Author Archives: Edward Hugh

About Edward Hugh

Edward 'the bonobo is a Catalan economist of British extraction. After being born, brought-up and educated in the United Kingdom, Edward subsequently settled in Barcelona where he has now lived for over 15 years. As a consequence Edward considers himself to be "Catalan by adoption". He has also to some extent been "adopted by Catalonia", since throughout the current economic crisis he has been a constant voice on TV, radio and in the press arguing in favor of the need for some kind of internal devaluation if Spain wants to stay inside the Euro. By inclination he is a macro economist, but his obsession with trying to understand the economic impact of demographic changes has often taken him far from home, off and away from the more tranquil and placid pastures of the dismal science, into the bracken and thicket of demography, anthropology, biology, sociology and systems theory. All of which has lead him to ask himself whether Thomas Wolfe was not in fact right when he asserted that the fact of the matter is "you can never go home again".

The Jean Charles de Menezes Case

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Hi everyone. Yes, it is true: I am back from vacation, and I have been stalking the comments section for a few days now, but I am trying very hard *not* to post regularly since I still have some outstanding work I want to finish before I get too sucked in. On the other hand some things are very hard to just let pass.

The case of poor Jean Charles de Menezes for a start. At the time of his death I defended the police action on this blog (incidentally, a lot of the comments at the time may well still be relevant to this post). At least, lets be clear, I defended the right of the police to act as they did to defend public life when there are reasonable grounds to assume that there is a real and present danger. I still hold that view.

However the FT today is running a version of events which is slightly different from the one we were offered, and formed our judgements with, in the immediate aftermath. In particular the FT suggests:

1/ Jean Charles de Menezes was in fact killed by guns fired by two police officers, not one as originally stated.

2/ Documents and photographs presented to the investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and leaked to ITV News suggested that Mr de Menezes was not carrying any bags, and was wearing only a denim jacket.

3/ ITV News also said the evidence to the IPCC said the CCTV cameras at Stockwell station were working and showed Mr de Menezes as behaving normally, and did not vault the barriers

4/ He was was in fact mistaken for Hamdi Issac, one of the men suspected of carrying out the failed attacks in London the previous day. If this was the case it is hard to see why more effort wasn’t made before he boarded the train to take him alive.

Of course all of this still has to be confirmed, but my initial response is: disturbing. It is extremely important for the effective conduct of the UK anti terrorism policy that we all have the highest possible confidence in the veracity and efficacy of the police services. It is important the inquiry be painstaking and rigourous. This is a clear case if ever there was one that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. I suggest that in the light of all the above the scope of the inquiry now needs to be extended to include an evaluation of how the police communicate sensitive and delicate information to the general public in difficult circumstances. What we don’t need is spin, or a drip feed.

Update: This situation, especially with the images now appearing is terribly moving and most distressing. AP have an up to date summary, and the Times have published – without comment – the full text of a statement from the de Menezes family lawyers, I think I can fully understand why.

Homophobia and Minority Rights

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My recent post on identity and Amin Maalouf seems to have drawn an absolute blank here, even though I personally consider the points he raises to be at the heart of the WoT and related issues. Over in Canada, Randy McDonald has picked up the thread, and relates Maalouf’s ideas to the issue of homophobia, taking as his starting point the recent execution of two young men in Iran for what appears to have been their sexual orientation:

I was saddened, though not altogether surprised, when Ikram Saeed recently commented that criticizing those Muslims who believed that their religion requires the ritualized torture-killings of non-heterosexuals is an act of racism. I say “not altogether surprised,” since Ikram had earlier commented that people victimized under shari’a law were “wimpy” if they lacked the capital–social, economic, political–that they needed to escape. This sort of morally blind privatization of public goods that ends with the privatization of human rights, the kind of process that reduces rights from universal goods to things that you can have only if you were lucky, serves bigots’ ends quite nicely.
continue reading #

More On Abu Hafs Al Masri

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The Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino has just stated that he considers threats against Italy by the Islamic militant group Abu Hafs Al Masri Brigade to be credible.

OBL expert and former US government adviser Michael Scheur also takes them seriously (and confirms the el mundo story indirectly):

“On the tactical and strategic levels, the London attacks were quintessentially al-Qaeda operations. At the tactical level, the attacks were preceded by the usual al-Qaeda warning that an operation in Europe was near. On 29 May 2005, the AHMB’s “European General” posted a statement on the Internet that foreshadowed the events of 7 July. In part, the statement said:

“We direct a message to America and all its allies around the world that the desecration of the Holy Qur’an will not go by without a response. In fact, the retaliation will come soon in the near future, God willing.”

All this, of course, if confirmed would bring us back to the Madrid bombings, and the Van Gogh killing in the Netherlands.

Iraq, or Kashmir?

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I have already indicated that I consider attemps to deny all Iraq war connection to recent events in London pretty much stupid. I wonder how many people in the UK beyond Tony Blair and Jack Straw actually believe the contrary to be the case (assuming for the moment that even they themselves believe it, rather than believing it to be a political necessity to say it). (See this post, and this one). I’m happy to accept the Joint Terrorist Analysis Center June document view that:

?Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist related activity in the U.K.?

