I Am An Evil Super GENIUS!!!: Chavs' Army

Earlier today, I saw an advertisement from the BBC requesting people to submit their ideas for the new series of one of my favourite Radio Four shows, Dave Gorman's Genius. Never one to pass up a golden opportunity for self-advancement like this, I submitted this politically incorrect but brilliant Genius idea:

Sending chavs abroad to fight our wars.

My Genius idea is to send Britain's chavs abroad to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble-spots. This would kill three birds with one stone as not only would it cut crime at home, but the chavs and Al-Qaeda would also wipe-out each other on the desert battlefields.

My Genius idea would save taxpayers billions as chavs wouldn't need uniforms (they're already instantly recognisable by their hooded tops, Burberry and fake bling), high-tech weaponry (as most chavs already carry their own guns, knives, baseball bats and broken beer bottles) or training (as they spend hundreds of hours playing Grand Theft Auto IV and Halo 3 on their X-Box 360s and kill each other for real on the streets).

We could even sell our chavs' services to foreign powers such the United States in their quest to invade Iran, Syria and North Korea in order to bring in some extra revenue for the government.

In conclusion, chavs are cheap, expendable cannon fodder. They would obey orders without question because chavs are either drunk, high on drugs, stupid or all three. It would cut crime at home while simultaneously providing our enemies with an inexhaustible supply of violent, fearless and beer-soaked infidels from council-housing estates to eliminate during their martyrdom missions. The only costs that would be incurred by my Genius idea would be transportation and the government subsiding free beer for chavs to consume at recruitment events across Britain’s council-housing estates.

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".

Quote of the Day 18.1.2008

"The usual terminology of political language is stupid. What is 'left' and what is 'right'? Why should Hitler be 'right' and Stalin, his temporary friend, be 'left'? Who is 'reactionary' and who is 'progressive'? Reaction against an unwise policy is not to be condemned. And progress towards chaos is not to be commended. Nothing should find acceptance just because it is new, radical, and fashionable. 'Orthodoxy' is not an evil if the doctrine on which the 'orthodox' stand is sound. Who is anti-labor, those who want to lower labor to the Russian level, or those who want for labor the capitalistic standard of the United States? Who is 'nationalist,' those who want to bring their nation under the heel of the Nazis, or those who want to preserve its independence?" - Ludwig von Mises; Interventionism, An Economic Analysis (1940)

North Korea says to be cut from terror list

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Monday the United States had agreed to remove it from its list of countries that support terrorism, a move Pyongyang has long sought to receive more aid and hopefully end its status as a global pariah.

The chief U.S. negotiator has hinted that Washington could remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism before it completely gives up its nuclear arms programme.

But his government has not said it has decided to strike Pyongyang from the list, which currently also includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

North Korea said it agreed in talks at the weekend in Geneva with the United States to take "practical measures to neutralise the existing nuclear facilities in the DPRK (North Korea) within this year," its KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

"In return for this, the U.S. decided to take such political and economic measures for compensation as delisting the DPRK as a terrorism sponsor and lifting all sanctions that have been applied according to the Trading with the Enemy Act," the unnamed spokesman was cited as saying.

U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said in Geneva that the communist state had agreed to fully account for and disable its nuclear programme by the end of the year but he did not say what, if anything, he had offered in return for the latest pledge.

He confirmed the delegations had discussed the terms under which Washington would drop North Korea from its terrorism list.

Pyongyang was put on the U.S. terrorism list based on the confession of a North Korean agent over the mid-air explosion of a South Korean passenger jet over the sea off Myanmar in 1987.

The designation imposes a ban on arms-related sales, keeps the economically isolated country from receiving U.S. economic aid and requires the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions.

PICKING UP SPEED

The North Korean announcement comes amid a flow of positive developments to rid it of nuclear arms.

This is in stark contrast to a year ago when the reclusive state was further isolated for a defiant missile test in July 2006 and its first nuclear test three months later, which led to U.N. sanctions and a blow to its sparse international trade.

After months of sputtering diplomacy, impoverished North Korea agreed in February at six-country talks to start winding down its nuclear programme in exchange for energy aid.

In July, it shut a Soviet-era reactor and plant that turns spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium.

It also invited back U.N. nuclear watchdog personnel for the first time since late 2002, when Pyongyang threw them out of the country after a 1994 disarmament deal collapsed.

North Korea's already anaemic economy was dealt a heavy blow by flooding last month that killed hundreds and inflicted widespread damage to its farm and manufacturing sectors.

It would be a big mistake for the U.S. to remove the evil fascist North Korean regime from the list of terrorist states due to the way it treats it's own people.

