Smooth and Dreamy — I’m finally Scarlet O’Hara in the greatest movie ever

The joy of re-reading…with Charlie Brooker

The joy of re-reading – now I really hate re-living moments, whether it be books or films (except for music, I can play a song for hours on end til I break the record).

I had to re-think my stance though, after reading Charlie Brooker’s insightful piece

Apparently 65% of us have lied about reading the great works of literature. We needn’t have bothered

Haha, I love Charlie Brooker.

Well, I’ve got to say – no I haven’t read 1984, I’m trying to gather the courage to pick up Ulysses, i read the entire Bible when I was 12 and I feel embarrassed admitting Tolstoy’s War and Peace is my favourite book of all time.

The first three don’t bother me so much but War and Peace, well there is a conundrum, I think of it fondly and I might cite is my favourite 1000 pages but I can barely remember a word. So,

why is it my favourite? Maybe because I read it in Italy while I was backpacking and it reminds me of the carefree, orange-blossom smell in the air. But it’s more than that, as a book the language is beautiful and precise, and helped me evolve as a fictional writer – I just wish I could remember.

I have read nearly all the greats, or what I consider the worthy (minus the post-1940s disappointments) – but can’t remember.

Nevertheless, I should re-read all these novels that gave me so much joy, taught me about love (every single Victorian novel, my favourite of course being, the oh so unsatisfying, Jane Eyre), it taught me about life and every other thing that anyone needs to know under the sun. (Oh except for animals, don’t understand them, don’t read about them, so can barely tell them apart – never ask me about badgers/porcupines/beavers/otters/moles…)

Because although the fictional world had a heavy hand in moulding me into who I am today, I still bloody well don’t remember.

Soooo, next I want to read The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

And I want to read the last Anna Politkovskaya book sitting on my buckling shelf, and the end of the Amber Spyglass so I can return it to my friend, and finish Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, and read whoever won the Man Booker this year, and last year and maybe 2007.

And I want to read what I have already read: my falling to pieces War and Peace, my annoying Anna Karenina (so when I say she annoys me I can back up the why), and finish Dante, and re-read (in English) Madam Bovary, and Tess of d’urbervillles, and The Master and Margarita, and The Satanic Verses, and Crime and Punishment and Villette (consequently the only I really remember vividly).

But I can’t, or won’t, because I still sit at home…watching TV.

But, I most definitely do not say I have read a book just so that I can seem more attractive, a) because it’s pointless; knowing me, my date would quiz me, and b) I’ve usually read anything they have anyway. Plus like Charlie says, who really thinks “man, s/he is totally hot, now that I know s/he’s read Lord of the Rings”.

So here’s what I should do: make a list of everything I want to read, ask everyone else what they think I should read, include Richard and Judy ’s book recommendations, and ….

… only read War and Peace and Agatha Christie for the rest of my life.

P.S. There’s a grossly blatant repetition here, can anyone spot it?

P.P.S. I miss Jon Ronson and his crazy ways.

The hidden British faces of Guantanamo

Binyam Mohamed from west London, UK resident

Binyam Mohamed al Habashi was born in Ethiopia on 24 July 1978. In 1994 he arrived in the UK and sought asylum on the basis of his family’s opposition to the Ethiopian government.

Mr Mohamed, a British resident, claims he was tortured

In 2001 – the year he converted to Islam – Mr Mohamed travelled to Pakistan, and then Afghanistan.

According to Mr Mohamed, he wanted to kick a drug habit and get away from familiar haunts in London, but US authorities said he fought alongside the Taleban and received firearms and explosives training.

In February 2009 it was confirmed he would be released. He claims he was tortured into falsely confessing to terrorism and alleges MI5 officers were complicit in his abuse.

Jamil el-Banna, from north-west London, UK resident

Jamil el-Banna, a mechanic, is a Jordanian with refugee status in the UK.

He was detained in Cuba in early 2003 following capture in Gambia in November 2002.

He came back to the UK in December 2007

where he was reunited with his family, including a four-year-old daughter that he met for the first time. She had been born after he was detained.

