Category Archives: international news

MPs call again for reform of the antiquated Parliamentary Ombudsman – but ignore the plight of 50swomen

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William Wragg MP: official Portrait

Also ” Ombudsman friend “of Rob Behrens facing a corruption hearing in Australia

MPs today publish their official annual scrutiny of the work of the Parliamentary Ombudsman but what it doesn’t say is more important than what it says.

The committee call again – this time for a manifesto commitment from all political parties – to reform the 57 year old Ombudsman legislation – to give the Ombudsman and Health Service Commissioner more clout and powers to ensure his or her recommendations are implemented This follows the blank refusal of this government to take any action to do so. Michael Gove when he was in the Cabinet Office ruled out even a draft bill.

In a desperate plea the chairman, Tory William Wragg, who is also quitting at the election, says:

“As we have done annually for many years now to no avail, we are once again calling on the Government to bring forward what is now very long-overdue legislative reform of the PHSO, so that it can provide the level of service the public requires from it.

“Given the necessity of PHSO reform, we urge all political parties to include a commitment to reforming the legislation relating to the PHSO in their election manifestos ahead of the next General Election.”

Whether the Tories will commit to this must be unlikely since it suits the present government, particularly the Department for Work and Pensions, and to some extent the NHS, to have a weak Ombudsman who can be safely ignored if they don’t like what he says.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office has welcomed the committee’s statement:

“We are pleased to see the Committee’s support for reform of our outdated legislative framework and their call for Government to reconsider its position and consult with stakeholders ahead of the General Election. We agree with their sentiment that reform has been ‘neglected’, is ‘long overdue’, and that ‘further delay is no longer tenable’. 

The rest of the report seems a mixture of praise and criticism over the Ombudsman’s performance. He is praised for dealing with a backlog of complaints that followed the Covid 19 pandemic but criticised for the way he didn’t handle well complaints affecting the elderly and the disabled.

Rob Behrens, retiring Parliamentary Ombudsman

But there were two huge elephants in the room missing in the report. Retiring Ombudsman Robert Behrens when he faced MPs had to spend a good part of the session facing criticism from MPs of the huge and unprecedented delay in publishing his report on the plight of 50swomen – some of them WASPI supporters – and recommending compensation for maladminstration in the six year delay in getting their state pension. Indeed his report is taking longer than the actual delay in getting their pensions.

Yet from today’s report you would think this never happened. There is not one word in the report acknowledging this. All there is a footnote referring to the WASPI evidence while the evidence from CEDAWinLAW does not even merit that.

Yet any reader of this blog knows the present draft recommends NO compensation for the women leaving it up to MPs in Parliament to debate whether women should get a penny.

This is more outrageous given that over 500 people know what it says and practically every sitting MP knows the outcome but most are happy to participate in a conspiracy of silence hoping it will go away. WASPI is playing the same game and one is beginning to wonder whether they want to get any money at all.

The other missing information is who is going to be new Ombudsman. The committee inadvertently published the letter sent to the Cabinet Office from Sir Alex Allen, once adviser to David Cameron and Boris Johnson until he resigned, and now a member of the Parliamentary Ombudsman Board – see my blog here– asking for a speedy decision from Rishi Sunak to replace Rob Behrens. Now it is nearly a month since I wrote about this and nothing has happened. The Cabinet Office appears not to have replied.

Yet they have only until March 27 – when Parliament goes into Easter recess – to fix up a meeting to approve the appointment of a successor. Even if the board appoints an acting ombudsman under the 1967 legislation it would still need Parliamentary approval by the committee, I am told.

Rob Behrens also had strong links with the various international organisations – a couple of which have been hit by scandals.

A war crime and a corruption scandal

Josef Ziegele, the European Ombudsman Institute ‘s general secretary, was behind the alleged deportation of two Ukrainian refugee children from Austria to Russia which could be a war crime according to the Kyiv Independent which led to other Ombudsmen, including Rob Behrens resigning from it last April.

The president of the International Ombudsman Institute, Chris Field, who is the Western Australia state Parliamentary ombudsman, is apparently a good friend of Rob Behrens. But at the moment Field is at the centre of corruption hearings in Western Australia over his huge annual travel expenses of $266,000 Australian dollars (£136,840) and for subsidising his organisation through money allocated from Australian taxpayers.

