sharing relationship with other counties and our efforts to defend UK security."

But executive director of Reprieve Clare Algar, dismissed the claims.

"The government's obsession with secrecy is starting to feel like a hall of mirrors. Nobody believes that disclosure will upset the US when the very same information has already been disclosed by the Obama administration."

Torture Techniques

1. Attention grasp
2. Walling
3. Facial hold
4. Facial slap (insult slap)
5. Cramped confinement
6. Wall standing
7. Stress positions
8. Sleep deprivation
9. Insects placed in a confinement box
10. The waterboard

Key points:

At the time I pubklished my blog post, they had NOT filed their accounts

They filed their accounts six days AFTER I blogged that they had not filed them

At the time I blogged, their accounts were overdue and they did not have an extension – they applied for the extension THE DAY AFTER my blog that they had not filed their accounts – six days later they filed accounts

I have not at any stage accused the directors of stealing money. I have said that too much money goes into rewarding the Directors. Perfectly fair comment on a taxpayer funded organization – and a comment made by hundreds of others, repeatedly (google the Quilliam Foundation)

This is legal bullying. Having failed to intimidate me, they are trying to intimidate you

My own view is that, unless bloggers are prepared to stand up to this kind of intimidation, the internet is in deep trouble. The bad news is that English law claims the right to prosecute anyone anywhere in the world for posting to the internet as it can be read in England. This is a disgrace, and several US states have passed or are passing laws to protect their citizens from it. It is not impossible they would get your arse into an English court if they really wanted to make themselves infamous.

I am refusing to back down because I am quite confident that they are bluffing, and if they did go to court they would lose. I have in my five years of blogging received about sixty letters like the one you just got, and nobody has ever taken me to court, let alone won. It is called “chilling” – people are so terrified of UK libel law they usually back down when they get such a letter.

I cannot pretend it is one hundred per cent risk free to call their bluff. But if we give in the first time a wealthy institution pays a lawyer 500 dollars to write a letter, what is the purpose of our internet activity?

Craig

Despite wielding great influence among the highest realms of British politics and media, little is known about the individuals and groups which collectively are known as the pro-Israel lobby.

Political commentator Peter Oborne sets out to establish who they are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying.

He investigates how accountable, transparent and open to scrutiny the lobby is, particularly in regard to its funding and financial support of MPs.

The pro-Israel lobby aims to shape the debate about Britain's relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it.

Oborne examines how the lobby operates from within parliament and the tactics it employs behind the scenes when engaging with print and broadcast media.

Guardian source

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys

letters = {
	'a' : 1,	'A' : 1,
	'b' : 3,	'B' : 3,
	'c' : 3,	'C' : 3,
	'd' : 2,	'D' : 2,
	'e' : 1,	'E' : 1,
	'f' : 4,	'F' : 4,
	'g' : 2,	'G' : 2,
	'h' : 4,	'H' : 4,
	'i' : 1,	'I' : 1,
	'j' : 8,	'J' : 8,
	'k' : 5,	'K' : 5,
	'l' : 1,	'L' : 1,
	'm' : 3,	'M' : 3,
	'n' : 1,	'N' : 1,
	'o' : 1,	'O' : 1,
	'p' : 3,	'P' : 3,
	'q' : 10,	'Q' : 10,
	'r' : 1,	'R' : 1,
	's' : 1,	'S' : 1,
	't' : 1,	'T' : 1,
	'u' : 1,	'U' : 1,
	'v' : 4,	'V' : 4,
	'w' : 4,	'W' : 4,
	'x' : 8,	'X' : 8,
	'y' : 4,	'Y' : 4,
	'z' : 10,	'Z' : 10
	}

while 1:
    word = sys.stdin.readline()
        val = 0
	for i in word:
	    if i in letters:
	        val = val + letters[i]
	    else:	
		pass
    print "value is ", val

The way the Government has gone about legislating for secret inquests demonstrates three of its most unappealing traits. It is contemptuous of tradition – the office of coroner dates back to the Conquest, and this change undermines a basic tenet of their work, which is that inquests should be held in public. It is motivated by an obsession with secrecy. And it conducts itself in a devious manner.

The original proposal would have allowed the most contentious (and politically embarrassing) inquests to be held in private, with both the public and the bereaved excluded. Following cross-party protests, the Government beat a retreat – only to revive the plan as a clause buried away in the Coroners and Justice Bill, which cleared the Commons yesterday. The clause empowers the Lord Chancellor to replace "sensitive" public inquests with closed-door "inquiries", held under the terms of the 2005 Inquiries Act.

Jack Straw, the Lord Chancellor, has insisted that this will apply only to a "tiny number" of cases where sensitive evidence could harm national security. But this Government's track record makes it impossible to have any confidence in his undertaking. Quite the opposite. The Bill provides a convenient mechanism to cover up any inquest that may reveal negligence or wrongdoing, for example by the police or Ministry of Defence. Would the inquest into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes have been held in public if this provision was in place? We very much doubt it.

Shami Chakrabati, the director of the pressure group Liberty, has rightly observed that "the British public has no taste for secret justice, particularly when the rights of grieving families are at stake". Regrettably, the Government has. This grossly illiberal measure is not about the protection of national security; it is about sparing the executive's blushes.

Injustice Minister Jack Straw finally achieves "get away with murder" secret inquests IRAN - THE WAR DANCE Re: Lockerbie New Labour are Zionist NeoCon scum Evil Fascist shit Jack Straw ORIGINAL DOWNING ST SMEARS VICTIM RETURNS TO HAUNT NEW LABOUR Craig Murray: FCO Finally Admits To Receiving Intelligence From Torture New Labour try to get away with murder again, again and again UK: Jack Straw blocks release of cabinet minutes on Iraq Previous content: 777 Fascist UK government trying to get away with murder again Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog

Bank predicts tough 2010 before improvement in 2011

Presenting the Bank's quarterly Inflation Report, the Governor, Mervyn King, was at pains to stress that, while the economy might soon return to modest growth, that was not necessarily a cause for "bunting and celebration".

The fall in GDP of about 6 per cent had been severe and the "prolonged period of balance-sheet adjustment" now beginning would hold back growth, Mr King said, adding that output was "unlikely, at least for a considerable period, to return to a level consistent with a continuation of its pre-crisis trend".

The economy, he said, had "only just started on the road to recovery" and the Bank believed that inflation was "on balance more likely to be below the target than above it for most of the forecast period, though by the end the risks are broadly balanced".

The report was issued as the Office for National Statistics announced an apparent stabilisation in the jobs market, with an official 30,000 rise in the unemployment figures for September, to 2.461 million. On the most up-to-date reading of the figures, the number of people out of work has actually fallen by a few thousands since July.

Inflation is likely to rise towards 3 per cent next year as VAT returns to 17.5 per cent and higher commodity prices feed through, before price increases again subside to 1 per cent.

Mr King promised that the Bank would "see through" such volatility – a sentiment welcomed by David Kern, the chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, who said: "It is important that legitimate worries over medium-term inflation risks do not become the trigger for an unduly early withdrawal of the quantitative easing programme. The risk of a double-dip recession remains serious."

Independent continues

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has just announced the world’s biggest bailout for a single bank in a bid to rescue the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

One year after an initial bailout, the government is to put an additional £25.5 billion into RBS, in which it already has a 74 percent stake. In addition it has set aside a further £8 billion in case the bank runs into further trouble, as is widely expected. While RBS insists it will only use this £8 billion in a dire emergency, the annual fee for this sum indicates a high probability of failure.

In order to maintain the fiction that this is still a private and not a publicly owned bank, the government’s additional equity stake, equivalent to a further 12 percent stake, will not have voting rights, allowing RBS to retain its listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Despite the bailout, there is to be no attempt to control the bank’s activities. It will be business as usual as far as proprietary trading is concerned—trading in risky financial instruments. While the government has announced a cap on cash bonuses for top banking executives, this is only a deferment for three years and still leaves numerous ways of circumventing the cap.

The Treasury will also underwrite £282 billion of its toxic assets, less than the £325 billion RBS had applied for in February. This is in return for the bank agreeing to accept a larger proportion of the costs should it prove unable to recover the book value of its assets.

Darling even presented this as a gain for the taxpayer at RBS’ expense. He said, “The likely risks [to] the public finances have been reduced”. This is a barefaced lie and all the financial institutions and commentators know it. The British Treasury stands four square behind RBS and will have to pick up the tab when these toxic assets turn out to be worthless.

Furthermore, no one knows exactly which assets are being underwritten by the government and whether this is indeed a realistic appraisal of RBS’ assets. Nor is it known who will control the loans covered by the Asset Protection Scheme. In the short term, this subterfuge allows the government to reduce its own contingent liabilities in a bid to preserve its AAA rating with the credit ratings agencies.

Darling also said that he would no longer prevent RBS from carrying forward last year’s losses and any future losses to offset its future tax liabilities. This amounts to a further £10 billion subvention to the bank at taxpayers’ expense.

The total cost of the RBS bailout has now reached £53.5 billion and far surpasses all previous banking bailouts anywhere in the world. It dwarfs the $45 billion (£27.4 billion) state handout to Citigroup in the United States.

Supposedly in the interest of promoting competition in the banking sector, something that the Labour government has worked assiduously to reduce over the last 12 years, Darling announced that RBS would have to sell off some of its high street branches currently branded as RBS, its insurance subsidiaries such as Direct Line, Churchill and Green Flag, RBS Sempra, its commodity trading arm, and its global payments division. In other words, the profitable parts of the bank are to be hived off leaving the government holding the rump.

The Treasury will also give a further £5.7 billion to the Lloyds Banking Group, which now includes the failed Halifax/Bank of Scotland (HBOS). However, the form of the payment means that the value of the government’s stake in Lloyds will remain at 43 percent. This capital injection means that Lloyds will withdraw entirely from the government’s toxic asset protection scheme. This sleight of hand reduces Lloyds’ costs, while rendering the taxpayers’ implicit liabilities invisible and off balance sheet.

In addition, Lloyds will be required to sell 600 of its branches, the Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society, its TSB brand, and more than 3.5 million customer accounts.

Lloyds is to raise a further £13.5 billion in a rights issue, generating a record fee of £350 million for its underwriters and lawyers. That this is possible is due entirely to the Bank of England’s quantitative easing scheme, whereby printing hundreds of billions of pounds has served to prop up the value of property prices and some of Lloyds/HBOS’ assets.

The way that Darling introduced these measures is instructive. Posing as some kind of bank regulator, he sought to present this plundering of taxpayers’ money as not only a net saving but also a major government initiative to increase competition. All of this is a complete fiction.

Within a couple of days of Darling’s announcement that the banks were to be required to sell off some of their braches and subsidiaries, it emerged that the European Commission had insisted on the divestment as a condition for receiving State Aid. Without the break-up, the rescue would have been illegal. It was forced upon an unwilling government that had fiercely resisted all calls to break up the banks.

And while 10 percent of the banks’ personal accounts or 7 percent of branches are scheduled to be sold, none of this compensates for the wave of mergers and takeovers in the sector in the last few years. Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself personally sanctioned Lloyds’ takeover of HBOS, even though it breached competition rules.

More importantly, given the current market conditions and the banks’ previous inability to sell their subsidiaries in the run up to their collapse last year, it can only mean a fire sale of the banks’ best assets. As such, it constitutes yet another subvention to the financial oligarchy.

Finance union Unite has warned that 25,000 branch jobs are at risk. RBS said that the future of 6,000 of its staff is in doubt has announced that at least 3,700 jobs will go in the next two years. HSBC has announced 1,700 job losses in its second round of the restructuring of its 50,000 UK workforce

In all, the government will pour a staggering £39.2 billion into the two banks, although the real cost when the tax concession is taken into account is at least £50 billion. It follows so-called “stress testing” by the financial regulators that found RBS to be in a dreadful state. The scale of this latest rescue outstrips the £37 billion bailout to “stabilise” the banks in October last year and demonstrates that Britain’s financial crisis is far from over.

This latest sum is truly colossal. To put it in perspective: it is far larger than the government’s entire spend of £34 billion on nursery, primary and secondary schools in 2007-08. It is equivalent to £2,000 for every family in the land.

Furthermore, in so far as none of the commentators have any expectation that this will lead to more lending to business or households, the entire sum will go on keeping the banks afloat. It is the clearest indication yet that the banks are as good as dead. Essentially in a vegetative state, that they exist at all is solely a result of the government’s life support system.

In rescuing the banks again and pledging working people’s livelihoods for years to come, the government has demonstrated that the Treasury’s coffers are nothing more than the financial oligarchy’s personal piggy bank.

The implications of the financial crisis, of which this latest bailout is but a part, are spelt out in the latest report from the International Monetary Fund. It puts Britain’s structural deficit at 6.8 percent of GDP. With interest rates certain to rise above their currently unprecedented low rates, it singled out Britain as being particularly vulnerable. As it is, debt service charges on government debt will eat up at least twice as much of tax revenues as before the crisis.

The IMF forecast that the increase in interest charges would be equal to the transport budget. While the government has not published its estimate of the annual cost of debt servicing, it has said that debt servicing charges in 2013-14 will be a massive £58 billion. When interest rates rise, the charge will be even higher, underlining the very real concerns about Britain’s creditworthiness and even solvency.

The IMF said it would take spending cuts and tax rises equal to about 8 percent of GDP to bring down the debt to GDP ratio to the 60 percent ratio that has been the average in the G20 nations as a whole. This translates into a massive 20 percent cut in government spending.

wsws source

The Labour Party is "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich"

Rich List reveals wealthy reap profits under Labour

by Richard Woods

The richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple under Labour, according to The Sunday Times Rich List published today. Even under Gordon Brown’s brief premiership their fortunes have soared by 15%, just as the financial squeeze and faltering house prices have hit ordinary people.

