One hundred leaders to make 100 speeches!

The trouble with world summits involving, well, almost the whole world, it means every leader attending will want to make an opening speech. At the Glasgow climate-change summit that's 100 speeches for starters. And interpreters to interpret them. And then there are 25,000 delegates to discuss them and try to sort them into some sort of framework for action. Hopefully all 100 leaders will have the same message: "We must do something now before it is too late." If only it were that simple. There will be so many provisos and conditions and head-shaking and compromises and rejections that in the end the communique after 14 days will be a miracle of words and high-falutin phrases that may not mean that much. Glasgow is awash with foreign delegates. Biden alone has 45 vehicles to cart his lot around. The added pollution for the city will be enough to undo almost everything the leaders promise in the next few days. And think of all the stakes and beef and burgers that will be consumed to keep them happy and well-fed. Endless speeches, endless meals, endless convoys, all supposedly to save the planet from catastrophe. One can only feel extreme pessimism.

Grown men fighting over fish

I don't profess to be knowledgeable about the intricacies of fishing rights but it strikes me that the current fight going on between the French and the British, and thus between President Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson, has all gone out of control and is about as dignified as two alleycats scrapping in the back yard. Surely grown men can sort this out without ruining relations between France and Britain and turning the whole thing into an embarrassing farce. Somehow French and British fishermen have to get their fair share of the catches without becoming immersed in political wranglings. I fear that behind the bravado talk by Macron what he is really wanting is to punish Britain for daring to leave the European Union and that he is not interested in making compromise deals with the Brits. If that's the case then relations between Paris and London will be skewered for a long time. This is madness. La demence!

Majid Khan Guantanamo detainee was tortured but forgives

There are 39 detainees left at Guantanamo and one of them, Majid Khan, has done a deal with the FBI and has been talking to them for years about al-Qaeda. So when he is sentenced this week or some time soon for his terrorism offences for which he has pleaded guilty, he will probably serve only a few more months before being released to a new secret life. Yesterday at the Guantanamo detention camp courthouse which is surrounded by a high wire fence and floodlights and CCTV cameras, he gave details of how he was tortured by the CIA during his time in their care at their secret black prisons in Europe and elsewhere before being transferred to Guantanamo on Cuba. The details were gruesome and repugnant and they made me think not for the first time that the American intelligence agency, under orders from George W Bush, committed the gravest human rights violations ever in their history. Torture can never be justified under any circumstances even at that most extraordinary time post-9/11 when the US was so desperate to capture as many of the al-Qaeda terrorists as possible who were suspected of being responsible for the 2001 attacks and for other terrorist atrocities. Majid Khan who has now rejected what al-Qaeda stands for and has admitted his terrorist crimes surprisingly forgave his torturers. But it is the harsh interrogation techniques during those dark years after 9/11 which stand in the way of trials of the remaining Guantanamo detainees, and in particular the five accused of masterminding the attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people. Torture never pays. It might elicit some worthwhile intelligence material although that has to be in doubt and whatever the detainees said under torture can never be used in court as evidence. Thus trials are near-impossible to organise. That has been the case at the Guatanamo courtroom for about 18 years.

Yes there are US troops in Taiwan, says Taiwan president

The Pentagon has never been closer to Taiwan and yet the US defence department still adheres to a policy of strategic ambiguity on the biggest question: would American military forces guarantee to fight alongside the Taiwanese if China invaded the self-governing island? Few analysts, especially in Beijing, would have much doubt about the answer. The conviction that the US would intervene has been strengthened by the confirmation from Taiwan’s president that American troops are currently engaged in training the island’s defence forces. When news broke in Washington three weeks ago that at least two dozen troops were in Taiwan, the Pentagon underlined the important role the US played in helping the Taiwanese to defend themselves but resisted any form of confirmation that American troops were present on the island. The first confirmation, coming from President Tsai in her interview with CNN, made no specific reference to the type of military trainers involved. However, this is the key element of the agreement between the Pentagon and Taipei because the 30 or so military personnel consist of Green Beret soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Group, and Marine Raiders. Both units have specialised skills in training foreign military allies in every aspect of defensive warfare. As part of their own intensive training the Green Berets and Marine Raiders would have been schooled in the culture and language of their Taiwanese counterparts, and would be fully appraised of the latest intelligence of the threat posed by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The quality and experience these special trainers bring to the Taiwanese forces, even though they are only modest in number, will be helping to prepare Taiwan for a possible attack by the PLA. Along with the advanced weaponry being provided by the Pentagon, Taiwan is relying more and more on American protection against an increasingly belligerent Beijing. The presence of Green Berets and Marine Raiders in Taiwan is not like having an in-theatre fighting force, as in Japan and South Korea where the US has a combined total of nearly 80,000 troops. However, the role they are playing in Taiwan is viewed in Beijing as a deliberate provocation by Washington. Marine Raiders, for example, who serve with US Special Operations Command, are experts in amphibious warfare, including how best to defend against enemy landing-craft beach invasions. The specialist troops who rotate to maintain a permanent training function are too few to take a combat role in the event of a surprise PLA attack but would be a vital component in preparing the ground for rapid US military reinforcements. These trainers were first sent about a year ago when Donald Trump was president as it became an increasing concern that China might act earlier than previously anticipated in using force, rather than diplomacy, to bring Taiwan under Beijing control. However, under the Pentagon’s foreign internal defence programme, it is likely that Green Berets will have operated in secret in Taiwan in previous years. It is only now that their presence in Taiwan has been officially confirmed.

