Venezuela in London: Mi cocina es tuya – Café Latino, Crystal Palace – Visit London Blog

Venezuela in London: Mi cocina es tuya – Café Latino, Crystal Palace

10 Dec
Posted by Zoe J. Griffiths in Eating Out, World in London

Between the pubs and print shops of Westow Street in Crystal Palace is a fantastic little restaurant serving authentic Venezuelan cuisine. Mi cocina es tuya (My kitchen is yours) bills itself as London’s only Venezuelan restaurant – perfect for our World in London series..

Read the rest of the review on The MasterLiving Blog

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SWC op/ed in Friday, 12/3 Wall Street Journal: "Presbyterians Against Israel"

December 3, 2010   

  

   On the first day of Chanukah last year, a group of Christian Palestinians issued the Kairos Palestine Document which calls for a general boycott of Israel, argues that Christians’ faith requires them to side with the “oppressed,” (meaning the Palestinians), refers to the evils of the Israeli “occupation,” describes the Jewish connection to Israel only in terms of the Holocaust, denying 3,000 years of Jewish domicile and, ultimately, that there must not be a Jewish State because any religious state is inherently racist. Since then, the Kairos Document has been embraced by many mainline religious groups.

 To counteract this, Simon Wiesenthal Center officials will meet later this month with the World Council of Churches President to urge an end to the campaign against Israel and the Jewish people.

 The op/ed piece below written by Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper will appear in Friday, December 3rd's Wall Street Journal newspaper:
 
   <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572404575634813393141110.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>  
Presbyterians Against Israel <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572404575634813393141110.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>  
 by Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper
   
 In many ways, the second half of the 20th century was a high point for Jewish-Christian relations. Today, however, the anti-Israel politics of certain powerful Christian bodies hampers interfaith relations and threatens to breathe new life into medieval doctrine that demonized Jews for hundreds of years.

 In 2007, the World Council of Churches, an umbrella organization of mostly liberal Protestants claiming a membership of 580 million worshippers, convened the "Churches Together for Peace and Justice in the Middle East Conference." The conference produced the Amman Call, a document that condemned violence and endorsed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but denied Israel's right to a future as a Jewish state.

 It did so by insisting that millions of Palestinians—the grandchildren of those who left and were expelled from Palestine in 1948—have the "right of return" to Israel. As is well known, granting all third-generation Palestinians such a right would mean Israel's quick disappearance and its replacement by another Middle Eastern Mullahcracy or dictatorship.

 The Amman Call also labeled the barrier Israel has built to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers—which has effectively saved untold Jewish, Muslim and Christian lives—a "grave breach of international law" that must be removed.

 In 2008, the World Council of Churches convened a group of Protestant and Catholic theologians to review the underpinnings of Christian attitudes toward Israel. (No Jews were invited.) The group published the so-called Bern Perspective, which, among other things, instructed Christians to understand all biblical references to Israel only metaphorically.

 This understanding denies the connection between today's Jews and Moses, Jeremiah and Isaiah. It marks a return to "replacement theology," the medieval view that the Church has replaced Israel in God's plan and that all biblical references to Israel refer to the "new Israel"—that is, to Christians. For centuries, that view was the theological basis for denying rights to Jews in Church-dominated Europe.

 In 2009, on the first day of Chanukah (which Jews again celebrate this week), a group of Christian Palestinians issued the Kairos Palestine Document, which was immediately published on the World Council of Churches website. The document calls for a general boycott of Israel and argues that Christians' faith requires them to side with the "oppressed," meaning the Palestinians. It speaks of the evils of the Israeli "occupation," yet is silent on any evils committed by Palestinians, including the Hamas terrorists who now govern the Gaza Strip.

 The Kairos document also describes the Jewish connection to Israel only in terms of the Holocaust, denying 3,000 years of Jewish domicile. "Our presence in this land, as Christian and Muslim Palestinians, is not accidental but rather deeply rooted in the history and geography of this land," it states. "The West sought to make amends for what Jews had endured in the countries of Europe, but it made amends on our account and in our land."

 Most importantly, these Palestinian church leaders declared that there must not be a Jewish state because any religious state is inherently racist. They mentioned in this regard only Israel, of course, ignoring all Muslim states and others with an official state religion.

 The Kairos document quickly won accolades from religious groups including from the Presbyterian Church (USA), which has 2.3 million American members and in 2004 was the first mainline American Protestant group to call for divestment from Israel.
 This past February, its Middle East Study Committee announced that it would urge the U.S. government to "employ the strategic use of influence and the withholding of financial and military aid" from Israel. While conceding Israel's right to exist, it appended an apology to Palestinians. In the words of one committee member, recognizing Israel's right to exist "is to give Israel a pass on the way Israel was created and denies the legitimacy of the Palestinian people."

 The Simon Wiesenthal Center will soon meet with the president of the World Council of Churches to urge an end to its campaign against Israel and the Jewish people. Like anti-Israel diplomatic and academic campaigns, such religious calls and writings won't improve the life of a single Palestinian. But they will certainly embolden terrorists and anti-Semites, and cast carefully nurtured interfaith relations into darkness and disarray.

 Rabbi Hier is founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Cooper is the center's associate dean.

