Ian Sample | Feb 7

The Guardian - Neuroscience breakthroughs could be harnessed by military and law enforcers, says Royal Society report

Soldiers could have their minds plugged directly into weapons systems, undergo brain scans during recruitment and take courses of neural stimulation to boost their learning, if the armed forces embrace the latest developments in neuroscience to hone the performance of their troops.

These scenarios are described in a report into the military and law enforcement uses of neuroscience, published on Tuesday, which also highlights a raft of legal and ethical concerns that innovations in the field may bring.

The report by the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, says that while the rapid advance of neuroscience is expected to benefit society and improve treatments for brain disease and mental illness, it also has substantial security applications that should be carefully analysed.

The report's authors also anticipate new designer drugs that boost performance, make captives more talkative and make enemy troops fall asleep.

Uki Goni | Beunos Aires | Feb 5

The Guardian - Commonwealth countries of Antigua-Barbuda and St Vincent-Grenadines among those supporting blocking British ships

A group of Caribbean countries have agreed to back Buenos Aires and block any ships flying the Falklands flag from docking in their ports, Argentina's foreign minister Hector Timerman has said.

They include the Commonwealth countries of Antigua-Barbuda and St Vincent-Grenadines, along with Cuba, Nicaragua and Dominica, Timerman said.

Argentina received strong support for its blockade at a meeting in Venezuela of a left-leaning bloc of South American and Caribbean nations.

The Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, said: "It is time for Latin America to decide sanctions against this mistaken power that pretends to be imperialist and colonialist in the 21st century.

"I think we have to apply more forceful things. We have to talk about sanctions."

my my my

The Independent, By Steve Connor, January 25

The classic explanation of how a wing generates enough lift to keep a plane or a bird in the air is wrong, according to a Cambridge University physicist.

Many textbooks and aircraft manuals say that a wing produces lift because air travelling over the curved topside of a wing has to travel further than wind flowing around the flat underside and so has to travel faster to keep up, generating lift. But this standard explanation has been shown to be wrong by a simple experiment where a wing is placed in an air tunnel with jets of smoke flowing over the upper and lower surfaces, said Professor Holger Babinsky.

"A wing lifts when the air pressure above it is lowered. It's often said this happens because the airflow moving over the top, curved surface has a longer distance to travel and needs to go faster to have the same transit time as the air travelling along the lower, flat surface," he said.

Yer doin it rong:

The British government admitted today that a terrorist suspect whose case has drawn international attention was interrogated by U.S. officials and tortured during the two years he was held in Morocco.

The findings, resulting from an investigation by England's highest criminal prosecution agency, contradict the obfuscation, stonewalling, and denials by American officials about the case of the suspect, Binyam Mohamed.

At one point, the Obama Administration threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with the UK if a British court ordered the release of classified documents in the case.

Nice and extreme way to treat our BFF.

Duncan Gardham | London | January 11

The Independent - Despite years of allegations against the security and intelligence services by terrorism suspects, Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service have now concluded that there is no case to answer, sources have told the Daily Telegraph.

Both the police and Kier Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, are to make a statement explaining the decision.

A statement issued last night by the Crown Prosecution Service said they would announce “a number of decisions in relation to the investigations into the alleged ill treatment of detainees.”

A lot of ink has been spilled over the years regarding the United Kingdom's role in international affairs in general and on the 'Special Relationship' with the United States in particular. In light of looming larger and larger British defense cuts the reliance of the United States on British cannon-fodder and support generally looks to decline. (See this essay in the Guardian for a good run down on many more questions.)

There has also long been chatter about devolution and its consequences in the United Kingdom. In 1998 Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales were granted parliaments of their own after a 1997 referendum, but there haven't been any moves towards further devolution or outright independence.

Until now.

And that brings up a great deal of questions as to what would happen to the stature of the United Kingdom in global affairs if such a referendum passed in Scotland. (I honestly have no idea how such a referendum would fare, perhaps like those in Quebec?) One big question I haven't seen mentioned is what happens to the United Kingdom's permanent seat on the UN Security Council? And what changes would it usher if a rump UK attempted to hold on to such a seat? Lots of questions. Lots of moving parts.

