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A great deal has happened since Britain’s Security Service, MI5, was established in 1909 as a two-man operation.

It has provided invaluable information during two world wars, tried to fend off Soviet spies during the Cold War (with rather little success as the Cambridge Five led by Kim Philby shows), faced the IRA, tracked Communist connections to British unionists and has watched its role shift drastically from counter-espionage to counter-terrorism as the agency marks its centenary.

Christopher Andrew is a respected espionage chronicler and Cambridge University historian who was given access to MI5 records to write this interesting, engaging and massive look at his nation’s clandestine anti-spy agency.

More…

Brought to you by Moses Hess, UGLE, The Grand Orient, The Rothschilds, Jacob Schiff, Trotsky, Lenin, The CFR, The RIIA, MI5, MI6, The CIA, The Zionist Entity, Goldman-Sachs, The Group of Thirty, The Club of Rome, The Trilateral Commission, The Bilderbergers, and a million and one busy beavers for Judeo-Masonic oligarchic global tyranny.

WOW !!!!!!

Was Iraqi cabbie the source of the dodgy dossier? MP’s report claims ‘intelligence’ on Saddam’s WMDs came from back of a taxi

A report by a respected MP claims that the unlikely secret agent was one of MI6’s top sources when it was building a case to justify the invasion.He provided the information that Saddam Hussein could fire chemical weapons at British targets within 45 minutes.The revelation comes as the death toll of British troops in Afghanistan reaches 100 this year alone following the shooting of a member of 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment in a gun battle with the Taliban.Senior intelligence officials have told the MP that the cabbie falsely claimed Saddam Hussein had acquired long-range missiles after listening to Iraqi commanders chatting in his taxi two years before the invasion.The driver, who worked near Iraq’s border with Jordan, was allegedly the ’sub-source’ of a senior Iraqi military officer who told MI6 that Saddam had battlefield chemical weapons ready to deploy at 45 minutes’ notice.The revelations come in a report on the Iraq War by Tory MP Adam Holloway, due to be published by the think-tank First Defence.Mr Holloway, a former Grenadier Guardsman, has close links to intelligence officials.He was told about the cab driver by a former member of one of Britain’s intelligence agencies who was serving at the time of the build-up to war.

Intelligence from the cab driver allegedly bolstered the suggestion that weapons of mass destruction could be fired at British targets in Cyprus – a central plank of the dodgy dossier.Mr Holloway’s report says that analysts at the Secret Intelligence Service quickly decided the cab driver’s information about missiles was ‘verifiably’ false and warned that the agent was not reliable.But a carefully-worded footnote in an MI6 report was apparently brushed aside by Downing Street officials when the dodgy dossier was put together in September 2002.Mr Holloway says a security official in the U.S. with knowledge of the pre-war MI6 reports confirmed to him that ‘the footnote was ignored’.

Sir John Scarlett, the former MI6 chief who was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee before the war, is expected to be quizzed about the dossier when he gives evidence to the Chilcot committee today – though he is not expected to go into details about MI6 sources in public.The claim that the rush to war was based – in part – on false information from a gossipy taxi driver is perhaps the most embarrassing revelation yet about the desperate lengths to which the Government went to justify the invasion.Mr Holloway says that huge pressure was put on SIS to come up with intelligence after Tony Blair met President George W. Bush at his Texas ranch in April 2002, which the Chilcot Inquiry has heard was the meeting that fired the starting gun for the invasion 11 months later.

In his report, The Failure of British Political and Military Leadership in Iraq, Mr Holloway writes: ‘Under pressure from Downing Street to find anything to back up the WMD case, SIS were squeezing their agents in Iraq for anything at all.‘One agent did come up with something – the “45 minutes”, allegedly discussed in a high-level Iraqi political meeting.’The MP told the Mail: ‘SIS were running a senior Iraqi army officer who had a source of his own, a cab driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border.‘He apparently overheard two Iraqi army officers two years before who had spoken about weapons with the range to hit targets elsewhere in the Middle East.’Mr Holloway’s report reveals: ‘In the SIS analysts’ footnote to their report, it flagged up that part of the report describing some missiles that the Iraqi government allegedly possessed was demonstrably untrue. The missiles verifiably did not exist.’The footnote said it in black and white. Despite this the report was treated as reliable and went on to become one of the central planks of the dodgy dossier.’

The report concludes: ‘We will never know who chose to ignore the footnote – it certainly was not SIS, whose footnote it was.‘It seems that someone, perhaps in Downing Street, found it rather inconvenient and ignored it lest it interfere with our reasons for going to war.’While officials drawing up the dossier knew that the taxi driver’s evidence was unreliable, they did not know he was a cabbie since they believed all the information was coming direct from the military officer.

That fact was not ascertained until after the war when MI6 did a wholesale audit of the pre-war intelligence failure.

An Iraqi colonel named al-Dabbagh, who commanded an air defence unit before the war, stepped forward in December 2003 to claim that he was the main source of the 45-minute claim.The colonel, whose unit was in the Western Desert, the same part of Iraq where the taxi driver plied his trade, claimed that before the conflict chemical warheads were delivered to front-line units – though they were never found after the invasion.It is possible that he was the main British agent who used information from the taxi driver to bolster his credentials with SIS.Mr Holloway’s allegations are borne out by the Butler Report on the pre-war intelligence, which details how ‘over four fifths’ of human intelligence used in the dodgy dossier ‘came from two main sources’.Lord Butler, who reported in July 2004, also records how several sub-sources were found to be unreliable after the war.The spy writer Nigel West, who has close contacts in SIS, told the Mail that Mr Holloway’s claims are ‘absolutely consistent’ with what he knows about the intelligence debacle. He said: ‘After the war when they looked at the sub-sources, they found that some didn’t exist, some denied ever saying what was attributed to them and others had simply supplied unreliable information.’

A whole wild salmon on sale for £3… so what’s the catch?

If someone offered you a wild salmon for £3, your immediate suspicion would be that it had been poached.Yet that is the astonishing price of a whole frozen fish at Asda as the supermarkets’ battle for Christmas customers gathers pace.The company says it has been able to achieve the record low price for the 2.6lb Alaskan pink salmon by dramatically cutting shipping costs which previously would have left customers paying £7 for the same product.

To put the price in perspective, the average price of a 1lb can of salmon was £1.75 in 1979 – meaning the £3 Asda fish costs less than the same weight in tinned salmon did 30 years ago. An Asda spokesman said: ‘It is the lowest-priced salmon on the market.

‘It is sustainably sourced from Alaska where the fish are caught in the wild and frozen immediately to ensure the best quality and flavour.’The spokesman said that the fish used to be shipped from Alaska via Seattle and the Netherlands, but this year the firm has found a way to miss out Seattle ‘which has cut the costs a lot’.He claimed that the fish would be enough to feed eight, making the cost of a portion less than 39p.The pink salmon is also known as the ‘humpback’ or ‘humpy’ because of the shape it develops before spawning. It grows to a maximum 4lb and 25in.

Tens of millions are netted from the Pacific seas around Alaska each year. Salmon is called the ‘bread and butter’ fish in many Alaskan coastal fishing communities because of its importance to the local economy.As well as being sold whole and frozen, Alaskan pink salmon is also tinned. Connoisseurs might be sniffy about the quality compared with the finest wild salmon from Scotland.But Asda insists it is trying to offer the best value it can, and points to the cost of whole fresh salmon on sale at other retailers.Last night a Sainsbury’s spokesman said: ‘We do not sell an equivalent product. We will be selling a whole Atlantic salmon from next week but cannot give the price yet.’ A Tesco spokesman was unable to give a price for an equivalent product. This is the latest salvo in the luxury food price war, with Lidl selling cooked lobsters for £4.99 and Woolworths offering champagne at £5 a bottle – before it went bust.

Scientists develop pill that could spell an end to straighteners after identifying ‘curly hair gene’

Scientists are to develop a treatment that could spell the end of hair straighteners after identifying the gene which is responsible for making hair curly.The groundbreaking research identified the trichohyalin gene as the one that is mainly responsible for creating curls.It is hoped that the breakthrough could lead to the development of a pill that would make hair straighter or curlier, rendering appliances such as hair straighteners and curling tongs redundant.