In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue

September 29, 2010

By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID E. SANGER

Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.
That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment.
Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel’s intelligence service. Nor is the Obama administration, which while talking about cyberdefenses has also rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. In interviews in several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.
There are many competing explanations for myrtus, which could simply signify myrtle, a plant important to many cultures in the region. But some security experts see the reference as a signature allusion to Esther, a clear warning in a mounting technological and psychological battle as Israel and its allies try to breach Tehran’s most heavily guarded project. Others doubt the Israelis were involved and say the word could have been inserted as deliberate misinformation, to implicate Israel.
“The Iranians are already paranoid about the fact that some of their scientists have defected and several of their secret nuclear sites have been revealed,” one former intelligence official who still works on Iran issues said recently. “Whatever the origin and purpose of Stuxnet, it ramps up the psychological pressure.”
So a calling card in the code could be part of a mind game, or sloppiness or whimsy from the coders.
The malicious code has appeared in many countries, notably China, India, Indonesia and Iran. But there are tantalizing hints that Iran’s nuclear program was the primary target. Officials in both the United States and Israel have made no secret of the fact that undermining the computer systems that control Iran’s huge enrichment plant at Natanz is a high priority. (The Iranians know it, too: They have never let international inspectors into the control room of the plant, the inspectors report, presumably to keep secret what kind of equipment they are using.)
The fact that Stuxnet appears designed to attack a certain type of Siemens industrial control computer, used widely to manage oil pipelines, electrical power grids and many kinds of nuclear plants, may be telling. Just last year officials in Dubai seized a large shipment of those controllers — known as the Simatic S-7 — after Western intelligence agencies warned that the shipment was bound for Iran and would likely be used in its nuclear program.
“What we were told by many sources,” said Olli Heinonen, who retired last month as the head of inspections at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, “was that the Iranian nuclear program was acquiring this kind of equipment.”
Also, starting in the summer of 2009, the Iranians began having tremendous difficulty running their centrifuges, the tall, silvery machines that spin at supersonic speed to enrich uranium — and which can explode spectacularly if they become unstable. In New York last week, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shrugged off suggestions that the country was having trouble keeping its enrichment plants going.
Yet something — perhaps the worm or some other form of sabotage, bad parts or a dearth of skilled technicians — is indeed slowing Iran’s advance.
The reports on Iran show a fairly steady drop in the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the main Natanz plant. After reaching a peak of 4,920 machines in May 2009, the numbers declined to 3,772 centrifuges this past August, the most recent reporting period. That is a decline of 23 percent. (At the same time, production of low-enriched uranium has remained fairly constant, indicating the Iranians have learned how to make better use of fewer working machines.)
Computer experts say the first versions of the worm appeared as early as 2009 and that the sophisticated version contained an internal time stamp from January of this year.
These events add up to a mass of suspicions, not proof. Moreover, the difficulty experts have had in figuring out the origin of Stuxnet points to both the appeal and the danger of computer attacks in a new age of cyberwar.
For intelligence agencies they are an almost irresistible weapon, free of fingerprints. Israel has poured huge resources into Unit 8200, its secretive cyberwar operation, and the United States has built its capacity inside the National Security Agency and inside the military, which just opened a Cyber Command.
But the near impossibility of figuring out where they came from makes deterrence a huge problem — and explains why many have warned against the use of cyberweapons. No country, President Obama was warned even before he took office, is more vulnerable to cyberattack than the United States.
For now, it is hard to determine if the worm has infected centrifuge controllers at Natanz. While the S-7 industrial controller is used widely in Iran, and many other countries, even Siemens says it does not know where it is being used. Alexander Machowetz, a spokesman in Germany for Siemens, said the company did no business with Iran’s nuclear program. “It could be that there is equipment,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we never delivered it to Natanz.”
But Siemens industrial controllers are unregulated commodities that are sold and resold all over the world — the controllers intercepted in Dubai traveled through China, according to officials familiar with the seizure.
Ralph Langner, a German computer security consultant who was the first independent expert to assert that the malware had been “weaponized” and designed to attack the Iranian centrifuge array, argues that the Stuxnet worm could have been brought into the Iranian nuclear complex by Russian contractors.
“It would be an absolute no-brainer to leave an infected USB stick near one of these guys,” he said, “and there would be more than a 50 percent chance of having him pick it up and infect his computer.”
There are many reasons to suspect Israel’s involvement in Stuxnet. Intelligence is the single largest section of its military and the unit devoted to signal, electronic and computer network intelligence, known as Unit 8200, is the largest group within intelligence.
Yossi Melman, who covers intelligence for the newspaper Haaretz and is at work on a book about Israeli intelligence over the past decade, said in a telephone interview that he suspected that Israel was involved.
He noted that Meir Dagan, head of Mossad, had his term extended last year partly because he was said to be involved in important projects. He added that in the past year Israeli estimates of when Iran will have a nuclear weapon had been extended to 2014.
“They seem to know something, that they have more time than originally thought,” he said.
Then there is the allusion to myrtus — which may be telling, or may be a red herring.
Several of the teams of computer security researchers who have been dissecting the software found a text string that suggests that the attackers named their project Myrtus. The guava fruit is part of the Myrtus family, and one of the code modules is identified as Guava.
It was Mr. Langner who first noted that Myrtus is an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther. The Book of Esther tells the story of a Persian plot against the Jews, who attacked their enemies pre-emptively.
“If you read the Bible you can make a guess,” said Mr. Langner, in a telephone interview from Germany on Wednesday.
Carol Newsom, an Old Testament scholar at Emory University, confirmed the linguistic connection between the plant family and the Old Testament figure, noting that Queen Esther’s original name in Hebrew was Hadassah, which is similar to the Hebrew word for myrtle. Perhaps, she said, “someone was making a learned cross-linguistic wordplay.”
But other Israeli experts said they doubted Israel’s involvement. Shai Blitzblau, the technical director and head of the computer warfare laboratory at Maglan, an Israeli company specializing in information security, said he was “convinced that Israel had nothing to do with Stuxnet.”
“We did a complete simulation of it and we sliced the code to its deepest level,” he said. “We have studied its protocols and functionality. Our two main suspects for this are high-level industrial espionage against Siemens and a kind of academic experiment.”
Mr. Blitzblau noted that the worm hit India, Indonesia and Russia before it hit Iran, though the worm has been found disproportionately in Iranian computers. He also noted that the Stuxnet worm has no code that reports back the results of the infection it creates. Presumably, a good intelligence agency would like to trace its work.

Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Israel, and William J. Broad from New York.

 In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue - NYTimes.com

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Alek Boyd: UK's Labour Party turns rojo, rojito

UK's Labour Party turns rojo, rojito 

Alek Boyd

Well, the smart money lost the bet. The election of a Conservative government, after 13 years of Labour rule, got the radicals all worked up: Ed Miliband has just been elected as Labour's new party leader.

Before going into details, I think that this is a godsend to David Cameron and his coalition government. For Red Ed's election simply indicates a strong veer to the left. In fact, besides belonging to Gordon Brown's closest circle of collaborators, and being the unions candidate, he got most of Diane Abbott and Ed Balls second option votes, so it is clear that the most radical wing of the party carried him to victory. Fortunately, there's no space for radicals in democratic societies, and so, the Labour Party, by electing Brown's successor Ed over his graceless yet Blairite brother David, has taken the road to wilderness, a road that won't lead them back to power. And that is excellent news.

