Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Click this link ..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama Will Announce His Resignation

Calls have been growing within the Democratic Party of Japan for his resignation after a recent plunge in the cabinet's approval rating and his awkward handling of the relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa, reports WSJ.

Polls this week showed that support for. Hatoyama's government had fallen to around 20%, compared with levels above 70% in September. The main cause of the collapse in polls was the result of his backtracking last month on a pledge to relocate U.S. troops stationed on Okinawa.

The U.S. clearly muscled him, and now the people of Japan have muscled him out.

Your request is being processed... Oil Spill Hearings In Congress: Companies Blame Each Other, Refuse Responsibility

WASHINGTON — Congress called BP and its drilling partners to account Tuesday for a "cascade of failures" behind the spreading Gulf oil spill, zeroing in on a crucial chain of events at the deep-sea wellhead just before an explosion consumed the rig and set off the catastrophic rupture.

In back-to-back Senate inquiries, lawmakers chastised executives of the three companies at the heart of the massive spill over attempts to shift the blame to each other. And they were asked to explain why better preparations had not been made to head off the accident.

"Let me be really clear," Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America, told the hearing. "Liability, blame, fault – put it over here." He said: "Our obligation is to deal with the spill, clean it up and make sure the impacts of that spill are compensated, and we're going to do that."

By "over here," McKay meant the witness table at which BP, Transocean and Halliburton executives sat shoulder to shoulder. And despite his acknowledgment of responsibility, each company defended its own operations and raised questions about its partners in the project gone awry.

Lawmakers compared the calamity to some of history's most notorious mishaps from sea to space in the first congressional inquiry into the April 20 explosion and so-far unstoppable spill. In the crowded hearing room, eight young activists sat in quiet protest, with black T-shirts saying, "Energy Shouldn't Cost Lives." Several wore black painted spots near their eyes to symbolize tear drops made from oil.

Said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, "If this is like other catastrophic failures of technological systems in modern history, whether it was the sinking of the Titanic, Three Mile Island, or the loss of the Challenger, we will likely discover that there was a cascade of failures and technical and human and regulatory errors."

The corporate finger pointing prompted an admonishment from Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of oil-rich Alaska that "we are all in this together" in trying to shut off the oil and find a safer way to exploit vital energy.

"This accident has reminded us of a cold reality, that the production of energy will never be without risk or environmental consequence," she said. Still, she said, "there will be no excuse" if operators are found to have violated the law.

Failure to cap the leak was intensifying impatience, from the contaminated Gulf waters to the White House.

"The president is frustrated with everything, the president is frustrated with everybody, in the sense that we still have an oil leak," spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "That includes us, that includes everybody that's involved with this."

After an icelike buildup thwarted a plan over the weekend to siphon off most of the leak using a huge, 100-ton containment box, a second, smaller box was lowered into the water late Tuesday near the blown-out well. The box was being slowly submerged to the seabed but it won't be placed over the spewing well right away. BP spokesman Bill Salvin said engineers want to make sure everything is configured correctly and avoid an ice buildup.

Salvin said undersea robots will position the box over the gusher by Thursday.

Ramifications from the environmental crisis spilled over into landmark climate change and energy legislation that is coming out Wednesday. The bill from Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman proposes letting coastal states veto drilling projects off the shores of neighboring states if they can show the potential for harm.

The impact is being felt in the realm of regulation, too. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposed splitting his department's Minerals Management Service in two to make safety enforcement independent of the service's other main function – collecting billions in royalties from the drilling industry.

Senators sought assurances that BP PLC will pay what could amount to billions of dollars in economic and environmental damages. McKay repeatedly said his company would pay for cleanup costs and all "legitimate" claims for damages, and not try to limit itself to an existing federal limit of $75 million on such damages.

BP was the exploratory well's owner and overall operator, Transocean the rig's owner and Halliburton a subcontractor that was encasing the well pipe in cement before plugging it in anticipation of future production.

The explosion is thought to have begun with a surge of methane gas from deep within the well, and while the cause is still under early investigation, the testimony Tuesday provided some insight into what might have been involved.

Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama grew frustrated grilling the executives on why engineers replaced a heavy "mud" compound in the well with much lighter sea water – thereby reducing downward pressure on the oil – when they were temporarily capping the site for future exploitation. He quoted an oil rig worker saying, "That's when the well came at us, basically."

"I'm not familiar with the individual procedure on that well," BP's McKay said.

Steven Newman, Transocean's president and CEO, and Halliburton executive Tim Probert repeatedly told Sessions they did not know how often sea water instead of the compound was used to seal Gulf wells.

"Well, you do this business, do you not?" the senator demanded. "You're under oath. I'm just asking you a simple question."

New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg remarked in the day's other hearing: "The conclusion that I draw is that nobody assumes the responsibility."

McKay said that a key piece of safety equipment, the aptly named blowout preventer, had failed to work and made it clear it was owned by Transocean. "That was the fail safe in case of an accident," said McKay.

But Transocean's Newman said offshore production projects "begin and end with the operator, in this case BP" and that his company's drilling job was completed three days before the explosion and there's "no reason to believe" the blowout protector mechanics failed.

And Newman wanted senators to know Halliburton was in the process of pouring cement into the pipe to plug it but the final well cap had not yet been put in place.

Halliburton's Probert said his company followed BP's drilling plan, federal regulations and industry practices.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, and Harry R. Weber from the site of the oil leak on the Gulf of Mexico, contributed to this report.

China aims to become supercomputer superpower

The US owned Jaguar has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops

China is ramping up efforts to become the world's supercomputing superpower.

Its Nebulae machine at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.

For the first time, two Chinese supercomputers appear in the list of the top 10 fastest machines.

However, the US still dominates the list with more than half the Top 500, including the world's fastest, known as Jaguar.

The Cray computer, which is owned by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.

One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

It is used by scientists conducting research in astrophysics, climate science and nuclear energy.

How fast is the Jaguar Supercomputer?

The Jaguar supercomputer performs 1,750 trillion calculations a second. How long does it take an average PC to match its performance in different time periods?

Supercomputer time

PC time

Source: Oxford Supercomputing Centre/Intel

By comparison, China has 24 machines in the list. Its fastest has a top speed of 1.20 petaflops, more than double the speed of its previous top supercomputer. However, it has a theoretical top speed of nearly 3 petaflops, which would make it the fastest in the world.

The fastest machine in the UK - which has 38 supercomputers on the list - is housed at the University of Edinburgh. It has a top speed of 0.27 petaflops.

"The Top 500 list definitely has an element of flag waving," said Dr Jon Lockley, manager of the Oxford Supercomputing Centre.

Quick thinking

He said China was rapidly becoming a "player" in high performance computing.

Dawning, the company behind the fastest Chinese machine, is reportedly building an even faster machine for the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin. In addition, it is also developing home-grown silicon chips to power the behemoths.

Continue reading the main story Explore the Top 500 machines Alternative supercomputer powers

"Their use of high-performance computers is really systematic of their industrial emergence," Dr Lockley told BBC News.

The machines tend to be used for industrial research, such as aircraft design and petroleum exploration.

Dr Lockley said this was becoming increasingly common around the world.

"Whenever possible, everything is done in a supercomputer," he said.

"Look at Formula One - it's getting rid of all of its wind tunnels and replacing them with supercomputers. It's the same in the aerospace industry as well.

"It means you can all the modelling in the supercomputer and then do just one real world test."

Many of the US machines, by contrast, are owned by the government and are used to monitor the nuclear weapon stockpile.

Continue reading the main story

The spooks have got some pretty big machines

Jon Lockley Oxford Supercomputing Centre

The US has one other petaflop machine - owned by the US Department of Energy. Roadrunner, as it is known, held the top spot until Jaguar displaced it in 2009.

All others machines on the list run at so-called teraflop speeds.

A teraflop is the equivalent of one trillion calculations per second.

Spy machines

However, scientists are already thinking about so-called exascale machines which would be able to crunch through one quintillion (one million trillion) calculations per second.

An exascale computer has been proposed to process data from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a series of thousands of telescopes spread over 3,000km. The telescope will be based in either Australia or South Africa.

