Category: Uncategorized

With all the news coverage about Zimbabwe (which is still teetering on catastrophe) the plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip seems to have fallen off the front pages.

Today, it’s back with a vengeance as the UN has had to halt badly needed food aid due to fuel shortages as a result of Israeli blockade actions, supposedly in reaction  to Rocket attacks by militants on Israeli settlements.

I don’t begin to understand all of the nuances of this conflict, but I can see that unless the Israelis start to treat the ordinary Palestinians with some degree of humanitarianism, they are only going to prolong the whole crisis.

Surely the Israeli’s, from their own history, can understand what it is like to be an oppressed people and that this ongoing conflict only generates further bad feelings toward them from the Palestinians. That is not to say, that Hamas and the other political groups can escape blame for this terrible situation forced on their own people.

The West must put more pressure on the Israeli’s to first sort out the fuel issue and then redouble their efforts to get Israel to the peace table again.

I was amazed to see reports today that a number of discount food stores in the USA are starting to ration its shoppers as to how much rice they can buy on a visit to their shops.

A Wal-Mart subsidiary and CostCo are the first stores in the ‘western’ world that have done this. I wonder if this will have any impact on UK stores? I certainly have noticed an increase in the price of Rice and a big hike in the cost of Pasta (a 2.5 Kg bag that was a £1.00 a year ago is  now £2.98!)

What is going on in the world? We now throw away more food than ever before and seem more interested is using food for car fuel than human fuel.

Seems completely perverse to me.

Microsoft has decided to the MSN Music Digital Rights Management (DRM) license servers at the end of August this year.  What does that mean?

Well for customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store they will have to commit to which computers (and OS) they want to run their purchased music on forever; or give up access to the music they have already paid for, forever!

However, Microsoft has come up with a solution to get around this, users can burn all of their music to audio CD’s and then re-rip them back to their computer as MP3s, without DRM! Great job Microsoft!

For me, I’ll still keep buying CD’s (though I have downloaded some individual tracks in the past) and although some do have on board music protection, you can still play them where and when you want. Of course I may loose a CD (but I can go out and buy another one) but I won’t loose any music if some company decides to switch off some server somewhere!

According to Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission it appears that Robert Mugabe has retained his seat, one that the opposition MDC had claimed that it had won. I don’t believe it! to coin a phrase.

And the position of the Arms shipment on board the An Yue Jiang? It now seems that all of Zimbabwe’s neighbours have finally banned the ship from docking at any of their ports.

Meanwhile China, that peaceful host of the next Olympics – the IOC must be ringing its hands by now – has defended the shipment as perfectly normal trade! But it is hinting that it may have to recall the An Yue Jiang if it can’t deliver it’s cargo. Unless of course, it finds another dictator close by to take them!

It seems that confusion surrounds the where about’s of the Chinese arms ship that tried to unload its cargo of Zimbabwe bound ammunition and rockets  in Durban, South Africa a few days ago.

Apparently a German bank tried to seize the ship while it was in Durban last week. The Lloyd’s Maritime Intelligence Unit web site listed a ship by the same name, An Yue Jingo, as having sunk off the coast of East Africa last Sunday – latest update here.

Now it appears that the An Yue Jingo has applied to take on fuel at Walvis Bay in Namibia. Although it may be heading to dock at Luanda in Angola.

Will it be stopped from discharging its cargo? It is not sure at the moment, but it seems that Zimbabwe’s neighbours and the international community are slowing waking up to stopping this Chinese ship from docking and its cargo getting to Zimbabwe.

I just read an interesting story in today’s LA Times that Petrol is hitting the $4.00 a gallon! Wow, what a cheap price for petrol, I wish I could get some of that over here…

• Goggle says:  4.00 U.S. Dollars = 2.02336992 British Pounds

• Google says:  1 US gallon = 3.78541178 Litres

• Goggle says:  £2.02336992/3.78541178 Litres = £ 0.53 / Litre

• I’ve just paid £ 1.08 /Litre

• Goggle says: £1.08 x 3.78541178 = £4.08,  which = $8.08

• I say: STOP MOANING!

PetrolPrices.com predicts the UK cost of a Litre of unleaded will be £1.50 /Litre by the Summer of 2008!

Enough said!

It appears that the our personal data is now being exported to overseas security and law enforcement agencies.

In a move that should alarm all of us, Home Secretary Jackie Smith has secretly agreed to anyone’s personal data being made available for review by many of the world’s law enforcement agencies and their staff. Full story here.

Under the pretext of national security, this means that anyone in the UK that is captured by one of the many UK CCTV cameras and if identification information can be made from the capture of that data such as car registration number plates, that data  can now be exported!

Again, it seems that this UK government is determined not only to keep us all under surveillance here in the UK, but now wants other governments to also spy on us, particularly the USA.

I have asked the Home Office for information on this under the Freedom of Information Act using the What Do They Know site, one of the many excellent web sites setup by the My Society organisation. I would encourage everyone to do the same. I’ll publish what feedback I get back in another post.

As the west continues its love of the internal combustion engine and its new found vigour for increased need for bio-fuels, yet more of the worlds rain forests are disappearing under the headlong dash to clear them for growing the West’s newest liquid-gold!

As can be seen in this amazing image from last weeks Time Magazine, what was once virgin Rain Forest is now reduced to acre upon acre of soybean plants used to make Bio-Fuels.

This is just one picture from one area of Brazil and what is staggering is that instead of the soybeans going to help the worlds hungry, it will actually add to their misery as more food is is used to fuel our cars than our fellow human beings!

The continuing chain reaction of farmers switching from Soybean to Corn (it gets a higher price) for Bio-Fuel increases the sowing of yet more Soybean which means that more forests are cut down to meet demand etc. etc. All the time as this goes on, less food is being made available to go into the human food chain and prices continue to rise.

What is the answer? I’m not sure, but something has to be done and very soon, perhaps we all have to give up our second cars as a start! This fuel and food crisis is only going to get worse!

Read the ‘Clean Energy Scam’ here.

I’ve subscribed to Time magazine on & off since the late 60’s and while I have not always agreed with some of its coverage, overall I have have found it a very interesting weekly general news magazine, still superior than its main rival, Newsweek!

This year it celebrates its 85th year and it has put together a some articles to celebrate its coverage (with selected front c0ver images) of some of those stories such as Lindbergh’s flight, WWII, Vietnam, Watergate, the fall of the USSR and the rise of the Internet and of course Iraq.

Of course much more is covered in the review and that can be found in the PDF download here.

It is a shame that the UK has not had a publication that stretches back over a similar period. Of course, we do have our national daily newspapers, but with its blend of excellent photography (some also published in its excellent sister publication LIFE)  and world-wide network of journalists, it has continued to keep informed from a different perspective on many subjects not covered elsewhere. Happy Birthday TIME.

With the OFCOM making an announcement last week of its proposals for a ‘super-fast’ broadband, it is setting out what it thinks should be the future networking for all new housing developments with potential speeds of up to 100Mb/sec.

OFCOM has released a consultation document and is looking for your opinion. You can find the consultation document and how to reply to it here.