Blairwatch

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 <title>Blairwatch - conference</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33/0</link>
 <description>This is for conferences and other meetings we&#039;ve attended and reporting on.</description>
 <language>en</language>
<item>
 <title>Worldwide Security Conference 6 - Report</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2136</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;The WSC, run by the East West Institute is the most interesting annual event I attend. The organisation is flawless, the venue fantastic and the EWI staff are amongst the most interesting and pleasant in Brussels.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Some of the workshops were excellent, some less good. Many of the speakers were good, some excellent and, as every year, one was batshit.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lessons of Mumbai&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The keynote session was around this issue and, remarkably, there were panelists from India and Pakistan present. We were given a run through of how the attack was carried out, its aims and elements within Pakistan intelligence were held responsible for helping train and organise.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Later Pakistan blamed Afghanistan and the Afghans blamed Palistan.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Counter terrorism&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We were given a run though of how Pakistan sees the situation, but didn&#039;t address the government capitulation in the tribal areas. A lot of speakers, but mainly perspectives on the current situation.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Tactics of Radicalisation: How terrorists recruit&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was looking forward to this session as at least one of the speakers, Stephen Tankel, has &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&amp;amp;lng=en&amp;amp;id=90534&quot;&gt;written some fascinating stuff&lt;/a&gt;. However the speakers were only given 5 minutes. Very disappointing. Sadly the session, like the others focused almost exclusively on Islamist terrorism.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;First steps to &#039;cyber&#039; peace&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Oh boy. I&#039;d picked up some gossip from someone very knowledgeable about this session, so I was looking foward to it. My source was talking about how Carnivore has had a series of upgrades and that everything, but everything can be and is monitored. Previously the sheer volume of data was the inhibiting factor in surveillence, but this has now been overcome and everything is being monitored. It was described to me as &amp;quot;We&#039;ve built a panopticon&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The speakers were good and interesting but there was nothing particuly new or relavatory.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Then&amp;nbsp; Mr Ramamurthy, Chair of the Cyber Society of India took the floor. I listened in stunned disbelief and mounting anger as he made the following points:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;1. We need several seperate internets, a .com for business, a .edu for academics etc. &lt;br&gt;2. The problem with the internet is that nobody is in charge so it needs to be run by a coalition of NGO&#039;s and geovenment&lt;br&gt;3. Hackers should be licensed&lt;br&gt;4. People who upload software should be licensed - to stop malware.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&#039;m sure readers will realise what absolute nonsense this is, it is a real shame that the rest of the panel, the audience and the organisers didn&#039;t notice.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The session could have been on how internet users could assist in combatting extremism, instead it treated anyone technical as a potential threat that required totalitarian policies to control them.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Media and Terrorism&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mad Mel&#039;s contribution &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2131&quot;&gt;is discussed here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The next steps for Afghanistan&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Jamie Shea chaired this session where he admitted that NATO was completely clueless about Afghanistan, &amp;quot;We need to work out what our strategy is to be, what our aims are, what are we trying to do and how will we know when we&#039;ve achieved it&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It&#039;s a bit bloody late to start asking those questions. When the loved ones of bereaved soldiers ask &amp;quot;What did my son die for?&amp;quot; they deserve a better answer than &amp;quot;I haven&#039;t a clue&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;NATO is equally clueless about what to do next, &amp;quot;I go to briefings where everything sounds good and I think we&#039;re making progress, then I go to another one and everything sounds desperate&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hekmat Karzai, the President&#039;s cousin and head of a think tank in Kabul said that Iraq blew it. Things were on a road to recovery until everyone buggered off to Baghdad and forgot about Afghanistan. He also said that the reliance on air power and bombing was making more and more enemies. A main point was that Afghanis should be making decisions instead of listening to press conferences in Washington.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, a rosyish picture was being painted. A question about corruption (members of one speakers family have been implicated in drug smuggling, for example) was brushed aside and played down.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For the record, in 2005 Transparancy International listed Afghanistan at 117 out of 180 nations. In 2008 it was 172.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As someone said about Kenya, &amp;quot;You can have corruption or you can have development. You can&#039;t have both&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Update:&lt;/b&gt; Of course you can get a better idea of NATO&#039;s thinking by checking out &lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/N1&quot;&gt;their master narrative and other documents&lt;/a&gt;, cracked by Wikileaks, a must read.