There has long been a history of animosity between the competing Palestinian factions. Hamas surprised the West last year by triumphing in democratic elections. However, Israel, the US and Europe refused to recognise Hamas as a legitimate government, calling it a terrorist organisation, and suspended aid. Fatah retained control of the Interior ministry, which handles security, despite the fact that constitutionally, it should have passed to Hamas. The capture of the Presidential compound in Gaza City yesterday was the turning point in the conflict, as it was the symbolic heart of Fatah’s powerbase. It has been the site of the imprisonment and torture of many Hamas fighters. Today they will hold Friday prayers in the compound to celebrate their victory.

There is little in the way of hope for a successful coalition government to be formed between the two parties. Hamas refers to Fatah as traitors, collaborating with Israel and the West. Hamas view any attempt to make peace with Israel a betrayal of Islam.

The events caused great concern in neighbouring Israel, which now has a fundamentalist Islam state which has vowed to destroy Israel on its Southern borders. “It has to be defined as a hostile and dangerous entity and be treated as such, because it is,” said Amos Gilad, a senior officer in the Israeli Defence Force. Israel is now expected to tighten its border controls and step up its military presence in the area. The current situation was catalysed by the Israeli withdrawal of its settlers from the strip in 2005. There are some calls from Israeli hardliners to cut off water and electricity to supplies to the strip, as this victory for Hamas increases the chances of a war between the Palestine and Israel.

Tony Blair has set out the arguments which will influence the upcoming policy decisions regarding energy. Writing yesterday in The Times, Mr Blair suggests that current methods of energy production are unsustainable, and will need to replaced within twenty years. He draws the link between carbon emissions and global warming; saying what is now accepted wisdom, that we must produce our energy by methods whose end result is not pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The oft-cited Stern report estimates that global GDP will suffer by between 5 and 20 per cent per year as a result of climate change if emissions aren’t cut in the coming years. When Labour came to power in 1997, they aimed to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2010. This target now looks very ambitious.

Mr Blair also raises the issue of Britain’s dependency on other countries for energy. Although historically, Britain has been energy self sufficient, as supplies of North Sea oil and gas dwindle, we will increasingly be sourcing fuels from elsewhere. Relying on politically unstable, or even hostile, states for energy requirements presents a great risk to Britain’s national security. (See my article below] on the increasing hostility of Russia and its willingness to use its energy reserves as political currency.) Blair sums up his argument thus; “We need a policy that conforms to the rising concern about climate change and gives Britain the secure, safe and politically acceptable supplies of energy that our livelihood demands.”

This article from the Prime Minister follows on from a lengthy and controversial consultation with industry and pressure groups, resulting in a recent government white paper. Alistair Darling presented the paper in the House of Commons, and said that he held the ‘preliminary view’ that development of nuclear facilities in this country should proceed. However, the government will continue consultations, and make a full announcement in the autumn. The government favours the development of nuclear power because of its low carbon footprint, and the fact that it can be produced in this country. Critics have pointed out that the Uranium required for nuclear fission will need to be imported from somewhere, and the supplies in friendly countries such as Australia are dwindling.

Mr Darling also emphasised the government’s commitment to developing sources of alternative energy, which he hopes will cover 15 per cent of the UK’s energy requirements by 2020. It currently supplies around 5 per cent. However, the white paper reaches the conclusion that it is unrealistic to count on wind, solar and ocean power to supply this country with the majority of its energy. There is also to be more research into ‘carbon capture’ technology, which minimises the amount of carbon emissions produced by burning fossil fuels. However, this technology is still its infancy, and cannot be relied upon to reduce the country’s carbon footprint single-handedly.

The prospects for the two powers coming to agreement look gloomy, as both camps used uncompromising language which doesn’t leave much in the way of middle ground to achieve a solution. Sir Ken Macdonald, Chief Prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service said “I have concluded that the evidence is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of Mr Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning. I have instructed CPS lawyers to take immediate steps to seek the early extradition of Andrei Lugovoi… so that he may be charged with murder and be brought swiftly before a court in London to be prosecuted for this extraordinarily grave crime.” This statement was backed forcefully by Downing Street and the government. A spokesman for the Kremlin stated that the Russian constitution does not permit Russian nationals to be transported to foreign soil to face prosecution; the foreign state must present the evidence to a Russian court, where the trial will be carried out. If this were to happen in this case, it is likely that the prosecution would struggle to gain any ground, because of the potential implications for the involvement of the state of the murder.