Now the comical thing is, that most Labour talking heads are singing from Ed's sheet about the party having lost the trust of millions of voters in the last general election -under Gordon Brown's leadership, and yet they have thrown their lot behind Brown's heir, instead of electing the successor of the only Labour leader that has won the party three consecutive elections. Priceless.

Alek Boyd: UK's Labour Party turns rojo, rojito

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Lunch with the FT: Tony Blair FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT -

Lunch with the FT: Tony Blair

By Philip Stephens

Published: September 10 2010 18:54 | Last updated: September 10 2010 18:54

I had hoped I might meet Tony Blair at one of London’s more bustling venues – mainly, I confess, because I wanted to measure the reaction of the throng. But the rules of Lunch with the FT leave the choice with the guest. So, after a certain amount of cloak and daggery, insisted upon by the police protection officers who still accompany him everywhere, I arrive at Blair’s local Italian, Locanda Locatelli.

It is one of those restaurants comfortable with celebrity. On a weekday lunchtime most tables seem to be occupied by business types but Madonna is said to be among the evening regulars. Our corner booth offers a panoramic view of polished wood, fabric wall coverings and soft leather banquettes. A head or two turns discreetly as Blair enters. No one is impolite enough to stare.

Britain’s former prime minister presents a conundrum. His memoir has invited torrents of invective from enemies (critics is much too soft a word) among metropolitan elites. Yet copies of A Journey are flying off the shelves as “real people” open their wallets to read Blair’s version of events. He did, after all, win three elections and put Britain back on the international stage. Then again, he also stood shoulder to shoulder with George W Bush in Iraq.

I am getting ahead of myself. The Michelin-starred Locanda Locatelli is around the corner from Blair’s central London home. Its proprietor-chef Giorgio Locatelli, I will discover, is an exquisite cook. But first I concentrate on my guest. Blue suit, white shirt and no tie (I had worn one for the occasion), he is visibly at ease. The slings and arrows of media outrage don’t seem to have left any scars. He has just cancelled a signing at a bookstore in London because of promised disruption by protesters. But he’s still getting all those clicks on Amazon.

It cannot feel very nice, though, to have people call you a war criminal? Blair doesn’t blink. “I’ve always had a, I mean truthfully, a better relationship with the country than with the media because the media divides into a left and right of a pretty traditional sort. And the left always regard me as not sufficiently left and the right hate me because I win. Or I won.”

The style of, and reaction to, the book mirrors the division of opinion between liberal intelligentsia and voters. It’s racy. In places, it badly mangles the English language; the colloquialisms sometimes slip into cringe-making confessionals. We really don’t need to know about that night of unbridled passion with his wife Cherie. The book is everything, in other words, that the chatterati don’t like about Blair.

Yet it carries the reader along. There is plenty about politics and policy – more than in many political memoirs. He is way ahead on some things – particularly on what progressive politicians have to do to adapt to change; and, to my mind, profoundly mistaken on others, as in his reading of the struggle against violent Islamism. But A Journey reads as a story, not a chore.

“I wanted to write it in a different way and I wanted to write it in a way that is more open.” It was time for someone to explain that politicians are also human beings. “One of the worst things happening in politics today is this assault on politicians when they get … they do something that’s wrong or people think it wrong, or whatever, and yet no one actually sees it from the other side.”

He warms to the theme. “If you’re not careful what happens is your political leaders have to be all sort of buttoned up; meanwhile they’re subject to a degree of intrusion that in times gone by was completely unknown. I think it’s therefore quite helpful ... to understand that they are human beings and to understand things from their point of view.” That’s why he has now owned up to the inner fears that had often lain behind the apparently supreme confidence.

There is more to this than artifice dressed up as candour, or indeed the desire to speak directly to people over the head of a hostile media. He thinks he has something important to say about the tumultuous pace of change in the world, the west’s response to the rise of Asia, the future of centre-left politics.

“I want people to read me unmediated rather than mediated because I think if they read it they will at least understand what I’m trying to say and it’s very much a book that’s prospective in a sense, because a lot of what I’m saying ... is about where are we now and where we need to be.”

As we talk I am nibbling on Parmesan-infused grissini and picking small pieces from a basket of freshly baked bread. Blair resists the temptation. He likes to keep in shape. I have long abandoned such fantasies. Meanly, I take private satisfaction that the price he pays for keeping his weight down is to look his age.

The antipasti arrive. Blair has the salad of broad beans, rocket and ewe cheese. I hesitate before opting for the green bean salad with potato and truffle. The truffle always tips it. Mine is scrumptious. His salad likewise, says Blair. The plates go back scraped clean to Locatelli’s kitchen. “Local Italian” no longer seems an apt description of the cuisine on offer here.

We are sticking to sparkling water – a cue to tease my guest. He has admitted that as prime minister he fretted that an habitual whisky or gin followed by a couple of glasses of wine (sometimes even half a bottle!) over dinner left him close to the edge of alcohol dependency.

Guffaws all round. “All my friends have been saying it was quite the most pathetic and sad admission they’d ever come across. John Reid’s [a former cabinet colleague] comment was the best. Did you hear that? He said, ‘Where I come from in Glasgow they give more than that to the budgie.’”

There are moments in the book when Blair sounds almost melancholic. Politics, he explains, is lived backwards. Leaders are at their most powerful when they are least practised. Time brings experience but it also drains political capital.

He would have stayed on as prime minister had Gordon Brown, his chancellor and bitter rival, not forced the timing of his departure. Yet he bridles at the idea that he is now a lost soul. “That’s true ... I do say [I would have stayed] because I have the confidence to say it – without actually spending my life desperately troubled I’m not still there.” So he has gotten over not being prime minister? Yes. “I really don’t miss it. The only time I missed it was during the global financial crisis.” Ah yes, that would have been a moment for him to stride the world stage again. As it was, Brown got quite a lot of credit.

But, he says, “I’m happy to go out there doing the things I’m doing ... I’m fascinated by the Middle East peace process and I want to work on it. And my faith foundation is now operating in 15 different countries, I’ve got the Africa governance initiative, that’s operating in three African countries.” Then, of course, there are the speeches, the advisory work for a bank and the consultancy contracts for Tony Blair Associates.