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Conclusion&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Some panels were not what they could have been, the presence of Melanie Philips contributed nothing and some speakers were not given enough time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, there was a lot of informed and deep presentations and many interesting people to discuss matters with. A very worthwhile event.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2136#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:03:20 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">2136 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>WSC6 - Mad Mel Philips Delivers!</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2131</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#039;ll cover the conference in more detail later.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The East - West Institute gathers knowlegeable speakers and leading experts in the field to discuss global security and combatting extremism. However, this year they also had Mad Mel as a guest speaker on a panel entitled &quot;The Media and terrorism&quot;. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mels insights included the unsupported allegation that the UK media has been intimidated by radical islam that they &quot;are marching in lockstep with radical extremists&quot; and &quot;puts on television people like Hamas and presents them as moderates&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;During the Gaza conflict &quot;The media adopted wholesale the Hamas narrative and broadcast Hamas propaganda as if it were true&quot;. She also said that journalists in Gaza &quot;had a gun put to their heads by Hamas and told to report the Hamas propaganda or they would be killed&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mel has never been to Gaza.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mel came out with this stuff in a room full of experts on terrorism, including a great many who have extensive experience in Gaza. People just chuckled politely and pointed their questions elsewhere.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Her remarks were not just ignorant and wrong, we&#039;re all used to that, but in this case they were a clear insult to the many reporters who work hard to inform the world of what is happening in the world and who are dying and being wounded in ever increasing numbers. It is an insult to the memory of so many journalists who have fallen that this ignorant woman should be chosen as a speaker by the East - West Institute over someone actually qualified or knowedgeable. Shame on you.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As I said to the chairman  &quot;Anyone can sit in London and have strong opinions, but we need people here with strong experience. We should send her to Gaza because she&#039;s clearly never been there&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Exactly&quot;, he replied.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2131#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:57:10 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">2131 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>WSC6 - Day Two</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2130</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday finished up with an excellent session on radicalisation and how terrorists recruit. I&#039;ll write more on this, but I&#039;m getting some good interviews today from that session. These will be uploaded over the weekend. The organisers are nice enough to include one speaker a year to act as a sort of caberet act. Previously we&#039;ve had the &lt;a href=&quot;http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/&quot;&gt;deeply, deeply barking Claudia Rosset&lt;/a&gt;, but they realised Blairwatch was getting a bit blase and have pulled out all the stops to get us Mad Mel Philips. Thanks guys, we appreciate it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Although I&#039;ve not heard much that is new, it is more a matter of hearing updates on research, on projects and how progressive counter extremism ideas are gaining traction.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The event is, perhaps too, focussed on isl;amic terrorism. Historically we&#039;ve often been blindsided by events. I&#039;m wondering if we, especially in Europe, should start looking at ourselves. Although migrant communities do host dangerous radicals, I am wondering if the growing crisis - and we&#039;ve seen nothing yet - coupled with protectionism, anti-EU sentiment and growing racism could provide a &#039;perfect storm&#039; for Europe&#039;s far-right to gain. The EU elections will provide a snapshot of this, but I think we should spend some time on this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Additionally, as discussed last year, all faiths have their extremists, those guided by dogma and utter certainty. Sure, Islamic fundamentalism is the big issue, but lets keep our eyes open.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2130#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:17:23 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">2130 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Worldwide Security Conference 6 - Day 1</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2128</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;The East West Institute has organised their Annual conference and invited Blairwatch to attend. Once again there is an excellent range of speakers and even before the first session, I had an interesting conversation with Jon Mroz, author of the essential reading &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ewi.info/announcements/publications/index.cfm?title=Publications&amp;amp;view=detail&amp;amp;nid=560&amp;amp;aid=6892&quot;&gt;Countering Violent Extremism: Videopower and Cyberspace&lt;/a&gt; on another publication, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ewi.info/announcements/news/index.cfm?title=EWI%20News&amp;amp;view=detail&amp;amp;id=626&amp;amp;aid=5724&amp;amp;areavar=activities&amp;amp;activityID=12&quot;&gt;COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM - LESSONS FROM THE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt; which he is following up on, that got me thinking.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The exciting news is that Blairwatch fave, Mad Mel Philips is also speaking. This means I&#039;ll actually be in the same room as someone who really, really wanted John McCain to beat Obama. Now that&#039;ll be a unique experience.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;More updates to follow.