“Booming School’ is where thousands of US oil workers are trained in the correct way to set up the ‘booms’ used to  protect coastlines from major oil spills. If done correctly the technique can be very successful. This video shows that BP is doing the booming supposed to protect the Gulf Coast completely wrong. It is enough to make anyone use bad language (warning this video contains swearing).

Hurricanes may dump BP oil all over the USA

The Hurricane season starts on June 1st, and US climate experts expect it to be “active to extremely active”. It is likely that any Hurricane that hits the Gulf of Mexico in the next few months will scoop up the BP oil along with the water and dump it all over America in storms of raining tar balls. There will also the storm surges caused by the hurricanes which will force the oil pollution further inland.

8 – 14  hurricanes are expected this year, of which 3 – 7 could be major according to a forecast just released by the main US climate agency National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“If this outlook holds true, this season could be one of the more active on record,” said Jane Lubchenco, NOAA’s administrator.

NOAA’s 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook report gives special mention to the risk of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico this year:

Historically, all above normal seasons have produced at least one named storm in the Gulf of Mexico, and 95% of those seasons have at least two named storms in the Gulf. Most of this activity (80%) occurs during August-October. However, 50% of above normal seasons have had at least one named storm in the region during June-July.

The whole BBC website has gone off the internet and has been for several hours now. But almost nobody is mentioning it. Here at the safehouse data center deep beneath central London we immediately activated code red when the first episode of the new Spooks series suddenly evaporated. A massive internet glitch seems to have occurred for a few minutes during which a number of UK websites became unavailable, including the BBC which remains down. If they do not fix this by the morning the whole world will see a big internet crater where the BBC once was.

This is how the world would be if Murdock and his vile friends in the Tory Party had their way: Tories threaten to tear up Lord Reith’s BBC legacy.

• Update (AM 5th Nov): BBC back, there are suggestions that the BBC’s problems may be with one of their internet service providers Akamai while a brief statement from the BBC blames “network problems”.

Royal Mail Postal Strike Tragedy: Why? A postman tries to explain (letter in Guardian):

“Consider the fact that delivery office managers (DOMs) will get £8,000 each for making improvements in their offices. Section managers, however, only receive £2,000 each. The postmen who have been “encouraged” to help make things work will receive £0. As an added thank-you we will not be receiving a pay rise – a kind of “stick and stick approach”, as they can’t afford carrots. In addition the chairman is to have £145,000 paid to top up his pension fund at a time when there is insufficient money available from the huge recently announced profits to alleviate the Royal Mail pension fund that is allegedly a little short. Obviously the £2m bonus he got in the past was insufficient.

• Scottish Government delivers blow to Royal Mail

• John Lewis sidelines Royal Mail

• Royal Mail loses Amazon contract as postal strikes loom

• Delivered into intensive care

• Windows 7 ships early to avoid postal strike

• Royal Mail Under Attack

Petition to the United Nations:

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed. This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.

Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003. But what is more alarming is that doctors in Fallujah have said, “a significant number of babies that do survive begin to develop severe disabilities at a later stage”.

As one of a number of doctors, scientists and those with deep concern for Iraq, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, a British hospital physician, wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon. Clare Short, M.P. asking about this situation. She wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon.Douglas Alexander, M.P. the Secretary of State of the Department for International Development (a post she had held before she resigned on a matter of principle in May 2003 ) asking for clarification of the position of deformed children in Fallujah.

She received a reply dated 3rd September 2009 (two days after the Sky TV broadcast of 1st September 2009 ) from a junior minister, deputy to The Secretary of State, Mr. Gareth Thomas MP, Duty Minister, Department for International Development. In his reply he denies that there are more than two or three deformed babies in Fallujah in a year and asserts that there is, therefore, no problem. This is at wild variance with reports coming out of Fallujah. One grave digger of a single cemetery is burying four to five babies a day, most of which he says are deformed.

Clare Short passed us a copy of this letter. It bears a remarkable similarity to three other written answers we have received over a four year period, in regard to child health and the use of depleted uranium. All these letters are based on lies and an aim to confuse the recipients. In her autobiography “Honorable Deception?” Clare Short says “The first instinct of Number 10 (Downing Street) is to lie.”We regard the mendacity of Mr. Thomas’s letter, and of the other letters we have received, as extremely serious. These letters do not deal with minor matters of corruption, or taxes, but do deal with the use of armed forces and deadly weapons.

The use of certain weapons has tremendous repercussions. Iraq will become a country, if it has not already done so, where it is advisable not to have children. Other countries will watch what has happened in Iraq, and imitate the Coalition Allies’ total disregard of the United Nations Charter, The Geneva, and Hague Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Some countries, such as Afghanistan, will also come to experience the very long term damage to the environment, measured in billions of years, and the devastating effect of depleted uranium and white phosphorous munitions.

If, as we say in our letter to the Duty Minister of the Department for International Development, the UK Government clearly does not know the effects of the weapons it uses, nor, as a matter of policy, does “it do body counts”, how can the UK Government judge whether it is conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan according to International Law, especially in terms of “proportionality” and long term damage to the natural environment? How can the UK know about the illegality of the weapons systems it sells on the international market, such as the “Storm Shadow” missile, if the very Department of the Government that is supposed to assess the deaths and medical needs of children and adults in Iraq is not telling the truth.

We request from the United Nations General Assembly the following:

1. To acknowledge that there is a serious problem regarding the unprecedented number of birth defects and cancer cases in Iraq specifically in Fallujah, Basra, Baghdad and Al – Najaf.

2. To set up an independent committee to conduct a full investigation into the problem of the increased number of birth defects and cancers in Iraq.

3. To implement the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces including Depleted Uranium, and White Phosphorus.

4. To prevent children and adults entering contaminated areas to minimize exposure to these hazards.

5. To investigate whether war crimes, or crimes against humanity, have been committed, and thereby uphold the United Nations Charter, The Geneva and Hague Conventions, and The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court.

Sincerely, The Undersigned

• This petition (sign here) is being organised by Iraq Solidarity UK.