land of charming redheads

Paragh Khanna in Pyongyang is a marriage made in fuckwit technocrat heaven - the airport in one of the world's poorest countries is so easy to clear -  and as such normally worth ignoring. But this bit was especially repellant

Most of those labeled defectors into China are actually economic migrants, and even in Pyongyang one can tell which children come from poor villages by their ragged sandals and brownish hair, made lighter by long hours under the sun in the fields.

A light or reddish tinge in the hair of normally dark-haired children is evidence of chronic malnutrition, not a consequence of some spartan, austere but basically productive agricultural regime. In a North Korean context it's likely to come from protein deficiency through subsisting almost entirely on corn porridge. Khanna's explanation sounds like something his minder told him, which he then went on and puinted to CNN's readers.

Comments

[Strategist]

Any thoughts from B&T on the Al-Hilli murder?
Let's join the dots here, people...

[Shackleford Hurtmore]

Blimey. Thanks for linking to that. Has Kim Jong-Un kept Paragh's wife and kids hostage until the piece was published or something?

Also, has anyone done analysis of phone firmware before/after they have been looked after by Pyongyang?

[Richard]

The Khannas are nauseating. See Evgeny Morozov's excellent piece in the new New Republic for a nice takedown.

[Phil]

Strategist - let's crowdsource! I'll start: it wasn't me. Who's next?

(Inspired by John Sladek's suggestion for solving the assassination of JFK: since everyone has vivid memories of where they were when they heard JFK was dead, just ask everyone in the world until you find somebody who remembers being in the Texas Book Depository holding a rifle.)

[ajay]

Khanna thinks people with black hair go fair in the sun. And he's bloody Indian! Hasn't he noticed that this doesn't happen to, you know, himself?

[Alex]

Also, has anyone done analysis of phone firmware before/after they have been looked after by Pyongyang?

I think it would be fair to say you ought to change your facebook password:-)

PS, Israel also routinely takes them away at the airport, downloads everything on them, and gives them back. At least, they *say* they "just" download everything. You may believe this if you wish.

[Simstim]

The Al-Hilli case is throwing up a load of potentially intriguing details:

They still haven't worked out who the older woman was.
Surrey police feeling they needed to get the bomb disposal guys in, were they expecting something?
The french cyclist worked on uranium enrichment.
An ex-Iraqi engineer(!)

That's ignoring the details of the actual murders.

[chris y]

They still haven't worked out who the older woman was.

Yesterday they were saying confidently that she was Mrs Al-Hilli's mother, resident in Sweden. Has this changed?

[dick gregory]

@Phil - Can we likewise assume that these murders were not carried out by several people sharing the same bullet? I wasn't even in Annecy at the time.

[ajay]

There's been an interesting suggestion (and this is real Agatha Christie stuff) that the current theory is the wrong way round. It wasn't that the Al-Hillis were the target and the Frenchman, Sylvain Mollier, just happened across the murder as it happened; Mollier was the target and the Al-Hillis were the innocent bystanders.

Mollier worked for Cezus, btw. They don't do U enrichment but they produce refractory metals for people who do.
http://www.cezus-consult.com/page/

Or they were both the targets - they were meeting for $SHADYPURPOSES and someone else took the opportunity.

It's been confirmed that the older woman was Mrs Al-Hilli's mother. French police confirmed it yesterday, the Guardian said.

The guy was an engineer who restored cars as a hobby, I'm sure there was a load of apparently dangerous stuff in his garage (maybe a welding torch? Model rocket engines in a box marked EXPLOSIVE?) Not sure there's much more to it than that.

[Simstim]

@chris y
Not according to the Graun, although perhaps I should have said "confirmed" instead of "worked out":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/sep/09/alps-killer-motive-baffles-police

[ajay]

Simstim: that was Sunday; on Monday the French police confirmed it. See the top entry in this timeline

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/10/alps-shootings-police-hilli-home-live?intcmp=239

[Simstim]

Ah yes, my mistake, sorry.

[Chris Williams]

Re the bomb squad: never underestimate the desire of a police officer operating in public view to cover their arse really thoroughly.

