Welcome to rascott.com.
This is a personal site that reflects my interests in news, current affairs, aviation and travel.
email me at robert@rascott.com
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The opinions expressed on these pages are entirely personal unless they are credited; you may not agree with all, or anything, that I write. So please use the feedback page to respond, comment or berate me.
The BBC gets what it deserved
29 January 2004
My faithful reader will be waiting for my thoughts on Lord Hutton's report issued yesterday.
 | The BBC got what it deserved. In the absence of effective political opposition the BBC had positioned itself as the de facto opposition to the government. It took news reporting into the realms of speculation. The checks and balances that good news organisations have in place were not there. |
| Tony Blair remains the best Prime Minister that Britain has. Single handedly he made the Labour Party electable. Without him they may not be electable. Without him the party may factionalise and fall apart. |
| Tony Blair still does what he believes is right. What he will have learned is to make sure that the information that he receives and uses for his decision making is reliable. I still believe he is sincere. And he states his beliefs with passion. |
| Dr. Kelly frankly got himself into a bit of a mess. He said too much to the wrong people. As Lord Hutton says Kelly was a difficult man to work for and with. A maverick. |
| The Conservatives under Howard should be embarrassed enough to be silenced for a while. Howard has used parliamentary privilege to do all but call Blair a liar. His accusations are not substantiated in any way by the Hutton report and an apology is due to Mr. Blair and other members of the cabinet. |
| The test of a well run organisation is how it manages a crisis. The BBC did not manage the conflict with the government. The governors did not investigate the government's complaints. Indeed the BBC almost relished and encouraged the battle. Hutton recognises that the government behaved appropriately while the BBC was in his words "dishonest". |
| The major problem with the Hutton report is not the report itself but its terms of reference. These were very narrow; to investigate the apparent suicide of Dr. Kelly. The Hutton inquiry was an inquiry into a particular set of events, not an inquiry into the decision to go to war in Iraq. Hutton was not tasked with investigating the accuracy of the intelligence used in the government dossier on weapons of mass destruction. |
| Predictably the conservative party and their conservative press colleagues (Mail, Independent) are calling for a full inquiry on the reasons for going to war. Hutton did not give them what they wanted. This part of the media will regard Hutton's report as a whitewash. Strange how everyone accepted a neutral referee until they found out that they did not agree with the result! |
| Should there be a further inquiry. Maybe. Should it be public. Probably not. Firstly we have had enough navel gazing for now. It really is time to move forward. Secondly there are issues of national security to consider. Did the intelligence services in Britain, the US and elsewhere, perform adequately. Probably not. But sorting out the intelligence organisations is not really a public matter. |
| In its preparation of the dossier and in its response to the BBC's report and accusations the government can feel vindicated. But it still has a lot to prove. The government has lost the support of many in its party in government and across the country. Little short of unearthing many tonnes of WMD will regain that support. The damage is done. |
Calling foul on fowl flu denial !
23 January 2004
As a leader you can choose the advisors and senior officers that you have around you. You can choose sycophants who will tell you just what you want to hear. They are self serving; and concerned with the preservation of their own secure and rewarding positions.
Or you can surround yourself with people who will tell you what you need to hear; their only fear being an argument; not retribution. People who challenge you; who give you choices; who are not self serving but are serving a greater interest.
In Thailand we appear to have the former - and that underlies the complete fowl-up of the current Bird Flu crisis. In Thailand what you read and hear is no longer what actually happens. The press is self censored and largely uncritical. Politicians sat what they think they should say; rather than what needs to be said.
Democracy depends upon trust. When you lie to or mislead the people you lose that trust.
Now Thailand looks like China but has not learned the lesson. China ignored SARS for months allowing it to spread to Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada. Now for months Thailand has ignored and denied the existence of bird flu.
This is a government that decries negative news; that is focused upon maintaining big business (including the massive chicken export business); that lacks the backbone to acknowledge and accpet criticism and to maybe learn and improve along the way. "It's not a big deal, we can handle it" said Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Friday. He may be right but at a cost; including the damage done to Thailand's image and tourist business.
