The Honourable Woman.

For the past four weeks I've been gripped by a BBC mini-series called "The Honourable Woman." As something of a spy thriller it is all about conspiracy, deception and intrigue. As result anything I say about it is likely to ruin it for people who are still trying to catch up.

However the story centres around two British/Israel siblings - Ephra Stein played by Andrew Buchan and Nessa Stein played by real life Hollywood movie actress Maggie Gyllenhaal in her first TV role. Their father built a fictional arms company which according to the show provided Israel with its "strong walls" as it grew in the aftermath of the second world war. However the Stein children have decided to use that great wealth to help bring peace to the Israel/Palestine conflict by building universities in Palestine and laying high speed Internet connections to link Gaza with the West Bank. When the head of a Palestinian company awarded one of these Internet contracts dies in mysterious circumstances it opens up a family secret that has lay buried for eight years.

If this show was broadcast back in May it would simply have been a high quality TV drama that gave the viewers a very brief history of the Israel/Palestine conflict and posed some general questions about the current situation. However it made its long awaited debut on July 3rd 2014. The current Israeli operation in Gaza began five days later on July 8th 2014. As a result I think this show is going to be incredibly closely watched with both sides poring over it looking for evidence of either an Israeli bias or a Palestinian bias.

So in its defence I should say that the show strike me as mainly being about people and the lies and schemes they concoct. The Israel/Palestine conflict is really just a device to allow this fictional world to be created. However the central characters are British Israelis and they need to be portrayed sympathetically in order for the viewer to care about them. As such plenty of people will attack the show for not portraying all Israelis as evil monsters. However I must says that the attitudes portrayed seem broadly accurate based on my experiences and I suspect that as the storyline unfolds the darker sides of certain personalities are going to be exposed.

It must be said though that Hamas appear to be a lot better at building tunnels then the BBC prop department.

(Originally Posted) 12:35 on 28/7/14 (UK date).

Now almost 6 months have passed for people to catch up, download or buy the show on DVD I can quite happily ruin it for everyone;







The big twist in the show was that an controlling and incompetent woman had somehow been promoted to a senior position within the US State Department. She calculated that if she could cause an atrocity - similar to all those UN schools that Israel supposedly bombed - then the backlash against Israel would force the UN to recognise a Palestinian state. That woman - I don't remember the name "Hillary" being specifically used - would then use the success of bringing peace to the Israel/Palestine conflict as a springboard to launch her bid for the US Presidency.

So, like I said, a very well made and very well researched show that one.

My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 2, Day 1.

As I've previously mentioned Israel on Friday (25/7/14) declared a unilateral 12 hour cease-fire starting at 05:00 (08:00 local) on Saturday (26/7/14). Hamas also agreed to join that cease-fire creating a humanitarian truce.

The purpose of this truce was to allow humanitarian aid such as food and medicines to be distributed throughout Gaza whilst allowing the injured and civilians to be evacuated to either Israel or Egypt or to the roughly 55% of Gaza that is not subject to military action. It also gave everybody a short break from the relentless horror of aeriel bombardment that frequently drives even hardened, professional soldiers insane.

The truce also provided authorities in Gaza to clear through the rubble of destroyed building discovering bodies of the dead as they did so. As a result the death toll in Gaza now stands at around 1050 up from 805 on Friday with some 245 bodies being recovered primarily from the Shejayia district of Gaza City. However if for no other reason then the chaotic nature of the situation this death toll is not considered hugely accurate with clear evidence of the same fatalities being recorded several times over. Also there seems to be confusion over whether the Gazan Health Authority is classing everyone under 18 years old as a child or using the accepted wartime definition of a child as anyone under 15 years old*. Finally this represents the total death toll because Gazan authorities do not distinguish between civilian and combatants. According to Israeli estimates - the only ones available - at least 450 of those killed in Gaza have been Hamas fighters.

Due to the scale of the task the United Nations (UN) requested that the truce be extended by a further 24 hours. This prompted Israel to immediately extend the existing truce by four hours so the UN's request could be discussed by it's cabinet. There was no similar statement from Hamas. However within minutes of the original planned end of the cease-fire 17:00 (20:00 local) mortars were fired from Gaza into southern Israel. It is not clear whether these were fired by Hamas or one of its rivals in an attempt to force Hamas and Israel into breaking the cease-fire. This actually highlights one of the problems in the Israel/Palestine conflict that has been increasing in recent years.

Islamist ideology is most certainly not a monolithic bloc and instead represents more of a spectrum. Despite the claims of Israeli hawks Hamas are actually very much at the moderate end of that spectrum which progresses to include groups such as Al Qaeda right up to groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who genuinely want to provoke the war of wars that will see the Messiah return to earth and the bring about of the apocalypse. Due to the relentless sectarian propaganda that is being pumped out of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in an effort to fuel the conflict in Syria more and more Muslims have begun to identify with the nihilist Islamist views of ISIL forcing groups such as Hamas to behave in an ever more extreme fashion in order to avoid being overthrown by rivals further along the spectrum.

Whether it was in response to internal pressures or because is was part of their own ideology about an hour later - well within the 4 hour truce extension - Hamas did resume firing half a dozen rockets into southern and central Israel. The irony was that at the time several thousand Israeli Jews had gathered in Tel Aviv to protest the operation in Gaza - an operation that only began after the hawkish Yiseral Beiteinu Party pulled out of the governing coalition in protest at the centre-right Likud Party's perceived inaction in the face of Hamas rockets fire. The resumption of Hamas rocket fire of course broke up this demonstration early as the protesters were forced to head for the nearest bomb shelters.

Despite the resumption of Hamas rocket fire Israel decided to agree to the UN's request and unilaterally extended the truce for a further 24 hours starting at 21:00 (00:00). Unfortunately Hamas declined to follow suit and continued to fire several dozen rockets into Israel. After seven hours and several casualties Israel started to return fire to suppress that rocket fire bringing an end to the truce.

Three hours later Hamas requested a new truce. Due to the fact that Hamas made no attempt to cease-fire during that time and a reasonable suspicion that Hamas was merely trying to buy time to regroup by disrupting the momentum of Israel's operation that request was denied by Israel.  However as Israel's military had planned to spend today in a state of cease-fire its use of air-power and artillery has been extremely limited.

After all the hope is that Israel's ground forces will be able to get on with their job of dismantling Hamas' tunnels and bunkers without having to call in air-support or artillery fire.



(Originally Posted) 16:55 on 27/7/14 (UK date).



*I personally think that definition is too low. However it is the agreed definition meaning that the flip side of the argument is that Hamas along with the UK and the US use child soldiers.    

My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 1, Day 7.

It turns out that US Secretary of State John Kerry did not leave the region yesterday as scheduled. Instead he delayed his departure for more then six hours before finally holding a press conference to confirm that Qatari/US efforts to broker a ceasefire had failed.

Normally when things like this succeed the details are kept as closely guarded secrets. When they fail people prefer for them to disappear completely. However from what I can gather it appears that Hamas' demands were primarily economic. Essentially they want a full lifting of the blockade of Gaza allowing Gazans free movement into Israel and the free flow of goods - particularly fuel oil for electricity - into Gaza. This would include the lifting of the naval blockade which would allow Gazan fishermen to put to sea. Hamas also wants the 50 or so prisoners who were re-arrested in the West Bank in response to the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers to be released and the completion of the final phase of prisoner releases that were negotiated as part of the deal that freed Gilad Shalit.

With the exception of the prisoner release Israel seems largely happy to meet these demands with a few small conditions. For a very obvious reason Israel cannot allow Hamas fighters to roam freely into Israel especially now that they begun to use suicide bombing as a tactic once again. Nor can it allow Gazan fisherman unrestricted access to the Mediterranean sea in case they are used as a cover for weapons smuggling.

What Israel is prepared to offer is a large increase in the volume and type of goods flowing into Gaza from Israel. The blockade itself is nowhere near as complete as anti-Israel protesters seem to think that it is having been substantially loosened on several occasions since Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9. On every occasion that loosening of the blockade has had the effect of damaging Gaza's economy as always happens when a closed market is thrown open to high volumes of cheap imports. Israel is also prepared to offer Hamas a hydroelectric plant that will reduce Gaza's reliance on fuel imports increasing their energy independence and reducing their costs. Finally Israel is prepared to expand the distance from shore that Gazan fishermen are allowed to operate stopping just short of allowing them completely free movement.

So as has been the hallmark of this entire confrontation Israel appears to be doing everything in its power to give Hamas every opportunity to end the fighting meaning that both sides should be very close to an agreement. The problem has become the involvement of Qatar and the US.

Basically Qatar is trying to bribe Hamas into giving up on demands such as the prisoner release and the free movement of Gazans into Israel in return for a large cash payment. The current US administration obviously supports this because it allows them to paint themselves as the hero that brought peace to the middle-east during an election year. However this stifling of negotiation is likely to cause more problems then it solves by preventing Israel and Hamas working through their differences. The prisoner release issue strikes me as particularly important because the way those arrests were made in response to the triple kidnapping seems a major contributing factor that led to this confrontation at a time when peace negotiations were making more progress then they'd done in years.

The reason why Qatar is not only prepared to offer but appears to want to force Hamas into accepting this money is also very sinister. Although for the sake of simplicity I often lump them together in talking about the Syria conflict Saudi Arabia and Qatar are actually huge rivals for regional dominance. So not only are they fighting against the Syrian government they are also often fighting against each other with Saudi Arabia funding one group of insurgents while Qatar funds another.

The reason why Saudi Arabia started bankrolling Fatah's Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was to turn them into a client state. That way they could be used to turn the US' ill-fated Israel/Palestine peace negotiations into a metaphor for the conflict in Syria making sure that the US got to hear more about Saudi Arabia's point of view then Qatar's. What Qatar is trying to do now is turn Hamas in Gaza into its own client state by bankrupting the local economy to get it hooked on aid money. That way it can use the negotiations that the US is trying to set up to make sure the US listens to Qatar's point of view about Syria.

