Egypt's Draft Constitution.

On Saturday (15/12/12) voters in Egypt will go to the polls in a referendum to either approve or reject the nations post-revolution constitution. The official Arabic text of the document can be viewed here; http://www.sis.gov.eg/Newvr/constitution2012.pdf and the English translation that I've been working from can be viewed here; http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/egypt-s-draft-constitution-translated

On reading the proposed constitution the first problem that becomes apparent is that large sections of it would seem more at home in the manifesto of a political party rather then in the constitutional basis for a sovereign state. For example Article 17 puts a constitutional obligation on the Egyptian state to foster small handicraft industries. This may be a very good idea and may be very popular now but in 50, 75 or 100 years the Egyptian economy may well have moved on from small handicraft industries. As a result this article will at best become redundant and at worst might actually prove damaging by forcing the government to spend a portion of money every year on something nobody wants or needs in order to fulfil the constitutional obligation. Therefore I think that this along with things like Article 58 which places an obligation on the state to extend the take up of higher education are things that an elected government should achieve through statute rather then through the constitution. A more serious example of this problem is probably Article 27 which gives workers representation (up to 50%) on the boards of public and private enterprises. One of the driving factors of the Egyptian revolution was high unemployment brought about by a sluggish economy built around outdated and discredited Communist principles. The notion of the workers being able to share in the management and profits of a private enterprise is one of those key Communist principles. So making it a constitutional obligation  is only likely to damage Egypt's economy further. That said my political background means I'm actually a big fan of things like workers co-operatives. However while I think that the state most certainly shouldn't legislate against them it shouldn't be making them compulsory and most certainly shouldn't be making them a cornerstone of national identity by including them in the constitution.

Once you delve further into the draft constitution is becomes clear that these populist articles and the noble language of the preamble have been included in a cynical attempt to get people to vote for a constitution that has a thinly veiled Islamist agenda and places a worrying amount of power in the hands of the President. For the most part that Islamist agenda is very subtle such as in the oaths of office to be taken by members of the House of Representatives, the President and the Prime Minister outlined in Articles 86, 137 and 157. These oaths all require the person taking them to swear in front of "Almighty God." With Article 219 referring to the importance of the principles of Sunni Islam it is quite clear that the Almighty God mentioned is the Sunni Muslim interpretation of god making this a difficult oath for a Christian Egyptian or even a Shia Egyptian to take. Even things like Articles 43 and 44 which guarantees freedom of religion and prohibits the insulting of religious messengers which seem fair and balanced conceal an Islamist agenda. Due to very old and restrictive Egyptian laws governing the way that Christian Churches operate far from ensuring religious freedom the inclusion of the "as regulated by law" phrase of Article 43 actually makes it much easier for the Egyptian state to persecute religious minorities. Although it doesn't say it explicitly Article 44 is clearly designed to stop people insulting the Prophet Mohamed and paves the way for something similar to Pakistan's controversial anti-blasphemy laws. In fact as an article of the constitution it actually probably goes further then Pakistan's laws. Similarly Articles 10 and 11 which place religion and morality as the basis for Egyptian society and place and obligation on the state to uphold public morality respectively seem to be paving the way for Saudi, Pakistani or Iranian style morality police who patrol the streets making sure that women adhere to strict dress codes and unmarried couples don't speak to each other.

The Islamist agenda even extends to areas you would not expect such as Article 117 which requires the national budget to achieve a balance between income and expenditure and Article 121 which prevents the Executive Authority from obtaining any sort of loan without the approval of the House of Representatives. Although Egypt's debt to GDP ratio is a bit on the high side at around 75% and the Eurozone crisis has led to national debt being unpopular the world over this seems to be an attempt to force Egypt to run it's economy in line Sharia banking principles that prevent the charges of interest on loans and generally discourages the taking out of loans all together. Again if this is an economic policy that an elected Islamist government wants to follow they should be free to. However by making it a constitutional obligation it makes things very difficult for any future government that hasn't been elected with an Islamist mandate. This article is likely to cause very immediate problems for Egypt because the nation is currently in the process of negotiating crisis loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help ease it's economic turmoil. As Egypt's House of Representatives is currently suspended Article 121 if passed will make it impossible for Egypt to take up any IMF loan.

The Islamist agenda is probably at it's most overt in Article 4 which places a obligation on the Egyptian state and by extension people to provide the Al-Azhar Mosque/University with sufficient funds to "achieve it's objectives" which appear to be advising the government on Islamic law. From a secular perspective the most alarming articles are Article 2 and Article 3. Article 2 sets out Islamic Sharia as the principle source of legislation while Article 3 sets out the principles of Christianity and Judaism for the personal status laws Egypt's Christians and Jews. In these few simple lines Egypt's constitution will, if adopted, create a two tier society with Sunni Muslims at the top and Christians and Jews in a lower class. From a secular perspective this is simply unacceptable and although it seems to have become a dirty word in Egypt Secularism does not mean Atheism. Instead it means creating a separation between religion and politics so people be they Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Sufi Muslims, Salafi Muslims, Christians, Buddhists or Jews can all practise their religion (all of which worship the same God) without the interference of the state.

As with the Islamist agenda the biggest problem with the draft constitution - the sweeping powers given to the President - are shown in a number of small and subtle articles. These include Article 54 which gives Egyptian citizens the right to address public authorities under their own names. This is obviously a right that Egyptians have gained through the revolution. However the stipulation that this must be done in the name of the individual rather then in the name of a group seems like a recipe for the state building a database of known trouble makers which is the first step towards political oppression. The right to public assembly/demonstration based on notification by law guaranteed by Article 50 is a prime example of this. The provision of Article 54 means that in order to lawfully exercise their right to public demonstration the protest organisers must apply for permission under their own names rather then semi-anonymously as part of a protest group. That makes it very easy for the state's authorities to identify protest organisers in order to arrest, harass and intimidate them and you only need to look at the revolution to see how badly that can end. Another example of the state trying to suppress political dissent is Article 53 which stipulates that there can only be one trade union per profession. If there is only one trade union it makes it very easy for agents of the state to infiltrate and control the actions of that trade union. This is actually something my father did in Britain's National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) in the 1970's.

The much more significant power grabs the draft constitution gives to the President are the almost sovereign powers it grants the President over the main apparatus of state security - the police and the military. Article 146 makes the President the Supreme Commander of the armed forces and Article 147 gives him sole power to appoint and dismiss members of the military leadership. While Article 146 stipulates that the President must receive the approval of the House of Representatives to declare war or deploy the military outside of Egypt's borders there is no such requirement for military operations within Egypt's borders. This very much leaves the military as a play thing of the President which can be used against the Egyptian people - something that was a significant problem under Mubarak. A better alternative would be to make the military the property of the Egyptian people sworn to protect the constitution and the values of the revolution. It's Supreme Commander should be someone chosen by the military itself but approved by both the President and the House of Representatives. In order to declare war or deploy outside of Egypt's borders there must be triple agreement between the President, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Commander. For deployment within Egypt's borders there need only be agreement between the Supreme Commander and the President or agreement between the Supreme Commander and the House of Representatives. This would allow the Egyptian military to side with the Egyptian people against any future President who starts behaving like a dictator. The same problem exists with the police with Article 199 making the President the Supreme Chief of police. This is a recipe for a political police force. A far better alternative would be to make the police an independent body sworn to uphold the constitution and the law which selects it's own Supreme Chief with the approval of the Minister for the Interior. This would make Egypt's police force an apolitical body better able to uphold the law regardless of who may be trying to break it.

The most serious and fundamental problem with Egypt's draft constitution is the way it envisions Egypt's political system working. Having a Head of State (the President) overseeing a partially elected upper house (the Shura Council) and a fully elected lower house (the House of Representatives) Egypt seems to be modelling itself on a British style Parliamentary democracy only with an elected Head of State rather then a Monarch. In order for this system of government to work there needs to be a strong lower house led by a strong Prime Minister to protect the interests of the people and counter-balance the power of the Head of State. The semi-elected upper house is supposed to act as a buffer between the two helping to negotiate compromise. Egypt's draft constitution simply has no intention of doing any of this. Article 139 gives the President the power to appoint the Prime Minister turning the office into nothing more then the President's deputy. Article 140 makes the President responsible for all policy and leaves the Cabinet appointed by the Prime Minister as simple tools tasked with doing the President's bidding. Article 128 grants the President the power to appoint 10% (15 members) of the Shura Council. Assuming that the President's party will be represented in the elected membership of the Shura Council this 10% guarantees the President a majority on every vote turning the Shura Council into a simple rubber-stamping body. A more democratic alternative would be for the largest party/bloc in the House of Representatives to choose the Prime Minister who would then appoint the Cabinet and work with the President to shape and implement policy. The President and the Prime Minister should both be able to appoint 6% (9 members) of the Shura Council to ensure balance.

So for this very long list of quite complicated reasons I urge Egyptians to vote to reject this draft constitution and they will have to vote. As with the Presidential election the Muslim Brotherhood will mobilise their members to vote for the draft constitution in large numbers. Therefore the opposition must vote in equally large numbers to stop them and prevent the constitution being adopted.

The Olympic Closing Ceremony.

As I've previously mentioned the Olympic Closing Ceremony was inspired by the concept of an iPod on constant shuffle. Therefore it is difficult to divide neatly into acts.

