Author: Mick Hartley

More on the “Bush lied” revisionism of the liberal Democrats, as Hitchens asks “After decades in which the Baathists had been caught cheating and concealing, what room was there for the presumption of innocence?”

Not only do the liberal Democrats apparently want their own congressional votes from 1998 and 2002 back. It sometimes seems that they are actually nostalgic for the same period, when Saddam Hussein was running Iraq, and there were no coalition soldiers to challenge his rule, and when therefore by definition there was peace, and thus things were more or less OK. Their current claim to have been fooled or deceived makes them out, on their own account, to be highly dumb and gullible. But as dumb and gullible as that?

rn of the Eagle Owl” on BBC Two.

The owls are thought to have arrived from continental Europe, but the programme reveals there is controversy over their future here as they continue to spread.

Some experts and conservation organisations say eagle owls are an alien species that could prey on existing rare wildlife.

In areas where there are shortages of smaller mammals, the eagle owl will sometimes prey on larger ones, including other birds of prey.

It is even said to be capable of carrying off cats and small dogs.

If they’re smart they’ll head for the cities – plenty of pussy cats to pick off. The revenge of the birds!

the first day raised concerns that the confessions might have been obtained by torture.

A former Uzbek interior ministry employee has told the BBC that beatings or psychotropic drugs are often used to force confessions from suspects – an allegation denied by the Uzbek government.

The joys of living in a theocracy (via The Religious Policeman):

The controversial case of Muhammad Al-Harbi, a Saudi high school teacher accused of mocking religion, came to a surprising end on Saturday. Al-Harbi was sentenced to three years in prison and 750 lashes — 50 lashes per week for 15 weeks. The lashes are to be given in the public market in the town of Al-Bikeriya in Al-Qassim.

A number of 12th Grade students, along with some teachers from the same school, filed a lawsuit a year-and-a-half ago against Al-Harbi. He was accused of mocking Islam, favoring Jews and Christians, preventing students from performing ablutions. He was also charged with studying witchcraft. At the time, he was a chemistry teacher at Al-Fowailiq High School in the town of Ein Al-Juwa in Al-Qassim.

often-ignored ceasefire and has been unable to prevent the area sliding further into anarchy.

“With the recent upsurge in violence over the past two months, the AU’s shortcomings have come into full focus. The AU is hobbled by a weak mandate, too few weapons and fewer than 7,000 troops to cover an area the size of Texas,” the report said. It calls on donor countries to provide more weaponry to the AU mission and on the UN to step in….

The AU deployed its mission last year partly in response to UN calls for an “African response for an African problem”.

But 15 months after their arrival, Darfur is in flames again. In north Darfur, thousands of people have been forced from their villages in recent weeks as Janjaweed militia and government troops flex their muscles.

And the AU force has itself become a target. Five Nigerian soldiers and two civilian contractors were killed as they tried to intervene in an attack last month.

Senior officers say morale is low. “We came here to monitor and now we find ourselves ducking bullets,” said one general. “It seems the warring parties no longer recognise us.”

Their concerns are matched by international observers. Nicki Bennett, spokeswoman for Oxfam in Sudan, said: “The African Union Mission in Sudan is at a critical turning point: if it does not receive the financial and logistical means to fully implement its mandate and take its troops to their full strength, the international community is setting the AU up for failure and turning its back on Darfur.”

Nowhere is the AU’s limited ability to protect civilians more obvious than the village of Tawilla, in north Darfur. When nine government landcruisers, mounted with 12.7mm canon, arrived, the villagers knew the AU soldiers stationed nearby would not come to the rescue. They ran to the gates of the AU base, where they hoped the 241 Rwandan troops would not turn them away.

After a tense stand-off, the Sudanese government soldiers gave up and went home, but not before they had killed four people in the village and burned dozens of flimsy homes, according to confidential AU reports.

After the way they performed in Bosnia and Rwanda, the best you can say is that this displays a touching faith in the ability of the UN. More realistically, it’s a sign of how desperate the situation is in Darfur.

“Mrs Rishawi said she could not get her bomb to detonate” – the BBC caption under a photo of the wretched woman who’s apparently made a confession on TV. Women, eh?