Spend spend spend Chancellor of the Exchequer

There have been so many leaks of all the good stuff to come out of the UK Government Budget Statement made in the House of Commons today that no surprises were expected. But there was one surprise. Rishi Sunak, elegant and articulate, said he planned to spend £180 billion!! After the mountain of money he dished out during the pandemic lockdowns to keep businesses solvent and stop employees being sacked up and down the country, you would have thought so much had been borrowed that there was no room for any more spending until at least a chunk of the debts had been paid off. But no, here we go, it's spend, spend, spend. I was never that good at maths at school but I understand the basics. You can only spend money when you have actually got it in your pocket or your bank. Sunak has borrowed, borrowed, borrowed and has committed the country to paying interest for years on something like £500 billion pounds, and now the banks are warning of interest rates rising, so the interest bill will get bigger and bigger. How, Mr Chancellor, are you going to balance the books? As with all Budget Statements it's the small print that needs checking and this generally takes 24 hours more of poring over the details. The Institute of Fiscal Studies does this job for us voters and its ubiquitous director will be on every television channel and radio explaining how the Chancellor has made 2 plus 2 equal 6. Joe Biden the other side of the Atlantic has this grand plan of taxing billionaires to find the money he needs to cover the $3.5 trillion he is planning to spend in post-pandemic recovery. But I suspect billionaires are not billionaires by giving their money away to the taxman and sure as hell they will find ways of evading Biden's money-grabbers. Boris and Sunak will probably find the same problem if they decide to tax, tax, tax the rich.

Desperate pictures of starving children in Afghanistan

The sight of babies and children suffering from the most appalling malnutrition and lying in hospitals seemingly near to death in Herat, western Afghanistan, is desperately sad. That poor country went through decades of vicious war and now because the new rulers are the Taliban, hated enemy of the United States, all international money has stopped and what assets the Kabul government had have been frozen. There is simply no money for people to buy food. The appalling story on the BBC last night of a family selling their latest baby for $500 just so that they can survive for the next three months is so tragic the whole world needs to take note and start pouring in donations to save the people of this wretched nation. The war is over, all foreign troops and official aid agencies such as USAID have gone and it's time Washington and every other capital involved in the 20-year war provide the means of keeping Afghan families alive as winter appoaches, otherwise tens of thousands of Afghans, young and old, are going to die. We, the West, invaded Afghanistan to rid the country of al-Qaeda and took on a much bigger task of trying to defeat the Taliban and build a new nation blessed with the finest human rights and freedom for everyone and prosperity. And tragically failed! The Taliban are only interested in forging an extreme Islamic state where women have no rights. It's our responsibility now to save Afghanistan, not from the Taliban, but with money and a system to distribute the funds to those who need them and to stop children dying from malnutrition.

Military fuel out of thin air to save the planet and millions of dollars

The US Air Force, the biggest single guzzler of fossil fuel in America, has taken a significant step forward in creating a different way of powering its huge inventory of aircraft by making jet fuel out of thin air. An energy company working with the air force has produced fuel, called E-Jet, by recycling carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air with water and renewable power sources. Experiments have proved that the jet fuel is operationally viable, opening up the potential for saving hundreds of millions of dollars – and helping to save the planet. The air force burns two billion gallons of aviation fuel a year and spends more than $8 billion annually for fuel of all types including petrol and diesel for vehicles. With global warming and climate change forcing the US military to find alternative ways of powering aircraft, warships, armoured vehicles and basic garrison energy supplies, all the services have been engaged in experiments for many years. The US Navy has a “green fleet” vision, with some warships already running on advanced biofuels. The latest announcement by the air force could have the biggest impact of all on reducing the American military’s carbon footprint once the synthetic carbon-neutral fuel is produced in sufficient quantities for world-wide operations. In a statement the air force says the plan is to have access to E-jet fuel anywhere on the planet, at any time and with no air or road tankers required. Synthetic fuels have been around for 100 years and are used in a mix-and-match combination with petroleum fuel in many US military aircraft. They were first created in 1925 by two German scientists, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, who converted carbon monoxide and hydrogen to make liquid hydrocarbons. However, these fuels were produced through burning coal, natural gas or biomass (plant or animal material). The American company, Twelve, based in Berkeley, California, has produced fossil-free jet fuel, using electrified CO2, and claims its E-Jet has more than 90 per cent lower life-cycle emissions than conventional jet fuel. “History has taught us that our logistics supply chains are one of the first things the enemy attacks. As peer adversaries pose more and more of a threat what we do to reduce our fuel and logsistics demand will be critical to avoid risk and win any potential war,” said Robert Guerrero, deputy assistant secretary of the air force for operational energy. Future challenges will include how to power the production of the synthetic fuel in remote areas and where water sources for the hydrogen will come from. The company says water can be captured from the air. “With carbon transformation [technology] we are untethering aviation from petroleum supply chains,” Nicholas Flanders, Twelve co-founder, said. Globally the aviation industry consumes 100 billion gallons of fossil fuels and emits one billion tons of carbon dioxide every year.