This means that those negotiations will have absolutely nothing to do with ending the Israel/Palestine conflict which is mainly why the last round of US-led talks ended with both Israel and Palestine essentially telling the US to p*ss off in what I considered a substantial step forward.

Once Kerry had finally removed himself from the region Israel was free to declare a unilateral 12 hour humanitarian ceasefire to allow civilians and emergency services in Gaza to regroup and re-stock. Hamas also decided to join in with this ceasefire which should be coming to a successful end as I write.

Meanwhile Kerry travelled onto Paris, France for a meeting with EU, Turkish and Qatari foreign ministers. It appears that meeting has decided to attempt to impose the Qatari plan on both Israel and Hamas. Hopefully both will find the courage to resist that pressure because it is rather telling that neither Hamas, Fatah nor Israel were invited to the meeting. 

(Originally Posted) 16:10 on 26/7/14 (UK date).

Operation Misery: Month 2, Week 1, Day 6.

On Thursday (24/7/14) the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) uncovered 31 Hamas tunnels into Israel and struck more then 90 targets on the ground in Gaza. There is evidence that this approach is working with only 62 rockets being fired into Israel down from a high of 115 rockets a day as Israeli operations destroy rockets and launching sites.

According to the Hamas run Gaza Health Authority the death toll within Gaza has risen to 805 with exactly 100 deaths being added since Wednesday. However as Gazan authorities do not distinguish between civilians and combatants it is impossible to give a more accurate breakdown of the death toll. The IDF though are reporting killing 40 combatants in the past 24 hours. They are also beginning to report the death of an IDF soldier

The big event of the day though was the killing of 15 people at a United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) school in the town of Beit Hanoun on the north-east edge of Gaza that was being used as a civilian shelter. Despite this incident making headline news across the World and seemingly everyone having an opinion facts of exactly what happened are still very hard to come by. However based on information provided the IDF along with footage of the scene and the aftermath provided by the Hamas run Al-Asqa TV station what appears to have happened is as follows;

Located just 6 miles (9.6km) from the southern Israeli town of Sderot Beit Hanoun has long be used a primary launching site for rockets into Israel. As a result it has been a primary target of the IDF's operation. In the past several days this has led to some very intense fighting in the area which caused local civilians to seek shelter in the UNRWA school that had been converted into a temporary shelter. Since Tuesday (22/7/14) the UNRWA had been co-ordinating with the IDF to make sure they were aware of the location of the shelter and to seek their help in evacuating its residents.

On Thursday morning the IDF dispatched a unit to assist with that evacuation. Unfortunately as they were approaching the area they came under fire from - presumably - Hamas fighters who were operating from within less then a mile of the school. Being fired upon with both rockets and mortar bombs the IDF contacted the UNWRA to tell them that the evacuation was being cancelled before returning fire. The IDF most certainly used tank shells against the Hamas position but it is currently unable to confirm or deny whether it also used mortar fire. Rather then being the result of something suspicious this more likely simply reflects that the IDF commander on the ground is still out in the field and therefore has been unable to file a full after action report.

Unfortunately the message that the evacuation had been cancelled does not appear to have filtered down to those on the ground at the UNRWA shelter who continued to gather people in an open air courtyard/playground. During the exchange of fire between Hamas and the IDF a single mortar bomb fell into that courtyard creating the scenes of bloody destruction that you've all seen in your newspapers and on your TV's. As Hamas and the IDF both use the same type of mortar and mortar bombs fall almost directly vertically it is highly unlikely that we will ever be able to know for sure which side fired the individual round. Mortars of this type are notoriously less accurate then artillery fire which as I've explained before is not particularly accurate itself.

This of course directly contradicts the initial statements made by UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness who accused the IDF of deliberately attacking the school/shelter with multiple artillery rounds effectively accusing the IDF or a war crime. Gunness did though confirm that the IDF had informed UNRWA that the evacuation had been cancelled.

I honestly think that this is one of those fog of war incidents where neither side has done anything particularly wrong but sadly a number of innocent civilians have been killed in the process. If you are looking for a more sinister explanation - as people in this type of conflict are prone to do - on Tuesday UNRWA discovered that Hamas had been using another school in Gaza to store weapons including rockets. This is the second time that this has happened. Early on Thursday it was confirmed that the UNRWA had simply handed these weapons back to Hamas. As such it is possible that Hamas deliberately targeted the shelter with a mortar to make it look as though the IDF had attacked the shelter to punish UNRWA for helping Hamas re-arm. This is a tactic that has become common in Syria where the insurgents - whose mere presence on the battlefield is a war crime - will routinely carry out massacres in the hope of blaming them on Syrian government forces.

Whatever the truth of the situation Hamas propaganda backed by the UNRWA's statements provoked a night of violent rioting in the West Bank in which a minimum of 10,000 Palestinians attempted to force their way through the Qalandiya checkpoint into Jerusalem. Both sides used live fire during the confrontation resulting in the deaths of at least 2 Palestinians.

In terms to negotiations to bring about an end to the fighting US Secretary of State John Kerry has now left the region following several days of near farcical talks. The main problem is that the US can't talk to Hamas and Hamas refuse to talk to the Egyptians. As a result Turkey has emerged as the most likely power broker. The problem is that over the past year or so Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has revealed himself as holding so very strong anti-Semitic views.

Apparently all Erdogan's domestic problems including the Gezi Park protests and the 2013 corruption scandal are all the work of "The Jews." On Wednesday (23/7/14) Ali Yerlikaya - the AKP Governor of Tekirdağ province -  made a point of being photographed drinking Fanta rather then Coca Cola whilst breaking his Ramadan fast. Fanta was invented specifically to get around a ban on Coca Cola being sold to Nazi Germany.

Apart from the personalities involved the main sticking point in cease-fire negotiations is Hamas' insistence on the blockade of Gaza being lifted allowing the free flow of goods into Gaza and the free movement of Palestinians into Israel. Putting aside the question of whether the lifting of the blockade is really something that is in Hamas' best interests this is something that Israel simply cannot agree to. Through the use of attack tunnels into Israel and the resumption of the use of suicide bombers Hamas has made it quite clear that it has returned to the terrorist tactics of the intifada that ended in 2005.

As such any agreement that allows Hamas fighters unfettered access into Israel is not a ceasefire but simply an attempt to force through a change in tactics that will allow Hamas to intensify its war against Israeli civilians. Clearly Hamas and Turkey have got to thinking that the peculiar standards that have been applied to the Syria conflict will now also be applied to this conflict.

11:55 on 25/7/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 19:00 on 25/7/14 (UK date) to add;

After delaying for more then six hours US Secretary of State John Kerry has finally given a press conference in Cairo, Egypt admitting that his attempts to broker a 7 day ceasefire to coincide with Eid have failed. He will now travel onto Paris, France where he was planning to triumphantly show off the ceasefire he had brokered.

Ultimately a ceasefire was not agreed because the Israelis rejected it. However the main reason that it failed is that the proposal wasn't a particularly good one. To counter rather valid suspicions that Hamas is only seeking a ceasefire because it is losing on the battlefield and needs time to reorganise its forces the plan allowed for the IDF to remain in Gaza to demolish Hamas' tunnel network. The chances of all the militant groups in Gaza not opening fire on the IDF during this time are pretty much nil. So even if a ceasefire had been agreed I'm  pretty sure that tomorrow I would be telling you how that ceasefire had failed.

The other significant problem is that ceasefire has not been negotiated by the US. Instead it has primarily been negotiated by the Qataris who declined to appear at the press conference. Essentially their big plan was to get Hamas to give up on its key demands in return for a large cash payment from Qatar. As with their support for the insurgency in Syria the Qataris have their own geo-political reasons for making this offer that have absolutely nothing to do with a concern for civilians lives - Muslim or otherwise.

As a result at this point I'm inclined to say that the Israelis seem more committed to a Palestinian state then the Palestinians.


(Originally Posted on 25/7/14 - UK date)

My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 1, Day 4.

It goes without saying that the war between Israel and Hamas is continuing with seven Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers being killed in Gaza and one civilian being killed in Israel in the past 12 hours alone. This is entirely a war of necessity for Israel and one that has completely been forced upon it by the roughly 100 rockets per day (1 every 10 minutes) being fired into Israel by Hamas and the attempts by Hamas to tunnel into Israel in order to kill or kidnap Israel civilians.

As a result the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) operation has the very narrow aim of going into Gaza to destroy the tunnels into Israel and destroy Hamas weapons stores. This type of operation involves sending teams of combat engineers to the mouths of the tunnels. Those engineers then have to clear the tunnels of any fighters, sweep for booby-traps and make safe any ordinance (rockets, explosives etc) stored in the tunnels. Finally the engineers have to rig explosives of their own to destroy the tunnels. Even if it was being carried out on a quiet construction site in the middle of nowhere this is very dangerous work that requires patience, precision and a calm head. As such the IDF simply cannot have people shooting at their engineers while they are carrying out this work.

This means that the IDF - or any other military - has to protect the engineers as they work. Although I'm not an expert this normally involves setting up a perimeter of roughly 1km (0.62miles) around the work site. Any threat (sniper-fire, RPG's, suicide bombers) within that perimeter are dealt with ideally marksmen in the first instance but failing that infantry soldiers armed with assault rifles and sometimes even bayonets. Any threat outside of that perimeter (anti-tank missiles, mortars, rockets) is dealt with by heavier weapons. Ideally this means guided missiles fired from drones and manned attack aircraft including helicopter gunships such as the AH-64 Apache. The problem is that Israel only has around 500 of this type of aircraft in total and some of them will need to be tasked to deal with rocket launching sites and other duties while the others need to be temporarily grounded to be re-fuelled, re-armed and maintained.