There are some really easy and plausibly deniable ways of killing a lone rural cyclist which don't involve guns, the necessity to cold-bloodedly murder any innocent witnesses, etc. On the other hand, they might not send the same message. On the other other hand, the only outfit which goes round obviously knocking off reprocessing specialists has yet to be stupid enough to include 'Shoot random French people' in the package.

[Cian]

On the other other hand, the only outfit which goes round obviously knocking off reprocessing specialists has yet to be stupid enough to include 'Shoot random French people' in the package.

Never underestimate the stupidity, or arrogance, of Mossad.

[Alex]

Also, what has happened to that report David Willetts asked for on the UK reconnaissance-cough-earth observation satellite?

[Phil]

Or they were both the targets - they were meeting for $SHADYPURPOSES

With wife, mother-in-law and two kids in tow? I've had trouble getting a pass-out myself sometimes, but that's ridiculous. Unless the idea was to set up an inconspicuous handover with built-in alibi ("you stay here, I'll just nip out and see if that cyclist needs a hand") - but in that case the assassination becomes implausibly competent.

Frustratingly, I think all we can say for certain is that somebody who's very good at shooting people wanted at least one of those four people dead and really didn't want any witnesses.

[Chris Williams]

The 'Mossad scenario' becomes more implausible, the more I think about it. Say Country X has a problem with an individual who works in France for a French company selling reprocessing stuff to Country Y. "Send a hitman" is a better response than "Phone the DSE" only if France doesn't care about Country Y's potential breach of the NPT. And I can think of no candidates for Country Y.

[Alex]

Also, there is precisely one country that France has helped to get the Bomb...

[Phil]

Also, the thing about not leaving any witnesses... just saying.

[Simstim]

Why do I feel this is going into the "Things We Never Find Out Why*" folder?

*Until something pops out of a state archive a century later.

[ajay]

Also, there is precisely one country that France has helped to get the Bomb...

Two, actually. Not France's fault that the other one didn't quite make it all the way before an errant bomb ripped the roof off their calutron shed in 1991.

Also, what has happened to that report David Willetts asked for on the UK reconnaissance-cough-earth observation satellite?

What?

[ajay]

OK, here's a really good one. Neither the al-Hillis nor Mollier were the targets. The real target was the (still unidentified) "retired RAF officer" who stumbled on the bodies seconds later.
The murderer shot the al-Hillis because they stumbled across him, just after he had shot the wrong lone forty-something male cyclist. He'd had an accomplice with the eyeball on the road, and he'd said "OK, target is pedalling up hill right now, he's on a bike, he's on his own". Luckily for the RAF guy, Mollier, another lone man on a bike, was pedalling along a few hundred yards ahead of him...

[Simstim]

Also, what has happened to that report David Willetts asked for on the UK reconnaissance-cough-earth observation satellite?

What?

Al-Hilli worked for Surrey Satellites, IIRC?

[Cian]

Or even that none of them were the target. Maybe there's a different lone cyclist who had the flu, got a lift, or changed his routine for some reason.

[Alex]

Maybe they just have a down on cyclists?

[Cian]

My guess is that this is probably a hit by a criminal organization of some kind. A little too chaotic for a government agency, unless the agency was an Arab regime. Which is possible I guess.

[ajay]

Maybe there's a different lone cyclist who had the flu, got a lift, or changed his routine for some reason.

Oh, come on now, Cian, that's just groundless speculation...

Simstim: no, I meant "What?" as in "what's this report you're talking about?"

[Alex]

To be clearer, there is a project knocking about to get the UK an independent EO satellite capability which would incidentally be a sub-metre imaging reconnaissance capability, although it would be privately financed and would sell service commercially. A pilot project ran very quietly from 2005-2009.

Peter Mandelson was enthusiastic, somehow it wasn't killed in July 2010, and Two Brains asked Dr. Nick Veck of Infoterra UK to prepare a report for him, to be available by the end of the year.

Now, the Technology Strategy Board, various KTNs, and other bits of BIS have been very active about satellite applications and space lately. This started in the Brown years, but it keeps up.

