Good for Gorillas

A recent census of mountain gorillas in the Virunga national parks, has indicated that population numbers are on the increase.

The three Virunga national parks in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo cover 450 square kilometres of potential gorilla habitat. The recent studies suggest that the population is growing at a rate of 3.7% each year, which is fantastic news for the (truly) great apes! It even comes close to deserving the Guardian's optimistic headline: Mountain Gorilla Numbers Soar. To some this may seem like a slight exaggeration, at an increase of 100 individuals since 2003, but it's not bad going for an animal with such slow reproductive habits, subject to disease outbreaks with disastrous consequences and living in such a fragile habitat.

The favoured explanation for the increase seems to be improvements in protecting the gorillas from disease outbreaks, for example by reducing contact time with humans, and by cracking down on poaching for trade in body parts.

This happy news comes just in time for Christmas, but it's important not to get complacent; there's a long way to go for the mountain gorilla.

A Small Joke...

Two zoo keepers are chatting over a coffee.
The gibbon keeper says: "So how come you don't want to work with gibbons then? They're awesome."
The orangutan keeper replies: "They're alright, but they're not great apes..."

Get it? Great Apes... Made it up all by myself. Okay, so maybe my comedy career is limited. But maybe I could get a crowd of primatologists? Ones with no sense of humour? No? Okay, I'll stick to the day job then.

Very Large Orangutan

A very large orangutan has come to live in Dorset. Oshine has moved from South Africa to reside at Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre to live with other orangutans at the sanctuary. Oshine is 12 years old and is thought to weigh 100 kg, which is much heavier than an average female orangutan which would weigh in at around 40-45 kg. She appears to be settling in slowly but well, getting used to the big changes in lifestyle that come with the transition between being someone's pet and joining the orangutan nursery at the rescue centre.

Good luck Oshine...

To see the BBC coverage, follow this link

Glastonbury Festival

Before I get going again I should apologise for the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks; I've been busy moving partying/enjoying the sunshine/moving house etc. Now that I'm residing in sleepy Dorset again I'll have more time to blog for any loyal followers who are still checking back every now and again!

My first Glastonbury Festival experience more than lived up to my expectations. The Green Fields, in particular, were fantastic. Pedalling to contribute to powering amp equipment, perusing the Greenpeace field and learning about their current campaigns, painting a paper-mache jigsaw-puzzle ball as part of a community art piece and watching stone-masons at work were enough reason alone to step away from the main stages for a while.

However, in terms of music, these were my top 5 Glastonbury Festival highlights:

FIVE: Scissor Sister Sunset

Watching the sun go down behind the Pyramid Stage on Saturday evening, whilst the Scissor Sisters were joined onstage by Kylie Minogue will remain with me for a long time...


FOUR: Tie My Very British Kangaroo Down, Old Chap
This is the only video I could find online of this version of the Rolf classic. Rolf Harris gave one of the best performances I saw all weekend, and yes, I did see some of the other acts! Skip forward to 4 minutes 35 seconds-ish to hear what I'm talking about... mad!

THREE: The Chain

Once again, I'm afraid you'll have to skip over the first song (which I believe has made it onto the Twilight soundtrack, if you're interested in vampires at all) and you will find the finest cover of The Chain you're ever likely to hear. And I thought I liked Fleetwood Mac...

TWO: The King Blues

Militant ska: It should be a new genre. At any rate, it describes this band quite well, and if you get the chance to check out their music (the album, 'Under the Fog' is a good start) then do! The Leftfield tent was completely packed at half past seven on the Sunday evening, and it was definitely worth missing Faithless and MGMT on the main stages.

ONE: The Edge

For those of us who love U2 and were more than a little disappointed when they had to pull out of Glastonbury, and who were already quite excited to be watching Muse headline the Saturday evening, and who were exhausted after spending eight hours that day checking wristbands on the gates, to watch the lights go down for the encore and hear the opening notes of 'Where The Streets Have No Name' in a distinctly 'The Edge' style could not possibly have been more perfect, even if Bono was there (but I didn't say that).