The collective wealth of the 1,000 richest has jumped to £412 billion, up from £99 billion in 1997. Total net wealth during the same period has slightly more than doubled.

“The 11 years of Labour have been absolutely fantastic for the super-rich,” said Philip Beresford, compiler of the list. “Having a friendly Labour government has almost been better than having a Tory one; it has neutered politicians on the left.”

The wealthiest man in Britain is the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal whose fortune has rocketed to £27.7 billion, up from £19.25 billion last year, thanks to strong global demand for steel. Mittal is now the sixth richest person in the world and far ahead of any other billionaire in Britain.

He is followed by Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of Chelsea football club, on £11.7 billion, and the Duke of Westminster on £7 billion.

The list, which includes people born or based in the UK, reveals that the native British are being overtaken by foreign billionaires. Only six of the top 20 were born in Britain.

They include Sir Philip and Lady Green, worth £4.3 billion; Earl Cadogan and family, worth £2.9 billion; Joe Lewis, the financial trader, worth £2.8 billion; and Sir Richard Branson, whose wealth has fallen by £400m to £2.7 billion.

By contrast, foreign billionaires are making London one of the global capitals for a mobile “superclass”. The highest new entry on the list is Alisher Usmanov, a tycoon with interests in mining, steel, media and banking; he is a close ally of Valdimir Putin, the former Russian president. Usmanov, worth £5.7 billion, is now the largest shareholder in Arsenal football club.

Also a new entry is Leonard Blavatnik, a Russian who made his fortune in oil. He has a £41m home in London and ranks 11th on the list at £3.9 billion. Another arrival from the former Soviet Union is Vladimir Kim, who heads the London-based mining company Kazakhmys. Kim is worth £2.9 billion.

In 1991, following the apparently successful Swedish example and wishing to create an environment where new rail operators could enter the market, the European Union issued EU Directive 91/440. This required of all EU member states to separate 'the management of railway operation and infrastructure from the provision of railway transport services, separation of accounts being compulsory and organisational or institutional separation being optional', the idea being that the track operator would charge the train operator a transparent fee to run its trains over the network, and anyone else could also run trains under the same conditions (open access). Directive 91/440 requires the 'liberalisation' of railways within the EU and for them to operate in a 'competitive market'(see http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/closed/eurailpassengers/). The Directive provided the British government with a blueprint for the wholesale privatisation of the railway industry. As of 2004, Ireland and Greece have yet to comply with Directive 91/440 and its successor. Ironically, the United Kingdom has not fully complied with the directive, as no moves towards compliance were made to the state-owned Northern Ireland Railways, which has always been separate from British Rail.

In Britain, Margaret Thatcher was replaced by John Major as leader of the Conservative Party at the end of 1990. The Thatcher administration had already sold off nearly all the former state-owned industries, apart from the national rail network. Although the previous Transport Secretary and arch-Thatcherite Cecil Parkinson had advocated some form of privately or semi-privately operated rail network, this was deemed 'a privatisation too far' by Thatcher herself. In its manifesto for the 1992 General Election the Conservatives included a commitment to privatise the railways, but were not specific about how this objective was to be achieved.They unexpectedly won the election on 9 April 1992 and consequently had to develop a plan to carry out the privatisation before the Railways Bill was published the next year. The management of British Rail strongly advocated privatisation as one entity, a British Rail plc in effect; Prime Minister John Major favoured the resurrection of something like the old "Big Four" geographical railway companies that had existed before 1948; however, the Treasury, under the influence of the Adam Smith Institute think tank advocated the creation of seven, later 25, passenger railway franchises as a way of maximising revenue. In this instance it was the Treasury view that prevailed.

The Railways Bill, published in 1993, established a complex structure for the rail industry. British Rail was to be broken up into over 100 separate companies, with most relationships between the successor companies established by contracts, some through regulatory mechanisms (such as the industry-wide network code and the multi-bilateral star model performance regime). Contracts for the use of railway facilities - track, stations and light maintenance depots - must be approved or directed by the Office of Rail Regulation, although some facilities are exempt from this requirement. Contracts between the principal passenger train operators and the state are called franchise agreements, and were first established with the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF), then its successor the Strategic Rail Authority and now with the Secretary of State for Transport.

The passage of the Railways Bill was controversial. The public was unconvinced of the virtues of rail privatisation and there was much lobbying against the Bill. The Labour Party was implacably opposed to it and promised to renationalise the railways when they got back into office as and when resources allowed. The Conservative chairman of the House of Commons Transport Committee, Robert Adley famously described the Bill as "a poll tax on wheels"; however Adley was known to be a rail enthusiast and his advice was discounted. Adley died suddenly before the Bill completed its passage through Parliament.

...

The New Labour government (elected in 1997 once almost all of the privatisation process had been completed) did not fulfil its earlier commitment to keep the railways in the public sector. Instead, it left the new structure in place, even completing the privatisation process with the last remaining sales. Its one innovation in the early years was the creation of the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), initially in shadow form until the Transport Act 2000 was brought into force on 1 February 2001 and the SRA assumed its full legal powers.

...

In 2004, the Labour Party Conference voted by 2 to 1 in favour of a TSSA motion calling on the government to take the TOCs back into public ownership as franchises expired. The policy was however immediately ruled out by the then Transport Secretary Alastair Darling.

DEEP DT's PAGES

The new diary (early '99)

You've arrived here by self-selection so I'd better give you some proper reality cracking. Remember that your comments are welcome even, and perhaps particularly, if you disagree. I am actually quite honoured that you have decided to peruse this 'bottom ten thousand' site in preference to all the other distractions that the World offers.

I am not a politician. I am a Socialist. Call the pot black. He reads. He is a witch, a politician, a devil in disguise. Burn the witch. Burn the witch. Burn the witch.

You may disagree at any stage. The world is mostly organised under the economic system known as Capitalism. Capitalism is concerned, above all else, with the accumulation of private and corporate wealth. Capitalism is counter-democratic - individuals have never been asked nor given their consent to this system of economic and social organisation AND economically powerful organisations are powerful politically. Cap is above such matters. You cannot be credible or real in opposition to such a situation. It is above question the natural and god-given state. You cannot discuss cap. You cannot criticise cap. It is Natural. It is Real. It is Good.

I've been doing some web-based research for a friend's essay on post war British politics. These stats are for the U.K. and are shamelessly cut and pasted from www.jrf.org.uk. There are hundreds of sources available on the net. You don't have to be a politician to read these stats and they already know, it is their business.

• Average incomes grew by about 40 per cent between 1979 and 1994/95. For the richest tenth of the population growth was 60-68 per cent. For the poorest tenth it was only 10 per cent (before housing costs) or a fall of 8 per cent (after them).
• Income inequality was still greater in the mid-1990s than at any time in the forty years from the late 1940s. The exceptional rate of inequality growth took the UK near to the top of the international range by 1991.
• The number living on low incomes relative to the average is far higher than 20 years ago, with the numbers in households with below half average income rising from 4 million in 1982 to more than 11 million in 1992. Although the number fell in the mid-1990s, 1996/97 again showed a significant increase of over 9 per cent to 10.5 million individuals.

Prejudgice and arrogance stop learning. The politician is not concerned with truth, justice, reality or any such notions - he is concerned with maintaining his social standing, his ego, (uh-oh Freudian term) maintaining the adoration that feeds his megalomania. He does not realise that you cannot learn what you already believe to know and you cannot know what you have not learned. He does not even attempt to know or understand. To do so would recognise a failing, a flaw, that compromises the arrogance that is demanded. His social standing is important above all else. He will sell his grandmother and rationalise it and sleep well and rubbish his opponents in the process. He is not concerned with learning or knowing because he has an unshakable conviction in his own omnipotence and perfection.

Should we accept and adore and debase ourselves to this model - that there are Gods amoung us?

Well, it's quite simple. By incarcerating Le Pen in a ghetto, it is in fact the democratic left which becomes incarcerated and which affirms itself as a discriminatory power. It becomes exiled within its own obsession and automatically grants a privilege of justice to what it demonizes. And, of course, Le Pen never misses an opportunity to claim republican legality and fairness on his behalf. But it is above all on the imaginary but very pregnant figure of the rebel and persecuted soul that he establishes his prestige. Thus, he can enjoy the consequences of both legality and illegality. A victim of ostracism, Le Pen has an incredible freedom of language and can deploy an unmatched arrogance of judgement.

LINX
Baudrillard's Global Debt and Parallel Universe. Arthur and Marilouise Kroker's paper Yahoo! Capitalism .
The Ctheory site. Here's fravia+ 's reality cracking section, Tricky Mickey's, L.A.-Online and Plato's Republic.

• Festival of the god Pan in Ancient Greece
• Festival of Faunus in Ancient Rome

Chief constables will be forced to justify the legality of recording thousands of law-abiding protesters on secret nationwide databases, the government's privacy watchdog announced today.

Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, said he had "genuine concerns about the ever increasing amount" of personal data held by police.

Graham's move came after the Guardian revealed how police have developed a covert apparatus to monitor people they consider are, or could be, "domestic extremists", a term which has no legal basis.

Photographs and personal details of thousands of activists who attend demonstrations, rallies and political meetings are being stored on the databases. Surveillance officers are given so-called "spotter cards" to identify individuals who may "instigate offences or disorder" at demonstrations.

Alan Johnson, the home secretary, was today forced to defend the police for labelling protesters "domestic extremists". He said: "I haven't issued any guidance [to police] on the definition of that phrase. The police know what they are doing, they know how to tackle these demonstrations, they do it very effectively."

There were "far fewer" cases of animal rights extremism than in previous years, he said. "That's just one form of domestic extremism. If the police want to use that as a term, I certainly wouldn't fall to the floor clutching my box of Kleenex. [Eh? Have we got yet another insane Home Secretary?]

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, said that "an alphabet soup of agencies appears to have decided to put everyone in this country who protests about anything on a list of suspects".

"This is an example of mission creep, they have gone beyond their original intention of dealing with violent animal extremists"

Three units given the task of monitoring "domestic extremists" are run by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), including the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), which operates as a giant database of political activists.

David Smith, the deputy information commissioner, said: "We will raise this issue with Acpo and seek further information from them about the personal information the police are collecting.

"We do have genuine concerns about the ever increasing amounts of information that law enforcement bodies are retaining. Organisations must only collect people's personal information for a proper purpose. We will need to talk to Acpo to understand why they consider it is necessary to hold lawful protesters' details in this way, before considering whether this meets the terms of the Data Protection Act."

He also urged demonstrators who suspected they might be on a database to challenge the police. "Individuals have the right to request information that is held about them and can challenge organisations about whether, and for how long, the data should be retained."

One activist, Linda Catt, who has been told that footage of her protesting at last year's Labour party conference is being held on the NPOIU database, said she would lodge a complaint with the information commissioner about why her details are being held. Catt also discovered her vehicle was being tracked by a network of automatic number plate reading cameras at the roadside.

The development comes amid growing concern that police forces are accumulating detailed information about peaceful protesters without proper justification. The NPOIU database can access information collected and stored by individual police forces.

However, there is evidence that police forces supplying the data are not holding the information lawfully. In May, the court of appeal found against the Metropolitan police in a landmark ruling over the retention of photographs on a database run by its public order unit, CO11.

The court found the force had been unlawfully holding images of Andrew Wood, an anti-arms trade campaigner who was photographed leaving a public meeting. One judge said there were unresolved civil liberties questions about the way images were taken and retained in "the modern surveillance society".

The C011 database, which initially contained 2,500 images, has been reduced to around 1,500 images after an internal audit found that 40% of the those being held were not compliant with the ruling.

Speaking to the Guardian, the Met's assistant commissioner, Chris Allison, who is in overall charge of C011, admitted today that the Met had been forced to review its IT systems.

"The judgment made plain, and clarified for the police service, the circumstances under which we could retain images. It set down a clear set of standards for us, and as an organisation it is important that we live by those standards. Then we looked at what we could and couldn't do in light of that database."

He stressed the public order database was not – unlike another Met IT system used to log the movements of protesters named Crimint – accessed by rank and file officers. "The C011 database is just there to enable a few people within the public order branch intelligence squad to have access. This isn't routine access across the organisation."

A spokesman for the Acpo domestic extremism units said people on the database "should not be worried".

"There are lots of reasons why people might be on the database," he said. "Not everyone on there is a criminal and not everyone on there is a domestic extremist but we have got to build up a picture of what is happening. Those people may be able to help us in the future. It's an intelligence database, not an evidence database."

"Protesting is not a criminal offence but there is occasionally a line that is crossed when people commit offences."

Police forces around the country feed information about protesters into the NPOIU central database in London. Most of it comes from special branch and officers who record what people do and say at protests.

In an interview with the Guardian, Anton Setchell, the National co-ordinator of the Acpo units, gave a hypothetical example: "At such and such a time, I was on duty in whatever high street, there was this event taking place, and in amongst it I saw a man who I've known for the last three years called... He was wearing a blue shirt and at 3.05pm he stood on a podium and got a megaphone and gave a 20-minute address to the crowd." [and that means that he's treated as a potential criminal? It's domestic extremism to have political opinions? There is no reason to assume that somebody who addresses the public is in any way more likely to commit criminal acts. Acpo unaccountable political police limited company ought to respect the rights of expression and participation in the political process.]

Yesterday the Guardian revealed that a national apparatus has been created for dealing with so-called "domestic extremists", a category of political activist that has no legal basis. Working under the auspices of the Association of Chief Police Officers, three barely-known police units receive £9m to help monitor protesters across the country.

