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At this point, October 16 2004, it was decided that the INBOX should be divided into two in future:

On the left emails and news about country and animal health issues; political parallels on the right.

October 16/17 2004 ~ An emailer writes to complain that the "Welsh Assembly is riding rough-shod over everything." and sends this extract from the Western Mail:

"Why have a planning inquiry at all? Carwyn Jones is Minister for Planning also, and has obviously chosen to ignore the findings of the inquiry and also the views of the people of that area. It is altogether disgraceful."

October 16/17 2004 ~ Lord Whitty announced yesterday the creation of a new £3.5 million scheme offering grants to help harvest, store, process and supply a range of energy crops to fuel a new breed of biomass power stations. ( Ben Gill is to "head a Government-appointed taskforce") Devon people, already fighting giant turbines, are not too happy about any of this. Peninsula Power Ltd has submitted a planning application to build a 23 megawatt biomass station, costing £40 million, on a 36-acre airfield next to the village of Winkleigh. Campaigners there say that the site would emit "dangerous fumes and create unsustainable volumes of traffic as the crops were transported in." WMN reports

October 16/17 2004 ~ US soldiers were under arrest in Iraq last night after refusing to carry out a dangerous mission for which they say they were inadequately equipped. Scotsman

October 16/17 2004 ~ Independent letter "Sir: Charles Kennedy is the latest senior politician to describe the Iraq War as the greatest foreign policy disaster since Suez (14 October).
The Suez campaign saw fewer than 1,000 casualties (almost none of them civilian) and merely caused embarrassment to two former colonial powers (Britain and France) who were firmly put into their place in the new world order by the USA.
Contrast Iraq, with a minimum of 10,000 civilian casualties, instabilities is the region that will last for decades and a vastly increased risk to British citizens, both at home and abroad.
Suez didn't come close. But the prime minister did have the decency to resign."

October 16/17 2004 ~ "If Mr Blair could apologise for the Irish potato famine, why not now apologise to the Kurds for turning a "blind eye" to Hatra? Instead he continues to inflict similar death and destruction on Iraqi civilians..." Simon Jenkins Don't say sorry if you aren't

October 16/17 2004 ~ "Blair under new pressure over Iraq war: did he ignore advice of officials that it was unlawful?...."secret papers, including a highly confidential memo from Mr Straw to Mr Blair, which have been seen by The Independent, show that as long ago as March 2002 members of the Cabinet had been warned that invading Iraq could be fraught with legal problems. The full extent of the doubts in Whitehall is revealed in the astonishing series of confidential documents written at the highest levels of government a year before Mr Blair agreed that Britain should join the invasion..." Independent - or read in full here

October 16/17 2004 ~ "Our local Copeland Borough Council are advertising for Officers who will be fully qualified to run the Council when it becomes a 'Regional Assembly'. They are asking existing administrator Chiefs to re-apply for their own jobs. They need staff that can run 'Regional Assemblies..' Frustration and anger in this email.

October 16/17 2004 ~ vCJD " the department of health is stressing that risk of being infected are minimal and people should not be unduly worried by receiving the letter. Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said: "Throughout our handling of the issue of vCJD we have adopted a highly precautionary approach...."

October 16/17 2004 ~ The residents of the heavily-populated Fallujah now face a massive US onslaught.....more than 1,000 US and Iraqi ground troops are advancing towards Fallujah after weeks of almost daily air strikes...
As Juan Cole wrote (see below) "Collective punishment is an ugly tactic, famously practised by the Nazis in Europe to keep their conquered populations in line. It is forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.. Iraq page

October 15 2004 ~ "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a gimmick from Florida-based Applied Digital Solutions to chip people with RFID implants - previously confined to tracking animals - thereby making it easy to access their medical records, even when they cannot, or would rather not, cooperate..." (The Register)
I did not find credible a science fiction story about this - and here we are in 2004. Blunkett's biometrics are but a small step behind. See democracy page.

October 15 2004 ~ A three part new TV documentary The making of the terror myth starts next Wednesday. See Guardian "...During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare.."

October 15 2004 ~ The dog owner who appealed against the order to have his dog Dino destroyed, has won. The German Shepherd had bitten a woman who unwisely intervened in a dog fight. It cost the owner many thousands of pounds and three years to get the sentence lifted.

October 15 2004 ~ The Ambassador in Tashkent, Craig Murray, was suspended by the Foreign Office this week. He leaked his own highly critical memo accusing officials of turning a blind eye to torture in Uzbekistan by accepting intelligence that the CIA obtained via the regime's torture chambers.

October 15 2004 ~"We also need to bring forward the use of the Gamma Interferon test for TB in cattle. It is more accurate than the existing test and would reduce the number of cattle being slaughtered..." James Paice, quoted in the WMN (But see front page for comment)

October 15 2004 ~ A new initiative in India's Kerala state insisting that every cow is vaccinated against FMD is likely to be extended to other Indian States. See Economic Times. India

October 15 2004 ~ Key lessons from the seminar this week, hosted by the CLA (13 Oct), about the unique contribution that land management can make to combating climate change.

October 15 2004 ~ "....he said of Blair that he was our first elected monarch .... and how diminished and debased our democratic system had become.... looked like balloons who had been pricked - really he (Dr David Starkey) was saying 'Why are you sitting here, spouting a load of hot air - and getting personal payment for it - when, if you're an elected politician you should be getting on with the job of making parliament and democracy work?'
Faced with such incontrovertible honesty they were completely floored.
Went to bed invigorated - it was such a gale of fresh air blasting into the stale and tawdry state of politics today." An email about last night's This Week.

October 15 2004 ~ A Colorado congresswoman is seeking a congressional investigation into allegations that Iraqi war veterans near the end of their enlistments were given a choice between re-enlisting or being sent back to Iraq. AP
British troops are to support American forces in Fallujah and Baghdad - the troops would also be under American control. http://www.channel4.com/news/2004/10/week_3/15_iraq.html

October 15 2004 ~ "....the Attorney General owes it to himself, never mind the rest of us, to state what would have been his opinion on the legality of the war if he had been given the true facts. It may be prudent on his part to prepare a revised opinion, as now it can only be a matter of time before the legality of the war is challenged in the British or international courts. .." Robin Cook in the Guardian.
See warmwell pages on Lord Goldsmith

October 15 2004 ~ Poll reveals world anger at Bush. Guardian "....George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries - including some of its closest allies - growing more hostile to the United States while he has been in office. According to a survey, voters in eight out of the 10 countries, including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat President Bush in next month's US presidential election. "

October 15 2004 ~ Sue writes, "A well run Sanctuary was recently inspected by Defra and Trading Standards and they were told that one of their sheep should be put to sleep as it was too fat and this was ' not conducive to a long life'. The sheep was 14 years old. ..."
Sue adds, "The world has indeed gone mad and it is so sad. I had a meeting in South Wales a week or so ago and the stories that I heard about the RSPCA were appalling. They must not be allowed to get these new powers under the Animal Welfare Bill - if they do, those of us in the UK may as well hand our animals over now and give up.
Pleased you liked Janet' s book ...and the introduction! It amazes me that she had the guts and the dogged determination to carry on against all odds."

October 15 2004 ~ " US forces launch fresh air attacks on the rebel-held Iraqi city of Falluja after the collapse of peace talks" BBC - but let us be under no illusions about what this means. "...when you bomb a city repeatedly to get at a guerrilla group hiding out there, you are implicitly punishing the civilian population for the actions of the militants. Collective punishment is an ugly tactic, famously practiced by the Nazis in Europe to keep their conquered populations in line. It is forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949....When a five hundred pound bomb hits a building, it turns the building itself into shrapnel. Glass, stone and adobe fragments fly out, into eyes and into hearts, killing and maiming for hundreds of feet around. Iraqis are organized in clans, and are fiercely protective of their kin. Each innocent Iraqi death produced by an American bomb creates another clan feud with the U.S." Juan Cole opinion

October 14 2004 ~ "Speeding care" ... If you thought that biometric compulsory ID cards were sinister in the massive grasp of present or future governments, here is the US Food and Drug Administration today, approving an implantable computer chip that can "pass a patient's medical details to doctors, speeding care" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/

October 14 2004 ~ Mr Blunkett has not thought it necessary to wait for the response to the "consultation" on ID cards nor get an actual bill passed. The ad for the ID Head of Spin has already gone out. (Closing date tomorrow, actually.) Of Mark Oaten's plaintive cry of foul play, the Register's John Lettice comments, "it's nice to see MPs starting to notice that the Home Office regards them as a tiresome formality"

October 14 2004 ~ We're living in a land of honeyed words from all sides. Channel 4 news update says that former pensions minister, honourable John Denham, says that no parties are now being honest about the terrible pensions truth.

October 14 2004 ~ "For those of us who care about the way this country is run, and have a duty to hold the government to account, it's necessary to keep pursuing the truth .." Charles Kennedy

October 14 2004 ~ "...Scarlett should go - perhaps being kicked upstairs to the House of Lords, in time-dishonoured fashion, as Lord Scarlett of Epsom-cum-Dossier, there to give us the benefit of his wisdom at 45 minutes' notice." Today's article in the Guardian about this "whole tawdry affair" by Timothy Garton Ash.
See also warmwell pages on John Scarlett
"It turns out the buck does not stop with Blair or John Scarlett or Richard Dearlove or anybody. In government, it seems, there is no buck. .." (Jonathan Freedland in July)

October 14 2004 ~ A senior figure on the Butler inquiry into the intelligence failings over Iraq told The Independent that Lord Goldsmith "should consider his position" after the withdrawal of the intelligence claims that Saddam could ready weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes..." Lord Goldsmith had been reassured by the Prime Minister, but MPs last night said those grounds had been blown apart by the withdrawal of the 45-minute claim. It was also disclosed yesterday that two senior Foreign Office legal advisers, in addition to its deputy legal adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, went to Lord Goldsmith warning him of their fears that the war would be illegal, and subsequently resigned from the civil service.."

October 14 2004 ~ Mr Blair still refuses to answer, apologise for, or even it seems to understand, the real criticism - the misuse of false intelligence. Yesterday in Parliament he was still angrily defending the war because without the invasion "Saddam Hussein and his sons would still be running Iraq..." It was left to a nervous sounding Bob Waring (Liverpool Lab ) to ask"....how does the Prime Minister explain his statement to this House on 25 February 2003, in which he said:

Hansard The Prime Minister spluttered that his position was consistent.
See also Independent.