"At that sort of size the challenge is trying to programme the machines,"" said Dr Lockley.

"It has to be fault tolerant - you can't have a situation where an entire task falls over if one bit fails."

The top 500 list was published at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany.

It ranks machines by speed. However, according to Dr Lockley, determining which machine is the quickest is a difficult issue.

"It's measured against a theoretical benchmark - if you ran a real-world application you might get a very different answer".

It is also a voluntary list and therefore does not include all machines, such as those at the Oxford Supercomputing Centre and many classified machines owned by governments.

"The spooks have got some pretty big machines," said Dr Lockley.

The madness of arrogance: Israel's attack on the Gaza aid flotilla

Alan Sabrosky argues that Israel may have overreached itself by murdering international aid workers bound for beleaguered Gaza, and that this act of wanton savagery provides the civilized world with an opportunity to rein in the rogue Jewish state once and for all.

Israel's attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla on America's Memorial Day was all too predictable, although the form it took surprised even me. And it confirms the old proverb that "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad", for the attack was the kind of madness only unbridled arrogance can assume.

It wasn't just that foreigners as well as Palestinians, flying flags other than that of Palestine, were attacked. Israel has a long history of doing such things, especially to the UN. But except for the USS Liberty incident in 1967, it has generally done that on inland sites – Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon – where it can largely block news and visual evidence, and control the spin it puts on events, counting on its friends in the US and other mainstream media to say little or nothing to contradict them.

The attack reprised

Not this time. An attack on the open seas, in acknowledged international waters, against unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid with passengers and crews from many countries – especially a direct attack against a Turkish ship – is a different matter, and potentially an explosive one. The number of shipboard casualties indicates that once fighting started, the Israeli commandoes simply sprayed automatic weapons fire into the people around them – another of their long-standing habits.

“Trying to cast the attack in international waters as an exercise in self-defence would be ludicrous in the best or worst of circumstances – has anyone ever seen wheelchairs used as offensive weaponry?”

And technology is their enemy here, just as it became in an earlier day the enemy of communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries. Too many images and videos were taken, and some sent, and too many witnesses reported what was happening, before the Israelis were able to suppress communications from their victims.

Bad for their victims, but also potentially very bad for Israel, and the initial Israeli public-relations damage control efforts show that they are at least dimly aware of that fact. Trying to cast the attack in international waters as an exercise in self-defence would be ludicrous in the best or worst of circumstances – has anyone ever seen wheelchairs used as offensive weaponry?

And for the Israeli spokeswoman to try to spin an assault by warships and armed commandos as defence against a "lynch" (I guess she was trying to push an American "hot button" for Obama – someone should tell her it is "lynching" or "lynch mob") would have embarrassed even her public relations soulmate, Dr Josef Goebbels. But desperate do what desperation dictates, I suppose, although this time they may well have gone way too far.

A judging, long overdue

And that is what the initial responses appear to affirm. All of the major US and many other media outlets are carrying this story, and even with the slant from many Jewish correspondents based in Jerusalem or Ashdod, the bloody particulars are slowly coming through to at least a general American audience for the first time:

1. The unarmed ships with unarmed passengers were trying to ferry humanitarian and reconstruction aid to ravaged and embattled Gaza.

2. Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza, probably if not certainly in violation of international law, supported largely by US vetoes in the UN Security Council.

3. Israeli warships and commandos intercepted and attacked the aid flotilla in international waters – which is an act of war, piracy or state terrorism, depending on one's view of the details.

4. Under attack, some of the passengers tried to defend themselves, scores were killed or wounded, and some Israeli commandoes were also wounded – doubtless a surprise to them, but then their usual run of victims may have made them a bit too cocky.

5. Many governments and publics around the world – not only in Arab capitals – are openly outraged, and the discussion forums on US news websites carrying the story suggest that much the same is happening at a public level in this country.

6. But for Israel, this is just another "we are the misunderstood victim" incident in a long, sordid and utterly unbelievable litany of such things – except that this time they may not get away with it.

Seizing the moment

This is a time for those interested in justice for Palestine to seize the moment and act, building on the promise engendered but not fulfilled after the submission of the Goldstone report to the UN Human Rights Council.