Ed Pilkington/ New York & Richard Norton-Taylor | Jan 8

The Guardian - Security breach by Anonymous 'hacktivists' reveals email addresses of 221 British military staff and 242 Nato officials

Thousands of British email addresses and encrypted passwords, including those of defence, intelligence and police officials as well as politicians and Nato advisers, have been revealed on the internet following a security breach by hackers.

Among the huge database of private information exposed by self-styled "hacktivists" are the details of 221 British military officials and 242 Nato staff. Civil servants working at the heart of the UK government – including several in the Cabinet Office as well as advisers to the Joint Intelligence Organisation that acts as the prime minister's eyes and ears on sensitive information – have also been exposed.

The exposure of the database came after hackers – who are believed to be part of the Anonymous group – gained unauthorised access over Christmas to the account information of Stratfor, a consultancy based in Texas that specialises in foreign affairs and security issues. The database had recorded in spreadsheets the user IDs – usually email addresses – and encrypted passwords of about 850,000 individuals who had subscribed to Stratfor's website.

Some 75,000 paying subscribers also had their credit card numbers and addresses exposed, including 462 British accounts.

James Cusick & Cahal Milmo | London | January 2

The Independent - Computer crime by press may be as widespread as phone scandal

Police investigating computer hacking by private investigators commissioned by national newspapers have uncovered evidence that emails sent and received by Gordon Brown during his time as Chancellor were illegally accessed.

Mr Brown's private communications, along with emails belonging to a former Labour adviser and lobbyist, Derek Draper, have been identified by Scotland Yard's Operation Tuleta team as potentially hacked material. They are currently looking at evidence from around 20 computers which hold data revealing that hundreds of individuals may have had their private emails hacked.

The links discovered from the seized computers suggest that the email investigation could involve as many victims as those involved in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

Cahal Milmo and James Cusick | London | December 17

The Independent - Scale of Scotland Yard inquiry suggests a scandal to rival phone hacking by newspapers

The police investigation into computer hacking on behalf of newspapers is examining nearly 20 machines seized from private investigators and other individuals, suggesting that hundreds of individuals were targeted, The Independent can reveal.

A small Scotland Yard team of eight detectives and support staff is examining an archive of hundreds of thousands of messages and documents from the machines, amid suggestions that the number of victims of computer hacking on Fleet Street's behalf could eventually rival the total targeted in the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

London | December 16

AFP - Britain is a Christian nation and should not be afraid of standing up for Christian values to help counter the country’s “moral collapse”, Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday.

In a rare foray into religion by a British premier, Cameron said “live and let live” had too often become “do what you please” in Britain.

I wish to retract this post. I shot my mouth off before I read the fine print, which will most certainly happen again. As Ian notes: "The insistence on policies which everyone knows, and which even straightforward macro-economics shows clearly, will throw Europe into a semi-permanent depression is rather remarkable." Whatever Cameron's motives were, he made the right call. I regret the error.

December 10

AFP - The police said Saturday the final number of victims of phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World will be around 800 people, far fewer than originally thought.

The Scotland Yard officer leading the investigation into the scandal at the now-defunct tabloid said police had been in touch with everyone whose mobile phone voicemails were illegally accessed.

As late as a month ago Scotland Yard had said it identified 5,800 potential hacking victims, based largely on names found in the notes of Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator jailed for phone-hacking in 2007.

“We are confident we have personally contacted all the people who have been hacked or are likely to have been hacked,” Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said in a statement.

Andreas Rinke & Annika Breidthardt | Brussels | December 8

Reuters - The European Union failed to secure backing from all 27 countries to change the EU treaty at a summit on Friday, meaning any deal will now likely involve the 17 euro zone countries plus any others that want to join, three EU diplomats said.

An agreement at 27 fell through after British Prime Minister David Cameron demanded concessions that Germany and France were not willing to give, one of the officials said.

David Swanson | Dec 4

War Is A Crime.org - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's fervent hope for years was that Japan would attack the United States. This would permit the United States (not legally, but politically) to fully enter World War II in Europe, as its president wanted to do, as opposed to merely providing weaponry and assisting in targeting of submarines as it had been doing. Of course, Germany's declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor and the immediate U.S. declaration of war on Japan, helped as well, but it was Pearl Harbor that radically converted the American people from opposition to support for war.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had tried lying to the American people about U.S. ships including the Greer and the Kerny, which had been helping British planes track German submarines, but which Roosevelt pretended had been innocently attacked. Roosevelt also lied that he had in his possession a secret Nazi map planning the conquest of South America, as well as a secret Nazi plan for replacing all religions with Nazism. And yet, the people of the United States didn't buy the idea of going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and — just 11 days before the "unexpected" attack — he had secretly ordered the creation of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.