This marks a significant low point for relations between Britain and Russia, which are possibly at their most hostile since the end of the Cold War. Russia has been gradually hardening its foreign policy stance towards the West over the past months. It recently revoked the ‘Weapons in Europe’ treaty after Condoleeza Rice insisted that US anti-missile systems would be deployed in ex Warsaw pact countries Poland and Czech Republic. Although this treaty is now practically moot as it was put in place essentially to control Soviet tank divisions in Europe, it is a worrying symbolic gesture. It has also kicked European oil giant Royal Dutch Shell out of an oilfield in Sakhalin and replaced it with a state-owned company, and is threatening BP with similar moves. Russia is increasingly willing to use its energy reserves as political leverage against states it has disputes with. This strengthens the argument for moving Britain’s dependency away from oil and gas (of which Russia is a vital supplier) and towards a mix of Nuclear and alternative sources.

‘Where’s this rant going?’ I hear you cry, avid Ibloggers…

Well, this week my suspicions were confirmed, as menswear chain Burton’s came under fire for selling a t shirt whose decoration was Cyrillic script. The chain had clearly not even taken the trouble to consult a Russian speaker as to what the sentence actually said. It turned out to be a slogan of an extreme right-wing Russian nationalist organisation. The slogan was ‘Cleanse Russia of all non-Russians.’ People! Fashionistas! Beware of draping yourselves in symbols of which you have no understanding. You never know what you might be standing for.

This is a truly historic feat. Two powers that have built their reputations vowing to destroy one another have been persuaded to come together and form a government. This is due, in no small part to the persistence and personal involvement of Blair and his Secretary for Ulster, Peter Hain. This achievement proves Blair’s great ability as a statesman, and I sincerley congratulate him and the Northern Ireland assembly for this huge step forward.

Politicians are, of course, there to be criticised, but equally it would be churlish not to recognise their achievments when they are as significant as this.

Imagine my amazement, therefore, when I saw an advert for a new service being offered to mobile phone users. You take out a subscription (£1.50 a week I think), and every week you get a text message giving you two pieces of vital information; the name of your perfect husband and the ideal name for your baby. Should this information be even slightly accurate, rather than randomly generated, I should consider it good value for £1.50. The real absurdity is that the ‘business’ behind this venture is proposing to sell you one baby name and one husband name per week. Besides the fact that this should expose the service to any potential customers as the nonesense it is, I would suggest that it does nothing to promote the family values, relationship stability (and ideally, low birth rate) certain track-suit wearing, special brew drinking sections of our society are sadly lacking.

This development comes as part of the developing market of ‘carbon offsetting’, in which companies ‘buy’ carbon credits from other companies who are taking carbon out of the atmosphere. Inevitably, there has been a good deal of concern about the ecological implications, as well as the effectiveness, of such a project.

I am yet to fully accept the link between global warming and carbon emmissions, but if you do, this kind of thing probably looks worth a try.

We are long way from building a computer which even comes close to the processing power of mouse’s brain, some very clever and confusing researchers have discovered. Listen carefully, here comes the science bit.

“Assuming an average firing rate of 1Hz, the entire memory must be refreshed every second, each neuron must be updated at every simulation time step, and each neuron communicates to each of its targets at least once a second.”

Which apparently means that the most powerful computers in the world contain about a 10th of the processing power of the brain of an average high-school educated mouse.

This puts the brakes somewhat on speculation that a ‘conscious’ supercomputer is on the horizon.

Maybe this research will stop my nightmares about the day computers turn against us, resulting in a terminator-style epic battle between man and machine, where if victorious, computers will use us to write their blogs. Or maybe I’ve got other problems.

This begs the question, what is the point of commissioning a Prince you can’t send into active service? Harry is understandably outraged at talk of his being kept behind. As a professional soldier, the idea of sitting at home while his men are sent into combat is nightmarish. So should we continue to require our royals to be trained in the military if we aren’t prepared to send them to front line?