Strangely Perfect

Guidelines for a Better World Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made.  Perhaps I should re-phrase this as: The Rules of Law and International Diplomacy are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made It’s a strange world out there.  Two recent political events [...]

Coroner and Law I’m often struck when reading the papers or news, to see the coroner’s verdict on someone’s death as: Ending his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed Well they have to say something, it’s their job, but the phrase is very peculiar. Take this couple, the Milners, who were [...]

CIA Guilty of Torture and Kidnap – Damages of 1.5 Million Euros Amazing news today.  An Italian court has bravely taken on the leader of the Western World and convicted 22 CIA agents of kidnap and torture. (see CIA agents guilty of Italy kidnap). The man on the left with the wacky beard and hat, [...]

Introduction Professor Noel Sharkey from Sheffield, better known as one of the judges on the BBCTV show “Robot Wars” knows a thing or two about robots and artificial intelligence.  He’s made a plea for more debate about the use of robot planes in warfare. (see link) He’s said, “An international debate is needed on the [...]

Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, aged 23, of Ketchum, Idaho, is a member of the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, from Fort Richardson, Alaska.  He was captured in circumstances that aren’t clear and has appeared in a Taliban video (prev at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-soldier20-2009jul20,0,4913063.story), seen world-wide. So far, it appears [...]

In the above video, shot with a mobile phone and first reported at the beginning of April this year, some blokes, watched by a load of other blokes, whip a young woman for breaking some law. At that time, the Taliban blokes (for it is them) had just come to an agreement with the Pakistan [...]

Too Little, Too Late, Gordon Brown This morning, PM Gordon Brown told Andrew Marr that he wants to ‘clean up’ parliament. He wants a ‘code of conduct’ for MPs to follow. The thing is, there’s already a code of conduct – it’s called the law! All we,  ‘the people’ want, is to have reasonable laws [...]

The pope says sorry for getting it wrong over the holocaust and the nutty bishop The bankers say sorry for getting it wrong with their greedy decisions that lead to the current economic crisis Cricket captains say sorry for losing some games US car maker bosses say sorry for being crap UK Politicians say sorry [...]

British Torture and Denial of Human Rights On the day that some Serbian leaders were convicted and others released as free men following charges for war crimes, (see Kosovo trial clears Serbia leader ), a UK minister, John Hutton, has “apologised for previously incorrect answers to MPs” (I’d call that lying in a normal language), and [...]

The problem, in fact, is older than Turkey, older than the 20th century creations of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc.  The problem is the continual denial of the Kurds, and ancient people with their own language.  They’ve survived in the same area despite the incursions and massacres of Alexander the Great, The Mongols, The Murghals, [...]

Chinese Censorship: As part of the BBCs “take” on the international views on the new, 44th President of the United States, their China correspondent Michael Bristow has reported that his inauguration speech was censored in China. Apparently, the English version on the Xinghua News site is okay, but the Chinese version for the locals has [...]

Taj operation finally over, casualty figure very high – reports NDTV.com Justifiably, the world sighs with relief. Some are glad that the shooting has stopped. Some are glad the killers are dead. Currently, the dead number ~200, the killers, 11.  A ratio of ~9:1 killed per killer. In recent years there seem to have been [...]

Admiral Mark Fitzgerald told the BBC that  Somali pirates ‘hard to defeat’.  So even though NATO want to install missiles all over Europe to counter a mythical threat, and even though they have highly advanced RADAR, monitoring and communication systems, they still can’t manage to do what the Royal Navy did very effectively 200 years ago [...]

Guantanamo prosecutor steps down is the latest news from the Hippocratic Centre for Freedom, Justice and the American Way that is a corner of Cuba. (HCFJAW) In this episode, the military court has come to disagreements with itself over an Afghan man dragged round the world after being captured fighting for Afghanistan in Afghanistan. He [...]