Once during the lunch I think I off-balance him. I remind him that Peter Mandelson, a co-conspirator in the modernisation of his party, had once observed that New Labour was “intensely relaxed” about people becoming “filthy rich”. So how does Blair feel about living in private jets? Hasn’t he been seduced by the bling?

This evokes a pained frown. Most of his time, he protests, is spent on unpaid work – the role of Middle East envoy that a few days earlier had taken him to Barack Obama’s White House, his faith foundation, the work on governance in Africa and the rest. The speeches and the consultancy pay the bills for the pro bono.

“I would have been happy to carry on with being prime minister; I’ve been in public service for 25 years. I would have been happy taking the European job and going on a European salary ... I’d be happy to go back to a public service job one day but if I don’t I’ve got the ability to make money, and I make it, and I provide for my family and I can do the things that I believe in doing.” The proceeds of the book – something upwards of £4m – have been pledged to a military charity helping the casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stuffy people like me are troubled by the idea of former prime ministers trading off their political careers. But Blair has a point. The flip-side of political leaders getting younger is that they retire in their prime. Can we really insist that fit fifty-somethings disappear into retirement or accept a cap on their earnings?

In any event, I don’t think the money is the motivation. What Blair really wants is to remain at the centre of things; to be a player. Wealth is an adjunct.

By now, we are finishing our main courses. I have opted for the day’s special – a sublime ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta. Blair nods approvingly at his char-grilled squid with chilli and garlic. Trying to trip him up reminds me why he was so good. When he was prime minister I used to see quite a lot of him. Before each encounter I would tell myself that this time I would not be bamboozled. Maddeningly, 20 minutes into the conversation, I would be thinking “Well, maybe he’s right after all.”

Blair told visitors to Downing Street what they wanted to hear – sometimes, as he admits in the book – bending the truth to that aim. I remember a colleague remarking that he “always believed what he said at the moment he said it”. So, you could add, did the visitors.

His gift, though, is about more than charm and the emotional intuition of a natural communicator. The big thing about Blair is that he knows how to frame an argument. Most politicians get lost in the foothills of tactics. He has a strategic brain – a view of the world – and the self-belief to follow it through.

The self-belief bit, of course, turned out to be his weakness as well as his strength. I would like to say that when the conversation turned to Iraq, I succeeded in pushing Blair up against a wall until he repented. I didn’t. Partly because I was ambivalent about the war at the time – I always thought getting rid of Saddam Hussein was rather a good thing. And partly because I deprecate the implicit assumption of many of the anti-war crowd that the world would be such a great place if Iraq and Iran were still fighting themselves to a standstill.

In any event he has heard the charges too many times to change his answers now: “We acted on the information that we had at the time; we also acted with a certain sense of urgency after September 11. I think people forget that.”

Yes, of course, he regrets the loss and damaged lives of the war but he is not going to say he regrets the decision to go to war. “We used to have a policy of supporting Saddam, to be a brake on Iran, and look what happened: it didn’t work, in the same way we actually armed some of the Mujahaddin in order to take on the Russians – it didn’t work, let’s learn the lesson.”

You could say Iraq tested to destruction his doctrine of liberal interventionism. On the other hand, are we to conclude that everything will be hunky-dory if only we leave the tyrants alone?

We opt for coffee rather than dessert, but it comes with a small selection of home-made sorbets and petit fours. This time I consider my waistline and stick, like Blair, with the sorbet.

Time is passing. Blair’s account of his titanic struggle with Gordon Brown grabbed even more headlines than Iraq. Some consider his description of his former colleague to be overly harsh; others wonder why he admits that, as prime minister, he did not feel strong enough to sack him.

The only point he makes now is that the struggle was more about the direction of the New Labour government than about who should be prime minister. “I think you need to make it clear there was a policy disagreement. People used to write this whole relationship up as if it was just a personal spat about a job – it wasn’t for me at all,” he says.

Our chef stands by the front desk as we leave. It’s my first lunch with a politician for a long time where the food has left a real impression. Usually it gets in the way.

Back in the office I pick up The New York Times to read the columnist Maureen Dowd’s take on the memoir. It seems I had been lunching with a delusional maniac. The thought occurs that perhaps I should have carted him off to Guantánamo. That’s the thing, though, about Blair. He awakens in many liberals the unhinged rage that Barack Obama draws from America’s Tea Party crowd. What to do, though, about all those people who are buying – even enjoying – his book?

Philip Stephens is the FT’s chief political commentator

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Locanda Locatelli

8 Seymour Street, London W1

Contribution to charity £1

Bottle sparkling water £3.50

Broad beans, rocket and ewe cheese salad £9.50

Green bean salad, potato and black truffle £16.50

Char-grilled squid, chilli and garlic £28

Ravioli with ricotta and spinach £12.50

Espresso x 2 £5

An assortment of sorbets and petit fours (on the house)

Total (including optional service) £90

..................................................

How successful has Blair been as Middle East envoy?

Of the many jobs and functions that Tony Blair has taken on since leaving 10 Downing Street, only one has provided the former British leader with any kind of international clout: his role as Middle East envoy, writes Tobias Buck.

Blair with Jenin governor Qadoura Mousa, left, and Israeli vice prime minister Silvan Shalom, 2009

Blair was appointed representative of the Middle East Quartet – the US, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia – almost immediately on leaving office in 2007. The post meant returning to a region where he is remembered, above all, for his role in the deeply unpopular invasion of Iraq in 2003. At the time, a number of analysts and diplomats cautioned that this association made him an improbable figure to advance peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours. That concern was gradually dispelled once Blair set up his office in Jerusalem's famous American Colony Hotel. He made an early impression on his Israeli and Palestinian interlocutors, who noted both his dedication and easy-going charm (a rare commodity in Middle Eastern political circles).

More importantly, it soon became clear that Blair had not arrived with the intention of remaking the Middle East. He was, in fact, never supposed to play the role of peacemaker: his Quartet mandate spells out clearly that his primary task is to help improve the governance of the Palestinian territories and boost the Palestinian economy. According to his advisers, this was the mandate Blair himself wanted, believing that economic growth and good governance were a crucial – and previously overlooked – part of the strategy to end decades of bloody conflict.

