Ingushetia's cycle of violence

Consequences of spillover from Chechnya, over authoritarian security services and vendetta mentality.

Mexico makes record drugs seizure

Actually its a seizure of precursor chemicals for making methamphetamine.

MI5 kept file on former Prime Minister Harold Wilson

I think we knew all this, and there is some astonishingly selective use of material here by the BBC. Times and Telegraph give the new book a more objective treatment. A bunch of paranoid obsessives [sorry people with Cold War mentality] in the Secret Service were seeing communists in every bed and ignoring paramilitaries, the book also says.

The judge who lost her head over perfume

A loose translation! Continuing the theme of using as many different ssources as possible, here's an odd one from el Pais. A magistrate has been suspended for allegedly abusing her position to obtain favourable treatment [again, loose translation]

New Lithuanian President regrets naming of country as CIA prison collaborator

Lithuania, Poland and Romania, eh? What a trio? One president done for organised crime, another with a very odd couple in charge and finally, one of the two most corrupt countries in Europe. Whose side were the CIA on exactly?

EU homeland security policy lacks democratic oversight says watchdog

The companies who make money out of European security contracts are the very ones who design them. Surprise, surprise! This is a long and excellent piece about the bodies involved in security policy making and the issues involved. Well worth a read. I read a piece on the French attitude under Sarkozy. Must find it and link it in. Its in a Belgian online journal.

Police spend less than 6 hours a week on the beat

Daily Telegraph sustain the Conservative Party campaign for change in the British police. Your blogger is stil trying to understand the agenda. Researchers have known all this for years, but the Home Office has been happy to have a police sevice for the government and business and not for the public, because that's what politicians have wanted. You can bet that we arent going to get a locally accountable police service back. Presumably the Tories want a police that deals with the "dangerous classes" and not the respectable ones. We shall see. Thats an article from each of the broadsheets just to be as objective as possible!

The Facebook Paedophile Ring

Paedophile groups are neglected in studies of organised crime, but the methodology here is important. As far as we know, these people never met. Loose networking via the internet. Other criminal enterprises are using similar methods.

Brown stands back as BAE faces prosecution over bribes

This case seems to me to disqualify Tony Blair from ever being President of the EU. The way he stopped prosecution of BaE over the Saudi case was essentially an abuse of power. Although he didnt benefit personally from his action, it was interference with the judicicial process for political reasons [Discuss].

Allegations that US paid Lockerbie witness

Your blogger has been struggling with his new laptop and will now attempt to catch up on lost posts, starting with this one. I have read another today that argues that all angles of this case have been political and makes some serious allegations about political interference in the original trial. Lots of issues here.