October 14 2004 ~Work has started at Bradworthy for Devon’s first giant wind turbines WMN ""If this can happen in Bradworthy against the determined protests of the local community, then no fields or cherished vistas in the Westcountry are safe or sacrosanct" .......Wildlife will be scattered as 70 metres of hedgerows are torn up. Ancient country lanes that are scarcely wide enough for a horse and car to pass will be widened. The heavy lorries and diggers will muscle down these thoroughfares......." See windfarms page

October 14 2004 ~ British Wind Energy Workshop for the South West is a "charm offensive"
"Planners and councillors should be aware that this is a blatant charm offensive. It's pure propaganda and a kind of special pleading by the industry. They have refused to enter into any public debate with us. They have declined every opportunity to consider an impartial and realistic view of all the concerns about wind turbines. "All their opinion polls are the ones that they have conducted. Don't be taken in by this." Dr Caroline Jackson urges a boycott and demonstration. Windfarms page

October 14 2004 ~ "...he juggled the demands of farming, writing and celebrity with indomitable energy. Not the least remarkable of his writings was his last book, a little-noticed novel, Retrieved from the Future, which anticipated another English civil war after the collapse of oil supplies and the pricking of the global economic bubble. .." From the Times Obituary Column today for the late, great John Seymour. We had not realised that he was so prescient...

October 14 2004 ~ "a patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government" Read Seymour Hersh, Warmwell Iraq page

October 14 2004 ~ Part of an email from "a member of the public who is extremely concerned by the behaviour of the Prime Minister.....To be told by a laughing Labour party official in an extremely mocking tone on the telephone that Blair has been cleared by four separate independent Inquiries is a lie in itself, and has made me extremely angry. I feel so strongly that something has to be done, even though it will rock the boat in the Westminster village. The electorate deserve some honesty, and if impeachment is the only way, then so be it..."

October 13/14 2004 ~ Being PM means never being able to say you're sorry....Channel 4 news update " ....Mr Blair did say he 'apologised' for relaying duff information (whilst key purveyors of it go on to be decorated and promoted in the "intelligence" services). But somehow the 's' word eludes him - just when the rest of the cabinet are spraying it around with utter abandon on the duff-intelligence issue. Is he being advised to do this? Does being PM mean never being able to say you're sorry?" (PM: I did not mislead on Iraq Blair apologises for wrong evidence but refuses to accept he had acted dishonestly or that war in Iraq was wrong.)

October 13/14 2004 ~ Fishy business on a little dishy...three Government Ministers breaching the referendum's purdah period to make the Yes boat come in ... North East Referendum.
Neil Herron: ".. We were also told that if we, as a permitted participant, breached any of the rules, you would come down on us, "like a tonne of bricks (whether metric or imperial wasn't specified but we got the message).
...eg Gordon Brown :"I believe that a `yes' vote in this referendum would be good for the people and the businesses in the North-East - moving us forward from an old Britain weakened by centuries of centralisation towards a new Britain strengthened by local centres of initiative, energy and dynamism."....." .....

October 12 2004 ~NE Referendum - " a forced referendum by easily corruptible postal ballot on a non-issue which leaves ordinary people cold (unless they're whipped up into knee-jerk them-and-us regional "patriotism" or anti-Toryism by people who play on their emotions)What on earth has all this got to do with "democracy" ?" Gill writes about the second burglary at the NO headquarters See also democracy page

October 12 2004 ~ "... because the giant US oil corporations are seen as the very embodiment of US power, anything to do with oil - pipelines, wells, refineries, loading platforms - is seen by insurgents as a legitimate and attractive target for attack ....(President) Carter's principle of using force to protect the flow of oil was later cited by president George H W Bush to justify US intervention in the Gulf War of 1990-91, and it provided the underlying strategic rationale for America's recent invasion of Iraq..." Read The oil that drives the US military Michael T Klare in the Asia Times

October 12 2004 ~ Massive amounts of equipment and even buildings relating to Saddam's nuclear . .er..er...intentions have gone missing. Guardian

October 12 2004 ~ Oil now $54...see peak oil news page

October 12 2004 ~Surge in greenhouse gases "...A background fear is that extra human emissions, by cars, factories and power plants, may be blunting the planet's ability to absorb CO2. In the worst case, that could lead to a runaway warming.." .IOL

October 12 2004 ~ "...Now that we know that Labour's infamous September dossier was full of careless holes and conscious omissions, shouldn't Andrew Gilligan and Greg Dyke be reinstated at the BBC, for it is now clear that the dossier was, as Andrew Gilligan first implied, "sexed up"..." From one of the stream of letters in the Independent that show the population is not at all prepared to move on just yet.

October 12 2004 ~ Mr Blair ducks parliamentary questions asking about the lack of "substantive mention of GCHQ" in the Butler Report, whether signals intelligence relevant to the Iraq crisis was received and why such intelligence was not included in the report. Another PQ, asking if he will "instruct the Attorney-General to evaluate Kofi Annan's statement about Iraq" was similarly shrugged off. A very angry emailer sends this extract from Hansard, adding "Blair just makes a mockery of the PQ procedure"

October 12 2004 ~ An impecunious maths expert has a brief word to say the impending UK pensions crisis...

October 12 2004 ~ "Our betrayals and broken promises have created a kind of irreversible disease that cannot be forgiven... journalists can scarcely travel in Iraq any more, there is no longer any independent witness to this awful war. What is going on in Ramadi and Hilla and all the other cities where US forces carry out their brutal raids?" Read Robert Fisk. Iraq page

October 12 2004 ~ A new IT system for the NHS (its £90million pound new email system crashed yesterday) will cost up to £31 billion pounds - three to five times the declared figure - in order for example that "..patients should also be able to book appointments and operations using an electronic booking system" (BBC) Is no journalist going to make the obvious remark about this? At least the fiasco of spiralling costs will be examined by the Public Accounts Committee. It all reminds us of what the Guardian's Paul Lashmar (September 25, 2004) calls "... the delicate balance between the freedom of the individual and intrusion into our daily lives by the state.." an article that should be read in full - although it unwisely assumes that government t IT systems actually work. See also democracy page

October 11 2004 ~ Channel 4 news update: "Tony Blair thinks Britain is still keen for grandiose visions. In a speech today he attacked the "minimalist" policies of the Tories, saying people in this country expect better. He now wants to move from a welfare state to an "opportunity society", whatever that means. He will not rest, he claims, until Britain is a land of opportunity for all. All very well, except he didn't say anything about what that actually involves, what it means for policy or what it will cost the taxpayer..."

October 11 2004 ~ "Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq." Quotation from Mr Kerry. See New York Times on the redefining of "Pre-emption".

October 11 2004 ~It is "such a well organised illegal enterprise that I would be surprised if some of you have not eaten that meat. After arms and narcotics, the trade in illegal meat is considered to be the third biggest illegal trade - estimated to be worth up to £1billion a year. .." Dirty meat page

October 11 2004 ~ "A dilemma lies at the heart of U.S. attempts to tame the Middle East—the more it intervenes, the more it antagonizes the people of the region. Then, faced with widespread opposition to its policies—in some cases full-scale rebellion—the U.S., along with Israel and the hated Arab regimes, cracks down, citing a threat to its security or to its national interests as the reason. This, in turn, provokes yet more hostility and the vicious cycle continues..." Useful history lesson from Mathaba.net Oil and Empire in the Middle East

October 10/11 2004 ~ We are simply staggered by the news that Mr Blair intends to reward with Honours the already knighted Sir David Omand the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, and others involved in intelligence for dossiers. Has he forgotten one apology that actually was made? Are we expected to forget the tragic fallout from that fiasco? The death of Dr Kelly? Remember how John Morrison was sacked, and how Air Marshall Sir John Walker referred to "... the whole dossier effect, the politicisation of the JIC, the decapitation of the BBC and the way this whole matter has been handled.."? You cannot fool all of the people all of the time

October 10/11 2004 ~ Organised crime in the meat trade is on the increase, flourishing in the UK, and very nasty indeed. Methods of importing illegal food into the UK are becoming increasingly sophisticated. High risk meat from certain UK abattoirs or secret barbaric killing sheds is trimmed and repackaged to make it appear fit for sale. Local authorities are failing to let the FSA know exactly how bad things are. Appropriate penalties do not exist. The FSA is reluctant to push for a new offence or recommend increased sentences, saying that to amend the Food Safety Act is not possible because of EU regulations. The criminals featured in Channel 4's Dispatches are still in business. See Dirty Meat pages.

October 10/11 2004 ~ Rumsfeld's optimism silenced by bombing. Independent "Bombs in Baghdad killed 18 people as the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, declared during a visit to Iraq that America was winning the war against insurgency.."

October 10 2004 ~ " ..animals, with characteristics of both gorillas and chimpanzees, have been sighted in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to local villagers, the apes are ferocious.... ... New Scientist is to publish its report about the mysterious creatures next week." BBC - (This description could, of course, fit homo sapiens )

October 10 2004 ~ "Farmers tell me they are shooting and snaring an abnormal number of foxes in recent days...... A van in a motorway car park was found by acquaintances of ours to be full of urban foxes...Nothing is more upsetting that seeing sheep bleeding to death after being savaged by these imported foxes" The BBC reports on the fact that farmers in Snowdonia have shot and snared as many as 118 foxes in three months. Snared and poisoned foxes suffer great distress before death.

October 10 2004 ~ "Tony Blair offered to stand down as Prime Minister before the next election if Gordon Brown agreed to abandon the pound for the euro, according to extracts from Clare Short's diary..." Telegraph An Honourable Deception?: New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power, to be published on November 1 by Free Press. (Clare Short herself famously accused Blair of perpetrating an “honourable deception” in presenting the case for war.)

October 10 2004 ~ Comment in the Independent on Sunday: Scott Ritter and Hans Blix - compare "if you had seen what I have seen..." (New window)

October 10 2004 ~ Contaminated Chiron vaccine factory in California. Who knew what, when? See New York Times "What remains unclear is when the British regulators became concerned enough about the situation to order contingency supplies of vaccines for use in Britain. Flu vaccines, which are grown in chicken eggs, take at least three months, and sometimes as long as six months, to produce." (see email comment)

October 10 2004 ~ "Every time I hear the President speak, I get an anxiety attack that’s a lot more complicated than merely disagreeing with him. I become desperate for oxygen. ... What GOP heavies do at street level — keep anyone who might harbor unscripted thoughts out of the arenas and assembly halls where their leader is scheduled to talk — White House speechwriters do with far more efficiency at podium level. .... terrorism begins with murdered language. What’s intolerable about listening to Bush is the airtightness of the lie he constructs out of the shredded language of human hope." An eloquent opinion column from the New Hampshire Sunday News

October 10 2004 ~ Blix accuses Blair as Labour MPs turn up heat over WMD Independent on Sunday See Iraq page

October 10 2004 ~ Booker's Notebook "....he wrote about his plight to his MP; to ministers such as the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, and the ministry's spokesman in the Lords, Lord Whitty; to the shadow agriculture spokesman, Tim Yeo; and to several others.
Most did not reply...."
( a common problem in one's dealings with public servants.)