Thai farmers had alleged for more than a week that millions of chickens were dying of bird flu and that the government was engaged in a large-scale cover-up.
But officials maintained until last Friday (23rd) that the chickens were suffering from fowl cholera - which they said posed no danger to people.
On January 14 the Agriculture Minister said "There has never been an outbreak of bird flu in Thailand. We have a programme that calls for regular checks of poultry farms to control diseases." He really should resign.
Consumer advocates, doctors and others argue that the government suppressed reports of the epidemic to protect exports. One doctor, a medical adviser to the government was reported as saying that it was national policy to deny the outbreak. If that is true it is a very alarming, but sadly nor surprising, report.
With maybe one man's death as well as a number of reported cases of H5N1 (the version of the virus found in humans) the chicken lunch that the Prime Minister held last Tuesday with his cabinet in front of invited media is looking in rather bad taste.
Thailand is among the world's top five poultry exporters and the news sent chicken producers' share prices plunging.
Despite its similarities to the influenza virus in humans, bird flu very rarely jumps species to infect people and usually only causes infections in birds and pigs.
The virus can survive for long periods in the tissues and faeces of diseased birds and in water but there is no evidence of person-to-person transmission.
Health officials however fear that the H5N1 strain could mutate to allow such infection.
Avian flu is not a significant threat.....yet. Playing with raw chicken and chicken carcasses is ill advised. But most of our contact will only ever be with cooked chicken. The risk is a mutation of the disease allowing human to human transfer.
Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year
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The
12
Animals
of the
Chinese
Horoscope
Another
legend
relates
to the
Jade
Emperor....
Back
at the
palace
the 11
animals
tried
to
impress
the
Emperor.
The
first
to be
noticed
was
the
rat
that
sat on
top of
the
Ox’s
back
and
played
music
on a
flute
to
please
the
Emperor.
The
Emperor
was
pleased
with
this
and
gave
the
rat
first
position.
The ox
was
awarded
second
place,
as he
was
kind
enough
to let
the
rat
sit on
his
back.
Singapore's alarming executions
21 January 2004
Anyone who knows me will also know that I regard executions as abhorrent. This is based upon a simple premise that no one and no government has the right to take someone else's life.
Add to that the potential for error, the fact that executions are not an effective criminal deterrent and the likelihood that executions will be predominantly of those people who are least able to defend themselves and you have one act that any civilised society should immediately abolish.
The following press release was issued by Amnesty International a week ago. There is little if any public debate in Singapore about the use of the death penalty. There is little public awareness. There is no trial by jury.
It is time for the Singapore authorities to show a humanitarian face; to commute death sentences to prison terms and to openly advise the number of prisoners now on death row.
Singapore: High execution rate shrouded in secrecy
press release, 14/01/2004 Amnesty International.
Amnesty International exposed today the shockingly high, hidden toll of
executions in Singapore as it launched a new report about the death penalty in
that country.
Singapore is believed to have the highest per capita rate of executions the
world. A UN Report found that Singapore had three times the number of
executions, relative to the size of its population, as the next country on the
list - Saudi Arabia.
"It is high time for the government to seriously reconsider its stance claiming
that the death penalty is not a human rights issue," Amnesty International said.
"It is the cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of
justice, and violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights: the right
to life. By imposing death sentences and carrying out high numbers of
executions, Singapore is going against global trends towards abolition of death
penalty."
The small city-state has hanged more than 400 prisoners in the last 13 years.
Official information about the use of the death penalty is shrouded in secrecy
and the government does not normally publish statistics about death sentences or
executions. It is not known how many prisoners are currently on death row, but
the deplorable death toll from executions continues.
Amnesty International's new report "Singapore: The death penalty: A hidden
toll of executions"examines how the death penalty often falls
disproportionately and arbitrarily on the most marginalized or vulnerable
members of society. Many of those executed have been migrant workers, drug
addicts, the impoverished or those lacking in education. The report includes a
number of illustrative cases including Rozman Jusoh, a 24 year old labourer from
Malaysia executed in 1996 despite having sub-normal intelligence with a reported
IQ of 74.