03 June 2010

World Environment Day is approaching. Events will take place across the world on June 5 to promote environmental awareness and to pressure political bodies to take action on important issues.

2010 has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations. Biodiversity is not only important for preserving individual species and habitats, but is also essential for maintaining the ecosystem services we rely on, such as food, clean water and fuel.

The UK has a Biodiversity Action Plan to monitor and protect our biodiversity. The latest figures from it estimate that over a third of the high priority species in Wales are declining or have been lost since the last assessment.

Economically, biodiversity loss is also a bit of a nightmare. ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Study’ could well be the most influential report since ‘The Economics of Climate Change’ by Lord Stern in 2007.

The study was undertaken by leading economist and senior banker, Pavan Sukhdev, and the resulting report is expected to announce that the ratio of costs of conserving natural ecosystems to the benefits of doing so range from one to ten, up to as much as one to 100.

Natural ecosystems play an essential role in supporting human civilisation, but we’re currently living in the age of the sixth mass extinction. The last time Earth experienced one of these was roughly 65 million years ago, when a meteorite collided with the Yucatan Peninsula and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

However, this mass extinction is due to the destruction of numerous habitats faster than species can adapt to suit them. If they can’t adapt to altered habitats, the only other viable option is to move, but the corridors that once made this possible are now largely absent or blocked. The remaining path to take is extinction.

The silver lining is that, because this mass extinction is largely caused by us, it is not an unpredictable event that we can do nothing about. Reversing the biodiversity crisis is one of the biggest and most complex challenges to face our generation, and it will take global participation and skills from all walks of life to solve.

World Environment Day has been celebrated on June 5 since 1972. In Cardiff, the National Museum of Wales is holding an ECOfair on the day to celebrate it, which includes an informal Q&A session at 2pm. The theme this year is ‘many species, one planet, one future’. It may be clichéd but it’s all we’ve got.

- as published in the latest issue of gair rhydd, Cardiff's student newspaper

22 MAY 2010

Final exams have eaten so much of the last month that I haven't actually checked the news or left the house/garden for so long that I have nothing of environmental interest to comment on! The only thing I'm aware of that's happening outside the exam bubble is Bono's back surgery, which is not only a bit of a nuisance for poor Bono but also puts U2's Glastonbury Festival appearance in jeopardy. However, I'd rather he took the time to get better than rush it and appear at Glasto. Even if it is the light at the end of the tunnel that's seen me through the last few weeks!

Anyway, I came across this photo from a trip to Lok Kawi Zoo in Kota Kinabalu, August 2008, but it sums up how I'm feeling right now (minus the ice-cream).

Revision of Local Conservation Politics

It's exam time; we're all starting to crack.

The following is the product of the last hour's revision session concerning the development of UK conservation legislation:

Local Politics and Conservation

In 1949 was the Nature Conservancy
The 1960s saw eco-popularity,
In ‘65 it joined the NERC
And split again in ‘73.
Research in the NCC
Is now CEH, which was ITE.

In ‘81 we had the W & C Act,
Opposed by NFU: True Fact.
In’ 89 it all went statutory
With the breaking down of the JNCC.
A ’92 summit was quite big in Rio,
BAPS in ’94 were backed by 2000’s CROW.

Natura 2000 and the Habitats Directive,
Ramsar Wetlands, quite effective.
NERC ’06 said each public body
Must be nice to the environment (like Bill Oddie).
NNRS and triple-Sis
Keep our country fairly nice.

Now, if only I can memorise that for the exam tomorrow...

A Green Government? I wish.

If you're reading this in the UK, I apologise for jumping on the bandwagon. If you're far away from the red, yellow and blue campaigns then think yourself lucky, it's given me quite a headache! At 7am tomorrow my alarm clock will go off and the polling stations will open. David Cameron can finally take a break from his slightly over-the-top continuous 36 hours (and counting) final campaign, Nick Clegg can, perhaps, give his face a rest from smiling non-stop for four and a half weeks and Gordon Brown might get a chance to visit an estate agent to suss out his potential new pad.