U.S., North Korea meet for one-on-one nuclear talks

GENEVA (Reuters) - Top negotiators from the United States and North Korea met on Saturday for two days of talks meant to advance an international drive to end Pyongyang's nuclear program.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan did not speak to the press on arrival at the U.S. mission in Geneva, where the first day of the weekend talks began.

Their session, aimed at normalizing relations between the countries that fought each other in the 1950-53 Korean War, is expected to focus on how the Stalinist state will disable and account for its nuclear facilities, as promised in a February "six-party" deal.

Hill has also signalled Washington was ready to talk about dropping North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. That designation imposes a ban on arms-related sales and keeps North Korea from getting some types of aid.

"We will be figuring out at what stage that could be done," he told reporters on his arrival in the Swiss city on Thursday. "I'm not prepared to say precisely when it could be done at this point, but obviously it's an important issue with respect to our working group."

Hill is due to hold a news conference after Saturday's session, and at the end of the weekend meetings on Sunday. Kim has not scheduled any formal encounters with the press. He told Reuters Television at the North Korean mission late on Thursday: "It should be a good meeting, I hope."

North Korea agreed in principle in 2005 in six-way talks with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States to abandon its nuclear program in return for economic and diplomatic benefits, though progress has been slow since.

Under a February 13 deal between the six countries, North Korea said it would disable its nuclear facilities and give a full accounting of its entire nuclear program, though details of how it would do so have not been made clear.

U.S. officials believe that North Korea, which tested a nuclear device in October, may have enough nuclear fuel to make more than eight or nine atomic weapons. Hill stressed that the United States wanted to see details of North Korea's uranium enrichment in its full declaration.

The weekend talks, part of a series of bilateral meetings North Korea is holding as part of the six-party framework, are also expected to touch on the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea -- an emotive issue in Japan.

Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese, five of whom have since been repatriated. North Korea has said the other eight are dead. U.S. President George W. Bush has supported Tokyo's call for more details about their fate.

Hill sidestepped questions about whether international diplomacy should also be employed in other areas where nuclear programs have emerged as a concern, such as Iran.

"We have a tough situation in Northeast Asia. This nuclear issue is a tough one. We're trying to solve it the best way we can. If there are lessons to be learned, if there are positive lessons, that's excellent. But I would caution against people thinking that you can take one solution and use it everywhere."

N. Korea reactor closure date needs 6-way talks -IAEA

BEIJING (Reuters) - The date when North Korea shuts its nuclear reactor now rests on discussions between it and five other countries that signed a disarmament deal, a U.N. nuclear watchdog official said on Saturday after talks in Pyongyang.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official Olli Heinonen told reporters in Beijing his negotiations in North Korea had clarified how the IAEA will monitor the planned closing of the Yongbyon reactor.

"We have now reached an understanding on how we are going to monitor sealing and shutting down of the Yongbyon facility," IAEA Nuclear Safeguards Director Heinonen told reporters after arriving from Pyongyang after several days of meetings.

But he stressed the timing of the long-negotiated shutdown needed consultation between North Korea and other countries in six-party talks to iron out details.

"The next logical step is that they talk with each other and agree on technical arrangements. The IAEA doesn't have any role on that," Heinonen said.

"I think that they will take the shutdown as soon as they agree with their partners about the timing," he added later.

The six-party talks involving North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China struck a deal in February, under which Pyongyang would receive aid and security steps in return for moving to scrap its nuclear arms programmes.

But the IAEA, as the guardian of international nuclear safeguards, will monitor and verify the disarmament steps.

The deal was stalled for weeks by a dispute over some $25 million (12.44 million pounds) in North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank under pressure from Washington.

Following the release of the funds, North Korea agreed to implement the deal.

Heinonen said he visited five "major facilities" at the Yongbyon complex, about 100 km (60 miles) from the capital -- the first trip there by an IAEA official since Pyongyang kicked out the Vienna-based agency in December 2002.

The working Yongbyon reactor produces plutonium, which can be processed for nuclear weapons.

A return by agency inspectors would probably involve "quite a few people" so closure could move quickly, Heinonen said.

After expelling nuclear inspectors, the communist state left the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, indicated it had atomic weapons and last year conducted its first nuclear test explosion.
Heinonen indicated his talks in North Korea did not cover its possible return to the IAEA and Non-Proliferation Treaty, saying those issues were "perhaps premature".

He said he would report to the IAEA board of governors, which must approve the agency's plans to return to North Korea.

Meanwhile in South Korea on Saturday, an official said the first shipment of rice aid to North Korea in two years had been sent to North Korea after it pledged to begin implementing the nuclear disarmament deal.