“For the world community, now is the time and this is the incident to drive home the UN "Uniting for Peace" resolution in both the Security Council and the General Assembly as needed… Sanctions, embargoes, even the suspension or expulsion of Israel from the UN itself – do as much as quickly and as forcefully as possible...”

I would like to think that President Obama would take a stand, and perhaps he will, but if he does it will be with words and not with deeds. Neither the Congress nor White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel would let him do much more, whatever his predisposition – and who knows, he may believe the "lynch" metaphor, or pretend to do so.

Americans shouldn't bother with letters or emails to US Senators or Representatives, or Obama; the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will be there ahead of you with more letters and money than you can generate. Go instead directly to the local offices of US Senators and Representatives, stay until you speak personally to the senior person there, and make your case as forcefully as you can. Make sure as many people hear you as possible – but be polite, and leave your signs at home.

For the world community, now is the time and this is the incident to drive home the UN "Uniting for Peace" resolution in both the Security Council and the General Assembly as needed. The nationalities of the victims will at least neutralize many European countries that might have opposed it before. Sanctions, embargoes, even the suspension or expulsion of Israel from the UN itself – do as much as quickly and as forcefully as possible. Press the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign everywhere hard.

And for the US armed forces, on this Memorial Day, it would be well to reflect on the meaning of duty and service to country and people. Oaths of allegiance, obedience and loyalty are important to professionals in the armed forces, in or out of uniform. They were to me when I was in the Marines, and later as a civilian at West Point and the Army War College. I'm sure serving professionals today are no different.

But the elected and appointed civilians overseeing the armed services have also taken their own oaths, and many have violated them by serving the interests of Israel rather than the US itself, and especially by spending American lives and treasure furthering Israeli interests rather than safeguarding American ones. This, to me, is clearly treason, and utterly negates any loyalty anyone else owes to them.

Remember that the cornerstone of our oaths is not to obedience, but to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Think about it on this Memorial Day.

After Removing Mud Before Accident, BP’s “Top Kill” Injects Mud to Stop Oil

BP is still knee-deep into executing its “top kill” maneuver [1]—what some have called its “most ambitious effort to date [2]” to plug the ruptured well in the Gulf that has spewed millions of gallons of crude. There have been some early reports of progress [3] from BP and the Coast Guard [4], though the procedure is not complete and could still fail at any time [5].

The top kill, as the Los Angeles Times explained with this helpful graphic [6], involves filling the blowout preventer with heavy drilling mud [7] in order to keep down the oil before sealing the well with cement.

Using mud to stop the oil from surging up—that’s just what workers on the rig failed to do in the hours right before the explosion. Instead, they removed mud from the well [8], replacing it with seawater. The decision was a contentious one, according to new accounts of feuding between Transocean and BP in the hours before the explosion.

In a hearing on Wednesday, the chief mechanic on Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig testified that a BP representative, in an argument that lasted for hours [9], “overruled drillers from rig owner Transocean and insisted on displacing protective drilling mud [10] from the riser that connected the rig to the oil well,” according to The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

As one petroleum engineering expert pointed out to The New York Times, it is not unusual to remove mud before finishing off a well, but a senior Transocean manager complained that BP was “taking shortcuts [11]” in removing the heavy mud and replacing it with seawater, according to witness statements reported on Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The argument between Transocean and BP was earlier reported on “60 Minutes,” and has since been confirmed [12] by testimony and company documents submitted to Congress.

When Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes” asked Bob Bea, a UC Berkeley engineering professor, why BP would ask for the removal of the mud [13], Bea responded:

“It expedites the subsequent steps.”

“It’s a matter of going faster,” Pelley remarked.

“Faster, sure,” Bea replied. ...

“If the ‘mud’ had been left in the column, would there have been a blowout?” Pelley asked.

“It doesn’t look like it,” Bea replied.

Now that BP has been desperately trying to inject the mud back into the system to plug the well, it appears as if the decision to remove it from the system may not have been wise, to say the least.