In the event that air-support is not available artillery fire (including from tanks) is used instead. The problem is that - as I've explained - artillery is a dumb weapon meaning that it is not very accurate and the warheads used are designed to have wide blast area to compensate for this inaccuracy. As a result artillery fire carries with it much higher risks to people - including civilians - in and around the target area. This is a particular problem when you move into densely populated built up areas as we saw in the Shejayia district of Gaza City on Sunday (20/7/14). As there seems to have been no follow up on the ground I would say that on that particular occasion the Israeli artillery fire bordered on the excessive.

Shejayia though is home to a number of Hamas weapons factories, weapon stores and tunnel entrances. As a result the IDF are going to have to move in to take control of that area. The only alternative is that the IDF attempt to destroy the targets from the air but this also carries a huge risk to civilians because in order to destroy underground targets you need to use very big bombs and they are likely to set off uncontrolled secondary explosions of the stored ordinance.

The only suggestion I can make to minimise the risk to civilians is that the IDF consider deploying a smaller number of engineering teams in order to make sure that they have ample air-support because an Apache can engage a target with highly accurate cannon fire. However I am aware that there are a number of valid military reasons why this might not be possible. For example only sending troops into a smaller number of areas allows Hamas to concentrate their forces on attacking those troops.

In the meantime the IDF - along with any other military - are most certainly allowed to use artillery against populated areas and kill civilians in the process provided they take precautions - such as issuing evacuation orders - to minimise the risk to civilians which Israel is not only doing but exceeding its obligation. However the fact that Israel is allowed to do something is not the same as saying that Israel should do it.

The obligation though remains on Hamas to agree a cease-fire and improve its relationship with Egypt in the process. That is because this current confrontation is not going to bring about the end of the blockade on Gaza and there are plenty within Israel who will happily see Hamas totally destroyed because they know that something worse will rise from the ashes. That will make it a lot easier for them to justify completely re-occupying Gaza  effectively ending hope of a viable Palestinian state.


(Originally Posted) 16:20 on 23/7/14 (UK date).

My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 1, Day 3.

Pretty much as I was writing my previous post on the subject the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) - whom I am now going to have to Twitter-stalk - confirmed that on Sunday (20/7/14) 7 of it's troops were killed in an explosive attack on their Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC). They went on to confirm that only 6 of the bodies had been recovered. The 7th - Oron Shaul - bears a striking similarity to Shaul Aaronson - the solider that Hamas claimed to have kidnapped on Sunday evening. The IDF went on to describe Shaul as missing presumed dead. The presumption of death comes from the fact that the other 6 people in the vehicle were killed.

Later on Monday evening an Israeli Jewish male in his mid 20's was shot and killed in the West Bank. This could have been a simple murder although it is more likely to be local idiots picking up their rifles to avenge their Palestinian brothers in Gaza. Either way the Israel police backed by the military moved in to seal off the area provoking a night of rioting.

Meanwhile the conflict in Gaza has continued unabated meaning that Hamas have fired dozens of rockets into Israel whilst also attempting to mount tunnel raids. Meanwhile the IDF have continued their ground operation to prevent Hamas for mounting this type of offensive action. The only difference is that today the IDF decided to attack a Hamas tunnel/bunker network from the air rather then risking their combat engineers. This obviously caused a series of massive secondary explosions which endangered civilians. This was a response to the protests against the IDF's attempts to clear the tunnel networks centred in the Shejayia neighbourhood of Gaza City using excessive artillery fire. At this point I probably need to sober up so I can look at the issue of artillery fire in civilian neighbourhoods in more detail tomorrow. In the meantime the IDF should consider working in smaller teams backed by attack helicopter support even if it is always going to be nasty.

Obviously some of the dozens of missiles Hamas have been firing on Tel Aviv's civilian Ben Gurion airport daily creates a clear risk of an MH17 type event on a more then hourly basis. This afternoon several US airlines - I believe Delta took the lead  - finally woke up to this risk and suspended flights in and out of Ben Gurion. This prompted the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to follow suit banning all US airlines from using the airport for 24 hours. At around the same time Air France and the Dutch carrier KLM also stopped flights into Ben Gurion. This prompted the European (Union) Air Safety Authority (EASA) to follow the FAA's lead creating an image of Israel under international sanctions.

I believe that the important thing to remember is that US Secretary of State John Kerry is currently in Egypt/Israel/Palestine trying to negotiate a cease-fire. After all Kerry's boss Barack Obama - much like his predecessor Tony Blair - has decided that he is the hero that is going to bring peace to the middle-east. Sadly my experience of the region leads me to believe that the blood-letting is going to go on for a good few weeks still. Hopefully Kerry won't drag his feet as he makes his way home.

(Originally Posted) 21:00 on 22/7/14 (UK date).

MH17: Finally an Investigation.

At around lunchtime on Monday (21/7/14) authorities in Kiev finally relented and granted the International Civilian Aviation Organisation (ICAO) permission to conduct an investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. As soon at that permission was granted things began to move apace with the ICAO almost immediately moving to set up a command centre in the flight's country of origin - the Netherlands.

Within hours of the investigation being opened anti-Kiev rebels agreed to hand the aircraft's black boxes over this was completed that evening. Upon receiving the black boxes the Malaysia authorities confirmed that they were in good condition and no attempt had been made to tamper with them. We now wait to see what Malaysia intends to do with those black boxes because there are only half a dozen nations with the capacity to properly download the data and Malaysia is not one of them. This data will of course be vital to the investigation because it should help shed light on how MH17 came to be some 300 miles (480km) off course and whether the transponder that should have identified it as an civilian aircraft was working correctly.

The opening of an investigation also solved the problem of what to do with the bodies of the victims. Due to the explosive and often exploitative rhetoric this issue provoked I am rather forced to look at the gory details. It appears that MH17 completely broke apart mid-flight causing the bodies to fall some 1km (0.621 miles) to the ground. This caused all the bodies and the wreckage to spread out causing a debris field some 8 miles (13km) wide. A search of an area this size takes time meaning that it took the best part of 4 days to find all the bodies which for a task of this size is considered quick. To put it into perspective it took almost twice as long (7 days) to recover the victims of the Lockerbie crash.

Once the bodies had begun to be recovered they were placed in cold storage aboard to refrigerated train both to slow decomposition and to speed their removal to a command centre for the investigation. A Dutch forensic investigator on scene yesterday described the handling of the bodies as "good." Once Kiev granted permission for an investigation command centre to be set up the train containing the victims almost immediately began its journey to Kharkiv, Ukraine from where the bodies will be flown to the command centre in the Netherlands where they will be kept in cold storage for a period of anything up to a year while the investigation takes place.

Much later in the day the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met to discuss a resolution that can be read here; http://www.scribd.com/doc/234691893/MH17-Draft-UN-Security-Council-Resolution

From the tone of the comments made by the representatives of the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia and the UK it struck me that the true purpose of this resolution was was to provoke confrontation with Russia by forcing it to veto in protest against language calling on those violating the international laws governing civilian air travel to be held to account.

The resolution of course passed unanimously suggesting that the people who authored it have not fully understood what they have said. The relevant aspect of international law - the Chicago Convention - obligates the nation that operates a crashed aircraft, the nation where the flight originated from and the nation where the crash occurred to request a ICAO investigation as soon as they suspect a crash was not the result of an accident. Neither the Netherlands nor Malaysia have fulfilled that obligation and Kiev waited four days before doing so. Although I don't want to pre-judge the investigation it seems likely that the report will focus heavily on this aspect and call for censure against the Netherlands, Malaysia and Kiev for obstructing the investigation.

(Originally Posted) 11:00 on 22/7/14 (UK date).

My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 1, Day 2.

Although it was quickly overwhelmed by other events on Wednesday (16/7/14) four children were killed by Israeli naval artillery fire whilst playing on a beach in Gaza.

On hearing of this my first thought was that the Israelis were aiming at a target closer to sea and simply missed. This is the problem with artillery weapons because they are essentially dumb weapons. All you can do to aim them is choose an angle of elevation and hope the shell travels the intended distance before gravity pulls it to the ground. That can be affected by a host of factors including wind speed and direction, the quality of the ammunition being used, air pressure and temperature and even the temperature of the barrel of the weapon. As a result it is incredibly common for artillery shells to over-shoot their targets or fall short which often endangers troops on the side that is doing the shooting. Of course my second thought was that the commander of that specific boat thought he could get away with killing some Palestinians possibly in the hope of inflaming the situation to force a widening of the conflict. Although this highly aggressive Zionist view is most certainly not typical of all Israelis the Israelis who do consider themselves to be waging a sort of holy war tend to be drawn towards careers in the military.

Whatever the cause I was hoping to use the pause in hostilities brought about by Thursday's (17/7/14) UN brokered humanitarian ceasefire to use the incident as an example of how this type of incident fuels the conflict and can cause it to spin out of control. The killing of four children obviously forces Hamas to fire rockets into Israel in retaliation. That rocket fire forces Israel to carry out more air-strikes into Gaza to halt the rocket fire risking more people being killed and then more rocket fire. Unfortunately events later on Thursday meant that I was quickly overtaken. Following the end of the humanitarian ceasefire Hamas rejected a more durable ceasefire brokered by Egypt. This obviously sent the message to Israel that Hamas wanted to continuing fighting forcing Israel to look at the tactics Hamas had used up to that point.

The most troubling of these was a raid on Thursday morning into Israel via tunnel. Although four of the thirteen attackers were almost immediately killed by an Israeli air-strike forcing the other nine to retreat their intended target seemed to be the near-by Sufa kibbutz. As this is a wholly civilian community Hamas' only intention could have been to kidnap or massacre Israeli civilians and most likely a combination of both. Israel - like any other nation - simply cannot tolerate this type of threat to its civilians so on Thursday night launched a ground offensive into Gaza.