South Korea refused to give the aid last year after the North defied international warnings and test-fired a barrage of missiles in July and deepened tensions with its first nuclear test in October. The last shipment was sent in December 2005.

South Korea has said it was ready to provide the North with 400,000 tones of rice this year. The first shipment of 3,000 tonnes left the port of Gunsan bound for Nampo on the North's west coast, a port official said by telephone.

South Korea is in two-day talks with the North on a separate shipment of heavy fuel oil under the six-party deal.

U.S. expects N.Korea reactor shut in weeks

TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States expects North Korea to shut down the reactor at the heart of its atomic arms development within about three weeks, top U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said on Saturday.

Progress on disabling Pyongyang's nuclear programme may be expedited by the transfer to a North Korean account of $25 million (12.5 million pounds) in cash that had been frozen in Macau at Washington's behest. Russian news agencies quoted Finance Ministry officials as saying on Saturday the transaction had been completed.

Hill, who made a brief trip to the isolated East Asian state this week, also said the next round of six-party talks on scrapping Pyongyang's nuclear programme would take place after the shutdown began, most likely in the early part of July.

Shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor would take place after North Korea had reached agreement with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on monitoring the operation, Hill told reporters in Tokyo.

"Well, we expect Yongbyon to be shut down after there is an agreement between the DPRK and the IAEA on how to monitor this shutdown," Hill said after talks with his Japanese counterpart, Kenichiro Sasae.

"We do expect this to take place soon, and within probably three weeks, I don't want to be pinned down on precisely the day."

UNFROZEN FUNDS

North Korea said on Saturday it would begin implementing the nuclear disarmament deal it agreed with top regional powers on February 13 as soon as it recovered funds long frozen in Macau.

Pyongyang committed itself to closing down Yongbyon, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium, in the February deal with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, in exchange for energy aid.

Progress was stalled by a row over the release of some $25 million of Pyongyang's funds blocked in Macau.

Interfax news agency reported a Finance Ministry official as saying on Saturday that the full amount had been transferred into a North Korean account at Khabarovsk-based Dalkombank in Russia.

An IAEA delegation is due in North Korea on Tuesday to help draw up plans for the reactor shutdown.

Hill said that in North Korea he had raised the issue of Japanese citizens kidnapped decades ago by Pyongyang, a highly emotive issue that prompted Tokyo refuse to provide aid under the February 13 accord until it saw progress.

The U.S. diplomat said he had received no new answers on the fate of the abductees, seized to help train North Korean spies, but added: "I think any time you can meet DPRK officials and raise the abduction issue, it's good."

Easing Tokyo's stance on Pyongyang could be tough for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ahead of an election expected in July.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman quoted by state media said that, during Hill's visit, both sides had agreed to consider resuming the six-party talks in the first half of July.

Hill said he did not know if the next round of six-way talks would take place after the Yongbyon shutdown was under way or only once it was fully completed.

"I think we would expect it to happen soon after the shutdown begins," he said, but cautioned that closing the nuclear facility was just the start of the process.

"Shutting down the reactor does not solve all our problems," he said. "There is a lot of work to do, I think."

Activity seen near North Korea nuclear reactor

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean intelligence official said on Wednesday that increased activity had been spotted at North Korea's nuclear reactor, which local media has said could suggest it is being closed down.

A U.S. official, however, said that Washington had not seen any sign North Korea had begun mothballing its Yongbyon nuclear plant -- source of weapons-grade plutonium -- as required under a February 13 disarmament agreement.

"We have seen unusual activity around the nuclear reactor so we are currently following and analysing this," said a National Intelligence Service official, who asked not to be named.

But he added the government did not conclude that this meant, as some local media reports had suggested, that Pyongyang was taking steps to finally shut down the reactor.

The Dong-A Ilbo daily earlier quoted intelligence sources as saying satellite photographs showed increased vehicle and personnel movements near the secretive state's reactor site.

The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said news reports in South Korean media are "just not accurate ... We have seen no actions on the North Koreans' part that at this point leads us to believe they are fulfilling their part of the 60-day actions".

Under the February 13 agreement reached by the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, Pyongyang had until last Saturday to start the shutdown and invite back U.N. nuclear inspectors.

However, it has refused until it can access funds frozen for more than a year in a Macau bank.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on Wednesday that the last-minute haggling over when North Korea will start closing the nuclear plant would be resolved.

"There were some unpredictable technical problems that have delayed implementation. Both sides are making efforts and those problems are almost resolved," Roh told a news conference.

"The delay will not nullify the agreement," he said.

