The UK's Contribution to Mali and Zimbabwe.

As I touched on in my previous post with the election results in Mali and Zimbabwe being released in Friday (2/8/13) we are now in a period in which certain elements within the developed world were hoping those two nations would be torn apart by violence and legal challenges in response to those controversial election results. As such the US has been making a great effort to make sure that Rihanna is front and centre of everybody's attention with lots of earnest discussion over whether Chris Brown's handlers will again intervene to force the couple to reunite. The US' neighbour Canada has contributed to the general level of confusion with an incident in which two young boys were killed by a python snake in French speaking New Brunswick. Personally I think this was an attempt by English speaking Canada to be seen participating in the UK's efforts against Mali and Zimbabwe while reminding the US that it is most probably time to let the Rihanna/Chris Brown operation come to its natural conclusion.

As I also mentioned in my previous post being far more heavily invested in Zimbabwe the UK has gone to an extra special effort to put pressure on all parties by spreading confusion and tension. So it goes without saying that Shrien Dewani will indeed to appealing against his extradition to South Africa to the UK's Supreme Court. The UK's efforts though have largely been built around a Channel 4 mini-series called "Southcliffe." If I was writing a professional review of this program I would say that it is incredibly well acted and deeply thought provoking. That's because it is a much more polite way of saying it's a bit boring really with the director choosing to largely disregard a plot in favour of giving us lots of long, lingering shots in which the viewer can ponder how the issues raised affect them in their own lives.

What little of a plot there is centres around a character called "Stephen" who lives in the fictional small market town of Southcliffe and one day decides to go on a shooting spree. The Stephen character served in the British Army and applied to join the elite SAS but failed selection. However he likes to tell people in his small town that he served heroically with the SAS leading to his friends and neighbours thinking he is a bit of a weirdo. Although it's not been officially diagnosed it's heavily hinted that Stephen cares for his elderly mother who has dementia. As such the Stephen character could equally be me or my father. The "Anna" character is pretty obviously a less ginger version of the Anna featured in the Bristol Abuse Case. Beyond that there's a social worker, a pub landlord with a fondness for the band Oasis, a serving soldier possibly suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a TV news reporter with a troubled past, lots of police officers and plenty of characters that people in the UK will be familiar with in their everyday lives. Well I'm familiar with at least. As the painfully pretentious series continues we will explore how societies failings caused Stephen to go on his murderous rampage. Basically back in 2006 the Communists at Channel 4 promised the UK Crown that they would take control of me and deliver something by 2012. It's 2013 and Channel 4 haven't delivered so it's time for them to examine their failings.

In the meantime though the UK Crown were hoping that I would be experiencing a long, hot summer under constant harassment from occupants 50 Beechwood Avenue and associates. They were hoping that the broadcast of Southcliffe would make the stress all too much and something dramatic would happen. Of course something dramatic has already happened but it was far less dramatic than the Crown was hoping. As a result G4S have tonight pulled out of their electronic tagging contract because well before a UK Court can impose punishment such as electronic tagging it first has to demonstrate that a criminal offence has been committed.

Showing remarkable resilience though following the unsuccessful broadcast of the second of four episodes of Southcliffe last night (5/8/13) the UK sprung back with a shooting incident at a farm in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. This looks like a domestic incident but we were all supposed to speculate whether the broadcast of Southcliffe played a role in the incident. After all the UK were using to hope the power of TV to trigger me into doing something dramatic. The fact that the farm in question also has a horse riding stables attached was particularly cunning because it brought in the incident in which a steward was trampled by two police horses brought into to control a pitch invasion following the League Cup 1st round match between Blackpool and Preston North End. The match was obviously arranged to provoke a minor disturbance in order to invoke discussion about about the recent July 12th rioting in Belfast, Northern Ireland. You see although in Northern Ireland they take things much more seriously this type of disorder is not uncommon on council housing estates across the UK mainland in August. The football match was an attempt to keep the disorder within controlled environment of a football stadium rather then a housing estate. The horse incident seems to be an added bonus. What appears to have happened is that the steward attempted to grab someone running onto the pitch as the horses advanced. Being kind of thick one of the police horses instinctively swerved to hit the person running on to the pitch knocking the steward under the hoofs of the second horse. The question of course is did the person running onto the pitch know that the horse would react in that way?

The horse trampling also fed beautifully into the announcement about dangerous dogs. 'Dangerous Dogs' is of course a long standing UK codeword for young, mainly black gang members. Therefore the announcement could have been a reference to the occupants of 50 Beechwood Avenue and associates. Also the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 is a perfect example of a poorly written law. However it is quite common for the residents of council housing estates who sometimes engage in August disorder to own and keep dangerous dogs which sometimes leads to some of these dangerous dogs munching on the occasional child. Of course owners affinity or lack there of with living things such as horses is often a factor in these fatal dog attacks. Of course the horse trampling could also be viewed as an attempt to encourage footballs fans to take an interest in horse racing which in turn seems like a protest against payday loan companies such as Wonga.

Also in the UK we've had the tragedy of a schoolgirl killing herself after being bullied by Internet trolls on the site ask.fm. Apart from the Communists seemingly never ending desire for the Internet and the wider world being so heavily regulated that no-one can ever again point out to them that they're idiots this also fed into the news that UK Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle has retired. You see with all her teeth I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Beth Tweddle has been the victim of Internet trolls at least once. Therefore an outsider might mistake this for an attempt to invoke a highly complex argument from the 2012 Olympics. Tom Daley immediately springs to mind.

Finally there's been some nonsense about the government introducing news laws to discourage NHS hospitals from killing their elderly patients. This could obviously be interpreted as some highly important announcement about my grandmother's case. Personally I think it was the NHS' obsession with fighting tobacco smoking that ruined it all for everyone.

Anyway got a headache yet?

(Originally Posted) 20:25 on 6/8/13.

Operation Misery: Month 5, Week 5, Day 2.

That really feels like the wrong post title to use because at this point Rihanna is currently back in her native Barbados more or less on holiday.

The fact that Barbados is part of the UK Commonwealth Realm obviously raises speculation that the UK will be getting access to all the juicy gossip and they were certainly very keen to let the world know they knew the moment that Rihanna arrived. However the fact that Rihanna is in Barbados rather than in France actually gives the UK less access to Rihanna because it is one thing to be able hear the opinions of onlookers and gawkers but quite another to actually have someone in the room with her. This change has led to some apparent dispute between the US and the UK which has led to former President George W Bush having a UK Prince Phillip style heart stent fitted. After all following the 2005 G8 Summit and winning his second term in 2004 George W Bush did seem to have something of a change of heart particularly when it came to African issues.

Getting back to the point though there have certainly been a lot of onlookers and gawkers over the past couple of days because Rihanna has been attending Barbados' annual carnival. This is something that happens every year and something Rihanna attends almost every year making it part of her normal, everyday life. Therefore the most politically relevant thing I can think to say about it is that if you've seen the photographs and videos you would immediately understand why Rihanna has a much more relaxed attitude towards nudity then, well, most other people on the planet. Over the coming weeks I expect Rihanna will be doing lots of family stuff, sunbathing and generally enjoying not being on tour. The only fly in the ointment is that Rihanna will have to attend a deposition in her case against Berdon LLP. However it's already been established that Berdon's legal team are happy to travel to Barbados and Barbados is happy for a deposition in the case to take place there.

Of course in the original plan we would currently be in a high stress period with Mali and Zimbabwe tearing themselves apart in the wake of controversial and disputed elections. As a result the US has been making sure that Rihanna is front and centre of everybody's attention. So for example radio stations in the US have been heavily playing Rihanna's current single "Right Now" ensuring that it gets pushed to the top of the Billboard dance/club chart. This is Rihanna's 20th single to top that chart putting her at number 2 in that chart only some 22 singles behind Madonna. Added to that over the weekend the US have been putting out lots of stories that make it appear that it is having an earnest discussion about the future of the Rihanna/Chris Brown operation especially after my involvement. These include an explosive demolition of a disused power generation plant in Bakersfield, California in which at least one onlooker was seriously injured, the incident in which driver used his car to deliberately target pedestrians walking on the Venice Beach boardwalk in California, a snowboarder who died after becoming buried in an icy tunnel in Oregon and a parachute instructor who died after his parachute failed in Mississippi. As the intention is to cause confusion all of these stories could be interpreted a number of ways however they all give the general impression that the US is now viewing the Rihanna/Chris Brown operation as a failure. Ahead of Chris Brown's mid-August Court appearance this raises the possibility that his handlers will be lifting their protection and he might actually be prosecuted for at least one of his legion of crimes. This obviously raises the tension for Rihanna who although is no longer dating him probably still cares enough about him not to want to see him sent to prison. It obviously also massively raises the pressure on Chris Brown who has responded by making a big show on Twitter of how him and Rihanna are no longer a couple. While I believe this to be true at this point Brown is clearly making sure that everybody knows in the hope that will lessen the clamour for him to be prosecuted.

Obviously being far more invested in Zimbabwe then anybody else the UK has also been contributing to the general level of confusion in a big way. However having been years in the planning the UK's effort is highly complicated and highly confusing meaning that it deserves a post all of its own. Canada has also decided to join in with a story about two young boys who were killed by an escaped python while staying with friends. This can obviously be interpreted in a number of ways not least in terms of jokes about penis size and paedophilia. However I suspect this mainly Canada being seen to contribute to the UK's Zimbabwe effort while reminding it's US neighbour that it is probably time to let the Rihanna operation go.