Police say the woman is the wife of one of three Iraqi male suicide bombers who attacked the three hotels, and that she too had wanted to blow herself up.

“My husband wore one [bomb] belt and I another – he told me how to use it,” Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi said.

What appeared to be a deactivated bomb belt was also shown on Jordanian TV.

“We went into the hotel,” the woman continued.

“He [my husband] took one corner and I took another. There was a wedding in the hotel. There were women and children.

“My husband executed the attack. I tried to detonate and it failed.”

According to the Scotsman, Al-Qaeda are on the defensive after their Amman attack:

After years of al-Qaeda terror attacks in which thousands have been killed, many of them Muslims – the people they wish to recruit – voices of dissent are starting to be heard in the Middle East.

As moderate Muslims dare to protest at daily death tolls, even the prospect of one of Osama bin Laden’s most feared cohorts, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, being handed over is being discussed.

Faced with the unprecedented outburst of fury among Muslims over its latest atrocity, al-Qaeda’s concern about reaction in the Middle East was evident last week when it came the closest yet to an apology.

It offered an “explanation” for one of worst attacks to hit Jordan in modern history, in which suicide bombers turned wedding parties into scenes of destruction, killing at least 60 people and injuring 96 at international hotels in Amman. […]

“They have clearly been stung by the reaction on the streets in Jordan,” said one diplomat with knowledge of the region.

“Until now they have been impervious to the deaths of ordinary Muslims. This time, the fact that they savaged two wedding parties was bad enough. But even worse is the fact that among the dead were Palestinians. Palestinians not only make up the majority of the population of Jordan, but they have iconic status in the Arab world, where they are seen as victims of Israel.”

An immediate result of the Jordan attacks may be a split between al-Qaeda and Palestinian militants, he said, adding that it was significant that Palestinians in Gaza had moved immediately to put daylight between themselves and al-Qaeda.

Everyone seems to like the BBC Bleak House – and I agree, it’s superbly done, the second triumph (after Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky) for the Beeb this year. I just wonder if they shouldn’t have been bolder, had the courage of their convictions, and stretched it out. It’s a big book. I’ve read some passages, to compare with what’s on the screen, (no, I’ve never read the whole thing: I inherited a bound set of Dickens from an aunt which take up a whole shelf looking distinguished and serious like proper books next to the rest of my disparate, tatty collection) and it’s clear that Andrew Davies has done a lot of pruning, a lot of compressing. We’re rushing through it, really. What’s the point? Why not make a virtue out of the length of it?

They make a big deal out of presenting it as a soap opera, in line with Dickens’ original serialisation of the book, but then put it out only for half an hour on Thursdays and Fridays – which is hardly different from the usual practice for classic adaptations of an hour every week. If they’re going to do it as a soap opera, do it properly – put it out three, four, five times a week, and make it last. Drag it out, so we get to know the characters better. Dickens does great characters, the cast are excellent, but it’s all going to be over before we’ve settled in.

ashkent on November 9 because of his extensive reporting critical of the government since the May 13 massacre….

Since the Andijan events, the atmosphere for the press has worsened significantly in Uzbekistan. Journalists and others who have provided independent accounts of the events in Andijan and called for an investigation and accountability have faced harassment, arbitrary detention, criminal charges and physical assaults.

t measure X or Y means that Frank Dobson might take umbrage and go off into the No lobbies alongside Respect groupies like Diane Abbott.

And people such as Mr Dobson now have an inability to look beyond Blair. If Blair says education, they see Blair. If Blair says health, they see Blair. If Blair says terrorism, they see Blair. Somehow Labour has got to get back to the position where the Labour leader says “We need to do this” and his or her MPs see the thing that needs to be done. What we have now is the prospect of paralysis and drift. If it continues, Labour will revert to being a reactive, backward-looking and fragmented political force, and will be smashed at the next election.

There is, it seems to me, only one way in which there can be a renewal of the internal mandate and, therefore, of a sense of purpose and discipline. And it is highly risky. There needs to be a change of leadership accompanied by the clearest possible programme for radical reform. […]

This is what I think has to happen. Tony Blair must decide to depart next year. Not because he isn’t the most talented centre-left politician in the Western world — I think he is — but because his luck, his time and his mandate have run out.