October 10 2004 ~ "I may have been a little hasty when I mentioned the word 'bribe' that was used by the group wishing to build Wind Turbines in Cumbria.
My wife says..'threat' is a better word.." Jan writes

October 10 2004 ~ More on "organic" chicken from Lawrence. "..When it comes to ‘organic’ chicken production there is the opposite of gold plating of the directive – and – who benefits? Supermarkets and ‘global’ food businesses, of course. It is time to wake up to the corruption at the heart of our food production."

October 9/10 2004 ~ Independent web news censored by the US. US Authorities Seize IMC Servers in UK
The widely admired Indymedia - due to participate in the European Forum on Communications Rights about electronic civil liberties - have had their servers seized by the US government, with the collusion, apparently, of the Home Office. "It is unclear to Indymedia how and why a server that is outside the US jurisdiction can be seized by US authorities." Democracy page

October 9 2004 ~ Hector Christie - a name known to some readers - was the owner of the voice shouting "How can you sleep at night with so much blood on your hands," and "Shame on you Mr Blair, Shame on you." at the Labour Party conference. The North Devon Journal reports - with some amusement and no condemnation at all.

October 9 2004 ~ Jonathan Freedland says in the Guardian "Sorry, someone has to be the man in the egg-stained tie; The ISG report should prompt fury about the war, not yawns."

October 9 2004 ~ Scott Ritter, noting that "Duelfer has provided the ideal cover for the justification of the war" writes in the Guardian: "Far from showing the intent of Saddam Hussein to keep WMD, I believe a full review of all material relevant to the ISG's report will instead portray a dictator whose only desire was to retain his hold on power in the face of a US government which intended to do anything, including violate international law, to prevent this. The US Congress and British parliament should insist on a full declassification of the ISG report, as well as the sources used to compile it. During this critical time in both our nations' histories, with the war in Iraq playing such a central role in the selection of America's next president as well as the political future of Britain's prime minister, the American and British people deserve to know the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about the casus belli that collectively got us into the ongoing quagmire that is Iraq today."

October 9 2004 ~ Professor David King - is his advocacy of nuclear energy based on an understanding of energy depletion or concern about global warming? :" ... I do think five years or less is when we've got to make a decision." windfarm page latest and the Country Life article.

October 8/9 2004 ~ "With its North Sea oil and gas beginning to dwindle, its nuclear power generation due to be scaled back and its commitment to reducing greenhouse gases propelling a hunt for renewable energy sources - like tides, waves or wind - Britain is facing hard decisions that those in authority seem reluctant to make.... After two decades of self-sufficiency, according to official statistics, Britain now imports more oil than it exports. . That has underscored the urgency of the current debate, leading some analysts to speculate that future supplies could be held ransom to developments beyond Britain's control. . ..." International Herald Tribune. See peak oil news

October 8/9 2004 ~ An international team of scientists led by Dr Richard Gibbs, from Bayl or College of Medicine's Human Genome Sequencing Center in Houston, Texas, US.have released a first draft of the bovine genome. All the information from the $53m project is being deposited into free public databases for use by biomedical and agricultural researchers around the globe. See BBC

October 9 2004 ~ Comment from a local paper on the ISG report. The Berkshire Eagle. ".. this war was never about Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction. What is puzzling is that the presidential debate continues to focus on the pretext, rather than on the war itself, and on the political process in Iraq, rather than its implications for the region. .."

October 8/9 2004 ~ The Associated Press "In a statement, Mr Bigley's brothers said they had managed to shield their mother from the "painful and graphic" details of his ordeal. She has only recently returned home from hospital after collapsing under the stress after her son's kidnapping. "The bereavement of a child, no matter how old, is hard enough without this additional anguish," they said in the statement. "To those who have prayed for Ken and our family, from all religious backgrounds, we thank you. We will always remember Ken for his love, compassion and, above all, his 'Liverpool' sense of humour. He was a truly wonderful father, husband, brother and son. The loss to our family ... is immeasurable."

October 8/9 2004 ~ "....The basic human instinct toward cooperation has been all but forgotten in the mad rush to push everyone else aside. Our society has become atomized; the village green has been replaced by the shopping mall. Open debate and the free communication of ideas and news can now only be found in cyberspace.
Yet, at the same time, true individuality and originality has become suspect. People are encouraged to conform. Cultural distinctions are being lost in the homogenization of the cultures of the globe - what Benjamin Barber called "McWorld."..." an article by Dale Allen Pfeiffer which may interest many readers of this website

October 8/9 2004 ~ " I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance," said Kenya's Wangari Maathai. She became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She has been empowering women and fighting corruption in Africa for almost 30 years. Her Green Belt Movement (GBM) has planted more than 30 million trees across Africa to slow deforestation. She is now 64.

October 8/9 2004 ~Windfarms "We have won a small victory locally..." writes Jan. See windfarms page

October 8/9 2004 ~ " I am once again shocked and horrified at DEFRA's callousness and in particular Margaret Beckett's refusal to ban the export of live ponies from the UK..." an email about the plight of too many Dartmoor ponies

October 8 2004 ~ Reuters reports that Kenneth Bigley has been killed. Ordinary people like us, who shared his family's desperate hope, can now glimpse the reality of the daily horrors for so many in Iraq - about which the politicians can speak so glibly behind grave facial expressions.

October 8 2004 ~ Last night's Question Time - only very blandly reported in the press - showed this emailer just how far out of touch Patricia Hewitt has become. "Patricia Hewitt was completely shaken at the vehemence of the audience." Read 2 emails
Brian Jones in July this year, implied that Government Ministers consider themselves and their actions so superior to mortals less exalted that they cannot occupy the same space (let alone answer letters or emails) "...Dr David Kelly was upset by the suggestion...that Jack Straw complained at such a junior official being assigned to accompany him to an interrogation by the Foreign Affairs Committee on Iraq...... ....in Mr Blair's Whitehall, seniority equates to knowledge and wisdom..."

October 8 2004 ~ Brian Jones again - in the Independent today : Tony Blair "... cannot bring himself to use the important qualifier "potential". He reiterates that a mass of starkly clear intelligence misled him into believing the threat was actual, here and now.... I don't recall that Lord Butler's review uncovered masses of clear-cut evidence indicating the existence of a current WMD threat to anyone, let alone Britain..."

October 8 2004 ~ Blessed sanity from Simon Jenkins: ".. There are plainly grown men drawing public salaries who sincerely believe that unless conkers are banned children will collapse in playgrounds across the land, clutching their throats, their heads bruised and faces lacerated from retaliatory goggle strikes. Bureaucracy has brought us close to madness. .."

October 8 2004 ~ Jill writes about the "organic" chicken news.

October 7/8 2004 ~ Juan Cole: "The most menacing they can paint Saddam is that he would kind of have liked to, you know, have some weapons of mass destruction, sometime in the future. This is not a threat, it is a daydream. So why in the world did Saddam not just announce the fact to avoid being invaded by the US?
Well, of course, he did announce the fact, in the materials submitted to the UN in fall of 2002. But the paperwork did not explain how exactly all the chemical weapons were destroyed, and actually fueled the Bush administration attack rather than forestalling it..."

October 7 2004 ~ An email to warmwell has been forwarded to Michael Moore "..could you just say that for those of who have no vote in the US elections - and no way of reining in the lunacy of Bush, although so much of what he does directly affects us - what Michael Moore is doing carries so much hope for those of us who feel totally impotent in the face of the Republican mantras..."

October 7 2004 ~ re BBC coverage of the ISG Report. Dave writes, "...BBC radio has been very defensive about Iraq all day - not an ill word about the US, even in jest. And on TV, Gavin Essler (neocon sympathiser anyway?) was really pushing Hans Blix this evening for a soundbite he could use about Saddam and WMD - but Blix was unflappable and in the end Essler shut him off without even saying goodbye..."

October 7 2004 ~ WMD: the final verdict says the Telegraph.
For those literally millions of us who inched along the streets of Central London on February 15th 2003, today's inevitable headlines can be of no consolation at all. The "No weapons, no programmes: nothing to justify the invasion" says the Independent.
The Times insists that Saddam 'saw weapons as a means to advance his political ambitions' but it all adds up to the same sad story: Iraq had no banned weapons. Iraq was not a threat. The invasion was bloody, deceitful and illegal. More of today's newspaper coverage

October 7 2004 ~ We are still somewhat reeling after Michael Moore's latest email with its news that the Republican Party really want to see the back of him - for inspiring young Americans to vote. (apologies for missing link yesterday)

October 6/7 2004 ~ "Saddam did not have chemical and biological stockpiles when the war began and his nuclear capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing, according Mr Duelfer, the head of the Iraq Survey Group."IOL

October 6/7 2004 ~ "growing belief that all the normal checks and balances have broken down and the country's leadership seems unaccountable and uncontrollable. .." Michael Meacher in the Guardian

October 6/7 2004 ~ "... Blair's mastery of politics. The trouble is, that's not the same as an ability to govern. There, a different picture emerges. After seven and a half years in power, even Blair's admirers talk of his almost desperate search for a legacy..." Jonathan Freedland on A peerless act of betrayal

October 6/7 2004 ~ The Republican Party has demanded that Michael Moore be sent to jail for trying to "bribe" students to vote. Read Mr Moore's latest ( "Fahrenheit 9/11" reached #1 on Amazon on its first day.)

October 6/7 2004 ~ ".. Marcus Rand, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association: “ In less than 24 hours we have seen the approval of over 300 megawatts of new wind power all building on the base of strong public support." Scotsman
Mr Rand determinedly ignores the strength of feeling in the West Country and elsewhere. See windfarms page. Bradworthy Lobby Opposing Turbines "carried out its own survey and about 60 per cent of people opposed them.."
Professor Ian Fells, chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Centre: “There is no doubt that we need all the electricity we can get that doesn’t create carbon dioxide, but predicating this almost entirely on wind when there are other, less obtrusive technologies seems simplistic, stubborn and perverse.....”

October 6 2004 ~ Mr Ben Bradshaw's desire to "keep us in line" with the EU will allow 12 laying birds to be cooped up together in a square metre, to allow 12,000 of them in a single building - and to call that "organic". See FWi.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who mentions 'organic' chicken with favour in his recent article on chicken production, certainly does not have these conditions in mind. As he says, ".. consumers do have teeth. It's time to sharpen them again, urgently, by chewing on chicken that has lived a half decent life."