The postal workers' struggle is as vital for democracy as any national event in recent years. The campaign against them is part of a historic shift from the last vestiges of political democracy in Britain to a corporate world of insecurity and war. If the privateers running the Post Office are allowed to win, the regression that now touches all lives bar the wealthy will quicken its pace. A third of British children now live in low-income or impoverished families. One in five young people is denied hope of a decent job or education.

And now the Brown government is to mount a "fire sale" of public assets and services worth £16bn. Unmatched since Margaret Thatcher's transfer of public wealth to a new gross elite, the sale, or theft, will include the Channel Tunnel rail link, bridges, the student loan bank, school playing fields, libraries and public housing estates. The plunder of the National Health Service and public education is already under way.

The common thread is adherence to the demands of an opulent, sub-criminal minority exposed by the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and of the City of London, now rescued with hundreds of billions in public money and still unregulated with a single stringent condition imposed by the government. Goldman Sachs, which enjoys a personal connection with the Prime Minister, is to give employees record average individual pay and bonus packages of £500,000. The Financial Times now offers a service called How to Spend It.

Best of Britain

None of this is accountable to the public, whose view was expressed at the last election in 2005: New Labour won with the support of barely a fifth of the British adult population. For every five people who voted Labour, eight did not vote at all. This was not apathy, as the media pretend, but a strike by the public - like the postal workers are today on strike. The issues are broadly the same: the bullying and hypocrisy of contagious, undemocratic power.

Since coming to office, New Labour has done its best to destroy the Post Office as a highly productive public institution valued with affection by the British people. Not long ago, you posted a letter anywhere in the country and it reached its destination the following morning. There were two deliveries a day, and collections on Sundays. The best of Britain, which is ordinary life premised on a sense of community, could be found at a local post office, from the Highlands to the Pennines to the inner cities, where pensions, income support, child benefit and incapacity benefit were drawn, and the elderly, the awkward, the inarticulate and the harried were treated humanely.

At my local post office in south London, if an elderly person failed to turn up on pension day, he or she would get a visit from the postmistress, Smita Patel, often with groceries. She did this for almost 20 years until the government closed down this "lifeline of human contact", as the local Labour MP called it, along with more than 150 other local London branches. The Post Office executives who faced the anger of our community at a local church - unknown to us, the decision had already been taken - were not even aware that the Patels made a profit. What mattered was ideology; the branch had to go. Mention of public service brought puzzlement to their faces.

The postal workers, having this year doubled annual profits to £321m, have had to listen to specious lectures from Peter Mandelson, a twice-disgraced figure risen from the murk of New Labour, about "urgent modernisation". The truth is, the Royal Mail offers a quality service at half the price of its privatised rivals Deutsche Post and TNT. In dealing with new technology, postal workers have sought only consultation about their working lives and the right not to be abused - like the postal worker who was spat upon by her manager, then sacked while he was promoted; and the postman with 17 years' service and not a single complaint to his name who was sacked on the spot for failing to wear his cycle helmet. Watch the near frenzy with which your postie now delivers. A middle-aged man has to run much of his route in order to keep to a preordained and unrealistic time. If he fails, he is disciplined and kept in his place by the fear that thousands of jobs are at the whim of managers.

Subversive forces

Communication Workers Union negotiators describe intransigent executives with a hidden agenda - just as the National Coal Board masked Thatcher's strictly political goal of destroying the miners' union. The collaborative journalists' role is unchanged, too. Mark Lawson, who pontificates about middlebrow cultural matters for the BBC and the Guardian and receives many times the remuneration of a postal worker, dispensed a Sun-style diatribe on 10 October. Waffling about the triumph of email and how the postal service was a "bystander" to the internet when, in fact, it has proven itself a commercial beneficiary, Lawson wrote: "The outcome [of the strike] will decide whether Billy Hayes of the CWU will, like [Arthur] Scargill, be remembered as someone who presided over the destruction of the industry he was meant to represent."

The record is clear that Scargill and the miners were fighting against the wholesale destruction of an industry that was long planned for ideological reasons. The miners' enemies included the most subversive, brutal and sinister forces of the British state, aided by journalists - as Lawson's Guardian colleague Seumas Milne documents in his landmark work, The Enemy Within. Postal workers deserve the support of all honest, decent people, who are reminded that they may be next on the list if they remain silent.

New Statesman source

UK's shoot-to-kill policy #LAST UPDATED 19/09/05

socialist | 20.10.2005 13:40

socialist

If there's one minister whose every action betrays the menace of the government's intent it is Jack Straw. His malicious drive against freedom and openness is phenomenal.

In the spring he gave every impression of retreating on the government's plans to hold closed inquests, without a jury, on grounds of national security. The cross-party feeling against what was clearly an attempt to increase secrecy was so strong that the justice department announced that it was abandoning the measure.

It pays not to relax when the government appears to make a withdrawal and indeed Liberty, doing an excellent job of scrutiny, has established that unnoticed clauses added to the coroners and justice bill will allow an inquest to be suspended and replaced by a secret inquiry. These amendments have exactly the same effect as the abandoned measures.

Following the precedents set out in the Inquiries Act, which granted vast powers to ministers over public inquiries with barely an objection in parliament, the coroners and justice bill allows for an inquiry to be instigated by a minister in order to protect the government. The minister could then restrict disclosure and the publication of documents, and remove evidence from final report, in other words they have total control over the proceedings and the verdict of what would have been a public inquest.

National security will be the pretext for triggering this secret inquiry but of course everyone appreciates that Straw is simply creating measures that protect government and the civil service from, for instance, allegations about soldiers being poorly equipped. For ministers like Straw the concept of national security is indistinguishable from their own protection.

These clauses capture all that it is rotten and deceitful about the government's attitude to the public. They place secrecy and ministerial power above the right of the public to know what is happened, especially in the case of deaths that may have been caused by the incompetence of the state.

Isabella Sankey of Liberty said,

It is thoroughly perverse for a government that has spent over a decade lecturing the public about victims' rights to attempt to exclude bereaved families from open justice. When will New Labour's obsession with secret courts and parallel legal systems end? There is no accountability without transparency.

I could not have put it better myself.

Mervyn King: 'Never has so much money been owed by so few to so many'

With City bonuses set to top £6bn this year, the Governor of the Bank of England echoes Churchill in devastating indictment of the banks

By James Moore

The Governor of the Bank of England launched a stinging attack on the behaviour of the banking industry last night, just hours before a leading economic think-tank prepared to publish figures showing the total bonus payouts to City workers in January will soar to £6bn.

Mervyn King described the £1 trillion of support given to banks by the taxpayer as "breathtaking" and "unsustainable". He said: "To paraphrase a great wartime leader, never in the field of financial endeavour has so much money been owed by so few to so many. And, one might add, so far with little real reform." Mr King argued that banks took huge risks because they knew they would be bailed out and because they were seen as "too big to fail". He called for sweeping reforms to the way they are supervised.

His words are poised to re-ignite the row over taxpayers' support for the sector and the way bankers are paid. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) will add fuel to the fire with its figures, which show a rise of 50 per cent in bonuses this year compared to last year's combined payout of £4bn across the industry.

King accuses bankers of 'playing with fire'

Labour's poor regulatory system 'ignited the fuel' that led to the credit crisis

By Sean O'Grady

In an extraordinarily outspoken speech last night, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, described the regulatory system framed by Gordon Brown in 1997 as "inadequate", claimed that wrongly incentivised bankers had been "playing with fire", and said that a central tenet of the Financial Services Authority's new approach was a "delusion".

Such failures had, suggested Mr King, meant that "we shall all be paying for the impact of this crisis on the public finances for a generation".

Close to £1 trillion of public money has been devoted to supporting the financial sector. Mr King called the sums "breathtaking" and "not sustainable in the medium term".

"Anyone who proposed giving government guarantees to retail depositors and other creditors, and then suggested that such funding could be used to finance highly risky and speculative activities, would be thought rather unworldly. But that is where we are now.

"It is important that banks in receipt of public support are not encouraged to try to earn their way out of that support by resuming the very activities that got them into trouble in the first place," he said.

The current "tripartite" system of regulation was framed by Gordon Brown when he became Chancellor in 1997, at which point banking supervision was transferred from the Bank to the FSA. The basic architecture of the system has been recently reaffirmed by the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, while the Conservatives have said that they will return oversight of banks to the Bank of England.

Despite the risk that the Bank itself is being politicised by this controversy, Mr King laid into the Brown-inspired "inadequately designed regulatory system", which, he said, "ignited the fuel" that led to the conflagration that has engulfed the nation. Mr King added that "the past two years have shown how dangerous it is to let bankers play with fire", adding that "it is a matter of the incentives they face", pouring fuel of his own on to the debate about bankers' pay and bonuses.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has endorsed a report into Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza in December and January, accusing Israel of war crimes.

Israel’s premier, Binyamin Netanyahu, predictably denounced the report as biased against Israel and unjust and insisted that he would not allow any Israeli officials to face trial for war crimes. The Obama administration echoed Israel, calling the report unbalanced, and said that its adoption would damage the possibility of resuming talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The talks are a necessary fig leaf for bringing the Arab regimes on side against Iran.

The report by South African Judge Richard Goldstone said the war was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

It recommended that the UN Security Council demand that Israel conduct an investigation into the military’s conduct, and that it refer the findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it fails to do so within six months. Some 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, including 400 women and children were killed, at least 5,000 people injured, and 21,000 homes destroyed, as well as much of the vital infrastructure. On the Israeli side only 13 people died, several as a result of “friendly fire.”

Goldstone also called on countries that are signatories to the 1949 Geneva Conventions to use their “universal jurisdiction” to search for and prosecute those responsible for war crimes.

With help from the White House, Netanyahu mounted an international campaign of bullying and intimidation to oppose the report, get the vote deferred until March and ensure that the Security Council—dominated by the US and the European powers that hold the power of veto—does not refer the case to the ICC.

wsws continues

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, acted in a way that was harmful to the rule of law by suppressing evidence about what the government knew of the illegal treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in a secret prison in Pakistan, the high court has ruled.

In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the foreign secretary's claims that disclosing the evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK's vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.

In what they described as an "unprecedented" and "exceptional" case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.

"The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. "Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy."

The summary is a CIA account given to British intelligence "whilst [Mohamed] was held in Pakistan ... prior to his interview by an officer of the Security Service", the judges said. The officer, known only as Witness B, is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for "possible criminal wrongdoing".

The seven-page document will not be released until the result of an appeal is known. However, the judges made clear their anger at the position adopted by Miliband, MI5, and MI6 in their hard-hitting judgment.

An explanation was needed, they said, about "what the United Kingdom government actually knew about what was alleged to be cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or torture, in particular what Witness B knew before he interviewed [Mohamed] ... in Pakistan". The judges added that it was important to explain what MI5 "and others knew when they provided further information to the United States to be used in the interrogation".

There was a "compelling public interest" to disclose what Miliband wanted to suppress, they said; there was nothing in the seven-paragraph summary that had anything remotely to do with "secret intelligence".

"In our view, as a court in the United Kingdom, a vital public interest requires, for reasons of democratic accountability and the rule of law in the United Kingdom, that a summary of the most important evidence relating to the involvement of the British security services in wrongdoing be placed in the public domain in the United Kingdom."

The judges sharply criticised the way Miliband and his lawyers tried to persuade the Obama administration to back the suppression of the CIA material. Lawyers acting for Mohamed, the Guardian and other media organisations pointed out that Obama had himself set up an inquiry into CIA practices and published details of their interrogation techniques.

In the end, Miliband had to rely for help on a CIA letter to MI6 claiming that disclosure of the document would harm the security of the US and UK.

The judges made it clear they did not believe the claim was credible. "The public interest in making the paragraphs public is overwhelming," they said.

...

Guardian continues

Binyam: 'People higher up involved'

By Channel 4 News

Responding to today's high court decision that US documents with details of his alleged torture can be released, Binyam Mohamed tells Channel 4 News "people higher up, maybe all the way to 10 Downing Street, involved themselves in this case".

Interviewed by Channel 4 News, Binyam Mohamed said: "We're trying to find justice and its becoming very hard especially when politicians are trying to cover for themselves or others.

"The way things are going I don’t see them being public. I'm not sure what is in the paragraphs but it must be something that is really scaring the American or the British government.

Mohamed asserted: "Today's judgement was really good because it shows that the struggle between the courts and the government has come to the point where justice actually prevails.

"And if the judges and the courts saw that there is no threat too national security as the government is saying then the questions remains - what's really interesting? What interests the government in not releasing information which has been classified as a non-threat.

"I'm pretty sure that in those seven paragraphs there is a way to find out who ordered the rendition flight and who ordered the interrogation which occurred.

"I don’t think its got anything to do with MI5 agents and even though MI5 agents are being blamed and will probably take the blame. I think really there's people higher up - maybe probably all the way to 10 Downing Street - who involved themselves in this case and they are trying to cover that up."

Channel4 source

The Department of Health has ordered NHS bosses across England to ensure that frontline staff get immunised against swine flu amid growing signs that many doctors and nurses intend to shun the vaccine.

Chief executives and boards who run hospitals, primary care trusts and strategic health authorities have been told to urgently maximise the number of workers having the jab. Leading DH figures including Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, have written to them six times in the last five weeks stressing the need for action before the second wave of the pandemic causes major problems.

Ian Dalton, the NHS's national director of flu resilience, last week warned that vaccination of nurses, doctors and other frontline staff was "absolutely critical" and that widespread take-up of the jabs "will help us to save lives".

The DH's letters stress that patients' health could be put at risk and the NHS left seriously short-staffed through virus-related absenteeism if senior managers do not overcome "perceived obstacles" to the vaccination of workers. Swine flu's threat is [allegedly] so great that the NHS must avoid only small numbers of personnel getting immunised, as usually happens with seasonal flu every winter, the letters add.