One thing that was most certainly not in the script was the continuation of the Egyptian revolution so alongside all this planned Rihanna stuff the US is also desperately trying to find out what is going on in Egypt. As a result Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are in Egypt on a legitimate fact finding mission. Also under pressure from Turkey whose Prime Minister Erdogan has his own reasons to feel nervous about events in Egypt US President Obama has controversially invited the worldwide leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood to a prestigious meeting at the White House. In the meantime the US's big terror alert is now focusing very much on Yemen. The fact the threat level is now described as "Extremely High" is supposed to make Egypt worried that the Saudis are about to use the Yemen route to punish Egypt for overthrowing Morsi. The deployment of evacuation of US nationals via military transport is supposed to make the Saudis worried that the US could be withdrawing its help to control the unruly elements of Yemen's militants. The killing of two suspected Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in drone strikes is supposed to reassure the Saudis that the US is only bluffing about withdrawing its help.

The cumulative effect of all this is to heap pressure on the Egyptians to allow the US to force its way in as the lead negotiator between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government. Out of laziness more than anything I suspect that the US will try to force the Egyptian government to share power with the Brotherhood in a sort of government of national unity. This is what Turkey and Saudi Arabia want and the US are likely to give to them because the US needs at least one of the other to give them a seat in the Syria game. I think this is all bad news for Egypt because the military's original plan seems to me to be a very good plan and the way to proceed. That is to say the government of national unity that is already in place continues until the security situation is stabilised and Egypt makes some key economic reforms before making way for a democratically elected government in the early part of 2014.

(Originally Posted) 17:00 on 6/8/13.

Terrorism Sunday.

In the past week the European portion of Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour has come to what the CIA handlers would consider an unsuccessful conclusion. In turn that makes it much less likely that the final portion of the tour will achieve its political objectives. Added to that events in Egypt are having knock on effects across the region threatening to again change the political direction of the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

As a result in the US the Obama administration is once again coming under pressure over the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya on September 11th 2012 (11/9/12). This is of course the issue used in the US to have coded discussions about all aspects of Obama's flawed foreign policy. In response the US State Department has taken the political decision to use a not particularly credible threat of a terrorist attack to close down US Embassies and issue advice against travel across the globe today (4/8/13) This particularly affects the MENA region where Sunday is the first day of the normal working week. The Obama administrations intention was to demonstrate that in return for doing everything it can to protect US diplomats overseas the US loses its ability to operate and therefore influence across the globe. Unfortunately the image of Embassies across the world being shuttered also demonstrates the negative effect of the Obama administrations foreign policy.

Following the announcement from the US the UK ordered the temporary closure of its Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen. The intention here being to put Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) into the spotlight. Based in Yemen AQAP are widely considered to be an off-shoot of the Saudi government and Egypt in particular are worried that if the Saudis wish to destabilise Egypt they will do so by exporting AQAP militants from Yemen. Therefore the UK has shifted the focus onto Yemen in an effort to find what the US knows about Saudi support for AQAP and how it feels about it. Following the UK announcement Germany and France have also ordered the temporary closure of their Embassies in Yemen in an effort to join in the conversation between the US and the UK. Finally the International Police (INTERPOL) have issued a world wide alert following prison breaks in Libya and Pakistan. This is INTERPOL trying to find out what is going on with the US terror alert.

As for Egypt itself it has enjoyed a relatively peaceful couple of days. The Muslim Brotherhood continued to hold marches in Cairo on Friday (2/8/13) with a particular focus on media city and the security forces fired tear gas in response to stone throwing. However we are talking in terms of injuries rather than fatalities. Also there have been two continuous days without attacks taking place in the Sinai. However the worry is that this is simply the calm before the storm because the military have issued a 48 hour ultimatum for the Brotherhood to abandon their protest camps in Cairo. No-one is exactly sure when that 48 hour period began so no-one is sure exactly when it will end let alone what the military will do when the time comes. However there is a fear that the military will simply charge in all guns blazing. That is because the protesters at the Brotherhood camps are armed and the camps are being used as bases to launch attacks against the military and local residents. On the battle field when faced with an encampment of armed opponents it is perfectly acceptable to simply use overwhelming force to destroy it. However in the civilian environment the security forces need to be more tolerant and more flexible. Therefore I hope before acting the military give very serious consideration to my suggestion of providing an alternative, less disruptive protest site to the Brotherhood because in a democracy their right to protest does need to be respected.

(Originally Posted) 12:30 on 4/8/13.

Election Results in Mali and Zimbabwe.

Rather annoyingly both Mali and Zimbabwe have today released their election results on the same day. However I don't think it is any great secret that the Mali election was specifically timed to coincide with the Zimbabwe election in order to put maximum pressure on African nations particularly South Africa.

In Zimbabwe it is only the results of the Parliamentary vote that have been announced. The results of the Presidential vote will come later. However it is clear that Mugabe's ZANU-PF party have won a landslide victory winning 142 of the 210 Parliamentary seats giving them more than a 2/3rds majority. Obviously we are still waiting for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the various observer missions to publish their reports but such is the scale of ZANU-PF's victory even if all of the small scale of alleged voting irregularities were found to be true they wouldn't be enough to affect the outcome of the election. The fact that ZANU-PF now have a more than 2/3rds Parliamentary majority means that they now have the power to amend the national constitution which will be highly controversial. Therefore while they won't change the overall outcome these allegations of voting irregularity will need to be looked at carefully. However at this point everybody is tensely waiting to see whether the MDC-T will follow through on it's threat to bring its supporters out onto the streets to challenge the election result. Hopefully they won't.

The situation in Mali is slightly more complicated because their Presidential vote has resulted in no candidate gaining the 50% of the vote needed to win outright. This means that that two leading candidates Ibrahim Boubacar Keita who received 39.2% of the vote and Soumaila Cisse who received 19.4% of the vote will now go head to head in a run-off vote scheduled for August 11th (11/8/13). Apart from the fact they both have strong democratic credentials and a feud dating back more than a decade I don't really know enough about either candidate to comment further at this point. However the election run-off seems the sensible way to proceed because Cisse in particular has made some very loud and aggressive accusations of vote rigging and election irregularities. The run-off gives the opportunity for these allegations to be resolved by a new vote.

16:50 on 2/8/13


Edited at around 21:20 on 3/8/13 to add;

Today the result of the Zimbabwean Presidential election have been released. They show Robert Mugabe winning a substantial victory with 61% of the vote over Morgan Tsvangirai's 34% of the vote. As a result Mugabe has passed the 50% threshold winning the Presidency outright with no need for a run-off vote.

Having made his position quite clear before voting even began it goes without saying that Tsvangirai has accused Mugabe of election fraud and pledged to contest the result in Court. However as with the Parliamentary vote the scale of Mugabe's victory means that any irregularities that have been alleged so far would not be sufficient to change the outcome of the vote. Therefore we can only hope that Tsvangirai and the MDC-T respect the Court's decision and accept their defeat graciously rather than bringing their supporters to the streets in protest.

(Originally Posted on 2/8/13)

Zimbabwe's Election: The Game's Begun.

Although let's be honest it never really stopped.

On Wednesday (31/7/13) Zimbabwe held it's general election for Parliament and the Presidency. Under election rules brought in following the violence that occured during the 2008 general election the results of the vote will not be known for five days. This means that the ballots cast have only just started to be counted so there is absolutely no way of knowing who has won the election or even how many questionable ballots have been cast.

This tiny detail hasn't stopped Morgan Tsvangirai the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change - Tsvangirai (MDC-T) attempting to whip his supporters up into a frenzy. In a press conference today Tsvangirai declared the election to be "A huge farce with its credibility marred by administrative violations which affect the legitimacy of its outcome." He went on to describe the election as a "Sham election that does not reflect the will of the people" before declaring that the MDC-T considers the election result to be "Null and void." These comments of course put Tsvangirai in direct violation of election rules that prevent participants commenting on the election in the time between the polls opening and the election results being declared. This rule was introduced following the 2008 election specifically to prevent participants inciting violence.

Tsvangirai's views on the election are most certainly not supported by the observer mission from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Although they will continue to monitor the counting process the SADC observers declared the physical voting part of the election process to be "Peaceful, credible and efficient" while urging all parties to accept the result of the vote before praising the Zimbabwe Electoral Comission (ZEC) for the efficent way they conducted the election. Tsvangirai's views are also not shared by the observer mission from the African Union (AU) who described the voting process as "Peaceful, orderly, free and fair."

Even the infamous Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) have been struggling to find evidence to support Tsvangirai's position. In their preliminary report released today they found that election rules such as ballot boxes being empty before being sealed, voters having their names checked against the electoral roll before being allowed to vote and having their fingers marked with indelible ink after voting were followed at 99-100% of polling stations.

If you are unfamiliar with ZESN they are an umbrella organisation made up of various community action and women's rights groups who are organised and funded by the UK and white farmers who Mugabe expelled from the country. In 2008 they played a central role in inciting the violence that followed the election by making a series of utterly false claims. For example they initially claimed that Tsvangirai had won over 50% of the vote meaning there would be no need for a run-off vote. This was later proved to be totally untrue and ZESN withdrew their comment.

As it is very much their mission to overthrow Mugabe by any means ZESN seem to have completely disregarded their own report in their public comments on the election saying that it cannot be passed off as being free and fair. Their main evidence in support of these is that are 49% of polling stations 25 people or more were refused the right to vote simply because they weren't on the list of registered voters or that some of the polling stations in this dirt poor country were not wheelchair accessible.

Obviously I will try to avoid commenting on this election further until the results have been announced and there is something to comment on. However from Tsvangirai's political play I think that the election has probably been free, fair and credible and that Mugabe has most likely won.