BP said the top kill could take up to two days to complete [14], and results will not be immediate. It has promised to provide live video feeds [15] from the seabed throughout the top kill procedure, but its website’s transmissions have been intermittent. We’ve been watching and have had more luck watching the same feeds elsewhere [16].

Letter to UK Foreign Office Minister Henry Bellingham

Subject: The rogue state of Israel’s foulest crime

Stuart Littlewood has emailed his UK Member of Parliament, Henry Bellingham, a newly appointed Foreign Office minister in the coalition government, asking him to spell out the actions the British governments intends to take in response to Israel’s murder on the high seas of Gaza-bound international aid workers.

Dear Henry,

A few days ago I wrote to you in your new capacity as a Foreign Office minister, asking what steps Her Majesty's Government was taking to protect the Fee Gaza flotilla sailing to the besieged enclave on a humanitarian mission, in view of threats by Israel to seize the vessels and their crews and passengers.

And I wanted to know what constructive help, direct or indirect, the government is providing to break Israel’s illegal four-year blockade.

What many of us feared has actually happened. The mercy ships have been subjected to an unprovoked military assault, with tragic consequences and loss of innocent life. It may have surprised some but, frankly, it is only to be expected from a hooligan regime that never gets the clip round the ear it deserves from the international community for the obscene crimes regularly committed since its unwelcome birth 62 years ago.

"The Cast Lead blitzkrieg on the Gaza Strip, which left 1,400 dead including at least 350 children, thousands maimed and hundreds of thousands homeless, should have been a final warning that Israel's leaders are utterly devoid of humanity and need to be treated accordingly."

The Cast Lead blitzkrieg on the Gaza Strip, which left 1,400 dead including at least 350 children, thousands maimed and hundreds of thousands homeless, should have been a final warning that Israel's leaders are utterly devoid of humanity and need to be treated accordingly.

Israel's chief propagandist, Mark Regev, surpassed even himself when interviewed yesterday [31 May] on BBC TV.

"We did everything we could to avoid violence..."

"They [the aid workers] chose the path of confrontation…"

"This is elementary, we have to defend ourselves..."

"Our boarding party was attacked with live fire…”

"Violence was initiated by these activists..."

"The violence and the hostile fire was initiated by them... these people masquerade as human rights activists..."

"The last time they were in Gaza, this group, the first thing they did was to have their photographs taken with the Hamas leadership... "

"We didn't attack them, they attacked us..."

"We tried to do, in accordance with international law, a peaceful intervention as they were entering a blockaded area..."

He trotted out the same tired mantra about "those rockets that have rained down on Israeli civilians" with no mention of the hundreds of thousands of rockets and other explosives the Israelis have launched into Gaza and no explanation of why the West Bank, which fires no rockets, is still occupied). And his final lie? "There are no shortages in Gaza..."

I see on the Foreign Office website that consular access has been granted to the injured British citizen but not to the other Britons abducted from the flotilla. Even their number and location are withheld. This is a grave insult which, following so closely on the passports scandal, should have resulted in Ambassador Prosor being given his marching orders.

No-one, it seems, wants to talk about the central issue of maritime law, probably because it doesn’t suit the case of Israel and its adoring friends. I have just received from an eminent source a legal opinion on piracy, which I relay here, somewhat shortened and paraphrased...

If Israeli interference with the flotilla is carried out by ships flying an Israeli flag, it would not be piracy, but a violation of the right of freedom of navigation on the high seas. If no Israeli flag, then arguably piracy.

Interference with shipping beyond the so-called contiguous zone (another 12 miles beyond the 12 miles of territorial waters) would be also a violation of the freedom of the high seas, in this case aggravated if the ships in question were on a widely acknowledged humanitarian mission to break a criminally unlawful blockade.

The call by John Ging of the UN for material humanitarian relief via the freedom flotilla gives the mission a quality of being “ultra-innocent”. Israel's unilateral establishment of a 68-mile security zone, without any legitimate security basis, for the purpose of apprehension of foreign vessels is a deliberate further unlawful encroachment on the freedom of navigation on the high seas.

