runaway-mule

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From the page: "Peter W. Galbraith, an influential former American ambassador, is a powerful voice on Iraq who helped shape the views of policy makers like Joseph R. Biden Jr. and John Kerry. In the summer of 2005, he was also an adviser to the Kurdish regional government as Iraq wrote its Constitution tough and sensitive talks not least because of issues like how Iraq would divide its vast oil wealth.

A worker at the Tawke field in Iraq's Kurdistan region, where oil was struck in 2005. The Kurds are claiming control of their oil.

Now Mr. Galbraith, 58, son of the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith, stands to earn perhaps a hundred million or more dollars as a result of his closeness to the Kurds, his relations with a Norwegian oil company and constitutional provisions he helped the Kurds extract.

In the constitutional negotiations, he helped the Kurds ram through provisions that gave their region rather than the central Baghdad government sole authority over many of their internal affairs, including clauses that he maintains will give the Kurds virtually complete control over all new oil finds on their territory.

Mr. Galbraith, widely viewed in Washington as a smart and bold foreign policy expert, has always described himself as an unpaid adviser to the Kurds, although he has spoken in general terms about having business interests in Kurdistan, as the north of Iraq is known.

So it came as a shock to many last month when a group of Norwegian investigative journalists at the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv began publishing documents linking Mr. Galbraith to a specific Norwegian oil company with major contracts in Iraq. "

From the page: "Never has the phrase "not fit for purpose" been more applicable in Whitehall than to the shambles that today passes for the Ministry of Defence. Whether it is wasting billions of pounds on equipment that is completely irrelevant for the conflicts the military is fighting, or failing to get even the most basic kit to the front line, the MoD is a department drowning in the mire of its own institutional incompetence.

The bulk of Britain's military efforts are focused on low-intensity but highly challenging counter-insurgency campaigns. First in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, the Army has been stretched to breaking point in its efforts to defeat a determined and resourceful enemy. But rather than equipping our troops with adequate numbers of helicopters, or vehicles that afford proper protection against deadly roadside bombs, or the equipment necessary to detect and defuse such devices, the MoD has blithely pressed ahead with a range of high-profile and highly expensive procurement projects totally extraneous to the war being fought in the plains and foothills of Afghanistan.

The RAF's new Typhoon fighter is a breathtaking piece of engineering. No one who has seen the jet soar into the skies can fail to be impressed by its speed or manoeuvrability. In mock skirmishes with its equally sophisticated American rivals, such as the F-16, it invariably triumphs.

But so far as Afghanistan is concerned, it is useless. Conceived when the British military was still structured to fight the Cold War, it is brilliant at intercepting and destroying Russian MiGs. It is less effective at taking out Taliban insurgents lying in wait to attack British patrols, because it has no ground-attack capability the ability to drop bombs, to you and me. However, that has not stopped the MoD blowing a cool 20 billion on purchasing 232 of the aircraft."

From the page: Three members of the Government's drugs advisory panel resigned last night after Alan Johnson failed to persuade them to stay on after his sacking of David Nutt as the body's chairman.

A source close to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) named the three advisers as Simon Campbell, Dr Ian Ragan and John Marsden.

Two other members of the committee, Les King and Marion Walker, resigned last weekend in protest at the Home Secretary's dismissal of Professor Nutt for questioning government policy on the classification of Ecstasy and cannabis.

The latest resignations come as a blow to the Home Secretary, who had hoped to prevent further departures from the council by meeting its remaining 28 members this afternoon to discuss their concerns.

From the page: "Lord Mandelson is being tipped as a possible "minister for information" under a shake-up of the way Downing Street holds its media briefings announced today.

Officials planning the overhaul believe that one option would be for the business secretary to hold weekly news conferences to explain government policy.

The prime minister's spokesman announced the setting up of a working group to review the way Downing Street conducts media briefings in "an increasingly fast-moving and online media world".

One option being considered would involve Mandelson giving a televised briefing to reporters every Monday about government business, according to a Westminster insider.

If Mandelson were to hold a weekly televised briefing, he would in effect add "minister for information" to his long list of titles. In the past some governments have appointed an official "minister for information", although the title has not officially been used in recent years.

Such a role would not involve Mandelson giving up his post as business secretary."

From the page: "According to a British study, the amount of carbon dioxide able to be absorbed into Earth's oceans is much larger than previously thought.

In the author's paper â€oeIs the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?,which is published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the capacity of the oceans on Earth to absorb carbon dioxide is much larger that previously thought by scientists."

From the page: "Spain was celebrating its commitment to renewable energy yesterday after wind turbines dotted across the country produced more than half of all its electricity for the first time.

High winds across Spain on Sunday meant that for over five hours, over 53 per cent of the country's power came from wind energy. The towering white wind turbines which loom over Castilla-La Mancha, home to Cervantes's hero Don Quixote and which dominate other parts of Spain, set a new record in wind energy production.

Most of the wind power was used immediately, 6 per cent was stored and 7.7 per cent was exported to France, Portugal and Morocco.

In the past decade Spain has relentlessly invested in wind power, along with other renewable sources, making it the third-biggest supplier after the United States and Germany. Luis Atienza, president of Red Electrica which runs Spain's electricity grid, said:"This makes us proud. There is no other country of our size which has completed and bettered a renewable energy production of over 50 per cent in such a timescale.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spainâ's Prime Minister, a strong believer in renewable energy, has hinted his Government may phase out nuclear plants."

From the page: "The pound fell sharply today after ratings agency Fitch warned that Britain was "potentially most at risk" of losing its triple-A sovereign debt rating.

Britain's ballooning budget deficit has caused similar warnings from other ratings agencies and Fitch said it expected the British government to soon articulate stronger plans to reduce the deficit.

But nervy foreign exchange markets did not like the reminder of Britain's deficit, which is heading for a record of 12.5% of national income in the current fiscal year."

From the page: Shoplifting has surged to record levels in the UK, fuelled by the recession, according to a study.

The value of retail goods stolen rose 20% to £4.88bn in the year to June, the Centre for Retail Research said.

The UK had the highest amount in value of shoplifted goods in Europe and was third behind the US and Japan globally, data from 1,069 retailers suggests.

Checkpoint Systems, which commissioned the report, said there had been a rise in "middle-class" shoplifters.

It said more people were now stealing goods simply to maintain their standard of living rather than to sell them on.