The researchers say the discovery will also make it possible to predict whether a baby will have straight or curly hair, while detectives will be able to use DNA to reveal how wavy a suspect’s locks are.Although the gene was already known to play some role in the development of hair follicles, scientists at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) have now found its role in making hair curly.Researchers at the laboratory analysed data collected from a study of 5,000 twins in Australia over a 30 year period.

Comparing maps of the twins’ genomes showed the same sorts of variations in the trichohyalin gene among those with curly hair and again among those with straight hair.Professor Nick Martin, who lead the research, says it is variations in this gene that determines straightness or curliness of hair.’We studied large amounts of information on a diverse range of traits,’ he said.’This gene has been known for well over twenty years as being involved in hair production and it’s a gene that sits in the sheath that’s around hair roots.’

He explained that a variation in this gene could create an amino acid change, which in turn influences the straightness or curliness of the hair.’Potentially we can now develop new treatments to make hair curlier or straighter, rather than treating the hair directly,’ he continued.’That is one angle we will be working on and which I will be discussing with a major cosmetic company in Paris in January.’Also, we could certainly predict whether it was more probable that a baby would have curly or straight hair. We plan to keep working on this to improve the prediction.’The most immediate application is likely to be in forensics. We might be able to refine identikit pictures from DNA samples left at a crime scene to say whether the suspect had straight or curly hair.’We can already predict their hair and eye and skin colour, so this would be another trait to refine the picture.’The study appears in the latest edition of the American Journal of Human Genetics.Past research has shown that 45 per cent of European people have straight hair, 40 per cent have wavy hair and 15 per cent have curly hair.Studies also show that the chance of inheriting curly hair is around 90 per cent.

Fox pictured taking escalator on London Underground

You’ve heard about foxes taking chickens… but here’s one who took the escalator.This animal displayed all of its characteristic cunning as he coolly explored the London Underground.The fantastic Mr Fox was spotted by amazed Kate Arkless Gray, 29, at midnight on Saturday as she returned home from a wedding.  She said: “As I got off the train and headed towards the up escalator I saw this daring creature dashing full speed down the down escalator, which was taped off for maintenance workers at the bottom.“I was wishing I’d been able to film it and then the workers at the bottom of the escalator shooed him back up again.“He paused near the top for a moment so I scrabbled around in my bag and took some pictures. We were all stunned.” After getting bored of being the centre of attention at Walthamstow Central station in North-East London, the fox casually made his way out.Kate, who lives in Walthamstow, said: “He calmly left under the ticket barrier and went towards the bus station exit. Maybe he was trying to catch the last bus home.”

Lady Gaga stuns locals by popping into pub for drink in fishnets and big knickers after bizarre X Factor show

Regulars spluttered into their pints in a pub in west London last night when a very unlikely customer popped in. Not many drinkers at the Castle, in North Acton, arrive in a matching white leotard, minidress and boots with ripped fishnet tights and sunglasses.But that’s precisely the outlandish outfit Lady GaGa was wearing after her performance on X Factor – and with her group of burly minders, she made quite an impression on the locals.

Lady Gaga heads to a pub in London’s North Acton to pick up some fish and chips – but made quite an impression on locals in her short dress and ripped tights

The sunglasses are still on as the singer sips her drink with a straw in the pub Onlookers said she was there to pick up fish and chips from the pub, which is part of the Fuller’s brewery chain. But for once Lady Gaga seemed almost shy and covered her face as she left The Castle with a minder. Bemused drinkers watched in amazement as she breezed in and out. It was the second time she visited a British drinking hole in almost as many days – she was spotted at lounging in a booth at a Blackpool on Friday between rehearsals for her upcoming performance for the Royal Variety show.

Most of the locals at The Castle pub were dressed more conservatively on a Sunday evening than Lady Gaga

The Castle pub in North Acton, where Gaga was drinking last night

Her latest pub visit came after a bizarre performance on The X Factor results show where she asked for a giant bathroom to be built onstage.The production team duly complied – with one condition. The singer was not allowed to centre her performance around the toilet.It was an understandable concern, given that at the last major performance by the eccentric U.S. star – at the MTV Awards in New York in September – she had hung from the ceiling covered in fake blood after pretending to stab herself while performing her hit Paparazzi.

The singer was also spotted at a pub in Blackpool on Friday while rehearsing her performance for the Royal Variety show

Eight minutes and 22 seconds
… the time it takes us to snap

From being kept on hold by call centres to waiting for a meal, impatient Britons last an average of just eight minutes and 22 seconds before they snap.Research out yesterday revealed that the internet had increased people’s expectations in the offline world.We have become so used to the speed and convenience of the internet that 70 per cent of us see red if forced to wait longer than a minute for a web page to download.

One in two Britons admit to reaching boiling point quicker than ever before.The top offender is being kept on hold, with the average Briton reaching a ‘point of impatience’ after just five minutes and four seconds – just two seconds less than they are prepared to wait for a kettle to boil.In today’s fast-food culture, restaurant rage kicks in after eight minutes and 38 seconds, while people meeting a friend should not be more than ten minutes late.

And tradesmen arriving more than ten min 43 seconds late will more than likely face an angry householder. When receiving a text or voicemail message, be warned that the clock is ticking.The average Brit expects a response within 13 minutes and 16 seconds.Mark Schmid, of telecom giant TalkTalk, which commissioned the research among 2,050 people, said: ‘The speed of the online world is making us less prepared to wait.’And with 37 per cent of people saying they have cancelled a service after being forced to wait, it poses some real problems for companies.’The research found that those brought up with the internet are much less patient than older folk, with a third of 18 to 24-year-olds expecting to wait only ten seconds for an internet page to load.

Women have a staggering 36 negative thoughts each day about their bodies… here are mine

Research has shown that the average woman has 36 negative thoughts about her body every day. To see if it was true, we asked writer LUCY CAVENDISH, who should feel good about herself having lost three stone in the past year, to keep a diary…

7am: The first thing I do when I wake up is sleepily feel my hips with my hands. For years I was fat and after four pregnancies I found it almost impossible to lose weight. Yet over the past year, I have lost more than three stone with WeightWatchers. But I find it hard to get used to the new me. Every night, I dream I have put the weight back on. I have nightmares about it, so every morning I have to check. Can I feel my hips? Or have I eaten 20 cream teas unwittingly in my sleep and piled it all back on? Oh God, how much would I love to eat a cream tea.

7.15am: I get up and wander to the bathroom. I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I haven’t eaten that cream tea, but God, when did I start to look so old? I stare at myself blearily. I have bags under my eyes and my skin looks saggy. I pull my skin back. This is how I looked in my 20s – taut and lean. Now, I look like a sack of potatoes. It’s all downhill from here, I think.

7.30am: I put on my usual country uniform of jeans (baggy, ancient) and jumper (moth-eaten). Scrag my hair up in to a tight bunch. Is my hair getting thinner? Start worrying about my age even more. 8am: The night before, I read an article about how having your teeth whitened can make you look years younger. Wonder if I should get it done.

8.20am: Take the kids to school. Try to hide in the car. Why does every other mother look amazing and I don’t? Most of them have make-up on. How on earth do they find the time to do that at this time in the morning? I barely have time, when getting four children out of the house, to brush my hair. In fact, it occurs to me I haven’t brushed my hair for ages. It is all sticking out all over the place. At the school gates, a particularly nice and attractive, young school mother stops to talk to me. I notice how white her teeth are. Has she had them done?

8.25am: Get back in the car and grimace at myself in the mirror. My teeth are nowhere near as white as hers. Decide then and there to get my teeth bleached. I don’t even care that my best friend Bridget told me it was horribly painful.

8.40am: Get home and brush hair. It is drizzling outside and my hair has gone like a bog brush – it is now out at wild angles. I try to tame it with some hair serum, but it looks as if I have stood under an oil slick.

8.45am: Man comes round to sort out my septic tank. I answer the door with the serum in my hair and he looks horrified. Trim older woman from next door walks past. How can anyone over 60 look that good?

9.15am: Look at all the clothes in my wardrobe. Sixty-plus lady was in jeans, shirt and a gilet. She looked effortlessly stylish. I try to find a shirt. I decide my boobs are too big to carry off a shirt. Why do I have such big boobs?