What it means in practice is that Blair has been engaged above all in unglamorous aspects of Middle East politics: persuading Israel to lift a checkpoint in the West Bank; getting the Israeli army to approve the shipment of sewage pipes to the Gaza Strip; or calling on Gulf sheikhs to increase their funding for the Palestinian Authority.

There is no doubt that both the Palestinian economy and the quality of Palestinian governance have improved drastically since Blair entered the arena. However, many observers say most of the credit for the recent upswing goes to Salam Fayyad, the US-educated economist who serves as Palestinian prime minister. Blair has certainly contributed, in his role as a facilitator and mediator between the two sides, to the economic and political improvements in the West Bank but it is not easy to quantify how influential his actions have been.

“It is hard to say,” replied one senior adviser to the Palestinian Authority when asked about Blair’s contribution. “Many people work on many issues, but every word helps. Blair has tried his best to be successful but it is not always easy.”

Tobias Buck is the FT’s Jerusalem bureau chief

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FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT - Lunch with the FT: Tony Blair

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FT.com / Markets / UK - Resource stocks keep pressure on London

Resource stocks keep pressure on London

London equities continued to drift lower on Wednesday, as worries about the faltering outlook for sustained global growth kept stubborn selling pressure on resource stocks.

Mining and Oil companies took the biggest overall toll on the market. BHP Billiton conceded it was “cautious” on the short-term outlook for the world economy, which it expected to remain volatile for some time, although it added it was not expecting a double-dip recession.

FT.com / Markets / UK - Resource stocks keep pressure on London

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Check it out on The MasterBlog

Financial Times: Factory damage is an affront to the rule of law

July 19 2010 8:25 PM GMT
Factory damage is an affront to the rule of law
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By Michael Skapinker
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Anyone who opposes government policy on climate change, or genetically modified food, or arms exports to Israel can try to change it. That is democracy. Anything else is mob rule, writes Michael Skapinker

Read the full article at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e53bb48-9363-11df-bb9a-00144feab49a.html

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Drums of War: Israel and the “Axis of Resistance” - International Crisis Group

The Israeli-Lebanese border is exceptionally calm and uniquely dangerous, both for the same reason: fear that a new round of hostilities would be far more violent and could spill over regionally.

Drums of War: Israel and the “Axis of Resistance”, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines developments since the indecisive 2006 confrontation. It focuses on the de facto deterrence regime that has helped keep the peace: all parties now know that a next conflict would not spare civilians and could escalate into broader regional warfare. However, the process this regime perpetuates – mutually reinforcing military preparations; enhanced military cooperation among Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizbollah; escalating Israeli threats – pulls in the opposite direction and could trigger the very outcome it has averted so far.

Drums of War: Israel and the "Axis of Resistance"

Beirut/Jerusalem/Damascus/Washington/Brussels

MENA Report Nº972 Aug 2010

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Of all the explanations why calm has prevailed in the Israeli-Lebanese arena since the end of the 2006 war, the principal one also should be cause for greatest concern: fear among the parties that the next confrontation would be far more devastating and broader in scope. None of the most directly relevant actors – Israel, Hizbollah, Syria and Iran – relishes this prospect, so all, for now, are intent on keeping their powder dry. But the political roots of the crisis remain unaddressed, the underlying dynamics are still explosive, and miscalculations cannot be ruled out. The only truly effective approach is one that would seek to resume – and conclude – meaningful Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Lebanese peace talks. There is no other answer to the Hizbollah dilemma and, for now, few better ways to affect Tehran’s calculations. Short of such an initiative, deeper political involvement by the international community is needed to enhance communications between the parties, defuse tensions and avoid costly missteps.

Four years after the last war, the situation in the Levant is paradoxical. It is exceptionally quiet and uniquely dangerous, both for the same reason. The build-up in military forces and threats of an all-out war that would spare neither civilians nor civilian infrastructure, together with the worrisome prospect of its regionalisation, are effectively deterring all sides. Today, none of the parties can soberly contemplate the prospect of a conflict that would be uncontrolled, unprecedented and unscripted.

Should hostilities break out, Israel will want to hit hard and fast to avoid duplicating the 2006 scenario. It will be less likely than in the past to distinguish between Hizbollah and a Lebanese government of which the Shiite movement is an integral part and more likely to take aim at Syria – both because it is the more vulnerable target and because it is Hizbollah’s principal supplier of military and logistical support. Meanwhile, as tensions have risen, the so-called “axis of resistance” – Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizbollah – has been busy intensifying security ties. Involvement by one in the event of attack against another no longer can be dismissed as idle speculation.

Other restraining elements are at play. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 led to a thickening of the Lebanese and international armed presence in southern Lebanon after the 2006 war, which has constrained Hizbollah’s freedom of action while simultaneously putting the brakes on any potential Israeli military ambition. Even as both sides routinely criticise and violate the resolution – which concurrently called for the end of arms transfers to Lebanon’s non-governmental forces, disarmament of its armed groups and full respect for the country’s sovereignty – they continue to value the framework defined by it as an integral component of the status quo.

Hizbollah’s enhanced political status in Lebanon is an additional inhibiting factor, discouraging it from initiatives that could imperil those gains. Israel’s current government – its reputation notwithstanding – appears less inclined at this point to take the risk twice taken by its more centrist predecessor of initiating hostilities, seeking to prove it can maintain stability and worried about a more hostile international environment. Despite voicing alarm at Hizbollah’s military growth, it has displayed restraint. U.S. President Barack Obama, likewise, far from the one-time dream of a new Middle East harboured by his predecessor, has no appetite for a conflagration that would jeopardise his peace efforts and attempts to restore U.S. credibility in the region. All of which explains why the border area has witnessed fewer violent incidents than at any time in decades.

But that is only the better half of the story. Beneath the surface, tensions are mounting with no obvious safety valve. The deterrence regime has helped keep the peace, but the process it perpetuates – mutually reinforcing military preparations; Hizbollah’s growing and more sophisticated arsenal; escalating Israeli threats – pulls in the opposite direction and could trigger the very outcome it has averted so far. If Israel would not like a war, it does not like what it is seeing either.