However the introduction featured "Emile Sande" off of the opening ceremony who we later learned would play a big part in the closing ceremony. Really her main problem is that her debut single "Heaven" didn't go straight to number 1 to calm Britain after the August 6th 2011 (6/8/11) riots. After she'd sung the first few bars of her second single "Read All About It" the camera panned back to reveal a stage depicting the streets of London displayed in the form of the Union (Jack) Flag (St Georges Cross overlayed with a St Andrews Cross on a newspaper coloured background). Around these streets tore newspaper covered cars including the series 1 mini designed to remind us of the 1960's and Italian cool. The chaos and noise was designed to remind us of the chaos that the Olympics coming to London had caused. Then "Timothy Spall" appeared dressed as "Winston Churchill" from the top of the 'Big Ben' clock tower model in the centre of the stage and recited those lines from "William Shakespeare's" "The Tempest" that you remember from the opening ceremony. It turns out this was just a way of introducing our British Royal hosts for the evening (Prince Harry and Catherine Duchess of Cambridge). Once they'd taken their seats we launched into a version of the British national anthem "God Save the Queen" unusually begun by a chorus of that such a London sound - workmen digging up the road with their pneumatic drills.

Once the British national anthem had finished we were treated to 1980's Ska band "Madness" being driven around the stadium on the back of a flat-bed truck while singing "Our House" the hit they also performed at the Diamond Jubilee Concert. They were quickly followed by other flat-bed trucks that resembled floats at London's famous "Notting Hill Carnival." As the Notting Hill Carnival is predominately a West Indian (black) affair it was at this point things got a bit rowdy and middle England got scared. Fortunately the music quickly changed to "Blur's" song "Parklife" as preformed by the band of the British Army Guards regiments stationed at near-by "Wellington Barracks" and a Church of England Protestant Vicar appeared to calm things down. This sequence showed the otherside of 1960's Britain which featured large numbers of West Indian migrants arriving including that first batch who arrived on the "HMS Windrush."

Time then suddenly jumped forward and we were treated to 1980's (gay, so gay) Disco act "The Pet Shop Boys" performing their hit "West End Girls" aboard garishly orange rickshaws like you find all over Covent Garden. Then the show really gave up as allegedly famous boy-band "One Direction" off of the X-Factor were allowed to whore one of their 'hits' around the stadium on the back of yet another flat-bed truck. It was at this point I may have wandered off and taken a cigarette break.

As if to give "One Direction" the hint that their time was up performers from the West End Show "Stomp" hammered away on dustbins and other assorted metal work. Now this could have been a way to promote the West End (theatre district) version of "Stomp" but I prefer to think of it as a way to sell infamous London anti-capitalist samba drummers "Rhythms of Resistance" to a wider audience. Either way they quickly made way for that unholy cacophony of noise known as "The Beatles" song "A Day in the Life." As the Beatles are now mostly dead this song was performed to the sight of "Britain's Got Talent" winners "Spellbound" doing some painfully redundant modern dance routine. Then a London Black Taxi delivered former front man of "The Kinks" "Ray Davies" to the stage. The Kinks are of course most famous for that CIA baiting song "Lola" or "Sunny Afternoon" the protest song against the almost 90% higher rate of income tax pursued by Britain's Labour Government in the 1970's. However surrounded by what can only be described as overgrown Oompa Loompa's Davies chose to play "Waterloo Sunset" while trying not to look like "Take That's" "Gary Barlow" who despite losing a baby earlier in the week is a notorious ally of Britain's Conservative Party and spokesman against the current 50% higher rate of income tax.

Then that Emelie Sande women turned up again and 'sung' the full version of "Read All About It" while a montage of great moments from the 2012 Olympics played on the big screens. This was of course a reference to her controversial 7/7 terrorist bombings in the opening ceremony. However you've really got to watch those montages because I swear that just as Ms Sande launched into one of the rises of "We can r-r-r-r-ead all about it" the big screen flashed up an image of the Chinese Olympic team. Well at least she's got her career in microbiology to fall back on I suppose.

The ceremony then moved on to the parade of nations. In a break from tradition rather then parading around behind their national flags the athletes casually wandered in through the crowds to take up their place in the mosh pit(s) next to the stage. As they entered a British band called "Elbow" played one of their hits. "Elbow" were quite a famous band in the late 1990's/early 2000's. Unfortunately since then the lead singer has got really fat. I considered this 'Fat Elbow' to be a warning to the athletes in the mosh pits not to get too excited because with all those field and weightlifting competitors knocking around those mosh pits could really have turned into their founding acronym - March Of the Skin Heads (MOSH). Fortunately the organisers decided to calm things down with a (ripped off) Cirque Du Soleil inspired stage show and a recording of "Kate Bush" "Running up that Hill" playing in the background. The centre piece of the stage was an Egyptian style pyramid but this was simply a reference to the trend within western pop-music towards Egypt rather then anything in particular.

There then followed a medal ceremony for the winners of the men's Olympic Marathon and a ceremony to mark the achievement of all the volunteers who made the games possible.

We were then welcomed back to the performance by the opening bars of "Queen's" "Bohemian Rhapsody" while the clever LED's built into every seat in the Olympic Stadium fired off an artists impression of what the music would have looked like if they were displayed on a graphic equalisers. Obviously being able to sequence that many LED's to the music is something of a technical achievement but is hardly considered cutting edge these days Unfortunately rather then being allowed to listen to "Bohemian Rhapsody" we were forced to endure a deaf show choir (think Glee) miming along to "John Lennon's" "Imagine" while stage hands built a face on the stage. It turned out to be John Lennon's face in the end but it really reminded me of that Gary Sinise movie where the executive producer of "CSI:NY" discovers a giant human face on Mars. A clear reference the the current NASA "Curiosity" mission.

The purpose of getting all the athletes to stand in mosh pits throughout the closing ceremony was to put them under the extra pressure of being broadcast live to a global TV audience while being exposed to the sensory overload that was stage show. If you thought it was weird watching it on TV up close it was a disorientating mix of loud noises, bright flashing lights and lots of smoke. It's not actually that different to the enhanced interrogation techniques used in places like Guantanamo Bay.

The first part of this sensory assault was "George Micheal" from the 1980's pop-band "Wham" and a subsequent solo career. Although "George Micheal" is clearly past his best he performed one of his hits "Freedom" and a new song which I think he wrote about his near death experience which saw him rushed to hospital with pneumonia in the latter part of 2011. As "George Micheal" is gay and has a reputation for engaging in risky sexual activity the thing that everybody thought but no-one said when he was taken ill was that his HIV had progressed into full blown AIDS. Throughout both songs "George Micheal" was backed by a black soul choir similar to those you find in Pentecostalist Churches across sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has a huge HIV/AIDS problem and very negative attitudes towards homosexuality. Therefore the sight of a gay man who is nowhere near as good as he used to be and possibly be about to die from AIDS seemed to be designed to reinforce the widely held belief in sub-Saharan Africa that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Of course this has a knock on effect of increasing the stigma around HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa which discourages people from getting tested and seeking treatment thus increasing the number of people who die of HIV/AIDS. "George Micheal" was immediately followed by modern British band "The Kaiser Chiefs" playing "Pinball Wizard" by 1960's British band "The Who." Of course the "Kaiser Chiefs" took their name from a South African soccer team so their performance was another link to the sub-Saharan HIV/AIDS debate which was a recurring theme of the ceremony. Throughout "George Micheal's" performance the LED's formed the shape of a piano keyboard which was a reference to the "Paul McCartney" of "The Beatles" and "Stevie Wonder" song "Ebony & Ivory" that toe curling call for racial unity.

The next sequence began with a video medley of hits by British pop-star "David Bowie" before breaking into a full version of the Bowie hit "Fashion." This heralded the start of the much hyped 'model's parade.' which began with something of a tease. Rather then a parade of beautiful people appearing trucks displaying billboard sized photographs of a famous British models such as "Kate Moss," "Naomi Campbell," "Lily Cole," "Georgina May Jagger" (daughter of "Rolling Stones" frontman "Mick Jagger") and "Sophie Dahl" (granddaughter of famous British author "Roald Dahl") paraded around the stadium. Then suddenly the photographs were ripped away revealing the actual models who proceeded to strut around the stage wearing dresses by top British designers such Alexander McQueen. The idea was to promote Britain's fashion industry which has been suffering during the recession.

Once the models had left the stage "Annie Lennox" of 1980's British band "The Eurythmics" and a solo career appeared carried aboard Gothic pirate/sailing ship wearing a very Gothic costume. The goth theme was draw attention to the "goth" subculture and by extension Britain's various counter-cultures. It is at this point that I have to declare a personal interest in the proceedings. Without trying to name drop or show off I've actually met many of the performers in the ceremony in passing, through mutual friends or having worked on the same projects as them especially on things like charity appeals for developing nations. Therefore performing at the closing ceremony of an Olympics that has focused so heavily on me would be particularly stressful for them. "Annie Lennox" is one of those people because she has worked tirelessly in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa and with charities such as "Live Aid" and "Live 8." Therefore her inclusion was to continue the HIV/AIDS theme.

Next up was current British pop-star "Ed Sheeran" performing a cover version of legendary British band "Pink Floyd's" song "Wish You Were Here" while a tightrope walker performed on a high wire above the stadium. "Pink Floyd" of course famously re-formed for the "Live 8" so along with "Annie Lennox" and "Paul McCartney's" performance of "Hey Jude" in the opening ceremony this was designed draw focus onto the "Live 8" concert which might not have strictly speaking been done with the permission of the British establishment. "Ed Sheeran" did not take part in Live 8 and is just another one of those wastrels from Croydon's "BRITS School of Performing Arts." Probably two of his most famous songs are "The A-Team" which is about a women forced into prostitution following addiction to hard drugs (crack cocaine, heroin etc) and "Small Bump" which is about the trauma of losing a baby to miscarriage. The only problem is that neither of these experiences have occurred in "Ed Sheeran's" life so he's simply making it all up to cynically exploit the emotions of people who have gone through those experiences for monetary gain. His current single is a duet with a British hip-hop/grime artist "Devlin" in which they both murder "Bod Dylan" and "Jimi Hendrix's" great hit "All Along the Watch Tower" so it's was appropriate he destroyed yet another great song at the Olympic closing ceremony. Unfortunately though I think his inclusion was to promote Britain's creative industries such as the "BRIT school" system of churning out a procession of bland a mediocre pop-stars.

