Olympic Torch Relay Cut Short

The Olympic torch relay in Paris has been cut short after chaotic protests by anti-China demonstrators.

The flame had already been extinguished four times by security forces after repeated clashes with pro-Tibet and human rights campaigners.

The city's mayor also cancelled a ceremony to mark the torch's passing as officials draped a Tibetan flag over the city hall's facade.

Mayor Bertrand Delanoe announced the cancellation after Green party members of the city council flew the flag.

Thousands of police sent on to the streets to protect the torch relay as it made its way around the city were unable to prevent demonstrators hijacking the event.

The torch had to be repeatedly extinguished amid safety fears caused by the demonstrations and several activists were arrested.

Two campaigners brandishing a Tibetan flag were arrested for trying to bar the torch's path.

And two members of media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) - which disrupted the lighting of the flame in Athens - were held for trying to vault over the security cordon protecting the torch.

A member of the French Greens party had earlier been restrained by police when trying to grab the torch from the first of 80 torch bearers, former world 400m hurdles champion Stephane Diagana.

Several hundred demonstrators waving banners gathered on the Trocadero esplanade, just the other side of the river Seine from the Eiffel Tower, where the relay started.

Three RSF members climbed up the steel tower and unfurled a 13ft flag showing the five Olympic rings turned into handcuffs.

They then handcuffed themselves to the structure more than 200ft in the air.

Sky News Europe correspondent Greg Milam said extinguishing the flame was significant because the torch was supposed to be kept alight on its journey around the world.

"It's supposed to symbolise peace between nations," he said.

"It's clearly a massive blow to the organisers - the demonstrations along the route have had the desired effect."

Similarly chaotic scenes were seen when the Olympic flame was carried through London.

One demonstrator tried to snatch the torch from former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq, while another attempted to put out the flame with a fire extinguisher.

By the time double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes lit a cauldron at the O2 Arena, some 37 arrests had been made.

International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge has expressed concern at the demonstrations but said there was no momentum for a boycott of the Beijing Games.

Tibet's capital, Lhasa, was hit last month by Buddhist monks' protests against Chinese rule.

The demonstrations, which saw many people killed, sparked widespread media attention across the world.

HA! Serve the Chinese commie bastards right!!!

LEGIS CANTIO CONTRA INEPTOS CRITICOS

It looks like someone didn't appreciate my little rant against the attention-seeking media whore in a local rag and wrote in to complain.

It was fascinating to read Sir C4's scatter-gun and ill-informed diatribe against MP Adam Price, Plaid, the European Union, Cuba and Carmarthenshire Council (Carmarthen Journal, March 12).

I trust his BA (Hons.) thesis was better researched and better presented.

Those of us who wish to be citizens of an independent Wales want our own membership of the EU and our own seat at the United Nations.

In this, we follow the pattern set by the Republic of Ireland as one of the most successful and prosperous nations in Europe, yet still independent, because they have embraced the realities of the 21st Century. None of this is anti-English; I am an Englishman who chooses to live and work in this country.

I wonder if Sir C4' has even visited Cuba, toured the country and met the people as I have.

Yes, there is a concentration camp on the island, where people are incarcerated without charge, without trial, and without access to lawyers, and are subject to the torture that is officially sanctioned by Washington. It is the American base at Guantanamo Bay.

If Sir C4' is reluctant to go to Cuba, he could visit Florida where five Cuban citizens, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez and Ramon Labinino, have been imprisoned in Miami for the past nine years, following a travesty of a trial, which had little to do with justice but a lot to do with US politics.

I would be happy to furnish Sir C4', or anyone else, with full details of the plight of the Miami Five, and anything else that may open closed minds.

Philip D Whitehead
Foelgastell
Cross Hands

Oh dear, I've hurt the feelings of a poor little left-wing hippy. Here is my retort:

I would like to thank Mr. Philip Whitehead for his reply (Journal, March 26) to my previous letter (Journal, March 12). I feel honoured and privileged that he took the time to defend the indefensible.