It is not clear what would constitute a red line whose crossing by the Shiite movement would prompt Israeli military action, but that lack of clarity provides additional cause for anxiety. Unlike in the 1990s, when the Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Group, operating with U.S., French and Syrian participation, ensured some form of inter-party contacts and minimal adherence to agreed rules of the game, and when Washington and Damascus were involved in intensive dialogue, today there is no effective forum for communication and thus ample room for misunderstanding and misperception.

Meanwhile, an underground war of espionage and assassinations has been raging, for now a substitute for more open confrontation. The parties might not want a full-scale shooting war, but under these circumstances one or the other could provoke an unwanted one. Further contributing to a sense of paralysis has been lack of movement on any 1701-related file, from the seemingly easiest – Israel’s withdrawal from the northern (Lebanese) part of the village of Ghajar – to the most complex, including policing the Lebanese-Syrian border, resolving the status of Shebaa Farms, disarming Hizbollah and ending Israeli over-flights. Such paralysis feeds scepticism that anything can be achieved and, over time, could wear down the commitment of contributors to the UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL).

The key to unlocking this situation is – without neglecting the central Israeli-Palestinian track – to resume meaningful negotiations between Israel on the one hand and Syria and Lebanon on the other. This is the only realistic way to shift underlying dynamics and, in particular, affect Syria’s calculations. Without that, Damascus will continue to transfer weapons to Hizbollah, the Shiite movement will successfully resist pressure to disarm and Israel will keep on violating Lebanon’s sovereignty.

There is scant reason for optimism on the peace front, however. That means little can be achieved, not that nothing can be done. The most urgent tasks are to restore momentum on 1701 by focusing on the most realistic goals and to establish consultative mechanisms to defuse tensions, clarify red lines and minimise risks of an accidental confrontation. Better channels of communication would help. At present, the U.S. is talking mainly to one side (Israel), keeping another at arm’s length (Syria), ignoring a third (Hizbollah) and confronting the fourth (Iran). The UN might not have that problem, but it has others. It has too many overlapping and uncoordinated missions and offices dealing with Lebanon and the peace process and thus lacks policy coherence. One option would be to empower its mission in Lebanon so that it can play a more effective political role.

Nobody should be under the illusion that solving Ghajar, beefing up the UN’s role or even finding new, creative means of communication between Israel, Syria and, indirectly, Hizbollah, would make a lasting or decisive difference. They undoubtedly would help. But Lebanon’s crises for the most part are derivative of broader regional tensions; until serious efforts are mounted to resolve the latter, the former will persist. In the meantime, the world should cross its fingers that fear of a catastrophic conflict will continue to be reason enough for the parties not to provoke one.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the U.S. Government:

1. Intensify efforts, including at the presidential level, to re-launch Israeli-Syrian and, as a consequence, Israeli-Lebanese peace negotiations in parallel to Israeli-Palestinian talks, persuading Prime Minister Netanyahu to reiterate the commitment made by past Israeli leaders to a full withdrawal to the lines of 1967 assuming all other Israeli needs are met.

2. Initiate a high-level and sustained dialogue with Syria aimed at defining both a clear and credible pathway toward improved bilateral relations and a compelling regional role for Damascus in the aftermath of a peace agreement.

3. Press, in the context of resumed peace talks, Syria to halt weapons transfers to Hizbollah and Israel to cease actions in violation of Lebanese sovereignty.

To the UN Security Council:

4. Ask the Secretary-General to review the various missions and offices dealing with Lebanon and the Middle East peace process, with the aim of developing a more coherent and comprehensive policy and enhancing coordination among them.

To the UN Secretariat:

5. Consider, in the interim, consolidating implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 in the office of the Special Coordinator (UNSCOL), with a view to more effective engagement with the various parties.

To the UN and the Governments of Israel and Lebanon:

6. Revive momentum toward implementation of Resolution 1701, focusing on the most immediately achievable goals, by:

a) pursuing discussions toward resolution of the status of Ghajar, under which Israel would withdraw from the northern (Lebanese) part, and UNIFIL would assume control, with a Lebanese army presence; and

b) using such discussions to initiate talks on conditions necessary for attaining a formal ceasefire.

To UNIFIL troop contributing countries, particularly those in Europe:

7. Reaffirm commitments to maintain the current level of troop contributions.

8. Pursue a policy of active patrolling, in order to prevent any overt Hizbollah presence in its area of responsibility, while conducting outreach efforts to the civilian population.

9. Investigate, publicly condemn and take appropriate action against flagrant violations of Resolution 1701, particularly attempts to resupply Hizbollah and Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty.

To the UN and the Governments of the U.S., France, Turkey, Israel, Syria and Lebanon:

10. Consider establishing a Contact Group or, alternatively, more informal consultative mechanisms, to discuss implementation of Resolution 1701 and address potential flashpoints, focusing on:

a) a commitment by relevant parties to refrain from provocative statements and actions;

b) an end to implicit or explicit threats to harm civilians or damage civilian infrastructure in any future war;

c) a halt to targeted assassinations; and

d) immediate intervention in the event of a violent incident so as to de-escalate the crisis.

To the Government of Lebanon and Hizbollah:

11. Make every effort to discourage and prevent hostile action by the civilian population against UN personnel and property.

To the Government of Lebanon:

12. Substantially increase the number of troops deployed in the South and provide them with enhanced training and equipment.

Beirut/Jerusalem/Damascus/Washington/Brussels, 2 August 2010

Drums of War: Israel and the “Axis of Resistance” - International Crisis Group

A chance to change universal jurisdiction

A chance to change universal jurisdictionThe advent of David Cameron's Conservative government has created the possibility for a change in the law within the U.K.

By Ze'ev Segal

Published 00:57 26.07.10   Latest update 00:57 26.07.10

The British ambassador to Israel, Sir Tom Phillips, who is widely admired here for his erudition and knowledge of the Middle East, concludes his term this week and is leaving the State of Israel a going-away gift.

During the past four years, Phillips and Israel's ambassadors in London have dedicated much effort to conveying to the British government Israel's strong opposition to Britain's universal jurisdiction rules. These provisions in effect permit any individual to file a petition in a lower court for the arrest of persons suspected of committing "war crimes" without even having to produce substantial evidence.

Last week the British government announced it will soon be introducing new legislation in Parliament barring the issuance of arrest warrants on suspicion of "war crimes" without the approval of the chief prosecutor. The amendment to existing law seeks to create a balance between the British commitment to ensuring that suspected war criminals are brought to justice on one hand, and the requirement that there be solid evidence of the suspicions which justify limitations on a person's liberty.