We don't really know who's going to be having dinner at Number 10 on Friday evening, but with less than 24 hours to go until the close of polls, I thought I'd have one last look at an important area of policy that's been almost completely overlooked under the big black clouds of the recession and volcanic ash...

...The Environment

The Conservatives start by saying that they will "make Britain greener by tackling climate change and protecting and enhancing our environment", which is interesting because the Liberal Democrats are telling me that "The Liberal Democrats are the only party in British politics that can and will put the environment at the heart of government" and Labour state that "the green agenda is fundamentally rooted in Labour values". This will be interesting; I naively thought it would be simple to get to the bottom of who has the best policies, but it looks like I'll need to be a bit more Sherlock Holmes.

As the recycling hasn't been collected in Cathays for the last fortnight I'll take a look at waste management. The Conservatives pledge to work towards a 'zero waste Britain' and promote recycling. Of course, recylcling reduces the amount of junk going to landfill, but in order to recycle, we need energy, but we'll come to that in a moment. Labour's website doesn't seem to mention waste other than in its opening blurb that states "By taking the action we need to tackle climate change and reduce waste we can drive economic growth", but maybe they'll redeem themselves in other ways. The Liberal Democrats are also pushing the 'zero waste Britain' approach and pledge to increase anaerobic digestion technology to generate energy from food and farm waste.

The Liberal Democrats also pledge to meet the EU 15% renewable energy target, no small task, would set a target for 40% of UK electricity to come from 'clean' sources, and would aim to improve energy efficiency in the public and commercial sectors by 30%, by 2020. All new coal-powered station plans would be halted unless they incorporated the best carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. They're not big fans of nuclear energy and would focus on renewables as a cheaper, more sustainable solution to the energy crisis. Conservatives, on the other hand, would create four CCS power plants, set legal limits on power station emissions, deliver a 10% carbon emissions cut from government activities within the first year, create an off-shore energy grid and encourage small-scale energy generation. I assume this means of the renewable variety rather than back-yard coal plants, but it isn't clarified in the literature. I hold Labour under rather more scrutiny in this area, as with 13 years in power we haven't yet seen the leaps and bounds promised to us, but maybe it's worth another shot, so I'll hear them out. They intend to stick to the 2008 Climate Change Act which requires greenhouse gas emissions to drop by 34% by 2020. They support 'clean coal' (*cough*) and nuclear power, and would like 15% of our energy to come from renewable sources by 2020.

In terms of protecting our biodiversity, I feel we're faced with an inadequate set of policies. Our current government mention it once: "Labour believes that the beauty and biodiversity of Britain’s countryside and green spaces enrich the quality of our lives", but then fails to mention how it intends to preserve it. It gets Brownie Points for introducing the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000) which gave statutory backing to Biodiversity Action Plans, but it would be nice to know what, if anything, it intends to do next. It proposes to extend green belts and for 60% of development to be on brownfield land, but I wonder where they want to put the other 40%.

In their section regarding biodiversity, the Conservatives state that they want to reduce litter. It seems like this is probably more our responsibility than theirs, but I can't complain about good intentions. Perhaps they can wash my dishes whilst they're at it. They also want to plant one million trees during their potential term in office; as long as they're British natives I'm all for it (don't worry, I'm not going all British National Party, I'm only worried about invasive species). The Liberal Democrats worry me slightly in their use of the word 'could': "We will introduce landscape-scale policies, with measurable objectives which could include things like the promotion of biodiversity", however they do pledge to include gardens as greenfield sites in planning law, so that they aren't so easily built over by 'garden grabbers'. As our gardens support such a large amount of Britain's wildlife, this is particularly important.

I could go on all night, but by the time I'd finish the polls would be closed. For further information, check out the following (in alphabetical order!):
Conservatives
Labour
Liberal Democrats

Of course, there are other important issues to base your voting decision on, but hopefully I've laid out a few of the major 'green' topics of interest.

I'm still undecided...

The End of Tiger Blogfest, but Not the End of the Tiger

It's the end of the Tiger Blog Fest 2010, but if you're not quite sure why I'm going on about tigers, it's entirely my fault, so let me explain.