The 1960's psychedelia of "Pink Floyd" was followed by more of the same as "Russell Brand" appeared on top of a generic 1960's Hippy bus as lines from British author "Roald Dahl's" novel "Charlie and the Chocolate factory." were recited. The 1974 film of the novel; "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is of course absolutely packed with references to illegal drugs. "Russell Brand" then went on to sing British band "The Beatles" psychedelic hit "I am the Walrus" which of course contains the lyric; "I am the Eggman." As with quite a few other lazy people my Twitter avatar is just an egg. All these psychedelic sounds and swirls of colour would have been very disorientating to anyone in the athletes mosh pits or anyone who'd taken too much LSD at any point in their lives. The presence of "Russell Brand" standing on top of a bus/van whilst shouting through a megaphone had a specific resonance with me because I've actually met "Russell Brand" quite a few times before (and after) he became famous. One of the incidents from his wilder days that he's talked about was that occasion on I think the 2002 Mayday protests in the Soho district of London where he got arrested after climbing onto the roof of a TV satellite van and removing his trousers. I was one of the people that the police had to go through to get to Mr Brand but while he's gone on to a movie career and a pop-star (ex)wife all I got to remember the day was some strange riot shield shaped scars on the back of my head. Therefore if you were being mean I suppose you could call him a 'sell-out' by comparison and I suspect he's still smarting from some comments I may have made about his divorce from "Katy Perry." The "Russell Brand" performance was accompanied by a classical string quartet called "Bond." Apart from sharing a surname with fictional super-spy "James Bond" "Bond" the band were ill-judged experiment from the early 2000's by music producer "Mike Batt" who was famous for putting together "The Wombles" musical act based on the 1970's British TV show of the same name. The idea was to make classical music popular with fans of pop music by putting the four girls in the band in sexy clothes and doing dance tinged remixes of classical hits. Although according to Wikipedia they sold over 4 million records worldwide the experiment failed and "Bond's" appearance at the Olympic closing ceremony was met by a chorus "Oh, I thought they were dead" from the audience.

As he left the stage "Russell Brand" introduced world famous British DJ and Brighton's (Hove actually) most famous resident "Fatboy Slim." Although I think that the closest that I've ever come to meeting "Fatboy Slim" was being in the same city as he was doing his big (250,000+) gig on Brighton beach in 2002 Brighton is a very small place where everybody knows everybody elses business so even though I've been out of circulation for getting on for seven years I'm pretty sure I could get in touch with him by making a couple of phone-calls. "Fatboy Slim" performed for a platform inside inside a giant inflatable octopus. At the time this was simply a reference to the fact he lives by the seaside but would pick up an extra significance during the next act.

This began with "Jessie J" - another BRIT school wastrel - singing her second single "Price-tag" while being driven around a golden set in a USD450,000 Rolls Royce (Roller) car which was a great advert for Rolls Royce. The single "Price-tag" is of course synonymous with the practice of 'Price-tagging' which Jewish settlers engage in to force Palestinians off their lands and to some extent the 2011 Libya war. Although we've never met "Jessie J" and I are not great fans of each other. In fact you could argue that the incident that I had in a Brighton pub during the Spain V France Euro2012 quarter-final and the "Hackney 1 Big Weekend" on June 23rd (23/6/12) was set up specifically to mock lines from "Jessie J's" first single "Do it like a Dude." In an effort to show that British hip-hop acts are just as good as hip-hop acts from the USA "Jessie J" was joined on stage by "Tinie Tempah" and "Tiao Cruz" to sing the parts of "Price-tag" that were sung by USA hip-hop star "B.O.B" on the recorded version The ostentatious displays of wealth around the stage particularly the advert for Rolls Royce were specifically aimed at China's newly rich who are highly valued by luxury goods exporters because while they're learning how to cope with their new found wealth after generations of poverty they will buy any old cr*p. The Gulf Monarchies that the adverts were also aimed at have of course been super-rich for generations even if they still haven't developed any taste. China's newly rich are a key demographic in the USA V China struggle for global dominance. Through things like the "Coldplay & Rhianna" song "Princess of China" which loses a lot of subtly in translation Britain in particular has been encouraging this demographic to push for faster reforms to China's Communist system however I doubt the Brits are doing this because they want to help the Chinese people. Bathed in golden light "Fatboy Slim's" inflatable Octopus suddenly became a reference to the "Octopus Con" which I mentioned on the night. This is quite a famous con that changes from victim to victim but the basic principle is that there is this shadow cabal or secret society that has it's tentacles in every aspect of global society and secretly controls the world by doing things like selling US government bonds on a secret shadow market. All the victim has to do is give the conman their life savings and the conman will allow them access to this secret bond market and they will make billions. One victim of this con was an American hedge-fund manager called "Samuel Israel" who's story appeared in the British newspaper "The Mail on Sunday" magazine that very morning. Therefore the reference to the "Octopus con" was to enquire which of our Olympic visitors were aware of the "Mail on Sunday" while making me and the editorial staff at the "Mail on Sunday" a bit paranoid. The central principles of the "Octopus con" are of course the basis to all those nutty conspiracy theories about 9/11, the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG), the Freemasons, the Bilderbergs, the New World Order (NWO) etc. Therefore the reference to the 'Octopus con' was designed was to encourage the conspiracy theorists to believe in the conspiracy which is particularly popular amongst neo-Nazi's in the USA and discuss it. "Tinie Tempah" and "Jessie J" then went onto sing "Tinie Tempah's" hit "Written in the Stars" before "Tiao Cruz joined in and all three sung "You Should be Dancing" by (technically) British band "The Bee Gees.

Next up was one of the most widely plugged events of the evening - the reunion of 1990's British pop band "The Spice Girls." I actually missed most of this performance because I was too busy trying to write a post on my Blackberry's tiny, tiny keypad. The purpose of this was to remind everybody of the 1990's and promote discussion about 'Girl Power' the type of soft-feminism that the "Spice Girls" promoted during their career. At an Olympics that had already been dubbed 'the women's Olympics' and featured all nations including Saudi Arabia and Qatar putting forward female athletes for the first time alongside such things as the discussion about black women being accepted in the USA's political/intelligence establishment feminism and female empowerment was a major theme of the 2012 games. It also gave me another opportunity to show off because back in 2005 when the Brits 'rescued' me and my friends from the disasterous lives we were living down in Brighton a friend of mine was renting a room in an apartment complex where "Emma 'Baby Spice' Bunton" also lived. So while to you she's a world famous celebrity to me she's just another one of those people I sometimes passed in the corridor while pretending not to be as drunk as I clearly was. Remember this detail it will come in useful later.

The "Spice Girls" were followed by 1990's British band "Oasis'" frontman "Liam Gallagher" playing one of "Oasis'" biggest hits "Wonderwall" with his new band "Beady Eye." This was again an attempt to remind people of the 1990's and the 'Cool Britanina' fad that saw "Tony Blair" and the Labour Party swept into political office in 1997. "Oasis''" great musical rivals the British band "Blur" were of course playing a simultanious concert in Hyde Park. This of course was very bad news for anyone who can remember bands like "Oasis" and "Blur" because it means that they're now so old the happy days of their youth now counts as nostalgia.

After "Oasis/Beady Eye" chronology took a little detour and we were taken back to the 1970's as the public address system played a recording of British 'prog-rock' band the "Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)" song "Mister Blue Sky." 'Prog-rock is of course what happened when 1960's pyschedelia got too weird. "Mr Blue Sky" is also something of an anthem of Britain's Conservative Party whose chosen political colour is blue. Therefore this section of the closing ceremony was a reference to the 2009 Conservative Party conference just before they were returned to power in May 2010. While the music was playing the stage was filled by actors dressed as what can only be described as spectators and performers at a 1920's circus. The sequence featured women in 1920's dress who were a reference to "The Suffragettes" helping to load a man dressed as a sort of 1920's flight suit which was a reference to the birth of flight into a circus cannon.

This sequence was interrupted by British comedian "Eric Idle" of "Monty Python" fame signing the signiture song from the film "The Life of Brian" - "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." "Eric Idle's" performance looked a lot like a scene from the "Monty Python" themed West End (London's theatre district) musical "Spamalot" and all the perfomers (such as the roller-blading nuns) and stage sets were clearly borrowed from a number of West End shows making the performance an advert for London's theatre district. Eventually "Eric Idle" was joined on stage by a troupe of Indian (Bollywood style) dancers. This was designed to highlight Britain's close relationship with former colony and emerging global power India however this relationship might well be under review because Britain has been giving India a lot of bad advice recentely. The relationship between Britain and India was tested earlier in the week when in response to a question about sport provision in schools the British Prime Minister "David Cameron" said that he wanted to do away with Indian dancing. This caused a minor political storm with accusations of racism. The performance of Indian dancers though made it look like "David Cameron" was only giving a cheeky little hint about what the closing ceremony held and those who disagree with him clearly aren't as clever as his is. The sequence ended with the man in the 1920's flight suit being fired out of the circus cannon and being caught in a giant safety net. This was a reference to Britain's great 'social safety net' the Welfare State and another reference to how the Brits had rescued me. That last point would have carried more weight if it hadn't been proceeded by the "Spice Girls" performance.

World famouse British rock band "Muse" then performed the single they'd written as the theme to the Olympic games "Survival." This though was mainly just an opportunity to clear the stage for the next sequence.