Does any rational person actually believe that the Irish Republic (or Britain for that matter) is at present a truly independent country within the European Union when it has been the openly stated goal of the EU in all it’s guises over the past fifty-one years to bring about a ever-closer economic, military and political union all the continent’s nations? The EU is the fulfilment of Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler’s shared dream of a sinister European Super-state; an Orwellian nightmare that if it is allowed to usurp our time-honoured traditions of liberty and justice, will reduce our human rights and living standards to those of Cuba (or worse still, North Korea).

I am well aware of the harm Guantanamo Bay does to its inmates and America’s reputation as the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World. I’m also sure that Mr. Whitehead would agree with me that American sanctions against Cuba (as well as Iraq and North Korea among others) have been counter-productive, as the political leadership have exploited them to further entrench their power at the expense of the people whilst simultaneously making America the scapegoats for the hardships of the citizenry.

However, despite these serious injustices and the plight of the Miami Five, the crimes against humanity committed by the Castro clan, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and their cronies cannot be overlooked or excused. Cuba viciously represses dissent against the regime, tortures and executes its people (particular minority groups such as homosexuals and until the mid-1990s, Christians) and exported mass-murder and terrorism to Central and South America, Africa and the rest of the Caribbean during the Cold War. I’m also sure that despite the rights or wrongs of what has happened to the Miami Five, they have been treated far better than poor Normando Hernández González and the fifty-eight other journalists imprisoned in Cuba.

It’s for that reason that I wouldn’t want to visit Cuba or any other third-world socialist hellhole like Venezuela, Zimbabwe and China (though I must confess a certain perverse curiosity to pay a visit to the Stalinist museum / death camp known as North Korea). Yet I can understand how hard it is for apologists like Mr. Whitehead to remove their rose-tinted spectacles (circa 1960s) and realise that all the socialist dogma they consumed with their mothers’ milk was a fatal conceit for billions of people during the last century and still is for over a billion souls to this day. He and his ilk have my pity, the organ grinders of tyranny will have to eat the metaphorically lead of my trusty scatter-gun.

P.S.: LEGIS CANTIO CONTRA INEPTOS CRITICOS.
(Incantation of the law against inept critics.)

Brilliant, don't you agree?!? Only a women's reserve team goalkeeper for Romford Hockey Club could get the better of "Mr. Marmite".

The Price Of Hypocrisy

I have just sent off this letter to two of my local rags:

My friends and I are extremely concerned about the judgement and philosophy of our MP Adam Price. While Mr. Price is to be commended for trying to impeach Tony Blair and for putting Carmarthenshire on the political map, we believe that he seems to be more concerned with developing his own media profile than doing the job he was elected to do and represent us, not himself at Westminster.

Many of Mr. Price’s constituents have found it strange and disappointing that it took him two years to publicly express his opposition to the controversial gas pipeline running though the constituency.

Mr. Price supports his party’s oxymoronic Europe policy, even though it runs contrary to Plaid’s long-term goal of an independent Wales. Does Mr. Price really believe that Welsh lives and issues would be better served in Brussels and Strasburg than they are at present (however imperfectly) in Westminster and Cardiff Bay? An ‘independent’ Wales within the EU isn’t independence at all! Plaid’s policy smacks of anti-English prejudice for it’s own sake rather than a stance based on a conscious, rational process of thought.

Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Mr. Price signed Early Day Motion 982 (February 20) in support of Fidel Castro’s tropical gulag in Cuba. Though Plaid’s leader in Westminster, Elfyn Llwyd’s support for this EDM came as no surprise to me, Mr. Price’s support for an EDM also signed in favour of by controversial figures such as George Galloway and Paul Flynn certain did. Does our MP really believe that liberty and human rights are less important than having supposedly “first-class free healthcare and education provision for the people” and “very good dentistry” as claimed by some other MPs?

Is Mr. Price aware of the plight of journalist Normando Hernández González who has been imprisoned by Castro and his thugs for ‘endangering national security’? Is Mr. Price aware that Mr. Hernández is in poor health, but been denied the right to take up a generous offer of asylum from the government of Costa Rica by his jailers? Is Mr. Price also aware that Cuba jails more journalists than any other nation bar China, with 59 presently in captivity? Would Mr. Price and his Plaid comrades like to see an independent Wales governed according to the Cuban model?!?