Since the onset of the Chinese New Year celebrations, we've been living in the year of the tiger. Numbers at tiger social gatherngs are dwindling, but it's not that they're not cool, or that nobody likes them; far from it. It's more that, as is sadly often the case, we've threatened their existence by removing their habitat and taking them from the wild for entertainment, 'medicinal' purposes and such specialities as 'tiger-bone wine'. To save you the trouble of googling it, tiger-bone wine is a drink made from the carcus of a tiger soaked in red wine. Seriously, a bottle of Blossom Hill from the corner shop does the trick, believe me.

That said, there's no point in being gloomy about these things, especially if you're a tiger, 'Carpe diem' and all that, so let's focus on the opportunities to give these beasts a helping hand. The WWF et al. have launched TX2, a campaign to double the number of Malayan tigers by the year 2020. Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? No. It would bring the numbers up to 1,000 individuals and ensure a bit of stability for a species teetering on the brink of uncertainty.

Positive thinking goes a long way, and the power of public support for a cause should never be underestimated. Get talking about tigers or get involved if you want to, just don't get complacent, because there's still a long way to go.

Tigers in Society...

You don't see many tigers in Cardiff. Or in Bournemouth. Or anywhere else in the UK really, but whilst pondering what to write about tigers it struck me that they're pretty much everywhere:

At the pub...


...at breakfast...


...and in the news...


...and they'll probably be lurking in those areas for some time to come. Make sure they continue to grace forests too. Check out this website for further information.

Tiger Tiger...

The Tiger Blogfest 2010 is a week where participating blogs write about tigers and the challenges we face if these magnificant creatures are something we'd still like to have gracing our planet in years to come.

As a little lead-in to a tiger-tastic week, I've decided to post a classic poem, 'The Tiger', by William Blake who is far more capable at describing such a majestic animal. Throughout the week will be various tiger-related postings, so check back for a selection of tiger-art, facts and features.

The Tiger
by William Blake

Tiger, Tiger, Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Pigeon Dance

Due to coursework commitments I have been unable to write anything at all coherent that doesn't involve titi monkeys/nocturnal song-bird behaviour/bats/climate change so I thought I'd tide you over with this incredible piece of television. Enjoy:

How to lose a bed

I've been away on camp helping to 'supervise' twenty-eight teenagers, although they probably should have been supervising the staff if we're honest.

Despite arriving several days late due to a wedding (and may I say what a splendid wedding it was too; congratulations to Diana and Adam!) I still managed to witness bowling, swimming, visits to various sections of an RAF station, tackling a high ropes course and a football match in which I scored a goal. Okay, so the goal-keeper may have let the ball past everso slightly on purpose, but we won't mention that bit. Thanks to National Rail's flawless logic, I also had the chance to visit five different train stations to travel what would have been a straight trip up the M40, had I driven.

One particularly tiring day, having just returned from the high ropes course at 10pm, I was quite looking forward to going to bed. It happened to be the night I was on overnight duty, sleeping in the office, and I'd just about made sure that everybody was in the correct accomodation and had ten minutes until 'lights out'. I returned to the office to flump down onto the less-than-comfy-but-perfectly-adequate-bed, to find that my bed had completely vanished!

The bed frame was stood on one end without any sign of a mattress, or for that matter the desk, chair or bedside cabinet that had been in the room quarter of an hour previously. Slightly puzzled, and cursing certain other pesky staff members, I went on a mission to recover the stolen goods. The majority of the furniture was retrieved from a utility room and the mattress eventually sprang out of a cupboard at the unsuspecting reverend!

The moral of the story? Constant vigilance! (And that means you too Bed-Stealers!)

Medical Students

Cardiff University has a new publication dedicated to healthcare students to join the student newspaper gair rhydd and magazine Quench in our successful little student media world.

Parklife is to be printed every two months and the March edition features piece written by yours truly, dedicated to 'my medics' who I've had the pleasure of living with for the last few years.