At a visit to Ukraine in 2022 Mr Field heaped praise on Mr Behrens saying “I am deeply grateful to my good friend and colleague Rob Behrens CBE, IOI Vice President Europe, who joined me on this visit. He is a person of utter integrity, searching intellect and profoundly good values. He came to Ukraine. He lives his values” .

He also put a submission to the PACAC saying: ” He is counted as a wise mentor and friend by me and so many of his colleagues around the world. Ombudsman Behrens has not just transformed the office of the PHSO into one of the world’s leading Ombudsman offices, he has made a contribution to the IOI and the institution of the Ombudsman globally of inestimable value. It is of some note that I was accompanied by only one Ombudsman on my visit to Ukraine in December in 2022, namely Ombudsman Behrens. He distinguished his office and his country during this visit.”

The annual report of his Ombudsman’s report for West Australia revealed Field had visited Taiwan, China, Ukraine, Britain, the US, Slovenia, Thailand, Austria, Morocco, France, Russia, Poland and Hungary.  Just prior to his visit to Ukraine, the IOI president met with the Australian Ambassador to Poland Lloyd Brodrick, and the Australian Ambassador to Ukraine Bruce Edwards in Poland. 

Chris Field, Western Australia Ombudsman

During the first tranche of the corruption hearings against him ( they resume mid March) it was revealed that he decided to end rules disclosing gifts he had received on foreign trips by raising the disclosure limit from around £25 to £125. It was revealed that he planned to give the OECD in Paris from Australian taxpayers funds , over $213,000 (about £107,000) for a project concerning, ‘the role of Ombudsman institutions in building a culture of open government for stronger and more resilient communities.’ The first invoice from OECD of half the cash was blocked by the Ombudsman’s chief finance officer.

He also ordered his office to pay for a private limousine to take him from the Paris Hilton to the OECD headquarters because he said taxis were difficult to find in Paris.

It was said he was only in the office for two days out of ten because of all these world trips and he designated other people to take operational decisions.

Behrens stands with Israel

MPs in today’s report praise the Ombudsman for seeking co-operation with international organisations. It also discloses that the Parliamentary Ombudsman is working closely to co-operate with Israel’s Ombudsman.

So closely that Matanyahu Englman, Israel’s Ombudsman requested both Chris Field and Rob Behrens to issue a statement by the International Ombudsman Institute giving unqualified support to Israel to fight HAMAS.

Chris Field obliged saying: “There can be no false moral equivalences in the lawful and correct response of Israel to those who came to slaughter the Jewish people,” in a letter to Israel’s State Comptroller and Ombudsman Matanyahu Englman. “No international body should be allowed to falter in their resolve to eradicate a body that actually pays their members to kill Jews. There can be no peace in the Middle East while terrorism and undemocratic representation of the peoples of Gaza seek to eliminate the Jewish people.”

See the Jerusalem Post article here for the full story.

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Ukraine: An extraordinary project to revive the history of a once forgotten nation

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Video of the full proceedings of the launch at the British Museum

What do you really know about Ukraine? Until Russia started its bloody war to invade the country probably little more than the exploits of the Cossacks and Britain’s role in the siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean War in 1854.

This week I was invited to the British Museum for a press conference to launch a remarkable international project to thoroughly research the history of this little known large country .

History is important to us all. That’s why students in the UK learn about the Romans, the Norman Conquest, Henry VIII, Cromwell, the British Empire, the first and second world wars, and the creation of the National Health Service to name but a few. These pivotal events shape our past and give us a sense of belonging and the interpretation of our past can be a catalyst for changes in the future.

This project – the Ukrainian History Global Initiative – was launched here because it will be based here. It is being financed by a wealthy Ukrainian oligarch, Victor Pinchuk, who owns Interpipe, which makes pipes and railway wheels, six TV stations and Grand Buildings, a London landmark in Trafalgar Square. He is one of the trustees – the others include Carl Bildt who is chair of the trustees and former prime minister of Swedenm and the historian Anne Applebaum, lawyer Philippe Sands, and Ukraine’s most celebrated poet, Serhiy Zhadan. Two generations of Ukrainian historians are contributing tto the project.

