CHINA PREPARING FOR ARMED CONFLICT 'IN EVERY DIRECTION'

China is preparing for conflict 'in every direction', the defence minister said on Wednesday in remarks that threaten to overshadow a visit to Beijing by his US counterpart next month.

Photo: AP

By Peter Foster, Beijing 29 Dec 2010

"In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction," said Liang Guanglie in an interview published by several state-backed newspapers in China. "We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away," Mr Liang added.

China repeatedly says it is planning a "peaceful rise" but the recent pace and scale of its military modernisation has alarmed many of its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan which described China's military build-up as a "global concern" this month.

Mr Liang's remarks come at a time of increasingly difficult relations between the Chinese and US armed forces which a three-day visit by his counterpart Robert Gates is intended to address. A year ago China froze substantive military relations in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan and relations deteriorated further this summer when China objected to US plans to deploy one of its nuclear supercarriers, the USS George Washington, into the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula.

China also announced this month that it was preparing to launch its own aircraft carrier next year in a signal that China is determined to punch its weight as a rising superpower. The news came a year earlier than many US defence analysts had predicted.

China is also working on a "carrier-killing" ballistic missile that could sink US carriers from afar, fundamentally reordering the balance of power in a region that has been dominated by the US since the end of the Second World War.

A US Navy commander, Admiral Robert Willard, told Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper this week that he believes the Chinese anti-ship missile, the Dong Feng 21, has already achieved "initial operational capability", although it would require years of testing.

Analysts remain divided over whether China is initiating an Asian arms race. Even allowing for undeclared spending, China's annual defence budget is still less than one-sixth of America's $663bn a year, or less than half the US figure when expressed as a percentage of GDP.

However in a speech earlier this year Mr Gates warned that China's new weapons, including its carrier-killing missile, "threaten America's primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific", underscoring the difficulties that lie ahead as China and the US seek to contain growing strategic frictions.

As China modernises, Mr Liang pledged that its armed forces would also increasingly use homegrown Chinese technology, which analysts say still lags behind Western technology even as China races to catch up.

"The modernisation of the Chinese military cannot depend on others, and cannot be bought," Mr Liang added, "In the next five years, our economy and society will develop faster, boosting comprehensive national power. We will take the opportunity and speed up modernisation of the military."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8229789/China-preparing-for-armed-conflict-in-every-direction.html

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POLICE CHIEF WARNS OF NEW ERA OF VIOLENT PROTESTS

A new era of violent protests on Britain's streets has begun as the nation prepares for cuts to public services, the head of the Metropolitan Police has warned.

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent 25 Nov 2010

Sir Paul Stephenson said his officers had failed to predict the change in mood among demonstrators before the Millbank riot two weeks ago.

Britain's most senior police officer said the violence, which saw anarchists and students run amok through buildings housing the Conservative Party headquarters illustrated that "the game has changed".

He said police would be prepared for a more robust response to future protests, as demonstrated yesterday when riot officers used controversial 'kettling' tactics to marshall crowds.

Speaking at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) at City Hall, Sir Paul said the ''likelihood is for more disorder on our streets''.

He said: ''We have been going through a period where we have not seen that sort of violent disorder.

''We had dealt with student organisers before and I think we based it too much on history. If we follow an intelligence-based model that stops you doing that.

''Obviously you realise the game has changed. Regrettably, the game has changed and we must act.''

Yesterday's demonstration, which included many school pupils, was contained in Whitehall, close to the entrance to Downing Street.

He said when several large-scale marches linked up in Whitehall police wanted to stop them getting into Parliament Square and beyond.

The meeting heard a smaller group of known troublemakers tried and failed to target the Lib Dem Cowley Street headquarters earlier in the day.

The demonstration was the second against a planned rise in University tuition fees in a fortnight but the damage caused by rioters was far more limited.

Sir Paul said in recent years the Met has been reducing the numbers of officers and other resources deployed to tackle demonstrations.

He said: ''Regrettably we are going to have to review that. We are going to have to take a more cautious approach.''

Speaking about the clashes yesterday, Sir Paul said: ''The bottom line is we did not get it right two weeks ago and in my opinion we did get it right yesterday.

''We did put an enormous amount more assets out yesterday but we did get it right.''

