Putin and the UK killing field

For many years now I have sought to keep alive the memory of Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) who defected to the United Kingdom after he found that his own superior officers were plotting to assassinate Government critics living overseas.

In 2006 Litvinenko became a victim of the plotters, poisoned in London with a radioactive substance so secret that a long-delayed inquiry into his death ruled it could only have come from a Russian State laboratory. 

The head of that inquiry, retired High Court Judge Sir Robert Owen, went further, naming the two men sent to London to perform the murder as Andrey Lugovoy and Dimitri Kovtun.

“I have concluded that that there is a strong probability that when Mr Lugovoy poisoned Mr Litvinenko, he did so under the direction of the FSB. I have further concluded that Mr Kovtun was also acting under FSB direction,” Sir Robert said.

“I have further concluded that the FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev, then the head of the FSB, and by President Putin.”

This dramatic moment in British legal history is described in a new book From Russia with Blood, by Heidi Blake — but it is one instance in the catalogue of crime that the Russian State, with the express permission of President Vladimir Putin, committed on foreign soil, almost with impunity.

The UK became the main killing field, largely because critics of Putin fled there believing they would be safe. They were wrong, with Blake writing that there may have been as many as 14 instances of suspicious deaths.

Yet almost without exception they were explained away by authorities at the time as suicides or accidents.

Blake writes that it was only the unsuccessful attempt to poison defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia — an attack so blatant and the evidence of Russian involvement so overwhelming — that prompted then Prime Minister, David Cameron to given in to persistent demands by Litvinenko’s supporters for an inquiry into his murder.

Even so, with Sir Robert’s findings part of the public record, Cameron refused to go beyond routine denunciations about an “unacceptable breach of international law”, which Putin contemptuously dismissed.

Cameron’s excuse: “We have to go on having some sort of relationship with [Putin] because we need a solution to the Syria crisis.”  

Three and a half years on from that statement, we are seeing the “solution to the Syria crisis” as Russian planes, in support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, pound the last rebel hold-out in Idlib, levelling hospitals and orphanages and forcing yet more waves of civilian refugees to flee.

Then there are the attacks on Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, attempts to manipulate elections in Montenegro and unproved but persistent allegations that Putin interfered in the Western electoral process to support the victory of Donald Trump and secure the Brexit referendum.

Litvinenko was a good man – an honest cop doing his job, which meant he was so dangerous to Putin’s Russia that he had to be hunted down and silenced.

He once described Russia as the ‘Mafia State’ and sadly, despite the rhetoric and occasional wrist slaps from the West, the gangsters in the Kremlin are going to continue their rule for many years to come.

‘Fun’ times as doomsday beckons

A United Kingdom journalism researcher believes he has found the answer to the decline in the country’s mainstream media — more fun news.

Nic Newman says fun is what younger audiences crave, and producing traditional stories about wars, traffic fatalities and political corruption turns them off.

Newman, a Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, said there was a disconnect between old-style journalism and a “younger, plugged-in generation looking for information, entertainment and distraction”.

It is inevitable that those of us who care about the world and how it operates must adapt to the different ways it can now be reported.

The same conference at which Newman spoke discussed how the boom in podcasting could be further exploited, for example.

However, measuring the value of news by its ‘fun factor’ is simply a bridge too far.

On the same day Newman was presenting his vision on the future of news, Human Rights Watch produced a damning report on China’s aggressive attempts to spread its ideas on media censorship to the rest of the world.

Presenting the report, the organisation’s Executive Director, Kenneth Roth said China’s global threat to human rights, if unchallenged, could “portend a dystopian future in which no-one is beyond the reach of Chinese censors”.

“It could result in an international human rights system so weakened that it no longer serves as a check on Government repression,” Roth said.

The report also covered Syria and Yemen, where warring parties were accused of a blatant disregard of international rules on chemical weapons and bombing hospitals — and China’s mass internment of its ethnic Uyghur population “the largest imprisonment of people on the basis of religion since the Holocaust”.

Definitely not Newman’s idea of ‘fun’ news, and presumably topics he believes should take second place behind celebrity gossip and Four Ways to Sleep in Bed with a New Partner to attract his ‘younger audiences’.

In any case he is wrong. It is not young people, but their elders who seem to have become lobotomised on a steady diet of sensationalised pap.

At a recent UK ‘town hall’ meeting on how the country would fare post-Brexit a member of the audience maintained that once free of the European Union’s shackles, the country would once again be free to trade with “the empire” as a route to prosperity.

I was dumbfounded, this was not someone plucked off the street in a random television interview for viewers to chuckle over. He was sitting in some kind of focus group that was supposedly formulating serious suggestions for the nation’s future.   