The project is enormous and will take three years to complete with no fewer than 90 academic researchers working on the history of Ukraine from across the world going back to its ancient past as well as more recent events leading up to the current war.

Ukraine is not on the periphery of Europe and Asia

What emerges is that Ukraine far from being on the periphery of Europe and Asia played a central role. It had strong links with ancient Greece Its wealthy assets as a bread basket for the world has meant it was invaded by the Nazis in the second world as Hitler wanted the land to feed his country. Russia seems to have its eyes on its land for similar reasons plus its mineral wealth. The Mongols dominated Ukraine for a period and there are strong connections between Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. Jews, Muslims and Christians also play prominent roles in its development.

This rich background will provide historians with a feast to investigate.

Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University, who developed the academic concept of the project over the past three years, and is Chair of the International Academic Advisory Council and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Ukrainian History Global Initiative, said: “This Initiative will involve scholars from around the world in several disciplines, using traditional methods as well as new technology that helps us to handle the deep past. ‘Ukraine’ here is to be understood very broadly, as the lands and peoples, from the very beginning. There is much interesting to be said about the origins of our language, about the bronze age, about the Middle Ages, about modernity — from Amazons to Vikings, Ukraine is a territory where our standard view of history can be revised and made more vibrant.”

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Death is a great leveller: Taliban agree to mass vaccination against polio and a campaign against Covid 19

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Women to be giving jabs in a frontline role

The Taliban’s ideological stance against women having an equal role with men has had to take a back seat in the face of a potential major health crisis in the country. For once the extremist leaders are finding out they can’t fight disease without the participation of women.

In what must be a welcome breakthrough following negotiations between the World Health Organisation and the Taliban the leaders have agreed to a country wide vaccination programme against polio and for a new campaign to fight Covid 19 and measles.

Failure to do so would have opened the country -already reeling from the loss of Western and humanitarian aid – to the spread of life threatening diseases which have all but disappeared in more advanced countries. The prospect of widespread deaths from unchecked diseases as well as growing hunger and poverty has focused minds.

The new deal was revealed in an announcement from the World Health Organisation today.

The vaccination campaign, which begins on November 8, will be the first in over three years to reach all children in Afghanistan, including more than 3.3 million children in some parts of the country who have previously remained inaccessible to vaccination campaigns.  A second nationwide polio vaccination campaign has also been agreed and will be synchronised with Pakistan’s own polio campaign planned in December.

WHO welcomes programme

“This is an extremely important step in the right direction,” said Dapeng Luo, WHO Representative in Afghanistan.  “We know that multiple doses of oral polio vaccine offer the best protection, so we are pleased to see that there is another campaign planned before the end of this year.  Sustained access to all children is essential to end polio for good.  This must remain a top priority,” he said.

So far there has been only one case of polio this year under the previous government but with no vaccination programme a resurgence of the disease was likely. Instead now it could be eradicated.

“This is not only a win for Afghanistan but also a win for the region as it opens a real path to achieve wild poliovirus eradication,” said Dr Ahmed Al Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean.  “The urgency with which the Taliban leadership wants the polio campaign to proceed demonstrates a joint commitment to maintain the health system and restart essential immunizations to avert further outbreaks of preventable diseases,” he said.

The overall health system in Afghanistan remains vulnerable.  To mitigate against the risk of a rise in diseases and deaths, all parties have agreed on the need to immediately start measles and COVID-19 vaccination campaigns.  This will be complemented with the support of the polio eradication programme and with outreach activities that will urgently begin to deliver other life-saving vaccinations through the national expanded programme for immunization.

The Taliban leadership has expressed their commitment for the inclusion of female frontline workers and for providing security and assuring the safety of all health workers across the country, which is an essential prerequisite for the implementation of polio vaccination campaigns.

WHO and UNICEF call on authorities and community leaders at all levels to respect and uphold the neutrality of health interventions and ensure unhindered access to children now and for future campaigns.