The reason why the stage hands needed time to set up the next sequence was that it featured a giant TV screen showing "Freddie Mercury" the legendary British/Indian frontman of the British band "Queen" working the crowd at one of his gigs. Some think this footage was taken from "Queen's" performance at the 1984 "Live Aid" concert while others thought it was from their 1985 "Rock in Rio" concert while others though it came from the 1986 Wembley stadium concert. In truth the footage had been so extensively digitally enhanced that parts of it were probably taken from all three concerts while others were totally computer generated. Apart from providing an advert for Britain's computer design/creative industries this was also reminiscent to "Hatsune Miku" a Japanese popstar who exists only as a computer generated hologram. As such it wasn't a particularly good advert from Britain's computer design/creative industries making the sales pitch something along the lines of "We'll charge you top rates for a fourth rate service." "Freddie Mecury" did of course famously die of AIDS related illness and unlike "George Micheal" died in his prime meaning that he is still widely respected across the world even in places like Rio de Janerio which will host the 2016 Olympics. So the inclusion of "Freddie Mercury" was to continue the HIV/AIDS theme but to present it as a bad thing to the Brazilian audience rather then a good thing which is how it was presented to the African audience. Attention turned away from the big screen as two of the surviving members of "Queen" "Brian May" and "Roger Taylor" played one of the band's songs "Brighton Rock" which is again a reference to the British seaside town where I used to live. They were then joined on stage by "Jessie J" to perform the classic Queen hit "We Will Rock You" which had become something of an anthem for the 2012 games being played at almost every venue during almost every event. It was also what the British organisers had hoped that the 2012 games would do to me. After all in most of the photographs the police have of me I do quite literally have blood on my face.

The performance of "We Will Rock You" was followed by the flag ceremony which is a set part of any Olympic closing ceremony which sees the Olympic Hymn being sung and the Olympic flag being lowered and then passed to a representative of the next country to host the Olympic games. On this occasion the British hosts chose to have the Olympic Hymn sung by a Welsh Male Voice Choir. This obviously has some reference to me, my grandmother and our Welsh roots. It's mainly though that a Welsh Male Voice Choir in full voice is a force to be reckoned with.

Following the flag ceremony Brazil took charge of the closing ceremony for a short sequence showcasing their nation's heritage and Olympic vision. As the next hosts of the Olympics Brazil was forced to work very closely with Britain throughout the 2012 games this little sequence also provided them with an opportunity to provide their response to some of the issues raised. Therefore I deliberately went a bit hazy during this bit. However I think the sight of a roadsweeper being told off for dancing by a security guard was a hint that the 2016 games would be much less oppressive then the 2012 games. I think the sexy music of the carnival was a response to the HIV/AIDS and a warning about the British backpackers, gap year hoorays and sex tourists who visit Brazil every year before getting over-excited and engaging in risky and down right illegal sexual activity. Then "Pele" appeared. Although he may have played a bit of football in his youth "Pele" is probably most famous as a spokesman for erectile disfunction and drugs like Viagra. So Brazil's contribution to the HIV/AIDS debate was that they were not so much worried about the Brazilian population as the British visitors, provided they could get it up. Mind you I was quite wasted at that point so I might have just made that all up.

Brazil's segment was followed by the extingushing of the Olympic cauldron and the compulsary speeches which were so boring I didn't really listen. However I think IOC head "Jacques Rogge" simply tried to say his peice amid the overall weirdness of the ceremony. LOCOG head "Sebastian Coe" was looking deliberately scholarly as he peered over his glasses giving the whole thing the air of a university graduation ceremony. Apart from being a reference to Britain's changes to university education (fee increases, riots, etc) this was a reference to Britain's attempts such as "Bond" to get it's population more interested in high culture and get over their short attention spans. The joke being that if people managed to stay watching during the really boring bit they would be rewarded by a nice surprise. That surprise came in the form of a performance by British pop band from the 1990's "Take That" which would have got women of a certain age really excited. Apart from a bit more 1990's nostalgia "Take That's" performance was really just a distraction so the Olympic cauldron could collapse back to it's bonfire state and the stage could be set up for the next sequence.

It was in this next sequence where things really got strange. A sculpture of a giant red bird starting moving above the stage while dancers from the high culture Royal National Ballet performed a routine which featured famous British ballet dancer "Darcey Bussell" being lowered from the roof on a zip-wire wearing flaming wings. Officially the giant red bird was the mythological "Pheonix" and was supposed to symbolise Britain rising from the ashes of it's economic troubles but also looked a lot like the Eagle symbol used by Nazi Germany's "Waffen SS" or an Eagle symbol that is used by a lot of Native American tribes such as the Navaho. The image of the 'Firefly bonfire' from the opening ceremony along with all the ballet again made me think of the actress "Summer Glau" who Britain had sort of painted a target on for the 2012 games. One possible reason they could have done that was in the hope that it would trigger a guilt response in me and as far as the Brits are concerned guilt over poor behaviour is considered a weakness.

The obsession with US TV Shows continued in the next sequence with 1960's British band and "Live 8" participents "The Who" performing a medley of their songs. The first song they played was "Baba O'Reilly" which is of course used as the theme music to "CSI:NY" which is produced by "Gary Sinise" who was referenced in the "John Lennon" face on Mars sequence just in case anyone didn't get the hint about the Mars Curiosity rover. "The Who" went on to play "See Me, Feel Me" and "My Generation" which of course was different from their Superbowl performance when they just played the three songs used as the theme music to the three CSI TV Shows in an effort to promote the CSI:Trilogy that was shown on US TV shortly afterwards.

The ceremony closed with Emile Sande again singing a cover version of "John Lennon's" song "Imagine" which was used earlier in the ceremony. Considering Ms Sande's disappointment at her first single "Heaven" not getting to number 1 after the August 2011 riots the opening line "Imagine there's no heaven." must have been particularly cutting.

The Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Originally titled "Don't Mention the War." on 28/7/12 and edited multiple times since.

Like the games itself the opening ceremony was overwhelmed by war, nationalism and whoring. However I think the artistic director Danny Boyle coped well by setting out to tell the history of Britain from the start of the industrial revolution to the present day.

Taking a major historical liberty act 1 began with the start of the industrial revolution set at the start of the 1900's (20th Century). It started showing Britain's agricultural economy (our green and pleasant land) being ravaged by resource mining and the smoke stacks of industrial development. The key figure here was Kenneth Branagh playing Isambard Kingdom Brunel/generic 19th century industrialist. He recited lines from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" which is a play about a man trapped on an island with a wizard who could control the weather. The management thought this would play well in African nations where witchcraft is still respected as a legitimate belief system. However what everybody in the cast, audience or anyone with at least some knowledge of science saw was a commentary about how the carbon dioxide released by burning coal causes climate change. A clear and only slightly justified swipe at China over climate change negotiations. Then suddenly the scene changed to young men from the villages happily marching to World War1 through fields of poppies while the women protested for the right to vote. This was really the end of the first act.

The second act centred around the formation of the National Health Service (NHS) at the end of the second world war featuring the swing tunes of the 1940's. As the cast featured staff and patients at the actual Great Ormond Streat Hospital for children (GOSH) which Peter Pan writer J.M. Barrie bequeathed the proceeds of said book to the management thought the sequence about the monsters attacking the patients was about the hard work doctors do to calm scared children. Although the NHS wasn't formed until 1946 we did have hospitals in Britain before then. Those hospitals were entirely private enterprises which charged patients for their care and relied heavily on charitable donations such as the donation J.M Barrie made to GOSH. When the NHS was formed many of these private hospitals closed down but others such as GOSH and the Royal London in Whitechapel - close to the Olympic park - were absorbed into the NHS. As raising money to help sick children is an easy sell GOSH has more or less continued as a private hospital that sometimes treats NHS patients - an early example of a public private partnership. Therefore the sequence with the medics from GOSH protecting the sick children from the monsters was actually an attempt to generate support amongst the British public for the NHS reforms which will see all British hospitals follow the GOSH model. As such the sequence was intended to show how much better the medics are at GOSH.

The third act covered everything that happened from the 1950's right up to the present day and explored everything that was wrong with modern society through a random and not strictly speaking linear selection of British pop hits. This was also designed to introduce you to Stratford and east London's multi-culturalism. Cited examples of what was wrong with modern society included technology, immigrants, paedophilia and the consensual sexualisation of children with other children - something that was blamed on the blacks. A major theme was warning the middle class parents of the area about keeping an eye on their children's house parties and or sex lives. During the course of the Olympics I think the paedophilia bit counts as a valid warning because we've got high level delegations from the Gulf Monarchies in and even by Islamic standards they can get a bit rapey. The sequence in which the young black male (an example of a dangerous dog) "found" the young black female's (an example of a dangerous bitch) phone could have been reference to a number of incidents in London gang culture in which young women have invited young men round for sex in order to lure them into their own murders. Primarily though it was a warning to Olympic visitors that Stratford can get a bit stabby. However as with any major global city as long as you aren't wandering around showing off expensive possessions such as iPhones, cameras etc whilst carrying a giant map that tells the world you're a tourist you probably won't get mugged. Of there is a much higher risk that you will be robbed by one of more most of the world's pickpockets. However with them you won't even noticed you're being robbed.