Contrast this with the hundreds of thousands of young people around the globe who took time off from school to demonstrate in support of more active measures to combat climate change.

They are aware, more than many of their complacent elders, of the suffering and misery that is the norm for millions of their peers across the globe — and how this is only going to get worse if current attitudes continue to prevail.

As their leaders emerge they will become a force that will not be denied. 

They are the best hope this very unfunny world has as the Doomsday Clock inches closer to midnight.

Understanding the Royal departure

During the endless debate over the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union a friend suggested to me that the average Brit could be dressed in rags and standing in line at a soup kitchen — and would still feel himself superior to the coloured woman doling out the soup.

Despite my distaste at some of the ‘arguments’ and actions emanating from parts of the Brexit camp, I thought this a somewhat sweeping opinion — but then came the news that the Queen’s grandson and his American mixed-race wife have had enough. They were getting out.  

Revelations that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — are to live at least part of the time in Canada; step back from Royal duties and work to become financially independent has been treated with predictable rage by the UK’s red-top media.

“Petulant” screamed the Mirror… “and good riddance”; “the most spoilt brats in history”, said commentator Piers Morgan; “nothing matters to this couple apart from immediate happiness and gratification,” wrote Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail.

Then came the Twitter tirade from the great British proletariat many voicing comments and opinions of Markle that will not be repeated here, but sadly can be guessed at.

It had me thinking. All this adds up.

In the 1960s a Conservative candidate won his constituency at a General Election with the slogan ‘if you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour’; not long afterwards a senior Conservative Shadow Minister was talking about “rivers of blood” if coloured immigration was not halted.

Then there were the remarks that could be heard in pubs and clubs around the land about “wogs beginning at Calais”; the mixed-race guy at the bar having “a touch of the tar brush”.

The Italians were oversexed Mafiosi; the Dutch ‘clog-wogs’ and of course there were the Frogs, the Krauts and the Dagos.

Black players in visiting football teams can often expect to be greeted with monkey noises and have banana skins thrown at them. In the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum third generation Britons with historic origins in the Sub-continent and the West Indies were abused and told they would soon have to “go back to where you came from”.

Author Afua Hirsch has reminded us about Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s reference to Commonwealth “flag-waving piccaninnies”. She describes Brexit as fuelled by native nationalism and a desire to rid Britain of large numbers of immigrants, “with an ever- thickening loom of Imperial nostalgia”. 

Those who thought the marriage of Harry and Meghan might be one Royal step towards a more inclusive society have learnt that it matters little if you are beautiful, glamorous, philanthropic or hard-working, nothing has changed.

In Britain today if your colouring is too dark, your accent is wrong or your clothing does not conform, you will run the risk of racist abuse or worse.

Though no particular fan of the Royal Family, I am sorry that Harry and Meghan feel the need to get out — but I can quite understand their reasons.

International Public Sector News

‘Competence tests’ for senior PS

LONDON (January 2): The co-author of the victorious United Kingdom Conservative Party’s election manifesto says senior Public Servants and Special Advisers should be forced to take tests to ensure they are competent in fields such as data science and forecasting.

Rachel Woolf (pictured) also said the “revolving door policy” of staff changing jobs every 18 months could be brought to an end to stop “institutional memory and expertise” being lost.

Claiming officials were woefully unprepared for wholesale reforms being planned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, she said widely reported plans for merging, creating or abolishing Departments were just a “tiny fraction” of the Public Service revolution planned by Mr Johnson and his chief aide, Dominic Cummings.

Mr Cummings is a long-standing critic of Whitehall and has in the past said that the principle of a permanent Public Service was “an idea for the history books”.

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PM vetoes ‘weirdo’ recruitment

LONDON (January 7): A bizarre plan by United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser to recruit “weirdos and misfits” to the country’s Public Service has been vetoed.

Dominic Cummings posted the job advertisement on his personal blog in contravention of Whitehall’s usual recruitment processes.

It drew immediate criticism from employment lawyers and unions and a spokesperson for Mr Johnson quickly announced the post was aimed only at seeking “expressions of interest”.

“Civil Servants will still be appointed within the usual tight procedures of the Civil Service,” the spokesperson said.

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New crackdown of PS drug-taking

KUALA LUMPUR (January 7): Malaysia’s Federal Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) has launched a new operation to tackle drug abuse among Public Servants.

Director of the NCID, Mohd Khalil Kader Mohd said the Department had sent letters to the heads of all Government Agencies.

"The Department heads will then give us the names they suspect of taking drugs, and we will then step in,” Datuk Mohd said.