9.20am: Start wondering why I have such big thighs as well as boobs. Now I’m obsessively thinking about my size. What did I have for breakfast? Finished off the children’s cereals. Ate two slices of toast. Start panicking that I’m getting fat again.

10am: Go to my weekly yoga class. I don’t know why I do this. I am not at all bendy despite doing yoga once a week for the past year. I can’t decide whether or not to wear my tight yoga pants – I have a pang of ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ worry – or my looser ones.

10.30am: Am standing in ‘tree’ – well, my version of tree – watching the very thin and beautiful girl opposite me close her eyes while balancing on one leg.

10.45am: Fall out of my tree pose while trying not to look at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the yoga studio that are relatively unavoidable. I think I must suffer from some sort of body dysmorphia. Every time I see myself in a mirror I think: ‘Who is that old, ugly, large woman?’

11.30am: Decide to look at the shops on my way back from yoga. Bad idea. Why do shops have such terrible lighting in them? Noon: The first shop I go into is a disaster. I take a skirt to the changing room and then have to see myself in the mirror. I look terrible. I run out of the shop and decide to avoid everyone. 1pm: Have a problem deciding what to eat for lunch. I should have a grilled-chicken salad, but what I really want is the packet of Minstrels that I hid in the back of the grocery cupboard yesterday. Minstrels. Salad. Minstrels. Salad. The chocolate is calling me. I give in.

1.30pm: Resist the temptation to weigh myself. I am convinced those Minstrels will have made me put on half a stone. Lie on bed, close eyes and will myself to stop feeling guilty about the chocolate-eating thing.

1.45pm: Remember I have to go to the physiotherapist. I took up running a year ago, but have had painful knees, hips and pretty much everything else since I started.

1.50pm: As I drive there, it occurs to me that I don’t like going to see the physio. He works out of a health club, which is full of preposterously fit and pretty yummy mummies. I am not one of them. It worries me.

1.55pm: I then also remember that the physio keeps telling me I am physically very ‘weak’, as he puts it. This makes me feel depressed and angry at the same time.

2pm: I get to the health club. It sends me off into a spiral of negativity. Who are these women with their neat figures and equally neat gym gear? How do they look so good?

2.10pm: Physio tells me that part of my problem is to do with the fact that I am ‘ageing’. Ageing? Of course I’m ageing. We’re all ageing.

2.11pm: I ask him what he means exactly. He goes into a long explanation of what happens to our gluteus maximus, or more specifically what’s happened to my gluteus maximus. ‘In short,’ he says, ‘your muscles are not strong enough and your bottom has drooped.’ I have a droopy bottom. It’s official.

3pm: Pull up outside the school gates worrying about my bottom. Start looking at all the other women’s bottoms. No one else’s seems to be that droopy.

3.15pm: Outside the school, I notice one woman who always looks amazing. She doesn’t work, but she is always immaculately dressed and made up. I resolve to sharpen up my act.

3.30pm: Get home and decide to count the calories I have eaten today in my head. This is probably not a great thing to do, but it is a habit that is hard to get out of.

3.45pm: Wonder if anyone else on the planet is calorie counting right now. It’s amazing how many supposedly ‘innocent’ foods have hidden calories in them. Soup, for example. I buy a tub of soup and then find out it’s stuffed full of cream and is high in calories and, more importantly, I can’t eat it.

4pm: A beauteous friend of mine brings her children over for tea. They are lovely and polite and scatter ‘pleases’ and ‘thankyous’ as if they are confetti at a wedding. My children are surly and sullen and intent on being rude to everyone. My friend is as nice as she can be about this. She looks effortlessly glamorous.

4.10pm: As I think about this, it reminds me of something important. It has always been this way for me. Even when I was a teenager and as skinny as a rake, I wasn’t cool. I never got the uniform right – I was either too punk or not punk enough.

4.15pm: I ask my friend how she does it. Why does her blonde hair just fall in skeins down her back, whereas my brown hair frizzes appallingly as soon as I even move? Don’t even ask me about going out in the rain.

4.30pm: Stand in front of the mirror, now my friend has gone, and take a good, long look at myself. Would I benefit from a facelift or maybe some Botox?

4.35pm: I ask my eldest son, 13, how old he thinks I look. He says 36. I obviously look relieved because then he says, in a worried tone: ‘Was that the right answer?’

5pm: Watch TV and realise with a stunning sense of increasing desperation that everyone is about half my age and they are all blonde. Maybe I should go blonde.

7.30pm: Finally collapse in front of the TV having put the children to bed. I resolve not to eat any more bread or chocolate today. I shall have a salad and maybe a glass of white wine. I feel exhausted.

7.35pm: It occurs to me that no one can look that good if they are constantly tired. Maybe sleep would help.

9pm: Wander upstairs to start my nightly beauty routine of cleansers and face creams. Stare at myself in the mirror. I do look tired, but tomorrow is another day. Maybe it will be a better one.

Todays WTF !!

Families who can’t get by on £100,000 a year

About 2.5million families enjoy a household income of nearly £100,000 – but do not consider themselves rich, a report has revealed.Despite their above-average pay packages, they complain of feeling broke and say they will need to earn more than £150,000 before they feel wealthy.The survey of 1,100 professionals by the specialist insurance firm Hiscox also reveals it is not just a hefty pay rise that would make them feel better.

Only other trophies, such as a second home, a work of art or a luxury car, would make them feel they are genuinely wealthy.Despite their complaints, a quarter enjoy at least two foreign holidays a year and have at least £25,000 in savings.The survey asked professionals what income level would make them feel rich. On average, they said they would need a household income of £152,865, compared to their average household income of £93,000 at the moment.

Household income is either the salary of the only breadwinner in a family, or two salaries if both parents work.The findings may surprise the majority of families in Britain who are getting by on the national average household income of about £35,000.Income desires varied across the country. The most modest was from professionals in the South West, who said they would need £128,912 to feel really comfortable.Those living in the North-East wanted the most, saying they would need £178,238 to feel rich.

Around a third said they would also need to own more than one property to feel rich.Others said they would not feel rich unless they had paid off their mortgage, bought a Ferrari or had more than £20,000 a year in disposable income.But the report also revealed that the ‘working wealthy’ are also feeling the pinch and making cutbacks.Many said they have slashed their spending on socialising, restaurants and holidays.Steve Langan, managing director of Hiscox UK, said: ‘Many of the working wealthy have suffered a crisis of confidence and have scaled back their spending and exposure to risk.Despite their desires for a big pay rise, the working wealthy say that money is not everything.Nearly 70 per cent told researchers it was very important to be happy with what they have, citing family, health and well-being and new life experiences as top priorities.

Gambler who lost £77m sues Las Vegas casino

After losing £77million in one year, you would have thought gambler Terrance Watanabe would have steered well clear of long shots…But he has now decided to take on Las Vegas casinos in a court case he is unlikely to win.The 52-year-old billionaire is claiming he was allowed to play while drunk and out of control, in violation of gaming rules. However, his lawsuit, announced yesterday, comes as he faces criminal charges for allegedly failing to honour 30 IOU markers for amounts ranging from £120,000 to £550,000. Hopeless Watanabe’s losses were so legendary he became a tourist attraction at the blackjack table in Caesars Palace. He spent so much during his run of bad luck his losses once accounted for 5% of the US city’s total revenue. At his lowest point, Watanabe lost more than £3million in 24 hours – and during 2007, while living permanently at the Caesars Palace hotel, he spent £504million.

One Las Vegas casino regular said: “People would go just to watch. There are a lot of things that make you cringe in Vegas – but I’ve never seen anything like that.”Watanabe would place bets on games with some of the worst odds in the house – roulette and multi-line slot machines. At blackjack, he would play three hands at a time – each with a £30,000 limit.Kristian Kunder, one of Watanabe’s personal handlers at Caesars Palace, said: “He made such bad decisions.” Watanabe, of Omaha, Nebraska, is accused of intent to defraud Harrah’s, the firm that owns Caesars and the Rio, over the IOUs. He allegedly owes almost £9million and could face 16 years in prison if convicted.But Watanabe’s former attorney, David Chesnoff, has said casino staff will testify that he was regularly drunk – and should therefore have been barred from betting.Jan Jones of Harrah’s said: “Mr Watanabe is a criminal defendant who faces imprisonment. All of his statements need to be seen in that light. We will not get into a public debate with a criminal defendant trying to avoid imprisonment.”Watanabe sold his stake in the Oriental Trading Company 10 years ago. The firm, a wholesaler of toys and party gear, grew from a shop opened by father Harry in 1932.