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/2128#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:25:51 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">2128 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Conference Report - 5th Worldwide Security Conference</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1988</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;Last year&#039;s conference was a revelation to us. It was then that we realised the views we hold about Iraq, Afghanistan, civil rights and the war on terror were mainstream. Blairwatch isn&#039;t an extreme organisation but one that is loudly proclaiming what many are whispering.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;What did I learn this year?&lt;/b&gt; To be frank very little in the short term. The sessions were too similar, had too many speakers, too little time for questions, far too focused on Arab suicide bombers, full of interminable digressions on how do we refer to terrorists, especially those with origins in the Middle East and Asia.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The use of language is very important but I have two points about this frustrating aspect of the conference:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;1. Is the use of language so important that it overshadows a conference like this?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;2. What&#039;s more important, finding a description of the bad guys or discussing how to stop them?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;I didn&#039;t see much that was new.&lt;/b&gt; In fact I heard a lot that was old and discredited. For example, poverty isn&#039;t a major factor in turning an individual into a terrorist (as explained last year by the excellent Louise Richardson author of the essential book &amp;quot;What Terrorists Want&amp;quot;) but some speakers repeated this. Many prescriptions to reduce violent extremism were too vague and trite to form any useful contribution, such as &amp;ldquo;democracy, human rights, and education&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;A lack of a global perspective&lt;/b&gt; meant that most speakers were purely speaking from their own perspectives and national experience. Not always a bad thing, certainly there were a couple of examples of working methods to counter extremism, such as the Indonesian use of scholars and internet forums. However most stuck to what they knew from their own experience and the conference suffered from that.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;It was too comfortable.&lt;/b&gt; I don&#039;t think anyone heard anything that was especially challenging or something that got us to think beyond our comfort zones.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Technophobia.&lt;/b&gt; The organisers and many of the participants just didn&#039;t understand new technology and new media. I can&#039;t remember attending a conference where so many people have asked me &#039;What is a blog?&amp;quot; for many years. The concept of the rise of citizen journalism only rose above a couple of people&#039;s radar and certainly was no part of anyone&#039;s presentations or thinking. The idea that citizen journalists could help counter extremism seemed to be new, indeed many seemed to be wondering what on Earth I was talking about.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In many arenas, al Jazeera has won the battle over the slurs on its reputation and I wondered if people knew al Jazeera now has an English language channel (populated by ex BBC, Sky and CNN staff). The organisers seemed to be proud that their New Exciting Idea to have a forum for journalists and editors from CNN, FOX, BBC, al Jazeera etc to get together and discuss journalistic ethics.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This session was illustrated by several news organisations coverage of events in Iraq that showed the futility of such a conference.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The media reporting is often NOT decided by an editor but by the political policy of the MEDIA OWNER. Therefore it doesn&#039;t matter an iota what an editor thinks in this reality.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The role of Op-Ed pieces in the media wasn&#039;t raised&lt;/b&gt; and these can often be the very worst of media reporting.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The forthcoming conference is not going to deal with the underlying causes of the rot in mainstream media values. I asked if the media can throw away it&#039;s ethics and become a mouthpiece for government policy over something as important as Iraq, how can they claim to have any ethics or values whatsoever? What are they misrepresenting today? Tomorrow?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Needless to say not one of my points was properly addressed. Thankfully several delegates and speakers told me of their approval of my lines of comment, albeit privately.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The East West Institute is about to launch an internet platform to counter extremism. To be honest, I&#039;m concerned about this. I don&#039;t think they &#039;get&#039; the internet and how it can be used and they could easily stay in their comfort zones, within their think tank concepts and circles and defer from doing something innovative and radically disruptive. That said there is an aspect to EWI that does encourage thinking out the box and this project might just fly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The conference was inspirational and thought provoking&lt;/b&gt;. Not so much from the platform, but from the wide opportunities for lively discussion in the halls and foyers, and the discussions were lively and fascinating. This was not just coincidence, but something EWI deliberately built into the programme.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;EWI is also a very open organisation&lt;/b&gt;, one that encourages critcism and comment and welcomes challenges to their perspectives and thinking. Importantly they seem devoid of the intellectual arrogance and superiority that can so often be found in Brussels institutions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There were some good contributions from the platform, but many speakers had too little time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I certainly have a lot to think about, not least on countering extremism. Could Blairwatch - or Son of Blairwatch be in a better position to use the internet to examine counter-extremism, conflict resolution than a think tank? Or is it just too big a project for us?