(Originally Posted) 19:50 on 1/8/13.

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 14, Week 1, Day 6.

Today in Egypt the interim Minister for Information Dorreya Sharaf El-Din made a short televised statement in which she announced that the Interior Ministry had been authorised by the government of national unity to end the Muslim Brotherhood's protest camps at both the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city Cairo and at Al-Nahda Square in New Cairo city, Cairo. Describing the situation at the protest camps as dangerous and continuing Sharaf El-Din went on to cite the terrorism and traffic congestion associated with the camps as reasons why the protest camps simply could not be allowed to continue giving the current threat to Egypt's national security.

I couldn't agree more with the assessment that the Brotherhood's camps represent a threat to Egypt's national security because the protest marches that resulted in the deaths of 36 people on the night of July 5-6th (5-6/7/13), the protest march that led to the deaths of 42 people outside Cairo's Republican Guard HQ on July 8th (8/7/13), the protest march that led to the deaths of 7 people on July 15th (15/7/13) and the protest march that lead to the deaths of 80 people on July 27th (27/7/13) all originated from the Muslim Brotherhood's Rabea al-Adweya protest camp. Added to that the Brotherhood have been attempting to enforce their own style of Sharia influenced street justice in the camps and the surrounding streets. As result in the last four days 12 bodies have been found close to the camp apparently tortured to death and there have been multiple complaints - both official and unofficial - from local residents of people being kidnapped and tortured by Muslim Brotherhood members who have been cutting off fingers and hands of people suspected of minor crimes such as petty theft. Finally the protest camps have created a culture of insecurity that has forced governments around the world to issue instructions advising their citizens to avoid travelling to Egypt. This has obviously had a devastating effect of Egypt's vital tourism industry with there said to be a 55% drop in visitor numbers at Cairo airport alone.

Most importantly though the Brotherhood's protest camps have been delaying the nations transition back to the democracy that so many have fought so hard to achieve. For example I should be sitting here talking about reforms need to be made to the constitution or how the economy needs to be modernised but instead I and everybody else keep being forced back into talking about the latest round of violence and killing triggered by the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore it is clear that the time has come for the Brotherhood's protests to end. The only question is how to go about it?

Obviously I would much prefer that the Brotherhood voluntarily ended their protests and joined in with the political process. However it is quite clear that it not going to happen in turn forcing the military to act. I think it is obvious that the military should wait until after Eid al-Fitr before breaking up the protest camps. Then rather then simply trying to eradicate the camps by arresting all those attending the military should first set up an alternative, less disruptive site for the protests to continue. As I've said before I don't have the local knowledge of Cairo to designate an alternative site but from a quick look at maps and aeriel photographs Cairo's International Stadium and the Paradise Gardens both seem obvious locations. That is because they allow the Brotherhood to continue to protest if they so wish but they also allow the military to easily contain those protests in order to make sure that they don't spill out to affect local residents and into protest marches that lead to more violent confrontations with the military. I appreciate though that both the International Stadium and the Paradise Gardens are important public areas in Cairo that no-one wants to see damaged or disrupted by lenghty protests. Therefore as alternative locations the area of apparent wasteland bordered El-Nasr Road, Youssef Abbas and Dr Abd El-Aziz El-Shennawy close to the Al-Ahazr university or the vast stretches of waste land to the south of Nasr city close to the Muslim Brotherhood's HQ seem viable alternatives although the military will need to erect fencing and barricades in order to contain the protest site.

Once an alternative protest site has been nominated and prepared the Brotherhood protesters should then be given a deadline of a week or so to voluntarily move to the new site. If they refuse the military should then blockade the Rabea a-Adaweya and Al-Nahda Square protests preventing new people from entering but allowing people to leave. They then have the option of escalating to stopping supplies of food, water and electricity entering the site. Finally if the Brotherhood supporters still fail to transfer to the new protest site the military will have to move in slowly and gently breaking the crowd up into smaller sections. The protesters in the targeted section will obviously be arrested if they engage in violence but if they don't should be placed onto buses and transported by the military to the new protest site. From there they will be able to either continuing protesting peacefully or return home.

(Originall Posted) 20:55 on 31/7/13.

Operation Misery: Month 5, Week 4, Day 3.

It's now been independently verified that Rihanna has returned to her home in Los Angeles. There is also some speculation that she will soon move onto her native Barbados. I don't have any problem with that at all provided that any change in location is declared and verified. That is because while it is quite easy for people with the technical know how to track Rihanna's movements the operation in Mali involves co-ordinating a vast number of people from multiple nations many of whom can't even read.

Although Rihanna is currently in the US she has today had some good news from the UK with a High Court Judge upholding her complaint against the High Street retail chain "Topshop" over their sale of T-shirts bearing her image. Although I've yet to read the judgement I understand that the Court ruled that the rights to the image were owned by the photographer who lawfully sold them to Topshop. However Topshop's decision to sell the T-shirts bearing the images as "Rihanna Tank-Tops" violated Rihanna's protected brand name making the product an unlawful attempt to pass the product off as one endorsed by Rihanna. As Topshop immediately stopped using the phrase "Rihanna Tank-Tops" after being told to cease and desist this ruling against Topshop seems a little harsh. It also seems like an attempt to drive a wedge between Rihanna and Topshop and force her deeper into the clutches of that problematic other high street retail chain "River Island."

What I'm finding amusing is that the Rihanna ruling comes on a very busy day for the UK's High Court. Also this morning a law firm has been ordered to make a large donation to a soldiers charity after breaching the privacy of "Harry Potter" author J.K Rowling by revealing she had written a crime novel under a pen name. This along with the Rihanna verdict seems like the UK trying to nudge me towards using Rihanna's London law firm for this criminal damage matter. I'm not even aware of who the law firm in question is but I suspect they specialise in corporate and contract law rather then the range of criminal defence and medical malpractice issues I require. Also with Rihanna's business with the firm now complete there's no incentive for me to use them especially as I am highly suspicious of anyone associated with Rihanna's management. The announcement by the Parliamentary Home Affairs select committee that I believe 22 law firms are among those implicated in a phone hacking scandal also seems to be a suggestion that I consider contacting the law firms involved in the News of the World/News International phone hacking scandal.

I though am still not convinced that I require legal representation. Today's ruling by the High Court over the right to die cases underline that it is still most certainly unlawful for a doctor to deliberately kill a patient and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have been instructed to review the guidelines for prosecution. As in my case there is less then 1% chance of conviction I'm confused as to why the matter would proceed to trial.


(Originally Posted) 12:00 on 31/7/13.

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 14, Week 1, Day 5.

With the funerals taking place on Sunday (28/7/13) Egypt is largely trying to find a way forward after clashes on Friday/Saturday (26-27/7/13) between the Muslim Brotherhood and most everybody else left 80 dead. The situation has been made much worse by western interference.

On Saturday (27/7/13) the US Secretary of State John Kerry issued a written statement in which he described the events of the previous night to be a pivotal moment for Egypt and urged leaders from across the political spectrum to help the nation step back from the brink. Specifically citing the military's "moral and legal obligation" to respect the right of peaceful protest this was a not particularly coded threat to prevent the Egyptian military from bringing an end to the Muslim Brotherhood's protests. Today the French Foreign Ministry called for Mohamed Morsi's immediate release while the European Unions (EU) spokesperson for foreign affairs Catherine Ashton visited Morsi in prison, met with Muslim Brotherhood leaders and called for the Brotherhood to be included in the political process. Rather than being driven by any genuine understanding of the reality of the situation in Egypt these comments all stem from the fact that after the January 25th revolution the US and the EU members states promised the Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar that they would deliver a Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt in return for gas and oil. Now the Egyptian people have rejected that government the US and the EU are trying their damnedest to reimpose the Muslim Brotherhood on the Egyptian people. This is particularly dangerous because it helps fuel the Brotherhood's delusions of legitimacy. For example less then 24 hours after roughly 1/3rd of the entire Egyptian population took to the streets in support of the military the vice-President of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom & Justice Party Essam al-Erain gave a public address directed at the leader of the military Abdel Fattah El-Sisi claiming that "the Egyptian people have rejected the military coup." In my experience it is impossible to negotiate with people who are that utterly detached from reality.

One area where this western interference has already had a damaging impact on Egypt is the detention of Mohamed Morsi. Clearly acting in response to western complaints about arbitrary detention on Friday (26/7/13) it was announced that Morsi is to face charges including murder over his escape from the Wadi al-Natrun prison in 2011. This could have a destabilising effect on Egypt as a whole because providing you don't look too closely the allegation portrays Morsi as an ally of Hamas and by extension the current Egyptian government as an enemy of Hamas. This is could prove highly inflammatory particularly in terms of the current operation in the Sinai even though in the intervening years it seems clear Hamas' allegiances have shifted. It is also particularly damaging for Morsi personally because the general consensus is that he is guilty of the offence it was just overlooked in the spirit of goodwill that followed the downfall of Mubarak. With Egyptian Courts now being forced to revisit the issue it is highly likely that Morsi will now be convicted and spend the rest of this life in prison. This is also bad for Egypt as a whole because if Morsi was being held merely to prevent him inciting violence his detention could have been used as a way to negotiate the end of the Muslim Brotherhood's protests because once that threat of violence had passed Morsi could have been released.