This ground force was made up of combat engineers backed by infantry, armoured and artillery units. It's objective is quite simply to demolish tunnels that Hamas use to launch attacks into Israel and bunkers that Hamas use to store weapons. Although there was initial talk of Israel establishing a buffer zone I wouldn't be too surprised if that line actually becomes quite jagged as the Israelis push in deep in certain areas where there are tunnels but stay quite shallow where there aren't. The problem is that while they are doing this complicated and dangerous work engineers really don't like being shot at. So if they come under attack they will simply bomb the position where their attackers are ideally with missiles from fighter jets and drones but failing that artillery fire. This is a completely standard military tactic and the only reason why NATO has attack aircraft in Afghanistan.

As a result I was actually quite comfortable with the way Israeli prosecuted the ground operation on Friday (18/7/14) and Saturday (19/7/14) despite the death toll raising dramatically as always happens when you move from air operations to ground operations. To put the current risk to life in perspective within the first 12 hours of the ground operations 20 civilians had been killed alongside 14 Hamas fighters and 1 Israeli soldier. Almost as soon as the death of the Israeli soldier was announced rumours started going around that they had been killed by friendly fire. In a small nation such as Israel that has a conscript army this is a particularly inflammatory rumour to start. It seems intended to invoke comparisons with the 2008/9 Operation Cast Lead which was so one-sided that Israels only fatalities came from friendly fire. So when two more Israeli soldiers were killed in Israel during another Hamas tunnel raid on Saturday (19/7/14) a counter rumour was quickly started claiming that Hamas fighters were wearing Israeli military uniforms.

Things took a dark turn on Saturday evening when Israel started an artillery barrage against the Shijayia district that lasted for more then 12 hours and killed 72 Palestinians. As far as I can tell this action had no military value and instead seemed like an attempt to demonstrate the tactics being used in Syria and by the Kiev junta against rebels in eastern Ukraine. The intention seemed to be to highlight the poisonous effects that the western backed conflict against Syria has had across the entire Muslim world and has even spread to Europe in Ukraine. After all on Saturday there were worldwide protests against Israel but there never seem be any protests against what it going on in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia or Ukraine giving the impression that Israel gets treated differently.

Later on Sunday morning 13 members of Israels elite Golani Brigades were killed during a Hamas ambush. On Sunday evening Hamas claimed that they had captured alive an Israeli soldier although this has been denied and Hamas have offered no proof to support their claim. The reason why Hamas have been trying to kidnap Israelis is really twofold. In the long term they want to try and use their hostages to negotiate the release of prisoners like they did with Gilad Sahilt. Many of the prisoners who were released under that deal were subsequently re-arrested during the recent operation in the West Bank.

In the more immediate term Hamas are hoping to use the search for any hostages to draw Israel further into Gaza. They are doing this in the full knowledge that a wider Gaza offensive will bring with it more artillery fire and therefore more civilian deaths. Hamas is hoping that a high civilian death toll will increase anger at Israel and support for them as the resistance against Israel. With Hamas only having the capacity for another five to six weeks of fighting this looks likely to be a serious mis-calculation. However this mentality that you win by increasing the civilian death toll is something that has really caught on across the middle-east ever since the Saudi and Qatari Kings told Sunni Muslims to rise up against the Shias in Syria and Iraq and western nations appear to have leaped to their aid.



Finally as a bit of an editors note I should point out that I am fully aware that the Gaza operation is officially known as "Protective Edge." Primarily this is to allow the Israeli military to distinguish between an operation going on in Gaza and an operation going on in the West Bank. However I am choosing to continue with the original name because it helps to established the chain of events that led to this point.

(Originally Posted) 16:55 on 21/7/14 (UK date).

MH17: The Un-asked Question.

We are now entering our fourth day of relentless coverage of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine on Thursday (17/7/14). Amid the wild accusations, inflammatory rhetoric and the almost deafening drum beat of war there is one vital question that everyone seems almost afraid to ask - What was MH17 doing when it crashed?

According to data provided by Ukrainian Air Traffic Control at the time it crashed MH17 had veered some 300 miles (480km) off its intended course putting it substantially to the north of the flightpath normally used by aircraft travelling between the Netherlands and Malaysia. MH17 had also descended 5000ft (152m) below the usual cruising altitude of 38,000ft (1158m) to an altitude of just 33,000ft (1005m). This unexplained change in course put MH17 in a section of air-space that was closed below 32,000ft (975m) as it was combat zone where anti-aircraft fire was to be expected and all aircraft were presumed to be military. Normally anything less then 1000ft (30.5m) of vertical separation is considered dangerous because it is so difficult to accurately gauge distance using radar. As a result there seems to be a very strong case indicating that MH17 was being operated negligently at the time it crashed.

The other big thing that has bothered me about the coverage of the incident is that through listening the the proclamations of the British, Dutch and US government's you would get the impression that Russia is obstructing the investigation into the crash. In circumstances such as these the responsibility to investigate air-crashes falls to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) which is a branch of the United Nations. As far as I can tell no-one has instructed the ICAO to open an investigation. As a result no investigation has been opened and no investigation team has been assembled let alone dispatched anywhere. With no investigation taking place it is simply impossible for Russia or anyone else to obstruct it.

What has happened on the ground is that representatives of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have been dispatched to the crash site. A quasi-military organisation the OSCE's remit is conflict prevention, arms control, press freedom and election monitoring. It has no remit to, capacity for or experience in air-crash investigation. Ever since OSCE monitors tried to force their way into Crimea in March 2014 without permission they have been viewed as having a clear pro-junta bias and as a result there have been numerous occasions where OSCE monitors have been detained by anti-Kiev rebels. As such the only possible explanation I can think of for sending OSCE monitors to the MH17 crash site is to provoke a confrontation in the hope of delaying the opening of an investigation into the crash.

Provocation aside a reason why the ICAO have not yet been instructed to carry out an investigation into the MH17 crash is that ICAO investigations tend to focus on establishing facts and improving procedures to avoid incidents being repeated rather then assigning blame and calling for vengeance. For example following the ICAO investigation into the 1973 shooting down of Libyan Arab Airlines flight LN114 no further action was taken against Israel because due to a navigation error the aircraft had strayed into a combat zone. Although it was hampered by both the US and the Soviet's refusing to hand over relevant information the ICAO investigation into the 1983 shooting down of Korean Airlines flight KAL007 found that the main contributing factor to the crash was a "lack of situational awareness and flight deck coordination" by the crew which caused the aircraft to stray into restricted air-space. The aircraft manufacturer and operator were then ordered to re-design the flight controls to prevent the mistake being repeated.

While I'm on the subject of air-crash investigations I should point out that Ukraine actually has a particularly bad record in this area. In October 2001 they shot down Siberian Airlines flight 1812 on route from Israel to Russia killing all 78 people on board. The Ukrainians denied that they were responsible for two full years until they finally forced to admit that they had shot it down with an anti-aircraft missile.

(Originally Posted) 12:40 on 20/7/14 (UK date).

A Series of Amazing Coincidences.

On Thursday (17/7/14) Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine most likely after being hit by a military anti-aircraft missile. Since then details have begun to emerge about the 298 passengers and crew that were killed.

The first piece of information that leaps out is that there were no US citizens aboard. One of the 192 Dutch fatalities - Quinn Lucas Schansman - did hold dual Dutch/US citizenship having been born in New York City despite living his entire life in the Netherlands. This directly contradicts the initial claim by the Kiev junta that 23 Americans had been killed. That claim now appears to be a complete lie by the junta intended to inflame the situation.

The overwhelming majority of the passengers (108) were delegates travelling to the annual International AIDS Society (IAS) Summit that is being held in Melbourne, Australia on the 19th & 20th of July (19&20/7/14). HIV/AIDS is of course a massive global issue that is so serious it represents a very real barrier to economic development in much of the developing World particularly in Africa. It is also of great significance in discussions about gay-rights because many people still wrongly consider HIV/AIDS to be a "gay plague" despite the fact that Worldwide far more heterosexuals are in infected then homosexuals. 

Despite being a complex issue in its own right HIV/AIDS is also a topic that people like to use as a euphemism for other issues. For example it frequently comes up in United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) discussions particularly in the REDD+ program. I think it was the 2010 IAS Summit that focused very heavily on infection rates amongst intravenous drug users in South East Asian nations such as Thailand, Vietnam and the Cambodia that are just on the edges of Chinese influence in the region. The majority of the heroin they're inject comes of course from Afghanistan which has been at the centre of international relations since 2001. Furthermore it has often been claimed that I must be prevented from meeting up with the pop-star Rihanna in case I infect her with HIV/AIDS although there it is being used as a euphemism for rational thought. Just before Rihanna headed to Brazil for the World Cup final the US was forced to retract a 2012 claim that a Dr Gay had succeeded in curing a baby of HIV/AIDS.

As such any discussion about HIV/AIDS ends up getting very complicated very quickly. In fact I think research into all blood borne diseases pretty much ground to a halt during the Cold War because anyone publishing a paper on the behaviour of "Red Cells" immediately had NATO and Soviet intelligence agencies crawling all over them.

The next two interesting passengers were Cor Pan a Dutch national who was travelling with his Dutch girlfriend Neeljte Tol and Maree Rizk an Australian. Prior to boarding the flight Pan took a photograph of the plane and uploaded it to Twitter with a joke about making sure that people knew what the plane looked like in case it went missing like Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Rizk's step-mother Kaylene Mann lost her brother and sister-in-law aboard MH370. This demonstrated that both were aware of Malaysia Airlines track record so you could attempt to argue that both gave their implied consent to be killed by choosing to fly with Malaysia Airlines. The issue of implied consent is a huge one in all areas of medical research including research into HIV/AIDS. Despite the fact that the UK in particular has completely disregarded it the international law on the issue is quite clear - no-one can give their consent, implied or express, to an experiment where there is a risk of death.

Another interesting passenger turned out to be the grandmother-in-law of the Malaysian defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein. As mother-in-law jokes are pretty much universal where ever you go in the World this news seems to be crying out for someone to make an inappropriate comment about the Malaysian military bringing down MH17 simply so Hussein can get away from his mother-in-law. Although I have to concede that is a possibility I don't think it is particularly likely.