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It sounds arrogant and possibly unrealistic, especially as we have no resources, but we do have things on our side; we know the medium, we have plenty of contacts and although we might not be focusing on policy statements and the like, could we play a role in bringing and connecting the experiences of individuals and those that are under the radar of large NGO&#039;s?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Further comment on the Conference &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.demos.co.uk/blog/5thworldwisesecurityconference#11290&quot;&gt;is on the Demos Blog&lt;/a&gt; - Wow! Two whole bloggers out of 750 people at the event! What does that say about the conference that was supposedly looking at the future?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Finally, I would like to make a suggestion. Next year we, with our colleagues could host an interesting and challenging session on the role of weblogs and new media in the struggle against extremism.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;How about it?&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1988#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/14">terror[ism]</category>
 <pubDate>Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:19:44 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">1988 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
</item>
<item>
 <title>Day 2 Roundup - 5th Worldwide Security Conference</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1986</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#039;m going to do a full report on the conference over the weekend but thought I&#039;d run through some highlights here.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;First of all I need to explain some of my frustrations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;1. Semantics. It is important to get the use of words, especially those used to describe violent extremists. However &lt;i&gt;almost every session&lt;/i&gt; has included digressions on this - sometimes at great length, and these digressions are often contradictionary. The use of words is important, but is it so important that this conference has to discuss, for example, how to address &#039;moderate muslims&#039; or &#039;jihadist&#039;, and not the topic of the session on how to counter extremism?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;2. The sessions are too similar and too broad. Here is a list of some of the 90 minuite sessions:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;a. How good have we been at protecting people, economies and infrastructure from terrorism? Where is the threat going? How do we counter it?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;b. How good have we been at countering extremism? How is the threat changing?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;See what I mean? how about another couple:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;a. Building a new global architecture to counter violent religious extremism and radicalisation.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;b. Building a new global architecture to counter terrorism and organised crime.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;c. Measures to channel support away from extremist groups.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;I attended the session on violent religious extemism and radicalisation&lt;/b&gt;. The Russian ambassador gave a speech and recommended firm astion - but didn&#039;t explicitly recommend bombing Chechenya to hell and back. A stand-in speaker made the most telling point - that 80% of countering extremism is local. Any strategy, especially one developed by global strategic policymakers needs to remember this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The second session I went to was the previously mentioned &#039;Talking to terrorists?&#039;&lt;/b&gt; with our little neo-con on the platform.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Claudia Rosett has the air of Wendy Craig in a hefty dose of Prozac and gave us the benefit of her wisdom. As a neo-con, she naturally said we shouldn&#039;t talk to terrorists, in fact there were quite a few states neither we or anyone else should be talking to. Naturally she didn&#039;t go into who decides which states are pariah&#039;s, or which landmass should be sent to Coventry. Bless.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Richard Dalton, a former UK ambassador to Iran and Libya gave a fascinating insight into the arts of negociating with terrorists and advice on when and when not to. He followed this up with a detailed description of the process he used to bring Libya away from pariah status and back into the international community.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Caludia jumped in as soon as he finished with her version of how Gadaffi came in from the cold; &amp;quot;But he&#039;s just seen pictures of Saddam being dragged out of a hole and saw himself being in the same position&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Dalton looked around in shock, remembered where he was and concentrated on staring at the ceiling with a pained expression, seeing his long hard work being so glibly cast aside.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Finally I attended a session on the role of the media&lt;/b&gt;. This was imaginitively led. Yonah alexander concentrated on media preperations for a future large scale terrorist attack - a concept I had some concerns about as I would rather see chaotic reporting than pre-planned reporting. I was tempted to ask if he thought we should wheel out all those &#039;Protect and Survive&#039; films.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bill Silcock from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism gave an interesting talk on journalism and the pressures on stations for ratings etc.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I raised the question of US pre-war Iraq reporting that allowed a propaganda war to go virtually unquestioned and the role of a narrowing band of media owners in countering independent journalism for their own agendas. Finally I mentioned citizen journalism and how that could be a valuble resource in countering extremism.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bill explained that his students were making and using media in a very different way and that citizen journalism was a major force.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Nevertheless, I have has the feeling that for many of the speakers and participants, they simply don&#039;t get bloggers and citizen journalism yet.&lt;/b&gt; They are just not aware that we exist, how many of us there are and our potential to support their causes. Perhaps it&#039;s a generational thing but we&#039;re below everyone&#039;s radar here and that is bad for the conference and for the causes they, and we advocate.