Iraq

More China convergence blogging. Declan McCullagh reports on efforts by the US and China to sneak something nasty into the ITU standardisation process, through a committee that doesn’t publish its documentation or let anyone else in the room. But the Chinese appear to be the ones leaning forward; The Chinese author of the document, Huirong…

Read More They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their father Time

If you’ve been following the Viktorfeed, you may have noticed that something’s been emerging; Tahmid Air (ICAO: THM) had been flying occasionally between Sharjah and Almaty, but since early August it’s started to generate more and more movements (the maximum was achieved on the 10th August with 12 flights) to more and more interesting places.…

Read More quick vik

You’d think someone who specialises in blogging about “public diplomacy” would notice when someone refloats a rah rah painted school success story from 2003. Iraqna didn’t “happen”; Orascom built it back then, and didn’t we all hear so much about how Iraqis had mobile phones? You didn’t hear so much, outside the trade, about how…

Read More Well, what about those Iraqi MOBILE PHONES? EH? EH?

Late to the party, I know. But is this the worst example of biometrics as a religion yet? So the Shia-led, pro-Iranian government of Iraq we’re desperately propping up doesn’t like the Sunni, Iraqi chauvinist countergangs we organised to prop them up much. So the plan to reintegrate them, as they say, into society as…

Read More SELECT * FROM policies WHERE irishash=”0xSTUPID”;

Via Kings of War, an Anglo-Australian spat of sorts. The British Army has the reputation of being good at counterinsurgency, and in 2003 and 2004 there was lots of fairly snide criticism of the United States by British commanders saying that Americans didn’t understand counterinsurgency [and] were taking too kinetic an approach,” said Kilcullen, who…

Read More Are you sure?

So, what if there was an airline that uses the Zimbabwean registry in order to get around most people’s idea of aviation safety, is almost certainly in cahoots with the Zimbabwean government, and was involved not just with running guns into the DRC in the late 90s but also with actual combat air missions, dropping…

Read More Avient, Again

There hasn’t been much progress on my long-term beef with Martin Kettle for a while. But it’s worth remembering that if the Guardian has a major leading article that isn’t a business/economics story, it’s probably him. And Saturday’s second lead (behind a rather competent finance story) bears the Kettle hallmarks. Forty years ago the Royal…

Read More The Guardian Is Not Serious About CVF