It’s ironic that a man that was recently named Gay Politician of the Year and according to his profile on the social networking website “Facebook”, claims to be a Libertarian should give his support for a regime that has outlawed homosexuality and imprisons, even executes gays in labour camps.

Adam Price is not a bad man, but he urgently needs to pay more attention to us, instead his own ego and Elfyn Llwyd, otherwise he may find himself on the dole after the next general election. May I suggest that Mr. Price focus his energies on fighting for a better deal from Carmarthenshire Council, who continue to treat Iori Jones, Trish Breckman, Eddie Roberts and all of us with casual contempt.

I must give credit to FIDO The Dog for some of the background information.

China unveils likely successors to top posts

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party unveiled a new leadership line-up on Monday, including two men positioned to eventually succeed President Hu Jintao and government head Premier Wen Jiabao.

Xi Jinping, who has been chief of Shanghai, and Li Keqiang, who has headed the northeast province of Liaoning, were lifted into the new nine-member Politburo Standing Committee -- the innermost ring of power in this top-down state.

While Xi, 54, and Li, 52, have not been openly designated to replace Hu and Wen five years hence, their age and status leave no doubt they are favoured to reach the apex of power with Xi the frontrunner for now to take Hu's top job.

They will inherit a nation of about 1.4 billion people, including restive peasants and a maturing middle class, an increasingly open and market-driven economy likely be the world's third largest and a one-party state that claims loyalty to Marx while it embraces capitalism.

"Comrades Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are two quite young comrades," was all carefully spoken Hu said of them when presenting them before hundreds of reporters and flashing cameras.

Their rise marked Hu's growing grip on power as he shed the residual influence of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. But the next five years will test Hu's power to secure an untroubled succession in an era when no leader commands absolute loyalty.

"Hu's power has emerged greatly consolidated," said Li Datong, a former editor at a Party paper. "He has his own line-up now; Jiang's out of the picture."

The nine men in dark suits emerged after a tightly controlled vote by the 204-member Party Central Committee, installed at the end of the Party's five-yearly Congress on Sunday.

Xi filed into the chamber at the Great Hall of the People directly ahead of Li, but there was no definitive sign of which man was favoured for which top job.

"Xi came out ranked first, so that suggests that he has a bigger chance of becoming Party general secretary, but there are a lot of factors that can change in five years," said Zhang Zuhua, a former official.

Hu was widely believed to favour Li, who worked under him in the Communist Youth League, and Xi's rise might reflect officials' reluctance to allow the Party boss to hand-pick his successor.

But both men would be acceptable to Hu, said the ex-editor Li, and state media have stressed that Hu expects the new leadership to work together and avoid damaging rivalry.

"To fulfil the Party's mission in power it must have a staunchly unified collective leadership," says an editorial to appear in the People's Daily that Xinhua news agency released late on Monday. It urges the country to unite around Hu.

Hu stays as Party boss, as well as President and head of the Central Military Commission, for five more years, while Wen will continuing managing the government and its ministries.

The Standing Committee retained parliament chief Wu Bangguo and two leaders installed under the previous Party chief, Jiang Zemin -- Li Changchun, who has been propaganda boss, and Jia Qinglin, head of the advisory council attached to the parliament.

The line-up also includes He Guoqiang, set to take control of Party organisation and fighting corruption, and Zhou Yongkang, whose background in policing puts him in line to replace Luo Gan, the previous domestic security boss.

The three members of the outgoing Standing Committee who stepped down included Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, a powerful figure installed by Jiang. Both He Guoqiang and Zhou have past work ties to Zeng, who appears to have promoted their rise.

The death of Vice-Premier Huang Ju in June left a fourth vacancy.

BALANCING INTERESTS

Analysts said the mixture of recruits -- some personally close to Hu, others not -- reflected his bid to balance regions and interests and also limits his power to dictate outcomes.

Li Keqiang worked under Hu in the 1980s, before postings in Henan, a poor and unruly rural province in central China, and Liaoning, a rustbelt province striving to attract investment and emerge as a modern manufacturing base.