October 6 2004 ~ On 28 April, 2003 Tony Blair said, "Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit." We now have Mr Straw saying, "the threat from Saddam Hussein in terms of his intentions" was "even starker than we have seen before". Saddam Hussein would have built up his WMDs had he been left in power, Mr Straw added. BBC
But a reminder of what Bush, Blair and Cheney and all were saying before the invasion makes Mr Straw's comment sound even more Orwellian

October 6 2004 ~ The total number of avian influenza A (H5N1) virus cases in East Asia is now 43. 30 of them have died. More than 100 million chickens and poultry have died or been culled this year. See ProMed for updates. Status of vaccines - extract from WHO

October 6 2004 ~ The Irish government has issued a passport to Ken Bigley in the hope that the country's long history of conflict with Britain might sway those holding him. He is entitled to Irish citizenship because his mother, Elizabeth, was born in Ireland. See Guardian

October 6 2004 ~Channel 4 News last night showed a 30 second clip of "some remarkable and ghastly footage" of a US pilot viewed from his own cockpit killing a group of people in a street in Fallujah.
"...At no point during the exchange between the pilot and controllers does anyone ask whether the Iraqis are armed or posing a threat," comments the Independent today

October 6 2004 ~ UKIP has found a new donor in the Kent businessman, Alan Bown, who says he'll make good "any shortfall" caused by millionaire Paul Sykes' withdrawal. "Mr Sykes said the Tories now seemed to be "waking up to the fact that it is not a bad idea to make our own laws in our own Parliament by our own people, rather than importing them from unelected Brussels". .." BBC

October 6 2004 ~ "The Iraq Survey Group is expected to report today that it has found no evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in post-war Iraq..Charles Duelfer, the chief UN arms inspector ....is expected to conclude that Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction, nor significant WMD production programmes at the time of the invasion. However, he will assert that Saddam Hussein had plans to produce weapons once UN sanctions were lifted..." . Independent

October 5 2004 ~ Donald Rumsfeld: "weakens a pillar of war" says the BBC

October 5 2004 ~ Alastair Campbell - like Zorro - is to return as an adviser to the Labour party during the election campaign.
See Guardian
( Geoffrey Goodman's verdict on New Labour is well worth hearing. He spent a lifetime as a socialist.)

October 5 2004 ~ Oil prices today: U.S. light crude rose $1 to $50.91 a barrel, 44 cents above last week's record. See peak oil news

October 5 2004 ~ "...There are civilian contractors crawling all over this country. Blackwater, Kellogg Brown & Root, Halliburton, on and on. These contractors are doing everything you can think of from security to catering lunch! .... very few of the projects are going to the Iraqi people. Someone's back is getting scratched here, and it ain't the Iraqis'! ...."
"....Soldiers are calling their families urging them to support John Kerry. If this is happening elsewhere, it looks as if the overseas military vote that Bush is used to won't be there this time around. .." The Guardian has published letters from US soldiers in Iraq

October 5 2004 ~ Darlington and Stockton Times "Region must reject this meaningless charade" The editor comments: "the draft Regional Assemblies Bill .....is a sickening document.... undermine still further people's faith in our democratic institutions..."

October 5 2004 ~ Gill Swanson writes to report the reply received to her letters to the Electoral Commission. "... It spends a lot of time telling me how the whole thing works (which I knew already) but doesn't go into the evidence on which they based their decision... "

October 5 2004 ~ A Kuwaiti newspaper editor has claimed British hostage Ken Bigley could be freed from his captors within ten days. The same al-Rai al-Aam newspaper predicted the release of two Italian hostages for a large ransom. The women were subsequently freed and returned to Italy. ITV.com

October 5 2004 ~ 'We say in a democracy it is unacceptable to lock up potentially innocent people without trial or without any indication when, if ever, they are going to be released' Ben Emmerson QC, barrister for seven detainees
Independent report on the beginning of the Law Lords case into the legality of holding foreign suspects without trial at Britain's maximum security jails. As the Channel 4 news update yesterday said, "... It centres on the use of evidence extracted by torture , and is at the heart of David Blunkett's anti-terror strategy. The Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith will appear in court to represent the government. Much at stake.." Democracy page

October 5 2004 ~ North East Assembly. Neil Herron said yesterday, " ... it will be the Assembly members that decide the salary structures of Assembly members.......the spectre of council tax rises to pay for the part-time great and good in their new political playground.... "

October 5 2004 ~ Bovine TB. A "Strategy Core Stakeholder Group" has met for the first time, and also a "Pre-Movement Testing Sub-Group" is being set up (icWales) " to develop a detailed proposal to implement pre-movement testing of cattle on the basis that farmers would pay for the tests and will be subject to a short consultation."

October 5 2004 ~ Donald Rumsfeld was asked about connections between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he said. Iraq page and today's Independent

October 5 2004 ~ The "Voluntary Initiative on pesticides" has been welcomed by Baroness Young. What effect this will have remains to be seen. See also warmwell pesticides page

October 5 2004 ~ A glimpse of the strong family ties in sheep, sent by Ron. He adds the quotation from William Penn, "The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God, but in cities little else but the works of men."

October 3 2004 ~Dame Pauline Neville-Jones. We noted on September 8th that this BBC governor, so instrumental in Greg Dyke's departure, was the chairman of the Qinetiq group plc ( UK privatised military research/services company) and a member of the Bilderberg group. We are interested to see that questions are now being asked about her links with Qinetiq. Read in full

October 3 2004 ~ A special panel of nine Law Lords will meet tomorrow to decide whether indefinite detention is acceptable under British and international law. See democracy page

October 3 2004 ~ Prisoner interrogations at Guantánamo Bay have not prevented a single terrorist attack, according to Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Christino, who retired last June after 20 years in military intelligence. He says that President George W Bush and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have 'wildly exaggerated' their intelligence value. Observer

October 3 2004 ~ Mount St Helens in Washington State may blow its crater in the next 24 hours.

October 3 2004 ~ Strong words yesterday from an almost "papal" force in the old Labour Party, Geoffrey Goodman: "Tony Blair has destroyed the Labour Party and we are now in a completely different political wilderness ... No. I wouldn't be happy to work for the Blair government ...." More

October 3 2004 ~ Booker's Notebook: "... many people would like to know how the Electoral Commission came to give taxpayers' money to an organisation so inept that it offers John Prescott his only hope of winning the November 4 referendum - and so obscure that even the commission has difficulty in finding it." See Democracy Page. See also the letters written to the Electoral Commission by a warmwell reader. Neil Herron's recent massages.

October 3 2004 ~ Anyone who thought that political correctness could sink no further into imbecility may read in Booker's Notebook, that "staff of the Welsh Development Agency have been told not to use the words "nitpicking" and "brainstorming", because these are offensive to minorities..."

October 2 2004 ~A shipment of plutonium – enough to make 40 nuclear bombs – is being transported from the US to France where it will be converted into nuclear reactor fuel rods. The US Government yesterday promised it was a “one-off” shipment. But campaigners dismissed the claim, insisting it could be the start of a trade in nuclear material. See WMN

October 2 2004 ~ Pace Farms is Australia's largest egg producer. The RSPCA has been asked to cut ties with the company because it maintains battery hens. Australia's RSPCA national president Hugh Wirth was splashed with red paint at a gala dinner on Friday night. Story in The Age.com links with the article on chicken production in the Observer and an email yesterday unhappy about the RSPCA in the UK.

October 2 2004 ~ "In the 1970s...billions of people in the developing world had never driven -- let alone aspired to own -- a car. One can only hope they enjoy the motoring life while they can, for they may well be joining the oil age at its twilight." Canada's National Post and warmwell's peak oil news page

October 2 2004 ~ What are we to make of the raid by "armed intelligence officers" on the Amsterdam home of Ken Bigley's brother? They seized Mr Bigley's computer and interrogated him. One emailer writes, "Heavy handed tactics to scare and silence him? I find this action (i.e. the raid) deplorable, but am not surprised by it." The Independent has the story. See also what Farnaz Fassihi had to say about kidnappings - a view that is not reported in the media.

October 2 2004 ~ "One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle."
Extracts from a letter by Wall Street Journal correspondent Farnaz Fassihi are on the Iraq page

October 2 2004 ~ "Plainly our Prime Minister - whose conference speech on Tuesday included phrases such as “stressed out” and “don’t go there” - has taken to drawing his idiom from American sitcoms. We should do likewise. To the remark “If I am elected I would serve a full third term”, the appropriate response is “Yeah, right.” Mathew Parris Lies, damned lies and Blair's brand of pure showmanship

October 2 2004 ~ The BBC continues to call them "insurgents" Juan Cole says ...they appear just to be angry young men from the city would reject the new American-dominated status quo." Iraq page

October 2 2004 ~ Public protest pays off. Two West Highland hospitals had been earmarked for downgrading to day hospitals - but... Scotsman " Some 2,500 residents, a fifth of the local population, attended a meeting in Fort William, while letters of opposition came from 5,900 people, three quarters of the households in the area. Hundreds also attended a meeting in Oban " and it now looks as though both hospitals - thanks to people power and the West Highland Health Services Solutions Group, led by Baroness Michie - will find a solution that is "clinically viable, sustainable and affordable".

October 2 2004 ~ Michael Moore's latest message to his fellow Americans is all about people power ."...If you can't get signs or leaflets, make your own! Don't wait for someone to do it, otherwise it won't get done. Send me pictures of your own renegade Elect Kerry/Dump Bush HQ and I will put them up on my site..."

October 2 2004 ~Mr Gorbachev on his opposition to the Iraq war and his concern that Mr Putin and other leaders are using the threat of terrorism to justify restrictions on liberty and democracy

October 2 2004 ~ Moazzam Begg said yesterday in a hand-written letter to his parents ghat he has been subjected to "vindictive" torture and death threats by the US authorities at Guantánamo Bay. See Scotsman .

October 1 2004 ~ "Sir: Blair feels that he cannot honestly apologise for removing Hussein from power. Well that's convenient for him then - currently the nation isn't asking him to. We're asking him to apologise for allowing his underlings to remove caveats from intelligence assessments (or encouraging their "mates" at the JIC to do so), then using the subsequent propaganda to deceive Parliament into supporting a spurious and premeditated war of aggression at the behest of Washington..." More letters from the Independent

October 1 2004 ~ "The World Health Organization downplayed fears (on Tuesday) over the spread of avian flu from one human to another, suggesting an apparent case in Thailand was likely a "dead-end" transmission that scientists have seen before.." Associated Press

October 1 2004 ~ An emailer writes with this comment about Thailand and the current fear of zoonoses.