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The East West Institute is organising a get together for journalists from BBC, SKY, CNN , Al Jazeera and FOX to get together. Shouldn&#039;t be too hard as many of them have worked together before - most of al Jazeera came from CNN, BBC and Sky. What would be interesting is to get the people who own these stations together.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The conference has been very good.&lt;/b&gt; My comments are meant as constructive criticism of a worthwhile and fascinating conference. I&#039;ve had a lot of good chats with some fascinating people and we&#039;ll have some interesting features coming soon on Blairwatch. It&#039;s also important to understand that networking/ free discussion is a big part of the programme and although this doesn&#039;t appear in the halls, it allows for excellent interchanges in the corridors and foyers.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1986#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/14">terror[ism]</category>
 <pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:54:17 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">1986 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
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 <title>Day 2 - 5th Worldwide Security Conference</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1985</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;I am just about to set off and thought I would give you all a preview.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Last year they invited Claudia Rosett of the &#039;Foundation for the Defence of Democracies&#039; who gave a frankly batshit off topic rant on how the UN was a major supporter or terrorism and should be disbanded.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Ah, these funky neo-cons. I did say in my write up that the Neo-Cons were part of the problem and not the solution so why are we giving space for their bizarre world view?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;EWI didn&#039;t reply, but they did airbrush her out of the conference report and I thought they were suitably embarrassed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But no! She&#039;s back - to the surprise of quite a few delegates and EWI staff. Even better, she&#039;s on a panel entitled &#039;Talking to Terrorists?&#039;. Oh boy this is going to be good.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Want to see how nuts she is? &lt;a href=&quot;http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/claudiarosett/2007/02/17/war_weather_and_global_cooling.php&quot;&gt;Read her blog&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nysun.com/article/16998&quot;&gt;an article&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nysun.com/article/9015&quot;&gt;two&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nysun.com/article/13345&quot;&gt;three&lt;/a&gt;,and make your own minds up&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Foundation_for_the_Defense_of_Democracies&quot;&gt;here&#039;s some background&lt;/a&gt; on the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies and on their founding (source &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amconmag.com/11_17_03/article1.html&quot;&gt;American Conservative&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;  In early 2001, a tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel&amp;rsquo;s response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt; At first, Emet floundered, without an executive director or a well-defined mission. But that changed after Sept. 11, and Emet changed too, into what is now the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The name is different, but the goal of influencing America&amp;rsquo;s opinion-forming classes remains. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amconmag.com/11_17_03/article1.html&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;More&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, perhaps they just invited her as a caberet act?&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1985#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/14">terror[ism]</category>
 <pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:32:40 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">1985 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
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 <title>Day 1 - 5th Worldwide Security Conference</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1984</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;The opening session gave a state of play and also showed some of the problems in counter terrorism. Cemil Cicek, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey appealed for more cooperation but failed to discuss some of the Turkish army&#039;s more contraversial actions against the Kurds, not least shelling Iraqi villages.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;General Ehsan ul Haq, former chairman of the Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a somber analysis of the success of a military based response to terrorism in Afghanistan, stating that al Qaeda has survived 6 years of military assaults and the difficulties terrorism has caused Pakistan.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Funnily enough he didn&#039;t mention Pakistan&#039;s building up of the Taliban and support for the training camps etc. He probably ran out of time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br type=&quot;_moz&quot; /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;The first session&lt;/b&gt; asked how good we have been at protecting against terror, where the threat is going and how to counter it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Gilles de Kerchove, EU Counter Terrorism Coordinator said there havd been improvements in border security etc and called for more databases of personal details in cluding telecom, ISP records etc and the enhanced sharing of such databases throughout the EU. Possible downsides and impact of civil liberties weren&#039;t touched upon.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However he did point out that the current wave of potential terrorists were &#039;post Iraq, inspired by but not directed by al Qaeda.&#039;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The second session asked how good have we been at countering extremism.