John F. Burns | London | December 2

NYT - Psst! Wanna be a spy?

Back in the cloak-and-dagger days of secret intelligence work, Britain’s espionage agencies liked to recruit in the ivied colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, even if that brought them some of the most notorious turncoats of the 20th century, men like Kim Philby and other Cambridge spies who handed atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union in the 1940s and 1950s before defecting to Moscow.

London | Nov 28

USA TODAY - Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague says there is a risk mercenary fighters driven out of Libya could switch allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Hague told the House of Commons on Monday that Britain is also concerned that weapons from unguarded stockpiles in Libya may have fallen into AQIM hands following dictator Moammar Gadhafi's fall.

He warned that the al-Qaeda affiliate had established ties to Boko Haram, the Nigeria-based extremist group waging a bloody sectarian fight against the African nation's weak central government.

Hague said there was an escalating threat across the entire Sahel region, which stretches from Mauritania to Chad.

Britain is "stepping up our efforts to counter terrorism in the Sahel," Hague said.

Thank God Africom is there!...

Damian Carrigan | November 27

The Guardian - Canadian interests and oil lobby win coalition's support for highly polluting process in runup to European fuel quality vote

The UK government has been giving secret support at the very highest levels to Canada's campaign against European penalties on its highly polluting tar sands fuel, the Guardian can reveal.

At the same time, the UK government was being lobbied by Shell and BP, which both have major tar sands projects in Alberta, and opened a new consulate in the province to "support British commercial interests".

BBC, By Roland Pease, November 24

Students and enthusiasts attending a recording for BBC Radio 4 have probably seen a new state of matter only recently discovered, an expert says.

The state of matter is a plasma like those in conventional nuclear fusion tests, but at higher densities.

And far from needing expensive apparatus, the conditions can be achieved in a simple glass tube containing a routine liquid.

The professor behind the demonstration says it can be achieved for a mere £10.

Ian Cobain | South Waziristan, Pakistan | November 18

The Guardian - Two young British men have been killed in US drone strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan's tribal belt, according to reports from the country. The pair, both Muslims from London, are reported to have been killed in separate drone strikes two weeks apart in South Waziristan.

One of the men has been named as Ibrahim Adam, 24, who fled from the UK with his brother four years ago, while both were the subject of control orders. The second is said to be Mohammed Azmer Khan, 38, the brother of another British Muslim, Abdul Jabbar, who was killed in a drone attack last year.

The Foreign Office was unable to confirm the deaths on Friday but said: "We are aware of reports and looking into them further."

Michael Hanlon | Nov 17

The Independent - Guilt, tiredness, stress, shock – can specialised drugs hel to mute the qualities that make soldiers human, asks Michael Hanlon?

The ancient Spartans believed that battlefield training began at birth. Those who failed the first round of selection, which took place at the ripe old age of 48 hours, were left at the foot of a mountain to die. The survivors would, in years to come, often wonder if these rejects were the lucky ones. Because to harden them up, putative Spartan warriors were subjected to a vigorous regime involving unending physical violence, severe cold, a lack of sleep and constant sexual abuse.

As with the English public schools, which used similar tactics to produce the warriors who carved out the British Empire, the Spartan regime worked; the alumni were the most feared soldiers in the eastern Mediterranean. And ever since then, military chiefs have wondered whether it may be possible to short-cut the long and demanding Spartan regime to produce a soldier who kills without care or remorse, shows no fear, can fight battle after battle without fatigue and generally behave more like a machine than a man.

In the post-war era, the future of fighting was thought to be about tanks and missiles, large impersonal machines that would fight huge battles over the open terrain of Northern Europe. The soldiers would be pressing buttons in a command centre. But despite the advent of drone aircraft, much of 21st-century warfare is turning out to be a drawn-out, messy business, fought on a human scale in the mud and dust of Afghanistan. And fought against a mercurial army of irregulars who melt away into the fields and farms once the skirmish is over. Modern soldiers are not the cannon fodder of before. Highly trained and super fit, each one represents a huge investment by the nation that sends them into battle. A soldier who is too tired to fight effectively, who has gone mad or who is suffering from severe stress is like a broken-down tank, no use to anybody. What if soldiers could be made that did not break down?