Sir Paul said out of the 35 people arrested yesterday, nine were held for vandalising and looting a police carrier left stranded in the centre of Whitehall.

He added that seven officers were injured, including a woman who suffered a broken bone in her hand and a man with "soft tissue damage" to his leg.

A further 11 members of the public were treated by paramedics as thousands of people descended on Westminster.

Several landmark buildings, including those in Whitehall, were "locked down" over fears protesters were planning to occupy them by force.

Police said protesters wore masks, ripped up roadworks, destroyed a bus shelter, threw smoke canisters and ignited aerosols, burning some people's faces.

A police van was vandalised and broken into.

Sir Paul said there were no police officers in the vehicle and it was abandoned because of the risk of getting it back.

He added: "It is beyond irritating, it is disgraceful, but had we deployed to that carrier we would have achieved nothing. We could have injured protesters and police officers.

"The decision was made to leave it there and evidence gather and deal with the criminals later, which is what we have done."

Speaking about the decision to pen in protesters, Sir Paul said there were fears some would try to occupy the Liberal Democrat headquarters.

He said: "Given their intentions and the criminal damage seen in Parliament Street and Whitehall, a containment, also known by another phrase, was authorised at 1pm.

"The command team was in no doubt if protesters were given free reign in Parliament Square and the Government security zone, they would have tried to enter premises by force."

Sir Paul said police wanted to release those held in the pen earlier, but could not because of renewed violent clashes involving people outside the area.

He added that the process of photographing and identifying suspects before they were allowed to leave was "frustratingly slow".

The meeting heard that clashes continued late into the evening with sit-down demonstrations on Westminster Bridge and in Parliament Square.

Were pupils from your local school involved in the protests? Email studentriots@telegraph.co.uk

TAX INSPECTORS GET POLICE-LIKE POWERS TO TACKLE TAX EVADERS

Tax inspectors have been given police-like powers to access people’s bank statements, address books, payslips and even diaries, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor Published: 7:00AM BST 11 Sep 2010

The revenue has said it plans to recover the unpaid tax when they complete their self-assessment forms by January 2012 Photo: ALAMY
The inspectors can now turn up at people’s homes or businesses unannounced and examine their records if they believe not enough tax has been paid.
The news comes at the end of a week in which HM Revenue & Customs was accused of incompetence because of failings in the ‘pay-as-you-earn’ (PAYE) system. About 1.4 million people are now facing tax demands because of HMRC errors.

The scale of the new powers for tax inspectors, which were first introduced last year under the Finance Act 2008, have only become apparent after HMRC started to publish redacted versions of their training manuals on the internet.
Gary Ashford, head of tax risk, disputes and investigations at accountancy firm RSM Tenon, said that the powers under civil law made them inspectors more powerful than the police.
So far hundreds of people are thought to have been subject to the intrusive unannounced checks.
The powers are likely to be targeted at people who run businesses, but can also be targeted at anyone who works from home or has a portfolio of rental properties through buy-to-let mortgages.
Mr Ashford said: "It is not about avoidance or evasion, it is if a tax inspector wants to satisfy himself if someone is paying the right tax. It can be a business or individual – any taxpayer.
"These powers amount to the biggest change in between 30 and 40 years in the way that HMRC does its business. These significant changes have been introduced and the public doesn’t know about them."
HMRC has started to publish guidance on the powers on its website but has withheld information about people’s rights to challenge them.
Mr Ashford suggested that the full guidance should be published in order to maintain public confidence in the new powers.
The breadth of the powers in civil law also meant that greater checks and balances should be constructed to ensure that they are not abused, he said.
Last year a HMRC report said the tax gap – the amount of unpaid tax – was £40 billion. However unpaid tax clawed back by inspectors increased from £7.5 billion to £12 billion.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has pledged that the Coalition would crack down on tax evaders. He said last month: "Tax evasion is as bad as benefit fraud and both need to be combated."
A spokesman for HMRC said: “HMRC takes tax evasion very seriously. The vast majority of taxpayers play by the rules and they get understandably angry when they hear about the antics of the crooked minority who are determined to cheat.
"When we chase the cheats we act on behalf of that honest majority.”
She said that “greater safeguards” were in place to protect taxpayers. She said: “Unannounced visits, which are the exception, are only made where pre-arranging the visit would undermine the purpose of the inspection and are targeted at serious fraud.”

