For once, I fully agree with Bush. He has it right.

Western nations would be ill advised to interfere. Ignoring the (in my opinion) dubious ethics involved with messing in another country’s internal affairs (as there is no threat to any Western national security)- it is a potentional geo political powder keg.

The whole of black Africa is in strife, and one of the key reasons is tribalism vs. nationality. Are you a Liberian first, or is your loyalty to your tribe?

It is a mess, but Africa has got to sort itself out. If the West gets involved, it will all go wrong.

Radio 4 gave a very brief summary of the history of Liberia today in their 6pm news bulletin:

1. Freed American slaves found Liberia.
2. The slaves are nasty to the natives living there.
3. For the last 20 years the whole thing has been a mess.
4. Charles Taylor is a wanted war criminal.

The real bad boy seems to be the Propaganda Minister, Mr. Campbell.

Having said that, the BBC reporter (Gilligan) was a bit careless. He gave an interview, in which he described how he met with his source (the time, and that he arrived by train). This was enough for a mole hunt to begin, and Dr. Kelly was then found by the Government. The leak however, was wrong…refer to the first paragraph!

I do not think Blair will be brought down over this, but his popularity is alarmingly low. He needs to sack Campbell ASAP – and start acting as a Prime Minister, not Emperor of the British Isles.

Club World is very good, but Virgin Upper Class is even better.

The Virgin product is however not quite as good as BA First, which is a bit of a mindblower by all accounts.

If you want value though, try BA’s World Traveller Plus. It looks a bit nicer than the Virgin Economy Plus.

Otherwise, all economy classes are much of a muchness – so go for the cheapest (or best timings) on that score.

I’ve been lucky 3 or 4 times.

Last week (ref my trip report) I got a Club World upgrade with BA. I’ve been bumped up to Upper Class with Virgin before, as they had issued 8 boarding passes for 4 seats, so the 4 of us already seated got an upgrade.

BA also did me a favour a few times in the early 90’s, as have KLM.

Technically speaking, I was also upgraded yesterday on a Flybe flight from LCY to IOM. I was given “economy plus”, but that’s only the same as standard economy with free vouchers for the inflight service.

In my Uni days, I would regularly take the train from Drayton to London Paddington, and would sneak into the 1st class compartment every time.

Wow – isn’t that golf course dangerous?

Michael – snap. I’m at LHR tomorrow as well, I’m catching the BA 255 from T4 to Lusaka at 19:35.

D’oh – just saw the date stamp on the original post 😮

I agree with your last post Geforce, I think that is roughly what I have been trying to say.

As for “Really? 25 billion out of 1.3 trillion US$?” – we should probably take such numbers with a pinch of salt. What does 25 bn include and what does it exclude?

Geforce

Come on!

Don’t try to make China look good by putting down the US. Sure there are issues surrounding the state of democracy and freedom in the US. It also is quite a militaristic society. But take it on balance – the US compares extremely favourably to China. Do you honestly believe otherwise?

As for “cold war thinking”. That accustation is groundless. I described some of the negatives about China. The basic fact is that description was fairly accurate. You cannot negate such facts by saying “yes, but the US has lots of faults as well”. Like I said, it is a balanced scorecard view.