SUGGESTATION

Blood and Treasure has a post up about an Independent article concerning those nice cuddly students in blue tracksuits escorting the Olympic torch.

Turns out that they’re… not students. They’re members of the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary group responsible for repressing political demonstrations in China / Tibet.

Go Olympic spirit!

Gordon, you cheeky little devil - you knew, didn’t ya.

Update: Beau Bo D’or has the best pictures

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0642976020080407?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

I’m not Clinton’s biggest fan, being an Obama man myself (much to my dear girlfriend’s chagrin!), but I’ll have to give her props for this.

Taking a firm stance against China’s human rights abuses, a stance that Gordon Brown seems lately incapable of, does nothing but improve Clinton’s credibility as a strong leader. It is obviously easier to make throwaway remarks about what political leaders should do, but increased pressure can only be a good thing.

I find it a great shame two of the three main political parties, and the majority of the mainstream media in the UK, have found themselves unwilling to take a stronger stance.

The Olympic torch is due to arrive in San Fransisco on wednesday - I hope that US citizens give it at least as good a welcome as it has had here and in France!

Update: (via Liberal Conspiracy) Apparently Obama has now done the same. Took you long enough!

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2008/04/generous_to_a_f.asp

Oof. Getting there. Good result for Tim with Paul - I really hope he gets somewhere with Iain.

I’d like to know what this means in the wider sense of the UK political blogosphere. Much has been made of the reader numbers claimed by the big blogs, and with the real figures shown to be much lower than originally touted, questions have been raised about the influence and readership that blogs really wield.

Obviously blogs do have influence - we’ve all heard of cases by now of stories which have been broken by the blogosphere before the mainstream media, and Tim Ireland himself has been greatly influential in getting SOCPA reversed. Still, the numbers of blog readers in the UK seems to be very small - ideas on how to improve?
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HSBC have recently announced that they’ve managed to lose a CD containing the personal details of 370,000 customers in the UK. Whoops.

This comes as the last of a long line of embarrassing losses of personal information across government and private sector industries, and will do nothing for the uneasiness with which many view the prospect of increased personal data being held as part of the proposed national identity scheme.

Given the farce that was the Olympic torch handover in England yesterday, it should come as no surprise that protestors have been lining up in France for the past few hours, in preparation for the next leg of the relay.

The ridiculous spectacle of the Olympic torch surrounded by a horde of police officers and tracksuited heavies being shepherded through an angry mob was punctuated by Konnie Huq’s statement that it was wonderful that people were allowed to protest here.

Update:
Ok so… Apparently officials have put out the olympic flame themselves and put the torch on a bus. Er… That ain’t supposed to happen is it?

Update 2:
Flame was relit. And put out again…

You know, I’m so glad that today’s leg of the torch relay hasn’t descended into yesterday’s comedy show.

Update 3:
Another day, another debacle. Much has been made of the olympic ’spirit’ that the torch is supposed to convey - a spirit that is called upon when condemning attempts to protest, but conveniently forgotten when we remember who is hosting the Olympics. Perhaps it is fitting that like this spirit, the torch itself has been extinguished, twice, when it became too much trouble to get it through the crowds.

Before today, I hadn’t noticed that the torch relay has an official website. Unsurprisingly, it condemns attempts to extinguish the torch by protesters in England on sunday. I wonder what it will say about today’s protests - and the inevitable protests to follow in later legs of the relay.

Septicisle has posted on the start of the liquid explosives trial.

When this case first came to light back in 2006, it was cited as the reason for the restrictions in airports on carrying bottled drinks - restrictions still widely in place today. The mainstream media carried numerous articles on the story, and ‘liquid explosives’ became the new ‘dirty bomb’.

The idea that these liquid explosives are a real threat has been pooh-poohed by some of the more skeptical press. Nevertheless, stories such as this will continue to dominate the headlines. Other, more mundane stories, often go virtually unreported.

As Septicisle quotes:

The prosecutor added that there was no evidence to confirm that the defendants had managed to build a “viable device”.
But he said it was clear that the would-be bombers would eventually have been able to achieve their ultimate aim.

The trial is ongoing, and it is for the court to decide innocence or guilt - if the defendants did try and build a bomb, however small their chance of success, then they are threats to society. Let us be realistic however - if their alleged plan was little more than the hairbrained scheme of a bunch of wannabe jihadists, with a miniscule chance of ever coming to fruition, then the media needs to be very careful in its representation.

The mainstream media uses sensationalism as a tool to increase interest (and ultimately profits), but this must not come at the price of objective reporting. I know. I’m being naïve.

I think Septicisle’s closing sentence says it best.