Craig Murray’s Blog Reverts to 2009

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What on earth is going on?

craigmurray

Craig’s Blog craigmurray.org.uk has reverted to 2009.

All posts since May 2009 have vanished. Is there anything special about the page currently displayed?

Suggestions welcome.

**UPDATE**

Clark has been in contact with Craig (see comments below) and whatever has happened to the blog has NOT been authorised by Craig. Clark is now attempting to contact expathos hosting by email. FURTHER UPDATE: Richard at expathos has explained the situation in a comment here and will get the problem addressed on Monday. Monday: Craig’s blog is back up to date. Thanks Richard Kastelein.

Meanwhile there’s a very recent interview with Craig, originally linked by Mary, which you can find in the comments as well.

339 thoughts on “Craig Murray’s Blog Reverts to 2009”

  1. duqu,

    Interesting. However I’ve just tried three publicly listed Swedish proxies myself and all three brought up the 2009 page not the modern one. I doubled checked with IP location websites that I was seen as located in Sweden.

    If you can still reach the modern blog could you possibly post the last few lines of a traceroute to craigmurray.org.uk – remove the first few lines to avoid revealing your own IP (or ISP if you wish).

  2. This is from the Wikipedia page for Richard Kastelein. An unusual man and a very interesting biography. He has fitted a lot into his 46 years.

    ‘He hosts a number of controversial writers on his servers, such as Craig Murray, the former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was shut down by his hosting company after Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov silenced Murray with lawyers. Usmanov went on to suffer from the Streisand effect despite hiring a legal firm to silence Murray – which backfired when it became a cause célèbre, and the material was made viral throughout the Political blogosphere. Kastelein also hosts Canadian environmental activist Ingmar Lee, and Nick Chesterfield – an Australian grassroots security analyst and activist who stands up for the rights of Indigenous Peoples across the Asia-Pacific Region.

    One work from his political photoshopping art collection, called Richard Kastelein’s Guantanamo was used by the University of California Davis, for the Center For the Study of Human Rights in the Americas.’

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kastelein

  3. My blood boiled twice over the last 24 hrs.

    Firstly the fact that there is a proposal to raise MPs’ pay by 11%. The body responsible for the proposal is IPSA. See what their chief executive is earning/getting.

    http://parliamentarystandards.org.uk/About%20Us/Documents/2013-07-05%20-%20senior%20staff%20salaries.pdf

    The Board and staff.
    http://parliamentarystandards.org.uk/About%20Us/Pages/Board-members-and-chief-executive.aspx

    ~~~

    Secondly that Miliband will bring Campbell and Milburn into his ersatz NuLabour election team.
    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/07/secret-memo-blairites-labour-election-alastair-campbell-alan-milburn-ed-miliband

    Have lost track of how many times Milburn resigned and returned but he has joined in the privatisation/shafting of OUR NHS. He is still a director of Bridgepoint Capital’s European Advisory Board. They have interests in Care UK and Tunstall.
    http://www.bridgepoint.eu/en/about-us/european-advisory-board/

    ‘While on the backbenches he continued to be a strong supporter of Tony Blair’s policies, especially his continued policy of increased private involvement in public service provision. Following his resignation as Secretary of State for Health (to spend more time with his family), Milburn took a post for £30,000 a year as an advisor to Bridgepoint Capital, a venture capital firm heavily involved in financing private health-care firms moving into the NHS, including Alliance Medical, Match Group, Medica and the Robinia Care Group.[4] He has been Member of Advisory Board of PepsiCo since April 2007.[5] He returned to government in September 2004, with the title of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was brought back to lead the Labour Party’s campaign in the 2005 general election, but the unsuccessful start to the campaign led to Alan Milburn taking a back seat, with Gordon Brown returning to take a very prominent role.’
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Milburn

  4. Regarding duqu’s comment at 3:34 am, could it be that the change in IP address hasn’t yet propagated to some DNS server in Sweden?

    I should try modifying my hosts file and see if it gets me to the proper version of Craig’s blog…

  5. duqu, please do traceroute as Squonk suggested. I need the new IP address of Craig’s proper site so that I can try my hosts file modification.