South Korean officials went to Pyongyang for economic talks with the North, with Seoul indicating it could hold off on sending rice aid to its neighbour that battles chronic food shortages if Pyongyang does not start shutting the reactor.

South Korea cut off its regular food handouts after the North test fired missiles in July. The North stormed out of their last economic meeting shortly after that in anger over the aid cut.

North Korea nuke talks heat up

The UN nuclear watchdog head has arrived in North Korea and said he is hopeful progress can be made on closing its atomic facilities.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have not visited North Korea since the hermit state expelled them in late 2002 as a disarmament deal fell apart.

The impoverished nation agreed to admit the watchdog as part of a new accord reached in February this year.

The IAEA will play a key role in verifying whether it meets a commitment to shut down the Yongbyon reactor at the heart of its nuclear programme.

"I hope we should be able to make some progress," IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters before leaving Beijing.

He hoped his agency could "work closer with the DPRK after many years of estrangement", referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Under the February deal, cut at six-party talks in Beijing that group the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia, North Korea agreed to shut Yongbyon by mid-April in return for an infusion of energy aid and security assurances.

"This is an important part of the six-party talks' implementing of the initial steps," Mr ElBaradei said of his trip.

"I think obviously these initial steps will be important, significant in fact, in moving the six-party talks forward."

One US official expressed confidence that North Korea would make good on its pledge to shut down Yongbyon.

"It can be done in a short period of time (and) we're reasonably confident they will take that step," the official said.

But others said it was still too soon to make predictions.

"My understanding is that some of what we have seen in recent weeks is maintenance and the like, but we'll have a better idea after ElBaradei visits this week," a second US official said.

N.Korea agrees on disarmament steps

BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea agreed to take steps towards nuclear disarmament under a groundbreaking deal struck on Tuesday that will bring the impoverished communist state more than $300 million (154 million pounds) worth of aid.

Under the agreement, which was reached by six countries in Beijing after nearly a week of talks, Pyongyang will freeze the reactor at the heart of its nuclear programme and allow international inspections of the site.

"This progress marks another firm and important step towards the denuclearisation of the peninsula," China's chief delegate, Wu Dawei, told the closing session of the talks, which was carried live on television from the heavily guarded Diaoyutai state guesthouse.

"It is favourable for the peace process in northeast Asia and for the improvement of ties between relevant countries," he said, after which delegates rose hesitatingly to their feet in restrained applause.

The proposed plan hammered out by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia, and China will only be the first step in locating and dismantling North Korea's nuclear arms activities, leaving many crucial questions to future negotiations.

"This is only one phase of denuclearisation. We're not done," chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said.

As details of the draft leaked out earlier, Japan was already voicing doubt that any agreement could be made to stick, and a prominent U.S. conservative decried it as a "very bad deal".

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Communist state should not be rewarded with "massive shipments of heavy fuel oil" for only partially dismantling its nuclear programme.

"It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world," he told CNN.

OIL, POWER MAY FOLLOW

Under the agreement, North Korea must take the steps within 60 days, and in return it will receive 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil or economic aid of equal value.

It will receive another 950,000 tonnes of fuel oil or equivalent when it takes further steps to disable its nuclear capabilities, including providing a complete inventory of its plutonium -- the fuel used in Pyongyang's first nuclear test blast in October.

The 1 million tonnes of fuel would be worth around $300 million at current prices for heavy fuel oil, which is used in power stations, shipping and elsewhere.

The steps for now do not involve the provision of 2,000 megawatts of electricity that South Korea pledged in a September 2005 deal reached by the six countries. That is reserved for after the completion of denuclearisation of North Korea.

The electricity, at an estimated cost of $8.55 billion over 10 years, would be about equal to North Korea's current output.

The Beijing talks had focussed on how to begin implementing a September 2005 accord that offered Pyongyang aid and security assurances in return for dismantling its weapons capabilities.

The United States would contribute to the infusion of oil and aid for North Korea, meaning that President George W. Bush must win Congressional approval for the deal, the New York Times reported.

North Korea stepped down the path to nuclear disarmament before, in a 1994 agreement with the Clinton administration that also promised aid.

But that Joint Framework agreement fell apart amid accusations of bad faith between Pyongyang and Washington, and the agreement collapsed in late 2002 after Washington accused North Korea of seeking to produce weapons-grade uranium.

A gulf of distrust divides the isolated North from others in the talks, especially the United States. Diplomats have stressed that even this new initial disarmament action could founder.

"This is a first step," Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a telephone call, Kyodo reported. "Whether it actually goes ahead remains to be seen. We do not know whether it will go ahead just because it has been signed."

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Nick Macfie, Lindsay Beck, Ian Ransom and Teruaki Ueno in Beijing)