Within the past year, an arrest warrant was issued, and then rescinded, for Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak while he was visiting Britain. Pro-Palestinian activists also initiated such warrants against former foreign minister Tzipi Livni for her diplomatic involvement in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. For this and other reasons as well, Livni canceled a visit to London, but her case led to pressure on the British government. Meanwhile, senior Israel Defense Forces officers, both past and present, are avoiding visits to the U.K. out of concern that their presence will trigger arrest warrants.

It is not only in Britain that problems of this nature have arisen. The United States has shown interest in the subject, and brought about the repeal in Belgium of a law supporting universal jurisdiction after the U.S. threatened to withdraw NATO command headquarters from Brussels. In the meantime, via direct contact with the British government, Israel has stepped up its activity on the issue over the past year as well.

The legal situation in Britain is unusual. There it is a question of invoking universal jurisdiction against foreign nationals who were not involved per se in activities against Britain or its citizens. In 1957, the British Parliament passed the "Geneva Convention" law, which turned the provisions of the convention into concepts anchored in local British law. As a result, anyone in the U.K. can at present approach the courts and seek to invoke the law in an effort to turn ostensible international war criminals into criminal offenders in violation of British law.

The law in question had not been invoked until it was "discovered" in 2005, when an arrest warrant based on this law was issued for Maj. Gen. (res. ) Doron Almog, who was about to land in Britain. The warrant was premised on allegations involving the destruction of 30 homes in the Rafah salient. Decisive action on the part of the Israeli ambassador in London at the time, Zvi Hefetz, prompted Almog not to get off his El Al plane, according to the instructions of the most senior officials in Israel.

I was in London at that time, and met immediately afterward with the legal advisers to the British Foreign Office, who expressed determination to invoke the law in the future even though it had been a "dead letter" since it was passed. The British seem to view every piece of legislation as "vintage wine" and vigorously reject Israeli contentions that there is selective enforcement of this law when it comes to Israelis, in contrast to a lack of enforcement against other nationals.

I presented their position to the relevant officials in Israel, and did not get the impression that they took the prospect seriously that high-ranking Israelis would be arrested in the U.K. at the request of any person or organization by low-level courts, where some of the judges may not be professionals.

The advent of David Cameron's Conservative government has created the possibility for a change in the law. Indeed, British Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke has announced that he will introduce a bill in Parliament amending the "Geneva Convention" statute. It should be remembered that no one is talking about repealing the 1957 law that deems that acts involving international war crimes are criminal, as per the British system.

The issue will in the future be thrown into the lap of the chief prosecutor, who is not considered political by nature. He can approve a judicial arrest warrant, but in such a case, the senior Israeli or other official can probably manage to leave British territory on time. That's much better than the current situation, but it's not an insurance policy.


Haaretz.Com

Did BP Keep Drilling Even Though It Had Lost Control of the Oil Well Much Earlier?

The evidence keeps mounting against BP in the Macondo well explosion. The
post below is long but thorough!

Compiled by Washington's Blog <http://www.washingtonsblog.com/> from the NY
Times, Bloomberg, LA Times, and the Times of London.

