A team of suspected terrorists involved in an alleged UK plot to blow up trans-atlantic airliners escaped capture because of interference by the United States, The Independent has been told by counter-terrorism sources. An investigation by MI5 and Scotland Yard into an alleged plan to smuggle explosive devices on up to 10 passenger jets was jeopardised in August, when the US put pressure on authorities in Pakistan to arrest a suspect allegedly linked to the airliner plot. As a direct result of the surprise detention of the suspect, British police and MI5 were forced to rush forward plans to arrest an alleged UK gang accused of plotting to destroy the airliners. But a second group of suspected terrorists allegedly linked to the first evaded capture and is still at large, according to security sources. The escape of the second group is said to be the reason why the UK was kept at its highest level - "critical" - for three days before it was decided that the plotters no longer posed an imminent threat.
An investigation by MI5 and Scotland Yard into an alleged plan to smuggle explosive devices on up to 10 passenger jets was jeopardised in August, when the US put pressure on authorities in Pakistan to arrest a suspect allegedly linked to the airliner plot.
As a direct result of the surprise detention of the suspect, British police and MI5 were forced to rush forward plans to arrest an alleged UK gang accused of plotting to destroy the airliners. But a second group of suspected terrorists allegedly linked to the first evaded capture and is still at large, according to security sources.
The escape of the second group is said to be the reason why the UK was kept at its highest level - "critical" - for three days before it was decided that the plotters no longer posed an imminent threat.
Does this imply that the UK secret service are firing a warning shot at the yanks over another ongoing investigation ? keep to the Fen Causeway
EU-Russia pact expires next year The EU had hoped to use the Helsinki summit to launch talks with Russia for a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to replace a 1997 deal which expires at the end of next year. "Of course it would be better not to have (the Polish veto) but we are going to keep on working," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said as he arrived at the summit venue. "The situation will be overcome." The planned new partnership deal includes EU demands for better and secure access to Russia's vast oil and gas resources and Russian commitments to secure energy supplies into the 25-member bloc -- the biggest consumers of Russian oil. Poland isolating itself Germany's deputy foreign minister, Gernot Erler, said Poland was sidelining itself by refusing to lift its veto on opening the talks. "The Warsaw government is not doing itself any favors with this veto," Erler told Berlin's Inforadio on Friday. "It is isolating Poland within the European Union."
The EU had hoped to use the Helsinki summit to launch talks with Russia for a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to replace a 1997 deal which expires at the end of next year.
"Of course it would be better not to have (the Polish veto) but we are going to keep on working," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said as he arrived at the summit venue. "The situation will be overcome."
The planned new partnership deal includes EU demands for better and secure access to Russia's vast oil and gas resources and Russian commitments to secure energy supplies into the 25-member bloc -- the biggest consumers of Russian oil.
Poland isolating itself
Germany's deputy foreign minister, Gernot Erler, said Poland was sidelining itself by refusing to lift its veto on opening the talks.
"The Warsaw government is not doing itself any favors with this veto," Erler told Berlin's Inforadio on Friday. "It is isolating Poland within the European Union."
Maybe that's it. The US sycophants are pretending to themselves that if they ignore Europe it will come begging and that the american economic view will be adopted. Fat chance, europe is tending left, not right. keep to the Fen Causeway
The French President and his would-be successor are locked in a struggle to the death that is partly personal, partly political and utterly poisonous. To kill the father is never easy. Especially if the father fights back. All power struggles are fascinating. The struggle between President Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, his would-be successor on the right side of French politics, is elemental; Oedipal. They were once political father and son, or at least son-in-law. Sarkozy once had a close relationship - some say a love affair - with Chirac's younger daughter, Claude. Chirac and Sarkozy fell out 12 years ago. They now vigorously detest one another. And yet Nicolas Sarkozy is still one of the few politicians whom Chirac addresses as tu rather than the formal vous. With his energy, his cheek, his uncloaked ambition, his impetuousness, his tactical brilliance, his occasional tactical stupidity, Sarkozy resembles the young Chirac. There are also important differences. Sarkozy seems at least to want to DO something; not just to BE something. That may make him a more successful president (if elected) or a more dangerous one. For three years now, he has been cutting away "papa" Chirac's feeding tubes one by one. The centre-right political party which Chirac created as a life-support system for his second presidential term, has been wheeled away before the president's eyes and converted into a giant sound system to trumpet the younger man's ambitions (young in French political terms anyway). During the next five months, before France votes for a new president on 22 April and 6 May, the estranged son plans to take over the whole of the family business without permission. Worse than that, he has been telling the world that the old man is a fool; that the son will run France plc very differently; that he will make friends with the old man's old enemies, les Anglo-Saxons; that he has the vision and the guts to modernise and liberalise France that the old man has always lacked.
To kill the father is never easy. Especially if the father fights back. All power struggles are fascinating. The struggle between President Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, his would-be successor on the right side of French politics, is elemental; Oedipal. They were once political father and son, or at least son-in-law. Sarkozy once had a close relationship - some say a love affair - with Chirac's younger daughter, Claude.
Chirac and Sarkozy fell out 12 years ago. They now vigorously detest one another. And yet Nicolas Sarkozy is still one of the few politicians whom Chirac addresses as tu rather than the formal vous. With his energy, his cheek, his uncloaked ambition, his impetuousness, his tactical brilliance, his occasional tactical stupidity, Sarkozy resembles the young Chirac. There are also important differences.