On his return he was arrested, following a Spanish extradition request, but this charge was dropped in 2008.

Omar Deghayes, from Brighton, UK resident

Libyan-born Omar Deghayes was granted refugee status with his family in the 1980s.

Omar Deghayes had studied law in the UK before travelling to Afghanistan

He grew up in Brighton, was privately educated and studied law at British universities.

But he dropped out of university and travelled to Afghanistan, where he married and fathered a son.

Mr Deghayes was arrested in Pakistan shortly after the fall of the Taleban and was transferred to Cuba.

He returned to the UK in December 2007, where he was arrested, along with Jamil el-Banner, under a Spanish warrant. But the charges were dropped in March 2008.

Abdenour Sameur, from south Harrow, London, UK resident

Abdenour Sameur is an Algerian army deserter who came to Britain in 1999 and was later granted refugee status.

Abdenour Sameur found it hard to live in the UK as a good Muslim

He lived in south Harrow, London.

Mr Sameur was given leave to remain in the UK but travelled to Afghanistan because he found it hard to live as a “good Muslim” in Britain.

He was arrested in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan while in the company of a group of Arabs.

He returned to the UK in December 2007.

Bisher Al Rawi, from south-west London, UK resident

Bisher Al Rawi came to the UK with his family when he was 16, fleeing Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

Bisher Al Rawi had his own engineering business

He never applied for British citizenship in the hope that he could return to Iraq to reclaim his family’s land.

Having studied engineering at university, he went on to run his own business in south-west London.

In 2002, Mr Al Rawi was arrested in the Gambia along with his friend Jamil el-Banna.

He was reunited with his family in the UK in April 2007.

Feroz Abbasi, from south London, UK national

Born in Uganda, he moved to Britain with his family when he was eight.

Feroz Abassi was held in December 2001

His mother said he converted to Islam after a mugging. He became more fervent, and his family last saw him in 2000 as he was leaving for Afghanistan.

He was reportedly detained by US forces in December 2001, in Kunduz in the north of the country.

He was released from Guantanamo in January 2005.

Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, UK national

Moazzam Begg used to run a bookshop in Birmingham selling religious and historical texts. But after moving his family to Afghanistan he was arrested by the CIA in February 2002 while in the Pakistani capital Islamabad and held on suspicion of being involved in terrorism.

Moazzam Begg has campaigned against Guantanamo since his release

He has always maintained that he was in the city on charity business and that he has never been involved in any kind of terrorist activity.

Mr Begg was held for a year at an airbase in Afghanistan before being sent to Cuba in the spring of 2003 and was not released until January 2005. He has been heavily involved in the campaign against Cuba and published his memoirs in 2006.

Richard Belmar, from north London, UK national

Mr Belmar attended a Catholic school in north London, and, following his elder brother, converted to Islam in his teens.

Richard Belmar converted to Islam in his teens

He travelled to Pakistan before the attacks of 11 September 2001. US authorities claim he was captured at an al-Qaeda safe house there, and he was held by Pakistani authorities before being moved to Cuba.

In January 2005 he was released, and freed without charge in Britain after being questioned by anti-terror police.

Martin Mubanga, from north London, UK national

Mr Mubanga’s family moved to the UK from Zambia in the 1970s, and he holds dual citizenship. He is a former motorcycle courier and was raised as a Catholic before converting to Islam in his twenties.

Martin Mubanga was detained in Zambia

He visited Pakistan in 2000, but said he was unable to return to the UK because he had lost his British passport, and was travelling on his Zambian passport instead. He was held in Zambia and handed over to the Americans.

Mr Mubanga was sent to Guantanamo, where he says he was tortured. His release came in January 2005.

Shafiq Rasul, from Tipton, West Midlands, UK national

Mr Rasul’s family insisted that he grew up as a as a shy, “westernised”, Black Country lad who condemned the 11 September attacks.