EU SECURITY PROPOSALS ARE 'DANGEROUSLY AUTHORITAN'

The European Union is stepping up efforts to build an enhanced pan-European system of security and surveillance which critics have described as “dangerously authoritarian”.

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels Published: 4:32PM BST 10 Jun 2009

Civil liberties groups say the proposals would create an EU ID card register, internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling systems.

Europe's justice ministers will hold talks on the "domestic security policy" and surveillance network proposals, known in Brussels circles as the "Stockholm programme", on July 15 with the aim of finishing work on the EU's first ever internal security policy by the end of 2009.

Jacques Barrot, the European justice and security commissioner, yesterday publicly declared that the aim was to "develop a domestic security strategy for the EU", once regarded as a strictly national "home affairs" area of policy.

"National frontiers should no longer restrict our activities," he said.

Mark Francois, Conservative spokesman on Europe, has demanded "immediate clarity on where the government stands on this".

"These are potentially dangerous proposals which could interfere in Britain's internal security," he said.

"The chaos and division in Gordon Brown's government is crippling Britain's ability to make its voice heard in Europe."

Critics of the plans have claimed that moves to create a new "information system architecture" of Europe-wide police and security databases will create a "surveillance state".

Tony Bunyan, of the European Civil Liberties Network (ECLN), has warned that EU security officials are seeking to harness a "digital tsunami" of new information technology without asking "political and moral questions first".

"An increasingly sophisticated internal and external security apparatus is developing under the auspices of the EU," he said.

Mr Bunyan has suggested that existing and new proposals will create an EU ID card register, internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling systems.

"In five or 10 years time when we have the surveillance and database state people will look back and ask, 'what were you doing in 2009 to stop this happening?'," he said.

Civil liberties groups are particularly concerned over "convergence" proposals to herald standardise European police surveillance techniques and to create "tool-pools" of common data gathering systems to be operated at the EU level.

Under the plans the scope of information available to law enforcement agencies and "public security organisations" would be extended from the sharing of existing DNA and fingerprint databases, kept and stored for new digital generation ID cards, to include CCTV video footage and material gathered from internet surveillance.

The Lisbon Treaty, currently stalled after Ireland's referendum rejection last year, creates a secretive new Standing Committee for Internal Security, known as COSI, to co-ordinate policy between national forces and EU organisations such as Europol, the Frontex borders agency, the European Gendarmerie Force and the Brussels intelligence sharing Joint Situation Centre or Sitcen.

EU officials have told The Daily Telegraph that the radical plans will be controversial and will need powers contained within the Lisbon Treaty, currently awaiting a second Irish vote this autumn.

"The British and some others will not like it as it moves policy to the EU," said an official. "Some of things we want to do will only be realistic with the Lisbon Treaty in place, so we need that too."

Internet campaign launched to move Tony Blair's book

It has already been panned by the critics and lampooned by his political opponents but now Tony Blair’s controversial autobiography has become the target of a mischievous internet campaign.

By Martin Evans Published: 8:00AM BST 04 Sep 2010

Fantasy and crime are among the chosen sections for the book

Hundreds of people have joined a group on the social networking site Facebook calling for his memoirs, entitled, A Journey, to be placed in the crime section of all bookstores.

The group urges shoppers to surreptitiously move all copies of the book, which was released on Wednesday, in protest at the former Prime Minister’s record on Iraq.

A number of bookstores have already reported finding Mr Blair’s book in “inappropriate sections” including fantasy and true crime.

The Facebook group called “Subversively move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section in book shops" claims it wants to “make bookshops think twice about where they categorise our generation’s greatest war criminal”.

Within hours of being launched dozens of users had logged onto the site with many posting photographs of the book on the wrong shelf.

Euan Booth, 24, a trainee nurse from Oxford, who helped set up the Facebook group, said he saw it as a good way of registering non-violent protest against the former Prime Minister.

He said: “I'm not an activist, just a voter who is still furious that he is able to lie to the British people, day after day, but this time earn money from it.

“This is a peaceful and mischievous way of making your point if you feel the same way. It’s a non-violent display of anger using the materials given to me – his book and the crime section – they're both there, I just put them together.

"It was pretty funny seeing the book still in the same section this morning when I went back in to check."

