Monthly Archives: May 2018

Legal, Science, Scotland, Society, Technology

Forensic Science: Scientists will bring an end to unsolved crime

FORENSICS

SCOTLAND’S top forensics scientist has predicted it will be virtually impossible to get away with a crime within a generation due to advances in DNA technology.

The director of forensic services at the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), Tom Nelson, said rapid improvements made it more likely that criminals would always be found out.

. Related DNA Phenotyping…

He said the SPA was looking at ’12 cold cases’ in which modern techniques were being used to analyse old evidence in an effort to bring offenders to justice.

New methods mean DNA traces can be found on clothing and other materials even when there is no blood – something that would have been impossible in the past.

Mr Nelson said one of the guiding principles of forensic science is ‘every contact leaves a trace’.

He said: ‘We may be recovering material at the moment which doesn’t necessarily allow us to detect an individual but, as science develops in the next 15 years, that will become possible – science is always moving on.’

Mr Nelson said the challenge for police forensics experts was to ‘throw everything that we have in our toolbox’ at securing genetic samples from crime scenes.

He said that thanks to improvements in DNA analysis ‘an individual may commit a crime and think they have got away with it for a number of years, but I believe that individual will be detected’.

The SPA’s current caseload features 12 cold cases, stretching back up to 20 years, in which forensic investigators are analysing evidence to gauge whether new breakthroughs are possible.

Mr Nelson pointed to forensics work which contributed to the conviction of nine members of a gang who were jailed for a total of 87 years in January for drug and gun offences.

Their crimes included the ‘merciless’ torture of a man over a cocaine debt and an arsenal of weapons hidden in a car. A report by Mr Nelson revealed that more than 200 DNA samples were recovered from seized firearms. More than 1,000 DNA samples and 1,000 fingerprints were recovered from various scenes.

The results of these tests identified all of the initial suspects in the case and uncovered an additional six people that were not initially linked to the group until the forensic results were provided.

Mr Nelson’s report states: ‘Criminals should be aware that they cannot escape without leaving traces of material at the scene of their crime.’

Modern forensic techniques include DNA 24, a profile kit which targets 24 parts of a person’s DNA, whereas in the past it was only possible to look at 11 areas.

However, the daughter of a former police officer, who was wrongly accused of perjury when a fingerprint found at a murder scene in 1997 was mistakenly identified as hers, questioned the SPA’s confidence in forensic science.

He said: ‘While forensics has come a long way, they still perpetuate this fiction of perfection which is not true – rubbish in, rubbish out. Human error in the collection of forensic evidence and in its analysis is still a contributor to miscarriages of justice.’

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Iran, Israel, Middle East, Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

Israel, Iran and the tinderbox of the Middle East

ISRAEL-IRAN

Israel is prepared for a direct conflict with Iran if the threat of the regime’s terrorist proxies increases, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned.

TENSIONS between arch-enemies Israel and Iran have once again threatened to plunge the two countries into direct military conflict – one which could lead to a new and terrifying regional war.

Any escalation would drag in other regional major powers such as Saudi Arabia and the Lebanese-backed Shia militia Hezbollah. These proxies are aligned militarily with the Middle East’s two main opposing power brokers, the United States and Russia.

A ferocious Israeli missile strike on alleged Iranian military bases in Syria on Sunday reportedly killed dozens of soldiers. It is certainly true that Israel has launched more than 100 such strikes inside Syria since the bloody and brutal civil war broke out in that country seven years ago. Those strikes have targeted both Iranian and Hezbollah forces sent to the country to help prop up the regime of President Assad. The latest attacks are the most brazen and deadly yet.

Those attacks were then followed by a dramatic claim from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he has proof the mullahs in Tehran have secretly been developing nuclear weapons, in blatant contravention of an internationally brokered deal – secured by Barack Obama in 2015 – aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

It saw the lifting of crippling economic sanctions on Iran, in return for strictly imposed limitations to the country’s controversial nuclear energy programme.

Mr Netanyahu accused Iran of having a secret plan called ‘Project Amad’, whose primary objective and aim is to produce five ten-kiloton nuclear weapons.

This unverified claim will have been music to the ears of Donald Trump and the anti-Iran hawks the President has surrounded himself with in the White House.

Even before this dramatically theatrical display from Israel, Mr Trump has appeared stubbornly determined to scrap the controversial nuclear deal, because he sees it as being fatally flawed. The deal is still strongly backed by Britain, the EU, Russia, China and the UN-sponsored watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All remain adamant that inspections show Iran has and continues to abide by its principles.

During a visit to the White House last week, French president Emmanuel Macron similarly urged Mr Trump to stick to the agreement. This echoed earlier pleas by Theresa May and Angela Merkel.

