MEPs at their trough
The kind of publicity the EU could do without, just now…
UK National Security Strategy: 100 days old
(Updated 26 July 2008)
By my estimation the UK’s national security strategy is 100 days old. So what initiatives from the UK NSS have gained traction? What ideas have been quietly dropped? And what proposals are still hanging around in the ether?
In his statement to the House of Commons Gordon Brown listed the following:
1. The publication of first a ever cross-departmental strategy for supporting service personnel, their families and veterans. To be published in mid/ late July (my guess Thursday 17th July)
2. Increase the the number of security service personnel by 4000. Ongoing but growth constrained by training capacity
3. A 10 per cent increase in resources for the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre To be confirmed – relatively easy to do.
4. Set aside funds to modernise GCHQ’s interception capability. To be confirmed
5. Publication of a national register of risks. Published soon
6. The creation of a National Security Forum. NSF will be a NDPB. See here for details
7. Introduction of a resolution in both Houses that enshrines an enhanced scrutiny and public role for the Intelligence and Security Committee. No obvious sighting – to be confirmed
8 & 9. A new bargain to non-nuclear powers and an international conference on the related issues later this year. No news – unless conference was this one (which I don’ think it was)
10. The creation of a standby international civilian capability for fragile and failing states (Brown commits 1000-strong UK civilians including police, emergency service professionals, judges and trainers). No news
11. Between now and 2011 £600 million for conflict prevention, resolution and stabilisation work around the world, including in Israel and Palestine, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq and Afghanistan, Kenya and the Balkans. Not new money but I think a repeat announcement from last year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
12. Britain to pay for 850 Burundian troops as part of the African Union peacekeeping force. Confirmed
13. Creation of an integrated civilian-military headquarters headed by a civilian in Helmand. To be confirmed
14. 30 per cent Increase in Foreign Office staff to Middle East and South Asia. Ongoing
15. Creation of a UK wide civil protection force. (Initiative seems to have been dropped)
If I have missed any initiatives out/ or you know things have changed please post a comment.
It’s official – Mandela soon not to be a terrorist
You couldn’t make this stuff up:
Sens. John Kerry, Bob Corker, and Sheldon Whitehouse today announced the passage of their legislation to remove former South African President Nelson Mandela from the terror watch list. The bill grants the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the authority to waive U.S. travel restrictions on President Mandela and other members of the African National Congress (ANC.)
Mandela and his fellow ANC members remain on the list for activities they conducted against South Africa’s apartheid regime decades ago. The senators hope the passage of this legislation will end this embarrassing impediment to improving U.S.-South Africa relations.
“In recognition of his ninetieth birthday this summer, Nelson Mandela is again honored as one of the world’s strongest voices for human dignity and courage in the face of oppression. Today the United States moved closer at last to removing the great shame of dishonoring this great leader by including him on our government’s terror watch list,” said Kerry.
That’s right – Condi will now be allowed to consider deeming Mandela unlikely to blow up US citizens…
[Via Ezra Klein]
Should we tell them about the risk from flooding? Who’s them? Ah…
Should the Government publish details of reservoir flood plans for local residents and ‘persons likely to be interested‘? (Which I think is a reference to the emergency services)
Sir Michael Pitt believes so. The Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure, on the other hand, says that such information could show terrorists where an attack on a dam might have the most impact.
Here’s the problem. Last year record levels of rainfall nearly caused a Yorkshire dam to fail. Ulley reservoir, near Rotherham was very close to breaking. Below are some of the potential consequences of the dam bursting:
‘Water would have knocked out the main electricity switching station in the Sheffield area for an indefinite period, perhaps leading to a breakdown in social cohesion. A dam flood would also have destroyed the main 42-inch gas main serving Sheffield, which would have created a hazard to aircraft from the gas escaping into the atmosphere. All this would have been in addition to hundreds of deaths caused by a wall of water driving down the valley below the dam if it burst.
As the Pitt report points out, emergency services facing the crisis had no maps of potential inundation to work from and had to work it out themselves, identifying the areas most likely to be flooded and then planning an evacuation – all this took time and could have been done faster if the information had been available in the first place. But the CPNI is standing firm – publishing flood plans is just too much of a risk. More to come.
Good map showing last year’s flooding (courtesy of The Independent) can be found here.
Great public relations disasters of our time
A few weeks back, I wrote a post about Abengoa – a biofuels company which has been taking out full page ads in the FT and elsewhere, arguing that biofuels are nothing to do with rising food prices (an argument that calls to mind the image of Lt. Frank Drebbin in The Naked Gun, standing before an exploding fireworks factory and calling through a loudhailer “Move on! There is nothing to see here!”). As I said at the time, Abengoa’s ad campaign was pure cornwash.
So it’s with great satisfaction that I pass on news of the following letter in the Financial Times today:
Sir, in an advertisement in the FT on June 18, Abengoa Bioenergy stated that “Bioethanol is currently the only real alternative for eliminating our addiction to oil”, citing our report “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Transport in the EU25 (2004)” as one of two sources to justify that claim.
It is impossible for a reader of our report to reach the conclusion Abengoa draws. It does not even mention biofuels or bioethanol. If the company is genuinely interested in “supported evidence”, as it claims, it must know that T&E’s view on biofuels bears no resemblance to its own. T&E has consistently warned against volume targets for biofuels at European Union level since at least 2004, when we published our report “Sense and Sustainability”. We believe Europe should set an environmental target to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the production of all transport fuels, not a biofuels quantity target that gives a boost to the fuels Abengoa produces regardless of their environmental performance.
Running Europe’s fleet of heavy, gas-guzzling cars on biofuels rather than petrol is no cure. If Europe truly wants to end its addiction to oil, it should start by making cars twice as fuel-efficient as they are today.
Abengoa has misused our name and research in an advertisement claiming to separate “manipulation” from “evidence”. That is reprehensible. As an environmental group, our main capital is our reputation and credibility, which we will defend.
Jos Dings,
Director,
European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E),
B-1000 Brussels, Belgium
Wow. What a truly monumental PR cock-up by Abengoa. They probably retain the same PR firm as the PRC.