Then there is the aircraft operator itself. As I'm sure you all remember Malaysia Airlines also operated MH370 which was another Boeing 777 that went missing on March 7th 2014 (7/3/14) - the opening day of the 2014 Winter Para-Olympic games being held in Sochi, Russia. MH370 remains missing to this day despite a lengthy Australian led search. MH370 itself is a very complicated issue but its focus on satellite surveillance and ocean mapping made it a very handy metaphor for the deeply technical aspects of the UNFCCC process. It also seemed to be intended as a critique of the US 2013 Rihanna operation which was previewed in Rihanna's 2012 "777 Tour" in which she flew between 7 cities in 7 days aboard a Boeing 777.

Finally this crash occurred on the eve of the first annual Mandela day honouring Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid campaigner. The day itself was completely overshadowed by the international fall out to the MH17 crash. The number 777 is actually hugely significant within the Mandela story.

One of the largest supporters of apartheid and therefore opponents of Mandela are the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). Hugely proud of their Dutch colonial roots the AWB's flag which you can Google image search yourselves is a red flag with a white circle in the centre containing a black rune. This very closely resembles the Swastika flag of Nazi Germany. However as they don't wish to be viewed as the Neo-Nazi's they are the AWB will swear blind that the black rune is a Christian image made up off three 7's to counter-balance the Biblical number of the beast (666). They really don't like being pressed on the fact that Mandela's prison number was 46664.

It is so amusing to listen to AWB members try deny that their flag is a copy of the Nazi Swastika I find myself frequently use them as an example of other Neo-Nazi groups who try to hard to hide their Nazi identity. In fact I may have most recently brought them up in reference to Svoboda a Ukrainian political party that hold high office in Kiev junta despite polling less the 1% at the recent Presidential election. Svoboda of course claim the black rune at their centre of their flag is a combination of a "N" and an "I" signifying "National Identity" and is not in any way based on a Swastika despite the fact the letters "N" and "I" don't exist in the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet.


As a result this whole MH17 story seems incredibly neatly packaged to force you think that it was a revenge attack by an aggressive Russia that must be harshly punished for its crimes.

(Originally Posted) 16:10 on 19/7/14 (UK date).

My Brother's Keeper: Week 5, Day 1.

For five short hours yesterday there was hope in the Gaza strip as a UN brokered humanitarian cease-fire took effect. This cease-fire was respected by both Israel and Hamas although a rival militant group to Hamas did fire several mortar bombs a short distance into southern Israel. Fortunately neither Hamas nor Israel rose to this provocation and the cease-fire was maintained.

In the early part of the day there seemed to be even better news coming out of peace-talks in Egypt with rumours that Israel had agreed to a more permanent cease-fire backed by further negotiations. I think this is a particularly good offer to Hamas because although their ultimate enemy is Israel many of the recent pressures on Gaza stem from the break-down of the relationship between Hamas and the Egyptian government. As such these negotiations would also provide an opportunity for Hamas to repair that relationship with Egypt alleviating the situation on the ground in Gaza. Unfortunately Hamas didn't see things this way and rejected that cease-fire.

Hamas' rejection of the cease-fire added to an incident overnight that occurred just before the humanitarian cease-fire came into effect. Here 13 Hamas commandos(?!) armed with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and explosives crossed into southern Israel via tunnel. They were immediately spotted by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) who engaged with fighter aircraft killing four and forcing the remaining nine to retreat back into Israel. It seems extremely likely that Hamas' intended target was the near-by Sufa kibbutz community where they planned to carry out a massacre of civilians.

This extreme threat to civilian life really left Israel no option other then to mount a ground invasion of eastern Gaza. This type of action moves the fighting away from the relative precision of air-strikes to unguided tank and artillery fire alongside street by street firefights. As a result the number of casualties has increased dramatically as the operation has got underway with 20 civilians, 14 Hamas fighters and 1 Israel soldier being killed in the past 12 hours.

Although this is clearly a step that Israel has wanted to avoid it is making preparations to expand the offensive across the whole of Gaza by calling up a further 18,000 reservists and the more extreme factions of the Israeli government are pushing for the complete re-occupation of Gaza.

(Originally Posted) 11:45 on 18/7/14 (UK date).

Well Syria's Taken Another Dark Turn.

This afternoon a Boeing 777 operated by Malaysia Airlines (MH17) has crashed close to the city Donestk in the Donbass region of Ukraine. It is believed that all 280 passengers and 15 crew aboard were killed in the crash. As it is extremely unlikely that a Boeing 777 - even one operated by Malaysia Airlines - would break apart in mid-air it is strongly suspected that this aircraft was brought down by a military air defence missile.

This actually fits into something of a pattern in the area. On Monday (14/7/14) a Ukrainian military transport crashed as it was making its descent into Lugansk airport killing all 49 on board. Today a Ukrainian military Su-25 fighter aircraft crashed in an undisclosed location causing the pilot to safely eject. On both of these occasions the government in Kiev immediately accused Russia of shooting down the aircraft citing the anti-Kiev rebels lack of access to military air defence systems as evidence. This is despite the fact that as long ago as May 2nd (2/5/14) the anti-Kiev rebels have demonstrated that they do have those capabilities which they used to shoot-down two Ukrainian military helicopters. As a result I am highly suspicious of anything the Kiev government has to say because they have a clear anti-Russian agenda which is what triggered the anti-Kiev rebellion in the first place.

However assuming that the anti-Kiev rebels did indeed shoot-down both the transport and fighter aircraft I still think that it is highly unlikely that they shot-down this passenger aircraft. Although they have been labelled as "terrorists" by the Kiev government the rebels have so far not employed any terrorist tactics and they have most certainly not shown any desire to carry out the type of mass casualty attack favoured by Islamists. I suppose there is a possibility that an inexperienced rebel using one of these air-defence systems mistook MH17 for a military aircraft on radar and engaged what they thought was a legitimate military target. While facts are thin on the ground at the moment there is a suggestion that MH17 was off-course for an unexplained reason which would support this theory. If that is the case then it highlights what I've been saying all along that the Ukrainian people need to be given the right to hold a General Election so they can vote out the neo-Nazi junta that is trying to purge ethnic Russians from the nation and in the process plunging the country deep into crisis and civil war.

However there is sadly a possibly more sinister explanation to today's events. Just yesterday (16/7/14) the European Union (EU) and the United States unveiled a new round of sanctions against Russia. Officially these sanctions are to punish Russia for orchestrating the anti-Kiev rebellion but as with the coup itself they are to punish Russia for its support for the Syrian government. One of the companies targeted by these sanctions makes air defence systems of the type suspected of being used today. I think it is fair to say that the UK via Malaysia and the Netherlands are very much committed to punishing Russia for its support for Syria and would love a disaster off this type to whip up further anti-Russian anger in order to justify further sanctions.

As such I think that it is equally likely that the Kiev government has conspired with those European nations to shoot-down this aircraft in order to galvanise further action against Russia. This was of course immediately denied by President Poroshenko but given the number of defections and battlefield seizures I suspect that the Ukrainian military is unable to account for where all its weapons are let alone whether they've been used or not.

19:00 on 17/7/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 22:50 on 17/7/14 (UK date) to add;

It has now been confirmed that MH17 was flying 1000ft above air-space that had been closed by Ukrainian air traffic control since Monday (14/7/14) due to the threat of anti-aircraft fire. To put that in perspective if two civilian aircraft fly within 1000ft (vertical) of each other the incident is investigated by air-traffic control as a potentially dangerous incident. As such is appears as though MH17's route had been chosen specifically so it could easily be mistaken for a military aircraft by inexperienced anti-Kiev rebels.

The UK have called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to discuss the incident. I support that call in so far as I think this needs to be a UN led investigation. After all there can be no suggestion that the Ukrainians, the Dutch or the Malaysians can conduct this investigation particularly considering Malaysia's record on the MH370 investigation.

On a related note today has also seen a train crash in France in which at least 25 people have been injured. This seems to be a direct reference to Tuesday's (15/7/14) derailment on the Moscow Metro system in which 21 people were killed. This incident has been blamed on a "power surge" close to Slaviansky Boulevard station and led to a dramatic rescue operation to reach the dead and injured. This was quite clearly a reference to the surge in violence around Slaviansk in the Donbass region of Ukraine and how Russia is trying to rescue the situation and make the area safe. A dramatic incident in which the lives of numerous civilian lives were put at risk was a Russian attempt to speak in the western style in the hope western nations would understand. Whether they understood or not I can't tell you but the EU and the US decided to press ahead with sanctions anyway. That should hardly come as a surprise the US in particular has no interest in what is actually going on in Ukraine, they're simply out for Russian blood.

Also this evening Israel has launched a ground offensive into Gaza. I will cover this in a lot more detail tomorrow but even on the supposedly biased BBC it has been suggested that Israel has cynically timed this in the hope that the MH17 crash will leave the World distracted. As such I should point out that I was aware that this was a possibility from the moment that I woke up - long before the MH17 crash. What seems to have forced Israel's hand is an attempt by 13 Hamas militants to enter Israel via tunnel. They were almost immediately killed by Israeli aircraft but their intended destination seems to have been the near-by Sufa kibbutz community where they could they could only be intending to carry out a massacre of civilians. Faced with that type of threat Israel - like any nation - has no option other than to eliminate it.

Edited again at around 10:40 on 18/7/14 (UK date) to add;

It has since emerged that MH17 was Boeing 777 registration 9M-MRO. It made its first flight on 17/7/97 and as we all know it made its last flight on 17/7/14. Ever since 9/11 this sort of thing - particularly the recurring use of the number 7 - has been fuel for conspiracy theorists. That seems exactly the reason why this particular aircraft was chosen for this particular mission. By spawning dozens of lunatic conspiracy theories the idea is to discredit anyone who is going to challenge the script that this was an atrocity carried out by the evil Russians who need to be punished.