Shafiq Rasul was one of the so-called “Tipton Three”

In October 2001 he travelled to Pakistan, apparently for a Microsoft computer course as it was cheaper than the UK equivalent.

But he was seized in Afghanistan on suspicion of being a terrorist and taken to Guantanamo. He was dubbed one of the so-called “Tipton Three”.

Released in 2004, he launched a $10m lawsuit against the US government.

Asif Iqbal, from Tipton, West Midlands, UK national

Mr Iqbal grew up in Tipton just streets away from Mr Rasul, and the pair both studied at the Alexandria High School and Sixth Form Centre.

Asif Iqbal wrote to President Bush about his time in Guantanamo

He left school at age 16 to work in a factory. It was at his family’s suggestion that Asif went to Pakistan, and his father, Mohammed, accompanied him; but after meeting his bride-to-be he told his father he wanted some time to think and went to Karachi. He was detained in Northern Afghanistan.

After their release in March 2004, Mr Iqbal and Mr Rasul sent an open letter to President Bush detailing the alleged abuse they suffered at Guantanamo.

Ruhal Ahmed, from Tipton, West Midlands, UK national

A keen kick-boxer and a practising Muslim, Mr Ahmed’s family described him as “a very friendly boy” who took a part time job in a local factory and also helped in community centres after leaving school.

Ruhal Ahmed’s story was told as part of the film The Road to Guantanamo

The third child in a family of six – two girls and four boys – his father was a British citizen who moved to the UK from what is now Bangladesh. Mr Ahmed travelled to Pakistan in 2001 with Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal. He was held by American forces in Kandahar in Afghanistan before being sent to Cuba, where he was held until 2004.

Along with other members of the “Tipton Three” his life story formed the basis for Michael Winterbottom’s film, The Road to Guantanamo.

Tarek Dergoul, from east London, UK national

A former care worker for the elderly in east London, Mr Dergoul is the son of a Moroccan baker and a lifelong Muslim. He originally told his family he was flying to Pakistan in 2001 to learn Arabic.

It is believed he was captured in the Tora Bora mountains to which the Taleban had fled after the US military onslaught and taken to Guantanamo, where he stayed until 2004.

In 2007, he launched a civil action against MI5 and MI6, who he argued were aware he was being tortured.

Jamal Udeen, from Manchester, UK national

Born Ronald Fiddler to devout churchgoing Jamaican parents, Udeen converted to Islam in his 20s.

Jamal Udeen had travelled to Pakistan to study Muslim culture

The father-of three had been away from home only three weeks when he was captured. He said he travelled to Pakistan to study Muslim culture, but was taken prisoner after straying into Afghanistan by mistake.

After his release in 2004, he told the Daily Mirror that US guards at the camp in Cuba tortured and abused him.

Shaker Aamer, from London, UK resident

Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer, originally from Saudi Arabia, had been living in the UK since 1996.

Shaker Aamer with his daughter Johina and son Michel

He is reported to have travelled to Afghanistan in August 2001 to carry out voluntary charity work when he was captured.

Mr Aamer had been applying for citizenship and had indefinite leave to stay in the UK when he was captured.

He lived in London with his wife and three children, all British citizens, and worked as an interpreter for a firm of solicitors.

A fourth child has been born since his capture.

Mr Aamer is still being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Other disputed detainees

Ahmed Belbacha, from Algeria, came to the UK in the late 1990s where he applied for asylum. While his appeal was pending he travelled to Pakistan where he was arrested and transferred to Guantanamo Bay. Because he was not formally a British resident, the UK government says it cannot intervene on his behalf.

There is also a difference of opinion surrounding Farhi Saheed Bin Mohammed, an Algerian citizen, who is still being held at Guantanamo. Legal charity Reprieve claims that he was working in Europe and had lived in the UK. But whilst the foreign office acknowledges this claim, a spokesperson said that it has nothing to confirm this was the case.

• Thanks to the BBC for providing this concise list.

BN UN condemns Britain for Guantanamo

A new United Nations report has condemned Britain for its role in human rights violation in the name of terrorism.

