On the brink of a week long celebration of the Russian Arctic Convoys at Aultbea on Loch Ewe – Continue reading
Tag Archives: Russia
Faslane, Russia and risks of hosting UK nuclear submarine fleet
There has been discussion relating to this issue Continue reading
Russia honours Scots veterans of Arctic Convoys
Scotland’s surviving veterans of the World War II Arctic or Russian Convoys have been honoured by Russia Continue reading
Poland lends Iceland $198 million
The UK shamingly used anti-terrorist legislation to freeze Continue reading
ForArgyll is Now More Secure with Super Captcha
For those of you with accounts on ForArgyll.com you’ll find a new field to fill in on the log in page. It’s based on a system called Captcha, and is designed to ensure only humans can log in. We’ve noticed recently that those redoubtable spam-types from China and Russia have been registering in larger numbers than ever. They don’t get any further because the system we have is designed to make everything secure, but frankly, like any bouncer tired of turfing out the same old miscreants on a daily basis, we’ve decided to just block entry to them. This version of Captcha does it, and does it well. It even caters for those who can’t work out what the distorted letters say by allowing audio playback.
If anyone has problems with the new system let us know and we’ll sort it for you one way or another.
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Jobs safeguarded at Lighthouse Caledonia
As For Argyll reported a few days ago after the Lighthouse Caledonia EGM on 3rd March, that meeting agreed and approved all of the proposals put forward to safeguard the company’s stabilisation.
Some of the media have tried to rain on the parade of the survival of a major Argyll and Scottish employer which had been under threat. The complaint is that that profits are going to Norway. Do they complain about Iberdrola, Spanish owner of Scottish Power? And do they compain about Ferrovial, Spanish owner of BAA, operator of Edinburgh and Glasgow airports – and still, without penalty, defying the Competition Commission’s order to sell one of the two.
The problem with what is called ‘the liberalisation of the market’ is that anyone anywhere can own pretty well anything in the UK. The downside is that we are potentially and constantly prey to interests other than our own – which is of particular concern in the area of utilities. The positive side of the coin is that the sort of investment Britain lost the stomach for a long time ago will be made by external business interests in return for what profits they can make.
And a key point of great current significance is that the jobs and the salaries stay in Argyll and elsewhere in Scotland.
Jim Mather, Argyll’s MSP and Enterprise Minister, has put the matter in perspective in his welcoming of the news that an inward investment deal worth £17m has made the future of Lighthouse Caledonia – the country’s third largest salmon producer - much brighter and means that more than 200 jobs will be secure. He says: ‘I am very pleased to learn that after restructuring and a share issue worth around £17m that the future of lighthouse Caledonian appears secure.
‘Last year Lighthouse Caledonian suffered a serious shortfall in liquidity and there were fears that the company might have to go into receivership.
‘Northern Link, a global private equity investor in aquaculture and marine related companies, with interests around the world including Norway, Peru and Russia, has taken a controlling interest in Lighthouse Caledonia ASA. Northern Link will work closely with the present company management and the many local communities where business is based to sustain and support the existing structure of the company and safeguard the remaining workforce which exceeds 200.
‘The company has its headquarters in Paisley, its processing plant at Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne, and fish farming operations at more than 40 sites spread across the West Coast of Scotland and in the Western Isles.
‘The company provides important employment at many locations where work is scarce and where job losses would have had a severely disproportionate effect. I am delighted to learn of the a successful turnaround and hope and trust that the company will known prosper’.
10th Outer Hebrides Bird Report available – with some shock discoveries
Can you imagine a young lamb head-butting a Golden Eagle in a struggle for survival? And would you have thought that a young Golden Eagle would run along the ground after rabbits? Well both these incidents actually happened and both were recorded – the lamb’s head-butt at Baile Ailean and the gound chase by the young Golden Eagle on the Sollas Machair.
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) have funded the production of the 10th Outer Hebrides Bird Report and these – and other, incidents feature in it, along with records of the islands’ resident birds and exotic visitors across all four seasons of the year.
The report charts some of the remarkable stories of migration which some species undertake to reach the Western isles in the course of their seasonal wanderings. Travellers to the islands included an arctic tern from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a woodcock from Russia, sandpipers and whooper swans from Iceland and storm petrels from County Mayo. One determined dunlin left the balmy shores of Setuba in Portugal to head for Stinky Bay (why?), Benbecula.
The report also notes the earliest ever sightings of snowy owls and the arrival of two colourful hoopoes from sub tropical climes.
Amongst the exceptional sightings was that of ‘Albert’, a 47 year old black-browed albatross, photographed by Dods Macfarlane of Ness, happily roosting in the middle of the vast gannet colony on the cliffs of Sula Sgeir. This far-travelled returning visitor from the Southern oceans caused such a stir that scores of twitchers from all over the UK headed out to the remote rock on chartered boats to log their own sighting.
Of wide interest, given the continuing standoff between crofters and natural heritage supporters over the reintroduction of the white-tailed Sea Eagle, is the detailed account in the report on this raptor’s diet. This picture had been put together from the prey contents of nests. These were shown to contain mainly the remains of seabirds – fulmars in particular, followed by mackerel, lumpsucker, dogfish, red deer, mountain hare, lamb, brown rat, raven, short-eared owl, great black backed gull, puffin, greylag goose and eider duck.
Brian Rabbitts (you couldn’t make it up), Coordinator of the Outer Hebrides Bird Group says: ‘We are delighted to see the efforts and input of so many people included in this publication which we hope will be of great interest to anyone with a general interest in the nature and wildlife of the Western Isles as well as those with a more specific interest in birds. We thank all contributors and hope people enjoy reading about the birds of the Western Isles and the very special environment we have here to support such a rich and varied bird population’.
Copies of the Outer Hebrides Bird Report are available from Brian Rabbitts (himself) at 6 Carinish, Isle of North Uist HS6 5HL. It costs £8.50 per copy, which includes postage and packaging. Please make cheques to Outer Hebrides Bird Report.
The photograph above is of a black-browed albatross – but unfortunately not of Albert – and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
Cyberwars are here – and they’re cheap, silent, invisible
The Georgian/ Russian engagement over South Ossetia was also fought on a battlefield beyond our ken – in cyberspace. Websites on both sides were knocked out in concerted attacks, particularly against Georgia. These aggressive web campaigns have happened before, as they did during Russia’s disputes with Baltic States, Estonia and Lithuania in the last couple of years. However, ramping up the significance of cyberwar, this time the web attacks were launched simultaneously with physical ground and air attacks. The Independent, in a well researched news piece on the development, quotes Dr David Betz of King;s College, London’s War Studies Department as saying: ‘The US has already created units for cyberdefence, so too has China and, no doubt, Russia and probably many others’.
A huge advantage of cyber attack is that the identity of the aggressor is obscured whereas, if you get hit with a missile, you know where it has come from. Cyber war is also very cheap and easy to mount. It only takes a single hacker or a small dedicated group to cause significant harm. According to the New York Times, quoting the Research Director of an American internet traffic tracking company, it costs about four cents (two pence) per machine. “You could fund an entire cyber-warfare campaign for the cost of replacing a tank tread.” The cyberwar over South Ossetia saw the sites of the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs taken out, along with online English language sites, ‘The Messenger’ and ‘Civil’ and Georgian President Saakashvili’s personal site. Countries under attack in this way can find themselves without their emergency response systems. Such conflicts are about ensuring absence rather than presence. This means that we don’t know they’re going on – and those silenced cannot tell us.