The National Anti-Drugs Agency (NADA) reported that a total of 300 Public Servants tested positive for illegal substances in 2018.

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High cost of shorter work week

DUBLIN (January 6): Transitioning the Irish Public Service to a four-day working week would cost at least €3.9 billion ($A6.3 billion) Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe says.

The change is becoming increasingly popular in the private sector, but Mr Donohoe said introducing it for the 337,000 full-time equivalent workers in the Public Service would involve data the Government currently doesn’t have.

“I would assume the fifth day of every week would need to be filled by staff when calculating the cost,” Mr Donohoe said.

“Assuming that transitioning to a four-day week would result in a need to replace one-fifth of Public Service working hours, the estimated cost would be €3.9 billion.”

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Union attacked over protest stance

HONG KONG (January 2): An organisation representing pro-democracy Public Servants has come under fire from the Hong Kong Government after it accused police of restricting residents’ rights by cutting short a mass protest.

The Government expressed deep concern and regret over the Union for New Civil Servants’ remarks and said if any Public Servants violated the guidelines of impartiality “we will deal with it in a serious manner in accordance with the established mechanism”.

The union hit back against the official response, insisting it upheld the principle of political neutrality.

The Hong Kong Civil Service Code states that Government employees should ensure the views they express will not “compromise their capacity to fulfil their official duties professionally, effectively and impartially”.

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No sign of strike breakthrough 

PARIS (January 2): Workers on France’s State-controlled transport system have now been on strike for more than a month — making it the longest walkout since 1968.

The workers are resisting reforms to their pension entitlements as well as changes to their pay and conditions. With no sign of a breakthrough, President Emmanuel Macron vowed to “continue to the end”.

“Not changing the complicated pension system will be a betrayal of our children, their children after them, who would then have to pay the price for our giving up," Mr Macron said.

The Government wants to bring together the 42 pension systems into a single points-based scheme. It also wants to phase out the early retirement advantages certain sectors — primarily in the Public Service — enjoy by adjusting the so-called hardship criterion.

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Department to fight PSC notice

DUBLIN (January 2): Ireland’s Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has officially appealed against an enforcement notice served upon it regarding its controversial Public Services Card (PSC).

A spokesperson for the Department confirmed it had filed the appeal against the decision of the Data Protection Commissioner that it was illegal to use the card for a range of purposes.

The Department’s decision to appeal, which had been widely expected, will almost certainly see the saga concerning the PSC extended by a matter of many months, if not years, possibly going as far as the Court of Justice of the European Union.

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Tax break for senior officers

NAYPYITAW (January 5): Senior Public Servants in Myanmar are to be allowed to import cars into the country tax free.

The Ministry of Commerce said Government officials with the rank of Director-General and above would be allowed to import cars in a first phase and those with the rank of the Deputy Director-General, with 25 years of service, or who have received the Civil Service Award, in a second phase.

Tax accounts for between 100 per cent and 150 per cent of vehicle values in Myanmar.

The Ministry said the first phase would involve around 500 officers and the second phase “thousands”. Officers would be barred from selling their cars for a year.

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India proposes a PS university

NEW DELHI (January 5): The Indian Government is planning to set up a National Civil Service University (NCSU) that will oversee the training of all officers.

The NCSU will be part of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), with existing training institutes coming under its jurisdiction. It will also carry out research in the field of public administration and policy.

An official familiar with the plan said the idea was that there should be an overarching body which decides the curriculum, and has the bandwidth to understand what kind of training was needed in changing times.

“The move will end the culture of different training institutes working in silos. There will be a definite approach to training, which would be reflected in all the individual institutes,” the official said.

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Political curb on Malaysian PS

KUALA LUMPUR (January 2): Malaysian Public Servants have been barred from holding any position in a political Party, the Government has announced.

Director-General of the Public Service Department, Mohd Khairul Adib Abd Rahman said the decision had been made at a Cabinet meeting late last year and had only just been ratified.

“The decision has been made, we are preparing a circular to ensure it is complied with, at the same time there are still some things to be looked at,” Datuk Mohd said.

“We are also looking at Civil Servants who spread untruths, (and) we will take action.”

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Fears for corruption Agency 

JAKARTA (January 6): Indonesian anti-corruption activists say a Government plan to make members of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Public Servants will jeopardise its independence.

The controversial amendment to legislation governing the KPK will strip it of its special authority and turn it into a Government institution under the supervision of the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform

Secretary-General of Transparency International Indonesia, Dadang Trisasongko said KPK employees would experience difficulties in prosecuting any Government official allegedly involved in corruption.