But I see no sign of the Veck report or any news. SST would be absolutely fuckcentral to this project. As you know, Bob, out of the European Union and NATO, none of the countries who had independent access to satellite reconnaissance invaded Iraq. (Italy and Spain joined the party but skipped the club for the all-back-to-mine phase, later acquired the capability, and left before the Jagermeister came out.)

[chris y]

"retired RAF officer"

This might be plausible code for "SIS operative", but it explains nothing. People don't generally engage in massive overkill to eliminate individual spies, because it's crassly inefficient to do so. So far I incline to the side of Cian @ 03:49.

[ajay]

Thanks Alex. That actually sounds like a fairly good case for a defence PFI (contrast the lunatic tanker scheme).

People don't generally engage in massive overkill to eliminate individual spies, because it's crassly inefficient to do so.

Well, there is a mildly radioactive patch of Highgate Cemetery whose occupant might have disagreed with that.

I am inclined against it being a criminal hit because it seems improbable that a UK-based gang would choose to bump off its UK-based target in France. The Costa, yes. But the Alps?

[Alex]

Obviously, I'm shamelessly glomming my own obsessions onto the unfortunate case, having repeatedly banged the drum for a shufti satellite over the years.

[Simstim]

A further Flemingesque touch: the gun used was of 7.65mm calibre, the same as a Walther PPK...

[chris y]

Are these sorts of gang constrained by national borders any more. He was clearly doing business with somebody in France. Also, it's only the Mail, but if he was under Special Branch surveillance, doesn't that imply criminal rather than political shenanigans?

Well, there is a mildly radioactive patch of Highgate Cemetery whose occupant might have disagreed with that.

If the operation that put that occupant there had been even slightly better executed it would have been written off as natural causes. I don't call that massive overkill.

[Alex]

Special Branch implies something specifically political, rather than criminal. They are what we like to call the "political police" when they're in one of those funny foreign countries that has a political police, nothing like us, no sir.

[ajay]

Are these sorts of gang constrained by national borders any more.

Well, no, but Occam's Razor. It's going to be a lot easier for a London gang to bump off a Londoner in London than to send a bloke with a pistol 600 miles away to try to catch up with him while he's driving around France. But then I suppose the same applies to any other motive for murder too.

He was clearly doing business with somebody in France.

Well, the Guardian actually talked to someone at the site who said that was all nonsense.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/11/french-alps-shooting-cyclist-girl?INTCMP=SRCH

[Phil]

doesn't that imply criminal rather than political shenanigans

No - SB are the political bit of the police.

As for Litvinenko, my son the chemistry geek says whoever-it-was was incredibly unlucky in the dosage* - a bit more would have killed him straight off (and presumably looked like really bad food poisoning), a bit less would have killed him slowly but equally definitely (and looked like A. N. Other Cancer Case). Hey Everybody I'm Dying Of Radiation Poisoning was almost certainly not the look they were going for. (Although there is also a theory that if you're one of the very few people with access to polonium, and if your job involves killing people, well, no harm flashing it about a bit.)

*Not half as unlucky as Litvinenko, admittedly.

[chris y]

Well, the Guardian actually talked to someone at the site who said that was all nonsense.

So we've got two journos playing he said, she said. Great. I very much doubt that any satisfactory account of this will emerge in our lifetimes, in fact. The only chance of anybody publishing the full story is if the French keep control of the investigation and the Brits piss them off enough for them to go public.

[ajay]

Interesting point, Phil. I always assumed that the Russians made it deliberately obvious to put the wind up people.

But then they didn't have much luck with poisoning Yushchenko either, did they? (The bloke the Ukrainians reckon did that is now living in Russia and has very generously been given Russian citizenship, though, unlike the Litvinenko killer, he isn't an MP yet.) I suppose you just can't get the staff these days.

[Strategist]

Obviously we have no clue who killed the al-Hillis, but what is interesting to me at the moment is whether the UK mainstream media is under direct orders by means of a "D notice" not to ask certain questions, as claimed in a post to Indymedia (which now appears to have been taken down, but quoted on Craig Murray) from a "Manchester-based journalist":

06.09.2012 14:41
Today at 0750 we received information that a Defence Advisory Notice or ‘D Notice’ was in effect with regard to certain facts about this story.
No mention of his links to the Security Services
No mention of his links to Iran
No mention of his links to nuclear weapons research
No speculation regarding Israel involvement in the killing

The only place you are going to read about the real facts of this story are on sites like Indymedia.