But clearly the main issue is that there is no ‘one cause’ to be found here. If we want to get to grips with this, we need an explanatory model that has a number of levels, and which bases itself on multiple causality. Within that model, the situation in Kashmir would undoubtedly figure.
Continue reading →

Yoghurt With Soda Anyone?

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Well, this about beats the lot of them. Yesterday the shares Groupe Danone SA went through the roof on rumours of a takeover by PepsiCo Inc. Dominique de Vil-pin also went through the roof:

“Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Danone was “among the jewels of our industry”…. “We plan to defend France’s interests,” Villepin said after a cabinet meeting at his official Matignon residence, although he insisted he was “not commenting on any rum“.

Jewels of French industry… defend France’s interests, well readers might be surprised to learn that Danone originated in Catalonia after local entrepreneur Isaac Carasso brought the formula for Bulgarian yoghurt back to Barcelona and set up shop in 1911. As the encyclopaedia entry notes:

“Ten years later, the first French factory was built, but during WWII, (Isaac’s son) Daniel moved the company to New York, where Dannon Milk Products Inc. was founded. In the United States, Daniel changed the brand name to Dannon to sound more American. Then in 1958, the company returned to Paris, where its headquarters are located today“.

My interpretation is that if Vil-pin is defending any French interests here, then they would be imperial ones. Possibly another example of how some still consider the Tractat dels Pirineus a licence to do and say what they want.

Live Blogging in London

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Robin Grant continues to do some great up to the minute live blogging over at perfect.co.uk. He has the just released CCTV photos of the 4 most recent suspects (and suggests that the man shot dead this morning may not have been one of them). Speaking of photos, I have posted on my own blog this from the Times this morning, which, if you’ll pardon my English, really takes the biscuit. And while you’re in the mood for reading, Nosemonkey and Tim Worstall are on it too.

UK Economy Slowing

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The UK economy showed its weakest year-on-year performance for 12 years during the second quarter of this year, and manufacturing seemed to enter recession. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth on a 12-month comparison stood at 1.7 percent during the second quarter — the weakest 12-month performance since the first quarter of 1993.

The annual growth rate dropped from 2.1 per cent to 1.7 per cent, which marks the lowest rate of growth since the first quarter of 1993 and almost half of the 3.2 per cent growth rate achieved only in 2004.

Output by manufacturing companies declined 0.7 per cent after a fall of 0.9 per cent in the first quarter, confirming that the sector had dropped into a technical recession, which is defined as two consecutive quarters of falling output.

China Imports To EU Continue Their Rise

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The latest EU25 trade data from Eurostat highlight the competitive challenge some European companies face from the fast-growing Chinese economy:

Imports from China in the first four months of this year, at ?45.3bn ($54.5bn, ?31.5bn), were 19 per cent higher than the same period a year before. Imports from the US remained almost flat at ?52.6bn. In contrast, EU exports to China fell by 1 per cent to ?15.2bn, while exports to the US rose by 2 per cent…..

China?s economic expansion suggests the rate of growth of exports to the EU is likely to be maintained. By the end of this year, imports from China could be almost three times higher than the level in 1999. That increases the pressure on domestic producers, as well as eurozone exporters.

Financial Times

EU25 trade was characterised by an increase in the EU25 surplus with the USA (+24.2 bn euro in January-April 2005 compared with +23.0 bn in Januar y-April 2004 ) and Switzerland (+ 6.0 bn compared with +3.8 bn). The EU25 trade deficit grew with China (-30.1 bn compared with -22.8 bn), Russia (-16.3 bn compared with -11.5 bn) and Norway (-10.0 bn compared with -8.0 bn), and fell with Japan (-9.9 bn compared with -11.5 bn).

Concerning the total trade of Member States, the largest surplus was observed in Germany (+ 55.0 bn euro in January-April 2005 ), followed by the Netherlands (+ 11.8 bn), Ireland (+ 10.8 bn) and Sweden (+ 5.8 bn) . The
United Kingdom (-30.7 bn) registered the largest deficit, followed by Spain (-22.6 bn) , Greece (-10.4 bn) and France (-9.9 bn).

Source: Eurostat

Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade Claim Attack

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In a website posting yesterday the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade have one more time claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks, in this case yesterdays bombs in London. It should be remembered that this group also claimed the Madrid bombings and the July 7 bombs. Just how much credibility should be accorded to all this?
Continue reading →

Man Shot in London Tube

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This news is just in:

Police shot a man at a London subway station on Friday, a day after the city was hit by a second wave of terror attacks in two weeks. The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear, nor was the man’s condition….

Passengers reported a man ? described as South Asian ? ran onto a train. Witnesses said police chased him, he tripped, then they shot him.

“They pushed him onto the floor and unloaded five shots into him. He’s dead,” witness Mark Whitby told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Whitby said it didn’t look like the man was carrying anything but said he was wearing a thick coat that looked padded.
Sourced From Associated Press

Sky is also reporting hat a mosque in the east of the capital has been surrounded by armed officers and residents told to stay indoors. The Times says it’s East London Mosque in Whitechapel and has the whole story.