The fourth act was moment of silence to remember our fallen. Specifically this was a reference to the fact that the 2012 Olympics is the 40th anniversary of 11 Israeli athletes being killed at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Now whatever you think about the Jews this was indisputably the worst single loss of life that the Olympic family has suffered so I think it should have been marked. However since the death Muammer Qaddafi who allegedly funded the Black September terrorists who carried out the 1972 attack along with lots of other groups such as the Red Army Faction (RAF) in what was really the golden age of international terrorism and summed up rather well in the song "Tommy Gun" by " The Clash" dwelling on the Munich attacks directly would have been more distasteful then respectful. So instead Britain decided to present it as memorial to those who lost their lives in the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks that struck London on July 7th 2005 (7/7/05) - the day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics. They did this by showing photographs of the dead on big screens while Scottish pop singer/micro-biology drop-out "Emile Sande" sang the hymn "Abide With Me" which is the hymn the British military have used to remember their dead since before WW1. Therefore it is musical shorthand for being prepared to die for the Monarch. Marking the Munich anniversary in this way was particularly provocative because Israel's now Prime Minister and then Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly avoided being caught up in the attacks following a warning from the Israeli Embassy. Although this only really demonstrates that the Israelis spend a lot of their time worrying about Islamic terrorism it has been used as "evidence" for a conspiracy theory that the 7/7 attacks were an Israeli false-flag attack. This point was driven home by the Pakistani/Arab Muslim dancers who performed on stage during the hymn. As "The Clash" are/were a really great British band and their lyrics may or may not form a code-base in discussions over Iran's nuclear program Britain would have loved to have had them perform at the opening ceremony. The only problem with that is the lead singer is now dead. So instead we got the lead singer of another famous British band "The Artic Monkeys" doing his best Joe Strummer impression in leather jacket and quiff during act 6 - the torch lighting ceremony.

Act 5 was the parade of nations which saw the teams enter the stadium beneath their national flag. Although the host nation gets to control things like the music that's played and what's happening in the background this is really a compulsory part of any Olympic opening ceremony and is generally the responsibility of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This part of the ceremony is actually a significant part of how the IOC keep the Olympic myth going. Apart from the heart warming sight of amateur athletes clearly being over-excited by all the attention smaller and newer nations have long been told this is an opportunity to promote themselves on the world stage. Therefore there is always the risk of controversy as some nations may cross the line between making the rest of the world aware of their existence and ambush marketing. Recently Azerbaijan have been getting a reputation for this sort of thing. For example at the Euro2012 football tournament the Azerbaijani government spent a lot of money sending teams of representatives disguised as fans to make sure the Azerbaijani flag was prominently displayed during all of the matches. Although I actually spent the parade of nations trying to figure out how to react to the Critical Mass incident I gather the big controversy was a mystery woman who managed to join in with the Indian team. This was done by the host nation to promote discussion about the best ways to ensure that people who engage in ambush marketing are kept out of Olympic venues - a big part of protecting the branding of the Olympics. As to why they chose to pick on India in particular I'm not really sure.

Act 6 could be divided into two parts; the raising of the Olympic flag and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. Although these are set events that the IOC demand must happen the local hosts are given almost total freedom in how they happen. One area the IOC had control over though was the selection of the eight flag bearers who carried the Olympic flag into the stadium. These were;

• Daniel Barenboim. An Argentine/Israeli pianist and classical music conductor who has been an active supporter of Palestinian rights and peace campaigner. Along with Palestinian academic Edward Said Barenboim formed the East-West Divan orchestra which brings young Israeli and Palestinian musicians together in an attempt to bring peace through understanding by bridging the cultural divide. Apart from showing the IOC's commitment to peace in the middle-east as an Argentinian and Israeli dual-national Barenboim's inclusion also seems to have been a reference the the bombing of an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria which occurred on the anniversary of the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina. Interestingly he also shares the same birthday as me.

• Sally Becker. A British charity worker who headed "Operation Angel" charity which rescued Muslim women and children from the town of Mostar during the Bosnian war. As Operation Angel is one those British charities no-one's ever heard of let alone donated money too, has an anti-Serb bias and was instrumental in highlighting the suffering of Kosovar civilians which lead to the 1999 NATO attack on Serbia Becker is seen as a British government agent. Therefore her inclusion was to draw attention to Britain's role in the Bosnian and Kosovan wars which has obvious links to the Ratko Mladic trial and the situations in Libya and Syria.
  

• Leymah Gbowee. The winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in bringing an end to the second Liberian civil war Gbowee went on the spearhead the campaign to have former Liberian President Charles Taylor prosecuted under the slogan "Pray the Devil back to Hell" and campaigned for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Liberia and Africa's first female head of state. Therefore Gbowee's inclusion was to draw attention to women's rights in general and in Africa in particular. She also drew attention to Charles Taylor's recent conviction for war crimes committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone and possibly the difference between Tony Blair's and the Conservative British government which proceed his Labour government approaches to the conflict.

• Haile Gabrselassie. A legendary Ethiopian marathon runner who also won two Olympic gold medals in the 10,000 metres and set some 27 world records Gabrselassie was included because he is/was a great Olympian and ambassador for the Olympics. He is also an ambassador for Britain's "G4S 4teens" scheme designed to get British teenagers involved in sport. Obviously that program is sponsored by ill-fated London 2012 security firm G4S.

• Marina Silva. A Brazilian environmentalist who has won numerous awards for her work on environmental protection including being appointed a "UN Champion of the Earth" Silva is a member of the Brazilian Parliament representing the Green Party. As a political rival of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff who attended the opening ceremony Ms Silva's inclusion caused some controversy in Brazil but I think she was included to represent the 2016 Olympic host Brazil and the environment rather then in a political capacity.

• Ban Ki-moon. As the Secretary General of the United Nations I think Mr Ban's inclusion is rather self-explanatory.

• Doreen Lawrence. The Jamaican born mother of murdered British teenager Stephen Lawrence Ms Lawrence was chosen to highlight the strong links between Britain and Caribbean islands such as Jamaica. It also seems to be a subtle little swipe at Britain's current Conservative government who were in power when Stephen Lawrence was killed and his murder covered up because it was the Labour government that launched an inquiry into the killing which eventually led to two of the killers being brought to justice. It was of course this Labour government that was in power when the IOC awarded Britain the 2012 games.

• Shami Chakriabarti. A British lawyer Ms Chakriabarti is also the head of the "Liberty" campaign group which campaigns for civil liberties, prisoners rights and the right to protest. Liberty have in the past represented groups such as Critical Mass and although I will need to check I think that Ms Chakriabarti might have personally represented Critical Mass in some of their many court cases. Her inclusion was to emphasise the Olympic's commitment to human rights. The arrest of 182 people (an Olympic record) at a Critical Mass during the Olympic opening ceremony was Britain's way of making Ms Chakribariti's appearance that little bit more nerve wracking and showing it's opposition to human rights

Once the Olympic flag had been raised it was time for the lighting of the cauldron which the British hosts had full control over. As I've already explained rather then being lit by an individual the 2012 cauldron was lit by seven people in order to make sure that anyone who placed a bet on which individual would light the cauldron would lose their money. The seven individuals all lit an individual column which then rose up to form the cauldron. While they were on the ground these columns looked like wooden sticks giving the impression of bonfire such as one that would have been used to burn suspected witches being lit. This scene looked like many scenes from movies and TV shows which featured witches being burned at the stake. However the one it reminded me of was a scene in the TV show "Firefly" in which the character "Summer Glau" played was about to be burned at the stake on suspicion of being a witch. As I've been forced to get into "Firefly" in more detail then is healthy (I can name the Cantonese swearing consultant) I know that Summer Glau trained as a ballet dancer which is a similar discipline to rhythmic/artistic gymnastics and as a result her physicality is a large part of her performance. For example in one episode of "Firefly" which explored the notion of existentialism Glau's character is seen balancing barefoot on the handrails of a raised metal walkway not too dissimilar to the parallel bars used in gymnastics. Apparently this was known as the 'Batgirl shot.' In the weeks before the Olympics a Youtube video emerged showing a 2-3 year old British girl climbing up a doorway using just her bare feet that was dubbed the 'Spidergirl video.' I took this a sign that Britain intended to make Glau a target for the Olympics. I also heard some rumours from the Americans that the metaphorical knives would be out for her during the games but that could have just been a result of the Americans hearing the same rumours I'd been hearing. As one the main purposes of the opening ceremony was to showcase Britain's creative industries (the image manipulation in the James Bond/Queen sketch for example) bringing up "Firefly" was a mistake because it showed that most of Britain's most creative work such as "Dr Who" and "Luther" are actually just second rate rip-offs of what the USA was doing years before. This 'mistake' was a little protest by Britain's creative arts sector who have seen their budgets slashed to the bone through government cuts. The argument being that if they were given more money they could do better but I doubt it because things like "Dr Who" were made in the fat years before the credit crunch. For example the decision to only show the Olympic cauldron on a TV screen in a commentary about how we use TV for social 'warmth' is so adolescent it would have made an High School art teacher roll their eyes in boredom.

The show was closed by "Paul McCartney" performing the Beatles hit "Hey Jude." The idea of this was to calm everyone down as they prepared to leave and to remind the British TV viewers that it was very late at night (around 1AM) so they'd better be going to bed. Paul McCartney also performed Hey Jude at the Live 8 concert just days before Britain was awarded the 2012 Olympics back in 2005. It was around the 157th chorus that many people got the distinct impression that the Live 8 concert wasn't over-running by accident.

Operation Oil Theft Month 18: Week 2, Day 1.

As of Sunday (15/7/12) - the last day I have information for - the official results of Libya's July 7th (7/7/12) election have still not been released. However from the results that have been made public it seems that Mahmoud Jibril's National Forces Alliance (NFA) are in the lead with 41 seats. The Muslim Brotherhood linked Freedom & Construction Party are in second place with 16 seats. The National Front are in distant third place with 3 seats. The Union for Homeland are in fourth place with 2 seats. The Central Union Current are in fifth place with 2 seats. The Homeland Party are in sixth place with 1 seat. There are 15 seats for parties still up for grabs. The 120 seats reserved for independent candidates are too difficult to predict so I'll have to wait until the official results are published before I can comment.