The report has accused Britain for its role in the transfer of detainees to places where they are likely to be tortured as part of the US extraordinary rendition (transferring of person from one state to another, this allowed the US to transfer prisoners to countries with grey moral codes to obtain information through torture).

The report said some individuals faced “prolonged and secret detention”, and practices which breached bans on torture and other forms of ill treatment.

It states: “Grave human rights violations by States such as torture, enforced disappearances or arbitrary detention should place serious constraints on policies of cooperation by states, including by their intelligence agencies, with states that are known to violate human rights.”

The report falls in line with the accusations from former British detainees Binyam Mohamed that the security services, MI5, knew of the secret torture carried in the name of obtaining information for the US,  which led him to falsely confessing to terrorist activities. He revealed alleged MI5 memos which he claimed showed government collusion in his torture.

Information that is inaccurate and wrongly recorded can lead to innocent people being identified as terrorist threats, the report warns, referring to Bisher al-Rawi, a British resident seized in Gambia after MI5 tipped off the CIA about his movements.

In a further unmistakable reference to Britain, it points to governments using “undisclosed evidence gathered by intelligence agents in administrative proceedings over attempts to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal trial”.

The UK is mentioned alongside Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Macedonia and Georgia on a list of countries which helped with rendition.

BN Obama lifts restrictions on embryonic stem cell research

At the beginning of the year when I was writing my 2009 world predictions I mentioned what an important year this was going to be a big year for the development of stem cell research, unfortunately I forgot to publish the post and now I just sound like I’m jumping on the bandwagon.

Still though so far the news has been good. First there was the breakthrough research done on IPS stem cells which uses adult cells and also sidesteps the ethical dilemma.

Now P Obama has announced that he will lift restrictions on embryonic stem sell research, keeping one of his campaign promises.

Bush, falling in line with the evangelicals, prohibited the use of tax-payers money to fund stem cell research – halting nearly all research and the cure for debilitating diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Lifting the ban should unleash a flurry of collaborations between scientists who had been barred from working together.

Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, said he planned to begin collaborations with publicly funded scientists immediately. The research will investigate treatments for diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease using freshly made embryonic stem cells.

The timing is particularly critical for researchers hoping to benefit from the $10bn (£7bn) awarded to the NIH through the president’s stimulus package.

Many people still think of stem cell research as the holy grail, with so many breakthroughs that could be had if only the funding was there, it was also announced today it could save stroke victims.

Scientists have revealed that the damaged tissue could one day be replaced by stem cells . The research has been using mouse embryos with some great early trials.

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research argue that embryos are human beings and that they should no more be killed for research than adult humans should be killed to provide parts for transplants. The same question of the value and status of the embryo and fetus is at the heart of the debate over abortion.

For those people ethically-bound to oppose the use embryonic stem cells, a Washington Post comment piece suggested some ways to embrace the research.

1. Embryos for research cannot be bought and sold. Embryos should not be created for the sole purpose of research. They should only come from excess embryos produced at fertility clinics that are scheduled to be destroyed anyway.

2. Before using human embryonic stem cells, researchers should show that the research they are doing cannot be done with non-embryonic stem cells.

3. Research using embryonic stem cells should aim at advancing toward the goal of using only non-embryonic stem cells in regenerative medicine. In other words, once the process of developing adult stem cells for treatments has been shown to be safe and reliable, any research in embryonic stem cells should be able to move seamlessly into the use of adult stem cells leaving the ethical problems behind.

In my opinion I am pro-abortion and pro-stem cell use, although the debates are intrinsically linked it is a sad day when the advancement of science is halted by the faith of a few.

BN Police surveillance on journalists and protesters

I am a journalist and a protester.

So the police will be watching me, storing my details on a database for up to 7 years.

The Guardian revealed today that video surveillance was being taken of people at protest events, more importantly the details of journalists were being recorded.

According to the investigative report the police are storing facial features and identity of people and what protests they have been to and storing them in a data bank, so they can be linked up to other protests later.