Now Sarah Jessica Parker encounters Hugh Grant’s wandering hands at premiere

His over-familiar ways left a blonde comedienne cringing when he pulled her in for a hug on a German TV show.But it seems Hugh Grant has yet to learn his lesson.Sarah Jessica Parker is the latest beauty to be the object of his attentions, after he placed a friendly hand upon her behind as they posed together on the red carpet.

Lovely to meet you: Hugh Grant gets close to co-star Sarah Jessica Parker at the London premiere of Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Luckily for bachelor Hugh, Sarah was left unperturbed by the incident, which came at the London premiere of their new movie Did You Hear About the Morgans?The actress seemed more concerned about her bright pink strapless dress.As SJP rearranged the dress, pulling it up, she nearly exposed herself to the photographers.She was then pictured smoothing the back of the dress.

Grant, who is nearing 50, was accompanied by his close friend and former girlfriend Liz Hurley, who like SJP wore a pink minidress.The new film sees Grant reunited with SJP for the first time since they starred in 1996 movie Extreme Measures.

The actors play a couple on the verge of divorce, who are forced into setting up a new life after they witness a murder and a contract is put on their lives.They move from the hustle and bustle of New York, to the relative calm and tranquility of a small town in Wyoming.SJP, 44, is currently dividing her time between caring for her newly-born surrogate twins and filming scenes for the second Sex And The City movie.

SJP arrived wearing a long black coat, but removed it to pose

But she managed to fit in the trip to London on top of her commitments. SJP recently expressed regrets about her huge workload. She said: ‘It’s been very different than when James (her son) arrived, since our family expanded in an untraditional way. We didn’t plan on having two, but were doubly blessed, and it’s been just wonderful.

Is it still there? SJP checks her dress is behaving

‘One would prefer to be held 24 hours a day, and the other is already suffering from type A issues.’It’s been amazing but complicated because of my current work schedule, which I have enormous regrets about.’

Stealing the limelight? Grant’s ex-girlfriend Liz Hurley also wore a pink minidress

Susan Boyle marks her rise to fame by performing with Elaine Paige

As if a hit album and worldwide adoration weren’t enough – Susan Boyle has achieved her dream of singing with her musical idol.The Scottish singer, 48, looked overcome with joy as she teamed up with Elaine Paige to sing the latter’s hit duet I Know Him So Well.The pairing was kept secret from Miss Boyle until shortly before the performance, which was for a TV special that charts her rise to fame this year.

She dreamed a dream: Susan Boyle with her idol Elaine Paige in the ITV special I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story

Afterwards, the Britain’s Got Talent winner said: ‘I never thought I would see myself standing on the same stage with such an icon from West End theatre, let alone singing with her as an equal.’

Miss Boyle has sold three million copies of her debut album worldwide and could top 4.5million in the next week.

How far she’s come: Susan Boyle in April, left, at her Britain’s Got Talent audition, and yesterday, right, looking polished on her TV special

Emotional: With the programme host Piers Morgan and the cast of Les Mis

The TV special, called I Dreamed A Dream: The Susan Boyle Story, is likely to cement the album in the No.1 slot for the Christmas chart.It will be broadcast on Sunday night after The X Factor final.

Susan’s album looks set to top the seasonal charts

Big moment: Piers will present Susan with a gold disc during the show

Feeling a little ropey, Robbie? Williams looks distinctly unwell as he leaves radio show

He has been on a non-stop mission in recent months to restart his career.Judging by this picture, it’s time Robbie Williams took a break.The singer’s haggard appearance shocked fans outside the BBC radio theatre in Central London yesterday morning.

Robbie Williams signs autographs yesterday outside the BBC radio theatre in London

Williams, 35, looked distinctly unwell as he signed autographs after a live concert broadcast on Ken Bruce’s Radio 2 show.Despite the presence of his long-term girlfriend Ayda Field close by, Mr Williams – who has battled depression and drug addiction in the past – had a worryingly sick demeanour.

Robbie performed live for BBC Radio 2 at broadcasting House

One onlooker said: ‘Robbie didn’t appear well at all. He was almost green as he signed autographs. It really was most concerning.’Two months ago, Williams caused similar concern after a tense comeback appearance on The X Factor, following his spell in rehab for an addiction to prescription drugs.The singer’s appearance on the night, wide-eyed and sweating, left many of the 13 million viewers wondering if he was quite ready for the challenge.Nevertheless, it emerged earlier this week that Mr Williams had decided to return for another appearance on the X Factor this weekend.

He will perform with X Factor finalist Olly Murs on the show on Saturday night.Yesterday, he told the audience: ‘I’ll be spending Christmas in LA – with turkey, with the missus, with the sunshine, with my dad, with the poker, with the quizzes and with the weight as everyone puts on a bit of weight at Christmas.’Mr Williams also insisted he was not engaged to actress Ms Field, saying it was just a joke.He had apparently proposed to 30-year-old Ms Field during a radio interview in Australia last month – but then denied it afterwards.Explaining why even his mother Jan then apparently confirmed the engagement on BBC Radio 5 Live afterwards, Mr Williams said: ‘My mum wants grandchildren – she was just speeding up the process.’

I heard someone recommend the recent Sebastian Faulks’s James Bond book and decided that if they thought it was very good then I would probably like it too.  Apparently it has gone down well in the Bond circles.  I have heard people in the past refer to Sebastian Faulks in tones of admiration so I figured this was a good thing.

Rather in the same way in which people are referring to an upcoming Doctor Who episode written by Michael Moorcock, the respected sci-fi writer.

In the Doctor Who world there is a term “fanwank” which was coined by the late Craig Hinton.  It refers to written fiction by people so in love with the show that they want to express their knowledge and put a smile on the Doctor Who fans who are as obsessive as they are.  You might, for instance have a story where the 10^th Doctor met a companion from a previous era and they would discuss how they defeated an evil monster and how it was a good thing that it had never  had a lethal death ray built in like the Daleks they fought in the 50^th Century on Mount Megeshra on the planet Peladon, who were forming an alliance with the Ice Warriors and going to blow up the Earth in the past to stop humans from landing on Mars.

It is quite simply there to show off.  “Look what I’ve got them doing here!” the author virtually screams.

Devil May Care started promisingly with a minion in the underbelly of crime being offed by a contact in whatever criminal organisation they were in.  A good start, well written.  And then in Chapter 2 Bond made his entrance and oh boy, did the fanwank begin.

Bond casually compares someone to Drax (Moonraker) and LeChiffre (Casino Royale).  He travels from the South of France to Rome, not because he needs to, but for the author to show off how he understands the jet-setting continental lifestyle we come to expect from Bond.  There’s no point in it, but he does it anyway.  Bond ‘bumps into’ an attractive woman and, oh wow, her husband is conveniently away on business.  She invites Bond in for “a drink”.  And Bond, the serial womaniser who’d never turn down an easy lay says, “No Thank You”.

Bond says “No Thank You”.

That’s right.  The author is saying “Look at me!  Look what I’ve got Bond doing!  You didn’t expect that, did you? Ah-ha-ha, I am a very clever writer, bow down to me, I do the unexpected.  Yes, I am that good.”  Ohhhh god.

In chapter 3 Bond goes back to his home and there his housekeeper (maybe she’s in the proper books, I don’t know) has a conversation with him about The Rolling Stones and how they’ve just been arrested for drugs.  Yes, Bond is being clearly dated for us so we know when the story is supposed to be set.  It’s heavy-handed and clunks along awkwardly. 

Bond then goes to MI6 and has a conversation with Moneypenny where she tells him that M is into Yoga.  I’m not making this up.

"Mmm, I can't wait for my next Yoga session."

Bond goes in to see M and they have a chat about drugs and hippies and this “pop group” who’ve been arrested and urghrughrghgurgurghruhgruhghrughrug it’s just so awful.  M casually drops Scaramanga’s name in, just so that we can, yet again, understand that the author is aware of other stories and “Hey, see?  You remember those stories too, right?!!!”