They stress that vulnerable patients could be endangered if staff decide not to heed repeated urgings from Donaldson and other senior figures to have the vaccine. There are growing signs that large numbers of workers will shun the jabs because they see them as unnecessary and potentially unsafe.

Dalton wrote to the chief executives of local NHS organisations in England on 10 September telling them: "We all know that uptake of the seasonal flu vaccine among NHS staff is traditionally low. It is an NHS board responsibility that we do not find ourselves in this position with the swine flu vaccine."

But hospital chief executives have told the Guardian that they expect as few as 10%-20% of their staff to get vaccinated and cannot fulfil the DH's demands because the jabs, which are due to begin within days, are entirely voluntary.

One chief executive of a busy urban hospital in one of the swine flu "hotspots" said: "At the moment in my hospital if nothing changes then it could be that 10%-20% of staff have the swine flu jab … Staff could have the virus and pass it on to patients, a proportion of whom will die, albeit a very small proportion."

A poll by Nursing Times magazine last week showed that the proportion of nurses who do not intend to get vaccinated has risen from 31% in August to 47%, while those who definitely will has fallen from 35% to 23%.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for “unsustainable” air-freighted food to be replaced gradually by homegrown produce from thousands of new allotments.

In an interview with The Times, Dr Rowan Williams said that families needed to respond to the threat of climate change by changing their shopping habits and adjusting their diets to the seasons, eating fruit and vegetables that could be grown in Britain.

He said that the carbon footprint of peas from Kenya and other airfreighted food was too high and families should not assume that all types of food would be available through the year. Dr Williams called for more land to be made available for allotments, saying that they would help people to reconnect with nature and wean them off a consumerist lifestyle.

The Archbishop was accused, however, of threatening the livelihoods of a million families in sub-Saharan Africa, who depended on exports of fresh produce to Europe.

He said that Britain had to get back in touch with the “natural rhythms of the seasons ... the fact that the Earth turns, things grow here and not there, now and not then”. He added: “More people ought to have allotments. It’s part of reconnecting — the sense of connectedness to natural processes.”

The Archbishop was playing his part, he said, by consuming vegetables from a plot in Lambeth Palace. His family also received regular deliveries of locally grown produce.

Dr Williams also said that the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions meant looking at attitudes to travel. He had tried to have a “flight-free year” last year, but tight schedules meant that he had had to fly back to London from Paris and make a day-trip with other faith leaders to Auschwitz.

He called on politicians to end their obsession with economic growth and recognise that a sustainable society could not be achieved by the relentless pursuit of material wealth.

“Consumerism treats each person as essentially a hole that you have to keep stuffing things into. But what’s it like to have a life that is balanced, that is at home with its material and human environment? That’s a question that has got to be asked.”

Britain and other rich countries should consider how a “proper regime of carbon taxes can funnel back into positive sustainable investment in poorer economies”, he said.

“I think there is a question of justice here. If you look at where most of the profit has gone and where most of the cost has been paid, there’s not very much difficulty in working out how that looks. Deforestation, desertification, rising water levels and so forth.

“I do think it is part of the moral cost that we should be asking how do we repair some of the damage.”

Timesonline source

All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true in itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

—Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X

Welcome to the New and Improved Police State

David McGowan
September 12, 2001

"We are going to see a great number of articles in the future from so-called experts and public officials. They will warn about more violence, more kidnappings, and more terrorists. Mass media, the armed forces, and intelligence agencies will saturate our lives with fascist scare tactics and 'predictions' that have already been planned to come true."
'Conspiracy theorist' Mae Brussell, 1974

I have a friend with whom I frequently disagree on matters of politics. He thinks that I am a crazed conspiracy theorist, and I think that he is a reactionary fascist. There was one thing that we agreed on though. 

        A few weeks ago, I told him that our fearless leaders seemed to be veering dangerously close to unleashing 'tactical' nuclear weapons upon the world. Although he seriously doubted that that was in fact the case, he readily agreed that such an action would be reckless and unconscionable. He stated that he couldn't envision any scenario under which such a strike would be justified and that we should avoid, at all costs, crossing that threshold. Opening that door, he believed, could only serve to escalate tensions and make this a much more dangerous world in which to live. 

        He was one of several people who called me yesterday to discuss the alleged terrorist attacks on America. During the course of that call, he stated flatly that when the perpetrators were identified, they and their backers should be nuked. When I reminded him of our conversation of just a few weeks before, he said that things have changed now. I asked him if he had considered whether that wasn't perhaps precisely the point of the attacks. Unfazed, he reiterated his belief that I am a crazed conspiracy theorist. 

        Excuse my cynicism here, but have we Americans completely lost our ability to think? Are we now so thoroughly brain-dead that we are completely reliant on our media outlets, with their endless supply of 'experts,' to make sense of events in the world? Are we really that stupid -- or do our leaders just think that we are? 

        The actions taken on the morning of September 11 were crimes – horrendous crimes against humanity, to be sure, but in the final analysis not so very different from any other crimes. The first step in solving any crime is to look at who had a motive and who had the means and opportunity to commit the crime. 

        As for motive, we are being asked to believe that a band of Islamic terrorists are the most likely suspects. But is that the case? Was it a state-sponsored terrorist group that had the most to gain by launching such an assault? Or was it our own political, corporate and military leaders? 

        While the people of the Palestinian territories may well be dancing in the streets today in celebration of the blow struck against the United States, they certainly won't emerge as the winners in this national tragedy. When the bombs begin to rain down upon them, as they certainly will, the loss of life, property and hope will be far more profound for them than it will be for the people of New York. Their short-term 'victory' will be a hollow one indeed. 

        This is certainly not to suggest that there are no governments, groups, or organizations around the world - or within these borders - that have legitimate grudges against the United States government. The numbers of such entities are legion. Two hundred years of imperialistic covert and overt military ventures have created a lot of enemies of the American ship of state, and a tremendous amount of residual bitterness. Yet none of these groups stood to gain by launching such an attack. 

        The United States, on the other hand, has much to gain in the aftermath of this chapter of American history. I am not talking here, of course, about the people of this country, who will pay a steep price for the carnage of September 11. Big Brother has assured us that we will be protected from future acts of this sort, and we will welcome with open arms the repressive, overtly fascistic 'reforms' that will be enacted. 

        The people, of this country and of the world, are always the ones to pick up the tab for acts of gross governmental malfeasance. The people of some hapless country (or countries) that is identified as the culprit will pay with their lives and the lives of their children. The people of America, and much of the Western world, will pay with the wholesale stripping away of their remaining human, civil and privacy rights. 

        Such a scenario only serves to benefit those who sit at the top of the food chain. Our elected leaders - who are elected only in the sense that every couple of years we are given a choice between two interchangeable candidates - will revel in the free reign they will be given to ram through legislation so appallingly reactionary that it would have been unthinkable just days ago. Military spending and the militarization of the country will escalate to a fever pitch. 

        Welcome to the new and improved police state – the largest, most powerful, and most technologically advanced the world has ever seen. With the much-lauded U.S. economy tanking, and unemployment figures hitting their highest levels in years, this will come in very handy for the 'powers that be.' 

        The ugly truth is that all 'anti-terrorist' measures are designed not to protect the American people from attack or to protect our 'freedoms,' but to protect wealth and power - specifically the unprecedented levels of wealth currently held by corporate America - and to restrict those very freedoms that threaten their hold on that wealth. 

        This American tragedy, in other words, plays directly into the hands of the corporate and military elite of this nation, who have for years been propagandizing for a more belligerent and imperialistic foreign policy and for more repressive legislation here on the home-front. Having been presented with a pretext to enact such measures, it is our leaders - elected or otherwise - who stand to gain the most from yesterday's bloodshed. 

        As for the question of who had the means and opportunity to commit these crimes, the official story holds that they were the work of a well-organized foreign terrorist organization. Officials have acknowledged that the operation was an exceptionally well-planned and well-coordinated series of attacks that required months of planning and a large network of co-conspirators to pull off. 

        So well-organized was the operation that government spokesmen and television talking-heads (which are really the same thing) have been at a loss to explain some of the day's events. Many questions have been left unanswered and some haven't been asked at all. Some of the answers that have been offered have strained credibility far past the breaking point. 

        One question that has gone unanswered is how a plane was able to penetrate so deeply into the Pentagon's airspace – after two other planes had already plowed into the World Trade Center towers, no less. Despite the ridiculous current claims, the airspace surrounding the Pentagon is perhaps the most tightly controlled, militarily secure airspace in the world. This would be all the more true in the immediate aftermath of a large-scale 'terrorist' attack on New York City. 

        Claims have been made that even if the approach of the aircraft had sounded an alarm, it would not have been targeted due to the fact that it was a commercial aircraft with many innocent lives on-board. Nonsense. Anyone who thinks that U.S. military/intelligence personnel would hesitate to target a commercial airliner, particularly in light of the fact that two such aircraft had already been used in suicide attack, is living in a media-induced fantasy world. 

        The question then of how this plane was able to 'elude' the Pentagon's formidable defenses is one that should receive close scrutiny from America's 'free' and 'independent' press. There is virtually no chance that that will happen. Another question that begs for an answer is how teams of presumably armed hijackers were able to breach the security measures of no less than three major airports and successfully hijack four separate flights. 

        Contrary to the claims now being made, security precautions currently in place in U.S. airports are anything but "lax." That fact was being implicitly acknowledged by this morning, as reports began to come in claiming that the hijackers had improvised weapons from razor blades and other items carried in their shaving kits. The network and cable news broadcasters reporting this story actually did so with straight faces. 

        This scenario would be laughable were this story not such a tragic one. According to the latest official stories, three to five terrorists boarded each of the hijacked aircraft. All of these terrorists, of course, were such religious fanatics that they had agreed to give their lives for the cause they believed in, and none of them presumably had second thoughts about that decision once the operation was underway. 

        Does anyone really believe that a few guys wielding toothbrush handles embedded with razor blades could quickly and efficiently gain control of a commercial airliner? I would think that such a group would have their hands full trying to hold-up a liquor store. How could, as has been reported, such a 'terrorist cell' possibly simultaneously overpower the flight crews and corral all of the flights' passengers into the rear of the planes? 

        I don't consider myself to be a particularly brave or heroic sort of guy, but I would not hesitate for a second to take on a couple of guys wielding toothbrushes, particularly if my life, or the life of my family, was on the line and if I knew that I had some sixty people (the average number of passengers on the flights) behind me who would back me up. Maybe that's just me, but somehow I think most Americans would rise to the occasion. 

        Nevertheless, these terrorist teams reportedly succeeded where so many other, better-armed terrorists have failed. The majority of hijacking attempts, as officials have acknowledged, end in failure. There hasn't been one to succeed in this country for a decade. And yet these teams succeeded, and on a spectacular scale, in four-out-of-four attempts and with only the most primitive of 'weapons.' To what are we to attribute that fact? Don't look to the media for answers. 

        Perhaps the most obvious question raised by the attacks, and one that officials have feebly attempted to answer, is how the planning for such an operation could have escaped the attention of the country's intelligence services. Whenever such an event occurs, the intelligence agencies rather predictably hang their heads, slump their shoulders and sheepishly grin as they explain their powerlessness to predict such things: "We did the best we could," they explain, "but our resources are limited, our adversaries formidable, and our sources not infallible." 

        That's a real nice story, but the reality is that the CIA - along with the FBI, ONI, DIA, NSC, NSA, DEA, and virtually every other three-letter acronym you could think of - constitutes the largest and most insidious intelligence network the world has ever seen. 

        Its agents have fully infiltrated every foreign government on the planet, as well as every significant 'terrorist' group and every domestic resistance movement that has ever posed even a remote threat to the goals of those who helm the American ship of state. It is simply inconceivable that such an ambitious attack could have been planned, coordinated and launched without the knowledge of numerous members of the national security state. 

        That is the inescapable reality that no amount of media and government spin can erase, though politicians and their media puppets will work overtime to do exactly that. One need only to turn their television set off and their brain on though to see how preposterous is the claim that these attacks took the intelligence community by surprise. 

        Perhaps the most disturbing question raised by the attacks is what exactly caused the twin towers of the WTC to collapse. The impact of the planes affected only the upper floors of the towers; their foundations were unaffected. The UK's Guardian acknowledged that the initial impact of the aircraft would result in less stress on the building than is normally caused by high winds. The buildings were specifically designed to handle such horizontal movement. 

        The Guardian and its expert consultants conclude that the collapse of the buildings was the result of secondary explosions, attributed to the delayed release of the large supply of jet fuel carried by the aircraft. How though could the ignition of the jet fuel have occurred as a delayed, secondary explosion? As the endlessly played videotapes of the attacks graphically illustrate, the initial impacts resulted in an enormous fireballs and the immediate engulfing of a portion of the buildings in flames. 

        It is inconceivable that the aircraft's fuel tanks would not have burst upon impact, with their contents then immediately ignited. Indeed, if that wasn't in fact the case, then how are we to explain the initial explosions and fireballs that were witnessed by the world? What exactly was it that created the spectacular initial blasts if it wasn't the jet fuel? 

        But if that was the case, what was it then that created the secondary explosions that appear to have occurred? These secondary blasts were acknowledged early in the day by an NBC newsman. The correspondent stated on the air that he had just talked with the fire department's public safety commissioner who verified that large secondary explosions precipitated the collapse of the towers. 

        A radio broadcaster on WLS in Chicago (according to a correspondent), whose former colleague* is a CBS journalist who was on the scene at the towers, said on the air that this colleague had witnessed an enormous fireball emanating from beneath one of the towers immediately before it came crashing down. What are we to make of these scattered reports, none of which received any follow-up coverage amidst the non-stop blizzard of media attention? 