This is probably the one gleam of light in what has been an extremely bad autumn for the people of Afghanistan and a huge setback for women’s rights. The threat of mass deaths from preventable diseases has obviously alarmed the new regime.

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European Court of Human Rights rules against review of the cause of Yasser Arafat’s death

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PLO CHAIRMAN YASSER ARAFAT PICTURE by Yaakov Saar

The European Court of Justice has thrown out an attempt by Yasser Arafat’s widow and daughter to have a case that examined the death of former Palestinian leader who died 17 years ago re-opened again.

As predicted by @NewsEchr the court chaired by a Ukrainian judge decided that his widow’s claIm that there had not been a fair trial in France was ” inadmissible” because it was beyond the power of the court to re-examine the evidence.

Yasser Arafat, who died on 11 November 2004 in France at the Percy Military Hospital where he was being treated following a decline in his state of health at a time when he was in Ramallah, Palestine. On his widow’s request, no post mortem was carried out.

Traces of highly radioactive polonium alleged to be found on Arafat’s belongings


In March 2012 traces of polonium 210, a highly radioactive material, suggesting that Yasser Arafat might have been poisoned, were found on his personal belongings that his widow had recovered after his death. They were entrusted to a journalist from the Al Jazeera television channel, C.S., to be analysed.

On 28 August 2012 the public prosecutor of Nanterre opened a judicial investigation on a charge of premeditated murder

Three investigating judges were appointed and three experts were asked to determine the cause of the decline in Mr Arafat’s health. Their operations took place in the presence of French and Swiss teams, together with a Russian team at the request of the Palestinian Authority.

The French judicial expert’s report concluded that the result of radiological analyses did not prove the existence of exposure to polonium 210. The Swiss report disagreed with the French findings. An additional expert’s report, ordered by the investigating judge, confirmed the findings of the French report.

The dispute began when the applicants wanted to submit another expert report and this was refused by the French judges. This led them to appealing to the European Court of Human Rights because they did not think the trial was fair.

The ECHR said that it couldn’t re-open the case again on a quarrel over the admissibility of evidence, this being primarily a matter for regulation by domestic law. It therefore did not fall within the Court’s remit to substitute its own
assessment of the facts and evidence for that of the domestic courts, its task being to ensure that
the evidence was taken in a manner that guaranteed a fair hearing. The judges ruled the application was “inadmissible” thus ending a long legal fight by his widow and daughter.

Exclusive with @NewsEchr: Murder or death by natural causes? European Court of Human Rights ruling 17 years after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s death

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Picture of Yasser Arafat by SA’AR YA’ACOV at the time he won the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE in 1994.

Family raise suspicions over his death

As the Middle East is still in turmoil an extraordinary ruling will be made by the European Court of Human Rights concerning events around the death of the Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat nearly 17 years ago.

His family have been suspicious he died from poisoning in 2004 and claim there was not a fair trial looking into this after he died in a French military hospital.

The applicants to the ECHR Suha El Kodwa Arafat and Zahwa El Kodwa Arafat, are French nationals.The case concerns a criminal complaint filed by the applicants, the widow and daughter of Yasser Arafat, who died on 11 November 2004 in France at the Percy Military Hospital where he was being treated, claiming that Mr Arafat had been the victim of premeditated murder.

They claim that the French authorities didn’t give their case a fair trial by refusing to include additional expert evidence.

They wanted an additional expert report on the cause of the decline in Mr Arafat’s health, as they had requested on account of their doubts concerning the origin and traceability of the sample used for that assessment, the methodology applied and the results, which were contradicted by the results obtained by Swiss experts.

They also criticise the refusal to order a fresh expert report on their behalf and to grant their other claims, based on contradictions between the results obtained by the different experts, Swiss and French, from their respective measurements and analyses. In French courts, Arafat’s wife and daughter were unsuccessful with their lawsuits and appeals. In 2017, they appealed to the European Court of Human Rights In French courts, Arafat’s wife and daughter were unsuccessful with their lawsuits and appeals. In 2017, they appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.

The court decision will be announced on Thursday raising an issue that has literally thought to have gone away and could not come at a worse time for Palestinian and Israeli relations. A ruling in their favour might re-open the issue but ECHR News believe they may lose the appeal.