This is chapter 3 and still no sign of a plot.  M talks about the qualities of drugs and casually drops about 5 or 6 pharmaceutical companies’ names into conversation the way that you would normally.  You know those conversations we all have in the pub about Glaxo Smithkline and what Beechams are up to these days.  We all do it.  It’s just normal everyday conversation.  A briefing of utter madness and I’ve already lost respect for Sebastian Faulks, the Bond novelisation franchise and this book in particular.  I shall try to soldier on, but it’s lost all my enthusiasm.

Did you know there’s a new Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book, written long after the death of Douglas Adams, just to screw a few more millions out of, what is now, a franchise.  Do you think it’ll be worth reading?  My guess is, it won’t be.  But you can bet your bottom dollar that Zaphod Beeblebrox will have a ‘hoopy’ conversation with Arthur:  “Hey, remember when the mice wanted your brain?”.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=25831

Saturday, November 28, 2009
Viewpoint

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari does not need adversaries as he is his own worst enemy. He shouldn’t be worried about the conspiracies, if any, of his political foes, the establishment or his perceived opponent — Geo and a few journalists associated with the Jang Group — because he himself is in a self-destructive mode.

Perhaps not many would be bothered as to what he does to himself but the big worry is about his style of governance which is marred by inaction and indifference at a time when there is a need to do a lot and seriously.

His strange and incomprehensible attitude is damaging Pakistan and threatening the whole system. To be precise and candid, if I am allowed to express my personal view, there is no greater threat to democracy and the system than the president himself. Others have the right to differ.

Getting to the Presidency or the chief executive’s office through democratic means, does not mean anything if the promises made are disregarded, election manifesto is overlooked, institutions are ruined, constitutional distortions are subtly protected to thrust and sustain a one man rule that could be described as civilian dictatorship, and parliament is ignored and cabinet is turned into a non-entity. All of this is happening under Zardariís rule.

Although the president has pointed his finger at Geo and Jang Group as his sole enemy, he conveniently ignored what the whole world says about his style of government, his growing unpopularity, mounting corruption of his regime and his men.

Read the foreign newspapers and magazines, look what is coming from Paris about the submarine deal, go through the international surveys about the record-breaking corruption to adjudge the reputation of Zardari-led political dispensation. You will find that Pakistan is hurting.

Ask the political parties, get the pulse of the military establishment, talk to the members of the civil bureaucracy and even have a heart to heart discussion with the PPP leaders including those holding public office, there is a consensus that the president is doing just contrary to what the situation demands. Pakistan is confronted with Himalaya like challenges but its president appears non-serious to face them and get them resolved. No matter what he said in his last public speech made from the Presidency, now generally termed his bunker, he knows how he is seen by all the stakeholders and how much he is trusted.

Media has always served as an easy prey for every government. What President Zardari also did on last Wednesday was no different from the past? We know the Jang Group has committed ìsinî by unearthing corruption scandals, one after the other, and by consistently highlighting tales of murder of merit, favouritism, bad governance. We are also ìresponsibleî for reminding the president and his government of promises, commitments and pledges that remained unfulfilled. President Zardari may not like it but we would continue doing so because it is our fundamental responsibility and this is what the media has been doing in the past.

We have nothing personal against anyone. We donít seek any personal favour, plots, foreign trips and lucrative positions. We neither conspire nor claim to be the kingmakers. We are just messengers and opinion makers. We may be accused of running campaigns or getting biased but all such campaigns or biases, if any, would be directed for institution building, rule of law, justice and fair play. The deserted ousted dictator General (retd) Musharraf also thought that we were biased against him. To an extent he was right that we were biased. But our bias was not against him but to achieve the goal of independence of judiciary in Pakistan. We achieved the goal for which the whole nation takes pride today.

Our criticism against the president and his regime is based on similar biases, which should not be misinterpreted in any other manner. Needless to say that we are biased against corruption, we are biased against nepotism and violation of merit, we are biased against misrule, we are biased against undemocratic postures of the democrats, we are biased against weakening of the institutions, we are biased against military rule as well as civilian dictatorship and certainly we are biased against anything that in any manner harms our homeland.

Mediaís criticism is nowhere seen as a ìconspiracyî to make or break governments. Instead, it is taken by the matured minds and civilised societies as a chance to improve governance, better service delivery, address injustices and serve the public interest.

President Zardari may not like it but he needs to change himself if he wants to secure his presidency. It may also not sound music to his ears but he also needs to change his company by getting rid of the tainted sycophants, dirtied courtiers, corrupt to the core souls and some ìknownî agents of MI6 and CIA, surrounding him. He has to act without any further delay to undo the 17th Amendment, implement the Charter of Democracy and check corruption. Otherwise, he would continue getting weaker and weaker with every passing day. But for his own follies and failings, there is no reason to blame others, particularly the media, which is the mirror, whom the politician always support and admire when out of power intoxication.

When I was in the United States recently with Jo-ann and Trevor I had a random thought one day while we were in downtown Seattle. How do Americans pay parking meters?

I mean, a few hours at a parking meter can cost upwards of a few bucks, and without the use of large coins (ie. loonies and toonies) do our friends south of the border just have to travel around with huge amounts of change and then spend minutes plugging the damn meter with a roll of quarters? This seems ludicrous but I can think of no other option unless they have incredibly high tech meters that use credit cards or something? Or maybe parking meters are really cheap there? SERIOUSLY, WHAT DO THEY DO?!

I have no idea.

Interesting sidenote, in order to go incognito during our recent trip to the US of A, Jo-Ann, Trevor and I referred to one dollar bills as “singles”. James Bond, WATCH OUT!

Actually, I was re-watching Casino Royale with Fallon the other night and have decided that I could totally be M. Like the real head of MI6.

Imagine.

I’d be amazing like Judi Dench.

AMAZING!

According to the former chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Dearlove, al Qaeda’s ability to attack the US or Britain is wanning due to improved security cooperation between the two countries.

But does al Qaeda even need to carry out attacks against the US or Britain? There are plenty of muslims in Britain and the US who share the same ideology as al Qaeda and who are willing to carry out attacks on their own. One just has to refer to the recent Ft. Hood terrorist attack to understand we have bigger problems than just al Qaeda.

From Bloomberg

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) — The al-Qaeda terrorist network may be losing its capacity to launch large-scale attacks in the U.S. and U.K. because of improved security cooperation, Richard Dearlove, former chief of Britain’s MI6 spy agency, said.

“It could be the movement is past the high point in its ability to mount mass-casualty events in the West,” Dearlove said in an interview in London late yesterday. “It’s because the bar has been raised, the door has been shut.”

Dearlove, 64, served as chief of MI6, known officially as the Secret Intelligence Service, from 1999 to 2004, and his tenure included the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. “There is much more international security cooperation,” he said, though “the threat is not completely removed.”

So, despite my suspicions about how the Iraq war inquiry will eventually end, I will admit watching the proceedings is fairly interesting, even if it mostly reaffirms what we have heard from other quarters.  There have been some surprises, but not many.  Anyway, an overview:

• The USA was making noises about invasion as far back as 2001, though it varied as to how seriously these claims were made and taken by various officials.

• 9/11 sounded a death knell for the policy of containment and the ascendency of Iraq war hawks in the Bush administration.

• The British foreign policy establishment were initially wary of such attitudes, because of the legal status of such a war (in the words of Sir William Patey “we dismissed it at the time because it had no basis in law”).

• Blair’s attitude began to shift in early 2002, though there is no agreement over whether this was due to the Crawford ranch meeting or not.  Sir Peter Ricketts, chairmain of JIC, claims that up until March 2002 there was “no increased appetite” among ministers for regime change via invasion.

• MI6 dismissed the claim of links between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.  There was no evidence of any serious cooperation.

• Iran, Libya, North Korea and the continuing war in Afghanistan were considered to be more serious concerns to British security.

• Intelligence concerning WMD wasn’t as coherent on the likelihood of a threat as was claimed to be.  In the words of Sir William Ehrman, earlier intelligence about Hussein’s WMDs and missiles was “sporadic and patchy”.  This contrasts with Blair’s claims that intelligence assessments had established “beyond a doubt” that Saddam had such programs underway.

• Tim Dowse, head of counter-proliferation at the FCO was certain WMD would be found.