        To be sure, the collapse of the towers, captured on tape for all the world to see, had the decided appearance of controlled implosions, facilitated by the precise placement of technologically advanced explosives. The world has never before witnessed such complete destruction of a targeted building by an act of war or a 'terrorist' assault. 

        We have seen the United States target many a building for destruction. In the most recent military venture, we saw an embassy building and a television studio, among many others, take direct and multiple hits from state-of-the-art bombs and guided missiles. The buildings were devastated, to be sure, but the damage didn't come close to matching the pile of rubble that the Twin Towers were reduced to. 

        We saw a highrise Israeli apartment building take a direct hit from an Iraqi Scud missile during the Gulf war ... actually, most of us probably didn't see that, except for those who happened to be tuned in to CNN for the brief few moments when the footage was aired. As it turns out, that Scud missile was actually safely intercepted by a trusty Patriot missile, or so it was claimed ... just as if the footage had never aired. 

        The point though is that the building was hit and did suffer extensive damage, and undoubtedly at the cost of many lives. But again, the building - though sheared nearly in half - was in considerably better shape than the WTC towers. It occurs to me then that perhaps America has invested entirely too much time and money in pursuit of creating ever more powerful and efficient weapons systems. 

        Who would have ever thought that the best weapon with which to reduce an entire tower to rubble was the plane itself. It doesn't even have to be a military plane – any old commercial aircraft will do. Someone obviously should have followed up on the early work done in this area by the Japanese during World War II. 

        In the final analysis, we must ask ourselves the following questions: Who had the means to get highly trained commando teams onto four commercial aircraft flying out of three separate airports? Who had the ability to violate the Pentagon's airspace,unmolested and unchallenged? What weapons were really used to commandeer those aircraft and who had the means to get them on the planes? Who had the ability to plan and execute such an ambitious, multi-pronged attack without the interference of the U.S. intelligence services? Who had the means to staff each of the four teams with at least one well-trained, and suicidal, pilot? Who had the means and opportunity to plant secondary explosive charges, if in fact these were used? 

        Finally, perhaps the most important question to be asked is: who stands to gain the most in the bleak aftermath? It is certainly not the American people, or any resistance movement within these borders. It's definitely not the still-to-be identified target(s) of the nation's wrath (which will likely include Iraq). That would seem to limit the remaining choices. 

        It is quite possible, indeed quite likely, that members of some 'extremist' group served as the foot soldiers of these attacks. But it is just as likely that they were used as pawns in the global chess game that serves as our collective reality. 

        It is also likely that these 'terrorists' were motivated by legitimately perceived grievances with the U.S. government. Those motivations weren't likely shared by their puppeteers, however, who cynically manipulated those belief systems to serve their own ends. Most of the participants probably did not know that they were embarking on suicide missions. Quite likely only the pilots knew that, and they may very well have received a little more 'training' than your average pilot. 

        All of this is, by necessity, just speculation at this point. The true facts of the case will emerge over time in bits and pieces, mixed in with a healthy dose of disinformation. It matters little though in which direction those facts point. The official story has already been written.

* It was previously mistakenly reported here that the woman making the call was the broadcaster's wife. She was actually a long-time colleague. The correspondent who alerted me to this report contacted the station to inquire about purchasing an audiotape of the broadcast for September 11, and received the following brief reply: "Legally, we're not allowed to provide program tapes."
 
 

by the same author Wagging the Moondoggie

Injustice Minister Jack Straw finally achieves "get away with murder" secret inquests IRAN - THE WAR DANCE Re: Lockerbie New Labour are Zionist NeoCon scum Evil Fascist shit Jack Straw ORIGINAL DOWNING ST SMEARS VICTIM RETURNS TO HAUNT NEW LABOUR Craig Murray: FCO Finally Admits To Receiving Intelligence From Torture New Labour try to get away with murder again, again and again UK: Jack Straw blocks release of cabinet minutes on Iraq Previous content: 777 Fascist UK government trying to get away with murder again Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog

ISRAEL HAS rejected the call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open up its atomic sites to international inspection.

The nuclear watchdog, meeting yesterday in Vienna, adopted a resolution expressing concern about “Israeli nuclear capabilities” and called on agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei to work on the issue.

The motion was adopted by 49 votes to 45, with 16 abstentions. Russia and China, both permanent members of the UN security council, voted in favour.

But David Danieli, deputy director of Israel’s atomic energy commission, said Israel deplored the vote for singling it out while many of its neighbours remained hostile to its existence. “Israel will not co-operate in any matter with this resolution which is only aiming at reinforcing political hostilities and lines of division in the Middle East region,” he said.

Israel is one of only three countries along with India and Pakistan, which is not a signatory to the NPT. According to foreign media reports, the Jewish state is widely believed to possess several hundred nuclear warheads, as well as the means to deliver them.

Under a decades-old policy of “nuclear ambiguity” Israel has never confirmed nor denied processing atomic weapons, maintaining that the country “will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East”.

The vote was a setback not only for Israel but also for the US and other western backers of the Jewish state. They had lobbied for debate on the issue without a vote.

Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters the passage of the resolution was “very good news and a triumph for the oppressed nation of Palestine”.

Western states said it was unfair and counterproductive to isolate one member state. They said an IAEA resolution passed on Thursday, urging all Middle East nations to forswear atomic bombs, included Israel and made Friday’s proposal superfluous.

Arab nations said Israel had brought the resolution on itself by having never signed the 40-year-old NPT.

Before the vote, US ambassador Glyn Davies said the resolution was “redundant . . . Such an approach is highly politicised and does not address the complexities at play regarding crucial nuclear-related issues in the Middle East”.

Irish Times source

Congress also condemned Israeli trade union federation Histadrut's statement supporting Israel's war on Gaza - which killed 1,450 Palestinians in three weeks - and called for a review of the TUC's relationship with Histadrut.

Delegates demanded a campaign for disinvestment by companies associated with the occupation or the building of the separation wall.

Palestinian supporters described the vote as a "landmark decision," targeting sales of products including dates, herbs, fruit and vegetables.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign chairman Hugh Lanning said the decision followed a wave of motions passed at union conferences this year because of "outrage" at Israel's "brutal war" on Gaza.

"We will be working with the TUC to develop a mass campaign to boycott Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank," he said.

The TUC ruling general council held lengthy talks in private prior to Thursday's final Congress session before agreeing a statement which was accepted by delegates.

The statement read: "To increase the pressure for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the removal of the separation wall and illegal settlements, we will support a boycott of those goods and agricultural products that originate in illegal settlements through developing an effective, targeted, consumer-led boycott campaign."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said that targeted action aimed at goods from the illegal settlements and at companies involved in the occupation and the wall was the right way forward.

The Fire Brigades Union had pushed for a stronger campaign, including encouraging trade unionists to boycott Israeli goods.

FBU president Mick Shaw told delegates there had been "unbelievable human suffering" in the attack on Gaza at the start of the year.

And he criticised the British government for refusing to condemn the attack and questioned the response of Histadrut.

The TUC already had a policy of calling for Israeli troop withdrawal, but Mr Shaw said it was time to go further.

"We have a history of supporting boycotts, such as the one against apartheid in South Africa. There is no doubt that had an effect," he said.

He added that a boycott would demonstrate to the Palestinian people that the rest of the world cared.

"We need to have a discussion with Palestinian trade unionists to identify where we can put most pressure on the Israeli government," he said.

Mr Shaw said after the debate that the decision was an "important shift" in TUC policy which he believed was in reaction to the military action earlier this year.

"We will now try to identify goods and products where the most pressure can be put on the Israeli government to persuade them to change their policies."

Morning Star

For the Afghan villagers blown to pieces in our name, one craven motion at Labour’s conference is too late 

by John Pilger

On the day Gordon Brown made his "major policy speech" on Afghanistan, repeating his surreal claim that if the British army did not fight Pashtun tribesmen over there, they would be over here, the stench of burnt flesh hung over the banks of the Kunduz River. Nato fighter planes had blown the poorest of the poor to bits. They were Afghan villagers who had rushed to siphon off fuel from two stalled tankers. Many were children with water buckets and cooking pots. "At least" 90 were killed, although Nato prefers not to count its civilian enemy. "It was a scene from hell," said Mohammed Daud, a witness. "Hands, legs and body parts were scattered everywhere." No parade for them along a Wiltshire high street.

I saw something similar in south-east Asia. An incendiary bomb had razed most of a thatched village, and bits of charred people were hanging on upended fishing nets. Those intact lay splayed and black, like large spiders.

I have never believed you need witness such a hell to comprehend the crime. A standard-issue conscience is enough for all but the morally corrupt and powerful. Fresh from another dysfunctional photo opportunity with troops in Afghanistan - a contrivance far from the impoverished suffering of that country - Brown "authorised" the Rambo-style rescue of Stephen Farrell, a journalist of British and Irish nationality, at the site of the Nato attack. It was a stunt that went wrong. A British soldier was killed and Farrell's guide, Sultan Munadi, an Afghan journalist, was abandoned and killed. Munadi's family now fully appreciates the different worth of British and Afghan lives.

During the 1914-18 slaughter, Prime Minister Lloyd George confided: "If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know and can't know." Have we not yet advanced over a century's corpses to a point where the likes of Brown are denied their mendacious subterfuge? The Afghan war is a fraud. It began as an American vendetta for domestic consumption in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which not a single Afghan was involved. The Taliban, who are Afghans, had no quarrel with the United States and were dealing secretly with the Clinton administration over a strategic pipeline. They offered to apprehend Osama Bin Laden and hand him over to a clerical court, but this was rejected.

The establishment of a permanent US/Nato presence in a resource-rich, strategic region is the principal reason for the war. The British are there because that is what Washington wants. Preventing the Taliban from storming our streets is reminiscent of President Lyndon B Johnson's plaint: "We have to stop the communists over there [Vietnam] or we'll soon be fighting them in California."

There is one difference. By refusing to bring the troops home, Brown is likely to provoke an atrocity by young British Muslims who view the war as a western crusade; the recent Old Bailey trail made that clear. He has been told as much by British intelligence and security services. Brown's own security adviser has said as much publicly. As with Tony Blair and the bombs of 7 July 2005, he will bear ultimate responsibility for bringing violence and grief to his own people.

More than MPs' fake expenses, it is this corrupting and trivialising of life and death that mark a fitting end to the "modernised" Labour Party, the party of criminal war. Do the delegates preparing for the party's annual rituals in Brighton comprehend this? It says enough that most Labour MPs never demanded a vote on Blair's bloodshed in Iraq and gave him a standing ovation when he departed. One timid motion proposed by the "grass roots" at Brighton might be allowed. This concludes that "a majority of the public believe that the war [in Afghanistan] is unwinnable". There is no suggestion that it is wrong, immoral and based on lies similar to those that led to the extinction of a million Iraqis, "an episode more deadly than the Rwandan genocide", according to one scholarly estimate.

This is largely why the game of parliamentary politics is over for so many Britons, especially the young. In 2005, a bent system allowed Blair to win with fewer popular votes than the Tories in their catastrophe of 1997. New Labour's greatest achievement is the lowest turnouts since universal voting began. Today, voters watch Brown give billions of public money to casino banks while demanding nothing in return, having once hailed their practices as an inspiration "for the whole economy". At the recent meeting of G20 leaders in London, Brown distinguished himself by opposing, and killing, a modest Franco-German proposal for a limit on bonuses and penalties for companies that broke it. The gap between rich and poor in Britain is now the widest since 1968.

New Labour's causes and effect extend from the one in five young people denied employment, education and hope to the £12m that Blair coins in a year, "advising" the rich and lecturing to them at £157,000 a time. For Blair's and Brown's more extreme mentors and courtiers, such as the twice-disgraced Peter Mandelson, this represents the most sought-after achievement of all: the positioning of Labour to the right of the Tories, though it is probably correct to say the two main parties have converged, competing feverishly with each other to threaten cuts in public services in order to pay for the bailing out of the banks and for the drug lords of Kabul. There is no mention of cutting the billions to be spent on replacing Trident nuclear submarines designed for the defunct cold war.

The game is over. Corporatism and a reinvigorated militarism have finally appropriated parliamentary democracy, a historic shift. For those Afghan villagers blown to pieces in our name, one craven motion at Labour's conference is too late. At the very least, the party's "grass roots" might ask themselves why.

The inquiry, led by the former South African judge Richard Goldstone, concluded that both the Israeli military and Hamas committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the three-week conflict, but singled out Israel and its policy towards the Palestinians of Gaza for the most serious condemnation. The inquiry rejected Israel's argument that the war was a response to Palestinian rocket fire and therefore an act of self-defence.

In a 575-page report (pdf), released tonight, the inquiry said Israel should be required to investigate the allegations raised and if it fails to do so the case should be passed to the prosecutor of the international criminal court. It accused Israel of "grave breaches" of the fourth Geneva convention and of a war crime for using Palestinians as human shields during the fighting.

Israel refused to co-operate with the inquiry, arguing that the UN human rights council, which commissioned the study, is biased against Israel. "Both the mandate of the mission and the resolution establishing it prejudged the outcome of any investigation, gave legitimacy to the Hamas terrorist organisation and disregarded the deliberate Hamas strategy of using Palestinian civilians as cover for launching terrorist attacks," the Israeli foreign ministry said.

But Goldstone, who is Jewish and has strong links with Israel, defended the work of the four-person team. "There should be no impunity for international crimes that are committed," he said. "It's very important that justice should be done."

He rejected any suggestion of bias: "To accuse me of being anti-Israel is ridiculous." He said it was in the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians for the truth to be established.