Drug addicts are particularly vulnerable. Many were hanged after being found in
possession of relatively small quantities of drugs. Singapore's Misuse of Drugs
Act contains several clauses which conflict with the universally guaranteed
right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and provides for a mandatory
death sentence for at least 20 different drug-related offences. For instance,
any person found in possession of the key to anything containing controlled
drugs is presumed guilty of possessing those drugs and, if the amount exceeds a
specified amount, faces a mandatory death penalty for "trafficking".
"Such provisions erode the right to a fair trial and increase the risk of
executing the innocent," Amnesty International stressed. "Moreover, it is often
the drug addicts or minor drug pushers who are hanged, while those who
mastermind the crime of trafficking evade arrest and punishment."
Despite claims by the government that the death penalty has been effective in
combatting the trade in illicit drugs, drug abuse continues to be a problem
particularly among socially marginalized young people. Observers have drawn
attention to the need to combat the social conditions which can give rise to
drug abuse and addiction, rather than resorting to executions as a solution.
"We call on the Government of Singapore to impose an immediate moratorium on
executions and commute all pending death sentences to prison terms," Amnesty
International said. "We are also calling on the authorities to end the secrecy
about the use of the death penalty and encourage public debate."
Background
According to the UN Secretary-General's quinquennial report on capital
punishment (UN document: E/CN.15/2001/10, para. 68), for the period 1994 to 1999
Singapore had a rate of 13.57 executions per one million population,
representing by far the highest rate of executions in the world. This is
followed by Saudi Arabia (4.65), Belarus (3.20), Sierra Leone (2.84), Kyrgyzstan
(2.80), Jordan (2.12) and China (2.01). The largest overall number of executions
for the same period took place in China, followed in descending order by the
Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States of America, Nigeria
and Singapore.
For the full text of the report, please go to:
"Singapore: The death penalty: A hidden toll of executions"
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa360012004
Other recent Amnesty International reports in the death penalty in Southeast
Asia include:
"Socialist Republic of Viet Nam: The death penalty - inhumane and
ineffective"
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa410232003
and
"Viet Nam: Death penalty -- a dirty secret"
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa410032004
Back
A call for private enterprise to lead the exploration of space
2O January 2004
Mars is fashionable. The British tried to land an unmanned explorer there and predictably ended in the usual heroic failure. Nasa has a little car running around the Martian surface taking great photographs of rocks; there are plenty on earth; why go to Mars to take pictures of rocks? And George Bush has announced American plans for manned flights to Mars by 2004.
David Bowie's old song Life on Mars keeps coming into my thoughts although I have had to change the chorus a little:
|
Marcus Gee - The Globe and Mail, Canada For an election-year president, the temptation to announce new forays into outer space is close to irresistible. It is a chance to distract Americans from mundane earthly realities like unemployment, rising budget deficits and the death toll in Iraq. It is a chance to lure voters in key aerospace states like California. It is a chance to make a little history, as John F. Kennedy did when he pledged to put a man on the moon. And it is a chance to make a ringing speech about the spirit of discovery. When George W. Bush announced on Wednesday that the U.S. would send men back to the moon and eventually to Mars, he evoked Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, those great explorers of the American wilderness. Like them, "we have undertaken space travel because the desire to explore and understand is part of our character," Mr. Bush said. But it was more than just a questing spirit that motivated Lewis and Clark and the other greater explorers of our world. Captain Lewis set out to find a land route to the Pacific Ocean because president Thomas Jefferson asked him to in hopes of opening up North America to colonization and economic exploitation. Columbus discovered America by accident as he sought a shortcut to the Indies, source of spices and other luxuries coveted by the European elite. Magellan set out on his voyage around the globe for essentially the same reason. Each one made the voyage because he thought he might find something useful. Of what possible use to humanity are the moon and Mars? Both are barren, lifeless places, with conditions utterly inhospitable to human habitation. The latest pictures from the robotic Spirit rover, spectacular as they are, show a desolate, rocky desert. Even if science could find ways of protecting human settlements from the radiation, the extreme cold and the lack of breathable air, it is hard to imagine why people would