Sarkozy seems at least to want to DO something; not just to BE something. That may make him a more successful president (if elected) or a more dangerous one. For three years now, he has been cutting away "papa" Chirac's feeding tubes one by one. The centre-right political party which Chirac created as a life-support system for his second presidential term, has been wheeled away before the president's eyes and converted into a giant sound system to trumpet the younger man's ambitions (young in French political terms anyway).
During the next five months, before France votes for a new president on 22 April and 6 May, the estranged son plans to take over the whole of the family business without permission. Worse than that, he has been telling the world that the old man is a fool; that the son will run France plc very differently; that he will make friends with the old man's old enemies, les Anglo-Saxons; that he has the vision and the guts to modernise and liberalise France that the old man has always lacked.
Sarkozy seems at least to want to DO something; not just to BE something.
Wishful thinking not backed by a single fact. Sarkozy has been the n°2 of the past 5 years of Chirac governments. What did he do?
that the son will run France plc very differently; that he will make friends with the old man's old enemies, les Anglo-Saxons; that he has the vision and the guts to modernise and liberalise France that the old man has always lacked.
widhful thinking, again, on a larger scale. They're dreaming, all, if they think they'll get a new poodle in Sarkozy. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
This article is informed by that delusion. keep to the Fen Causeway
Alexander Litvinenko was a man who could be taught little about the seamy side of modern Russia. A KGB agent for 18 years, he occupied a world where intrigue, betrayal and ruthless trickery were the tools of working life. But even a man whose job was to fight organised crime and counter subversion in the name of the Kremlin would have been surprised at an event as mired in low chicanery, high drama and cold-blooded cunning as his own passing. The spy novel saga of the life and death of the 43-year-old secret agent turned vehement critic of Vladimir Putin entered its most extraordinary phase yesterday when it was revealed that he died from exposure to a radioactive poison. Last night, the Government was dealing with a public health alert and diplomatic crisis after traces of polonium 210, a by-product of uranium, were found at Mr Litvinenko's home as well as a sushi restaurant and London hotel he visited on 1 November. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) confirmed that traces of the heavy metal, which is lethal if ingested in tiny quantities, were found in Mr Litvinenko's urine. Until he died from heart failure on Thursday night, doctors had failed to pinpoint the cause of symptoms that reduced a man who ran five miles every day to a "ghost" with a crippled immune system and a useless liver. A post-mortem will not be carried out until it is deemed safe for hospital staff to do so.
But even a man whose job was to fight organised crime and counter subversion in the name of the Kremlin would have been surprised at an event as mired in low chicanery, high drama and cold-blooded cunning as his own passing. The spy novel saga of the life and death of the 43-year-old secret agent turned vehement critic of Vladimir Putin entered its most extraordinary phase yesterday when it was revealed that he died from exposure to a radioactive poison.
Last night, the Government was dealing with a public health alert and diplomatic crisis after traces of polonium 210, a by-product of uranium, were found at Mr Litvinenko's home as well as a sushi restaurant and London hotel he visited on 1 November.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) confirmed that traces of the heavy metal, which is lethal if ingested in tiny quantities, were found in Mr Litvinenko's urine.
Until he died from heart failure on Thursday night, doctors had failed to pinpoint the cause of symptoms that reduced a man who ran five miles every day to a "ghost" with a crippled immune system and a useless liver. A post-mortem will not be carried out until it is deemed safe for hospital staff to do so.
Polonium is pretty damn rare, extremely hard to get hold of and dangerous to use. All of which is intended to say that this was State-sanctioned assassination. Even thallium would not be so explicit, and if they simply wanted him dead there are loads of ways to do it, many of which would not leave state-fingerprints on it.
Which makes me seriously question that this was anything to do with Putin, if anybody has seriously suggested it. Russia simply does not need this, even Chechnya, once so useful domestically, is proving to be an international embarrassment they don't need.
And like the killing of Politskskaya, I think the obviousness of the trail pointing at the Govt is a reason to say it isn't. It's too clumsy and ham-fisted. keep to the Fen Causeway
By 2020, some member states' population will be up to 90 percent urbanised with EU funding contributing to uncontrolled sprawl in some cities, a new environment study has said Europeans' increasing demand for land - partly because they live longer and more live alone - is a danger to the EU's environment as well as its social and economic balance, says a report published Friday by the European Environment Agency (EEA). [...] "Urban sprawl is a reflection of changing lifestyles and consumption patterns rather than an expanding population. Increasing demands from housing, food, transport and tourism all demand land," said Jacqueline McGlade, head of the EEA. Ms McGlade added that even European Union funds actually contribute to urban sprawl by funding construction projects that do not use land efficiently. "EU Cohesion and Structural Funds, key drivers affecting European societies, are also major causes of sprawl across Europe. The impact of funding is especially relevant as the EU and its Member States flesh out how they plan to spend the next EU budget," Ms McGlade said.
Europeans' increasing demand for land - partly because they live longer and more live alone - is a danger to the EU's environment as well as its social and economic balance, says a report published Friday by the European Environment Agency (EEA).
[...]
"Urban sprawl is a reflection of changing lifestyles and consumption patterns rather than an expanding population. Increasing demands from housing, food, transport and tourism all demand land," said Jacqueline McGlade, head of the EEA.
Ms McGlade added that even European Union funds actually contribute to urban sprawl by funding construction projects that do not use land efficiently.
"EU Cohesion and Structural Funds, key drivers affecting European societies, are also major causes of sprawl across Europe. The impact of funding is especially relevant as the EU and its Member States flesh out how they plan to spend the next EU budget," Ms McGlade said.