Here it is for those of you who dont have access to the facilities at the school of medicine:

Medics verses Non-Medics
I’m quite fond of medical students.

Words such as ‘cliquey’ can be banded around the outside world when talking about medics, but having lived with two for the last four years I can’t say that I’ve found this to be the case at all. They do, however, seem to come from another planet. Before I’m lynched, let me explain...

1. The acronyms. I imagine that this is the main reason that there’s any kind of perceived distance between medics and non-medics. There’s no chance of ‘us’ keeping up with ‘them’ if they insist on speaking gobbledygook. I get around it these days by making sure I’m only talking to one of them at once. The last time I made a cuppa for both of my medics the conversation was “NSTEMI, Lap and dye, BCC, HCOM,” Seriously, WTF?

2. Medics drink us under the table and live in the Live Lounge. In a few years from now I wouldn’t be surprised if stethoscopes came readymade with a built in wine glass.

3. If you sustain a minor injury, medics will talk about it using long words, leaving you with the feeling that they know something you don’t. This is probably what leaves people with Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (fear of long words) to Iatrophobia (fear of medics).

4. I feel stupid watching medical programmes with them on telly. My Mum, who’s a nurse, used to do it watching Casualty and Holby City, a friend who is now in her final year of medicine used to do it to ER on the school bus and now my housemates do it whilst we’re watching Scrubs. I really don’t care if in reality ‘he’d be dead by now’ or ‘it actually looks more like ’ to you, I just want to relax in front of the TV! The final straw came whilst watching Glee earlier in the month when a medic friend started a conversation by referring to “the woman with exopthalmos”. I’ve come to the conclusion that medics shouldn’t be allowed televisions. End of.

There are some things I’m envious of though; medics tend to have some idea of a career path for post-graduation, they get five years at university rather than the majority of us who are unemployed after only three and they don’t seem to be a bad lot really. Nevertheless, biology students are better...

14 March 2010

Dissertation and coursework have been forcing me to work of late, so I haven't had a chance to write anything worth reading. Rather than post something nonsensical and tired I've decided to share a poem that I found today. Full credit goes to the poet, Robert Frost.

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robin Stalking

Whilst standing in the centre of Gabalfa Roundabout at 01:30 am, in the freezing cold, waiting to hear if an insomniac blue tit would respond to our bird-impersonating calls, I momentarily envied humanities students. Actually, I envied anyone on the planet who was tucked up in bed, sat in a pub, drinking tea, or doing anything slightly sane or warm.

The thirteen other people, standing silently whilst listening to pre-recorded blackbird sounds, looked like they might be thinking similar things at Cosmeston Lakes two hours later.

We weren't completely bonkers though, we were testing out the perfectly reasonable idea that some birds will respond to simulated intruders in their territory, even at night-time. Some researchers (Fuller et al., 2007, spring to mind) have looked into the possibility that noise pollution in the daytime is causing robins to sing at night. There's also the possibility that street lighting in urban areas confuses their body clocks.

We tested out a few things to see if four species of songbird were more or less likely to sing at night in different areas, with various degrees of light and noise pollution. It looks like robins and blackbids are quite prepared to sing at night, whilst great tits and blue tits are somewhat reluctant to wake up from a good night's kip. The light pollution verses noise pollution debate still rumbles on and is causing one of my current coursework headaches.

Insights into animal behaviour aside, the 'moment of the evening' was at approximately half past midnight, outside The Woodville pub. Fourteen people were silently stood, dressed in woolly hats and welly boots, in a circle, with red-light head torches focussed on an enormous megaphone-shaped speaker playing bird noises at quite a loud volume. We were already feeling quite conscious of strange looks from passers-by, but it was impossible not to break the silence with a giggle when a group of students returning from the pub stopped to ask our lecturer if we were performing a ritual as part of a satanic cult.

For the record: We weren't.