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Basically the answer seems to be not very good at all and events like Iraq, Abu Graib have encouraged people to move towards extremist groups. It appears that the next wave of terrorists will be less coordinated, more spontaneous and Iraq, Abu Graib and Gitmo are events that may have tipped large numbers away from mere radicalism and into actual terrorism.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At this point I was tempted to ask why on earth the East West Institute decorated Tony Blair as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ewi.info/announcements/blairannouncement.cfm?title=Statesman%20of%20the%20Decade&quot;&gt;Statesman of the Decade&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;An interesting contribution was made by J Rami Mroz, about how terrorists use the internet. I asked how people could use the internet to counter extremism and how this could widen people&#039;s participation. After the chairman&#039;s &#039;pardon, Blair... what?&#039; had elements of Lady windermere. The question was met with the promise of a whizz-bank jolly supper &#039;platform&#039; they were developing.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I think it still might be a bit &#039;think-tanky&#039; but there is a potential for widening it past policy wonks and bringing in global bloggers etc and using our networking skills to make this into something interesting and useful. I&#039;ll be discussing this more with them after the conference.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The third session&lt;/b&gt; was divided and I went to a presentation of a policy paper on the Security of Pakistan&#039;s Nuclear Facilities. The paper is short but concise and informative. I&#039;ll discuss it later, but if you can&#039;t wait &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ewi.info/announcements/publications/index.cfm?title=Publications&amp;amp;view=detail&amp;amp;pubid=562&amp;amp;aid=6900&quot;&gt;grab it here&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br type=&quot;_moz&quot; /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;The fourth session&lt;/b&gt; on measures to channel support away from extremist groups was disappointing, to put it mildly. The panellists were good, including Nasra Hassan from the UN information service and Mohammed mohammed Ali who is involved in reconstruction work in Iraq. I will cover him in more detail later.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sadly the subject narrowed down to dealing with Arab suicide bombers and the session sufferred greatly for this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I asked a question, posing a scenario of a town with mixed population and economic depravation, with immigrant communities feeling isolated after the 9/11 backlash and withdrawing into fuzzy froups and extremist preachers appearing. Against this I posited a white population increasingly voting for far-right groups, essentially the scenario unfolding all over europe - the pannelists nodded at this - and then said I am against this divisiveness and growing extremism, not for the 1% who might go on to terrorist acts but because of the effects on the 99%. I have a million dollars, how do I spend it?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;No answer.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sadly&amp;nbsp; one pannelist seemed obsessed with the micro-semantics of referring to islamic extremists, another on resolving the Palestine problem - as if this would have had any effect on the Shining Path, IRA, Ayran Nations etc.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1984#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/14">terror[ism]</category>
 <pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:14:05 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">1984 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
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<item>
 <title>Countering Violent Extremism - 5TH Worldwide Security Conference</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1982</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;Blairwatch has been invited to attend the East - West Institite&#039;s annual conference on security and countering violent extremism.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To start the conference a number of publications have been released:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ewi.info/announcements/publications/index.cfm?title=Publications&amp;amp;view=detail&amp;amp;nid=560&amp;amp;aid=6892&quot;&gt;Countering Violent Extremism - Videopower and Cyberspace by J Rami Mroz&lt;/a&gt; is a well written examination of how extremists use the internet and responses to this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Although it does provide a good run through of activity and tactics used with case studies of al Qaeda and the US Christian Identity movements use and tactics for internet operations, some aspects worry me.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Firstly it calls on government and civil society to promote peace building and support initiatives to counter extremism. Fine, but do certain governments have any credibility with disaffected youth who may be targeted for recruitment by etremists?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It also looks at MEMRI, and whilst noting that they have a too heavy bias to have any real credibility, suggest that it does offer a model of a media watchdog that could be replicated in more neutral hands.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Finally it asks ISP&#039;s to suppress websites that directly promote terrorism but not other expressions of extremist thought.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;I think they&#039;ve missed something&lt;/b&gt; - weblogs aren&#039;t even mentioned in the pamphlet, and weblogs - or a meta-blog could be a real asset in noting individuals and groups of people involved in building a more peaceful world through conflict resolution and bridge building between communities.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless, this is an interesting and thoughtful publication that our readers will find interesting.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1982#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/14">terror[ism]</category>
 <pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:28:26 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">1982 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
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<item>
 <title>Report: EWI 4th Worldwide Security Conference</title>
 <link>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/wsc4</link>
 <description>&lt;p&gt;DRAFT FOR COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS&lt;br /&gt;