Another user Laurie Schram posted a picture of several copies among the nappies in a supermarket, writing: "No crime section at Tesco’s so I’ve put them with the wet wipes ... got quite a kick out of this."

Another had put it in the Dark Fantasy section of their local bookstore.

A spokesman for book chain Waterstone’s said: "We have not had any reports of this. The book is selling fantastically well from the front of the store and is also in the autobiography and politics sections."

Mr Blair is expected to be greeted by a large number of protesters when he attends a book signing at the Piccadilly branch of Waterstone’s next week.

Customers wishing to get a signed copy of his memoirs will be subjected to tight security checks.

Man who aimed to walk to India forced to quit

By Sarah Marcus

Published: 11:45AM GMT 29 Feb 2008

A British man who aimed to walk from Bristol to Gandhi's birthplace in Porbander, India without spending any money has been forced to give up at Calais.

Mark Boyle, 28, who began his trip with only t-shirt, sandals and a bandage four weeks ago, hoped that strangers along the way would provide him with food and places to stay.

He is a member of the Freeconomy movement, which believes in a " moneyless society in which no money changes and there is no duality between giving and receiving", and would like to see money disappear altogether.

After reaching Calais Mr Boyle made the decision to quit his trip because as he could not speak French people thought he was an asylum seeker or a freeloader and would not give him food or board.

The 28-year-old kept an online diary of his adventure, where in one of his final entries he wrote: "…they had also seen us as just a bunch of freeloading backpackers, which is the complete opposite of what the pilgrimage is about".

Mr Boyle, who was joined at Dover by two companions, apologised to his supporters and said that he was unable to find words to express his disappointment at having to quit.

But he also revealed that his dream is still alive. He now plans to learn French while walking round the British coast in preparation for a renewed assault on his passage to India next year.

He said: "Whilst walking in the UK, I intend to learn French and to hit the continent again as soon as we feel we are ready.

THE MAN WHO LIVES WITHOUT MONEY; Mark Boyle GAVE UP USING CASH OVER A YEAR AGO AND LOVES HIS NEW LIFESTYLE.

By Jessica Salter
Published: 12:54PM BST 18 Aug 2010
Mark Boyle, 31, gave up using money in November 2008. He lives in a caravan that he got from Freecycle (uk.freecycle.org), which is parked at an organic farm near Bristol, where Boyle volunteers three days a week. He grows his own food, has a wood-burning stove and produces electricity from a solar panel (it cost £360 before the experiment started). He has a mobile phone for incoming calls only and a solar-powered laptop. Boyle, who has been vegan for six years, set up the Freeconomy in 2007 (justfortheloveofit.org), an online network that encourages people to share skills or possessions and now has 17,000 members. The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living (Oneworld Publications, £10.99) is out now.
It all started in a pub. My friend and I were talking about all the problems in the world, such as sweatshops, environmental destruction, factory farms, animal testing, wars over resources. I realised they were all, in their own way, connected to money.
I decided to give up cash. I sold my houseboat in Bristol and gave up my job at an organic food company. I made a list of everything I bought and tried to figure out which I could get in another way. For toothpaste I use a mixture of cuttlefish bone and wild fennel seeds. Things like iPods you just have to knock off the list, but birds in the trees around my kitchen have become my new iPod.
Everything takes more time and effort in a moneyless world. Handwashing my clothes in a sink of cold water, using laundry liquid made by boiling up nuts on my rocket stove, can take two hours, instead of half an hour using a washing machine.
It was meant to be just for a year but I enjoy the lifestyle so much that I’m just going to keep living like this. I’ve never been happier or fitter.
I had a very normal childhood. I think at first my parents wondered what on earth I was doing. But now they totally support me and they say that they may even try it themselves.
Sometimes it is frustrating trying to socialise with no money. I grew up in Northern Ireland where it’s a show of manliness to buy your mates the first round. But I invite them back to my caravan instead to have homemade cider around the campfire.
I am single at the moment, but because of the book and my blog a few women seem interested in me. Just being a vegan cuts down the number of women I’m compatible with, never mind being moneyless. I’ll be lucky if there’s one woman in the whole country who wants to give up cash for life – and I might not even fancy her.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenerliving/7951968/The-man-who-lives-without-money.html