Away from UK Baroness Ashton's meddling the Egypt's interim government have put forward some sensible suggestions of their own to help bring about the peace and stability needed to allow for a democratic transition. The most controversial of these has been the announcement that the Interior Ministry will resume it's work monitoring extremist political and religious groups. This is controversial because under Mubarak this department was extensively misused in order to suppress all forms of political dissent. However I actually feel that the Interior Ministry has been failing in its duty to the people by not carrying out this work. That's because even in the most democratic nations such as the US there are government departments dedicated to monitoring violent extremists with both religious or political ideologies. So provided the Interior Ministry limits its work to those groups who pose a real risk of violence rather than groups with an ideology the government simply disapproves of I consider this part of Egypt's move towards democracy.

The Interior Ministry has also announced that it will be reviewing the employment of police officers who are also members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Again this strikes me as very sensible because under Morsi there was a concerted effort by the Brotherhood to pack the apparatus of state such as local governorships and the police force with its members. Now with the Brotherhood trying to portray themselves as the victims of a violent coup it is entirely possible that its members within the police and security forces will deliberately attack demonstrators in order to damage the reputation of the government. Finally it has been announced that visitors to Egypt from Yemen will have to obtain visas and security clearance before attempt to travel. Again this strikes me as a sensible temporary precaution. Yemen has a particular problem with a terrorist insurgency and there is a general feeling that Yemen's militants are controlled by Saudi Arabia. Therefore if Saudi Arabia were to attempt to destabilise Egypt one of the main ways they would go about it is by exporting militants from Yemen to Egypt.

Some people have suggested that these new security measure mark a return to Mubarak and his state of emergency laws. However I think that there is a legitimate need to extra, temporary security measures because at present Egypt is pretty much in a state of emergency. In the Sinai alone on Sunday a police officer was wounded in a gun attack on a police station in Arish, a Coptic Christian was kidnapped simply for being a Christian, an RPG attack on local government building injured three and a bomb exploded at Arish's 3rd police station resulting in no injuries. There is also evidence that the violence is spreading beyond the Sinai with 29 being injured in clashes between Brotherhood supporters and local residents in Port Said on Sunday following Brotherhood attacks on a Church, police vehicles and private cars and shops. Also on Sunday in Giza Brotherhood supporters threatened to destroy all of Egypt's power stations unless Morsi was reinstated before they were attacked by local residents. On Monday in Ismailia 18 were injured after the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to march from their protest camp at the Saleheen Mosque to the local security department building only to be attacked by local residents while a bomb was reportedly detonated in an Ismailia district close to the Suez Canal.

Further demonstrating that far from being peaceful protests the Muslim Brotherhood camps are actually centres for serious and violent criminal activity on Saturday the unidentified body of a man was discovered Sunday close to the Brotherhood's protest camp at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city. He had been tortured to death. On Monday a further 11 bodies were discovered all showing similar signs of torture. This is on top to the 10 formal complaints by local residents that had been kidnapped and tortured by members of the Rabea al-Adaweya protest.

The interim President has also announced that the interim Prime Minister has been given the authority to give the military permission to arrest people. Rather then being an attempt to instate a military dictatorship this strikes me as an attempt to move forward with the law and order policy I proposed here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egypts-continuing-revolution-month-13_6.html

Being my idea I obviously fully support this idea. However the need for the military to be able to take action to keep the peace should be obvious following the events on Mosky Street in Cairo on Monday. Here an argument between street vendors and a local shop keeper got out of hand leading to the shop keeper shooting and killing two of the street vendors. Their friends and relatives responded by petrol bombing the shop causing around 13 people to be burned to death. If the military had been able to break this argument up at an early stage by arresting and cautioning those involved for the common law offence of affray this type of incident could have been avoided and people across Egypt would be forced to find more civil ways to resolve their disputes.

(Originally Posted) 21:00 on 30/7/13.

Operation Misery: Month 5, Week 4, Day 1.

Right let's try this again.

On Sunday (28/7/13) Rihanna performed the final concert of the European leg of her Diamonds World Tour in Helsinki, Finland.  Provided no new dates are added the tour will resume in Macau, China on September 13th (13/9/13). Before that though there is a six week tour break in which Rihanna is more or less free to make up her own schedule.

The original plan was that Rihanna and her core tour party would spend this time holidaying on a yacht on the French Rivera. Obviously during that time she would be joined by friends and family and before the European leg of the tour began there was a lot of speculation that Rihanna would be joined by Chris Brown. There were even rumours that they would be getting married. The choice of location was meant to make the French - who are the key players in the Mali operation - feel they were being given special access to observe Rihanna during this period. In reality though it would be the UK who be granted the main access to the behind the scenes goings on through Cara Delivinge who was expected to join Rihanna for the duration of the holiday. The UK would then use this information to put pressure on Australia ahead of their general election and Rihanna's series of concerts there and in neighbouring New Zealand in September/October. For example Rihanna will be travelling into Australia from the Philippines mimicking the well established route of boat people immigrants who are a major issue within Australian politics. The problem is though that since this plan was drawn up several important things have changed.

The first of these is that the plan for the European leg of the tour simply didn't happen. The original idea was that the disruption caused by the North American leg of the tour would leave everybody in Europe so frustrated at Rihanna they would attempt to lash out against her in revenge. In order to do this they would have to rely on detailed information about her personality and routines. They would have to obtain this information from the UK putting the UK in a strong and central role within the European Union (EU). As things turned out though very few people had any desire to lash out at Rihanna so there was no great conversation between the UK and the EU, Rihanna didn't run into any problems or border crossings/customs posts and by all accounts Rihanna's core tour party irritated and annoyed the other guests at hotels they were staying in rather than it being the other way around. Of course the Americans did try and put a few things on to get the political aspect moving but these were small, simple and failed to gain any real traction. For example Rihanna's trip to Turkey which should have been all about Islamic attitudes to forced marriage, honour killing and Rihanna's claimed role in the 'Arab Spring' was totally drowned out by the Gezi Park/Taksim Square protests. At a festival in Denmark Rihanna appeared on stage wearing something resembling traditional male Arab dress in an effort to promote discussion about the Danish youth's attitudes towards Islam with particular reference to Islamic modesty standards - the wearing of the veil has always been a big issue in norther European nations. In Poland Rihanna tried to spend the day at a public beach and was mobbed by fans in order to promote discussion about former Soviet states near worship of western icons such as the EU. On stage in Norway Rihanna wore an outfit emblazoned with the word "Pussy." This was supposed to be interpreted as Rihanna insulting either me or Chris Brown for not attempting to join her during her tour. I can't speak for Chris Brown but I remain more than happy to get involved. The problem is that Rihanna doesn't seem to want be involved which is a pity.

The second major change was that the governing Australian Labor Party dropped Julia Gillard as their leader. Gillard is/was deeply unpopular amongst average Australian voters meaning that the Labor Party headed by her was facing certain defeat at the upcoming election. The Australian opposition Conservative Party is much more in favour of close ties with the UK with whom it shares a Monarch. Therefore the Conservatives desire to rely on information from the UK in order to harass Rihanna during her visit would be a good way for the UK to test out the Conservative Party and any potential coalition partners committement to remaining part of the UK Commonwealth. With a Labor Party under the leadership of Kevin Rudd the Australian election now seems like being a much closer affair. With the Labor Party unlikely to have any desire to rely on UK information a rabid desire by the Conservatives to lash out at Rihanna could well become a turn off amongst voters and potential coalition partners meaning the Labour Party rather than the Conservative Party end up heading Australia's next government.

The third major change is that Rihanna's tour has not been going well. Although no-one at a governmental level has been making life difficult for her the European leg of the tour has been marked by late appearances and somewhat weak performances which have left fans frustrated. The majority of this frustration has been vented only on the Internet however there were plans for Rihanna fans to sarcastically throw fake USD bills at her during her concerts and at a concert in Manchester, UK on July 16th (16/7/13) Rihanna had crisps and other food stuffs thrown at her by fans frustrated at her late arrival. On July 24th (24/7/13) Rihanna burst into tears on stage during her concert in Lille, France. For discretion's sake I didn't comment on this at the time but seems to be a sign of emotional exhaustion that will be solved by simply allowing Rihanna to de-stress. However this sort of thing is one of the warning signs of impending serious psychological problems such as a nervous breakdown. As such the incident caused major ripples amongst the international diplomatic community which were mainly played out through a series of faults with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Even Qatar who are not famed for respecting human rights and are supposedly having all this violence against Rihanna carried out in their name grounded a 787 for a week to carry out an investigation. However they did conclude that it was only a small, temporary problem and gave permission for the plane to fly again. With there being a general consensus that Rihanna played no role in the 'Arab Spring' and Egypt getting rid of Mohamed Morsi it is now widely viewed that continuing with the campaign against Rihanna would be a public relations disaster for any nation involved.

So as a result the US cancelled Rihanna's yachting holiday by getting the Judge in her case against Berdon LLP to fine her around USD50,000 and ordering her to attend a deposition hearing in the US in mid-August under threat of the case being dismissed entirely putting Rihanna at risk of criminal prosecution for tax evasion. While I've yet to have it confirmed I understand that Rihanna is either currently on route to or has already arrived at her home in Los Angeles, US. With Chris Brown still not having been served with a restraining order preventing him from contacting Rihanna I think the US' intention is to use the speculation about whether the two will meet up to concentrate on putting pressure on the African nations involved in the Mali operation with South Africa being a particular target. What I find amusing is that the US has been trying to convince the UK that it's cancelled Rihanna's holiday as punishment for the UK not doing enough to harass me through this criminal damage case. Sunday's jewellery theft on the French Rivera is obviously a reference to the change of plans. However looking at it closely it seems to be an Israeli millionaire acting privately to bonk the French on the nose for being so greedy.