• The 45 minutes claim, as well as that of “mass evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories” were not supported by the evidence.

• UNSC Resolution 1441 was designed as a trip-wire to justify a war.

• Weapons inspections were not given time to work

There are a couple of things I’d like to discuss in detail, but that will have to wait for another post.  In the meantime, there is always the Iraq Inquiry Digest, if you want more.

wired.com

An online debate over global warming science has broken out after an unknown hacker broke into the e-mail server at a prominent, British climate-research center, stole more than a thousand e-mails about global warming research and posted them online.

Global warming skeptics are seizing on portions of the messages as evidence that scientists are colluding and warping data to fit the theory of global warming, but researchers say the e-mails are being taken out of context and just show scientists engaged in frank discussion.

The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia is one of the United Kingdom’s leading climate research centers and has been a strong proponent of the position that global warming is real and has human causes. The center confirmed the hack occurred in an e-mail statement to Threat Level.

More…

Je n’arrive pas à choisir entre le réducteur de natalité et les explications du caniche
(Yves Cochet 0 – Tony Blair 1)

March 04, 2009

My research on the subject of Bloody Sunday began almost exactly to the day one year ago. At the time I had no definite vision of my work’s format, whether it would be a non-fiction account of historical facts or if I should package the events into a novel. The question was, how would I separate myself from the numerous other books available on the subject? Just a quick search on Amazon.com will show you what I mean; there are a myriad of books on the Irish War and adding yet another non-fiction work would be like adding sand to the Sahara. Another circumstance that made my choice for a novel was the sober look at a simple number: The Amazon ranking. Amazon sells millions of different books and a ranking below 100,000 is not too shabby, however, most books on the Irish Troubles rank way beyond that, which accounts for a very few book sales per month throughout the entire United States.

The low ranking has, in my very personal opinion, several reasons. First of all, most books on the Irish War are either incredibly boring (they are usually written for people who already have intimate knowledge of the Irish Troubles) or are so politically tainted that you need to doubt their credibility. The other reason may be plain lack of interest in an event, such as Bloody Sunday, that took place more than 30 years ago. Well, I am almost sure there is some good literature out there, but none of them sticks out far enough to separate themselves from the masses.

Consequently, after a few weeks of intense research, I had made my decision to write a novel and embed some Irish history into the storyline, just enough to not be boring, but tickle the readers’ curiosity. Maybe they will feel inspired to go to their local library, bookstore, or even Online, eager to learn more about a topic that deserves more attention than it currently receives.

Besides writing I also create my own covers and I had decided it would be best to use a photo related to Bloody Sunday. The previous research had provided me with a small number of contacts and as it turns out my first contact was also where I got the photo I liked best. That contact was Mary Andrews, Pictures Syndication Manager of the Guardian and Observer. It was very uplifting to receive a response per e-mail that started with a “Hiya, Wilfried.” She offered me a number of photos, most of them relating to the recent Bloody Sunday inquiry (or to use proper English: enquiry), which would have been an interesting choice, but I felt they were not quite right considering the storyline of my novel. One photo, though, caught my attention from the beginning; it is described as Boys Playing In The Bogside Catholic Neighbourhood Of Derry, A Republican Stronghold In Northern Ireland, Antonio Olmos, 01 July 2002.

The events of Bloody Sunday took place in the Bogside neighborhood. The black & white photo shows, besides the boys playing, a large sign in the background “Free All Political Prisoners”. What I liked about the picture is the contrast between the playing children and the political message placed in a neighborhood where thirteen civil rights protesters, six of whom were just seventeen years old, were killed by members of the 1st Battalion of British Parachute Regiment. I obtained the copyright later that year, which also included a very pleasant phone conversation with Mary as she took my credit card number.

I would also like to thank Adrian Kerr of the Derry Journal for his efforts. The Derry Journal owns some few photos related to Bloody Sunday, but they were taken either before or after the events. You can find a number of photos of the victims on their web site (http://www.derryjournal.com/), but as Adrian told me, victim photos belong to the individual families.

Another possible source of authentic photographs was Eamon Melaugh, a photographer, who owns an extensive collection of photos made during and after Bloody Sunday. He also maintains a very impressive web site on the subject, but I have to say he was a vast disappointment. I wrote several inquiries per e-mail, which he chose not to answer.

Well, after all, I am very satisfied with my current choice.

Supplement 07/20/2009:

Maybe I should have done this much earlier, but, now that we are getting closer to actual publishing, I looked into the terms & conditions allowing me to use the cover photo. The terms did not allow me to modify the photo, which limited the design choices for the nice cover. As a result, the cover looked too bland, and we decided to change it. Another reason is, that the royalties I paid are based on a sales volume of up to 100 copies, and I am sure it will sell better than that. We downloaded a nice picture at BigStockPhoto.com, meaning there are no royalties involved.

Well, as I wrote before, this entire process was supposed to give me a look & feel of publishing a novel, and I can say, I have learned a lot.

March 04, 2009

Back in 2005 I discovered the thrill of writing and publishing my first book on a very dry technical topic – Controller Area Network, a technology developed for automobiles. Since then I had published two more books of similar nature, but for the longest time I had toyed with the thought of breaking the cycle and explore other topics to write about, maybe even writing a novel of some kind. I am aware, writing technical literature or writing a novel are two very different ballparks, but am also thrilled by the idea.

Now, that a decision for a novel was made, I had to decide the subject to write about. I do have enough material in my mind that would account for at least four or five novels, but I also wanted to start with an “easy” subject, something to get a feel of the whole novel writing experience without wasting years of research and writing. One recent issue of thePoets & Writers magazine listed cases where authors worked for up to 18 years on their first novel, which, honestly, does not appeal – maybe it’s my German efficiency thinking.

After numerous hour-long sessions in the hot tub I came up with the “easy” subject of Bloody Sunday, which made my wife crinch when I told her. Having a law degree and knowing my rebel attitude she foresaw all the legal implications such as verifying copyrights, accuracy of historical facts, etc. It’s ironic, because being married to an Irish-American green-eyed red-head who is spiritually, however, not actively a staunch supporter of Sinn Fein, confronts you with the very passionate topic of Irish history on a nearly daily basis. To my wife’s credit, I hadn’t told her I was thinking about a novel; her initial expectation was a non-fiction account of the events. As Mark Twain put it so adequately “Familiarize yourself with the facts and then you can distort them any way you please.” and that is exactly what novel-writing is about.

Bloody Sunday, which many people associate only with the famous U2 song, refers to the events in Derry (the nameLondonderry is not acceptable for a good Irish Republican) in Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972, when twenty-six civil rights protesters were shot by the 1st Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment. Thirteen people, six of whom were only seventeen years old, died at the scene. Five of those wounded, were shot in the back. While the study of such a tense subject seemed promising, I also found that good literature on the subject is hard to come by. Most books are either politically tainted to a degree that their credibility must be taken with a considerable grain of salt or the writing style simply defies the basic rules of good and fluent reading. It is my firm belief that writing about history should not only catch, but also keep the reader’s attention; otherwise the writing turns out to be a worthless task.

I was discouraged to have selected several bad examples from a myriad of available books on recent Irish history. One work in particular, written by a former member of 14 Company, at some time considered the most secret undercover operation of British Intelligence, was written in the style of an adolescent with an inferiority complex the size of Wisconsin describing a violent video game. Accompanying photos were plenty and one of them showed an example of how a pistol was properly tucked into the backside of a woman’s jeans with the subtitle “A fine example of a nicely shaped butt”. A head shake is in order now. I am now using the vast Internet resources for my research.

Another inspiration for my story was a CD I had first heard in Ireland, when we visited some relatives (I am now officially “Irish by Marriage”). My wife’s grandmother was born on the island of Inishbofin off the coast of Galway and came to the United States in the early 1920’s. The CD in question is Farewell to Evening Dances by Colm O’Donnell, one of my absolute favorite Irish musicians. One song in particular, The Boys of Barr Na Sraide, caught my attention. The song, according to Irish singer Tim Dennehy’s web site, “captures beautifully the essence of Cahersiveen nestled as it is between the mountain and sea”. Cahersiveen is an Irish town located at the Ring of Kerry. The song is based on a poem by Sigerson Clifford, who was born in Cahersiveen, and it tells the story of the boys of Barr Na Sraide – Top Street – who hunted for the wren.

