Should a man’s religious right to take more than one wife be legalised in the United States, and what does the individual do when his spiritual belief contradicts the law of the state? 

My reports on polygamy in Utah are on the BBC on Saturday May 21st.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7953270.stm

India is hailed as the world’s biggest democracy, but what percentage of the population has full access to democracy — as say measured in the European Union or the United States. What percentage face sanctions of punishment for voting against what the special interest goup of their neighbourhood dictates?   

In his blog, Riding the Elephant, my colleague John Elliott points out the links between India’s criminal and political societies.  He identifies the www.nocriminals.org website that shows that one in five Members of Parliament elected in India’s 2004 general election had pending criminal cases against them, either awaiting trial or on appeal after conviction.  About half the cases are for murder, violent robbery or rape.

What type of democracy is that?

British police are storing the details of political campaigners in a database known as ‘Crimint’ used to catalogue criminal intelligence, the Guardian had revealed.  Photographs, names and video footage is kept for seven years. 

Every day, more is revealed about the surveillance society of SECURITY BREACH

A British company, accused of selling workers’ confidential data, including union activities, to building firms, has been raided and shut down.  The raid on The Consulting Association in Droitwich, Worcs, revealed a serious breach of the Data Protection Act, the Information Commissioner’s Office said. Action is being considered against more than 40 firms who used the service. The Consulting Association’s owner would also be prosecuted, it added. According to the ICO, the company ran a secret system for over 15 years which enabled employers to unlawfully vet building workers applying for jobs. Not only was the database held without the workers’ consent, but the very existence of it was repeatedly denied.

Every day, more is revealed about the surveillance society of SECURITY BREACH 

Genetic information taken from nearly 1.1 million children is now stored on the national DNA database in Britain, according to the Guardian. The figure fuels the row about retention of personal information on the DNA register and on the police national computer for years after it ceases to be relevant.

Meet Kat Polinski in the most heavily surveilled democratic society in the world.

SECURITY BREACH  

Abu Ghraib, the prison that produced some of the most icononic images of the Iraq war, has re-opened now under Iraqi control. Some of those involved in the abuses are alleged to be private contractors, and I’m putting together a BBC film in which I talk to prisoners who were there, Susan Burke the US lawyer looking for accountability and compensation from the private contractors who hired interrogators and translators for the prison, and I ask what impact it might have on the future of private contracting in the US military. James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation, who’s written a book in the subject, says, “People did things wrong. People always do things wrong, so why are we so fixated on contractors. They became a metaphor about all our concerns for Iraq.”

Pakistan chose to free A. Q Khan, its most prolific nuclear proliferator, just as Richard Holbrooke, the new US envoy to the region is due to visit.  Khan, now 73, has publicly confessed to selling nuclear technology to North Korea Iran and Libya.  Yet, in Pakistan itself, he is revered as a national hero  for giving his country the nuclear bomb.

The decision to free him appears to be political. Pakistan continues to deny US investigators access to Khan, and according proliferation expert, Matthew Bunn, at the Harvard Kennedy School, — whom I’ve recently interviewed it also refuses to cooperate on the security of its nuclear sites — all this in a country that is now the headquarters of Al Qaeda.

Communist North Korea has said it is scrapping all military and political agreements signed with the South, accusing Seoul of hostile intent.  The North said South Korea had pushed relations “to the brink of a war”.

When does posturing become reality, and how can you judge? 

To find out read The Third World War.   

Soviet-era plutonium that was never accounted for after the Cold War could fuel roughly 25 nuclear weapons as powerful as the “Fat Man” atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in World War II, according to former Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed.

“In the case of plutonium, how much plutonium did they produce? Well, they produced between 140 and 162 tons. If they can’t find a tenth of 1 percent, that means there is 310 to 360 pounds of plutonium lying around somewhere.”

North Korea says it has ‘weaponised’ enough plutonium stocks tp prodice four or five nuclear weapons, according to US expert, Selig Harrison. With the leadership  of Kim Jong-Il in doubt, North Korea has also threatened to ‘retaliate’ against South Korea while South Korea has put its military on a high alert.

That’s all fact. For what happens next see The Third World War which we hope remains fiction.