But it is apt to ask whether Mr Trump is listening more closely to his old friend Mr Netanyahu?

What we do know is that, as the deadline nears for Mr Trump’s decision on whether to ratify the nuclear deal – due next month – unprecedented threats and counter-threats of death and destruction are being routinely hurled between Tehran and Tel Aviv.

In the past few weeks, each has promised to destroy the other’s major cities if threatened, raising fears that the proxy war they have been waging in Syria may soon explode into a direct military confrontation.

We should remember, too, that over the past few decades Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly, but erroneously, suggested that Iran is just months away from declaring it has developed a nuclear weapon. Still, it is easy to see why he is so paranoid. Since the revolution in 1979 brought the Shia Islam mullahs to power, the Tehran regime has proudly promoted the destruction of Israel as its top foreign policy objective.

Worse for Israel, the civil war in Syria has resulted in thousands of Iranian fighters joining thousands more militia men from Hezbollah, Iran’s main regional Shia ally, which has already fought numerous wars with Israel.

Their ostensible aim was to help Assad fight Islamic State and other Islamist rebel groups, but that brutal experience means they are now battle-hardened. They are armed to the hilt and firmly entrenched right on the Jewish state’s border.

 

UNTIL now, Russia – which is allied with Assad, Iran and Hezbollah, but which has warm relations with Israel – has played a delicate diplomatic balancing act, backing Israel’s enemies while turning a blind eye to the Jewish state attacks against them in Syria.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin recently signalled, however, that his patience with Mr Netanyahu had run out, and he has promised to deliver the advanced S-300 air defence missile system to Assad to help him defend against such aerial attacks. Israel responded by saying that any such system would be destroyed before it could become operational.

It is easy to see, then, why the price of oil is soaring on the back of Mr Netanyahu’s claims. It’s a sign that the international markets are concerned that supply will be disrupted by strife and conflict in the region.

The great fear for diplomats around the world is that, if Mr Trump does decide to withdraw from the nuclear deal and reimposes sanctions, Israel will launch unilateral air strikes against what it says are Iranian nuclear facilities. That would almost certainly provoke a devastating military response – not just from Tehran, but also its allies in Syria and Lebanon.

And if that does happen, it will take a massive effort of will to stop the US and Russia coming to the aid of their allies – at which point the risks of a global conflict will rise sharply. The tinderbox of the Middle East is once again threatening to drag two of the world’s great powers to the edge of the abyss.

How the UN sanctions were lifted in 2015

The 2015 nuclear deal was signed by Iran, Britain, the US, Russia, France, China and Germany.

It lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to the country’s nuclear energy programme.

Under the deal, Iran agreed to keep its uranium enrichment levels at no more than 3.67 per cent, down from almost 20 per cent. The country’s uranium stockpile was also to be kept at under 300kg (660lbs), which then US President Barack Obama said would see a reduction of 98 per cent.

Tehran also agreed to redesign a heavy-water nuclear facility it had been building that was capable of producing plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb. In return, the lifting of UN sanctions meant Iran stood to gain access to more than $100billion in assets frozen overseas.

It was also able to resume selling oil on international markets.

But if the country violated any part of the deal, the sanctions would ‘snap back’ into place for ten years.

Appendage:

Iran Nuclear Deal

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Government, History, North Korea, Politics, South Korea, United Nations, United States

North Korea: Can Kim Jong-un really be trusted?

KOREAN PENINSULA

WHEN Ronald Reagan was locked in crucial talks with the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the former US president liked to rely on a favourite adage of his: ‘Trust, but verify.’

In the wake of North Korean president Kim Jong-un’s extraordinary peace overtures, the Western world is being asked to trust a tyrant who has murdered his people in their thousands.

As of now, though, we have no way to verify whether he is acting in good faith.

It is, after all, only a few months since Kim’s reckless missile tests, which included firing one rocket capable of bearing a military payload over Japan and into the sea on the other side.

That single reckless act brought us as close to a new Korean War as we have been for some time.

Such relentless belligerence makes his sudden grinning overtures to South Korea’s leader all the more astonishing. The events of the past few days – the hand-holding, the warm speeches, and the language of peace – were all intended to dazzle us. But we cannot afford to be naïve.

Yet, if it is impossible to trust Kim, we should at least attempt to understand his aims. That will help us gauge whether this attempt at rapprochement between North Korea and South Korea is more than superficial. It is claimed by the North Korean leader to be the end of the conflict that stems back to 1950.

The enmity that has riven the Korean peninsula dates to the end of the Second World War, when America and the Soviet Union agreed to split control of the former Japanese colony.