The New York Times noted
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
> yesterday:
Even though it was more than a month before the explosion, the [Deepwater
Horizon] rig's safety audit was conducted against the backdrop of what seems
to have been a losing battle to control the well.
On the March visit, Lloyd's investigators reported "a high degree of focus
and activity relating to well control issues," adding that "specialists were
aboard the rig to conduct subsea explosions to help alleviate these well
control issues."
As I pointed out
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/did-bp-oil-well-blow-out-in-february
.html> last month:
The Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20th, and sank a couple of days
later. BP has been criticized for failing to report on the seriousness of
the blow out for several weeks.
However, as a whistleblower previously told
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml> 60
Minutes, there was an accident at the rig a month or more prior to the April
20th explosion:
[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon,
and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] ... says going faster
caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that
drilling fluid called "mud."
"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down
into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained.
That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to
the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars.
As Bloomberg reports
<http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-17/bp-struggled-with-cracks-in-gu
lf-well-as-early-as-february-documents-show.html> today, problems at the
well actually started in February:
BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as
February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil
into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with
the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional
investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the
drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow
explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
"Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made
were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost," said Peter Galvin of the
Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional
investigators probing the disaster. "It's been a doomed voyage from the
beginning."
***
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the
well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling
documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to
determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.
***
The company attempted a "cement squeeze," which involves pumping cement to
seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following
week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining
expensive drilling fluid, known as "mud," into the surrounding rocks.
BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the
documents show.
"Most of the time you do a squeeze and then let it dry and you're done,"
said John Wang, an assistant professor of petroleum and natural gas
engineering at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. "It dries within
a few hours."
Repeated squeeze attempts are unusual and may indicate rig workers are using
the wrong kind of cement, Wang said.
In other words, the well started losing integrity in February, and may have
never been permanently stabilized. If cracks in the well were never properly
sealed, then the well may have been unstable starting in February and
continuing until the April 20 explosion. (There is substantial evidence
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/evidence-points-to-destruction-benea
th.html> that there are cracks in the well now.)
Bloomberg continues:
In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble
maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released
May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating
the spill.
***
While gas surges are common in oil drilling, companies have abandoned wells
if they determine the risk is too high.
***
On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral
service's drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: "We'
re in the midst of a well control situation."
The incident was a "showstopper," said Robert Bea, an engineering professor
at the University of California, Berkeley, who has consulted with the
Interior Department on offshore drilling safety. "They damn near blew up the
rig."
And the wives of oil rig workers killed in the blast testified
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/18570/gulf_oil_spill_deepwater_horiz
on_rig.html?cat=3> that their husbands reported that the rig had problems
controlling well pressure weeks before explosion.
In other words, not only is it possible that the well casing was somewhat
unstable for months before the blow out, but BP may have ignored standard
drilling practices by failing to abandon the well when the natural gas began
surging too violently.
Sure, the rig didn't actually catch fire and sink until April, but cracks in
the well and dangerous natural gas surges may mean that BP never fully had
control of the well.
I'm not the only one asking such questions. It is worth re-reading the
following passage from the Bloomberg article quoted above:
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the
well ... drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are
still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the
disaster.
Damaged Blowout Preventer
Whether or not BP had lost control of the well earlier, it was confirmed
yesterday that BP had damaged its key piece of safety equipment - the
blowout preventer - earlier, yet kept drilling.
The Los Angeles Times reported
<http://www.localwireless.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=16652134&cid=166
77&ith=4&title=Top+Stories%22> Monday:
BP officials knew about a problem on a crucial well safety device at least
three months before the catastrophic April 20 explosion in the Gulf of
Mexico but failed to repair it, according to testimony Tuesday from the
company's well manager.
Ronald Sepulvado testified that he was aware of a leak on a control pod atop
the well's blowout preventer and notified his supervisor in Houston about
the problem, which Sepulvado didn't consider crucial. The 450-ton hydraulic
device, designed to prevent gas or oil from blasting out of the drill hole,
failed during the disaster, which killed 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon rig
and set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Investigators said BP did not disclose the matter to the appropriate federal
agency and failed to suspend drilling operations until the problem was
resolved, as required by law.
The New York Times adds
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
> the following details:
Federal investigators said Tuesday at a panel that continuing to drill
despite problems related to the blowout preventer might have been a
violation of federal regulations that require a work stoppage if the
equipment is found not to work properly.
While the equipment report says the device's control panels were in fair
condition, it also cites a range of problems, including a leaking door seal,
a diaphragm on the purge air pump needing replacement and several
error-response messages.
The device's annulars, which are large valves used to control wellbore
fluids, also encountered "extraordinary difficulties" surrounding their
maintenance, the report said.
And as I pointed out
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/despite-knowing-it-had-damaged-blowo
ut.html> in May:
Several weeks before the Gulf oil explosion, a key piece of safety equipment
- the blowout preventer - was damaged.
As the Times of London reports
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7128842.
ece> :
[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon,
and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] claimed that the
blowout preventer was then damaged when a crewman accidentally moved a
joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force. Pieces of
rubber were found in the drilling fluid, which he said implied damage to a
crucial seal. But a supervisor declared the find to be "not a big deal", Mr
Williams alleged.
UC Berkeley engineering professor Bob Bea told 60 Minutes that a damaged
blowout preventer not only may lead to a catastrophic accident like the Gulf
oil spill, but leads to inaccurate pressure readings, so that the well
operator doesn't know the real situation, and cannot keep the rig safe.
There are many other examples of criminal negligence by BP, Halliburton and
Transocean as well. See
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR201007200
2038.html> this,
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/bp-could-have-easily-contained-gulf-
oil.html> this,
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/business/19nocera.html?ref=business>
this,
<http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/bp-executives-could-face-15-y
ears-jail/story-e6frg90f-1225879591963> this,
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/18570/gulf_oil_spill_deepwater_horiz
on_rig.html?cat=3> this,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a9ElwiTMH4Tg> this,
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/bp-smoking-gun-oil-giant_n_583590.
html> this,
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7136969.ece> this,
<http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/report-bp-had-3-indications-of-trouble
-in-hour-before-blast/> this,
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64Q0SG20100527> this,
<http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/rigs-fire-i-told-you-was-gonna-h
appen> this,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=awDwwghB5ZXg&?huffbloom
berg> this, <http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/49604> this,
<http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/9-Important-Points-about-the-BP-
Blowout-%E2%80%93-Part-1.html> this,
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704717004575268302434395796.h
tml?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news> this,
<http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/26/oil.spill.investigation/index.html?hpt=T1>
this,
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/26/94884/bp-could-be-held-criminally-lia
ble.html> this,
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill;_ylt=ArN0
sQOh44H9NooB0_6.k62s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNobWswNzlsBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNTI2L3VzX2
d1bGZfb2lsX3NwaWxsBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2
UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDYnBiZWdpbnNub3Zl> this and
<http://www.businessinsider.com/deepwater-survivor-bp-transocean-haliburton-
were-gambling-with-our-lives-2010-5> this.
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~4/r4XzCeXljVE>

View article...
<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/r4XzCeXljVE/did-bp-keep-dr
illing-even-though-it-had-lost-control-oil-well-much-earlier-0>

FT.com / Capital Markets - Pimco caught out by strength of gilts

Pimco caught out by strength of gilts

By David Oakley, Capital Markets Correspondent
Published: July 14 2010 10:57 | Last updated: July 14 2010 10:57

Pimco, the world’s second-biggest bond fund manager, has backtracked on its aggressive position of selling UK government bonds after the impressive performance of the gilts market this year.




Pimco, which took a negative view on the UK last year because of the widening budget deficit and poor public finances, has switched its stance to neutral or “agnostic” on gilts, according to people familiar with the situation.


Bill Gross, co-head of Pimco, in January described the UK government bond markets as so volatile that they were “resting on a bed of nitroglycerine”.


At the time, most investors feared that the worsening public finances and the uncertain political outlook before the general election in May would spark a big sell-off in prices.


However, the reverse has happened. Gilts have been one of the best-performing government bond markets of the year, becoming a haven from the troubles in the eurozone in recent months.


Gilt yields, which have an inverse relationship with prices, have fallen more than 20 per cent to 3.39 per cent since this year’s peak of 4.27 per cent on February 19.


Gilts have mainly been buoyed by buying of international investors, particularly Asian funds that switched out of peripheral eurozone bonds as the eurozone debt crisis deepened.


Investors have also been reassured by the new pact between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats following the deadlocked May general election that produced a hung parliament. The Con-Lib pact’s promise to tighten fiscal policy sharply over the next five years has improved sentiment and even eased fears that the UK might lose its prized triple A credit rating.


Most investors have changed their forecasts for the gilts market in recent months, with some even saying gilt yields could fall further amid ongoing worries over European bank stress tests and the peripheral eurozone economies.


Pimco were not outright sellers of gilts, but set up a relative trade against Bunds, which fund managers say has been profitable.


Gilts have on occasion outperformed German bonds – but since the start of the year Bund yields have fallen more than those of gilts. Ten-year gilt yields have fallen 16 per cent while Bund yields have dropped 20 per cent.



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FT.com / Capital Markets - Pimco caught out by strength of gilts




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