The Guardian said “The ­Metropolitan police, which has ­pioneered surveillance at demonstrations and advises other forces on the tactic, stores details of protesters on Crimint, the general database used daily by all police staff to catalogue criminal intelligence.”

How concrete is this story? Well, the evidence has been gathered through the Freedom of Information Act, court testimony, an interview with a senior Met officer and the following police surveillance footage, (the footage can also be seen under my video area on the right column).

police-surveillance-climate-camp-journalists#

Now, I remember the first protest march I went to, quite fondly I might add. It was in Gleneagles five years ago and I was fighting for the government to take a stricter stance on climate change (back when no one was bothering). I remember then putting on a scarf and sunglasses to hide my identity because a friend of mine had just discovered his face was posted on the BNP website, seen as a threat. I wondered back then about how easy it was to get someone’s identity and keep it in database and I was horrified.

I am horrified today, again.

Every march I have been on since then I have tried to keep my facial features hidden so as not to get photographed, also FYI for new protesters out there you DO NOT have to give your details to the police if they just ask you without undue cause, this is how information is obtained and stored.

The Guardian found this out:

• Activists “seen on a regular basis” as well as those deemed on the “periphery” of demonstrations are included on the police databases, regardless of whether they have been convicted or arrested.

• Names, political associations and photographs of protesters from across the political spectrum – from campaigners against the third runway at Heathrow to anti-war activists – are catalogued.

• Police forces are exchanging information about pro­testers stored on their intelligence systems, enabling officers from different forces to search which political events an individual has attended.

I want to cry, at the infringement of my human rights, of the violation of my data protection, of the lack of LIBERTY and FREEDOM.

A civilian police photographer films and photographs working journalists outside City Hall on Friday 2 May 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk) (c) Marc Vallée, 2008.

As a journalist and protester my rights are continuously being infringed upon, but by the police?

Journalists are already harassed by the police, we try to do our jobs and they stand in the way saying we are intruding on their crime scene etc which apparently can cause a problem.
Journalists have had to hand over their memory cards and video cards for whatever reason sometimes to be destroyed.

Under the Terrorism Act, specifically the dreaded Stop and Search, the Act does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images, and officers should only investigate cameras, camera phones and other recording devices as part of wider investigations on suspicion that the photographs are being taken as part of a hostile terrorist reconnaissance.

The act goes on to say: officers DO NOT have legal power to delete images or destroy film.

This relationship between the photographer (and lets face it that’s basically every journalist now) and the police is murky, the guidelines have still not been cleared up but the NUJ is working on it.

Although the NUJ has been told members of the press are not being targeted, but this is clearly not the case as seen in the video, and Liberty, the human rights group, is now looking challenging the police surveillance tactics in a judicial review at the court of appeal.

BN Magic money from the Bank of England

My hands are clammy, my heart is racing…yep, I’ve just read the Bank of England is cutting interest rates to 0.5 %.

Does anyone else feel the room closing around you when you read any news on the melting economy…we’re all doomed!

So what’s happened exactly?

First of all, the Bank of England cut interest rates by half a percentage point to a new historic low of 0.5% today.

Then…they decided to pump £75bn cash into the economy by buying up assets

So, tommorrow….the idea is that all this cash will be pumped into our pockets through lending and hand-outs.

The nuts and bolts of it is that the Bank of England is buying assets without issuing gilts thus increasing the quantity of hard cash in the economy

So what does this mean for the average jo and joe? Well, not much to be honest.

By flooding the banks with hard cash it should stimulate lending, however, considering their constant tightfistedness this is unlikely, but all that cash combined with historical low interest rates (since 1664) means that if the banks do decide to continue stashing all that money in their coffers there will be no benefits for them.

In so stimulating lending to me and you, and all those in between.

Funny thing though, with my basic understanding of economics I had always thought of the flooding of the economy with freshly printed bills was a very bad idea, I mean this is how inflation gets out of hand and economies are ruined as they are led down the road of hyperinflation eg Weimar, Argentina.