The flights passenger manifest is also revealing some interesting details. Two of the British passengers have been confirmed as Newcastle Utd footballs fans who were travelling to watch their teams pre-season tour of New Zealand. This has prompted Newcastle and Netherlands goal keeper Tim Krul to pay tribute bringing his controversial exploits at the recent World Cup into play. Also aboard was Joep Lange a former head of the International AIDS Society (IAS) who was travelling to the annual HIV/AIDS Summit in Australia which obviously brings in the issue of HIV/AIDS. Due to her 2012 "777" Tour the 777 aircraft is also synonymous with the pop-star Rihanna.

So were if you were to create a tense an complex diplomatic discussion about the incident you couldn't have chosen a better cast of characters.

(Originally Posted on 17/7/14 - UK date).

My Borther's Keeper: Week 4, Day 6.

On June 12th 2014 (12/6/14) three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped as they made their way back from a religious school (Yeshiva) in the Palestinian West Bank to their homes in the illegal Jewish settlement of Talmon. Although they were likely killed immediately it took 18 days for their bodies to be recovered. This is simply indefensible. However when Hamas have kidnapped Israelis in the past - for example the soldier Gilad Shalit - it has been done as part of a highly professional and pre-planned operation with great focus being placed on keeping the hostage(s) alive so they can be used to negotiate concessions from the Israelis. As a result I have always looked at these murders as a particularly nasty hate crime rather then a terrorist tactic carried out by an organised group.

This makes the way the Israeli government reacted to the kidnappings particularly disturbing. They immediately blamed Hamas despite having absolutely no evidence to support that theory. The one suspect they have arrested in relation to the crime - Husam Dofsh - had once been a low level member of Hamas but had long since left the organisation probably to pursue a more militant path. The other two suspects that the Israelis are pursuing are not known to have any links to Hamas but are believed to be closely linked to the Qawasmeh family who although have worked closely with Hamas in the past are very much more sometime allies rather than part of the Hamas command structure.

This little detail seemed to be of no interest to the Israeli government though who immediately sent the police and military to tear apart the Palestinian West Bank. This operation did not find the missing teenagers nor did it catch any suspects in the disappearance. It did though see more then 1000 Palestinian homes searched, five Palestinians killed and over 350 Palestinians placed under "administrative detention" on unrelated allegations. As the vast majority of those detained - including children - are unlikely to ever to face trial it is perhaps more reasonable to descibe their detention as kidnappings. Of the 350 people detained 150 of their homes were immediately demolished as a form of extra-judicial punishment that's no been seen since the end of the second Palestinian intifada in 2005. Added to a ban on travel outside of the West Bank that prevented more then 23,000 Palestinians travelling to and from work it is very easy to understand why Israel's response has been described as a form of collective punishment which is banned under the 4th Geneva Convention although officially no state of war exists between Israel and Palestine for the simple reason that Palestine is not considered a state.

Legal technicalities aside what was most disturbing about the Israelis government's response is that it took the understandable public outrage at the murders and directed it firmly towards Hamas. It also made vigilante violence and hatred against Palestinians acceptable. So when the bodies of the teenagers were discovered on land owned by the Qawasmeh family on June 30th (30/6/14) a wave of violent unrest was unleashed with gangs of Jewish civilians running riot through Palestinian areas chanting "Death to Arabs" attacking Palestinians and Palestinian owned property. It also sparked a wave of revenge attacks including a series of murders in which Palestinians were mown down by Jewish motorists and Palestinians were kidnapped and beaten. The most high profile of these was the kidnapping and murder Mohammed Abu Khdeir a US dual national who was kidnapped and forced to drink petrol before being burned to death. That incident was further made worse when the Israeli authorites seemed to delay releasing Khdeir's body forcing his funeral to be held on the first Friday of Ramadan when it was most likely to provoke rioting. The Israeli police then beat and arrested Khdeir's cousin in what seemed to be an attempt to punish the entire family for complaining about the murder.

Obviously faced with this level of provocation which has seen residents of the West Bank pleading with the exclusively Fatah Palestinian Authority to protect them from the Israeli security forces Hamas could not simply stand by without taking action. As a result they almost immediately began firing small Qassam rockets into areas of southern Israel that are used to this type of ineffective rocket attack. However as the brutality of Israel and particularly its Jewish citizens intensified Hamas response intensified with ever more and more effective, military grade rockets being fired ever further into Israel. These have included M-302/Khaibar-1 rockets that have been looted from Libyan and Syrian arsenals which have a far longer range and are more effective then either the Grad rockets that Hamas used during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9 or even the Katyusha rockets Hezbollah used during the 2006 Lebanon war.

Being placed under this type of threat Israel had no option other than to launch an air campaign into Gaza to prevent these rocket launches from taking place. Although the Israelis have so far conducted this campaign very much with a focus on pinpoint strikes that minimise the risk of civilian casualties it has caused the confrontation to quickly escalate into a cycle of intensifying violence where both sides end up retaliating simply for the sake of retaliation. So for example the Israelis warned residents to leave a building in Gaza that was about to be bombed prompting local residents to rush to the building to act as human shields only for the Israelis to bomb it anyway. In turn that prompted Hamas to target the Ben Gurion civilian airport in Tel Aviv. That prompted Israel to target the Hamas commander so Hamas responded by targeting the nuclear research reactor at Negev.

This type of tit for tat escalation is exactly why I am so worried about this current confrontation because unlike in Cast Lead or even in 2012's Pillars of Defence neither side is working to some great master plan with clearly defined objectives. As a result there is no way to tell how far things would go and Hamas seem to be one rocket strike on a school or a passenger jet away from a massive Israeli ground invasion that will utterly destroy their power structures in Gaza and could well destroy Gaza itself.

To make matters worse unlike on previous occasion there seems to be no intermediary to help broker a ceasefire. Due to the terrorist designation both the US and the EU are prevented from talking to Hamas and due to its conduct on Syria and to a lesser extent Rihanna the US is simply not an acceptable negotiating partner for the Israelis who are unlikely to view the EU as much better. For their part Hamas have almost entirely broken off ties with Iran in favour of their parent organisation the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This has put them in direct confrontation with the Egyptian government and their recent rejection of an Egyptian ceasefire seemed done more out of spite rather then any understanding of the realities of their situation.

(Originally Posted) 15:05 on 16/7/14 (UK date).

So Did Someone Win the World Cup?!

Last night saw the 2014 World Cup final between Germany and Argentina. For many of the players this represents a once in a lifetime opportunity and although we are still waiting for the exact viewing figures to be collated World Cup finals tend to be watched by in excess of 1 billion people which is roughly 1/7th of the entire population of the planet. As a result World Cup finals tend to be massively nerve wracking affairs for all concerned meaning that the quality of the football can suffer somewhat.

In the run up to the game the USA seemed intent on maximising the pressure on Germany by dispatching the pop-star Rihanna to the stadium. Due to the antics of their fans during the Group G match I think that the USA thought the Germans were taking Rihanna's reputation as a jinx more seriously then they actually were. So in the run-up to the game Rihanna posted pictures of herself wearing a black and white "Trapstar" T-shirt that could be mistaken for a Germany shirt. However Rihanna waited until about 5 minutes into the game to fully declare that she was supporting Germany. If this had unsettled the German side and Argentina had gone on to win this would have made for a very interesting VIP section where German Chancellor was sitting alongside Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Not least because the US seems intent on driving Argentina into debt default and bankruptcy by the end of the month.

Ironically the US' efforts to unsettle the Germans were rendered irrelevant when their key mid-fielder Sami Khedira injured himself in the pre-match warm-up and had to be replaced all of five minutes before kick-off. As a result the game plan that the Germans had no doubt been practising since Wednesday's (9/7/14) semi-final had to be scrapped. Things got even worse for Germany when Khedira's replacement Christoph Kramer was briefly knocked out in a clash with an Argentine player in the 18th minute and had to be substituted in the 32nd minute as he was still concussed. This of course forced Germany to suddenly change their game plan once again.

Amid all this early disruption it should come as no great surprise that Germany were unable to establish the dominating rhythm that has been their trademark throughout this tournament. They were not helped though by the fact that Argentina decided to start playing as proper football team for possibly only the third time in this tournament. As a result they very clearly set out to press the German's hard in order to prevent them from establishing that rhythm. However seeming to have learnt their lesson from the penalty shoot-out against the Netherlands in the semi-final the Argentines showed no fear of being worn out by the Germans and set about trying to score. The result of this was a a very open and flowing match (by World Cup final standards) in which both sides created genuine scoring opportunities.

Unfortunately the pressure of the occasion seemed to unsettle the players meaning that all of these chances went to waste. For example in the 20th minute a weak headed back-pass by Germany's Toni Kroos put Argentina's Gonzalo Higuian one-on-one with the German 'keeper only for him to fluff his shot putting it well wide of the goal. In the 46th minute (45+ 2mins stoppage) Germany's Benedikt Höwedes headed onto the post following a Kroos corner and throughout the match a lot of both German and Argentine players were caught off-side when perhaps calmer heads would have allowed them to time their runs better.

The pressure of the match also clearly got to the Italian referee - Nicola Rizzoli - who although he did make an effort to be seen to be punishing the European side didn't so much make a series of mistakes as completely opted out of making any tough decisions. For example around 40 minutes Germany's André Schürrle was having his shirt pulled so severely by Argentina's Lucas Biglia that he almost had it ripped off. As this took place in the penalty area it should have been a penalty to Germany but the referee instead awarded a free-kick against Schürrle presumably because his shirt was impeding Biglia in some way.

Fortunately the referee was consistent in his abdication so in the 57th Germany's 'keeper - Manuel Neuer - collided hard with Higuian inside the penalty area leaving Higuain needing treatment. This was a much tougher call because although there is a suggestion he may have been reckless there was clearly no intent on Neuer's part leaving it debatable whether it should have been a goal-kick or a penalty. However the referee ended up awarding a free-kick against Higuain presumably for headbutting Neuer on the knee.