That quickly led to a power grab by North Korea, which invaded the South. American troops led the UN fightback and, although the war ended in 1953, no peace treaty was officially signed.

Since then, North Korea has become ever more isolated, as the Kim dynastic line tightened their grip as dictators. Whatever Kim Jong-un said about peace in the last few days, he has no intention of giving up power now.

 

HIS grandfather, Kim Il-sung, and his father, Kim Jong-Il, dominated their people, but the latest in the family line has shown himself more ruthless – and, some would say, dangerous – than either.

Family rivals have been brutally disposed of. His uncle was savagely executed. He had one cousin burnt alive with a flame thrower, according to South Korean reports. His half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, was assassinated with a nerve agent in February last year.

Many in the West would say we should not deal with such a man, and that any attempt at diplomacy would be immoral. Yet there are historical precedents which suggest otherwise. In 1972, US President Richard Nixon amazed the world by opening diplomatic discussions with China, whose leader Mao Tse-tung was responsible for at least 60million deaths.

Mao was a monster, but by negotiating with him Nixon laid the groundwork for an end to the Vietnam War, and usher in economic changes in China that eventually saw the introduction of capitalism there.

Today, President Donald Trump regards Nixon as a role model, a president who was willing to think the unthinkable. And like Nixon before him, Trump finds it easier than a Democratic president might to engage with Communists, because he will not be suspected of naïve Left-leaning sympathies.

There’s little doubt that Trump’s bombastic dealings with North Korea in recent months have had a part to play in the events of recent days.

His brand of ‘diplomacy’ might have been comical if it were not so inflammatory. His outbursts on Twitter, dubbing Kim the ‘little rocket man’, used the language of the playground. Some might suggest that if there is one thing that unsettles a lunatic, it’s being confronted by an even more powerful lunatic.

The US President’s rationale was that calmly reasoned rhetoric had got his predecessors in the White House precisely nowhere with Pyongyang. The only way of getting through, he felt, was to stick a megaphone against his opponent’s ear, and shout insults. After months of knockabout threats on both sides, Trump suddenly announced last month that he would be willing to meet Kim in May or June to discuss ‘de-nuking’ the Korean peninsula.

That was not the only indication that change was afoot. Mike Pompeo, at the time CIA director, made a secret visit to North Korea over the Easter period when he met Kim, a few days after the North Korean leader visited China for talks.

So, while Kim’s startling proclamations came as a genuine surprise, there have certainly been clues it was becoming a possibility.

In the short term, no doubt, the reduction of tension in the region must be a good thing.

 

THE Japanese will be watching with concern, however, because both North and South Korea view some of Japan’s islands as disputed territory and might wish to reclaim them.

The American have worries, too. Like Trump the Korean leaders talked about ‘denuclearisation’ of the peninsula. But that would also mean the removal of any nuclear weapons the US may have in the region, or even America being asked to dismantle its military bases in the South altogether.

And while Kim might be willing to allow American inspectors in to check that work at his known nuclear facilities has been shut down, it’s ludicrous to suppose he would welcome US oversight across his entire, vast military machine.

As long as some of his Army, comprising more than one million troops, is unseen, we cannot be certain that he is not hiding another atomic weapons programme, as was the case after a similar deal was struck in 1994.

And what about the question of reuniting the two nations, as we saw with East and West Germany in 1990.

The South Koreans want reunification – but not yet. They could certainly never accept Kim as ruler of both countries. And though they are a wealthy nation, the cost of absorbing the destitute North could be economically crippling. Before the two halves of the peninsula are joined up, the South will want to see the establishment of a successful capitalist economy in the North. Can Kim accept an opening up of his backward nation to Western influences, including the internet – which would allow his repressed people to understand for the first time how appallingly they have been treated?

At present, the unrelenting hardship and constant conditions of near-starvation help keep Kim Jong-un’s populace under control. And while he will hope to see Western sanctions on his regime lifted, that doesn’t mean he plans or intends to make his people’s lives any easier.

The West should make an offer to lift sanctions in return for a cast-iron promise to stop his nuclear programme. (In fact, his reckless nuclear testing has made it unsafe for him to detonate another H-bomb at his northern underground test site because it could collapse.)

If Kim Jong-un agrees, then his regime will be allowed to survive – however arduous and horrific that may be for his people.

What the North Korean leader will want to do is welcome President Trump to his capital with a glorious cultural and military spectacle. The American leader will be received by cheering crowds, just as China’s Chairman Mao made sure Richard Nixon was treated like a megastar. We can trust Kim to do that much. The question is, can he be trusted to keep the peace?

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