Through the intensive research on the topic of recent Irish history I discovered many more interesting details, which influenced my writing significantly as I tried to incorporate historical facts into the story line. Bloody Sunday is still an important part of the story, but more in respect that it strengthened the position of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and resulted in the recruitment of a great number of new members determined to fight British rule. I used references toThe Boys of Barr Na Sraide in a very unique way and you need to read the final result to find out how…

Talking about the story line… Here is a summary:
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. Finn is protected by the CIA in his exile in the United States after working for them for the past twenty years. Consequently, British Intelligence has come up with a plan to lure Finn back into their jurisdiction, Northern Ireland, by revealing the identity of the man who is ultimately responsible for the killing of Finn’s wife, Shauna. Here they hope not only to apprehend him, but also lead them to another conspirator, Martin Sheehan, who hides in the Northern provinces. For Finn this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland.

The title of the book will be “The Bleeding Hills”. It is divided into six chapters and as of today’s date I have finished chapter three; time to forward it to my editing resource. The remaining three chapters already contain a very coarse draft and I need to flesh them out. You will see me somewhere in Western Massachusetts, hanging out at a Panera Bread, copying thoughts from my brain into my beloved MacBook. The current plan is to be ready for publication by end of May. In the meantime I will post further updates here on my blog.

Les Talibans pakistanais ont nié toute implication dans les attaques civiles et accusé les États-Unis d’avoir orchestré certains attentats à la bombe.

Le Tehreek e-Taliban a rendu publique sa première vidéo, où il s’exprime sur les récentes attaques qui lui ont été attribuées dans toutes les villes pakistanaises.

Lundi dernier, le porte-parole du groupe, Azam Tariq, a posté sur YouTube la vidéo qui évoque les attentats à la bombe perpétrés à l’Université islamiste d’Islamabad.

Il a affirmé que cette attaque visait à préparer le terrain en vue de l’opération militaire qui se déroulera au sud Waziristan, le fief des combattants Taliban.

Il a également déclaré que son groupe n’avait en aucun cas été impliqué ni dans l’attentat du marché de Peshawar qui avait fait 100 morts, ni dans l’attaque de Charsada, une ville située à la frontière de la province pakistanaise du Nord-ouest.

« Je voudrais que le monde arabe, en particulier le Pakistan, sache que les Moudjahidin ne posent pas de bombes destinées à tuer des civils », a précisé Tariq. « C’est plutôt l’œuvre des sinistres organisations secrètes à la solde de l’État et de Blackwater ». 

En outre, le porte-parole du Tehreek e-Taliban a justifié certaines explosions, qu’il a jugées « légitimes sur le plan religieux ». 

Les cibles de notre groupe ont toujours été clairement définies : il s’agit des organisations étatiques qui, sur ordre des Américains, s’en prennent à nous et ont sur les mains le sang de nos martyrs.

Toutefois, la firme américaine de sécurité Xe Services LLC, précédemment connue sous le nom de Blackwater, a nié avoir exécuté des contrats au Pakistan.

Cette firme a été bannie d’Irak en janvier dernier, suite au meurtre en 2007de 17 civils iraquiens.

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Ce n’est pas la première fois que les talibans le disent, ils ne sont pas responsables de ces attentats qui tuent uniquement des civils.
Ils ont raison d’occuper l’espace médiatique, ils ne doivent en aucun refaire les erreurs qui ont perdu le FIS en Algérie.Les massacres imputés au GIA étaient en réalité planifiés par l’armée, le pire étant de savoir que l’armée algérienne a repris les méthodes de contre insurection de l’armée française contre le FLN, méthodes qui ont fait leurs preuves.En effet dans les années 50 et 60 la France a perdu la guerre politique et médiatique, mais militairement cela avait été un succès.

Tout est fait pour discréditer les talibans aux yeux de la population, mais ces derniers sont loin d’etre des novices dans leurs relations aux médias, internet donne une profondeur stratégique que le FIS ne pouvait pas avoir.Et puis ils ne sont pas cons, ils ont très bien compris comment ça fonctionne.Le fait de pouvoir se replier dans les zones tribales voire en Afghanistan est également un atout essentiel.
Ils vont continuer à s’en prendre au gouvernement Pakistanais tout en occupant les médias, je ne sais pas du tout dans quelle mesure la population soutient ou pas les talibans, cela doit varier en fonction de l’ethnie et du lieu géographique.
Accuser Blackwater et le gouvernement corrompu-soumis d’être responsable des carnages est intelligent, d’autant que c’est la vérité !!!

Pendant ce temps, le pays et la population ne se développent pas, chaque offensive contre les talibans jettent des centaines de milliers de personnes sur les routes, ces gens vivent un calvaire.À chaque fois que les américains sont dans un pays, il y a la guerre, des massacres et de la propagande. Depuis le début de l’année, il ya eu des milliers de morts dans des attentats, ce pays est en quasi guerre civile constante. Les talibans sont des résistants, ce qui me stupéfie dans les médias, c’est que toute lutte qui implique des musulmans est du terrorisme. Pour l’occidental moyen autant le “che ” est un révolutionnaire ” normal “, par contre il n’y a aucun musulman qui soit bien vu parcequ’il lutte pour sa liberté, c’est assez marrant !!!! Propagande, propagande quand tu nous tiens !!!!

Nous avons une perception totalement biasée de la situation au Pakistan.C’est déja fantastique que les usa tuent des gens au pakistan. Imaginez une seconde que cela arrive en France, que des drones violent constamment notre espace aérien et tirent des missiles pour tuer un ” terroriste ” souvent avec sa famille. Tant que les USA parasiteront les affaires pakistanaises, et tueront des gens il y aura des resistants, c’est logique et normal.
En même temps, à notre niveau, il est très difficile de savoir qui fait quoi, qui bosse pour qui, qui est manipulé, qui est payé, mais il y a des constantes, chaques fois que des tas de civils meurent dans un attentat aveugle, vous pouvez être sûre que c’est le gvt collabo et/ou des services secrets étrangers.En revanche, même lorsque l’état est touché, on ne peut être sûre qu’il s’agit de résistant ” régulier” puisque les services secrets étrangers veulent aussi déstabiliser l’état pakistanais, comme la mort de Bhutto

Chaque pays est souverain, même dans les problèmes, surtout dans les problèmes pourrait on dire !!!

L’occident n’a pas à s’immiscer dans les affaires des autres nations, cela fait deux siècles que ça dure, et maintenant grace au NWO en devenir, les pays vont perdre toute souveraineté, mais avant ils perdront leurs populations !!!!!

I’ve got work in the morning so will keep it brief.  If we went to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan because they were harbouring terrorists, why is MI6 now instigating talks with their leaders?  Is NuGov planning on withdrawing?  Or are they in cahoots with eachother and have been caught a few times so using this story as cover?  Or have they learned that Afghanistan is a Tribal Nation, not a Nation Nation?  Or is it an election ploy?  So used to the Winston Smith spin it is hard to take anything announced seriously anymore.

Britain in secret talks with the Taliban

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown’s pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as “jirgas”, with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.

An intelligence source said: “The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide ‘mentoring’ for the Taliban.”

The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: “We will not enter into any negotiations with these people.”

Opposition leaders said that Mr Brown had “some explaining to do”.

The Government was apparently prepared to admit that the talks had taken place but Gordon Brown was thought to have “bottled out” just before Prime Minister’s Questions on Dec 12, when he made his denial instead.

It is thought that the Americans were extremely unhappy with the news becoming public that an ally was negotiating with terrorists who supported the September 11 attackers.

The delicate balance in Afghanistan was underlined as it emerged that two diplomats had been ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration’s knowledge.

The pair, a top European Union official and a United Nations staff member, were declared “persona non grata” and said to be “threatening national security”.

They are both Afghan experts who have been working in the country since the 1980s. They are in their forties and cannot be named. One man works as a political adviser to the European Union while the other is employed as a political adviser to the UN mission in Kabul.

One of the men described the charges as “banal and preposterous” and said he hoped the Afghan government would quickly drop its threat to deport them.

MI6’s meetings with the Taliban took place up to half a dozen times at houses on the outskirts of Lashkah Gah and in villages in the Upper Gereshk valley, to the north-east of Helmand’s main town.