In the meantime today (16/7/12) the President of the Libyan Olympic Committee Albil Elalem has been kidnapped by nine or ten men in military style uniforms in Tripoli. No further information has been released and no ransom demands have been made. However kidnappings are all too common in Libya and tend to be a way of forcing political concessions out of the National Transitional Council (NTC) rather then being for profit.

For example on July 9th (9/7/12) two journalists were kidnapped in Bani Walid as they returned from covering the election. As the journalists were from Misrasta which sees itself as the crucible of the anti-Qaddafi uprising in the west and the kidnappers were from Bani Walid which along with Sebha and Sirte fought for Qaddafi until the very end the incident quickly re-opened old wartime divisions. The following day (10/7/12) the Misrata Brigade militia along with members of the Libya shield militia assembled an ominously named Bani Walid invasion force to storm the town and rescue the hostages. To make matters worse on July 14th (14/7/12) two members of the invasion force along with an embedded journalist were also captured by Bani Walid forces. Fortunately due to some extensive mediation by the NTC and various tribal elders the initial two journalists were released without violence on Sunday (15/7/12) in exchange for an unspecified number (believed to be 120) of Bani Walid residents who were taken prisoner during the war. The two invasion force members and the embedded journalist are still being held.

While I most certainly don't agree with their tactics I can't help but feel the Bani Walid forces have a point about the prisoners. Although no-one's sure of the exact number almost a year after the end of the war 4000 prisoners remain in NTC custody and a further 5000 are being held by the various militias. This contributes to keeping the wartime mentality going which increases the tension with the Tebu in Kufra and the people of Sirte, Sebha and Bani Walid. It also gives the militia the idea that they're still needed when maybe it's time for them to start disbanding. Obviously the senior commanders of Qaddafi forces need to be prosecuted but it might be time to hold an amnesty for the foot soldiers and let them gradually go free in small groups. After all there's little point winning a war in the country remains trapped in that war.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 5, Day 2.

Due to delays in Libya's election for it's General National Congress (GNC) voting has continued today (8/7/12) in Sirte. However counting in the 98% areas that were able to vote on schedule yesterday (7/7/12) has begun. The results are not due until later in the week however the general consensus is that while the electoral system was specifically designed so no one party wins overall control the National Forces Alliance (NFA) will emerge as the largest party. Led by Mahmoud Jabril this is a very moderate, liberal party that is essentially the National Transitional Council (NTC) only with a democratic mandate. This is most likely their reward for the very good job they've done up to now under very difficult circumstances

In all 24 polling stations were unable to operate due to violence. These were all located in either in the troubled Kufra region or in the east of the country. The voter turnout 60% seems to have been suppressed by eastern-federalist campaign to boycott the election and they have also seized five oil terminals although three of these - Ras Lanuf, Sidra and Brega have been returned to NTC control today. I don't think this is really the time to get into the details of exactly what the federalists grievance is because Libya really needs to count the votes of this election, get some form of government sworn in and start work on writing a constitution. That's because unlike Egypt Libya doesn't have the luxury of having a strong military to run things day to day while the politicians sort themselves out.

However the federalists main complaint is that the way that electoral boundaries have been draw means they feel unrepresented. This is a constant complaint in a democratic society. For example in Britain the Liberal Democrat (LibDem) Party recently threatened to block Conservative Party plans to re-draw Britain's electoral boundaries unless the Conservative Party promise to help get LibDem plans for House of Lords reform through Parliament. Also in the United States one of the big worries about the upcoming Presidential election is that after winning control of many states in the 2010 mid-terms Republican Governors have been re-drawing the electoral boundaries to give their Presidential and candidate advantage. This gerrymandering as it's known could mean that although President Obama wins the largest share of the vote the way that vote is shared out would result in Mitt Romney actually winning a very tight race.

In Libya the electoral boundaries are divided up according to demographics meaning that the western Tripolitania region gets more seats in the GNC then the eastern Cyrenaica region because more people live there. This is how things are done in most democratic countries because a democracy is meant to be a government of the people not a government of the trees and mountains. However I appreciate that the Cyrenaica region was terribly neglected under Qaddafi meaning that people moved away lowering it's population. Therefore it may be possible to set up a funding formula that sees the Cyrenaica region receive some sort of subsidy in order to bring it's quality of life back up to the standard in the Tripolitania region encouraging people to move back evening out the population imbalance. However this is a very complicated thing set up and should be done only if a calm and considered assessment of the arguments involved conclude it's the right thing to do not because some men with guns have seized some oil terminals.

An Agressive Move From Morsi.

Today (8/7/12) Egypt's new President Mohammed Morsi has announced the reinstatement of the Parliament that was dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court on June 14 (14/6/12). If members of Egypt's Parliament attempt to re-enter the Parliament building tomorrow (9/6/12) - and members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood linked Freedom and Justice Party likely will - it may well provoke a confrontation with the police and military. Egypt's interim military rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) are said to be holding an emergency meeting to consider their response.

This all stems from the Presidential run-off. According to the Muslim Brotherhood's own reporting this election featured a number of breaches of election rules that were serious enough to render the result null and void. However Egypt's interim military rulers were prepared to overlook these and allow Morsi to be inaugurated as President anyway. So now President Morsi is challenging the military to see if they are holding onto those voting irregularities as a way to force him out of office at some point in the future and if they are how far can he go before they use them.

I'm not sure how significant the Parliament issue is though because the constitutional declaration of June 17th (17/6/12) stripped Parliament of really it's one and only job of appointing the panel to write the new constitution.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 5, Day 1.

Technically polling stations in Libya's election should have closed at 18:00(GMT) today (7/7/12). However as this has been Libya's first election there have understandably been some problems. As a result most polling stations remained open until 23:00. In Brega polling stations were unable to open until the late afternoon so will remain open overnight.

Obviously with voting still going on I can't really write up a round of events until tomorrow (8/7/12) at the earliest. However through-out the day there have been four confirmed reports of serious, armed violence all in the eastern Cyrenacia region;

• In Brega armed men hijacked electoral commission vehicles and stole the ballot papers they were carrying. The ballot paper were replaced but this delayed the opening of polling stations.

• In Gahmines armed men stormed two polling stations and stole ballot papers. I have not yet heard if the missing ballot papers were replaced to allow voting.

• In Ras Lanuf armed men stopped people entering a polling station. Although I've not had it confirmed I believe this was only for a short time and the polling station was able to re-open.

• In Ajdabiya there was a shooting at a polling station killing one. However again I believe that the polling station was able to re-open.

Despite these confirmed incidents and a few further that have been rumoured but not confirmed the electoral commission are confident that voting took place without obvious, significant problems at 94% of polling stations. They have also estimated a voter turn-out of 60% but that may rise as people continue to vote. That sounds like a good result to me and certainly a lot better then things were under Qaddafi.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 4, Day 4.

At around 21:40 on 6/7/12 I really can't get into the Libyan election in much detail because it's almost month 18 and it's almost election day. However one thing that's perfectly obvious is that the federalists are deliberately using violence to prevent people in the east participating in the vote. The long term objective is to paint the General National Congress (GNC) as un-representative of the east.

Today's incident in which an election worker was killed after a helicopter came under fire is much more serious. It seems to be a reference to the news that a militia group has closed a major supply route in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I still need to check up on that to see if that's actually happened and why that counts as "news" in the DRC.

So dammit it looks like it's time for me to buy nightvision goggles and give up on the idea Iive in a civilized time zone.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 4, Day 4.

Today (3/7/12) Libyan ex-pats living in Canada, Germany, Jordan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UK and the USA have begun voting in the election for the General National Congress (GNC). On Saturday (7/7/12) registered voters in Libya itself will go to the polls in the nation's first real election to decide the make-up of the body that will replace the National Transitional Council (NTC) and appoint the panel that will re-write the nation's constitution. I will try and prepare a post specifically covering that election before Saturday. However for now I will concentrate on some of the other events that have been taking place in Libya.

Yesterday (2/7/12) Melinda Taylor - an International Criminal Court (ICC) lawyer representing Saif al-Islam Qaddafi was released by the Zintan Brigade militia. You may remember that on June 7th (7/6/12) Ms Taylor and her Lebanese interpreter Helene Assaf were arrested by the Zintan Brigade over an ever changing list of allegations including passing letters to Saif al-Islam, concealing the location of Mohammed Ismail and possessing a spy camera (cellphone). Due to the lack of consistency in the allegations and the lack of evidence to support them the arrests seemed to be nothing more then a kidnapping on the part of the Zintan Brigade in order to force themselves into negotiations between the NTC and the ICC over the Saif al-Islam case. They certainly succeeded in creating a large and high level negotiation with the President of the ICC Sang-Hyun Song travelling to Libya to handle the negotiation personally. However the Zintan Brigade don't seem to have achieved anything more then that with Ms' Taylor and Assaf being released with no admission of wrongdoing by the ICC because they don't appear to have done anything wrong by any accepted international standard. Libya's Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdul Aziz has declared though that the pair will be tried in absentia on July 23rd (23/7/12). As the pair won't be present at their trial they will be unable to mount an effective defence so when they are inevitably convicted the only penalty will be that they'll be unable to visit Libya again. All things considered this latest incident has left people more convinced that Libya is not yet able to give Saif al-Islam anything resembling a fair trial.