Goldstone's team looked in detail at 36 incidents during the war. It studied the deaths of 22 members of the Samouni family who, following instructions from Israeli soldiers, were sheltering in a house in Zeitoun, east of Gaza City. The house was then hit by Israeli fire. The killings were a grave breach of the fourth Geneva convention, the inquiry said.

It found seven incidents in which civilians were shot while leaving their homes, waving white flags and sometimes following instructions from Israeli soldiers.

A "direct and intentional attack" on the al-Quds hospital, in the south of Gaza City, which left the building seriously damaged and forced the evacuation of patients, may amount to a war crime.

The report was critical of Palestinian armed groups, saying their rocket fire did not distinguish between civilian and military targets in Israel, caused terror among civilians and amounted to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

It said Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured near Gaza more than three years ago, should be released.

Megrahi was framed

John Pilger

Published 03 September 2009

The trial of the “Lockerbie bomber” was worse than a travesty of justice. Evidence that never came to court proves his innocence

The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown's "repulsion" to Barack Obama's "outrage", the theatre of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. "But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?" whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. "What will you say to your constituents, then?"

Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he "pays" for his "heinous crime": the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose "compassion" allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to "face justice from a higher power". Amen.

The American satirist Larry David once addressed a voluble crony as "a babbling brook of bullshit". Such eloquence summarises the circus of Megrahi's release.

No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, in which 270 people were killed.

The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of "strategic interests".

“The endgame came down to damage limitation," said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, "because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi's] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice." New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft - he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognise him in the courtroom.

The new evidence would have shown that a fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, "discovered" in the Scottish countryside and said to have been in Megrahi's suitcase, was probably a plant. A forensic scientist found no trace of an explosion on it. The new evidence would demonstrate the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was "transferred" through two airports undetected to Flight 103.

A "key secret witness" at the original trial, who claimed to have seen Megrahi and his co-accused, al-Alim Khalifa Fahimah (who was acquitted), loading the bomb on to the plane at Frankfurt, was bribed by the US authorities holding him as a "protected witness". The defence exposed him as a CIA informer who stood to collect, on the Libyans' conviction, up to $4m as a reward.

Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in "neutral" Holland.

There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a "mass of conflicting evidence" and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer, found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance. Their 90-page "opinion", wrote Foot, "is a remarkable document that claims an honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice". (His report, Lockerbie - the Flight from Justice, can be downloaded from www.private-eye.co.uk for £5.)

Foot reported that most of the staff of the US embassy in Moscow who had reserved seats on Pan Am flights from Frankfurt cancelled their bookings when they were alerted by US intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. He named Margaret Thatcher the "architect" of the cover-up after revealing that she killed the independent inquiry her transport secretary Cecil Parkinson had promised the Lockerbie families; and in a phone call to President George Bush Sr on 11 January 1990, she agreed to "low-key" the disaster after their intelligence services had reported "beyond doubt" that the Lockerbie bomb had been placed by a Palestinian group, contracted by Tehran, as a reprisal for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US warship in Iranian territorial waters. Among the 290 dead were 66 children. In 1990, the ship's captain was awarded the Legion of Merit by Bush Sr "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer".

Perversely, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, Bush needed Iran's support as he built a "coalition" to expel his wayward client from an American oil colony. The only country that defied Bush and backed Iraq was Libya. "Like lazy and overfed fish," wrote Foot, "the British media jumped to the bait. In almost unanimous chorus, they engaged in furious vilification and open warmongering against Libya." The framing of Libya for the Lockerbie crime was inevitable. Since then, a US defence intelligence agency report, obtained under Freedom of Information, has confirmed these truths and identified the likely bomber; it was to be the centrepiece of Megrahi's defence.

In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi's case for appeal. "The commission is of the view," said its chairman, Graham Forbes, "based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

The words "miscarriage of justice" are entirely missing from the current furore, with Kenny MacAskill reassuring the baying mob that the scapegoat will soon face justice from that "higher power". What a disgrace.

Injustice Minister Jack Straw finally achieves "get away with murder" secret inquests IRAN - THE WAR DANCE Re: Lockerbie New Labour are Zionist NeoCon scum Evil Fascist shit Jack Straw ORIGINAL DOWNING ST SMEARS VICTIM RETURNS TO HAUNT NEW LABOUR Craig Murray: FCO Finally Admits To Receiving Intelligence From Torture New Labour try to get away with murder again, again and again UK: Jack Straw blocks release of cabinet minutes on Iraq Previous content: 777 Fascist UK government trying to get away with murder again Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog

Britain's extraordinary march towards a surveillance state is revealed today by shock new figures.

They show that one request is made every minute for officials to spy on someone's phone records or email accounts.

The number of Big Brother snooping missions by police, town halls and other public bodies has soared by 44 per cent in two years.

Last year there were 504,073 new cases - an average of 1,381 a day. It is the equivalent of one adult in 78 coming under state-sanctioned surveillance. [N.B. that is new cases.]

The snoopers are using a law originally aimed at terror suspects. But their targets include people suspected of storing petrol without a licence and bringing a dog into the country without quarantining it. 

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne said last night: 'It cannot be a justified response to the problems we face in this country that the state is spying on half a million people a year.

'The Government forgets that George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint. We are still a long way from living under the Stasi - but it beggars belief that is necessary to spy on one in every 78 adults.'

The requests to intercept email and telephone records were made under the hugely controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

A total of 653 state bodies, including 474 local councils, are allowed to use its surveillance powers.

The Daily Mail has discovered that Sandwell Borough Council checked phone records to locate a bogus faith healer, while Lewisham Council used the anti-terror power to pursue a rogue removal firm and a rogue pharmacist.

Kent County Council carried out 23 phone checks as part of probes into storing petrol illegally and breaking the law over importing a dog.

Other bodies authorised to carry out surveillance include the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and prison governors.

They are not allowed to find out the content of phone calls and emails, but can access details of when and to whom they were made or sent.

People who are found to have done no wrong have no right to know they were snooped on.

The figure for access requests in 2008 emerged in a report by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy.

In a previous report, based on nine months in 2006, the Commissioner said there had been 253,557 requests, the equivalent of 338,000 over a full year.

The Lib Dems said this shows a 44 per cent increase between 2006 and 2008. The vast majority are understood to have been approved, though no figures are available.

Mr Huhne said it made a mockery of a supposed crackdown on the use of RIPA by the Home Office.

He added: 'We have sleepwalked into a surveillance state but without adequate safeguards. Having the Home Secretary in charge of authorisation is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.'

Alarmingly, in 2008 there were 595 'errors' by public authorities and the private firms who supply them with phone and e-mail information.

One of the most common mistakes was typing in the wrong phone number when making a request - leading to details being disclosed about the wrong person.

Sir Paul said: 'Errors may result in catastrophic consequences for members of the public'.

He cited a police investigation into a paedophile ring in which an address for a suspect was obtained from internet records. It led to the arrest of an entirely innocent man.

Despite the huge number of requests, the Home Office says there is a need to go further than giving public bodies access to phone and internet records.

Under plans unveiled earlier this year, the police and security services would gain access to the public's every internet click and phone call.

This would include, for the first time, monitoring the use of social networking sites such as Facebook. Every internet and phone company would have to allocate an ID to each customer.

They would then have to store details of calls, text messages and internet sites for a minimum of 12 months. The actual content of calls and emails would not be kept.

As well as phone and email checks, councils and other public bodies have been using actual covert surveillance, though undecoveragents or hidden cameras.

Last year, councils and government departments such as benefits officials were given 9,894 authorisations for this, up from 9,535 a year earlier.

The police and the security services were given 16,118 direct surveillance authorisations, giving a total of more than 26,000, or 71 every day.

Daily Mail source

I have my own theories about the introduction of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and who (one individual) that the act was designed for and who was also - I suspect - the very first victim of the act. (It's the unsearchable one).

14/11/09 Jack Straw on this blog

Injustice Minister Jack Straw finally achieves "get away with murder" secret inquests IRAN - THE WAR DANCE Re: Lockerbie New Labour are Zionist NeoCon scum Evil Fascist shit Jack Straw ORIGINAL DOWNING ST SMEARS VICTIM RETURNS TO HAUNT NEW LABOUR Craig Murray: FCO Finally Admits To Receiving Intelligence From Torture New Labour try to get away with murder again, again and again UK: Jack Straw blocks release of cabinet minutes on Iraq Previous content: 777 Fascist UK government trying to get away with murder again Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog

Ministers were today accused of a "cover-up" following the publication of a parliamentary report calling for an independent inquiry into allegations of security and intelligence agency complicity in torture.

In a stinging report, largely prompted by disclosures in the Guardian, the joint committee on human rights says that in view of the detailed allegations, ministers can no longer get away with repeating standard denials.

It says the government must immediately publish instructions given to MI5 and MI6 officers on the detention and interrogation of suspects abroad.

The report falls short of accusing the security and intelligence agencies of complicity in torture, which would breach British domestic and international law.

But today the Tory MP David Davis said he had "no doubts" that there had been "clear violations of the UK's international legal obligations".

Andrew Dismore, the committee's Labour chairman, said: "If the allegations are true, they amount to complicity. They have not been tested but given the scale and number simply to issue a blanket denial is not adequate. That is why we are calling for an independent inquiry."

Among a list of actions that it says would amount to complicity in torture, the report includes "the provision of questions to such a foreign intelligence service to be put to a detainee who has been, is being, or likely to be tortured".

It also includes "the systematic reception of information known or thought likely to have been obtained from detainees subjected to torture".

It adds: "For the purposes of state responsibility for complicity in torture ... 'complicity' means simply one state giving assistance to another state in the commission of torture, or acquiescing in such torture, in the knowledge ... of the circumstances of the torture which is or has been taking place."

The Guardian passed to the committee the names of seven out of 11 British or dual nationals detained in Pakistan where British agencies, it says, colluded in, or knew about, their torture or mistreatment.

The newspaper also alerted the committee to the case of Binyam Mohamed, a UK resident who, the high court has heard, was held incommunicado in Pakistan before being tortured in Morocco, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

In a judgment revised after the disclosure of fresh evidence from MI5, the high court said on Friday it was now clear that MI5 "knew the circumstances" of Mohamed's secret detention at "a covert location", now known to be Morocco.

In their judgment, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones also revealed that MI5 sent the "US authorities" – believed to be the CIA – questions to ask Mohamed. Over a period of more than two years, MI5 received five reports from the US about Mohamed and gave the US a list of 70 further questions to be put to him.

The high court judgment contains evidence that appears to come clearly under the complicity criteria spelled out in today's report.

Today's report says: "If the government engaged in an arrangement with a country that was known to torture in a widespread way and turned a blind eye to what was going on, systematically receiving and/or relying on the information but not physically participating in the torture, that might well cross the line into complicity.

"Our experience over the past year is that ministers are determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and accountability on these matters, refusing requests to give oral evidence; providing a standard answer to some of our written questions, which fails to address the issues; and ignoring other questions entirely.

"Ministers should not be able to act in this way. The fact that they can do so confirms that the system for ministerial accountability for security and intelligence matters is woefully deficient ... There is now no other way to restore public confidence in the intelligence services than by setting up an independent inquiry."

Today, responding to the report, Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis denied that the government was covering anything up.

"We don't have anything to hide, but what we do have to say is that this is incredibly complicated. It's very sensitive, and it's a balance between the highest standards of human rights – and Britain will always fight to protect those – and sometimes protecting the security of our citizens," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

But Davis, the former shadow home secretary, said, "telling the Pakistanis that an individual suspect is arriving, encouraging them to arrest him, providing information, providing questions" were clear violations of the UK's international legal obligations.

Davis said he was sure that both the prime minister, Gordon Brown, and his predecessor, Tony Blair, had seen the evidence of UK complicity.

"Of course they will have done. The intelligence and security committee actually wrote a letter to the current prime minister some months ago. The joint committee on human rights has asked for that to be published. He won't publish that.

"They've asked for them to publish the guidelines given to the intelligence agencies by ministers in the period between 9/11 and now. They've refused to do that either.

"All of this smacks of a cover-up. If they've got nothing to hide, why not publish the guidelines?"

Today a poll published by the PoliticsHome website suggests that 65% of voters think the UK's "moral authority on the international stage" has been weakened over the last 10 years by government foreign policy. That view is held by a majority of Labour voters, Conservative voters and Liberal Democrat voters.

Only 8% of respondents said foreign policy had enhanced the moral authority of the UK since 1999.

Guardian source

Torture report a 'security risk'

Britain's national security and the lives of its citizens will be put at risk if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened to former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed at the hands of the CIA.

That was the effect of letters from the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and CIA officials, two judges were told in London yesterday.

The letters warned that the US, even under the new Obama administration, will review its intelligence-sharing agreement with the UK if the court releases seven brief paragraphs about Mr Mohamed's treatment into the public domain. They are central to the former Guantanamo Bay detainee's claim that he was subjected to torture with the consent of UK authorities.

The hearing was adjourned after Lord Justice Thomas, who noted that the paragraphs themselves did not pose any threat to national security, ordered a transcript of the hearing to be given to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who lawyers said had assessed the US threat as having a "high risk threshold".

Hillary Clinton threatens to cut spy links with UK over 'torture'

Hillary Clinton has threatened to end intelligence sharing with Britain if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened to former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Letters from the U.S. Secretary of State and the CIA to the Government warn they will cease co-operation with British counterparts if two judges release details about Mr Mohamed's alleged torture.

Human rights campaigners yesterday claimed the threat - which could put British lives at risk - was merely a ' smokescreen', but Foreign Secretary David Miliband insisted it was serious.

As if to reiterate the matter last night Mrs Clinton, speaking in Washington, said intelligence sharing was 'critically important' to Britain and the U.S.

The details of the threat were revealed yesterday during a long-running - and increasingly bitter - court battle between the Foreign Secretary and former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mr Mohamed.