Winter Olympics and Aqua Aerobics

"Aqua aerobics is not only a great way to get fit but it is also one of the safest. It keeps the heart and lungs healthy whilst toning the body and reducing fat, and also provides a good opportunity for a splash about in the water." - http://www.safewatersports.co.uk/AquaAerobics.html

This year was supposed to be an energetic final year at university, but I have to admit failure in that department. Back in October, I enthusiastically joined the kayaking club, begrudgingly paid the joining fee and disappointedly realised that however much I wanted to, I didn't have enough spare time to devote to floating in a boat.

Since then my regular exercise has consisted of running between lecture theatres at high speeds, feeding the ducks and sporadic bursts of energy leading to various one-off adventures.

Take, for example, my trip to Zwiesel in January. The aim was to learn Nordic cross-country skiing with a large group of air cadets.

The technique was actually surprisingly easy in terms of moving on skis. The part I found more difficult to master was stopping. This was inevitably going to end in disaster, especially when coupled with a particular 'Top Gun' quote deeply imprinted on my mind:

"I feel the need... the need for speed!"

And rightly so! Being human allows us to experience life at a faster pace than, say, a sloth, but we're still far removed from the league of the cheetah, and it's only natural to be curious.

So with this in mind I set off at the top of 'The Arber', one of the more popular cross-country skiing mountains in the Bayerwald, on an especially foggy day, having first encountered a pair of skis only four days earlier. It's easy to pick up speed on narrow, cross-country skis. Marvellous stuff!

Predictably I crashed about 200 m from the top of the mountain and went head-over-ski with a rather loud crunch.

What I didn't realise was that a handy gondola-type-contraption was waiting to take injured parties safely back down the mountain, if I were to ascend to the summit and hop on board. Instead, I opted to hobble/ski/fall down a further 10 km or so to the bottom, where my foot was screaming at me enough to warrant a trip to hospital for an x-ray.

At this point, I have to mention that the German A&E system is exteremly efficient. I was in and out in no more than 35 minutes, having had an x-ray and been through the complicated issue of discussing the results through a bilingual translator. It took me three hours just to get seen at Poole Hospital when I tried to get an x-ray in September!

The bottom line is that however much I like adventurous sports, it's extremely likely that I'll come home with an injury. It's not my fault; I get distracted. If I hadn't been trying to remember the second verse of 'Back in Black' as I rounded the fatal corner in Zwiesel, I wouldn't have joined the pile-up of cadets who had already hit the snow.

With this in mind, I've decided not to enter the Winter Olympics this year. Instead, I've taken up a potentially safer option: Aqua Aerobics.

But there's always Sochi 2014...

BA(E)d Times

One of Britain’s largest manufacturers, BAE Systems, has been the centre of an investigation into corruption and bribery spanning 20 years. Illegal payments of millions were allegedly made and fines amounting to more than £280 million will have to be paid to both the Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom and the Department of Justice in Washington, reaching record corporate punishment fines.

Yet nobody has actually been held accountable for anything. The only prosecution into an individual has been dropped and a firm line has been drawn under the whole fiasco. BAE says it ‘regrets the lack of rigor in the past’, although I’m sure that there should be a few more things on that list. Either the head honchos have a regrettable lack of integrity, honesty and respect for international relations, or their regrettable naivety has led to regrettable oversights resulting in regrettable worldwide misconduct. It’s not really what we need from our leading defence and aerospace company, even if they are partly responsible for the magnificent Eurofighter Typhoon.

The admissions include false accounting and making misleading statements, an example including holding their hands up to having written an ‘untrue letter’ to the US authorities in 2000. Maybe I’m being unfair; after all there are always alternative explanations for things. There could, for example, be a band of executives at BAE who’ve forgotten the fundamentals of numeracy and literacy. In this case the company could do with investing some of its extra cash, usually reserved for encouraging arms deals with reluctant investors, in some adult education. Once they’ve remembered how to add up correctly they can go back to work. Unfortunately the alternative seems more likely, that if you’re in big business you can lie and cheat all you like, as long as you’ve got enough cash to pay your way out of it.
Corruption can’t have a place in international trade, whether it be trade in fighter jets, weapons systems or donuts. It simply undermines the relationships necessary for maintaining national and international security. Somehow though, the investigation into allegations concerning BAE has come to a close now that they’ve thrown some more money in the right direction.