  7. More on Fukushima

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-07/highest-radiation-level-ever-lethal-20-minutes-recorded-outside-fukushima-reactor

    It is almost as if the Abe administration is desperately doing everything in its power, including some of the most ridiculous decisions taken by a government in recent history, to hide some key development behind the scenes. Such as this one perhaps: NHK reported today that TEPCO said radiation levels are extremely high in an area near a ventilation pipe at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. TEPCO found radiation of 25 sieverts an hour on a duct, which connects reactor buildings and the 120-meter-tall ventilation pipe.

    Putting this number in context the estimated radiation level is the highest ever detected outside reactor buildings. People exposed to this level of radiation would die within 20 minutes.

    The exhaust pipe in question was used to release radioactive gases following the outbreak of the accident 2 years ago. TEPCO says radioactive substances could remain inside the pipes. Given TEPCO’s safety record, they could also leak outside of the pipes. And given the company’s “credibility” the world would be sure to learn about this… anywhere between 2 and 3 years after the fact.

  8. Maybe they should take some more naive homeless hired by the Yakuza since that worked so well earlier, AA. Clearly the IAEA’s confidence in TEPCO’s competence is soaring. There’s a sense of make-believe behind public reporting.

  9. Ben,

    The IAEA is bound by its own Statute to promote nuclear power. It is not primarily an oversight body as that is secondary to the legally binding requirement imposed on it to promote nuclear power.

    http://www.iaea.org/About/statute.html

    ARTICLE II: Objectives

    The Agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world.

    ARTICLE III: Functions

    A. The Agency is authorized:

    1. To encourage and assist research on, and development and practical application of, atomic energy for peaceful uses throughout the world;

  10. AA;

    http://www.iaea.org/technicalcooperation/Partnerships/Relation-UN/index.html

    ““The Agency undertakes to conduct its activities in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations Charter to promote peace and international co-operation, and in conformity with policies of the United Nations furthering the establishment of safeguarded worldwide disarmament and in conformity with any international agreements entered into pursuant to such policies.”

    That’s one helluva conflict of interest, as bureaucratic Mission Statements tend to be.

  11. Strange breaking story

    http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10863321.Latest__Man_found_dead_at_Port_Meadow_in_Oxford/


    THE body of a man has been found in a tent at Port Meadow in Oxford this afternoon.

    Police are advising people to stay away from the popular beauty spot after the discovery by a member of the public at 12.25pm because of a strong odour of chemicals.

    Thames Valley Police said the area is cordoned off as specially-trained Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) officers attend the scene to ensure its safety before further investigation can take place.

    Thames Valley Police, Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service and South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) are at the scene.

    The cause of the man’s death has not been revealed and he has not yet been identified.

  12. “The cause of the man’s death has not been revealed and he has not yet been identified.”

    ==Meth Cook==

  13. Old munitions or canisters? Thinking of mustard gas or similar seeping through the ground and contained in the tent. ???

    ‘During the First World War part of Port Meadow was used as a military airfield and the Royal Artillery had a base there.[citation needed] In 1940, during the Second World War, a camp was set up on the meadow for military personnel evacuated from Dunkirk.’

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Meadow,_Oxford

  14. Clark,

    I was thinking about you not seeing bold in quotes (previous thread) and then it occurred to me you might be blocking google fonts. WordPress uses downloadable Google fonts with the default theme I’m using and addons such as noscript wil block this by default. Could you try disabling noscript on the page and see if the following shows up correctly. You should also be able to temporarily allow google fonts (under “blocked objects” in noscript rather than just disabling it.

    This word bold is in bold.

    A browser will use a fallback font if it can’t get the requested font from google.

  16. **SERVER POSSIBLE UPDATES NOTICE**

    I’m going to be experimenting in the next few days with WordPress caching plugins to increase the speed of site loads. I may also be able to automatically cache much of the site to Amazon S3 “front of web” servers and only load the newly updated bits from my server backend as needed. I’ve got the ability to use this at no cost in the Amazon free tier – so I might as well try it out and it is supported by WP plugin.