The fact that the referee was clearly avoiding tough decisions did have a negative effect on the game which at points got so bad tempered that you were worried it might turn into a repeat of the 2006 quarter-final between the two teams that ended up in a fist fight.

The match was marred further in the 88th minute when the pitch was invaded by an American who I feel I have already given far too much coverage already. However I should point out that in the UK invading a football pitch is a criminal offence under Section 4 of the 1991 Football Offences Act which can carry a 5 year prison sentence. So I see no reason why the Brazilian authorities should hold back on this occasion.

With the score still at 0-0 at the end of 90 minutes the match went into 30 minutes of extra-time. Despite both sides creating chances the game still remained goal-less after the first 15 minute period. Then in the 113th minute substitute Mario Götze scored for Germany. True to my own long-standing footballing curse I was outside having a cigarette at the time so missed the goal. However having seen it since Schürrle put in a cross from the left-wing which Götze chested down and struck on the volley carrying the ball across the 'keeper and into the right-hand side of the net for a goal that was worthy of winning a World Cup. No doubt the time spent sitting on the bench taking it all in allowed Götze to get over the nerves that had effected everybody else on the pitch.

With Argentina unable to find an equaliser in the remaining 7 minutes Götze's goal turned out to be the match winner with Germany winning the game 1-0. In the process they won the World Cup for the fourth time and became the first European side to win the World Cup in South America.

Following the end of the match and before the awarding of the trophy there was the controversial ceremony  for the FIFA awards that I will cover after dinner.

16:45 on 14/7/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 18:45 on 14/7/14 (UK date) to add;

As I mentioned above prior to the awarding of the World Cup there was a quick ceremony to hand out the FIFA awards for individual merit. These were;

• The Adidas Golden Glove Award for the best Goal Keeper of the tournament: This distinctly ugly looking trophy was obviously awarded to Germany's Manuel Neuer. Throughout the tournament Neuer proved himself to be a capable shot-stopper who was more than equal to either Mexico's Guillermo Ochoa or Costa Rica's Keilor Navas. As such he played a key role in making sure that Germany conceded just 4 goals in the entire tournament while teams like Spain and Switzerland both conceded 5 in a single match. What really marked Neuer out though is that he also proved himself to be a somewhat capable outfield player which allowed him to act as more of a defensive sweeper mopping up loose balls behind the defence. It was this that allowed Germany to play so far up the pitch with five in mid-field creating their domineering style of play.

• The Adidas Golden Ball for best outfield player of the tournament: Controversially this was awarded to Argentina's Lionel Messi. Although Messi is clearly one of - if not - the greatest players of his generation and as such is capable of producing moments of sublime brilliance he - much like the Argentine team - massively under-performed in this tournament. For example in the second half of the final it was difficult to remember that Messi was even on the pitch. He of course did produce four or five moments of brilliance throughout the tournament and the majority of these were match winning goals. By contrast though the Netherlands' Arjen Robben was consistently excellent and had four or five moments of brilliance in every single game he played in. As such I think Robben was robbed and the Golden Ball was only awarded to Messi under pressure from Qatar so they could boast in future marketing campaigns that the 2014 Golden Ball winner plays for Barcelona - the Spanish club of which they are the main sponsors.

• The Hyundai Young Player Award: This went to France's Paul Pogba. While I consider myself quite knowledgeable about football I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to sit on FIFA's technical committee. Also I was watching the tournament for entertainment rather then to specifically scout players. However Pogba did really impress me in France's games against Honduras, Switzerland and Nigeria. So I think it was either between him or Columbia's James Rodriguez and the competition was so close it could have been decided on the toss of a coin.

• The Adidas Golden Boot for top goal-scorer: Decided by simple maths this award went to Columbia's James Rodriguez who scored 6 goals ahead of Germany's Thomas Muller who scored 5 and Brazil's Neymar who scored 4.  

The silver medals were then awarded to the Argentine runners-up while the gold medals were handed to the German winners who finally got the lift the trophy for the first time in their lives and the fourth time in their nation's history.

I must say though that as an England fan it is proving increasingly hard for me to maintain a footballing rivalry with Germany when the England football team clearly gave up a long time ago.

(Originally Posted on 14/7/14 - UK date).

Yeah Basketball's a Joke.

Despite being knocked-out in the last 16 the USA still worked very hard to ruin last night's World Cup final.

The main part of this involved sending Los Angeles resident Vitalii Sediuk to invade the pitch at around 85 minutes. Describing himself as a "prankster" has suddenly risen to prominence at around the same time that the government in his native Ukraine was overthrown. At the Canne film festival in May 2014 he attacked US actress America Ferrera on the red carpet hiding under her dress. In June 2014 he attacked Brad Pitt on the red carpet of the LA premier of the film Maleficent leading to him being banned from all Hollywood events. At every single one of his stunts Sediuk has been the US' way of screaming; "Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine!"

Throughout the tournament pitch invasions have been used as shorthand for the pop-star Rihanna's rather disruptive Twitter commentary on the World Cup. Although I have been trying to diplomatically steer her in a better direction Rihanna's conduct throughout this tournament has been highly malicious and driven by a mistaken belief by her CIA handlers that the World Cup is a political event rather like the Olympics. The natural conclusion of this was that the US beer company Budweiser used part of their ticket allocation to bring Rihanna to last night's final in the sponsors section.

The main focus of Sediuk's stunt though was the VIP section which included German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin who will host the next World Cup in 2018. The idea being to get Merkel and Putin talking about me, Rihanna and Ukraine in an effort to find out if it is possible to bring in more sanctions against Russia over its support for the Syrian government. The US' eyes and ears in the VIP section were supposed to be Lebron James or perhaps more accurately the security people looking after him.

The problem was that James filmed Sediuk's pitch invasion and immediately posted it on the Internet meaning that he provided really the only footage of the incident because the TV cameras immediately cut away. As a result James took full ownership of what his handlers were probably hoping would go unseen. I suppose there may have been some propaganda value to this by allowing the US to show its Gulf paymasters that it was taking action against the Russians. Due to the link to Dennis Rodman and "basketball diplomacy" there may also have been an attempt to provoke the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) who duly responded with a barrage of rocket fire against their southern neighbour. However given the tensions in the region I would think that the last thing the US want to be seen to be doing is antagonising the DPRK.

So I'm being charitable when I say that Lebron James made a huge fool of himself last night. I wonder if the people of Cleveland have realised yet that he's not returning. He's retiring.

(Orginally Posted 13/7/14 - UK date)

Booooooo!

Later today England will face up against Costa Rica in their final Group D game. However following the defeats to Italy and Uruguay we already ready know that straight after the match England will be going home from the World Cup. As such I think it's a good time to start the post-mortem.

The main problem is a systemic hatred of football. I know it almost sounds silly in this day and age to blame the British class system but the upper class don't really do sport. On the rare occasions they do indulge it's only in genteel games such lawn tennis or croquet. As far as they're concerned football is merely something the working classes have made up as an excuse to shut down the factories on Saturday afternoons.

However the upper classes have manged to observe - as Socrates pointed out - that football is a team game in which a group of talented individuals working as one for a common cause can achieve great things together. Unfortunately a nation made up of individuals only out for themselves and clambering over each other for every little scrap is much easier to control. So when the ruling classes do allow the masses to engage in sport they prefer them to follow ones that place great emphasis on the individual such as tennis or athletics.

Then there is the small matter of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Back when Britain first bid to host the 2018 tournament they did so almost entirely safe in the knowledge that Russia would win because they had the best bid. However a little bit of friendly competition helps raise standards and should have won Britain allies for future bids. Unfortunately during the bidding process the UK had a coup and the new regime took bidding for the 2018 World Cup to mean that they had a divine right to host the 2018 World Cup. So ever since Russia was awarded the 2018 tournament the UK has pretty much been at open war with football's governing body FIFA and the entire concept of football.

Finally this World Cup clashes with the Wimbledon Tennis fortnight which for Britain's wannabe upper classes is the pinnacle of the sporting calender. It is also an event that Britain's ruling classes get to entirely control. As such they are deeply jealous that the World Cup would steal their moment in the spotlight.

The problem is that not even the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) formally boycott the World Cup. So since early 2012 Britain has been going to great efforts first to make sure that England failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and then when they did (under duress) make sure that they got knocked out at the earliest possible opportunity.

The main part of this effort was the appointment of Roy Hodgson as England manager. Hodgson is a man who has had an unremarkable career both as a professional player and as a manager. In fact his sole achievement in the game appears to be helping Switzerland get out of the group stage of the 1994 World Cup on goal difference before being knocked out in the first knock-out game by Spain who were still firmly out in the long footballing wilderness before they first won a major trophy in 2008. I suppose you could even go so far to say that Hodgson's sole qualification for the England job was that he was born in my native Croydon and started his career Crystal Palace- the local club. Hodgson has even spent most of his time in Brazil wandering around the training camp looking lost in the hope that someone will mistake him for my father.

Either as part of this great master plan of failure or as a result of his own lack of ability Hodgson completely screwed up picking the squad of players to go to the tournament. Although the England squad has some undoubtedly talented players its average age is 26 and most of that is made up of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. The rest of them are aged around 21-22 and some like Luke Shaw and Raheem Sterling are under 20. Although football is certainly a young man's game players often don't fully mature until their mid-20's and Tim Cahill who plays centre-forward for Australia and regularly turns out for Everton is 34.

This lack of maturity and experience is a particular problem for defensive players for whom the game is less about their ability to sprint up and down the pitch and much more their ability to read the game and the opposing players in order to be able to predict what is going to happen next. As such the critical mistake Hodgson made was to drop Ashley Cole (33) in favour of Phil Jones (22). This created a massive defensive hole down England's left side and robbed the team of a potential spine made up of older, more experienced players such as Cole, Rooney (28) and Frank Lampard (36) or Steven Gerrard (34).