October 1 2004 ~ Avian Influenza vaccine (for humans) "....If a pandemic were to occur ... 2.5-3 billion doses would be needed. Earlier this week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said bird flu was a permanent threat to animal and human health... They too urged governments to take more action." BBC See also FAO/OIE advice about vaccination of birds

October 1 2004 ~ "Labour has hung on to the traditional heartland seat of Hartlepool with an embarrassingly slashed majority. .." ITV com

October 1 2004 ~ CBS News "..Uncommitted voters who watched Thursday night’s presidential debate said John Kerry won the debate against President Bush, and most of those voters improved their opinion about the Democratic candidate because of the debate.."

October 1 2004 ~"....Towards the end of this decade, therefore, we may see grey-painted ships, bearing the blue flag with a ring of stars, manned by EU inspectors, patrolling our seas, guided by an Agency in Spain using EU satellites to direct operations. It is by no means fanciful, either, to suggest that the Agency will operate its own surveillance aircraft – as does the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency – and some will see in these developments an embryonic EU navy and air force." A great deal more on the EUreferendum Blogspot

Sept 30 2004 ~North East Referendum. Gill writes to tell us that she has not yet had the courtesy of a reply to her letter ten days ago to the Electoral Commission. Mr Herron has apparently been told that he " didn't stand a chance of getting any funding because he didn't belong to the "Establishment"
As Gill says, "it just makes me weep. Give me the aristocracy any day, compared with this lot!"
Here is her follow up letter to Mr Younger asking if he could be a little less vague about the reasons and procedures that led to the award of £100,000 funding to NESNO in the North East referendum campaign. See democracy page

Sept 30 2004 ~ "....Regime change was not the cause for it, the cause for it was that... (pause) What I did was take the view after September 11th that we had to take a totally new approach and what that meant is that in respect of regimes developing WMD instead of taking a reactive approach we had to take an active approach and that therefore the place to start was Iraq because there was a string of UN resolutions, a long history of UN inspections not working and so we went back to the UN, got a fresh resolution which said he had to comply fully with the UN inspection regime. Now in the end he didn't, so that was the legal basis for the war. Um. The regime, as I think I said , actually even before the war began, the regime was not irrelevant because obviously the possibility of WMD in the hands of a malign regime is different from that if they are in the hands of a benign regime..." If you missed the answers Mr Blair gave to John Humphrys in yesterday's Today Programme, here is warmwell's transcript - interruptions, strange syntax, the use of September 11th as justification - and all. But for the revealing tones of voice, listen to the BBC recording.

Sept 30 2004 ~ Meanwhile, at the Labour Party Confernece, as Jon Snow's newsletter puts it, " ...The conference organisers had delegates vote on a motion so undeliverable - more or less immediate withdrawal of all UK troops - that even those against the war found themselves voting against it. How to run a democratic party, the Iraqis would be impressed!"

Sept 30 2004 ~ Ireland - SDLP Assembly member for South Down, Mr PJ Bradley "urged both governments to set a joint target date of December 31 2007 for the complete eradication of brucellosis and bovine TB throughout Ireland. Without such a commitment and target for veterinary departments on both sides of the border, he warned the livestock industry would suffer." UTV

Sept 30 2004 ~The Bishop of Exeter, the Rt Rev Michael Langrish, said yesterday: "Set against the massive changes that are going on in their real everyday lives, farmers now find that the people who have control appear not to want to listen, not to want to understand and, sadly, often not even to want to care." WMN

Sept 30 2004 ~ "The ethics of Mr Blair are not the real problem, but the laxity of a system of government in which an error of this calibre can pass without anyone ever being answerable. .." Letters in the Guardian

Sept 30 2004 ~ A website by the expert on pigs, Lyall Watson, has been recommended via this email. Mr Watson "was asked what he thought of pigs being reared for meat, to which he replied that he had no problem with that so long as they are respected for what they are and reared and killed in an humane way. His website is small but interesting..."

Sept 30 2004 ~ "It's a simple thing to eat local food. If we don't, we let down all those wonderful people who make it." Read what Barrie Williams, editor of the Western Morning News, has to say about agriculture, Westminster, supermarkets and the truth about young people coming into farming.

Sept 30 2004 ~ Research by scientists at the Department of Pharmacy at King's College London suggests that non conventional remedies can indeed be effective. The Herald reports that "Debate over the effectiveness of homoeopathic medicine has become particularly heated in the west of Scotland, where a proposal to close a unit at Glasgow's Homoeopathic Hospital is being examined by health managers." We are reminded that Anne Young (see below) kept all her animals free of disease in spite of being surrounded on three sides by cattle and sheep infected with foot and mouth. She chose to use "Virkon S" rather than homeopathic Borax chosen by others. "Virkon S" is an approved disinfectant against FMD also widely used as a water steriliser. In her opinion, "surviving the cull was all about attitude, being informed and determined, taking control of situations and conversations" However, had the Animal Health Act of 2002 been passed a year earlier she would have been defeated and her animals destroyed. (See also Alan Beat's newsetter from August 2001)

Sept 30 2004 ~ The Herald reports that "Shackled and caged, Ken Bigley wept last night as he begged Tony Blair to help save his life, in a new video issued by his kidnappers in Iraq..." Meanwhile listeners to the Today Programme heard a jokey report from Brighton about the "fudge" that has relieved New Labour from taking seriously the debate on troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Sept 30 2004 ~The result of the Hartlepool by-election is expected to be announced at about midnight on Thursday.

Sept 30 2004 ~ The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now saying that the global economy is likely to slide in 2005 as a result of higher oil prices and other factors. See peak oil news page

Sept 29 2004 ~ The Iraq conflict today continued to cast a long shadow over Labour's annual conference despite Prime Minister Tony Blair's best efforts to put the controversy behind him. Scotsman

Sept 29 2004 ~ Letters in the Independent echo our thoughts - extract: "The Blair people insult hard-working Labour supporters by assuming we will forget the enormity of Iraq if promised goodies on the home front. A colossal insult to our intelligence and the reason why we will not vote Labour again until there is a regime change."

Sept 29 2004 ~ Mark Purdey is sounding more and more sure of his ground - and the scrapie regulations more and more a scapegoat for something more alarming.

Sept 29 2004 ~ Max Hastings in the Daily Mail - we are sent these extracts

Sept 29 2004 ~ www.lakeland-alpacas.co.uk Hilary Peters has sent the latest part of her real food diary with its links and thoughtful commentary. Extract: "...Ann Young’s animals have flourished. She heroically defied the slaughter policy during Foot and Mouth and saved all her animals at enormous cost, both financial and emotional. She takes in alpacas at livery, treating them with total devotion and nursing them through the traumas of import. All Ann’s animals are sane and settled. Even her sheep follow her, not for food, but just because they don’t live in fear. Ann is the living proof that, although people jeer at this sort of devotion, there is a market for it."

Sept 29 2004 ~" The Argentine government has publicly rejected a plan by Monsanto to collect more royalties on the use of its genetically modified soybean seeds. In a press conference, Agriculture Secretary Miguel Campos said Monsanto's plan was unacceptable because it would set an "incalculably negative" precedent for the future of Argentina's agriculture sector...Campos said Monsanto has benefited enormously from the government's willingness to approve the use of genetically modified seeds at a time when their use was still controversial in most countries. .... "http://www.usagnet.com

Sept 29 2004 ~ A link to a down to earth article in the Observer on Sept with my cockerels what I feel best about is not so much the way they die as the way they live. They scamper about in a grassy field, strutting their stuff and pecking the living daylights out of the grass, bugs and slugs, along with the corn and maize mix we scatter for them. In other words, they spend all day doing properly chickeny stuff. As a result, they taste properly chickeny at the end of it all.... 98 per cent of all the chicken meat we eat in this country. ......when it comes to the way our food is being produced, consumers do have teeth. It's time to sharpen them again, urgently, by chewing on chicken that has lived a half decent life." Read in full

Sept 28 2004 ~ Dartmoor Ponies - along with so much else typically English that we hold so dear - may soon be just a memory "... auctioneers and pony organisations fear that the number of ponies on the moor may decline rapidly if new rules, requiring every equine to have an official "passport", documenting its age, ownership and other details, is applied to the moor's semi-feral ponies..." WMN

Sept 28 2004 ~ "Have you got blood on your hands?" is a question that Mr Blair was asked again today as a heckler interrupted his speech in Brighton. He was also asked this question, at a press conference in Japan, about the death of Dr David Kelly (Scotland on Sunday, July 2003). A letter in the Guardian today makes it clear that doubts about the supposed suicide remain in the minds of medical specialists. " If he did not die by any of the means offered to date, this would suggest that he was killed by an as yet undiscovered agent.... With the Hutton suicide ruling now called into serious question by experts from across the medical spectrum, there must now be a cast-iron case for resuming a full inquest into Dr Kelly's death." (read letter)

Sept 28 2004 ~

Sept 28 2004 ~ "...The author of a recent biography on Blair warned that he could not discount the Iraq factor just yet. "His political future and therefore what happens to the Labour Party will be decided not in Brighton or London but in a country 2,000 miles away," Anthony Seldon said. "If Iraq disappears off the screens for the next six months then I'd expect Blair to still be prime minister and to romp home with a majority of 120. But if it continues to be in the morning papers day after day after day, he will not survive."..." Reuters report on Mr Blair's speech today.

Sept 28 2004 ~ Are you a U.S. citizen, or do you know any Americans that might need overseas voter registration information? You can get all the information you need and even fill out absentee ballot forms online by visiting: http://www.overseasvote2004.com
(This information, courtesy of MoveOn.org)

Sept 28 2004 ~ More concern is being expressed about the new powers conferred on the RSPCA - who by the terms of the new Animal Welfare Bill become the "prosecutors". An emailer writes, "consider that the Bill allows the Court NOT to hear the owner's side if the Court decides it is not reasonably practicable to do so and the owner/farmer, etc. will be responsible for all costs even if found not guilty. Section 16 (6) makes it an offence to obstruct a prosecutor or a person authorised by him..." Read in full

Sept 28 2004 ~ "...the whole cabinet is tainted by Iraq, and they all should go." An email from a watcher of the Labour Party Conference.

Sept 28 2004 ~ Behind closed doors, decisions seem to be being made to rid certain independent EU nations of their small farms by any means necessary. As an emailer has written: "So grim is the situation in the Polish countryside after a harvest even worse than ours that desperate farmers appealed to the government for an advance on their EU subsidies (due in December). Warsaw said 'fine', but sent out application forms so complicated that they obviously hoped the peasant farmers would be unable to fill them in. The Peasants Party hired a team of UK consultants (experts in the ways of EU bureaucracy) to fly over to help. To the astonishment of the government, the farmers completed their forms on time - only for them now to be told there is no money available after all. Talk is of riots in southern Poland any day now. Not a word of all this in the media (Polish or otherwise)."
Just as in the UK when gold plated EU rules forced (and are forcing) small local slaughterhouses to close, meat slaughter and processing plants in Poland must now fulfill the new EU standards or else face closure. The small farmers' fears about joining the EU (See Guardian April 2000) were fully justified. Smithfield is now about to take over huge sections of the meat industry. Low wages and high unemployment belie rosy reports of growth in Poland. Such reports could have come straight from Animal Farm

Sept 28 2004 ~ King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that it will be impossible to hold elections in Iraq in its current state of chaos. See Iraq page

Sept 28 2004 ~ The BBC has noticed that "Crude oil prices hit new highs in both New York and London with US light crude poised to hit the $50 a barrel mark." Global recession, however, is only hinted at in a very few places (including the Independent). Oil prices so far this year have increased 50%.