Before taking over as party boss of Shanghai earlier this year, Xi Jinping steered two of the country's fastest-growing provinces, Fujian and Zhejiang -- attractive credentials in a government where economic modernisation dominates priorities.

"We must certainly grasp development as the top task of this Party in governing and reviving the country," Hu said.

But the retention of Jia, a protege of Jiang's, was a reminder that the new leadership was not Hu's to choose at will. Jia has long been dogged by claims he let corruption run rampant in coastal Fujian province in the 1990s.

At 67, Jia was young enough to escape an informal retirement rule forcing out leaders born before 1940 -- a demand that apparently claimed Zeng.

US trade deficit shrinks to $57.6 billion

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US trade deficit shrunk to 57.6 billion dollars in August, as rising exports offset higher costs for imported oil, government data showed Thursday.

Adjusted for inflation, it was the lowest level since February 2004, and in absolute terms the lowest since January, Commerce Department figures showed.

The trade gap was also better than the average analyst expectation of a deficit of 59.5 billion dollars, and marked a 2.4 percent drop from July's revised figure of 59 billion dollars.

Exports rose 0.4 percent in August to a record 138.3 billion dollars, helped by the weak dollar. Imports meanwhile fell 0.4 percent to 195.9 billion dollars.

Oil prices remained a big factor in the deficit, accounting for 24.3 billion dollars of the deficit, with the average price of an imported barrel hitting a record 69.09 dollars.

The other big factor in the deficit was China, which accounted for 22.5 billion dollars of the deficit even though the figure was down 5.4 percent for the month.

26.9.2007 - The Day We Lost The Next General Election

This statement by Iain Dale was our declaration of surrender:

"There was one bit of the [Gordon] Brown speech on Monday that caught my eye, but which no one seems to have remarked upon, and it was this sentence:

We should take pride that, under a Labour government, Britain - this small number of people on this small island - is the fifth largest economy in the world.

Didn't we always use to say we were the fourth largest? This happened, of course, under Brown's watch -- in Dec 2005. I think it's strange no one's pointed that particular line out -- seems a strange thing to boast about. 'Under this Labour government, we’ve lost our position as the fourth largest economy in the world…'."

As much as I despise Adolf Blair and Gordon McStalin, they cannot be blamed for this development. The real reason for this development is the rise of Communist China's economy, which is currently growing at over 11% a quarter due to cheap labour costs and massive inward investment. Let us also not forget that China is still a developing country and that the total population of that country stands at around 1.5 BILLION people compared to only the 60 million that live in developed-world Britain.

Iain Dale (whose reputation as a serious political blogger has already been damaged by his hopelessly over-optimistic predictions about Conservative success at the Earling Southall by-election, his sycophantic courting of David "Heir To Adolf Blair" Cameron The Cuntarse in return for a safe parliamentary seat at the next general election and his lack of a thick-skin when it comes to satire about himself from other bloggers) has killed his own credibility as an analyst with such a feeble and ill-researched line of attack on McStalin's economic record. Not only that, he has also in effect, held up and waved the white flag of surrender to a gloating Labour party at the next general election on behalf of the Tories. If I were David Davis and Herr Dale were still my Chief of Staff, I would sack him for his incompetence.

And to think that this man was recently voted as Britain's top right-wing blogger. Maybe the right-wing blogosphere isn't in such rude health as Herr Nice But DimsDale claims?!?

China frees New York Times reporter

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese journalist jailed while working for the New York Times was released on Saturday, ending a controversial prison term that highlighted the country's tough media controls.

Zhao Yan, looking noticeably thinner, was greeted by a small group of family and friends, including his daughter and sister, when he emerged from prison.

"These three years I have missed my family very much, especially my maternal grandmother, who is now more than 100 years old," Zhao said in a written statement.

"For that reason, I want some time to reunite with my family. After a short time, I hope to see many other friends and members of the media," Zhao said.

He added that he planned to make a longer statement expressing his views in the near future.

Zhao, who reported on official abuses, was sentenced to three years in prison for fraud in August 2006 -- a charge he denied.

