Le Monde reports extensively on the background of the Ivory Coast crisis. Interestingly, it seems that an embarrassing situation was narrowly avoided when the French occupied the Hotel Ivoire (the best in town, naturally) as their HQ and evacuee registration point. On the 21st floor, they discovered a telephone-tapping centre operated by some 46 Israeli…
Read More Ivory Coast – Some Unusual “Private Contractors”Eric Umansky picks out a New York Times story concerning the performance or otherwise of the New Iraqi security forces. The key para: “Colonel Gubler said things had gotten so bad that when the Americans attacked Falluja, the Ramadi police were told not to come to work “just so we could differentiate them” from revenge-minded…
Read More Today’s Miscellaneous War StuffThe Gaurdina covers the announcement that our Foreign Secretary was aware in January of the coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. This, of course, was the one that involved well-known mercenaries and Mark Thatcher. The Conservatives are now pushing hard on this on the grounds that this was “unlawful”. It may just be poor writing, but…
Read More The Government and the Equatorial Coup