Sept 28 2004 ~ The FSA is to produce guidelines on labelling - but they are useless if supermarkets are not forced to comply. Telegraph article on the loophole that allows fatty products to be sold as low fat. The FSA's statement that it "wants" the industry to behave responsibly sounds woefully toothless for an expensively kept watchdog.

Sept 27 2004 ~ Poland - "the last bastion of traditional farming in Europe; tens of millions of acres of productive land still tilled without chemicals" - is under threat from multinationals, banks and corrupt bureaucrats. The article about Smithfield from organic food.co.uk bodes very ill indeed for all small farmers.

Sept 27 2004 ~ "Many poultry farmers in Thailand -- certainly the small-holders whose livelihood is threatened to be ruined by HPAI -- wish their stock to be vaccinated.." Avian Influenza

Sept 27 2004 ~ The Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health (DCPAH), a new laboratory located at Michigan State University represents a $58 million cooperative project ".... an integral part of the state of Michigan’s attempts to diagnose and stop the spread of diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, West Nile virus, and rabies, as well as ...as chronic wasting disease and foot-and-mouth disease." http://www.newsroom.msu.edu

Sept 27 2004 ~ Concerns about oil prices are finally getting into the mainstream media. Peak Oil News

Sept 27 2004 ~ WMN "....Mrs Beckett found time to defend the Government's controversial ban on hunting with dogs, but did not address any of the problems besetting the farming industry - let alone offer solutions.." ....Andrew George: "I am surprised and disappointed that the Secretary of State has decided to stand by and let the supermarkets bully dairy farmers in the way they have been."

Sept 27 2004 ~ Brent crude futures soared to a record $46 (325) a barrel, the highest price in the history of the International Petroleum Exchange. Peak Oil news page

Sept 27 2004 ~ "....Not for many years has there been such a gap - in America as well as Britain - between the people and the government they elected." Robert Fisk - see Iraq page

Sept 27 2004 ~ Iraq: "...attacks on oil infrastructure have produced losses of up to $1 billion this year, slashing the funds available for reconstruction..." See peak oil news

Sept 27 2004 ~ "...The Prime Minister, who was swept to power on a wave of optimism about the new politics he would introduce, was brought down to earth by the hostage crisis surrounding Kenneth Bigley, the assassination of a Palestinian Hamas leader in Syria, death and suicide bombs in Iraq and a rebel vote by delegates to force Iraq on to the agenda for the conference..." Independent See also Robert Fisk's latest article on the Iraq page

Sept 26 2004 ~ An urgent matter of sovereignty is not being reported by the major media. We are being quietly led into the Super State, complete with its own prosecutor, border guards and police force, by our unwitting noses - and by a largely ignorant parliament. See democracy page

Sept 26 2004 ~ 570 vets (mostly practising), 5 Veterinary Professors and 6 Fellows of the Royal College of Pathologists are spearheading a new organisation - The Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management.
An emailer writes, "We think it is important that vets and farmers, ecologists and animal lovers appreciate that 'managing' a population does not mean its extermination. It means keeping it in harmony with its surroundings and space, and primarily keeping it healthy within those boundaries" See also FWi

Sept 26 2004 ~ An emailer writes, "....for some time could not see a clear link with other issues on the website - but I see now that government bungling, arrogance and callousness is the link. I have nothing but horrified compassion for Ken Bigley and his family and friends. But his kidnapping has - I hate even to write this - done some good to the country. People who turn off whenever Iraq is mentioned - the people Mr Blair depends on to reelect him - cannot turn their backs on the plight of Mr Bigley. ."

Sept 26 2004 ~ Independent on Sunday ".The Government does not mind at all when the war is off the agenda of so many papers. ... the last thing they wanted was Iraq dominating the media, all the media, in the run-up to their party conference. But horrifying events have so ordained. The kidnappers, showing a sophisticated understanding of media manipulation, have taken Iraq back to the top of the agenda in Britain, and focused it on the Prime Minister himself... the centrality of the media to modern terrorism grows all the time. .... The medium is the modern message of terrorism, and the sophistication of the terrorists in using the media advances constantly. It is far mightier than the gun. That puts a huge responsibility on the media.....who cannot claim that they are not participants, however reluctant, in events."

Sept 26 2004 ~ The immense military implications of the EU's proposed Galileo satellite system ( the Government line is that it is only "a civil project"), the utterly bizarre story of a VAT demand - using an EU Directive rather than common sense for justification - for back-payments of £60,000 because of a charitable offer, the injunctions served on both the Electoral Commission and John Prescott for the misleading information in the leaflet sent to to North East voters that claims that elections to the new assembly will only be by proportional representation...and cheering news about the preferred site for a new "EU capital" - see Booker's Notebook this week.

Sept 26 2004 ~ "Just when investors thought the oil crisis was over, crude gushed to a record $48.88 a barrel last week, spewing red ink over Wall Street. ..." Peak Oil News

Sept 25 2004 ~ "Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder. .."

Sept 25 2004 ~ Peter Hain says that Iraq is a "fringe issue" for the Labour Conference. http://www.channel4.com/news
Simon Jenkins' view is somewhat different. "..Mr Blair’s first Iraq war may have been a mistake, but that is not for now. It is his second war that matters. .... new war can only be one of extraction, of discreet withdrawal. It is an exercise somehow to save Mr Blair’s premiership. It is a War of Blair’s Bacon. The attempt to portray it as a crusade against global terror is dishonest, contemptible for those who die as a result. Its shambolic outcome was always certain. The brave recourse now is to realism, to admit that a war which cannot be won should soonest be abandoned. Britain should leave Iraq in January, whatever a new American President decides." Read in full
"Some delegates at the Labour Conference certainly want to focus on Iraq, with party managers under pressure to accept for debate emergency resolutions condemning the Government’s handling of the crisis. The conference will vote tomorrow on whether those resolutions should be heard." Scotsman

Sept 25 2004 ~ A map has now been drawn up showing the locations in North Devon of 22 turbines - each at least 360ft high - which would spread over six miles and be visible from the Welsh coast... the fact that the decision rests with the DTI has sparked fears among local people that their objections will go unheard..." See windfarm page

Sept 25 2004 ~ Michael Moore might just be the man to save the world. Here is his latest inspiriting email: ".... I want everyone in their teens and twenties who exist from one packet of Ramen noodles to the next bag of Tostitos to take your fully-justified cynicism and toss it like a Molotov right into the middle of this election. As "non-voters" you have been written off. But if only a few thousand of you vote, it could make all the difference. You literally hold all the power in your hands..."

Sept 25 2004 ~ 12.05 p.m. Reuters carries a rumour that Mr Bigley has been killed.

Sept 25 2004 ~ Alex Salmond, new leader of the Scottish National Party, was cheered yesterday when he declared: "I believe that this Prime Minister now operates outside the currency of debate, beyond the pale of decency. I don’t challenge his policies - I challenge his morality." ...

Sept 25 2004 ~ "there is little real chance of cheap oil returning" Andrew McKillop - former expert-policy and programming, Division A-Policy, DG XVII-Energy, European Commission. See peak oil news page

Sept 24 2004 ~ "...In Iraq no one has laid any charges, let along secured convictions, against the two women for whose continued imprisonment Mr Blair and Mr Straw are ready to sacrifice Mr Bigley....Mr Bigley’s family can surely plead that where anarchy prevails they might at least be spared Mr Blair’s principles. And Mr Finucane’s family can surely plead that where order prevails they might be spared his pragmatism. ...The trouble is that when politicians plead principle common decency vanishes. It fades like the cat on the branch of the tree, until all that is left is a cynic’s smile." Simon Jenkins in the Times

Sept 24 2004 ~ "Perhaps we who have opposed this stupendous blunder should come out of the closet and proclaim ourselves proud to have been crude. As Lord Melbourne once lamented: “What all the wise men said would happen has not happened, and what all the damn fools predicted has occurred.” And so it has come to pass in Iraq..." Matthew Parris in the Times.

Sept 24 2004 ~ "....The Bigley tragedy has illuminated to the world that it is indeed the Americans who are calling the shots in Iraq. The terrorists have got a message out to the world despite the authorities best efforts - so who do you think is ahead in this "war on terror"? The poignancy of the Bigley tragedy is that is focuses all our attention on the plight of some individuals we get to know through the media. This makes it difficult for Iraq to disappear as a remote and confusing problem that isn't relevant to our everyday concerns - which is what Blair and Bush were surely hoping." Independent

Sept 24 2004 ~If Jonathan Steele in the Guardian today is right and the "US authorities cannot let Dr Germ go - she knows too much" then the confusion about her possible release in exchange for Kenneth Bigley takes on an even nastier aspect. See Iraq page
50,000 leaflets carrying a personal appeal for help from Ken Bigley's family have been distributed in Baghdad by the british Embassy. (Independent)

Sept 24 2004 ~ Horse passports. The Western Morning News points out that DEFRA is having to extend the deadline yet again - but, says WMN: "... If Defra introduced a British ban on the export of horses for slaughter, many more owners might feel encouraged to sign up for the passport scheme in the knowledge that all horses, pony and donkeys in Britain - whatever their value - would be protected from a nightmare journey in the back of a lorry en route to a continental slaughterhouse..."

Sept 24 2004 ~ "....Mr Armstrong ... said: “Why couldn’t we have stayed at Great Orton? “What have they got to hide on that site? Why do they have security there 24 hours a day? There’s something untoward going on.”.." is the interesting ending of this article about the compensation, finally wrested from Defra, by the Carlisle and District clay pigeon shooting club who, before FMD 2001, practised their sport at Great Orton. Cumberland News (who also today cover Nick Honhold's research under the headline: The FULL Story... FMD mass cull "not necessary" )

Sept 24 2004 ~ A very worrying email received today concerns the arrest of the owner of a reputable horse sanctuary "for rescuing a neglected horse and having it on their land in a 'state' ..." This would appear to give credance to those worried about the drastically reinforced powers of the Animal Welfare bill

Sept 24 2004 ~ An article in the Cumberland News today about Peter Greenhill's Lakeland Livestock Centre in Cockermouth which, the paper says " has done its utmost to preserve one of our cherished native sheep breeds" and whose success in last year’s Countryside Awards are described as "one of the most poignant events in the recovery from foot and mouth disease."