Personally I just hope that over the coming six weeks Rihanna and her core tour party get plenty of time to rest and relax in LA. I believe Chris Brown is still in Switzerland and I hope he stays there because I for one feel much happier when there is at least an ocean between the two.

(Originally Posted) 17:15 on 29/7/13.

Operation Misery: Month 5, Week 3, Day 7.

Although I've yet to watch the videos that will allow me to review the performance as far as I can tell on Sunday (28/7/13) Rihanna performed in Helsinki, Finland marking the end of the European leg of her Diamonds World Tour. I believe her next scheduled concert is not until September 13th (13/9/13) when she will take to the stage in Macau, China. Until then though we have a six and a half week break in which anything could happen.

Of course the original plan was that Rihanna would spend most of these six weeks chilling out on a yacht off the French Riviera where she would obviously be joined by her core tour party. Added to this tour party there would obviously be the British model Cara Delevinge and desperate rumours that Chris Brown could fly in at any moment. I believe at one point a wedding had even been suggested. The intention being that amid all the stress that Chris Brown causes Delevinge would be able to report back to the UK Rihanna's deepest thoughts and fears. Having welcomed in a new Conservative government Australia would then be relied upon to request this detailed information from it's homeland in order to best harass Rihanna during her September/October residency. Unfortunately though in the interim quite a lot of stuff happened not least of which the Australian Labor Party dumped Julia Gillard as leader giving them a reasonable chance of being that largest party after the election. As the Labor Party is already declared as marginally anti-Monarchist and it is unlikely any smaller parties will risk their place in a coalition over an argument about Rihanna this plan looks largely sunk. Then there was some stuff about parts A&B of the plan failing leaving part C non-actionable

As a result what Rihanna and her core tour party chose to do between now and September is anyone's guess. However I gather that the US Judge in the Berdon LLP case is insisting that Rihanna returns to New York, New York on or around mid-August. I strongly suggest she takes that advice.

(Originally Posted 28/7/13)

Elections in Mali and Zimbabwe

As you may have worked out from the CIA's decision to deploy Chris Brown to Switzerland while Rihanna is in neighbouring Germany there are two big elections coming up in Africa this week. The first takes place in Mali on Sunday (29/7/13) and the second takes place in Zimbabwe on Wednesday (31/7/13).

The election is Mali is nothing more than a sick joke. The nation is still essentially in a state of war with the government and electoral commission unable to operate across great swathes of the north country and there are around 500,000 people who have been displaced by fighting within the country meaning they will be unable to vote. On top of that some bright spark has decided that this very poor and disorganised nation must provide each registered voter with an electronic ID card in order to allow them to vote. Rather predictably this system has been beset with problems from the start the main of which being that a vast number of registered voters have simply not being issued with ID cards. Nobody knows exactly how many registered voters have not been issued with an ID card but none of Mali's 300,000 registered 18 year olds will be allowed to vote. Of towns with adult populations over 1000 people 226 will receive no voter ID cards at all and in 406 towns only 0.5% of registered voters will only receive ID cards. This adds up to around 1 million voters who will be denied the right to take part in the election. On top of that you have obvious inconsistencies such as only 39 voter ID's being issued to Malians living in Morocco which is one of the main migration destinations for Malians emigrating. Finally the electoral commissions inability to reach the north of the country along with tensions with the ethnic Tuareg's which has seen election workers kidnapped means that a majority of voters that have not only been registered but also issued with ID cards will be denied the right to vote because no-one has given them their ID cards.

Therefore the intention of the Malian election seems quite simply to cause a disputed result with the majority of those in the north of the country excluded from the election. The hope is that this will cause a north/south split which will reignite tensions between the government based in the south and the Tuareg's based in the north. This means the civil war will start again creating the space for Islamist terrorists to restart their campaign just as the majority French troops leave and the less well trained African United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping force take over putting extreme pressure on the relatively weak African governments taking part.

As such my advice to Mali on it's election is to simply ignore it and its result. That's because regardless of who wins for the foreseeable future the nation is really going to be run by the UN and the French because they're the ones providing the troops.

Wednesday's election in Zimbabwe is going to be slightly more complicated because since the disputed 2005 election the two main parties have split. The ruling ZANU-PF has splintered with the emergence of ZAPU while the MDC has splintered to create the MDC-T which is a vehicle for Morgan Tsvangirai. ZAPU is supposed to represent an alternative for ZANU-PF voters who would rather do without the vendetta the west has against the ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe while the MDC is supposed to represent an alternative for MDC-T voters who could do without Morgan Tsvangirai who is largely seen as both a coward and a western stooge. However the two splinter parties are likely to cancel each other out leaving a close battle between ZANU-PF and the MDC-T.

The problem is that regardless of the actual result the MDC-T's western backers led by the UK intend to use the election as a way to overthrow Mugabe as they've been trying to do ever since Mugabe took Zimbabwe out of the UK Commonwealth. As such they've been spending a lot of money on foreign satellite TV channels to lay the groundwork for claims that ZANU-PF have stolen the election. For example it is around the time the Zimbabwean election result is scheduled to be announced we will discover if Shrien Dewani will appeal to the UK Supreme Court or accept his extradition to South Africa. As it is likely that ZANU-PF will legitimately win the election and Mugabe doesn't have a track record of taking defeat well any dispute over the election is likely to result in widespread violence. This will immediately result in a flood of Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa just as South Africa is trying to deal with the situation in Mali.

Therefore I think it would actually be better if ZANU-PF won Zimbabwe's election and for the opposition to respect that outcome regardless. That's because since the disputed 2005 election Zimbabwe has effectively been run by South Africa with both the economy and the political situation gradually improving. Therefore I think it would be better for this slow and gradual improvement to continue under the 89 year old Mugabe rather than having the nation plunged into chaos in an effort to hand the nation over to Tsvangirai who will have a lot of debts to pay amongst his foreign backers.

(Originally Posted) 23:45 on 27/7/13.

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 14, Week 1, Day 2.

Throughout the past week the Muslim Brotherhood have continued their protest camp in Nasr city and held protest marches in Cairo in an attempt to achieve the objectives they set for themselves at last Friday's (19/7/13) "Second Crossing" protests but failed to achieve due to a lack of support. Yesterday they called for a day of "Discernment/Al-Furqan" protest. Marking the 17th day of Ramadan this celebrates the 17th Century "Great Battle of Badr" in which Muslims although outnumbered won a military victory against non-believers. Apart from being a call to violence this was supposed to be the Brotherhood asking Egyptians to choose between good (Islam as the Brotherhood see it) and bad (democracy as the Brotherhood see it).

Friday was also the day that Egypt's military asked people to take to the streets to show support for it's war against terrorism predominately in the Sinai. With nine of Egypt's largest TV networks showing their support for the military by postponing popular drama shows and soap operas in order to encourage people to attend the protests the Egyptian people overwhelmingly chose to support democracy over the Brotherhood. Estimates show that roughly 32 million of Egypt's 80 million population came out in support of the military nationally with 20-25 million of those taking to the streets of Cairo alone. Unfortunately some of those protesting took the military's call as an instruction to attack the Muslim Brotherhood directly. So in Damietta Brotherhood supporters were attacked by local residents while they were awaiting transport to the Nasr city demonstration leaving 10 people injured. In the Shubra suburb of Cairo a Brotherhood protests numbering a few hundred was attacked by local residents again leaving around 10 injured. The worst of the violence though occurred in Egypt's second city Alexandria where pro-democracy and Brotherhood protest marches met sparking of a day of rioting that left 5 dead and 91 injured.

The Brotherhood themselves were far from peaceful though. Not only did they fight back in Alexandria and Shubra in Cairo several members were arrested in possession of weapons including firearms, a group of pro-democracy demonstrators were attacked by armed Brotherhood supporters as they made their way to Tahrir Square. Most provocatively though the Brotherhood protesters decided to storm the International Garden in Nasr city and pledged to occupy it until Morsi is reinstated in a move that infuriated local residents. Also while not directly attributed to the Brotherhood Islamist terrorists in the Sinai carried out gun, RPG and bomb attacks across Sheikh Zuwayed co-ordinated to target police and civilians as they sat down to break fast at Iftar. Fortunately no fatalities or serious injuries have been reported so far.

With public anger towards the Brotherhood demonstration in Nasr city rising Egypt's interim Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim appear on television to reassure people that the Nasr city demonstration would soon cleared in a legal manner following a vast number of complaints from local residents. This was a clear attempt to calm the situation by stopping residents taking matters into their own hands by assuring them that the government would take action soon. Unfortunately the Muslim Brotherhood saw this as an opportunity to once again portray themselves as the oppressed victims of a military dictatorship and started to spin the Interior Ministers comments as a threat.

Just before dawn today Brotherhood supporters decided to march out of Nasr city towards the October 6th bridge and Tahrir Square in an attempt to provoke or attack their opponents. This was too much for local residents and supporters who promptly attacked the Brotherhood march causing a violent confrontation during which both sides exchanged bricks, bottles and gunfire. Eventually the police/military intervened to separate the two factions. The exact numbers killed and injured during the confrontation are not yet known. Not all of those injured sought help at official hospitals so although the Health Ministry's figure of 29 killed and 649 injured is an accurate account of the people it has treated it does not take into account all those injured. The Muslim Brotherhood's estimate of 120 killed and more than 4000 injured is simply a lie intended to portray themselves as victims of a massacre. The figure that most people consider to be accurate is 70 dead and around 1500 injured. The one thing that's known for sure is that 51 of those injured were members of the police/military including two who are in a critical condition after being shot in the head.