want to settle there. To mine for minerals? How would they be transported back to Earth? To ease world population pressures? How do we get millions of people to Mars? Some say we should go to Mars for science. But the science, so far, seems pretty uninteresting. Apart from examining rocks, the main scientific purpose of the rover missions is to determine whether the arid planet might once have been wet enough to support some form of life -- not, mind you, whether it supports life now (highly unlikely), but whether it might have at some distant time in the past. Is answering that question worth the $400-billion (U.S.) that the experts say it would cost to send a manned expedition (and that was NASA's estimate in 1989, when George Bush Sr. proposed it)? If the question is really important, it can be answered far more cheaply by robots like Spirit, a marvellous little machine that doesn't care about the lack of air or the fierce temperatures. Supported by an army of scientists, navigators and computer technicians back at NASA, the Spirit and its twin, Opportunity (scheduled to land on Jan. 24), can do just about everything a man in a space suit can do at a fraction of the cost. The Spirit-Opportunity double mission will cost $820-million, a bargain-basement price by space-exploration standards. As Mr. Bush himself put it this week, "The environment of space is hostile to human beings." In a manned space expedition, most of the enormous cost goes to keeping the fragile human cargo alive. Unlike hardy robots, the astronauts must have air, food, warmth and, of course, a way to get home. One of the main barriers to a manned Mars mission is finding a way to supply enough fuel to power the rockets that would boost the returning astronauts out of Mars's gravitational pull, far more powerful than the moon's. The robots will just stay happily behind. Of course, putting a robot on Mars isn't nearly as exciting as putting a human being there. As Mr. Bush put it, "We need to see and examine and touch for ourselves." NASA applauded Mr. Bush's announcement because it knows that manned flight thrills the public and shakes money loose from Congress. Space enthusiasts say the ultimate value of manned exploration is to expand humanity's presence beyond the known world, "to boldly go where no man has gone before," as they say on Star Trek. But to justify the enormous cost and the considerable danger, there must be some benefit beyond the delight of seeing a human footprint in the Martian dust -- some practical benefit to the well-being of humankind. Four hundred billion dollars to handle a Martian rock "for ourselves" is pretty steep. So let the rovers do the rock watching, and the humans stay home.
|
It's a
god-awful small affair,To the girl with the mousy hair,
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on
Oilmen fighting round the oil rig
Oh man! Look at Dick Cheney go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Bush man
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
It is too easy to be cynical; is Bush's announcement an election year distraction; is he counting on big votes in California where so many aerospace jobs are located.
Or as one writer suggested the new Mars slogan might be "to boldly drill where no man has drilled before".
My favourite quip of all was from David Letterman, who said "President Bush promises we will only be on Mars for a couple months until they are capable of self-rule."
Austria's Der Standard captured the cynical tone that typified much of the world's coverage of the new Mars efforts: "A national mission to a faraway place where glory awaits and no rebel movement lurks will help Americans forget about the continuing problems in Iraq and portray the president as a peaceful visionary." (German translation courtesy of BBC Monitoring.)
The Canada "Globe and Mail's editorial opinion is re-published here - "what possible use to humanity" asks the writer "are the moon and Mars? Both are barren, lifeless places."
It is a little sad that the rest of the world trusts America, and the Bush regime, so little that we now utterly cynical of the reasons for any great undertaking or adventure.
But the answer to why send a man to Mars is the same as the reason that the first ships circumnavigated the world, that explorers crossed Australia, that the settlers crossed the Oregon trail. We have to go because it is there.
The costs will be huge; and the arguments against the Mars budget are strong; money is clearly better spend on Earth on health and education and infrastructure and welfare.
The Mars programme should not be spent by a massive central agency (NASA) that spends lavish billions form government on uncommercial and unjustifiable projects.
The future of space exploration is surely in the hands of private enterprise. That will drive mankind into space. What sort of enterprise? Well there is clearly a strong demand for space tourism for a start. Film and television companies would clamour to spend millions on reality shows from space.
There is no monopoly on space. NASA should not act as though there is; and the government should not allow NASA to divert funds from scientifically useful activity to the sole pursuit of putting a man or woman onto Mars.