At the centre of the affair are seven paragraphs of a court judgment which Mr Mohamed claims prove that British agents colluded in the torture he endured after being arrested in 2002.

He has repeatedly claimed that British agents were complicit in his torture after he was arrested in Pakistan.

Lawyers for Mr Miliband told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones that the threat by America had been assessed as having a 'high-risk threshold'.

Yesterday, Lord Justice Thomas pointed out that the paragraphs in themselves did not pose any threat to national security. 

He said: 'So the U.S. has taken the position that this is so serious that it is prepared to reassess its relationship with the UK and put lives at risk?'

Mr Miliband's legal team said both Mrs Clinton and the CIA had written to him to insist the information remain secret.

By publicly acknowledging the threat to U.S./UK intelligence sharing arrangements, Mrs Clinton has 'ridden to the rescue' of Mr Miliband, human rights activists said.

They claimed that by 'hiding behind' the U.S. threat, Mr Miliband was able to continue concealing the 'ugly truth' about British involvement in torture abroad.

Mr Mohamed has claimed British intelligence agents knew about - and were complicit in - his torture in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Morocco. 

The contentious seven paragraphs are a summary of 42 CIA documents, which are said to confirm his claims.

While in detention, Mr Mohamed says he was hung up by straps, beaten and had his genitals mutilated with a scalpel to make him confess to a 'dirty bomb' plot.

Karen Steyn, appearing for the Foreign Secretary, said Mrs Clinton and the CIA had written official letters warning that under the new Obama administration, the U.S. would review its intelligence sharing agreement with the UK if the court releases the information.

Mrs Steyn went on to say that disclosure of the seven paragraphs 'could reasonably be expected to cause considerable damage to the national security of the UK'.

The only reason Mr Miliband opposes the disclosure of the seven paragraphs, she told the court, was to protect the national security and international relations of the UK.

However, Guy Vassall-Adams, representing the various media groups who are backing Mr Mohamed's battle to publish the information, argued that the Foreign Office's stance did not pass the 'common sense test'.

He said it was highly unrealistic to suggest that the publication of seven paragraphs would cause the U.S. authorities to be so 'upset and shocked' that they might refuse to share vital intelligence with the UK in the future. 

Mr Vassall-Adams said such a situation was 'unthinkable' in the light of the historical alliance between the two nations.

In previous hearings the judges have expressed frustration at not being allowed to release the information.

Both judges yesterday seemed unwilling to rely on Mrs Steyn's representations of Mr Miliband's opinion. 

Lord Justice Thomas insisted a transcript of the hearing be sent to Mr Miliband so that there was 'no wriggle room'.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed came to the UK as a 16-year-old asylum seeker and lived here for seven years. Shortly after September 11, 2001, he was picked up by the American secret service in Pakistan.

Accused of being a terrorist, he was held for six and a half years in U.S. custody.

Mr Miliband has repeatedly insisted Britain 'abhors' torture and never orders or condones it.

Speaking after talks with Mrs Clinton yesterday, he said not disclosing allies' intelligence was a 'fundamental principle'.

Mrs Clinton added: 'The issue of intelligence sharing is one which is critically important to our two countries and we both have a stake in ensuring that it continues to the fullest extent possible.'

Reports in the American press on Friday and Saturday reveal massive illegality in the US government and intelligence apparatus. They demonstrate not only routine violations of democratic rights through illegal spying and wiretapping both at home and abroad, but also disregard for legally required reports to Congress.

According to a report Sunday in the New York Times, the CIA kept the House and Senate intelligence committees in the dark for eight years about a “secret counterterrorism program,” on the instructions of then Vice President Richard Cheney. The Times account said that the current CIA Director Leon Panetta, a former Democratic congressman, recently told both the House and Senate intelligence committees about the existence of the program and Cheney’s role in concealing it.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday, citing an internal study by five intelligence agency officials, that the electronic surveillance under the Bush administration “went beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program ... encompassing additional secretive activities that created ‘unprecedented’ spying powers.”

This program, conducted by the National Security Agency and separate from the CIA program, “came to be known in the Bush administration as the ‘President’s Surveillance Program’,” the newspaper said. The study was conducted jointly by the Inspectors General of the Justice Department, Pentagon, CIA, Directorate of National Intelligence and National Security Agency. 

The unclassified version of the study, released Friday night, blacked out all details of the expanded surveillance program.

As in the case of the CIA program, the office of the vice president played a central role in enforcing secrecy and cover-up of the NSA operation. Cheney’s legal adviser and later chief of staff, David Addington, had to personally approve every government official who was to be “read in” to the program by the NSA. Addington refused to be interviewed by the Inspectors General, as did former CIA director George Tenet, former attorney general John Ashcroft, and John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer tasked with drafting legal guidelines for the secret surveillance.

The secret CIA counterterrorism program was first made public last Wednesday night, when the House Intelligence Committee released a letter to Panetta. The letter noted Panetta’s appearance before a closed-door session of the committee on June 24, where he announced that he had just discovered the existence of the secret counterterrorism program and was shutting it down, as well as notifying Congress as required by law.

The letter demanded that Panetta retract a statement he issued May 15, in response to criticism of the CIA by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, denying that the CIA had a policy of misleading Congress. This was contradicted, they wrote, by his admission that “top CIA officials have concealed significant actions ... and misled” members of Congress since 2001.

The ranking Republican member of the intelligence panel, Congressman Peter Hoekstra, made light of the program, saying, “It was on-again, off-again and never happened.” One committee Democrat, Anna G. Eshoo of California, responded, “The whole committee was stunned” by Panetta’s disclosure. “I think this is as serious as it gets.”

What was the CIA doing?

The blizzard of press reports and commentaries that have followed Panetta’s revelation—including the front-page “exposé” in Sunday’s New York Times—seem to be at least in part an exercise in damage control, if not outright disinformation, since they conceal the exact nature of the secret CIA program and downplay its actual significance.

The Times report asserts, “Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the CIA interrogation program [i.e., torture] and did not involve domestic intelligence activities.” It adds that the program, “never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.”

The Washington Post cited “two former agency officials who were familiar with the program” claiming that it “did not involve interrogations of detainees or surveillance of U.S.-based communications.” An earlier Post article (July 10) cited other unnamed “officials” declaring that the program “was an intelligence-collection activity run by the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center ... It was not a covert action, which by law would have required a presidential finding and a report to Congress.”

The Associated Press, in an interview with former CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden, quoted another “former official” declaring that CIA leaders were “‘very cautious’ in their handling of the program and that they made decisions to narrow its focus. The official said that the program fell on a continuum between foreign intelligence collection and covert action.”

It is not possible, on the basis of reports so far, to determine the exact nature of either the CIA or the NSA programs. But the close involvement of top officials of the Bush administration, including, in the case of the CIA program, Cheney’s personal role, suggests that these activities were significant and extensive.

A remark by Representative Hoekstra of Michigan, former chairman of the House intelligence committee and currently the ranking Republican, is suggestive, even chilling. He told the New York Times that Congress might have approved the secret CIA program immediately following the 9/11 attacks—“Maybe on September 12”—but not later on.

It takes some effort to imagine a counterterrorism program so invasive or extreme that the US Congress would balk. Congress approved a sweeping war powers resolution in October 2001, which effectively authorized the US invasion of Afghanistan in advance—a resolution employed by the Bush and Obama administrations as the legal justification for the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In November 2001, Congress approved the USA Patriot Act, with only a single senator voting “no.”

In subsequent years, Congress has passed laws ratifying the Bush administration’s rejection of habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo prisoners, authorizing a system of kangaroo-court military tribunals, legalizing Bush’s illegal spying operations and immunizing telecommunications companies that helped the US intelligence agencies spy on American citizens, and most recently, barring the release of photos of US torture victims. (Obama voted in the Senate for the telecom immunity provision and has pledged to issue an executive order if needed to keep the torture photos secret.)

Congressional Democrats and Republicans have rubber-stamped all manner of police-state measures in the name of the “war on terror.” It is therefore worth asking what kind of a program was so atrocious or politically dangerous that it had to be kept secret even from the House and Senate intelligence committees.

A “state within a state”

A remarkable aspect of the revelation of the secret CIA program, passed over virtually without comment in the media coverage, is that CIA Director Panetta was not informed of the program for more than four months after he assumed nominal control of the spy agency. He was sworn in as director on February 19, but his “subordinates” did not bother to tell him of the existence of the program that had been kept secret from Congress until June 23.

This means that throughout the so-called “debate” between President Obama and former Vice President Cheney over the release of Justice Department memos justifying torture, which took place in April, Cheney was in possession of information about secret CIA operations of which the new “commander-in-chief” was ignorant.

The military/intelligence apparatus operates according to its own rules, disclosing or withholding information from its supposed civilian superiors only when it is felt politically necessary. What is being revealed—or rather only hinted at, since the key details are still shrouded in secrecy—is the existence of a “state within the state,” a secret government that continues to function regardless of the individual who inhabits the White House.

The congressional Democrats and the Obama administration are active participants in the attack on democratic rights of both the American people and the people of the world. As political representatives of big business, they rely on this state apparatus to defend their class interests no less than the Republicans and Bush before them.

It has become a truism that there is more similarity than difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration in relation to the defense of the US intelligence apparatus and its ongoing attacks on democratic rights.

On Wednesday, Obama threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if it requires expanded briefings of Congress, beyond the so-called Gang of Eight, the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses and both intelligence committees. A White House statement said the veto would be necessary to prevent “restricting an important established means by which the president protects the most sensitive intelligence activities that are carried out in the national security interests.”

The congressional Democrats claims of concern are largely play-acting, however. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, deplored the concealment of the program but claimed that it represented no threat to civil liberties.

The struggle to defend democratic rights and to defeat the reactionary conspiracies of the US intelligence agencies must be taken up by the working class. Working people must raise the demand for the full exposure of all the covert operations of the CIA, NSA and other US intelligence agencies, and for the prosecution of all those officials responsible for authorizing and directing them.

This includes bringing to justice officials like Cheney, Bush and other top government officials who have been directly linked to crimes of spying, torture, kidnapping, and aggressive war.

Translated statement

Within hours after the attack, someone using the name "Nur al-Iman" and identified as a "new guest", posted a statement on the Qal3ah website which claimed responsibility on behalf of "The Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe". The following is a translation of the statement:

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and undaunted fighter, Prophet Muhammad, Allah's peace be upon him.

Nations of Islam and Arab nations: Rejoice, for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic Mujahideen [holy warriors] have carried out a blessed raid [ghazw] in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters.

We have repeatedly warned the British government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our Mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid.

We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who warns is excused.

Allah says: "If ye will aid (the cause of) Allah, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly"

The quotation at the end of the statement is from the Qur'an, in Sura 47:7. The translation of the quotation given here is by Abdullah Yusuf Ali.

The term ghazw, here translated as "raid", has historically often been used in Islamic contexts with the connotations of an attack on the enemies of an Islamic state seen as a meritorious act; those who carry out such attacks (ghazawat) are called ghazis.

This anonymous post has come under dispute as MSNBC TV translator Jacob Keryakes noted that the claim of responsibility contained an error in one of the Quranic verses it cited. That suggests that the claim may be phony, he said. "This is not something al-Qaida would do," he said.

Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades

A second claim of responsibility was posted on the Internet on 9 July, claiming the attacks for another Al Qaeda-linked group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. The group has previously falsely claimed responsibility for events that were the result of technical problems, such as the 2003 London blackout and Northeast Blackout of 2003.

Inquiries Act 2005

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Inquiries Act 2005 (c.12) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It came into effect in the United Kingdom on 7 June 2005. According to the British government, the Act "is designed to provide a framework under which future inquiries, set up by Ministers into events that have caused or have potential to cause public concern, can operate effectively to deliver valuable and practicable recommendations in reasonable time and at a reasonable cost." [1]. The British parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights has voiced concerns about certain aspects of the Act [2], as have the Law Society of England and Wales.

Amnesty International has asked members of the British judiciary not to serve on any inquiry held under the Act, as they contend that "any inquiry would be controlled by the executive which is empowered to block public scrutiny of state actions." [3]

The family of Pat Finucane, a solicitor killed by loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast in suspicious circumstances, have announced they will not be co-operating with a forthcoming inquiry into the events surrounding his death if it is held under the terms of the Act.

The Canadian Judge Peter Cory, who was commissioned by the British and Irish governments to investigate the possibility of state collusion in six high-profile murders, is also a critic. He recommended public inquiries into four of the killings, but has strongly condemned the legislation that quickly followed. In a letter read at a hearing of the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations Subcommittee while the legislation was pending, Cory stated:

The chairman of the hearing, Representative Chris Smith, declared that "the bill pending before the British Parliament should be named the 'Public Inquiries Cover-up Bill.'"[4]

Indeed, the Act repealed the entirety Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 which had allowed Parliament to vote on a resolution establishing a tribunal that had "all such powers, rights, and privileges as are vested in the High Court"[5] and placed the power solely under the control of a Minister.[6]

By Paul Mitchell

The Brown Labour government is forcing a million disabled, sick and injured workers off social benefits. The vast majority are being driven into low paid employment or onto poor quality training schemes, at the same time as the number of workers losing their jobs soars.

The current drive began in 2001 when the Blair Labour government introduced new regulations in 50 jobcentres, forcing people claiming incapacity benefit to attend “job-focused” interviews every three years or risk losing payments. Blair defended the scheme, saying that “if people are severely disabled and cannot work, we will give them every protection; indeed, we will increase it”.

The then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Alistair Darling added, “The crucial thing is that I believe that these regulations will mean, for the first time, we can make sure that everyone of working age gets the help and support they are entitled to, because our objective is to make sure we get as many people into work as possible.”

