Sim-O

And I thought the Americans were trigger happy:

Bombs: Aljazeera.net
and
Guns: The Times Online

Labels: Politix, War On Terror

Which reason was thought of first and which was the afterthought?

But potentially, said Dr Brennan, the tags could aid security by allowing airports to track the movement patterns of passengers deemed to be suspicious and prevent them from entering restricted areas.

It could also aid airports by helping evacuation in case of a fire, rapidly locating children, and finding passengers who are late to arrive at the gate.

Labels: War On Terror

Labels: Music

Come on America, give it a rest.

Labels: Politix

As North Korea becomes the eighth confirmed nuclear power (Israel is not confirmed but considered the ninth) some of the blame has to go to the original five nuclear powers. When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect in 1970, the five countries who had nuclear bombs – the US, France, China, Great Britain, and the USSR – agreed to work to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

Now, 36 years later, no disarmament talks are taking place between those countries. North Korea has been a “threshold” country since the late 80s. The fall of the Soviet Union eliminated shared security arrangements and prompted North Korea to aggressively pursue a nuclear weapon.

Non-Proliferation Treaty

Labels: War

Link

Here’s a police seizure of weapons that wasn’t splashed all over the front pages.

This week a British National Party election candidate has been accused of possessing the largest amount of chemical explosives of its type ever found in the country. That’s right, the largest ever – imagine if he’d been an Asian man. Home secretary John Reid would have held a special press conference and it would have led every news bulletin.

The home of another man charged with similar offences contained a rocket launcher and a nuclear biological suit as well as BNP literature and chemicals!

Labels: War On Terror

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, last night ordered an urgent review of a policy that allows officers to refuse certain duties on moral grounds after a decision to excuse a Muslim policeman from guarding the Israeli embassy.

PC Alexander Omar Basha, who is attached to the force’s Diplomatic Protection Group, objected to being posted to protect Israel’s embassy in central London from possible terrorist attack because he disagreed with the country’s bombing of Lebanon. The officer had reportedly attended a recent anti-war protest.

What to do eh? Either you make the chap go against his morals, but then if you let a copper object to a duty, where will it end (uh, oh. I sound like a Daily Mail reader)?

Labels: Law/Legal

With media attention focused on the Lebanon war, Israeli wildcat settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank have mushroomed in recent months, a watchdog group has said.

Some 31 outposts sprang up in the West Bank as work on developing infrastructure, access routes as well as the installation of new mobile homes has steamed ahead in violation of the internationally backed roadmap for peace, the anti-settlement Peace Now watchdog said Tuesday.

“In the past months, the government of Israel has continued to evade its responsibility to evacuate the unauthorized outposts in the West Bank,” a report said.

“It appears that the summer of 2006, marked by the fighting in south Lebanon, provided a golden opportunity for the settlers to deepen their hold on the land without the media being available to cover it,” it said.

In 12 illegal outposts, the construction of permanent homes has likewise continued without hindrance from the authorities, it said.

rest

Labels: Israel, Palestine

Labels: Odds and Sods