This quantitative easing that the Bank of England is doing is interesting but by no means is it a sure thing.

So, we know the how and the why, the when is a few months, immediate returns are unlikely.

Savers out there my advice is sit on your money for now, don’t hawk-eye your savings but  rather spend wisely to help unclog the economy, although interest rates are so low as to give you negligible returns on your savings, say this: whoever got anything for free? It’s not like the initial amount you put in is devaluing so stop worrying.

Rates on credit cards/loans will continue to rise, although they are not based on the central bank’s interest rate but rather the borrower’s risk which is emphatically increasing.

Mortgage rates have also been cut.

A good crystal ball is the US and their economy, they went into recession six months ahead of us and have already cut the central bank’s interest rate to 0.25 % as well as started quantitative easing.

What do the experts think? The Guardian (interest rate cut: blahhh, quantitative easing: positive outlook), Financial Times (all about gilts and bonds), Simon Ward (blog for the high brow), and from my favourite money person Martin Lewis (interest rate cuts for dummies).

Oh yeah and for the love of god do not support English jobs for English workers aka protectionism aka very, very bad for the economy, at least I know that much.

BN: Lord Ahmed jailed for fatal car crash

The prominent Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham was jailed for 12 weeks today after admitting sending texts while driving, shortly before his Jaguar ploughed into a stationary car on the M1, killing its driver.

He was sent straight to the cells from Sheffield crown court after a judge described his texting as “prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous”, even though it was not directly linked to the accident.

Ahmed, 51, will serve half the sentence behind bars and the rest on licence, and his position will not be affected in the House of Lords, which has seen much greater terms imposed on members such as the novelist Lord Archer.

But Mr Justice Wilkie’s comments will add to the political damage suffered by the peer, who has been an outspoken and sometimes controversial figure since he joined the Lords in 1998 as one of its youngest members and only the second Muslim member. Ahmed has been left shaken by the tragedy, saying recently that the death of the other driver remained “at the forefront of my mind”.

The court heard that Ahmed sent and received five texts as he drove his wife and elderly mother down the M1 from Dewsbury to their home in Rotherham in the early evening of Christmas Day 2007. The judge said the exchanges with a journalist “amounted to a conversation” that took place as the peer travelled at an average of 60mph along nearly 18 miles of the motorway.

The last message was sent two minutes and 1.86 miles before the Jaguar smashed into an Audi that had clipped the central barrier shortly beforehand and ended up facing the wrong way in the outside lane. Its driver, Martyn Gombar, a 28-year-old Slovakian father of two living in Manchester, who had been drinking, was trying to retrieve his own mobile phone at the time of the collision.

Ahmed, who suffered facial cuts and shock, admitted dangerous dangerous driving at Sheffield magistrates court in December. The case was sent to the crown court for sentencing because the JPs decided their own powers were inadequate in the circumstances.

Mr Justice Wilkie told Lord Ahmed: “Only an immediate custodial sentence can be justified. It is of the greatest importance that people realise what a serious offence dangerous driving of this type is.” He imposed a 12-month driving ban and £500 prosecution costs on the peer, who has not been allowed to drive since the accident.

In mitigation, Ahmed’s barrister, Jeremy Baker QC, said the peer had given years of service to the community and played a significant role in interfaith relations and Britain’s overseas affairs. Ahmed, who is a JP, came to Britain as a child from Mirpur, in Pakistani Kashmir, and played a prominent part in South Yorkshire’s local politics after graduating in public administration from Sheffield Hallam University. He has three children and two grandchildren and lives in Rotherham and east London.

He has been a frequent critic of Muslim extremism and played a part in the release of the teacher Gillian Gibbons who was jailed in the Sudan in November 2007 for naming a school teddy bear Mohammed. He fiercely condemned the award of a knighthood to Sir Salman Rushdie and was much criticised when he hosted a reception at the House of Lords for the anti-Semitic writer Israel Shamir, who used the occasion to accuse Jews of wanting to set up a world empire.