He was detained in 2004 on accusations that included leaking state secrets after the Times reported former president Jiang Zemin was likely to give up his post as chairman of the Central Military Commission, which Jiang did shortly afterwards.

Zhao was accused of telling the newspaper about claims of rivalry between Jiang and his successor Hu Jintao. The Times has said the charge was groundless.

"We have said all along that Zhao Yan is an honourable, hard-working reporter whose only offence seems to have been practising journalism," Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, said in a statement.

"It is our expectation that Zhao Yan, having served his full three-year term, will now be able to resume his life and return to his chosen profession without restrictions."

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group that campaigns against media restrictions, said on Friday Zhao should have all his rights restored, including the right to work as a journalist.

China holds 35 journalists and 51 cyber-dissidents in prison "just for exercising their right to inform", the group said.

Zhao, an ex-cop with the gruff twang of a northeast China native, joined the Times Beijing office in 2004, after working as an investigative journalist for Chinese publications, mixing exposes of corruption and rural suffering with rights advocacy.

His case became the focus of intense campaigning by international human rights groups, which said he was a victim of the ruling Communist Party's capricious use of secrecy laws to stifle news. Senior U.S. diplomats also urged his release.

That pressure may have encouraged a Beijing court to unexpectedly reject the state secrets charge against Zhao, which would have attracted a sentence of 10 years or longer.

The court did find Zhao guilty of fraud, saying he took 20,000 yuan (1,326 pounds) from a village official in 2001 on the unfulfilled promise of helping the official avoid "labour re-education" -- a form of imprisonment.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China urged Chinese authorities to bring the country's state secrets and national security legislation in line with international norms.

It said in a statement that Zhao's case, along with the conviction of Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times, on espionage charges had alarmed many China-based foreign correspondents.

"Zhao's case has highlighted the problem of harassment and intimidation of journalists in China.

We hope his release will mark the beginning of the end for such practices, which are not in keeping with China's aspirations, nor the world's expectations of an Olympic host," the group said.

Chinese army hackers 'target Whitehall'

The Government is remaining silent over claims that Chinese army computer hackers have broken into computer systems in Whitehall.

They have reportedly targeted the Foreign Office and caused the House of Commons computer to breakdown.

The Foreign Office has refused to discuss the claims, saying only: "We do not comment on security issues."

Andrew MacKinlay, a Labour member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said it seemed clear that the cyber-attacks had the acquiescence, at least, of the Chinese authorities.

He is urging Ministers to take a more robust stance with Beijing over the claims.

Mr MacKinlay insists that the public and Parliament have a right to be told if the UK is becoming the target of a phenomenon known as "patriotic hacking" - when computer experts use their skills to attack the vital networks of perceived enemies of their nation.

He said that his attempts to prise information from the Government about the scale of the problem had been stonewalled by Ministers including former foreign secretary Jack Straw, now Justice Secretary.

Mr MacKinlay said: "I am frustrated. This is clearly an area where the Government have decided not to comment. My questions were clearly unwelcome.

"The security and intelligence services and Foreign Office did not want this to come out into the public domain.

"This is happening against a backdrop where, on a whole range of foreign policy issues, the British Government is very weak. They seek to appease the Chinese. They should be more robust and indignant.

"We do not send out the right signal on this. Beijing know about it and, at the least, they acquiesce in it."

There was clearly a political motive behind the attacks, said Mr MacKinlay, who dismissed the idea that the hackers were simply "computer nerds" acting alone.

The most plausible theories on why the Chinese authorities might choose to foster patriotic hacking were either to test its potential as a weapon for use in future conflicts or simply to send a signal to other great powers that they have the capability to do so, he said.

Alex Neill, head of the Asia Security Programme at the Royal United Services Institute, said cyber-attacks by the Chinese had been taking place for at least four years.

He said that they reflected a new PLA doctrine of "pressure point warfare" - attacking specific nodes to leave an adversary paralysed.

If these Chinese commie scum want a cyber-war, we should be prepared to play them at their own game and see how they like being hacked. The same applies to Russia.