Sept 24 2004 ~ "....."We have to be convincing that the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for..." An extract from Richard Norton Taylor's article in Wednesday's Guardian quotes what Peter Ricketts, political director at the Foreign Office, told Jack Straw. He described the US as "scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida", a link that was "so far frankly unconvincing" and told Jack Straw: "We have to be convincing that the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for. Regime change does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge match between Bush and Saddam."

Sept 24 2004 ~ ".. It is clear that nothing short of retirement will ever drive Mr Blair to admit that he has been party to one of the great errors of modern statesmanship. His dwindling band of admirers have retreated into mental dysfunction...." Simon Jenkins. See Iraq page

Sept 24 2004 ~ " Blair remains in office, refusing any examination of his conduct. ... if he gets away with it, a new constitutional precedent will have been established, namely that misleading the country is acceptable.. " Guardian comment

Sept 24 2004 ~ "Large areas of the country are in rebel hands, American forces are attacked every day and Ken Bigley is facing imminent execution, but for George Bush and Iyad Allawi yesterday these were but minor obstacles on Iraq's certain path to freedom and democracy... Mr Allawi..... almost his every utterance could have been delivered by the President. Yesterday showed how closely the two men's fortunes are bound together..." Independent

Sept 24 2004 ~ US election: Reuters ".....many voters who had registered recently in swing states were likely to find their names would not be on the rolls when they showed up on Election Day. "There is very widespread delay in the swing states because there have been massive registration drives among minorities and those applications are not being processed quickly enough,"

Sept 24 2004 ~ Michael Moore asks Mr Bush and his family "...... you have all changed your minds so many times, I am out of breath just trying to keep up with you! Which of these 10 positions that you, your family and your cabinet have taken over the years represents your CURRENT thinking:" Read in full

Sept 23 2004 ~ On Channel 4 News this evening Mikhail Gorbachev declares that the concept of the 'war on terror' exaggerates the scale of the threat and he damns the entire war on Iraq.

Sept 23 2004 ~"...Decision-making in the Labour Party today is a closed loop. The Prime Minister appoints the party chairman, who then ensures that the party supports the Prime Minister. The National Policy Forum recycles Downing Street's ideas through a bogus consultation process ..... All this might be tolerable if the conference was remotely entertaining..." See Democracy page

Sept 23 2004 ~ Mikhail Gorbachev on Channel 4 news this evening declares that the concept of the 'war on terror' exaggerates the scale of the threat and he damns the entire war on Iraq.

Sept 23 2004 ~ Read the latest email from splendid Michael Moore. No wonder the powers of darkness try to smear him at every turn. Here, he writes about opinion polls and other timely matters - and routs the feelings of gloom and doom.

Sept 23 2004 ~ David Blunkett is planning to lift the blanket ban on the use of covertly obtained intelligence as evidence in court Guardian

Sept 23 2004 ~ The brother of British hostage Kenneth Bigley has accused the American government of "sabotaging" moves to free him. icWales

Sept 22 2004 ~ George W Bush received only weak applause from an audience of "mostly stony-faced foreign leaders" when he delivered his fourth annual speech to the United Nations in New York today, attempting to assure the world that Iraq would ".. conquer terrorism and emerge as a thriving democracy that "poses no threat to others"..." See The Age.com (and especially the photograph by Reuters.) Kofi Annan began the proceedings by ringing the "peace bell" and said:

Sept 22 2004 ~ Would an elected regional assembly benefit Sunderland and East Durham? The Sunderland Echo is running an online poll. http://www.sunderlandtoday.co.uk/ (At 6.40 pm it was as follows:)

  • 5% Yes
  • 91% No
  • 4% Don't care

    Sept 22 2004 ~ The Birmingham Post seems to have the only follow-up to the Channel 4 Dispatches Dirty Meat programme. Money is powerful. Dirty Meat criminals have the knack of intimidation. Even so, given that a lot more than was shown in the programme is widely known, we are astonished and concerned.

    Sept 22 2004 ~ Meat scandals. Just a week after the government launched a £4 million pound campaign to "combat excessive salt consumption", Tesco, the Co-op, Sainsbury's and Asda are still stocking watered-down, sodium added pork. See this report from the Guardian
    Tesco's "Finest" fresh pork chops were discovered in July to be 89% pork - the rest is added water, dried glucose syrup, polyphosphates to hold the water in, preservative and "partially deodorised rosemary extract".
    In January 2002 Tesco was "quietly prosecuted" for selling "Tesco tender select pork leg" without declaring added water, glucose syrup and salt on the outer label. It was fined £2,800. (Tesco's first half profits have just been reported to be £822million ) The FSA is "negotiating" with supermarkets for much more prominent labelling. But, as David Walker, a spokesman for the Trading Standards Institute, says, " Once individual companies adopt a marketing practice of this sort, it spreads very quickly. The potential for malpractice and fraud is also enormous."

    Sept 22 2004 ~ "Terrorists boasted last night that they had killed a second American hostage in Iraq just hours after George Bush tried to persuade a sceptical United Nations the country was making progress "on the path to democracy and freedom"...." Scotsman

    Sept 22 2004 ~ Transcript. Farming Today. Dr Roger Breeze and Professor Sheila Crispin

    Sept 22 2004 ~ "Poor Mr Baradei, His mission is a parody: He tells the states (with some aplomb) They can and cannot have the bomb .... Both the US and the UK have abandoned their own obligations to disarm, and appear to be contemplating a new generation of nuclear weapons. Both governments have also suggested that they would be prepared to use them pre-emptively...." George Monbiot "Proliferation treaty" in the Guardian yesterday.

    Sept 22 2004 ~ Pollen from a genetically modified grass can travel up to 21km away from its experimental planting site. BBC

    Sept 22 2004 ~ The irresponsibility of scentists who cannot see beyond the test tube. The 1918 flu virus - that killed tens of millions of people worldwide is being used on unfortunate monkeys in order to try to develop a vaccine - but without level 3 security... "University of Washington scientists plan to infect monkeys with a killer flu virus grown from tissue exhumed from victims of the 1918 epidemic...
    ..."But this organism, the 1918 virus, is something else," Hammond said. "It's very dangerous and easily spread." He contended that the 1918 virus deserves one of the highest levels of laboratory containment systems, known as Biosafety Level 3 Ag .." http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/191418_flu18.html

    Sept 21/22 2004 ~ Farming Today tomorrow - Wednesday. This should, we hope, present a different story about both vaccination and rapid diagnosis from the Anderson flummery.

    Sept 21/22 2004 ~"an ignorant, dictatorial, uncaring, urban Government." The WMN quotes Anthony Gibson, who proved himself to be such a tower of strength during the FMD crisis.

    Sept 21/22 2004 ~ Roger writes with a link to the Tesco surge in profits - (See also warmwell's supermarket page "Supermarkets have destroyed our local supply system and killed off smaller food producers. According to their industry thinking, smaller players are inefficient....") and he sends too this heartfelt comment about the Dispatches programme on Dirty Meat trading.
    Another emailer, Anne, wrote: ...I closed my eyes, covered my ears, and ran out of the room at the start of the worst bit in the programme. I felt physically sick, and so angry."

    Sept 21/22 2004 ~ "....Dr Harry's findings have been supported by extensive research by G P Van den Berg, a physicist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His research is likely to intensify the debate over the impact of turbines on people living close by." Windfarms page

    Sept 21/22 2004 ~ Martin Kettle in the Guardian writes that "There is a real fear that Iraq could scupper the party's re-election chances ...Tony Blair has never appeared more adrift from public opinion on Iraq than he does at this moment.... there appears to be a shared fear at the top of the Labour party that the government's Iraq policy and its re-election chances could after all be on a collision course.."

    Sept 21/22 2004 ~ The end of cheap oil "....political pressure for the investment in the re-engineering of our cities and infrastructure... isn't there yet. People don't riot for austerity; they riot because they want more, not less. We have to riot for less." See peak oil news

    Sept 21/22 2004 ~ The North East No Campaign has lodged an official complaint with the Audit Commission, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Electoral Commission over the misleading 'Your Say' Government Information Leaflet.Press release - and brief correspondence between Neil Herron and warmwell

    Sept 21 2004 ~ Farming Today did not broadcast the refutation of Professor Anderson's remarks.
    Here are some links about what was technically available to the authorities in 2001 and how very successfully vaccination and rapid diagnosis were used elsewhere in 2001.

    Sept 21 2004 ~ "With only a thin cushion of stocks and global production running almost flat out, traders worry that any hiccup in the supply chain could lead to a major disruption. .." Warmwell's peak oil news

    Sept 21 2004 ~ Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, at the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth: "Our reputation and respect have been diluted and dissipated, and all because of Iraq. ....Before the war, it was claimed that to attack Iraq was necessary because it was a threat. Now we are told the war was justified because Saddam was a tyrant. A justification of doubtful legality has been replaced by one of no legality whatsoever." Mr Campbell said the British people looked "in vain" for contrition from the government. Mr Campbell added: "I am angry, not because I was deceived over Iraq, but because we were right." The Herald Britain's ambassador to Italy, Sir Ivor Roberts, said yesterday that Mr Bush was the best recruiting officer for Al Qaeda "If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush it is Al Qaeda." An overwhelming majority of voters want Tony Blair to start preparing British troops to pull out from Iraq, according to a new opinion poll See also Analysis from the Herald"An exercise in rebranding".

    Sept 21 2004 ~ Bryn writes, "I hope the FSA watched Channel 4 (Dispatches) about the dirty meat industry. The FSA cannot even be good coppers and catch these crooks; it takes people outside their doors to do their work!"
    (Bryn has every right to speak as one of the unsung heroes "outside their doors". We know too that the FSA were contacted about the very problems covered by the "Dirty Meat" programme a long time ago. Beyond the briefest of acknowledgements, they failed to respond. )

    Sept 21 2004 ~ "Asked whether the Prime Minister should resign over revelations that he was warned about the aftermath of the war, Mr Kennedy said Mr Blair must answer "the extremely serious catalogue of charges that are mounting against him".." Independent

    Sept 21 2004 ~ No more checks to government power in third term. "A House of Lords (Reform) Bill to be introduced after the election would remove the 92 remaining hereditary peers from the second chamber... it would also clip the wings of the Lords by limiting its traditional power to delay proposed laws supported by the House of Commons... the Labour blueprint would extend the use of the Parliament Act...allowing it to be used for all government bills." Independent

    Sept 21 2004 ~ EU Member States rejected yesterday a proposal by the European Commission to import a variety of Monsanto-produced GM maize - the eighth time that states (but not the UK) have voiced concern about GM. The Commission can make a decision on its own, however. It does not actually require the backing of Ministers. See GM page

    Sept 21 2004 ~ Re"Little Red Tractor is a fudge" See article An emailer writes, " I can't help joining in this discussion yet again, having written letters to Farmers Weekly and speaking at various meetings. The Little Red Tractor could never indicate British produce. Under Single Market rules we cannot use country of origin as promotion. ...the Little Red Tractor was always something of a con or a fudge and can be nothing else until we acknowledge that we are not in charge of the rules and legislation to do with agriculture and food production in this country. "
    (Gary in Kansas has noted the connection between the little red tractor logo, the NFU and AGCO and does not like what he sees.)