Obviously today most of Egypt is in shock following the incident with some blaming the military and some blaming the Brotherhood. The one thing that most people agree on though is that the violence has to stop. That is everyone of course expect the Muslim Brotherhood who have today already attempted to storm the Al-Azhar University in a clear attempt to provoke another confrontation with the military/police. The one thing that is clear to me though is that something has to be done to bring the Muslim Brotherhood's Nasr city protest to an end.

I think the best way to achieve this is for the Brotherhood to agree to move their protest to somewhere that is less disruptive. Primarily that is because while they do not have the right to commit acts of violence or disrupt the day to day running of the city I think that the Brotherhood do have a right to protest. Beyond that while the Brotherhood's demonstration is comparatively tiny it still numbers in the tens of thousands. Arresting and imprisoning that many people is going to be a logistical nightmare not to mention that internationally it will lead to a lot of criticism for arbitrary detention and domestically will help to fuel the Brotherhood's propaganda that they are being oppressed.

Therefore I think it would be better to move the demonstration to a public square or park where the Brotherhood can protest for as long as they like without blocking roads and disrupting the lives of local residents. If these protests were taking place in London, UK I would suggest using Hyde Park but I don't have to local knowledge to suggest somewhere similar in Cairo. That said if the Brotherhood refuse to compromise by moving to the new location they will have to be removed from Nasr city by force and if they choose to fight back some of them may have to be killed.

(Originally Posted) 17:40 on 27/7/13.

Quick Someone Get a Fork.

I think Sarastro's done.

As arranged on Tuesday (23/7/13) today I returned to the Croydon custody centre in relation to the criminal damage allegations against. As pre-discussed with the Officer In Charge (OIC) of the case 'Sarastro' it was simply a matter of being charged with no arrest, search, detention or interview. A representative of the independent appropriate adult service was present though.

The charge is simple criminal damage contrary to Section 1 subsection 1 of the 1971 Criminal Damage Act. The estimated value of the damage is GBP313.37 which if is an accurate estimate of the cost of replacing two double glazed window units I certainly want the name of the Notting Hill Housing Trusts (NHHT) contractor. This is important because the Section 1.1 offence is what is known as an either way offence. That means it can either be tried at a Crown Court or the lesser Magistrates Court which can only hand down a maximum sentence of 6 months imprisonment. What normally determines which Court tries the case is the value of the damage caused with GBP5000 being the normal cut-off. Therefore it appears very much as if the NHHT and Sarastro have colluded to underestimate the value of the damage caused in order to make sure that the case is kept in Croydon Magistrate Court which is demonstrably biased in their favour.

During the charging process I listed my father as a vulnerable person who would be deprived of care during my absence and had recorded the fact that the OIC had been furnished with copies of documents demonstrating that the criteria of lawful excuse as listed in Section 2 of the act have been fulfilled. However I did not push the issue because his choices are his responsibility not mine. I also made the custody sergeant and the OIC aware of the fact that in order to prosecute the case Croydon Magistrates Court will have to rule that it is either incompetent or unfairly biased in favour of the NHHT rendering it unable to hear the case. The police decided to ignore this and issued a summons for me to appear at Croydon Magistrates Court on August 23rd (23/8/13) at 09:30 (local). In the meantime I have been placed back on police bail with the same restrictions about contacting named individuals. The named individuals are also supposed to expect a visit from the OIC to remind them that they are also forbidden from contacting me or committing criminal offences against me or my property. Much to the annoyance of the appropriate adult by telling the custody sergeant I intend to represent myself I was finally able to obtain the DVDR of my original interview. I may try and upload it to YouTube later.

Before the NHHT and Croydon Magistrates Court start cracking open the champagne I should point out that as anyone who watches "Law & Order UK" knows the people are represented by two bodies in the criminal justice system. The police who investigate crime and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who prosecute offenders. The decision to charge me has been taken by the police without the involvement of the CPS therefore before it can proceed to trial the charging decision will have to be reviewed by the CPS. The CPS was set up in 1986 in response to miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven, the Bridgewater Four and pretty much every case handled by West Yorkshire Police during the 1970's and 1980's. The CPS' specific purpose is to take the decision whether to prosecute or not out of the hands of corrupt local police officers with grudges.

Therefore I fully expect that in the next seven days I will receive a letter from the CPS informing me that the police's charging decision has been overruled and no further action is to be taken against me. After all if the case is to proceed it will proceed all the way to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or until the correct, lawful conclusion is reached. However if the CPS continue with the prosecution I may possibly instruct a solicitor but it hardly takes a genius to file a motion to dismiss.

(Originally Posted) 16:20 on 25/7/13.

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 5, Day 1.

On Friday (19/7/13) the Egyptian military launched a large scale operation to tackle Islamist terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula. As I've already mentioned the early stages of the operation involves setting up check-points and gathering intelligence rather then physically fighting the terrorists. However this has not stopped the terrorists attacking the military/police and since the start of the operation their attacks have increased significantly.

On Friday itself three missiles were fired into a residential house in Arish killing three civilians. Three soldiers were wounded in a gun attack on a police position in Arish. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack at a check-point in Reyesa. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack on a check-point in al-Karmy. One soldier was wounded in a gun attack in Baghdad in central Sinai. Most dramatically a child was wounded in a gun attack on a convoy carrying Major General Ahmed Wasfy the commander of the Second Field Army in what is being considered a targeted assassination attempt.

On Saturday (20/7/13) five police officers were killed on separate gun attacks on police stations and check-points across the Sinai. Also 17 soldiers were killed and 30 injured in a traffic collision close to Beheira. There is no suggestion that this was anything other than a road accident however the military will have felt the loss and the damage it does to morale.

On Monday (22/7/13) five police officers were wounded in gun attacks on multiple check-points in and around Arish. Six soldiers were wounded in an attack on their camp in Rafah.

On Tuesday (23/7/13) one police officer was killed in an attack on a check-point in Arish and one soldier was wounded in an attack on a police station also in Arish. There was also significant rioting between Morsi supporters and revolutionaries in both Arish and nearby Masaeed.

Today so far two soldiers have been killed in an attack on a check-point in Arish, a police station in Arish came under attack by Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) fortunately resulting in no injuries and five terrorists were killed by their own car bomb in an attack on a police training facility which resulted in no other injuries. Most worryingly the violence seems to be spreading outside of the Sinai with a TNT bomb detonated in a sewer close to a police station in Mansoura killing one police officer and injuring 28 others.

So in the past six days the military/police have had 26 of their number killed and 76 wounded in terrorist attacks and road accidents. Added to this Egypt's regional neighbours have been increasing the pressure on the Egyptian military with Qatar who were big supporters of Morsi's government complaining about Morsi's continued detention and expressing concern about the deaths of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Also the Al-Ahram channel has been circulating a false story about Morsi being detained for 15 days in relation to allegations that he was spying for Hamas. This piece of propaganda was intended to strengthen Morsi in the eyes of the Egyptian people by linking him to Hamas and weaken the Egyptian military by linking them to Israel. The story is entirely false and Al-Ahram's editor has since been arrested and bailed over allegations of attempting to incite violence. The US has delayed its supply of 4 F-16 jets to Egypt in order to pay lip-service to the Gulf states.

On the more international level the European Union (EU) on Monday issued a statement calling on Egypt to hold fresh elections and release all political prisoners including Morsi. This was actually a very soft statement that avoided using the term coup and was really just the EU fulfilling its commitment to democracy. However it is the sort of statement that will be twisted by Morsi supporters to fit their own agenda and was hardly a source of comfort and support for Egypt. Similarly the African Union (AU) which due to the long history of damaging coups on the continent has to take a hard line has continued to suspend Egypt's membership. However the Ethiopian Prime Minister appears to have accepted that the AU's description of events in Egypt as a coup was based on false information indicating that Egypt's suspension is in the process of being lifted.

Against this back-drop the head of the Egyptian military and First Deputy Prime Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on Egyptians to take to the streets this Friday (26/7/13) to show their support for the military and its fight against terrorism. Secular and revolutionary groups such as Tamarod and the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) have supported El-Sisi's call and urged their supporters onto the streets. Islamist parties such as Al-Nour, the Muslim Brotherhood and Watan have rejected El-Sisi's call and labelled it either an attempt to incite violence or civil war. It is clearly neither of these things. Having been getting hit hard from seemingly all directions over the past week the Egyptian military simply needs to be reassured that it still has the support of the Egyptian people.

Therefore while I think Egypt really needs to start moving away from the politics of the street towards the politics of the ballot box I fully support Friday's demonstration and urge Egyptians to turn up in support.

(Originally Posted) 20:30 on 24/7/13.

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 4, Day 6.

Having been unable to attract the number of protesters needed to achieve their aim of blocking roads and marching on multiple Embassies on Friday's (19/7/13) Second Crossing day of protest the Muslim Brotherhood now seem intent of using the limited of supporters they do have to visit all their targets over a week of protest. So at around midday local time today a group of Brotherhood supporters blocked the main Cairo to Alexandria road. After around seven hours they were peacefully removed by the military/police.