Nov 14

BBC - Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has told MPs that ground-to-air missiles will be deployed to protect the 2012 Olympic Games in London if deemed operationally necessary.

He was asked to confirm this by the former defence secretary Liam Fox.

It was Mr Hammond's first appearance at Defence Questions since taking over from Mr Fox.

The comments follow reports of concern in the United States about security plans for the Games.

The Guardian claimed the US was furious about security plans and wanted to send up to 1,000 of its own people, including 500 FBI agents but the Home Office says it has "full confidence" in the plans.

Mr Hammond was asked by his predecessor to confirm whether there would be a "full range of multilayered defence and deterrents" in place for the 2012 Games including surface-to-air missiles.

He replied: "I can assure him that all necessary measures to ensure the security and safety of the London Olympic Games will be taken including - if the advice of the military is that it is required - appropriate ground-to-air defences."

Daniel Boffey | London | Nov 5

guardian.co.uk - News International chairman may face questions in Commons over generous severance deal despite phone-hacking scandal

Rebekah Brooks, the former News of the World editor who resigned as chief executive of News International at the height of the phone-hacking scandal, received £1.7m in cash ($2.7 mil US), the use of a London office and a chauffeur-driven limousine as part of her severance package from the newspaper group.

Brooks, a favourite of Rupert Murdoch who rose from being a secretary on the features desk of the Sunday newspaper to the very top of the mogul's UK operation, quit in July amid claims over the alleged illegal activities carried out by her executives and reporters.

Tom Bawden | Nov 3

The Independent - Fifty separate earth tremors have been caused in the Blackpool area by "fracking", the drilling method used to extract shale gas, The Independent has learnt.

The huge number of seismic movements was admitted yesterday by one of the authors of a report into two very noticeable earth tremors likely to have been caused by the fracking operations of Cuadrilla Resources, which says it has discovered enormous supplies of shale gas in the Blackpool area.

The report, which the energy firm commissioned, concluded it is "highly probable" that Cuadrilla's operations were responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire. The first, of magnitude 2.3 on the Richter scale, hit the Fylde Coast on 1 April followed by a second of magnitude 1.4 on 27 May. The report, which is being sent to the Government, has intensified the controversy around "fracking", or hydraulic fracturing, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into shale rock, to release the gas it holds.

The company sought to play down the impact of its activities, saying that it had probably triggered "a number of minor seismic events". But when The Independent interviewed Stefan Baisch, one of the report's authors, he admitted that the actual number was 50.

In the same interview, Mark Miller, Cuadrilla's chief executive, accepted that 50 sounded like a lot of tremors but dismissed their significance. "There's a certain level of seismic activity that can occur even with a truck going past a house," Mr Miller said.

"But just because it doesn't do any damage, doesn't mean we're not concerned about it. It's not good for us if the public is concerned and it's not good for the production of gas."

Mr Miller said the report's findings were not sufficient to stop the company from using the controversial method. "Cuadrilla is working with the local and national authorities to implement the report's recommendations so we may resume our operations," he said.

London | Oct 30

AFP - British merchant ships travelling around the Horn of Africa will for the first time be able to carry armed guards to protect them from pirates, Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Sunday.

Officials said a legal ban will be relaxed so that shipping companies can apply for a licence from the government to carry weapons on board in the most dangerous areas, mainly off the coast of Somalia.

“We are now going to say to British-flagged ships that they would be licensed if they want to have security guards, armed guards on those ships,” Cameron told the BBC.

“The evidence is that ships with armed guards don’t get attacked, don’t get taken for hostage or for ransoms. So we think it’s a very important step forward,” he said.

The plan could see commercial, passenger and cargo ships carrying firearms off the coast of Somalia, in the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea and the wider Indian Ocean within a month, a spokesman for Cameron’s office said.

Experts agree that private guards do deter pirates, but their use can cause problems of legal jurisdiction and spark concerns about the use of mercenaries, questions of liability and private militarisation of the seas.

geez what could go wrong?

Cordelia Hebblethwaite | Oct 26

BBC - Forty years ago, a London publisher was working on a groundbreaking sex manual - a "gourmet guide" to sexual pleasure, with copious and detailed illustrations. But how could this be done tastefully and legally?

oddly interesting