This defensive hole then totally limited the potential formations that England could play because they had to play at least four mid-fielders in order to protect the gap. However Hodgson then went on to completely screw up the classic and basic 4-4-2 formation. What he should have done is play Adam Lallana (26) on the left side of mid-field in his natural position. Either Lampard or Gerrard would then have played in the centre alongside one of the young attacking players - of which there are many - with Sterling (18) playing on the right.

However it seemed more important to Hodgson to ruin Wayne Rooney's reputation by playing him totally out of position on the left-wing with Daniel Sturridge (24) and Danny Welbeck (23) cancelling each other out in the centre forward positions. After being challenged on this following the Italy game Hodgson simply decided to ruin Welbeck's reputation instead by playing him on the left and moving Rooney to the centre. This massively improved England's attack but Welbeck kept refusing to play in position meaning that the team structure collapsed and the England were left charging around all chasing the ball in the attacking half of the pitch like some junior school playground match.

Of course if Hodgson was desperate for Rooney, Sturridge and Welbeck all to play he could have picked a 4-5-1 formation that would have added extra cover to the defensive hole on the left. Lallana would have lined up on the left with say Barkley on the inside left, Gerrard in the centre, Sturridge on the inside right and Sterling on the outside right. This would have put Rooney and Welbeck as centre-forwards with Sturridge and Barkley charging in as the flow of the game allowed. Sterling is of course one of those players who is so annoyingly young and so annoyingly talented that he hasn't yet established a prime position and really can play pretty much anywhere.

If Hodgson had taken some of these basic steps while I doubt England could have won the World Cup with that group of players they were certainaly able to qualify from the group and possibly make it to the quarter or even semi-finals. From there you can just get away with being a bit lucky.

Unfortunately the World Cup is a time when football is discussed by a lot of people who know absolutely nothing about football so sadly people in England are starting to believe Hodgson's bulls*t and talking about him continuing as manager until 2016. That will probably happen because Britain is planning to play the will they/won't they qualify game before Euro 2016 and we'll certainly need an excuse not to go to Russia in 2018.

Personally I just want to go back to the days when we used to burn effigies of England managers simply for trying and failing. After all this one has certainly tried to fail.

(Originally Posted) 15:15 on 24/6/14 (UK date).

It's Hitler's Moment.

As I think I explain every time the Olympics is primarily a political event that those in power desperately try to pretend has something to do with sport. By contrast the World Cup is all about sport but being watched by roughly 1 in every 2 people on the planet and seriously followed by roughly 1 in every 7 it can't help but attract the attention of those in power. So while the Olympics is a rather intellectual affair where nobody cares who wins or loses provided lots of political points are scored the World Cup is all about passion.

Unfortunately we saw absolutely none of that in today's first game in Group H between Belgium and Russia. This was almost entirely Belgium's fault. As I explained following their match against Algeria Belgium have been making a big thing about the issue of racism in football. Rather then being an attempt to eliminate racism from football this was all about putting pressure on football's World governing body FIFA and Russia who will host the 2018 World Cup. A significant part of the reason why FIFA awarded the 2018 tournament to Russia is that there is a significant problem with racism and neo-Nazism amongst football fans in that part of the World as you would know if you've paid even the slightest bit of attention to the current unrest in Russia's neighbour Ukraine. So by awarding the 2018 tournament to Russia FIFA was hoping to tackle racism and neo-Nazism in the same way that Russia was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics in an effort to tackle homophobia.

The problem is that - for reasons known only to them - Belgium's long-term ally Britain got it into their heads that they were going to be awarded the 2018 World Cup. The UK Queen even went so far as to record a Christmas message in which she basically boasted about hosting the 2018 World Cup. Since then Britain has been throwing one of the longest tantrums in sporting history. So Belgium was bringing up racism in football to put pressure on FIFA to strip Russia of the 2018 World Cup and award it to the UK instead by going; "Russia can't have the World Cup - that's racist!"

With the head of FIFA - Sepp Blatter - sitting side by side with the Belgian King throughout the game at that high temple of football - the Maracana stadium neither the Russian players nor the Belgium players wanted to do anything worth commenting on. This lead to 90 minutes of what was effectively just standing. Things got so bad that I'm pretty sure that Russia's Glushakov intentionally put the ball wide of the goal in the 74th minute specifically to avoid scoring the winning goal.

Possibly the only action of the match occurred when Belgium's Hazard walked through Russia's defence before passing it to Origi who slotted it into the net for the winning goal. This all happened in the 88th minute. The 8th letter of the Latin alphabet which is used in English and other European languages is "H." As such "88" as often used as code for "HH" which is the initials for the famous German phrase "Heil Hitler" which essentially means salvation and good health to Adolf Hitler the leader of Nazi Germany. As such neo-Nazis will use "88" as a way to covertly celebrate Hitler. Some of the more extreme neo-Nazi football gangs have even been known to spontaneously burst into a standing ovation during the 88th minute of football matches for no apparent reason.

So rather then being a fantastic Belgian achievement this struck me more as Russia sending Belgium into the last 16 in a very Olympic fashion. It may have also have been an act of charity for the other two teams in the group giving them both a chance of making it through to the last 16.

Much like the USA the Republic of Korea (South Korea/RoK) are very new to football and are still learning how to play at the top level. In contrast Algeria is a nation with a long and passionate footballing tradition. Unfortunately like most other North African nations their domestic league is poorly funded and France keeps stealing all their best players. As a result Algeria have never really achieved the international success their fans so desperately crave. Having both lost their opening games neither South Korea nor Algeria have a single point in this World Cup. So by losing to Belgium Russia stayed on 1 point giving both Algeria and RoK a chance of going through if they drew this game and then won their final games against Russia and Belgium respectively.

However it is clear that Algeria didn't want to risk drawing with Russia so set about the second Group H game of the day with all the gusto and passion that was missing from the days first. Attacking from the outset Algeria's Slimani banged a left-footed shot into the bottom corner of the net to put his team 1-0 up in the 26th minute. Two minutes later Halliche put Algeria with a header from a corner-kick. Defending set pieces are one of the areas of their game that RoK need to develop. In the 38th minute Djabou put Algeria 3-0 up with a left-footed shot into the bottom corner of the goal.

Having established a 3-0 lead by half-time Algeria were prepared to sit back in the second. This allowed RoK to get one back with Son getting on the end of a through ball from Ki to slot home in the 50th minute. Proving that they were resting not giving up Algeria got a fourth when Brahimi put home a right-footed shot from the centre of the penalty area in the 62nd minute. It was at this point that I stopped watching and started writing this because trying to write up three hours of football in 45 minutes is killing me. However I gather Koo got a second for RoK in the 72nd minute and that's how it ended.

As such Belgium are already through to the last 16 with 6 points while any one of Algeria (3 points), Russia (1 point) or RoK (1 point) could also still go through. However Algeria now look the most likely only needing to draw with Russia and hope that RoK don't secure an unlikely win against Belgium by a very high goal margin.

21:20 on 22/6/14 (UK date).

Edited around 00:05 on 23/6/14 (UK date) to add;

The final match of the day saw the USA take on Portugal in Group G. This match was played in Manaus which is deep in the Amazon rain forest. So although temperatures are on average 10-15C lower then they are in Qatar it is still brutally hot. As a result it is pretty much impossible to play high-tempo football which even the fittest South American players often being more interested in finding an excuse to have a little lie down then scoring goals.

Hope for an exciting game pretty much died then on 5 minutes when Portugal's Nani blasted a right-footed shot past the USA 'keeper who was already having a little bit of a lie down. With this one goal lead Portugal then proceeded to rest their players for their final game against Ghana thinking that there was no way the US could get back into the match. So there was lots of slow, neat passing and Ronaldo got plenty of opportunity to show off  his ball skills.

As such I thought most of my write up of this game would be about the fact that Portugal's Christiano Ronaldo always plays in the number 7 shirt so has trademarked the phrase "CR7." I think this is a little unfair because CR7 is also the start of my Croydon postal/ZIP code. Therefore if there was to be political gossip about  the match most of it would have centred on how effective the US had been at containing the threat presented by CR7. After all although he's not as good as he likes to think he is and Portugal are certainly not a one man team Ronaldo is certainly a player capable of causing the USA (and most others) a fair few problems. Meanwhile the UK have certainly been trying to portray my local area as the most dangerous place on earth. As such I have to say that for the most part this was largely a moot point because Ronaldo - along with most of his teammates - did most of the work containing themselves.

Then in the 72nd (while I was in the bathroom) the USA's Jermaine Jones equalised with a curling right-foot shot from around 20 yards out. Although this wasn't quite as good as Lionel Messi's goal for Argentina against Iran that inspired it it was certainly worthy of the comparison and most people were just shocked that the USA had scored at all.

We got even more surprised in the 82nd minute when the USA took the lead with the goal that really showed off the composure of Clint Dempsey. Basically Zusi stuck a low cross into the 6 yard box. Although this picked out Dempsey who was in space it was a little too high to kick but a little too low to head. So Dempsey rather calmly took it on the belly and scored anyway.

As we entered the 95th minute (90+ 5 minutes stoppage time) we were all starting to entertain the almost unbelievable idea that the USA could win and go top of the group with 6 points while Portugal could be knocked out with 0 points. Then Ronaldo made a long run down the right-wing before crossing into the box to Varela who stuck his head on it and equalised with what was the last meaningful kick of the game.

Having come so close to victory the USA fans in the stadium looked despondent but they'll do well to remember that with 4 points they are joint top of the group with Germany. This means that in order to qualify for the last 16 both Ghana and Portugal will have to win their final game against each other and hope that the USA will lose to Germany. Although they may want to punish them for their impudence the USA could even beat a Germany that's already resting up for the last 16 and win the group.

Before I go though it is the law that I have to say; "Gee America - I bet you wish you'd better controlled the threat from CR7!"

(Originally Posted on 22/6/14)