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.

Photo + more photos: indymedia

12.15pm: Eco warrior forces of the Great Climate Change Swoop, who have been filtering into front line positions over night, are now advancing in a three pronged attack on the EDF power station Ratcliffe-on-Soar near Nottingham, one of the biggest in Britain.

However they are meeting with heavy resistance from government forces loyal to EDF.

Meanwhile mopping up operations are still going on at the highly fortified EDF YouTube PR base which came under heavy attack by swoop videos earlier in the week, causing EDF PR Forces to retreat under intense comment fire. EDF PR have since mounted several counter attacks against the militants with some success, but sporadic comment exchanges continue.

Latest (1pm): Swoop forces at Ratcliffe power station (one of the cleanest in the world) have broken though government lines at several locations and have breached the perimeter fence.

2.37 pm: Swoop forces are now near cooling towers, while others have blocked the strategically important train track.

5.22 pm: Government forces say they have captured 21 Swoopers who are being held as POW’s.

• safehouse security status: red alert, total security lock down, activating emergency generators now.

“Don’t lecture us”, said David Camercon.

Would you buy a used but ‘born again’ Tory party (with a copy of the Sun) from this mad looking preacher man who says he wants to lead a Tory mob to “tear down the state”? David Cameron’s sales pitch (speech) in full.

• Analysis: If it was an intelligence test, Cameron dived; either the Tories are doomed, or we are.

• schmoo’s credit crunch package to restart britain

• tory arrested over £150 bottle of champagne

Should be glad, gold went over $1000 and I have got some (in the safehouse’s deepest vault), but not glad at all. It does not mean the gold miners get paid anything like what they are worth (even if they go on strike), nor will there be any less cyanide pollution.

Above: Intro to The Story of Stuff by Annie Lenoard. Watch the whole film here.

Ministry of Defence files, documenting around 800 UFO sightings between 1981 and 1996 have just been released.

To celebrate this event, ’schmmo experience productions’ have produced a new music video: I Went to the Supermarket and I Saw Some UFOs, but judging by some of the comments on Youtube this has annoyed a few UFO lovers. Current safehouse security level has been raised to: unknown.

The Daily Telegraph suggests a secret US spy plane could be behind many UFO sightings, but publishes a list of the top ten unexplained UFO ‘close encounters’.

Meanwhile the ever cynical Guardian publishes a UFO study that supposedly shows a marked increase in UFO sightings whenever a UFO related film or TV series is released; for example a surge to 158 sightings in 2005 when Doctor Who is relaunched on the BBC. Needless to say, the study is utterly flawed.