The Brotherhood's main objective for the day though seemed to be to reassert themselves as the government of Egypt and through that add legitimacy to their protest. The main part of this was to assemble the 140 or so Brotherhood members that Morsi appointed to the dissolved Shura Council at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city for what they termed and extraordinary session. No details of what was discussed at this totally illegitimate meeting of former council members have been made public. This was followed by a press conference by the Muslim Brotherhood founded and dominated Engineers Syndicate calling for the release and reinstatement of Mohamed Morsi. The main purpose of the press conference though was to give a platform to members of the Morsi family including son Osama Morsi and daughter Shaimaa Morsi. They used that platform to accuse Egypt's military of kidnapping their father and announce that they are taking legal steps both within Egypt and internationally to secure his release and reinstatement. Although they didn't announce specifically what those legal measures are I think they are unlikely to work because Mohamed Morsi is quite reasonably being detained to prevent him inciting violence. The proof that he will incite violence is the Brotherhood's continuing demonstrations and their refusal to accept that he is no longer the President of Egypt. Therefore he will not be released until the Brotherhood end their demonstrations and accept the democratic process.

After the press conference a group of Brotherhood protesters attempted to march on the US Embassy in Cairo. The route they chose took them very close to Tahrir Square in what seems a clear attempt to provoke and intimidate the revolutionaries. Sadly the revolutionaries appear to have risen to this provocation leading to clashes involving stones being thrown and shotguns being fired. The police fired tear gas in an effort to separate the two groups but so far one person has been killed by bird shot fired by the protesters and 26 people have been injured.

I don't want to get too distracted by the Brotherhoods demonstrations and the violence they have caused though because I think it is long past time for me to comment more fully on Egypt's new interim government of national unity. I of course started talking about this focusing on the interim Prime Minister, the interim First Deputy Prime Minister and the two interim Deputy Prime Ministers here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egypts-continuing-revolution-month-13_18.html

Obviously it will take far too long for me to comment on every appointment individually and a lot of them are simply qualified people quietly getting on with their jobs. For example you have Abdel-Aziz Fadel as the Minister for Civil Aviation. Having joined the Egyptian Air Force in 1972 as an aircraft maintenance engineer Fadel went on to get a bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering and rose to the position of vice-president of safety and quality before moving into the civilian sector with Egypt Air. Therefore he is clearly knowledgeable in all aspects of aircraft design and operation and is more than qualified to cope with the technical aspects of things like the Boeing 777 crash in San Francisco and the ongoing 787 Dreamliner saga. His long military service may come as a worry to some who will claim it as evidence of a military takeover. However I think it is much more benign merely reflecting the fact that under Mubarak the military - especially the Air Force - were given priority in terms of education and funding so if you want to look for the most educated and talented people in Egypt today you really have to look towards people who served in the military.

As I said in my previous post on the subject a major theme of the new interim cabinet has been the reversal of Morsi era appointments with Asharf El-Araby returning to Planning and Atef Helmy returning to Communication and Information Technology. Therefore Ahmed Imam at Electricity, Hisham Zaazou at Tourism, Mohamed Ibrahim at Interior and Reda Hafez at Military Production stand out simply by having bucked that trend. However they all seem to achieved this by being apolitical ministers rather than Morsi cronies. For example Air Marshall Hafez is a long standing military man while the resignation of Zaazou over Morsi's appointment to the Governorship of Luxor helped bring about the June 30th revolution.

Another major theme of the interim government has been the conscious effort to make sure women are included. So we have Dorreya Sharaf El-Din at Information. Sharaf El-Din has worked extensively behind the scenes at the Egyptian Television and Radio Union and has appeared on-screen on both the state broadcaster and on the private Dream channel. She has also served as junior minister in the Information Ministry heading up the satellite channels division. As a result Sharaf El-Din knows the industry inside and out including the censorship dirty tricks that Mubarak used to employ and the negative effect they had on broadcasters. There is also Laila Rashed Iskandar at Environment and Maha El-Rabat at Health. One woman who I'm disappointed not to see in the interim government is Ines Abdel-Dayem who was offered the position of Minister of Culture but refused. This is unfortunate because while it seems insignificant Culture and cultural exchanges have long been one of the important behind the scenes ways that government communicate with each other. Being a classical flutist who trained in France and a former head of the Cairo Opera House Adbel-Dayem strikes as being more than qualified to deal with whatever things like Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour could throw at her. Therefore I hope she will be on hand to assist Mohamed Saber Arab as the history professor takes on the role.

Another Ministry that seems insignificant but is actually very important on the diplomatic level is the Ministry of Antiquities. For example Egypt's cultural heritage is world famous and a major tourist attraction. Also today's discovery of a Sphinx belonging to Mycerinus in northern Israel seems much like an attempt to open a discussion between Israel and Egypt in the wake of Morsi's ouster. Being a professor of antiquities and a former minister of antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim seems well qualified for the role although he has been severely criticised by fellow archaeologists and Egyptologists including many of his own employees. However the criticism from his employees seems to stem mainly from his abilities as a personnel manager rather then from his knowledge of the subject. This is of course something civil servants at the ministry and other members of the cabinet can help him with. The criticism from other archaeologists seems to stem mainly from his ministry's failure to prevent the looting and destruction of artefact's following the fall of Mubarak. Rather than being a particular fault of the minister this seems to be more a part of the general collapse of law and order in the post-Mubarak period and something he should co-ordinate closely with his namesake at the Interior Ministry to resolve.

The biggest spilt within the interim government reflects the biggest choice that Egypt faces at the moment - whether to continue with the outdated and failing centrally controlled economic model of the Mubarak era including subsidies for food and fuel or to reform to embrace the free market economic model recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

As the current economic model is so clearly failing it is hard to find any member of the interim government who will endorse it publicly. However I am concerned by any member who has extensive experience serving under the Mubarak government such as Adel Labib at Local Development, Ayman Abu-Hadid at Agriculture and Sherif Ismail at Petroleum. This is not because of anything that they've specifically said or done on the issue it's just that having been involved in one way or working for so long they may find it difficult to adapt to a new way of doing things. I am also slightly concerned about government members who are either serving or former members of the military and Reda Hafez at Military Production in particular because under Mubarak the military were heavily involved in the economy and they may be resistant to giving up that privileged position. The only minister who has gone on the record to express a desire to keep the economy as it is has been Osma Selah the minister for Investment who has stated that he is confident that foreign investment will return to Egypt once the political situation has settled. This to me indicates that he doesn't quite understand the underlying economic problems and the urgent need for reform.

There is though a much larger faction within the government that understands the need for reform led by the interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi who is an economist by training and the Finance Minister Ahmed Galal who is not only an economist who spent 18 years working for the World Bank but is an expert on privatisation and the regulation of markets and monopolies. They seem supported by the Minister for Planning and International Co-operation Ziad Bahaa El-Din who worked under Mubarak to set-up free trade zones, Ashraf El-Araby the Minister for Planning who has worked extensively negotiating with the IMF and Ahmed El-Borai the Minister for Social Solidarity who helped get Egypt off the International Labour Organisations short-term blacklist by arguing that Egyptian workers should be allowed to set up independent rather than state run trade unions. They should also be able to count on support from Laila Iskandar the Minister for the Environment and Kamal Abu-Eita the Minister for Manpower. Although Iskandar's background is in social enterprises she represents the sort of independent entrepreneurship that Egypt needs to embrace if it is to succeed economically. As the President of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions Abu-Eita embodies the independent trade union movement that El-Borai espouses and Egypt needs to embrace in order for both economic success and for democracy to flourish as I discussed in my objections to Article 53 of the constitution.

This conflict over the economic path that Egypt will take means that the man with the toughest job in the new government is Mohamed Abu Sahdi. As the Minister for Supply it is Abu Sahdi who will be responsible for distributing subsidised food and fuel. If the rest of the government decide to do away with or scale back food and fuel subsidies it will be Abu Sahdi who has to implement the plan and justify it to the public. Fortunately Abu Sahdi is a former police general so should be well equipped to deal with any protests that follow cuts to subsidies and despite what some members of the government suggest Egypt will need to cut subsidies because the aid money from the Gulf states won't last for ever. The general economic consensus is that the fuel subsidy will have to be scrapped or at least significantly restricted. That is because it is the difference between what fuel costs on the open market and what Egyptian consumers are paying that is absolutely destroying Egypt's foreign currency reserves and the fuel subsidy disproportionally helps the middle classes who can afford to pay the market rate for fuel.

(Originally Posted) 20:55 on 22/7/13.

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 4, Day 4

I am still working on my analysis of Egypt's new interim government of national unity. Turning into something of a mammoth task this is now not likely to be ready until tomorrow, Sunday (21/7/13).

In the meantime though yesterday (19/7/13) the Muslim Brotherhood held their "The Second Crossing" day of protest amid much tension, heightened security and the fear of serious violence. In the end though it turned out to be something of a damp squib. The main reason for this is that according to international sources (the only available sources) the Brotherhood's national call out only managed to attract a maximum of 20,000 demonstrators to Cairo. As a result they weren't able to march on their designated targets of government and military buildings and international Embassies or block roads or railway lines in large enough numbers to cause the security forces any major problems.

There were though some small incidents of violence. The first of these occurred at the al-Azhar Mosque before midday prayers and before the official start of the Brotherhood's demonstrations. Brotherhood protesters gathered in the yard of the Mosque calling for the US to support Mohamed Morsi and condemn what they consider to be a coup. Local residents then attacked the Brotherhood demonstrators with stones and bottles forcing them out of the Mosque. Security forces intervened to keep the two groups separate amid reports of limited gunfire although there have been no reports of death of serious injury. The second incident occurred when Brotherhood protesters marched on the Presidential Palace. Fearing they were getting to close to the buildings perimeter the army fired tear-gas and the demonstrators dispersed. Again no fatalities or serious injuries have been reported.