 Seriously six weeks in jail?!! What a scam, £500 in compensation – disgusting.

Well, how little the mighty have fallen, this man, who as commendable his community service may be, was given the minimal of sentences, a laugh in the face of justice.

This man died, does that not mean anything to anyone, he died because of the thougthlesness of Mr Ahmed.

It makes me sad to think of the minimal sentence he was given when it was in essence a second-degree murder, a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life, whether it happened in a  car or not.

BN: Binyam Mohamed released from Guantanamo

British resident Binyam Mohamed was released yesterday from Guantanamo Bay – the first to be released since P. Obama’s declaration of Gitmo’s closure and six years ten months since he was first abducted by Pakistani authorities.

The 30-year-old has been on hunger strike for the past couple of weeks in defiance over his treatment at the hands of the CIA and international government authorities.

As previously reported Mr Mohamed’s release has been the subject of great bureaucratic blundering as his date got continuously changed and the subject of much controversy as his lawyers and the British High Court fight it out.

After his release yesterday it was saddening and thrilling to see the unbroken man being hounded by photographers as he sent out these words of to the world:

“I hope you will understand that after everything I have been through I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain.

I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares. Before this ordeal, “torture” was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim. It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways – all orchestrated by the United States government.”

After looking into the debate of Guantanamo Bay, the politics behind his imprisonment and the dark foreboding commentary from right-wingers it is refreshing to learn about the man behind the detainee, as written by Andy Worthington.

As described by detainee Bisher al-Rawi:

He is so British — I mean so British! The way he stands, the way he talks, his painstaking use of logic. He’s such a gentleman. And he is knowledgeable and he stands up for his rights in a really British way. Like with S.O.P. This is something the guards have. It is called Standard Operating Procedure — S.O.P. And the funny thing about this Standard Operating Procedure is that it changes every day. Every day you have new Standard Operating Procedure. And Binyam, he draws attention to this and insists on his entitlement to be treated the same way as the Standard Operating Procedure dictated the day before. And they hate him for this. But he’s just being British.

As he was met by his sister Zuhra who flew in to see him, he can at least look forward to a few days of rest before he has to fight all over again.

Now Mr Mohamed faces the long journey through the court as he fights for his own freedom by holding the governments accountable and bringing light to the torture the US allowed. The Guardian looks at “what next?” in further detail.

For me, Today I wrote my first letter to the US embassy recognising and thanking the government for releasing Binyam Mohamed.

BN – Abandoned animals left as owner flees

This is to be my first topical breaking news post of a series I will run, selecting one piece a day, uploading the news story and piecing together some comments.

A London woman is on the run from an ASBO after her pack of 60 dogs terrorised the quiet neighbourhood of Dulwich.

The story goes that Tracy Thier, owner of a multi-million pound house in Sydenham Hill, had a houseful of dogs, 20 horses and two peacocks which she left to run riot.

Several people were attacked over the years, including one woman who was attacked by two Alsatians which left her so badly injured she needed plastic surgery. A man had a heart attack after one of the dogs jumped out at him. Children ran scared, the dogs ran wild and the woman flouted first her ASBO, issued in 2007 banning her from keeping animals, by keeping five dogs and then refusing to pay the council £50,000 in damages.

She has now fled Britain and a warrant has been issued for her arrest.

Now, i find this kind of story horrific, not simply because of the frightening level of animal abuse but it also reinforces my knee-wobbling fear of dogs. Intrinsically, domestic animals are not vicious but rather the environment, and therefore the behaviour of the owners, moulds them into the pet they are. I remember the nightmarish stories of dogs jumping out biting the noses of children and they’ve stuck, it’s taken me a long time to get over this misconception.

Unfortunately the long-arm of the law is not long enough in this case, with ASBOs obviously not crossing international waters, and Tracey will be setting up home somewhere else torturing a new set of animals again with no retribution – for animal or victim. There must be some kind of stricter system put in place to regulate who can keep a pet.

Coming up tomorrow…A sum up of the week’s news on Binyam Mohamed.