February 15, 2005

What can I say? I made a crude attempt to forecast the turnout in the Iraqi election on the basis of partial figures, here, and I got it wrong. Badly wrong. At least the key meaning – that only the Shia and Kurds would get in – got through, but then that was the easy…

Le Monde has an excellent article on the death of Alfred Sirven. There’s more coverage here. If you read French, read’em before they vanish into subscription hell.

The Washington Post reports on a lawsuit that has resulted in the publication of extensive allegations by former Coalition Provisional Authority staff that the organisation was corrupt, incompetent, and spectacularly hopeless with money. Interestingly, much of the dirtstorm centres around the security contractor CusterBattles, who Ranters will remember from this story from January. If you…

Pavel Felgenhauer of the Moscow Times follows up the discovery, as blogged on the 3rd of February, that a number of Kh55 (Nato name AS-15 KENT) strategic cruise missiles had been sold on the black market by Ukrainian officials at the time when the remaining 578 Kents in the Ukraine were returned to Russia. The…

Right… Admin! Enetation are still down, lying in a pool of their own credibility, for the third day. Blogger comments should be available today. Stuff! The French press is reacting to the death of Alfred Sirven…The Moscow Times has a story on those AS15 Kents mentioned below….there’s a major revelation on corruption at the CPA…