Manchester based Journalist

I find it fascinating that any post to Comment is Free or to the Indy which mentions the concept of a D notice is immediately deleted by the newspapers' own moderators.

Is a D notice like those discredited libel superinjunctions, ie that it bans any mention of its own existence? Do the Chinese do this well at censoring the net? Do these rules apply to B&T comments thread as well? I think we should be told...

[alle]

Indymedia D-notice: That the British government would offically seek to stifle speculation about Israeli involvement in the political murder of an Arab just seems wildly implausible to me. At best it would be futile, more likely counter-productive.

But if he was really under British surveillance, might not that explain why a "retired RAF officer" happened to be on hand to call le cops?

[Strategist]

Indymedia D-notice: That the British government would offically seek to stifle speculation about Israeli involvement in the political murder of an Arab just seems wildly implausible to me.

A British citizen, actually.

I'm willing to accept that this may not be the wording of the D notice covering this news story? But what D notice does cover it? Because if none, why are any attempts to mention the term in the mildest possible way ruthlessly excised from British newspaper websites (eg Comment is Free)?

At best it would be futile, more likely counter-productive.

Governments all over (not least the British) take that approach all the time in their efforts to gag the web. And anyway it appears to be working - not a sausage on the banned topics in The Guardian or Indie, just speculation about a family feud which was fed in by characters like the BBC's Frank Gardner, who is blatantly the mouthpiece of the secret services. As somebody said, when he gets involved, you can smell a rat straight away.

[alle]

On D-notices in general, I don't know anything about that. If he had MI6 or defense industry links, or whatever, then perhaps that's exactly what they would do, at least during early stages of investigation. Don't know, but I'm sure someone else on here does.

I just thought that trying to ban Mossad-related theories seemed like a fool's errand, since: international intrigue + assassination + Arab victims (even if Brit citizens) = catnip for the Isra-Pal crowd. On the other hand, governments are often run by fools, that's a fair point.

[Phil]

It's the kind of thing you'd do if you didn't want the press stumbling on the real story before you'd had a chance to 'manage' it. But I don't think that tells us anything except that the government thinks there's a possibility of an Iran connection and/or of Israeli involvement - and that may just tell us that the government hasn't got a clue what went on and isn't ruling anything out.

[Richard J]

What Phil said, even setting aside the not entirely reliable nature of the source, it's impossible to distinguish whether its an autonomic bureaucratic immune response or a cover up.

(That said, remember when Craig Murray was predicting Operation Weeting wouldn't go anywhere? I reserve the right to amend this opinion if the trials are botched.)

[Alex]

Also, there's an Internet noise-floor issue; if you're a moderator on a big open slather news site, imagine the firehose of shit you have to wade through every day, and some substantial percentage of it will claim a D notice whenever their latest sententious rant gets edited. And tbh, Indymedia is BBC Have Your Say for lefties. (Links to Iran? Either he's got a hell of a story or he's got his Iran and Iraq arse over tit...)

Sometimes, the sheer number of idiots on the web is a force for censorship.

[Alex]

Further, isn't it the French guy who has links (in the neo-con links and ties sense, i.e. doesn't really) to nuclear research?

[Richard J]

A fun parlour game is to construct a conspiracy theory about yourself if you were knocked down by a bus tomorrow.

As both my dad and my F-i-L have been positively vetted for varying reasons, and SWFs form a large part of my client base, it's worryingly easy to do so for me.

[Phil]

Researcher on terrorism, long-term subscriber and occasional contributor to Lobster... did he know too much? (A: no, except in the context of irritating my family while watching general-knowledge quiz programmes.)

[ajay]

As both my dad and my F-i-L have been positively vetted for varying reasons, and SWFs form a large part of my client base, it's worryingly easy to do so for me.

Single White Females? Clearly he was done in by Jennifer Jason Leigh.