The purpose of announcing this phantom trial seems to be an attempt to appease the Zintan Brigade who seem more intent then ever to use violence and bully-boy tactics to get what they want. Four days after they arrested Ms Taylor the Zintan Brigade claimed that some of their members had been killed by members of Mashasha tribe in the Nafusa mountains in the north-west of the country on June 11th (11/6/12). They responded by attacking the Mashasha tribe with heavy weapons triggering 9 days of fierce fighting that left 105 people dead and 500 wounded. The fighting got so bad that the NTC were forced to declare the area a military zone on June 16th (16/6/12) and send in the Libyan National Army (LNA) to keep the two factions apart and negotiate a peace deal. Therefore the whole incident seems to have been contrived by the Zintan Brigade in order to open another channel of negotiation with the NTC over Saif al-Islam and send the message that they're prepared to continue fighting and killing until the get exactly what they want. If Libya is going to become a stable and prosperous nation that sort of behaviour is simply not acceptable.

There has also been significant violence in the Kufra region in the south-east of the country. The conflict there has been taking place on and off since February-2012 and stems from tensions between the predominately Black Tebu/Toubou tribe that fought alongside Qaddafi and the predominately Arab Zway tribe who fought against Qaddafi. This latest round of fighting that began on June 24th (24/6/12) and has so far killed an estimated 100 people has been between the Tebu and the Libya Shield militia. This was formed out of half a dozen other militias in response to fighting between the Tebu and the Abu Seif tribe in Sebha in May-2012. The presence of this militia made up of men who spent most of last year fighting Qaddafi's "Black mercenaries" coupled with recent decisions to exclude thousands of Tebu from the upcoming election seem to have created a belief amongst the Tebu that the Shield militia is trying to racially purge the Tebu out of Libya. Therefore it would probably be better to send the more disciplined LNA to deal with the situation in Kufra and have the Shield militia deal with any problems in the less racially diverse north of the country.

Egypt's Presidential Inauguration.

Today (30/6/12) Mohamed Morsi was formally sworn in as Egypt's first popularly elected President. I suppose I should start for apologise for crashing the ceremony this morning. I should also point out that I've not being ignoring the event - I'm just trying to be deliberately vague. That's because while I would have prefered a secular candidate to win I don't have any real problem with President Morsi.

However it is worth pointing out that with only 50.15% of voters taking part in the Presidential run-off Morsi's victory with 51.75% means that he only actually recieved 25.9% of the popular vote. That is significantly less then all secular candidates excluding Ahmed Shafik recieved in the first round. So it is fair to say that the Egyptian people most certainly have not given President Morsi a mandate to pursue an Islamist agenda. That is something he will be well served to remember.

The Egyptian Presidental Run-Off Results.

The results of Egypt's Presidential run-off vote that was held across Saturday June 16th (16/6/12) and Sunday June 17th (17/6/12) were supposed to be released today (21/6/12). However they have been delayed indefinitely.

The main reason for this delay is that between them the two candidates, Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafik have made some 400 complaints of irregularities to the electoral commission. These range from the frankly stupid such as a woman who was arrested for attempting the smuggle a blank ballot paper out of a polling station to complaints that are significant but could have been caused by simple human error such as a books of ballot papers going missing and dead people showing up electoral registers. There are also much more serious complaints such a ballot papers arriving at polling stations with one candidate already selected and the use of violence and the threat of violence against both supporters of Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafik. The accusation of violent intimidation of Shaifk supporters has been corroborated by election observers working for the Carter Foundation.

To give you an idea of how long it will take the electoral commission to investigate all these claims it took me the best part part of two hours today to simply read through the list of half of the complaints made by the Morsi campaign. However the rumour is that the electoral commission should be able to complete it's investigations and make the results available in the next few days.

The result itself will be quite hard to predict with the Morsi campaign claiming that their candidate won with 52% of the vote while the Shafik campaign claims that their candidate won with 51% of the vote. The figure I'm interested in though is the voter turnout because this will help explain whether the result reflects the will of the majority of the Egyptian people or simply the will of a small minority who were motivated to vote.

Egypt's June 17th Constitutional Declaration

At around 20:15 on 20/6/12 I have now read, compared, contrasted and considered the Constitutional Declaration of June 17th 2011 (17/6/12) which can be read in Arabic here; http://www.ahram.org.eg/-/News/155958.aspx with the original Constitutional Declaration of March 30th 2011 (30/3/12) which can be read in Arabic here; http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/380474

However I used the English translations that can be read here; http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/45350/Egypt/Politics-/URGENT-English-text-of-SCAF-amended-Constitutional.aspx and here;
http://www.cabinet.gov.eg/AboutEgypt/ConstitutionalDeclaration_e.pdf

The first change is Article 30 which simply adds the phrase; "In situation that Parliament is dissolved the President will be sworn into office in front of the High Constitutional Court's General Assembly." This has simply been done to allow the newly-elected President to be sworn in despite the fact that the Peoples Assembly has been dissolved.

Article 38 has been completely re-written replacing the wording: "The law shall govern candidacy for the Peoples Assembly and the Shoura Council according to the determined electoral system including at a minimum the participation of women in both assemblies." with the wording; "The Parliamentary elections will be conducted in accordance with the law." This new wording has been designed to make it more difficult for the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) to overturn future election results by removing the provision that allows for candidate to be banned and use of quotas. It does though give the SCC the power to regulate future elections in accordance with a law that has yet to be written.

Articles 53, 53/1, 53/2 simply seek to clarify the vague wording in the original declaration which declare the Armed Forces to be "the property of the people." It clearly defines that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Office of the President as a separate entities. Both of these bodies will have to agree for Egypt to declare war or for the military to intervene in internal unrest. It also prevents the President from putting pressure on the armed forces to agree on these issues by removing the President's right to appoint or dismiss military leaders. This is a perfectly normal safeguard for a democratic country to have in order to prevent it being turned into a dictatorship. For example in the USA the military swear an oath to uphold the constitution so if a President gives an unconstitutional order the military can simply refuse to carry it out. Also the new wording removes the ban on paramilitary groups which the Muslim Brotherhood originally objected to so violently and mandatory conscription into the military. However I think these two things are as a result of the amendment being written in a hurry rather then something more intentional.

Article 56B merely gives the SCAF the powers listed in Article 56 until the election of a new Peoples Assembly. This is simply to allow someone to run the country until a government is elected. It also isn't strictly speaking necessary because the March 30th declaration actually gives SCAF those powers whether a government is in place or not. So the addition of the amendment actually reduces the SCAF's power by insisting that it must make way for a properly elected government.

Article 60B simply adds a provision allowing the SCAF to appoint a committee to write the new constitution if the Peoples Assembly and the Shoura Council fail to do so within the six months mentioned in the original document. As the Peoples Assembly and Shoura Council have failed to appoint this committee within the six month time limit someone has to do it because Egypt can't carry on in this transition phase indefinitely. The article still gives the people the right to reject the constitution written by the SCAF appointed committee at referendum if they do not approve of it.

Article 60B1 adds the opportunity for the President, the Prime Minister, the SCAF, the Judiciary or 1/5th of the committee to object to any constitutional clause they believe to conflict with the values of the revolution or long held pre-Mubarak Egyptian values. This is important because at a referendum people will only be able to vote yes or no to the entire constitution which can lead to an otherwise perfectly good constitution being rejected due to just one or two bad clauses or one or two bad clauses being included because voters don't want to reject all the other clauses. The article includes a provision for any disputes to be ruled on by the Higher Constitutional Court which allows for the oversight needed to prevent the objection process being abused.

So in conclusion I do not see the June 17th constitutional declaration to be any sort of power grab by SCAF. Instead it's a necessary adjustment to allow the military to pick up the slack caused by the failure of Egypt's inexperienced politicians.

Hosni Mubarak's Health.

Or lack thereof.

At around 21:00GMT last night (19/6/12) rumours started to circulate that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had suffered a heart attack and died. These were immediately followed by other rumours that he's actually suffered a stroke and died or that he'd suffered a stroke an survived. There were also rumours that Egypt's interim military rulers were making the whole thing up either to distract from the controversy surrounding the dissolution of Parliament and the issuing of Sunday's (17/6/12) constitutional decree or to put pressure on the G20 Summit. Today (20/6/12) Mubarak does seem to technically still be alive and had has been moved from prison to a military hospital in Cairo where he is said to be on life support. There has not been an official press conference on the technical aspects of his condition and I have not visited him in hospital nor spoken to his doctors so I am not 100% sure what to believe.

One thing I am certain of though is that Egypt is a very tense place at the moment what with the dissolution of Parliament, the constitutional decree and the Presidential run-off. This tension is present throughout the region - which is what I think did for the Saudi Arabian Interior Minister - and has been magnified by the G20 Summit which has been billed by the USA in particular as a show down with Russia over Syria. So what I think happened is that Hosni Mubarak suffered a stroke for whatever the natural reasons are that some people suffer strokes while others don't. The medical team at the prison then resuscitated him and got him on life support as they are trained to do.

This then caused a spilt within Egypt's interim military rulers with some people thinking that it's not really the government's place to decide who lives or dies provided a court hasn't sentenced them to death. There were also people who think that he could pull through and recover. There were also people who think that Egypt could use the confusion over Mubarak's health to it's advantage - Israel did something similar with Ariel Sharon. Also the right to life/right to die issue is a highly inflammatory issue within US politics with the religious right very opposed to doctors intervening to end pregnancies (abortion) because it goes against God's will but equally opposed to doctors withdrawing treatment to people who would otherwise die without life support. Therefore it is something Egypt could possibly use to exert influence over the US. Finally there were people who thought that the divisive nature of the issue could expose the different factions of Egyptian political society to the outside world - something that would put Egypt at a disadvantage.

Sadly I simply do not have enough information to tell you what is the right answer. Ideally I would have liked to have avoided commenting on the issue as far as possible instead leaving it all a bit vague. However coming in the closing stages of the G20 Summit I felt that wasn't really an option.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 2, Day 1.