The compounds were surrounded by a force of British infantry providing a security cordon.

To maintain the stance that President Hamid Karzai’s government was leading the negotiations the clandestine meetings took place in the presence of Afghan officials.

“These meetings were with up to a dozen Taliban or with Taliban who had only recently laid down their arms,” an intelligence source said. “The impression was that these were important motivating figures inside the Taliban.”

The Prime Minister had denied reports of talks with the Taliban under questioning from David Cameron, the Tory leader, in Parliament.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary said: “If this turns out to be untrue the Prime Minister will have some explaining to do to the British public.”

Britain has said it would support efforts by the Afghan government to negotiate with tribal fighters now supporting the Taliban – but only if they embraced democracy.

Senior Government sources have claimed that the only negotiations with the Taliban were attempts by President Karzai to persuade them to change sides.

Whatever the Powers that Be are conspiring, I doubt it will end in World Peace everlasting.  Something is very dodgy about all this, the article included.  At the end of every war or occupation, unless a ceasefire is called and acknowledged, all talks remain secret due to the fact it may harm the negotiating process.  All this Obama themed change is a load of BS.

Hopefully I’m just tired and thinking the worse.  I mean, Our Government would never work with the enemy surely?

As I type these posts, I often ponder on the technological age that brought us the computers we work on. Nobody can doubt they have revolutionised every walk of life.

But it strikes me that whilst everybody tends to think that the databases, word processors and search engines we all use on our PCs and laptops tend to all have similar characteristics, the evolutionary paths have actually divided.

 I am not talking about Microsoft versus Apple, Unix versus Linux or Sql Server versus Oracle. I am referring to the computer systems that the security services and scientific labs use.

 I have watched Spooks and James Bond often enough to realise that MI5, MI6 and GCHQ computers are not like ours. You may think you have the latest spec computer with Windows 7 and all the rest of it. But that isn’t the way it works with the secret services or science labs.

 For a start, their computers are much noisier than ours. They are bound by conventions to keep the sound on constantly. So whenever data comes up on the screen it is accompanied by a sound like R2D2 doing a turn on the karaoke. There is clearly a reason for this but we are not allowed to know what it is.

There is no doubt that their computers are faster than ours and have huge storage capacities. Only on their computers can you type in a name of anyone on the planet and the computer will, in a matter of nanoseconds, display a mug shot of the person having identified which Jack Smith, Bjorn Andersson or Mohammed Hussain you were referring to without further prompting. I believe there is some sort of mind reading device there. It will also display a profile of the person complete with finger prints and biometric data. But for some reason, if the operator asks for more information, rather than displaying the information as a block of text on the screen in an instant as it would on my computer, the MI5 computer turns into a teletype machine and displays it letter by letter. It also mimics the sound of a demented woodpecker typing a suicide note whilst plummeting to earth having clipped its wings and jumped of the top branch of a giant redwood tree. This slow down of operations is clearly a security device to prevent Al Qaeda spies from hacking into the data. And the sound effects are to foil the listening devices hidden in the Newton’s Cradle sitting innocuously on the processor box.

But then the likes of you and I could never operate these computers. In fact very few people are allowed to type in names into the database. Only a very clever boffin has the brains and the training to do that. After all, he probably invented it. In America, only an elite band of computer programmers are capable of extracting information from these extremely complicated devices. But these are extremely clever people capable of hacking into any Russian spy’s computer after only three attempts at guessing the password.

I know what you’re thinking. This is just TV, it’s not like normal life. Well that bit is true. It’s certainly not like my life. Everything I do on a computer takes three and a half days. Nothing ever goes smoothly. Just a simple thing like copying a file results in one problem after another that never occurred to me would happen – happens. And then something else goes wrong, then the computer hangs, so I have to re-boot, then there is an automatic windows update so it won’t do a thing until it has installed 331 files and I am not allowed to switch my computer off until it is complete. Then when it finally reboots for the 23^rd time, the driver I wanted is no longer the correct one and then the registry entry has been deleted meaning I have to reinstall the Windows OS. So it asks me to place the installation CD into the drive. But I don’t have it because it wasn’t included in the bundle I got with the PC.

But I have a close relative who works for the security services and who assures me that the computers in his office do actually make an R2D2 sound when it finds data. And it does type the information like a teletype machine. All the boffins that work there are able to hack into any computer, including the ZX Spectrum that you had forgotten about stashed away in the back of the wardrobe – from their desk. So it must be true. I asked him what was the purpose of the sound effects, but he said that he could tell me – but then he would have to kill me by infecting my food with polonium 210.

I was thinking that if we could get hold of one of these computers how cool would that be? But then I realised that they are very limited. You can’t play Guitar Hero or even Minesweeper on these things. You can’t calculate your expenses on a spread sheet or run iTunes. All you can really do with them is search for enemies of the state or do very complicated calculations like Pi to 3253^rd decimal place.

Oh is that the date? – back to the Tardis.

I wonder if Rowan Laxton will go the way of Craig Murray, former Ambassador to Uzbekistan who quit his post and gives vent to quite extreme views, quite forcefully expressed, on his blog. It suggests a man filled with rage, and hate, bitterness and bile. It’s impossible to read more than a few lines without recoiling from the vitriol.

More seriously, in a post I read he had decided to out someone as being an SIS (MI6) operative…He had decided that it was OK for him to do so on the basis that the individual had decided to run for public office. It’s not a logic I follow.

It strikes me that Mr Murray is laying himself open to a variety of possible legal actions:

Official Secrets Act

I’m no expert on this piece of legislation (though like many millions of others I did sign it once) but…

Section 1 covers members of the security and intelligence services and ‘notified’ people.

Someone is ‘notified’ by getting written notice from a minister that their work is connected to security and intelligence and it is in the interests of national security that they are covered. Section 3 covers Crown Servants or government contractors.

Craig Murray obviously fell into one of those categories when he was a diplomat, but there are more requirements for an offence to be committed;

For those working with security and intelligence and notified people, any information he knows because of his job or the work he does is covered.

For Crown Servants and contractors the same is true, but for them simply disclosing something doesn’t fall foul of the act; the information disclosed must also be ‘damaging’.

Unfortunately – and I mean unfortunately, as there is potential for serious damage caused by maverick disclosure of information – from reading the Act it appears that the information must be gathered in connection with the job and it doesn’t appear that Mr Murray did get this information as a result of being a diplomat; it appears he was told it by his mates after he stopped being a diplomat.

Leaker

But his mates will have been covered by the Act. And it would be perfectly proper for the police to ask Mr Murray where he got the information from. Somebody has committed an offence against the Act by disclosing the information and he knows whom.

Conspiracy

Even if someone isn’t covered by the Official Secrets Act they can still be caught out for Conspiracy to breach it. I don’t know the circumstances of this leak so don’t know if it could apply, but the logic would go as follows: Person A is covered by the Act and gives person B some information knowing person B has a blog and is likely to post the information there, and person B also knows that person A is likely to be breaching the Act by giving them the information.

Privacy

The disclosure that someone has worked for the security services could have far reaching implications for them. He has a right for that information not to be divulged without very good reason. That right is enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights; the right to privacy. The landmark case in this area is the one brought by Max Mosley against the News of the World.

The right to privacy under Article 8 has to be balanced against the right to freedom of expression in Article 10. Neither trumps the other and each set of circumstances will require its own balancing act. Mr Murray seems to think there is a public interest that this information be released. It seems to me that there is a great deal more public interest is in protecting an individual’s privacy by keeping the fact he was connected to the intelligence services a secret.

Defamation

If the individual were not connected to the intelligence services he might think about libel, but for that to be an effective remedy then simply being considered connected to the intelligence services would have to be defamatory, which most people in a democracy ought not to agree with (that is to say; if most people did agree with that then there would be a serious political problem).

Overseas

In America the identity of ‘covert agents’ is protected by the National Security Act 1947. Under that legislation anyone revealing the identity of a covert agent (however they know or suspect it) is liable for up to 3 years in prison. Of course that’s not applicable in the UK but it gives an example of how these things are dealt with elsewhere.

The upshot is that, quite rightly, freedom of speech doesn’t mean being able to say whatever you like, about whoever you like, as recklessly as you like.