    If all goes well nobody will notice anything other than the site loading much faster. If things break the site could be offline for a short time while I restore a backup 🙂

    At the moment I am exceeding the Amazon Free Tier server disk read/write threshold (due to unchanged content being pulled from files/database repeatedly) and getting charged about 50 cents a month for the additional IOs. Even I can live with that (!), so refresh/reload/post all you like, but I should be able to get back under the free limit with intelligent caching, including to Amazon’s front-end servers, and improve the site’s responsiveness considerably at the same time..

    Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites.

    Techie bit over 🙂

  18. Brian,

    That’s sadly an old story. It has all gone up in smoke already

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/tokyo-starts-burning-radioactive-waste-from-other-areas-tokyo-governor-tells-residents-to-shut-up-and-stop-complaining-about-it.html

    Tokyo Governor Tells Residents to “Shut Up” Instead of Complain About Burning of Radioactive Debris

    Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says in a new interview that the Japanese are burning radioactive materials. The radioactivity originated from Fukushima, but various prefectures are burning radioactive materials in their terroritories.

    Gundersen says that this radioactivity ends up not only in neighboring prefectures, but in Hawaii, British Columbia, Oregon, Washington and California.

  19. I was going to say what AA said, but in different words. George Washington often goes above and beyond, whose links frequently boomerang back to his blog, Brian.

    Now I say that, but when I read your comment I didn’t even flinch. I expect the IAEA/UN will extol the virtues of whatever TEPCO proposes while God disposes.

  21. Squonk, 6:59 pm. Yes. The Blocked Objects list includes font AT squonk.tk and font AT themes.googleusercontent.com.

    Allowing font AT squonk.tk slightly decreases the size of the bold fonts used for the words **UPDATE**, NOT and FURTHER UPDATE: in the post, but it doesn’t result in any bold within the blockquotes.

    I have to allow font AT themes.googleusercontent.com for your target word to be displayed in bold. Oddly, after allowing font AT themes.googleusercontent.com on its own, font AT squonk.tk no longer appears in the Blocked Objects list, so the list disappears.

    I think various Google subdomains are in NoScript’s whitelist by default, but I always remove those entries when I install NoScript.

    How much does hosting really cost? I’ve seen various adverts; below is one of the cheaper ones, but there are others at not much more, but Jon said they’re a scam and if your website really becomes popular they insist upon much more.

    http://hostandgo.co.uk/

    Craig originally chose Richard as a host as being in the Netherlands makes him much safer from British libel law; Richard provided the solution to the Usmanov incident mentioned above by Mary. I’d expect US hosting to be as problematic as UK hosting, for similar reasons.

  22. So this is where you are all hiding?

    Greetings to all and so nice to be able to read constructive posts and debates again.

    🙂

  23. Arbed,

    can you find duqu and ask him/her if Craig’s proper blog is still reachable, and if so to run traceroute and paste the last few lines of its output into a comment here? It stands a better chance sooner rather than later.

  24. Clark,

    I think US libel law is far more sensible than UK law. (Ref:Wikipedia) I’m not sure I can see anything on Craig’s blog that would be a problem for a US host. And I don’t really see any additional “privacy” concerns given what we already know and that the blog is public..

    In addition many US forums are full of what would be illegal (such as “kill all niggers”) content if they were hosted in the UK. For better or for worse “Freedom of Speech” is far more restricted in the UK than the USA.

    I’ve recommended one particular US free hosting site to several people and they’ve not been disappointed or hit with unexpected restrictions.

  26. Squonk, yes, libel law is better, but the “aiding the enemy” and “terrorism” laws are being implemented in a far worse way in the US. The US is NOT friendly to whistleblowers these days! So it’d be out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  27. AA, Ben Cheers for That….AA…
    i found those Videos very hard to understand…poor audio on my headphones, but i found an alternative video…rambles on a bit but detailed at the same time…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIWfQTkR6y8

    Welcome Mary and other Familiar Voices….Expat….

    Something i find really Strange….is it the Mandela thing…. or did posters SAVE to fav’s Alcanon’s Comment on Craig’s Snowden Thread… thing is.. i did not do so at first myself, and had to a few times access Sqounk by going onto Craig’s thread ( slow Learner ) because you can’t get here from craig’s blog the last few days… or everyone was already here… Just wondrin Lol

    Priceless…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_n6l7g9Nvo

  29. Clark,

    Trust me (well don’t actually – I really don’t know anything!) Craig’s blog will probably come about several zillion down the “aiding the enemy” list of the USA. The blog really is pretty tame by US standards. It’s one thing to irritate with a blog, another to get anyone to take action.