On Sunday June 3rd (3/6/12) the al-Awfea militia seized control of Tripoli International Airport demanding the release of one of their members who had been arrested by the National Transitional Council (NTC). They seemed to be trying to copy the example set by the Zintan Brigade militia who used control of the airport as a bargaining chip to force the NTC to try Saif al-Islam Qaddafi in Libya rather then hand him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC). On this occasion though the NTC were having none of it and quickly used force to successfully regain control of the airport. To my mind that was the correct course of action to take because Libya has no chance of becoming the stable and prosperous nation it should be if the soon to be elected government are constantly being forced to negotiate with armed but unelected militias and warlords.

This apparent change of approach by the NTC has got the Zintan Brigade worried that now they no longer control the airport the NTC might hand Saif al-Islam over to the ICC anyway. In response on June 7th (7/6/12) the Zintan Brigade arrested Melinda Taylor, a lawyer who'd been appointed by the ICC to represent Saif al-Islam, on a trumped up charge of passing him a letter from a friend. As Ms Taylor's detention has continued the Zintan Brigade have gone on to claim that the letter contained GPS co-ordinates for the location of Mohamed Ismail and they will release Ms Taylor as soon as she gives them Mr Ismail's location. I simply do not believe this because as a prisoner of the Zintan Brigade Saif al-Islam would have no need to know Mr Ismail's location and if, as the Zintan Brigade claim, the letter contains the co-ordinates of Mr Ismail's location they do not need Ms Taylor to tell them that location. Instead I think the Zintan Brigade are simply making the whole thing up and effectively holding Ms Taylor as a hostage in order to force the ICC to give up it's right to try Saif al-Islam.

Also the fact that the Zintan Brigade seem to think that the passing of a letter is a legitimate reason to arrest a lawyer is deeply worrying. In order to mount the defence needed for a fair trial the accused has the right to speak to their lawyer in private safe in the knowledge that the content of those conversations will not be passed onto their prosecutors/jailers. This is known as attorney-client privilege. Prisoners whether convicted or not also have the right to send and receive letters to people in the outside world. The fact that the Zintan Brigade are not aware of things like this only leaves me more convinced that Saif al-Islam will not receive anything even vaguely resembling a fair trial in Libya.

On June 4th (4/6/12) the Libyan born Al-Qaeda second in command Abu Yahya Al-Libi was apparently killed in a US drone strike in northern Pakistan. On June 6th (6/6/12) an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) exploded outside US diplomatic offices in Benghazi. A Jihadist group calling themselves the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades immediately claimed responsibility for the attack as revenge for the killing of Al-Libi. The US immediately denied this claiming that there was no evidence linking the attack to the group and the Jihadists were only claiming responsibility in order too boost their profile. Now this could be the case or it could be the US trying to cover up the fact that by intervening in Libya they succeeded in turning the south-west of the country into a hot-bed for Al-Qaeda activity and given the group effective control over a country in the size of France in Azawad/northern-Mali. Since the US denial there has been a wave of similar attacks including an IED blast at offices of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Misrata on 12/6/12 and a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) attack on a convoy carrying the British Ambassador Sir Dominic Asquith in Benghazi on 11/6/12. These attacks seem to be linked to the multitude of foreign intelligence agencies that still operate freely throughout Libya and are trying to put pressure on the US to clarify their position on the June 6th attack.

Against this chaotic background the NTC have postponed the election for the National Congress (Parliament) that had been scheduled for June 19th (19/6/12) due to what I think are legitimate logistical and security problems. The election will now be held on July 7th (7/7/12). My understanding is that voter registration for this election has now closed so any Libyan who has not yet registered will not be allowed to vote. However I wouldn't get too worried about this because I suspect there will be another election in about a year as Libyans gain experience in government and democracy.

A good example of the progress they are making was the Supreme Court's decision on June 14th (14/6/12) to strike down Law 137. The so-called "anti-glorification law" Law 137 made it illegal for anyone to praise Muammer Qaddafi, his sons, his ideas or his regime. Although I'm not particularly bothered whether anyone praises Qaddafi or not in terms freedom passing a law banning people from praising Qaddafi is no different from passing a law saying people must praise him. The fact that the Libyan courts are beginning to think in these terms shows that they are moving away from the attitudes of the war years and towards the values of democracy and freedom.

The Ruling on Egypt's Parliament.

As previously mentioned yesterday (14/6/12) Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruled that parts of the election for Egypt's lower house of Parliament (Peoples Assembly) were inconsistent with Egypt's 1971 constitution and gave the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces the authority to dissolve the Parliament if they so wish.

I have to start by saying that I've had a lot of difficulty finding out exactly what the SCC's ruling was because they do not seem to have published a copy of their ruling in either Arabic or English. In a democratic country this is simply not acceptable. If a Court is going to over-rule the will of the people it must immediately publish a judgement explaining it's decision, the exact law under which it was being asked to make it's decision and the detailed reasoning behind it's decision.

However from what I have been able to piece together the part of the electoral process that the SCC had a problem with were rules that reserved one third of seats in the Peoples Assembly for independent rather party candidates. Although under Hosni Mubarak the Muslim Brotherhood gained a lot of experience in disguising party candidates as independents this rule seems to have been specifically designed to limit the number of seats that the Brotherhood's Freedom & Justice Party could contest and therefore win. As a result the SCC's decision to overturn this rule is likely to help the Muslim Brotherhood more then any other group. Also giving Egypt's interim military rulers the authority to dissolve Parliament does leave it open to accusations of mounting anti-democratic coup. Therefore I'm now convinced my earlier assessment was correct and the Muslim Brotherhood have managed to unduly influence the SCC's decision in order to increase their chances of winning this weekend's Presidential run-off vote.

The reason that the Brotherhood have resorted to these extreme and undemocratic tactics is that pressure has steadily been mounting on the Islamist dominated Peoples Assembly over the appointment of a panel to write Egypt's new constitution. This has really been the one and only job of Parliament since it's election in January 2012. However over the following six months the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist al-Nour Party have more or less blocked appointments to this panel in order to ensure that it is dominated by Islamists and Egypt gets a Sharia rather then democratic constitution. The Military set a deadline of June 7th (7/6/12) for Parliament to start work on final preparations for that panel. That deadline was met but still little progress has been made leading many in Egypt to suggest that the military needs to dissolve Parliament and allow the people to elect a new one in order to break the deadlock. The Brotherhood seem to be trying to force this decision in order to make the military look undemocratic.

As for the issue of the military dissolving Parliament I don't think Egypt's quite at the point that has become necessary just yet. However I do not have a problem with it in theory provided that on the same day the military announce that Parliament is to be dissolved they also announce the date (normally within around 6 weeks) that an election will be held to elect a new Parliament.

After all the entire point of democracy is that if the politicians are not doing what the people want the people can quite easily get rid of them. The recent recall election of Governor Scott Walker in the US state of Wisconsin is a timely example of how this can happen without the involvement of a military council.

Hosni Mubarak is Such an A**hole.

I know that hardly counts as news. However almost 18 months after he was deposed by the Egyptian revolution ex-President Hosni Mubarak still seems to be harbouring a deep hatred for both Egypt and it's people.

On June 2nd 2012 (2/6/12) Mubarak and his Interior Minister Habib al-Aldi was found guilty of the murder of 846 protesters who were killed during the revolution. As Egypt has yet to write the constitution needed to reform it's legal system this trial was at it's best an example of how the old regime used to do things and at it's worst utterly shambolic. Although Mubarak and al-Aldi were convicted of murder they and two of Mubarak's sons were acquitted of corruption charges while other defendants including senior officers in the feared CSF riot squad were acquitted of all charges. The acquittal of the police officers in particular was apparently due to the Mubarak-era prosecutor's failure to force the police to release files that many believe would have proved the police officer's guilt. This coupled with the fact that Mubarak was only sentenced to life in prison rather then death which for a President who liberally used capital punishment during his reign seems lenient has led to many Egyptians to accuse the country's interim military rulers of trying to roll back the revolution by protecting Mubarak's old guard.

Ahead of Saturday and Sunday's (16-17/6/12) Presidential run-off vote between the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsy and Mubarak's former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik the Brotherhood have leapt on the trial issue and are trying to use it portray themselves as the guardians of the revolution. I think this is nothing more then the worst sort of political opportunism. Although the Brotherhood did play a crucial role in the revolution and are only Islamic extremists so far as the US Republican Party are Christian extremists the Saudi fuelled Sunni V Shia sectarianism that the conflict in Syria has caused across the region has pushed the Brotherhood so far towards the Salafists that they now pose a very serious threat to democracy in Egypt. Besides during the revolution I seem to remember that there was another highly organised group protecting the protesters in Tahrir Square from Mubarak's thugs with their tanks.

For his part Hosni Mubarak is now claiming to be suffering from a very conveniently timed bout of ill health and is trying to use this to serve his sentence in a comfortable private hospital rather then a Mubarak-era prison. If this does happen it will only strengthen the main thrust of the Muslim Brotherhood's campaign claim that nothing has changed and Egypt's old guard - which they claim Shafik is part of part of - are still just looking out for themselves. So apart from getting away with his crimes Mubarak also seems to be actively campaigning for the Muslim Brotherhood. The idea seems to be that he can spite all the people - both inside and outside of Egypt - who called for him to step down by helping elect a President who will be much worse then him.

This is exactly the sort of politicisation of the judicial process that means I'm still convinced that Saif al-Islam Qaddafi should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) rather then in the new Libya. As for Mubarak I can't help but think it would just have been easier to honour the promise that he's allowed a comfortable retirement provided he stepped down.