    Sept 21 2004 ~ Gill writes, "I'm actually much more worried about the Civil Contingencies Bill, which is getting more publicity from you than anywhere else. Is the hunting ban being brought in to give them a practice run?
    We are being manipulated into a regional assembly up here. Have just sent off the letters attached, with copies to you and a few regional papers, just so that the Electoral Commission can't dispose of them in the happy awareness that nobody else has read them."

    Sept 21 2004 ~ Gill's letters show that a Yes vote is to be secured at all costs ".... To hand financial control of the No Campaign to a group led by Conservative supporters and backed by the Conservative Party at once reduces debate in this overwhelmingly Labour part of the country from the rational to the emotive level, and significantly increases the chance of a Yes vote.." Read in full
    See also 'The Rigging of a Referendum' by Christopher Booker in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph... "Mr Herron and his supporters are fighting on as a "people's campaign"..."
    For breaking news and information www.neilherron.blogspot.com and for the campaign and the arguments please visit www.northeastnocampaign.co.uk

    Sept 21 2004 ~ FARM says "...the trend towards fewer, more intensive dairy units is harming rural communities, animal welfare and wildlife – which makes the loss of family dairy farms a concern for us all. ...the average retail price for a litre of milk has risen from 41 to 48 pence. But in the same period, the price the farmer gets has fallen from 24 to 18 pence.... Britain is losing over 2,000 dairy farms a year – about 40 a week. While supermarkets carry on making a huge profit, farmers go out of business."
    See also power of the supermarkets (Terry Leahy was on Radio 4 this morning saying that farmers' incomes have risen by 30%. He was not challenged.)

    Sept 20 2004 ~ EFSA, the European "Food Standards Agency" said this week that in the long term an accurate live animal test for BSE might offer the possibility to reduce the number of culled animals after the detection of one positive animal. ... It is hard to understand why the approval process for live tests, (such as that developed by Dr Chris Pomfrett at Manchester,) is so slow.

    Sept 20 2004 ~ Jon Snow's Channel 4 comment on Monday night "Been down to Downing Street to see Mr Blair and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh. Blair very much on his new tack of telling us "never mind how we got into this mess in Iraq, we now have to line up. Democracy or terrorism. Black and white", he says, and so "you have to be on our side".
    Mr Singh, charmingly, indicated he was not entirely persuaded, seemed to view the war as illegal and pledged never to send troops but instead to train Iraqis in 'humanitarian' matters. ..."

    Sept 20 2004 ~ " a distinguished meat industry figure willing to issue essential food handling qualifications to people who have never been trained to do so; the same man, a leading industry consultant, advising clients to defraud Government agencies set up to modernise the food trade ...." Don't miss Dispatches on Monday, Channel 4. The Guardian had this to say

    Sept 20 2004 ~ Tony Blair has re-labelled what is going on in Iraq. The Guardian reports that he " insisted every "sensible and decent person" should move on and recognise that the terrorists and insurgents were opposed to "every single one of the values we in countries like this hold dear"..."
    Iraq slides into misery and violence as a result of an illegal invasion - Mr Blair and Mr Allawi talk of "the forces of evil" or a "crucible" of global terrorism - while, at the same time, they try to present what the Independent calls,".. a determinedly upbeat picture of everyday life in Iraq"
    "...Some left-wing MPs said it was "offensive" for the Prime Minister to host talks with Mr Allawi, who had CIA links and was chosen by the Bush administration..."
    See also Iraq page

    Sept 20 2004 ~ As for the behaviour of some members of the Metropolitan police last Wednesday, an account by Edmund Marriage of British Wildlife Management and a letter to the Telegraph from an elderly couple caught up in the violence are likely to shock many - whatever their views on hunting itself.

    Sept 20 2004 ~ An interesting article by Matthew Fort on the Hunting Bill is in yesterday's Observer. " ... Fox hunting seems to elicit a degree of sanctimony, humbug and sophistry unparalleled in modern politics. Even the most committed anti-hunting commentators admit that, in terms of animal cruelty, fox hunting rates low on the list of atrocities we allow to be routinely inflicted on various animal, bird and piscine species.....as an urban society, we no longer care about the provenance of our food, as long as it comes in sufficient quantities and at low enough prices... Except in carefully defined areas, city life is defined by the absence of freedoms, independence and responsibility. This underlying principle is now being foisted on rural Britain."

    Sept 20 2004 ~ The power of the supermarkets. Carefully compiled evidence here should be printed out (it opens in a new window) and read carefully by all who understand that supermarkets are damaging communities, putting local shops out of business and threatening the livelihoods of many UK farmers.

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ NE Regional Assembly. "... the ODPM's leaflet (which was not submitted for vetting to the Electoral Commission) ... claims that the assembly will be wholly independent of central government, when the Bill makes clear that in crucial respects it will be subject to Government control. .... £100,000 of taxpayers' money - went to a campaign run by a party now so weak in the North-East region that it has only one MP..." Booker's Notebook

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ An emailer writes, "We`ve had enough. So have all my friends, relatives and customers. I am saddened however that this monstrous row is taking place over the fox. Why were these very same people not leaping around during FMD? It was all taking place in their patch and there was, by comparison, very little protest. Sad."

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ The deliberate misrepresentation of what was technically available to the authorities in 2001 (see here) will be challenged in Farming Today on Tuesday.

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ Tony Blair was facing a new Iraq crisis last night after explosive evidence emerged from within his own government that he was warned the country would be plunged into chaos after the fall of Saddam. Scotsman

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ Singapore is worried about a tropical disease that has killed 23 people this year: Melioidosis. See ProMed The death rate from the disease between January and July 2004 was 3 times that of SARS. But in spite of bio-terrorism fears "... it was not caused intentionally: different patients were seen to have different strains of the bacterium."

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ ".....Andrew Marr said events had shown that in the end power lay with the MP's in the House of Commons. This may be the view of the political classes in London, but out here in the real world we know that ultimately power lies with ordinary people, it's just that most of the time they don't choose to exercise it." Editorial from the Ledbury Reporter

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ £431m new Scottish parliament fiasco "... The investigation will be carried out behind closed doors and the last such inquiry was into the handling of the foot and mouth disease outbreak - a probe which resulted in promises that lessons had been learnt but no blood on the well-maintained carpets at St Andrews House or Whitehall." Scotsman

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ On Thursday, Mr Yeo asked Margaret Beckett " what the evidential basis was for the conclusion in the report, Origin of the UK Foot and Mouth Disease Epidemic in 2001, that the February 2001 UK outbreak and the September 2000 South African outbreak had a common origin rather than the South African outbreak being the origin of the UK outbreak.." Hansard One wonders how far Mrs Beckett understood the text with which she replied.

    Sept 18/19 2004 ~ An emailer writes, "Cullompton's traffic warden can no longer use the bicycle provided for him by the Community Safety partnership in 2002. He has been using it since then - but is now told he must leave it at home because - according to Health and Safety rules - he has not been "trained" to ride it. North Devon Gazette has the story and I have to go for a lie-down." See North Devons Gazette

    Sept 18 2004 ~ Cumberland News "this Labour Government cynically uses the foxhunting issue (about which it knows little and cares even less) as a wild card to be played whenever its real political ambitions are in danger of being thwarted. In the present instance, apart from possibly saving them from a revolt over pensions, it is being used to distract attention from the passage of the Civil Contingencies Bill, possibly the most Draconian piece of legislation ever to have been laid before a British Parliament.
    All of us who were involved in the foot and mouth disaster will remember instances of both Government ministers and civil servants who exceeded their legal authority and were subsequently successfully challenged in the courts. However, under the powers conferred by this new act, once a state of emergency (which may be either national or local and can be either general or specific to some particular situation) has been declared by any one of a number of authorised ministers, all normal legal rights can be suspended, without any prospect of subsequent compensation or redress. .." Read in full

    Sept 18 2004 ~ Christopher Booker's Foreward to Janet Hughes' book, the Killing Pens, is now in the public domain.

    Sept 18 2004 ~ Many emails are arriving - some too outspoken about Professor Anderson's remarks yesterday (see transcript) to print here. Others, more measured, may be read here. Responses to Professor Roy Anderson

    Sept 18 2004 ~ See Iraq page today for the final word on Iraq's supposed WMD and the news that Mr Blair received warning that the chaos we are seeing in Iraq was an inevitable consequence if he agreed to war. The documents further also show that Mr Blair was told that he would have manufacture an excuse for war.

    Sept 17 2004 ~ For those who did not hear Professor Roy Anderson on Farming Today, you really do need to catch the "Listen Again" version to note the tone of voice. The Emperor's New Clothes technique is a useful one, it seems. The transcript cannot possibly do it justice. He was NOT pulled up on the following incomprehensible sentence : "...You're trying to follow individual chains of transmission to see how much quick removal of the index premise and then subsequently the removal of the surrounding premises if it was done quickly enough help to restrict further cases in that local spatial area.." See transcript

    Sept 17 2004 ~ The prize bull slaughtered under the Government's bovine TB policy did not have TB. WMN "a post-mortem examination found no sign of the disease.. ."

    Sept 17 2004 ~ Many unsung heroes of the House of Lords did their best with the Civil Contingencies Bill on Wednesday
    Baroness Buscombe: "During the Summer Recess, I have been inundated with letters, e-mails and phone calls from concerned members of the public about the Bill.....However, the Government have been treating it as though it is not a controversial matter...I also want briefly to express my thanks to all those who have been in touch with me over the past weeks. There have been far too many to reply to. But there are people out there who genuinely feel that we in your Lordships' House must do all that we can to strike that very difficult balance between ensuring that the government of the day can react quickly and responsibly in the time of an emergency and the need to protect our democracy, our civil liberties and our freedoms. " Debate

    Sept 17 2004 ~ Public protests outside the Westminster parliament will be banned by security chiefs. Scotsman

    Sept 17 2004 ~ " a distinguished meat industry figure willing to issue essential food handling qualifications to people who have never b