The Wall Street Journal Editorial cable news report featured an interview with one of their reporters who lived in the home of a high-level Iraqi diplomate in '02. Perhaps the most illuminating revelation was the fact that the Iranian ambassador to Iraq's last job was as Iran's long-time liason to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

That only goes to show - it really is a small world after all.

On a more positive note, he also explained that since the Shiites in southern Iraq are Arabs while the Shiites in Iran are Persian, that there is no real love lost between them.

Bb, did it really come as any surprise that the Peers rejected the MPs ID plan? It would apear that the MPs were trying to "sneak a cumpulsory card" past the Peers. Did the MPs have reason to believe that the Peers would not risk being overturned again? There appears to be a subtelty here that I am missing.

As I have not looked very deeply into the specifics of the ID issue, I am hesitant to comment. On the face of it, since you need an ID to drive and most of us drive, most of us already have an ID card, as it were, correct? In practice, how different is a "National ID card"?

Regards the DNA issue, personally, the construction and maintenance of any DNA database causes my hair to bristle. The same objection that the opponents of Bush's "Secret Wiretaps" raised is equally as valid in this case. If the authorities have sufficient crime-scene evidence, then the courts will gladly give them the authority to collect a DNA sample to test for a match.

Without going Orwellian or "conspiritorial" just the thought of law enforcement agencies possessing one's "biological physical identity" is alarming. This is a very dangerous blurring of science and legal oppression (called law). I personally would argue that the policy of maintaining DNA under any circumstances is a violation of a person's religious and civil liberties. Since no one can prove that the soul exists independently from the physical body, it must be a fundamental component of every personal religious belief system that no agency/power has the right of free access to one's own DNA/soul, in any form or manifestation.

Until we know differently, the government must be compelled not to have direct access to data as personal and basically fundamental as this. We/they really have no rational choice.

more contempory news

rely on the press/tv to keep you informed har har har


want a fate worse than death har har har mass media looks after itself

is going to beat every bodies brains into pulp n nobody can stop this proceess

cept DEMT www.twra5t.co.uk you no when you stand a chance har har har

Let me say from the outset that I have no problems with carrying an ID per se, the problem I have is what New Labour are attempting to do.

Taking you point about the driving licence and the national ID card. The difference between the two is choice, one does not have to drive, it is a choice that one makes and the result is that you need some way of identifying that you are qualified to do it, hence the driving licence. The national ID card on the other hand is as a result on ones existance, we have no choice on that one (we do but that is call suicide). The problem is that New Labour say we will have to pay for the ID card (every 5 to 10 years an if we loose it of have to replace it) i.e. a tax on life. The figures being muted are at the moment are £50+ per card, independant experts at the LSE are saying it will need to be higher, since I am the sole wage earner i will have to foot the bill of all my family

ID Cards - LSE declines to issue further costings because of 'secrecy and contradictions'
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInfo...ard_StatusReportJan06.htm

New Labour claim the ID card will help prevent terrorism, prevent ID fraud, reduce benefit fraud, reduce crime of other type, curtail illegal immigration etc. etc. etc.

However to achieve any of these the scheme needs to be compulsory, both in having and carrying the card, but to get the scheme passed its own backbench MP it is going to be voluntary

The biggest issue by far is the amount of data they are wanting to store both on the card and on a huge multi-access database system.

What data will ID cards store?
Fears have been raised by opponents of identity cards about the amount of information which could be stored on the database. Here is the full list of the 49 types of information which the Identity Cards Bill says should be on the register.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4630045.stm

Edit ---------------------

Additionally there is the problem that they came up with in trials, that of the roughly 160,000 people for whom none of the biometrics being used will work; people who have irises that cannot be differentiated from the pupil, fingers that have callouses or worn ridges so the print recognition wont work, changes to their faces and, or hair so facial recognition will not work. The question that no one has bothered to answer is what will happen to these people. Are they destined to be outcasts from society because they cannot prove their identity or the ID system gives false negatives? Are they destined to be arrested for ID fraud each time they use their card?

One thing that New Labour also want to do is tie all the benefits systems together via the ID database, this I fear will mean that for anyone wishing to make use of the benefits system will have to have an ID, so the system will become de facto compulsory.