A much more serious incident occurred in the city of Mansoura which is around 120km (75miles) north of Cairo on the Nile delta. What appears to have happened is that an all female protest under the banner of "Women Against the Coup Movement" were marching towards the Agriculture Directorate building when they were attacked by men armed with knives/swords, clubs and according to some witnesses firearms. In the ensuing chaos at three women were killed and at least one remains in a critical condition in hospital. Egypt's public prosecutor has launched an immediate investigation into the deaths and I fully support that investigation.

In the meantime though the Muslim Brotherhood have claimed that this attack was carried out by members of Mubarak's now disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP) aided by members of the military. Therefore it is entirely possible that the Brotherhood have moved on from provoking the military into attacking their demonstrations to simply attacking their own demonstrations in order to portray themselves as victims of oppression. However it is also possible that this is a sign of how deeply unpopular the Muslim Brotherhood and their protests have become amongst Egypt's general population with people now taking matters into their own hands to limit the disruption to everyday life that the Brotherhood are causing. Quite apart from the fact that I think killing someone for expressing a political view is entirely wrong I think that members of the public should refrain from attacking Brotherhood demonstrators because it is exactly the sort of thing that will garner them sympathy and support helping to drag the protests and the disruption they cause out for much longer.

Also on Friday the Egyptian military began it's big operation against terrorists in the Sinai. However so far nothing much of note has happened. So I should explain that while this is a large operation and there will be fatalities the military's intention is not simply to kill terrorists. Instead they intend to separate them from the civilian population, capture their supplies and cut-off their re-supply routes. Therefore most of the early part of the operation is going to involve setting up check-points and gathering intelligence so when the military does finally come to confront the terrorists they will be able to do so in a way that minimises the risk of civilian casualties. Apart from counter-balancing the Brotherhood's "Second Crossing" protest the military operation appears to have been begun on the anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel in order to put the issue of the peace-treaty that war led to on the agenda for US Secretary of State John Kerry's meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

Late on Friday evening Kerry announced that those meetings had resulted in the resumption of peace talks between the unelected and Saudi backed Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority and Israel to be held in Washington, US at an unspecified point in the future. Apart from playing to the domestic US audience to make it look like the administration is still a player in the middle-east the US' main aim was to get both parties to Washington so the US can try and get a better understanding of what it is going on in a region where the US hasn't been relevant since the Libya war. Both Israel and Fatah's main motivation seems to be to strengthen Fatah's standing at the expense of the elected Hamas party. Although it is not the Egyptian military's intent Israel especially is hoping the security crack-down in the Sinai will help it achieve that end.

Finally in what is actually something of a side-note on Friday the UK suspended licenses for the export of radio and communication equipment along with spare parts for heavy machine guns and tanks to Egypt on the grounds they may be used against protesters. However the UK is continuing to allow the export of equipment such as assault rifles, combat shotguns and acoustic riot control devices (stun grenades) which are much more likely to be used against protesters. Therefore the suspension of these licenses is a clear attempt by the UK to put pressure on the Egyptian military in order to discourage them from stabilising the security situation in the country. The really depressing bit about this is that the Liberal Democrat Business Minister Vince Cable no doubt genuinely thought that by suspending these licenses he was showing solidarity for the people of Gaza by discouraging the Sinai operation.

(Originally Posted) 16:30 on 20/7/13.

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 4, Day 2.

On Tuesday (16/7/13) Egypt's interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi unveiled the nations interim government of national unity a day ahead of schedule. This interim government contains 33 separate ministries with ministers and deputies set up to address all the complex issues involved in running a country of around 80 million people. As a result it is going to take me until at least Saturday (20/7/13) to fully read up on all the new appointments, their briefs and produce a full analysis.

However in the meantime it's clear that the main theme of the interim government is the appointment of people technically competent of running their respective departments. So for example Ahmed Iman has retained his post as Minister for Electricity because he is an engineer who specialises in electricity production and has spent his professional career working for various electricity production companies such as the Aswan high dam power plant. The other main feature of the interim government has been the reversal of Morsi era appointments taking key ministries out of the control of the Muslim Brotherhood and putting them back in the hands of members of the initial interim government. So for example Asharf El-Araby has gone back to Planning, Ayman Abu Hadid has returned to Agriculture and Atef Helmy has returned to Communication and Information Technology.

The big appointments though are the three deputy Prime Ministers;

• Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi - Probably the most controversial of the appointments the head of Egypt's military takes on the role of first Deputy Prime Minister and the role of Defence Minister. The appointment at defence is pretty obvious because the military are the technical experts in defence matters. The appointment to First Deputy Prime Minister reflects the role that the military will play in keeping Egypt running day to day during the transition - especially in the area of security. By making El-Sissi First Deputy this actually increases the accountability of the military to the interim government because it brings him into Cabinet meetings which allows other ministers to question him about and raise any potential problems with the way the military are going about their task.

• Hossam Eissa - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Higher Education. A professor of law Eissa is clearly well experienced in the issues surrounding higher education. However it is his experience as a legal consultant to organisations is Egypt, Algeria and Japan as well as to international bodies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) that means he is also well experienced in the legal and political issues involved in building a democratic society. The fact that he was educated in France along with his international work means that he is known on the global stage and is able to bring fresh thinking to help solve Egypt's problems. He was also a founding member of Mohammed El-Baradei's secular Al Dostour party but left following a split. The exact reasons for this split is one of the areas I will have to research further.

• Ziad Bahaa El-Din - Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Planning and International Co-Operation. A founding member of the secular Social Democrat Party (SDP) El-Din was of course suggest for the post of interim Prime Minister but his appointment was blocked by the Salafist Al-Nour party. With Bachelor degrees in both law and economics and a PHD in financial law El-Din obviously very knowledgeable in the areas of economics and law. As a result he has spent much of his career in the civil service working as a legal adviser to the Economics Ministry and as Chairman of the Investment and Free Trade Authority. That last posting means that El-Din is well positioned to conduct negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to introduce reforms needed to rescue Egypt from Greek levels trade deficits and foreign currency shortfalls. Making Al-Nour's decision to block his appointment as Prime Minister harder to explain El-Din was of course actually elected as a member of Parliament in the 2011 election.

The other main feature of the interim government is that while it retains some Morsi era appointments such as Ahmed Iman at Electricity and includes people like Kamal Abu-Eita who was elected to Parliament in 2011 on the Freedom & Justice Party's list it contains no Islamists from either the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Nour. Far from being an attempt to purge Islamists from Egyptian political life this is simply a case of both the Brotherhood and Al-Nour being offered government positions and them simply refusing to take them.

The reason that the Brotherhood and Al-Nour refused to take up the government posts they were offered is also quite obvious. Rather than participating in the democratic process the Islamists instead intend to disrupt it and day to day life in Egypt as much as possible and try and use the fact they're not in the interim government as a way to recruit new members. To that end the Brotherhood intend to use Friday's anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel to stage a day of protests they are dubbing "The Second Crossing." According to a leaflet circulated by the Brotherhood the protest will start at 15:00 (local time) and will see protesters attempt to block roads and railway lines and march on government buildings, military buildings and Embassies of nations they accuse of supporting what they call a coup. The intention is obviously to provoke a violent confrontation with the military and revolutionaries which the Brotherhood will then claim is evidence of them being oppressed.




The Egyptian military are taking precautions such as deploying extra troops and armoured vehicles to key locations and to Tahrir Square to protect revolutionaries. Although the military have made it clear that they will tolerate all forms of peaceful protest they will have response teams on stand-by to intervene to prevent violence and to clear blocked roads. It will be interesting to see what sort of numbers the Muslim Brotherhood will be able to bring out in protest because by all accounts even local residents in their Nasr city stronghold are getting sick of them and staging peaceful counter-protests calling on them to leave. Rather typically the Brotherhood are claiming that these residents are in fact violent thugs paid by the military to crush the protests. To my mind that just further illustrates how utterly deluded the Muslim Brotherhood are about the level of public support they have amongst the Egyptian people.

With terrorist attacks against police and military personnel now being a daily occurrence in the Sinai the Egyptian military have also announced that on Friday they will begin a very large operation involving the second field army, parachute regiments, the navy and the airforce to shut-down terror groups operating in the area. This has prompted objections from the Hamas government in Gaza who accuse the operation of being politically motivated against them. As far as I'm concerned this is not the case. The problem the Egyptian military have is that there are heavily armed groups attacking them in the Sinai while Islamists across the nation are threatening to start a civil war. There is also evidence that the armed groups in the Sinai are supplying weapons to the Islamists to help them with their civil war. Therefore the Egyptian military needs to go into the Sinai to shut-down these armed groups and cut their supply lines in order to hold the nation together. Any impact this operation has on the people of Gaza is purely coincidental although one that Israel is more than happy to see happen. Therefore it is really up to Hamas to protect themselves by making sure their smuggling routes aren't being used to smuggle weapons and fighters into Egypt to do battle with the Egyptian military because that is a battle Hamas will lose.

Also while I've been writing this Egypt's interim President Mansour has been scheduled to make a televised declaration on the committee that is being set up to rewrite the constitution. I'm not even sure that this address has taken place so am completely unable to comment on it. However it is already clear that the Muslim Brotherhood will reject the proposal out of hand while the revolutionary Tamarod movement have called for protests demanding the the constitution is scrapped and completely re-written. I will obviously deal with this in more detail when I know what has been proposed but I personally feel that there are large sections of the constitution that are well thought through and perfectly valid. However there are equally large sections that need to be re-written or scrapped entirely. The objections I raised at the time are of course all still valid and can be read here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/egypts-draft-constitution.html

(Originally Posted) 19:55 on 18/7/13.