    If it were actually to host wikileaks documents or similar then that would change of course.

    BTW, If any US poster or legal expert would like to add or contradict this then please do so.

  31. Well, maybe the US would provide more consistent service. It’s not the first time Craig’s has been inaccessible. But I don’t feel like trusting the US; they have ways of getting at the people they don’t like. Lavabit. Aaron Swartz. There are increasing numbers of security-type people paid to come up with new horrible ideas to implement.

  33. Clark,

    I don’t trust the US (or most governments) either. But I really can’t see them or anyone else risking any zero day exploit or similar on Craig’s blog for some unlikely reason. They’d have to assume that would be suicidal to the exploit given Craig’s history.

    Still I’m not pushing a US host. Amazon Cloud in Ireland might be a good temporary host as might many other options. Just saying that a US free host shouldn’t be rejected off-hand.

  34. Squonk, are there readers who haven’t commented?

    Yes, Unique IP page reads considerably outnumber unique commentators – even when I take web- crawlers into account.

  35. It’s just my bit of web-space that comes with my Internet service. I saw that I could enable it, so I thought I’d muck about with it, learn a bit. I’d set up a Facebook profile, but I’d never started with a blank piece of web. I should learn to do it properly, really. But it can go over bandwidth really easily, and then they take it off-line.

  38. Clark, As you know, I’ve got full server control on the Amazon Virtual Server so have access to all config/logs . I don’t have a robots.txt at the moment. You, or anyone else, can setup your own free server on Amazon to play about with. I recommend it 🙂

    Apparently Amazon don’t even bother to check for/disable new accounts created to extend the one year free limit for another year. YMMV…

  39. Thanks AA… its just i have a really bad hearing Problem…gotta wear effin 2 aids…Fkin murder….i tried Honest .. hard going for me… i do though keep up with Dr Helen Caldicot… anyway don’t tell the spooks i can’t hear.. i sleep with katanas n shit Lol

  40. Hi Clark,

    I understand Craig’s new blog was no longer reachable even in Sweden as of early this morning. Looking forward to hearing what Richard reports back once he’s done his investigating.

  42. I don’t think Craig would be as far down the US Hit List as you think. Like when he revealed the deal whereby Saudi Arabia would be permitted to send forces to put down demonstrators in Bahrain, wasn’t it? In exchange for what was it?

    I’ve never used ssh and my command line skills are minimal. But I could give it a go.

  44. Can anyone suggest any Internet caches other than archive.org, or any tricks to find more recent versions in Google’s cache?

  45. Thank goodness we can all still communicate here !

    Hey Clark, just noticed that we have two things in common; age & Ilford ! Have moved away recently, but often pop back for short visits, so perhaps a meet-up one day !?

  48. Hi everyone,

    Craig’s blog is back up, so it looks like Richard found and rectified the problem. Thanks to all, especially Clark, who helped investigate and resolve this weird issue. Had us all puzzled, didn’t it?

    Here’s the latest comment on the Why I’m convinced Anna Ardin is a Liar thread, if anyone wants to catch up on where we’ve got to in the research on the Swedish case (hint: We’ve more or less reached the point where the thread title should be changed to Why We’re Convinced She’s Not – or, at least, she didn’t start the ball rolling). Scrolling back up to around, say, the beginning of December and reading from there should fill you in.

  49. Whoops, forgot link:

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-9/#comment-437428

    Oh! Hold on. Mystery not quite resolved yet. Blog is restored but the last dozen or so comments made on the Why I’m Convinced thread are missing now. Timestamp of last comment now visible is Dec 5th, 10.37am. Last comment posted before the blog went down was Dec 6th, around 5pm-ish. About 10 posts missing, I think.

    How could that happen? Ideas anyone?

  50. Can anyone check whether the same situation applies to the still-active Al Hilli thread – last 10 or so comments posted now missing and/or last still visible is around midday 5th December?

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