January 2005

AP reports from Baghdad that air traffic control diverted both the Royal Jordanian flights to the Iraqi capital yesterday due to the airfield being under mortar fire. Which probably explains why (as pointed out to me) neither the BGIA nor the Airline Transport flights from Sharjah to Baghdad have left for two days. Neither have…

A Fistful of Euros have opened voting on their European Blog Awards at the link given. Why not consider voting for the Yorkshire Ranter for Best UK Blog, Best Political Blog, and why the hell not Best European Blog? Famously, politics without patronage is like kissing your sister, so we now move to your chance…

“whose links to the US government would be embarrassing if disclosed”. Apparently they may be found in a new covert-operations organisation being created in the Pentagon, focused on “emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia”. (Eh? And there was I thinking the new government in Georgia was a plot thought up…

Still no mention in the NOTW of their investigations editor Mahzer Mahmood’s arrest by the Czech police. What could possibly be the matter with the little dears? Perhaps I should write them a letter.

I’ve been meaning to raise this for a few days now. Basically, our old friend Mahzer Mahmood, the News of the World‘s “Investigations Editor” and the man responsible for the red mercury plot with no red (or other) mercury and the plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham, has got himself in a spot of bother in…

So what the hell’s going on with this? It appears that $300 million in raw cash was sent to the Lebanon in a specially chartered aircraft, supposedly to buy heavy armour for the new Iraqi army in various places, including Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and the US. It also seems that the Iraqi cabinet…

If you check the Sharjah Airport arrival and departure lists, here, you’ll see a variety of interesting things. For a start, there’s the regular BGIA service to Baghdad as previously blogged. There are other dubious names like Airline Transport, Air West and TransAvia Export. But what is the explanation of the 3 or sometimes 4…

Well, after the Mexican officials who unwisely had RFID radio identifier chips implanted in their bodies as a (probably counterproductive) precaution against kidnapping, and the Barcelona nightclub whose habitués can jump the queue by waving their radio-identified bodies at a reader, this depressing trend has landed in Britain. Back in July, I argued that this…

The Washington Post reports on the case of an Australian released from Guantanamo Bay who cannot leave because the US Government insists the Australians chain him up throughout the 22-hour flight. So – he’s being released because he isn’t a terrorist, but he has to be chained up in case he hijacks the plane all…

Mark Kleiman has an interesting post concerning the “competitiveness leagues” some organisations like to publish. The one he’s concerned about is published by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, which leads neatly to a first point you can probably guess. Without going into any of the arguments from opinion about this, I think…