There still remain concerns about the company’s dealings with the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and South Africa. In 2006, Tony Blair accepted responsibility for closing an enquiry into mysterious payments surrounding the sales of al-Yamamah fighter planes to Saudi Arabia after pressure from BAE Systems and from Saudi Arabian officials who, it’s reported, threatened to rethink security agreements with Britain. This didn’t do much good for the company’s reputation.

In 2001 cabinet minister Clare Short objected to BAE’s divisive sale of an extortionately priced radar system to Tanzania. She said it ‘stank of corruption’. The World Bank deemed the purchase to be overpriced. The Civil Aviation Authority felt it unnecessary. Cabinet ministers made attempts to stop the purchase but were overruled by the Prime Minister. The Serious Fraud Office then found that over £9 million were diverted into offshore bank accounts accessed by Tanzanian politicians and officials. None of this would stand alone as evidence for corruption, however you would have thought that anyone with a bit of knowledge about the country’s military situation would have had alarm bells ringing at a deafening pitch: Tanzania didn’t have a military air force. I’m not surprised then, that a poverty stricken country with no military aircraft, didn’t really want an expensive, out of date, military air traffic control unit when a run-of-the-mill civilian one would do for half of the price. I’m also not surprised that the politicians took, when offered, such large amounts of money to sweeten the deal.

The only admission made by BAE was a breach of the 1985 Companies Act, after the company failed to record payments made to a marketing advisor, although I fail to be convinced that this is their only wrong-doing in the fiasco. Whether BAE admit to corruption or not, the resignation of Tanzanian politician Andrew Chenge, after the discovery of £500,000 appearing in his Jersey bank account at the time of the deal, leaves me just a little sceptical of the company’s conduct. The Serious Fraud Office is convinced of matters going beyond the admission of failing to keep “reasonably accurate accounting records”. In fact, they are handing over a large portion of the UK fine as an ex gratia payment for investment in programmes to benefit the people of Tanzania. One can only hope it ends up where they say it will, but if the suppliers of our defence systems can’t be trusted and the Serious Fraud Office can’t be trusted, who can?

Scandal at Slimbridge! 07 FEB 2010

Swan Divorce Scandal

Swans at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Gloucestershire have divorced.

Of the 4,000 pairs of swans studied only two pairs have gone their separate ways in 20 years.

The swans usually mate for life and look for another mate only after a partner’s death.

Male swan, Sarindi, returned from the annual migration from Russia with a new lady-friend, causing concern amongst staff for female Saruni’s welfare. Shortly afterwards Saruni arrived with a new man and the pair are now living in the same pond at Slimbridge.

No interaction between the old couple has been witnessed since the separation.

New Health Risk for Smokers: 02 FEB 2010

An exploding cigarette raises new fears for smokers in Indonesia after security guard Andi Susanto, 31, lost five teeth when the cigarette he was smoking exploded in his mouth.

Mr Susanto was riding his motorbike at the time of the explosion and described the incident as “unexpected”. There appeared to be no noticeable defects in the cigarette’s appearance, nor an unusual odour or taste.

The cigarette was a Bentoel Clas Mild, marketed as ‘the ultimate experience of satisfaction and smoothness’.

Cigarette manufacturer PT Najorono Tobacco will cover all immediate medical costs and have offered 5m rupiah (£335) in compensation. The company is also expected to fund the construction of a new set of teeth.

Mr Susanto is now recovering with bandaged lips in hospital and has had several stitches and two further tooth extractions in addition to the teeth initially lost in the explosion, as well as a cracked motorcycle helmet.

He has now decided to give up smoking.

This is the first such case to be reported and forensic laboratory tests are now being carried out to determine the cause of the incident. Investigators are also looking for traces of explosives, such as potassium, on Mr Susanto’s clothing. Bekasi Police are waiting for the laboratory report before making further enquiries.

A spokesperson for the cigarette company told the Jakarta Globe:

“We do not put any strange materials in the cigarettes so we think that this is a weird case. This is the first time for us.”