This document will change.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I attended the main sessions, the special session on &#039;Democracy and Terrorism&#039; and the following workshops; Convicting Terrorists, WMD, Towards a Code of Governance for Counter-Terrorism, Cyber Security.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Although many different forms of terrorism were discussed Islamic Jihadism was the main focus.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Conference Outcomes:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To sum up, the conference felt that the current strategy in &#039;The War Against Terror&#039; was counter productive and amongst other suggestions there were two re-occurring ideas for reducing the risk of terror attacks:&lt;br /&gt;
1. Sharing databases between security and police services&lt;br /&gt;
2. Harmonising laws between states to enable cross-border communication.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The conference repeatedly stressed that civil liberties, equally applied at home and abroad, are essential for maintaining democracy and defeating terrorism.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A List or recommendations from workshops was drawn up.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&#039;m not sure how the list of recommendations from workshops, delivered in the final session were chosen. They seemed to have been assembled from points made by various speakers and participants and I am unsure of the criteria for including some and not others, or even if they were &#039;agreed&#039; in any sense of the word, certainly no votes were taken. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Current Strategy&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
The way terror has been fought in the post 9/11 world came under much criticism, from the strategies, described as increasing the terror risk,&amp;nbsp; to the use of language in describing a &#039;war&#039; and the &#039;Orwellian euphemisms&#039; employed in it. Additionally many people raised serious concerns at the loss of civil liberties. Mary Robinson said she &#039;just couldn&#039;t believe how much has been lost so quickly&#039;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Secret intelligence reports, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=H4QWGIU50MJ0ZQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/25/nterr25.xml&quot;&gt;quoted in the press 25/2/07&lt;/a&gt;, back up and enforce statements made by several speakers, especially Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, and just how important changing strategy is:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;However, &lt;strong&gt;there was no discussion of how to change this failed strategy&lt;/strong&gt; or to how and why this strategy was developed. This was a major omission in the programme and a key requirement for reducing the threat of terrorism especially as there is a real risk of the situation becoming &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/070305fa_fact_hersh&quot;&gt;a regional conflict between Sunni and Shia&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Selecting Speakers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
There are some steps that the WSC could make. We have to admit that &lt;strong&gt;the Neo-Conservatives are part of the problem and not part of the solution&lt;/strong&gt;. By inviting neo-con speakers we are giving them an acceptability that their contributions do not warrant. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It is hard to see how Claudia Rosett&#039;s rant against the UN Oil for Food programme made was relevant to a workshop on &#039;Towards a Code of Governance for Counter-Terrorism&#039; or how her description of the Organisation of Islamic States as &lt;em&gt;&#039;a bunch of thugs whose main purpose is to provide excuses for terrorists&#039; &lt;/em&gt;is helpful. Of course we need different perspectives, but we need rational perspectives.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; The Sharing of Databases&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Although there was an assumption that sharing databases between security and law enforcement groups was required, no debate occurred on the down sides to this, especially implications on civil liberties. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Many of these databases are wildly inaccurate and often contain entries that are little more than unsubstantiated gossip. &lt;strong&gt;An inaccurate entry in such a database is a civil liberties violation waiting to occur&lt;/strong&gt;. Sharing databases will mean people incorrectly included will face bigger problems and more violations will occur.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Additionally there have been many documented examples of unlawful data collection and sharing between national agencies. Information has also been used in an unauthorised manner, for example by employees checking records of ex partners as well as more commercial forms of industrial espionage.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Even a small database, such as used by many organisations represented at the meeting is very hard to keep accurate, a large merged database shared with a host of agencies in many states, often with different data protection laws or monitoring will be a major task and thought should be put into these issues before advocating such widespread data sharing.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Even at a national level there are continuing problems with using databases with front line staff, especially with the US Homeland Security and Aviation watch lists. If homeland security is so important, why is it a minimum wage job? Have we got the best people on the front line?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I gave the example of Republican Senator Ted Stevens, who&#039;s wife Catherine is frequently stopped and questioned because the is misidentified as Cat Stevens, know known as Yusuf Islam ( &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/17/D8MNE7DG0.html&quot;&gt;source&lt;/a&gt; ). &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sharing Intelligence&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
There must also be some serious thought into the use and sharing of intelligence. As we now know, much intelligence is compromised by political demands. Until we can de-politicise such material, should we be sharing it? Who is an acceptable partner? What safeguards need to be built in and how will they be monitored.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Session on Democracy and Terrorism&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