However, guidelines sent out to jobcentre staff made it clear that continued payment of benefits could “be considered only as a last resort when a meeting with a personal adviser is inappropriate and would be of no benefit to the customer. Deferrals should be used infrequently and waivers very rarely.”

In the ensuing period the press was full of lurid stories about “benefit cheats” and “Britain’s sick-note culture”. But claiming invalidity benefit was never an easy option for people unable to find work.

As the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation explained, benefit was not paid automatically when a claimant produced a sick note as the media tried to portray. Claimants had to have paid in sufficient National Insurance contributions during the previous two tax years to qualify. Their cases were regularly reviewed by the Benefits Agency Medical Service and an examination by an Agency doctor was often required. The Agency continued to assess as unfit for work eight out of ten cases referred to it and of the rest, over half successfully appealed. The Association concluded, “This shows that far from being claimed by those who are not really sick or disabled, invalidity benefit is often withdrawn incorrectly.”

Nevertheless, the government pressed ahead, publishing its Green Paper, “A new deal for welfare: Empowering people to work” in 2006. It aims to replace Incapacity and other benefits with the Employment Support Allowance and JobSeekers’ Allowance was called “part of the biggest shake-up of the modern welfare state since the Beveridge Report of the 1940s.”

At the end of 2008, then Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said the government’s intention was to force virtually every claimant to take steps to get back into work, work for benefit or face sanctions. He declared that the recession “was not an excuse for anyone to avoid getting a job” and quoted a Labour wartime minister, Herbert Morrison, “We have not hands or brains to waste, and no resources to fritter away on those who don’t contribute to our national effort.”

Purnell stated that all 2.7 million Invalidity Benefit / ESA claimants will be tested by 2010 and anyone who can walk more than 400 metres, stand for 30 minutes or climb 12 steps without the aid of a banister would risk losing it.

Claimants now have to show they are “moving towards work”, undertake compulsory Work Focused Interviews and produce Action Plans or risk losing benefit. Only those people with “the most severe disabilities and health conditions” are exempt from “work-focused activity”.

wsws continues

The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered ­guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers ­questioning detainees in Afghanistan who they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not "be seen to condone" torture and that they must not "engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners".

But they were also told they were not under any obligation to intervene to prevent detainees from being mistreated.

"Given that they are not within our ­custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this," the policy said.

The policy almost certainly breaches international human rights law, according to Philippe Sands QC, one of the world's leading experts in the field, because it takes no account of Britain's obligations to avoid complicity in torture under the UN convention against torture. Despite this, the secret policy went on to underpin British intelligence's ­relationships with a number of foreign intelligence agencies which had become the UK's allies in the "war against terror".

The policy was set out in written instructions sent to MI5 and MI6 officers in January 2002, which told them they might consider complaining to US officials about the mistreatment of detainees "if circumstances allow".

Blair indicated his awareness of the existence of the policy in the middle of 2004, a few weeks after publication of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

It was around this time, David ­Miliband, the foreign secretary, told MPs on ­Tuesday, that the policy was changed, becoming more "comprehensive and formal".

In a letter to the intelligence and ­security committee (ISC), the group of MPs and peers that provides political ­oversight of the UK's security and ­intelligence ­services, on May 24 2004, Blair said that rather than considering making a ­complaint, "UK intelligence personnel interviewing or witnessing the interviews of detainees are instructed to report if they believe detainees are being treated in an inhumane or degrading way".

The Guardian has learned from a ­reliable source that MI5 officers are now instructed that if a detainee tells them that he or she is being tortured they should never return to question that person.

It remains unclear what Blair knew of the policy's consequences. The Guardian has repeatedly asked him what role he played in approving the policy, whether he was aware that it had led to people being tortured, and whether he made any attempt to change it.

His spokesman said: "It is completely untrue that Mr Blair has ever authorised the use of torture. He is opposed to it in all circumstances. Neither has he ever been complicit in the use of torture.

"For the record, also, Mr Blair believes that our security services do a superb job of protecting our country in difficult ­circumstances and that it is not surprising following the attacks of September 11 2001 that there was a heightened sense of the dangers the country faced from terrorism. None of this amounts to condoning the use of torture."

When the Guardian pointed out to Blair that it had not suggested he had authorised the use of torture, but had asked whether he had played any role in the approval of a policy that led to people being tortured, his spokesman replied: "Tony Blair does not condone torture, has never authorised it nor colluded in it at any time." But there is growing evidence of MI5's ­collusion in the torture of British ­terrorism suspects in Pakistan, where officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence ­directorate (ISI), an agency whose routine use of ­torture has been widely documented, were asked by MI5 to detain British ­citizens and put questions to them prior to an ­interrogation by MI5 officers.

Two high court judges say they have seen "powerful evidence" of the torture of Binyam Mohamed, the British ­resident who returned from Guantánamo Bay in February, before he was questioned by an MI5 officer in May 2002.

In a separate case, a court has heard that MI5 and Greater Manchester police drew up a list of questions to be put to another man, Rangzieb Ahmed, who was detained by the ISI in August 2006, despite having reason to believe that he was in danger of being tortured.

By the time Ahmed was deported to the UK after a lengthy period of unlawful detention three of his ­fingernails were missing.

Several other men have come forward to say they were questioned by British intelligence officers after suffering brutal torture at the hands of Pakistani agents, and there have been similar allegations of British collusion in the torture of ­British citizens in Egypt, Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.

While a small number of the victims were subsequently tried and convicted in the UK, most were released without charge.

International concern about ­Britain's involvement in torture has been ­mounting for some time. In February Martin Scheinin, a UN special rapporteur on human rights, reported that British intelligence ­personnel had "interviewed detainees who were held incommunicado by the Pakistani ISI in so-called safe houses, where they were being tortured".

Scheinin added that this "can be ­reasonably understood as implicitly condoning torture."

In March, after the Guardian disclosed the existence of the interrogation policy, and reported on the growing number of allegations of British collusion in torture, Gordon Brown announced that the policy was to be rewritten by the ISC.

In what was seen at Westminster as an acknowledgement that the secret policy had been open to abuse, Brown also pledged that the rewritten policy would be made public and that a former appeal court judge would monitor the ­intelligence agencies' compliance with it, and report to the prime minister each year.

On Tuesday Miliband said the existing policy, as amended in 2004, would not be published.

But the discovery that Blair was aware of the secret interrogation policy appears certain to fuel the growing demand for an independent inquiry into aspects of the UK's role in torture and rendition.

So far, those who have called for such an inquiry include the Conservative and Liberal ­Democrat leaders David ­Cameron and Nick Clegg; Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions; Lord ­Carlile of Berriew, the government's ­independent reviewer of counter-­terrorism ­legislation; Lord Howe, who was foreign secretary between 1983 and 1989 in the Thatcher government; and Lord Guthrie, a former chief of defence staff.

Creating a database of the 11million adults who work with children could ruin the lives of innocent people, the privacy watchdog warns today.

Richard Thomas, who is stepping down after more than six years as Britain’s first Information Commissioner, says he has serious concerns about the system being launched in October for the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

The ISA computer will contain detailed files on all the adults who work with children, whether professionally or as volunteers.

But it will not only record criminal convictions, but also any so-called soft intelligence on individuals – which could include unfounded allegations, rumours or gossip passed to the police or social services.

An official working for the ISA will then decide whether or not someone is fit to work with children – without the person knowing what he or she is accused of.

Mr Thomas said the database would contain ‘allegations, some rumour, some speculation’.

He added: ‘If (officials) start making wrong decisions or allows the data to get into the wrong hands the scope for damage to be done both to individuals and the system as a whole is quite considerable.’

Mr Thomas said the combination of treating rumours as relevant and the power to ban an individual from a job had the capacity to damage an innocent person in their ‘career, financially and socially’.

Last month the government quietly published the latest measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, for the UK. The figure tells a story of growing exploitation and mounting poverty in Britain.

The Gini coefficient can range from 0 to 1 and provides an objective measure of income inequality, which allows every country to be ranked against others and against its own past performance. A coefficient of 0 would mean income is shared equally between all individuals, whilst a coefficient of 1 would mean one person within the population has all the income and everyone else none. So a higher Gini coefficient figure indicates a higher level of inequality.

Britain’s Gini co-efficient is now 0.36, beyond the normal bounds of inequality seen in developed countries. In the United States the figure is 0.408, putting the largest economy in the world on a par with Mexico in terms of income inequality. But by European standards, the UK figure is exceptionally high. Sweden has a Gini coefficient of 0.23, Germany 0.283 and in France the figure is 0.327.

For the last three decades the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has produced a report on the UK Gini coefficient. The latest IFS report shows that the figure has increased from 0.25 when Thatcher came to power. The report also notes that the number of those in relative poverty, which is defined as those with an income less than 60 percent of the median, has risen over the last three years. The figure initially fell when the Labour government came to power in 1997, but is now rising consistently year on year.

“Poverty for working-age adults without dependent children is now at its highest level since the start of our comparable time series in 1961,” according to the IFS report.

Median income was £394 a week. This represents a rise of just £1 on the previous year. Median income is the level which 50 percent of the population is above and 50 percent below.

For the last six years there has been only a slow average rise in take home pay. But the IFS predict “a bleak outlook for income growth in the near future,” because of rising unemployment and stagnant earnings. Income inequality has risen (on most measures) in each of the last three years and is now at its highest level since our comparable time series began in 1961.”

The contrast between rich and poor is even starker when the mean or arithmetical average is considered. The mean earnings figure for 2007-08 was £487 a week. It is calculated that 65 percent of the population earn less than this sum.

A small proportion of the population, 1.2 million, has earnings above £1,500 a week. The incomes of Members of Parliament range up to £1,100 a week, putting them above 91 percent of the population. Only nine percent of households in the UK have a higher income. If their expenses are included in the calculation they have a higher income than 96 percent of the UK population. If they have a working partner, their household income is in the very top income bracket.

Even before the government issued the latest Gini coefficient, a Joseph Rowntree Foundation Report concluded that the measures brought in by the Labour government to address inequality were stalling.

The report issued in February stated that “child poverty remains amongst the highest in Europe,” despite the fact that the government had focused on this area. Health inequalities continued to widen, as did the gap between the top and bottom of the income scale.

“The UK’s experience in the 1980s and 1990s showed that the strategy of hoping that growth in living standards at the top would ‘trickle down’ to those at the bottom did not work. The last decade has shown that a more interventionist ‘pump up’ strategy is hard in an unequal society.”

The author of the report, Professor John Hills, director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, said in a Financial Times article of February 25 that the report “will disappoint those who might have hoped that a Labour government in power for over a decade would decisively reverse the gaps in society that had widened over the previous two decades.”

In 1999 the Labour government set a goal to lift three million children out of poverty. Even the government acknowledges that this target will not be reached. “Meeting the 2010 target is very difficult,” Beverley Hughes, children’s minister told the Guardian. Asked about the likely impact of the recession she said, “It is very difficult to model the impact of the recession on child poverty.”

Even before the recession, charities specializing in child poverty were deeply concerned about the situation in Britain. “Ten years ago the government committed to eradicating child poverty but these figures show progress has stalled,” Hilary Fisher, director of End Child Poverty said. “In the previous two years, child poverty actually rose. Progress has been made on child poverty, but the UK is way off track on its targets. Budget 2009 invested less than a pint of milk per week per child in family incomes and did nothing to narrow the gap.”

The IFS report concludes, “Over the past three years, average living standards have continued to stagnate, though poverty and income inequality both rose. We expect that the current recession will again lead to a change in the course of poverty inequality and average living standards. Unfortunately, the only thing we can be near-certain of is that average living standards will fall, but we cannot be sure how this pain will be shared.”

Judging by past experience it is all too clear how the pain will be shared. It will be inflicted on working people and income inequality can only get worse. There will be even less attempt on the part of government, Labour or Conservative, to assist those in financial difficulties. Money used to bail out the banks has increased government debt levels. The demands are now coming from the representatives of the financial elite that wages must be cut and savage cuts in welfare provision and public services pushed through.

New Labour and the BNP are two sides of the same Zionist coin

Major General Doron Almog, ex-head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, faced private prosecution charges.

The Foreign Office says Mr Straw apologised to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom "as a courtesy".

"He was saying he was sorry if the incident had embarrassed the Israelis," said a Foreign Office spokesman.

Mr Straw also stressed the UK Government had not played a role in the arrest warrant - which Maj Gen Almog dodged after a tip-off from an Israeli official.

The apology came when Mr Straw met Mr Shalom at the recent United Nations summit in New York.

Lawyers acting for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said a UK court had issued a warrant for his arrest.

Solicitors Hickman and Rose said the 54-year-old had been due to be arrested on suspicion of committing a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949, which is a criminal offence in the UK under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.

Senior District Judge Timothy Workman had given the police authority to detain Maj Gen Almog during a hearing at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in central London, the law firm added.

The warrant relates to the bulldozing of more than 50 houses in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, when Maj Gen Almog was head of Israel's Southern Command.

Injustice Minister Jack Straw finally achieves "get away with murder" secret inquests IRAN - THE WAR DANCE Re: Lockerbie New Labour are Zionist NeoCon scum Evil Fascist shit Jack Straw ORIGINAL DOWNING ST SMEARS VICTIM RETURNS TO HAUNT NEW LABOUR Craig Murray: FCO Finally Admits To Receiving Intelligence From Torture New Labour try to get away with murder again, again and again UK: Jack Straw blocks release of cabinet minutes on Iraq Previous content: 777 Fascist UK government trying to get away with murder again Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog Jack Straw on this blog

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique?

28.05.2009 20:52

Jacob G. Hornberger
Homepage: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-05-26.asp

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