If Gaza is considered occupied, which is of course denied by Israel, then by Article 25 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Seas (which allows a coastal state "to take the necessary steps in its territorial sea to prevent passage which is not innocent" and "suspend temporarily in specified areas of its territorial sea the innocent passage of foreign ships if such suspension is essential for the protection of its security...") it has latitude to take steps in accordance with its temporary sovereign authority. However, even here Israel would have to rely on its legal status as occupying power, which it hotly denies.

As a lawyer yourself, Henry, you may have a view you wish to share. Or maybe the Foreign Office’s maritime lawyers could be asked to issue briefing notes for us poor citizens.

"Am I angry? You bet I'm angry – and disgusted with the endless posturing by cowardly politicians who are complicit in the plight of those who were once under British mandate and are now systematically half-starved, strafed, abused and forced to live in the most appalling, squalid conditions."

I took the liberty of reminding Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that ministers were alerted to Israel's threats and had ample time to prepare for the possibility – no, probability – of a bloody incident occurring. "What's needed is firm, decisive intervention. Just for a change let us see our government do us proud on the international stage."

It is interesting to note that Turkey promises an armed escort for future humanitarian flotillas. Britain should have already taken care of that.

Am I angry? You bet I'm angry – and disgusted with the endless posturing by cowardly politicians who are complicit in the plight of those who were once under British mandate and are now systematically half-starved, strafed, abused and forced to live in the most appalling, squalid conditions.

Foreign Secretary Hague has announced he is calling on the government of Israel "to open the crossings to allow unfettered access for aid to Gaza, and address the serious concerns about the deterioration in the humanitarian and economic situation and about the effect on a generation of young Palestinians". But these are only words, which we all know will be ignored unless matched by action.

Mr Cameron has urged Israel to respond constructively to criticism and lift its blockade on Gaza. That too is fine as far as it goes but, again, there must be consequences for Israel if it does not immediately act as required. Mr Cameron must spell out the need to comply meticulously with international law, the ruling of the International Court of Justice and the long list of UN resolutions and declarations that Israel has defied.

Until wholehearted conformity is demonstrated, Britain should play its part in ensuring Israel’s membership of the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] is revoked and the plug is pulled on the EU Association Agreement. After what is, in many minds, the rogue state’s foulest crime, Israel must now work hard to earn a place in civilized international society.

"Until wholehearted conformity is demonstrated, Britain should play its part in ensuring Israel’s membership of the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] is revoked and the plug is pulled on the EU Association Agreement. "

Talking of Prosor, instead of packing his bags he used the platform of the [BC Radio 4] “Today” programme to repeat the disinformation broadcast earlier by Regev, complaining that Israel’s storm-troopers, abseiling from helicopters under cover of darkness onto innocent vessels on the high seas, had to defend themselves from “extremists”. The right of self-defence, it seems, belongs only to Israel. Here is some of the desperate stuff he was spouting:

“The people on board the ships behaved appallingly…”

“People on board, they weren’t really looking for co-operation, they were
trying to confront…”

“Hit with metal pipes, fire bombs and knife blades…”

“We disengaged completely out of Gaza…”

“We are up against people who are not exactly human rights activists…”

“We are trying ,,, not to go overboard in our reaction…”

“We are trying … to create a situation where we are able to talk to more moderates and trying to isolate those extremists…”

“The other side, they really did everything in order to provoke and confront…”

“On the West Bank the economic figures are looking really, really good…”

Finally, could someone in government please explain why we have heard nothing of the Palestinian view in our mainstream media? The Palestinian ambassador in London is supposed to speak for all Palestinians including those trapped and brought to their knees in Gaza. Why hasn’t our state broadcaster, the BBC, provided a balanced picture by including the voice of those robbed of the humanitarian aid that was seized by Israel?

Just before sending this I was reading reports in [the Israeli newspaper] Haaretz from some of the aid workers who were released. They say others still detained were badly beaten by the Israelis and everyone had their cameras, phones, laptops and other personal items stolen.

Nice “allies”.

Henry, you are no longer the opposition, you are the real thing. And if you are the decent man I've always thought you to be, then you must please do what you can in your new role to inject some steel into the wobbly backbone of Westminster.

Kind regards,

Stuart Littlewood