This was the most valuable part of the conference with interesting and thoughtful speakers. I would like to single out Louise Richardson and Stephen Tankel as particular highlights, but the most moving presentation was that of&amp;nbsp; Mariam Rawi, a humbling reminder of the consequences of our failures and of the millions of people whose lives are seriously affected by this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Widening The Debate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
I was pleased to hear Mary Robinson say that the Club de Madrid is looking for ways of expanding the debate and discussion to the wider world. Sadly most people are unaware of the Madrid Agenda or of the debates taking place in the think tanks and conferences of the world. We, as a known political weblog (and about to be formed organisation) would like to be part of widening this debate. To this end we blogged the conference, with several daily updates, and posted recordings of the speakers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Suggested Sessions For Next Year&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
There wasn&#039;t time for to discuss &lt;strong&gt;victims of terrorism&lt;/strong&gt; - although many prefer to identify themselves as survivors - , and I would like to introduce a friend of ours, Rachel from North London, who was in the 7/7 London tube bombing. Since then she has set up a popular weblog discussing current events and her struggles since the bombing.She also helped set up survivor led groups where people can talk and support each other. Not surprisingly she has also been campaigning for a public inquiry. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We are all aware of the need for victims rights but we should also listen to them as they do have something to say. Rachel&#039;s&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2005/07/kings-cross-bomb-my-eyewitness-account.html&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1892288,00.html&quot;&gt;story that marks her out as an exceptional person&lt;/a&gt; and her&amp;nbsp; article,&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href=&quot;http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2006/03/f-word.html&quot;&gt;The F Word&lt;/a&gt; that shows that one difference between the victim and perpetrator is humanity. We can all be enriched by reading her words.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Another idea is to include more from &lt;strong&gt;the Islamic perspective&lt;/strong&gt; and I would like to see someone of the stature of Sheik Hamza Yusuf on the platform.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conference Organisation&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
The conference was very well organised, the sessions were chaired to a very high standard and there was a good balance between debating in the halls and networking outside.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Final Note&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
I would like to thank the organisers and say that I was honoured to attend. Through our weblog and a new project we will shortly announce, we will continue to broaden the debate, work with other individuals and organisations to promote the spirit of the Madrid Agenda. It was heartening to see that much of our thinking is in the mainstream. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We want to be included in the processes and debates and we hope that people will see that we do have something to contribute. We welcome your thoughts and comments. If you wish to contact us direct, then &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/481&quot;&gt;please do so&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
 <comments>http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/wsc4#comments</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33">conference</category>
 <category domain="http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/14">terror[ism]</category>
 <pubDate>Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:17:23 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>quarsan</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">1658 at http://www.blairwatch.co.uk</guid>
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<b>Warning</b>:  INSERT command denied to user &#039;ringverse14&#039;@&#039;77.232.80.10&#039; for table &#039;watchdog&#039;
query: INSERT INTO watchdog (uid, type, message, severity, link, location, referer, hostname, timestamp) VALUES (0, &#039;php&#039;, &#039;&lt;em&gt;INSERT command denied to user &amp;amp;#039;ringverse14&amp;amp;#039;@&amp;amp;#039;77.232.80.10&amp;amp;#039; for table &amp;amp;#039;accesslog&amp;amp;#039;\nquery: INSERT INTO accesslog (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values(&amp;amp;#039;conference&amp;amp;#039;, &amp;amp;#039;taxonomy/term/33/0/feed&amp;amp;#039;, &amp;amp;#039;&amp;amp;#039;, &amp;amp;#039;38.107.191.113&amp;amp;#039;, 0, &amp;amp;#039;818bd6357564ea422a606de23fa8fb5e&amp;amp;#039;, 1549, 1284016057)&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;/mounted-storage/home80c/sub001/sc13882-HCOS/blairwatch5_11/includes/database.mysql.inc&lt;/em&gt; on line &lt;em&gt;174&lt;/em&gt;.&#039;, 2, &#039;&#039;, &#039;http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33/0/feed&#039;, &#039;&#039;, &# in <b>/mounted-storage/home80c/sub001/sc13882-HCOS/blairwatch5_11/includes/database.mysql.inc</b> on line <b>174</b><br />
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<b>Warning</b>:  INSERT command denied to user &#039;ringverse14&#039;@&#039;77.232.80.10&#039; for table &#039;watchdog&#039;
query: INSERT INTO watchdog (uid, type, message, severity, link, location, referer, hostname, timestamp) VALUES (0, &#039;php&#039;, &#039;&lt;em&gt;UPDATE command denied to user &amp;amp;#039;ringverse14&amp;amp;#039;@&amp;amp;#039;77.232.80.10&amp;amp;#039; for table &amp;amp;#039;sessions&amp;amp;#039;\nquery: UPDATE sessions SET uid = 0, cache = 0, hostname = &amp;amp;#039;38.107.191.113&amp;amp;#039;, session = &amp;amp;#039;&amp;amp;#039;, timestamp = 1284016057 WHERE sid = &amp;amp;#039;818bd6357564ea422a606de23fa8fb5e&amp;amp;#039;&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;/mounted-storage/home80c/sub001/sc13882-HCOS/blairwatch5_11/includes/database.mysql.inc&lt;/em&gt; on line &lt;em&gt;174&lt;/em&gt;.&#039;, 2, &#039;&#039;, &#039;http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/taxonomy/term/33/0/feed&#039;, &#039;&#039;, &#039;38.107.191.113&#039;, 1284016057) in <b>/mounted-storage/home80c/sub001/sc13882-HCOS/blairwatch5_11/includes/database.mysql.inc</b> on line <b>174</b><br />