High alert
Is Europe next? Well yes, if you believe the predictions of top security chiefs who gathered in London last week for an international crime conference.
Whats more, it could be biological or nuclear. David Veness, head of Britains anti-terrorist police, described such a scenario as sadly the next logical step. It is a case of when and where not if.
Veness spoke of a new dimension of terrorism, defined by the events of 11 September. It involves no notice suicide attacks, mass deaths and simultaneous attacks.
Jurgen Storbeck, director of Europol, repeated the gloomy theme. There is a threat to the European Union, to the institutions of the EU and citizens of the EU. He pointed to a lack of cross-border sharing of intelligence prior to 11 September. It is not a criticism of national law enforcement agencies. It is a typical approach. You concentrate on that cell acting in your area and the moment such a cell has international contacts you neglect it.
Well thats reassuring.
Meanwhile, Veness believes London is the next obvious target. He insists the intelligence community must move from the reactive, tactical and bureaucratic to a proactive, strategic and dynamic response.
And this seems to be the message at all levels these days. Prevent, not lament. James Caruso, assistant director of the FBIs counter terrorism division told the conference that prevention had become the focus of Bushs daily meetings with the FBI director. The President asks what have you done to prevent the next terrorist attack, he said.
(Source: International Herald Tribune)
Below the belt
Old fashioned hypocrisy in Swaziland.
Women in the African kingdom have long been warned against the wearing of trousers, considered both disrespectful to Swazilands traditions and an encourager of underage sex. But now, the stakes have been raised. A senior official in the Royal household has warned that soldiers will patrol the streets, hunting down women who wear trousers. Those caught will be stripped naked and their trousers will be torn to shreds.
Doo Apane, an attorney with the Swaziland branch of Women in Law in Southern Africa, is quoted by the BBC as calling the dictat medieval, but one that unfortunately reflects the fact that women are legal minors in Swaziland. Last September, as the Diary reported, King Mswati III tried to bring back an ancient law on chastity. He encouraged the wearing of traditional tassles, designed as chastity belts, and ordered maidens not to shake hands with men or wear trousers for five years. Now, hes got the army on his side.
Unfortunately for the conservative King, he is garnering little support for his policy. As well as the human rights implications, two charges of hypocrisy are levelled against him. For starters, the young princesses in the royal family ignore his demands, and continue to wear trousers. And secondly, the King violated his own chastity vow last year when he married a seventeen year-old girl (who was living with him in the palace before the wedding night!).
Whats more, hes still at it. Last month he took his ninth bride an eighteen year-old, forced to leave school. Still, to give him his due, after mass protests last November, the monarch acknowledged his crime and fined himself. The punishment for violating the chastity law is a cow. No-one knows how big the royal herd is.
Fags and fat
A couple of airline stories this week. First, Lynn French, a 55 year-old ex-air hostess, who was awarded $5.5 million from her lawsuit against four tobacco companies Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Brown & Williamson Tobacco and Lorillard. French blamed secondhand smoke entering her nose before in-flight smoking was banned in 1990 for her persistent case of sinusitis. I feel relieved, said French, presumably referring to her financial situation as opposed to her condition. I am surprised it was so much.
The tobacco companies used doctors to make the case against French. But her attorney, Adam Trop, had their number. They are going to take simple issues and make them confusing, cloudy and dirty, he said. Which was convenient as he made the same case for their products.
Meanwhile, a further 3,125 flight attendants are queuing up to be compensated for their illnesses blamed on second hand smoke.
But passengers might see smoking as the least of their in-flight worries. The low-cost Southwest Airlines announced this week that it will start enforcing its policy of charging double to those passengers unable to squeeze themselves between the arm rests.
If you consume more than one seat, you will be charged for more than one seat, said a spokeswoman. The people of size policy will cover anyone requiring seat-belt extensions or unable to lower the arm rests on their chairs. Southwest seats are 18.75 inches (47.5 centimetres) wide.
The airline says that 90% of the letters it receives on the issue were from passengers complaining that they were sat on during the flight by those larger souls occupying the next seat.
But Marilyn Wann, described by the International Herald Tribune as an activist for large people, was unconvinced, arguing that airlines had a responsibility to accommodate people of all shapes and sizes. You are buying passage from point A to B, she said. You are not buying real estate.
Illiterate lyrics
Were here to thank our President,
For signing this great bill,
Thats right! Yeah.
Now imagine the words set to music.
The tune is known as No Child Left Behind, and is inspired by the education policy of President Bush, also known as No Child Left Behind.
Dan Lagan, a US Education Department Spokesman, told the BBC that when the songwriter approached the administration with the idea for the tune, they welcomed it as a neat idea. It will now accompany the No Child Left Behind roadshow, which kicked off in Albuquerque with a tickertape reception, graced by the attendance of none other than Miss Navajo Nation.
The theme song is also likely to be used as the holding music of the education departments phone switchboard.
Next up No Stone Left Unturned, an anthem on Bushs War on Terror, and Dump Your Leader For a Provisional State, a ballad on the White House foreign policy.
Fast food, farce justice
Jose Bove, the Roquefort farmer turned Mr. Anti-Globalisation and bosom buddy of Yasser Arafat, returned to prison this week to finish his sentence for trashing a McDonalds restaurant.
In true camera-friendly style, Bove, pipe in mouth, rode a tractor to the Villeneuve-les-Maguelone prison near Montpellier. Above the tractor, a large painted sign read Farines Animales Poison Lutte Syndicale Prison. He has been locked up for forty days.
His tractor was part of a slow moving convoy, who stopped for lunch in the village of Aniane, before heading to jail. At the prison gates, Bove donned a black-and-white striped con uniform, chaining himself to nine other farmers, all of whom assisted in the McDonalds attack. About five hundred supporters cheered him through the gates.
His sentence was postponed while the elections took place, the authorities fearful of any electoral backlash. One of the poll winners, Jean-Louis Debre, a member of Chiracs victorious Union for the Presidential Majority Party, described Boves pre-prison display as a bit ridiculous.
Quotes of the week
India was prepared for nuclear war, but we were confident our neighbour would not resort to such madness.
Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, describing the recent nuclear standoff between his country and Pakistan.
When he arrived he was like a little lost goat who didnt even have the money to buy a sandwich. He became rich without doing anything exceptional and then, at the World Cup, he denigrated Italian football.
Luciano Gaucci, president of Perugia football club, explaining why he fired Ahn Jung Hwan from his club after Ahn scored the golden goal for South Korea in the World Cup finals that sent Italy back home.
I dont think Microsoft is going to rename its campus Sleepy Hollow.
Brendan Sullivan, a lawyer for the nine U.S. states suing Microsoft Corp. for antitrust violations, eloquently stating his belief that Microsoft will not, as some executives have suggested, go into a 10-year hibernation of innovation after receiving the penalties he seeks.
Contact the Diary editor: dominic.hilton@opendemocracy.net