He said the Ministry would also not want to see many Public Servants being prosecuted by the KPK, since it would worsen the Ministry’s reputation as the Agency overseeing the implementation of the Civil Servant Code of Ethics.

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German bureaucracy ‘under-staffed’

BERLIN (January 7): The German Civil Service Union (DBB) claims there are close to 230,000 vacancies in the country’s bureaucracy.

According to the DBB’s figures there was a shortage of more than 138,000 employees in Germany's Municipal Administrations alone. The health care system was lacking 40,000 employees while police forces would require 50,000 additional officers.

President of the DBB, Ulrich Silberbach said with 1.3 million public sector employees retiring in the next 10 years, there would be a staff gap of several hundred thousand employees even if projected new hires were included.

The full International PS News service will resume on January 21  

International Public Sector News

Work can begin on commute

BERN (December 31): Swiss Public Servants who work while commuting to and from the office will now be able to count this as part of their office hours.

An amendment to the directive covering mobile forms of work for the Federal Government stipulates that workers will simply need approval from their direct superior in order to be credited for working on the train.

Previously such work, which could include sending emails, making phone calls or reading reports, was billed in exceptional cases only.

A spokesperson for the Federal Personnel Office could not say what proportion of the 38,000-strong Public Service were currently allowed to work during their commute or how many were expected to take advantage of the new rule.

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PM backtracks on allowance cut

KUALA LUMPUR (December 28): Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad is having second thoughts on a plan to cut a signing-on allowances for new recruits to some parts of the Public Service, just two days after it was announced.

Tens of thousands of people signed an online petition urging the decision to be reversed.

The Public Service Department said the new policy followed a review that found the 33 affected professions — including nurses, architects and legal officers — “no longer fulfil the criteria for the incentives”.

However, a Government spokesman said a circular outlining the cuts would now be delayed until Cabinet had more chance for discussions in January.

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Unwelcome preview of Honours List

LONDON (December 30): There are calls for an inquiry into how more than 1,000 prominent United Kingdom figures who received New Year’s honours had their home and work addresses posted on a Government website.

The list included more than a dozen employees of the Ministry of Defence and senior counter-terrorism officers. The document was visible on the Cabinet Office website for around an hour before it was taken down.

Former head of the Public Service, Baron Kerslake said the breach was “extraordinary because this is a well-established process that has gone on in pretty much the same way for years”.

“Of course, it’s likely to be human error, as has been suggested, but we need to know how well staff are trained about the importance of maintaining security. Were they briefed on the potential consequences if this information was released?” Baron Kerslake asked.

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Pressure grows for paternity leave

TOKYO (December 28): The Japanese Government has ratified a plan that encourages male Public Servants to take paternity leave for a minimum of one month.

Under the policy, which comes into force in April, the performance of managers will be evaluated partly on how easy they make it for subordinates to take paternity leave.

Other measures will be introduced to make it easier for new fathers to make arrangements for their work to be done in their absence.

By urging Public Servants to take long child care leave, the Government hopes to promote a culture of acceptance of paternity leave in both the public and private sectors.

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Data haul ‘for public good’

MADRID (December 31): The Spanish Institute of Statistics (INE) has admitted to tapping into the location data of millions of mobile phones which it says will enable the Government to better manage public services such as transportation and healthcare, and to improve infrastructure.

Following an agreement with phone operators Movistar, Vodafone and Orange, INE has received data from more than 40 million mobile devices on eight pre-agreed days.   

The move has led some experts to voice doubts about whether the study complies with current privacy legislation, particularly because mobile phone users have not given consent for their data to be used.

In a statement, the INE said that under no circumstances would operators “provide individual data on telephone numbers, nor on the owners of the lines”.

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Korea warns PS internet stars

SEOUL (January 1): South Korean Public Servants who post personal videos to YouTube and other websites must now apply for a permit from their Agency.

The Ministry of Personnel Management has prepared standard guidelines which it says are designed to address “inappropriate action on the part of Government employees”.

“As Civil Servants, Government employees should abide by obligations such as maintaining dignity, not disclosing confidential information from his or her duties and a ban on political statements,” the Ministry said.

According to a recent survey by the Government, 63 Public Servants, 75 Local Authority employees, and 1,248 teachers are currently operating internet broadcasting channels.

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Canada tightens privacy rules

OTTAWA (December 26): Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Daniel Therrien has been authorised to establish a new set of online regulations, protecting citizens’ privacy and their rights over the data collected on them.

Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau has set out 25 priorities covering issues such as data privacy, the use of data tools and the management of Statistics Canada.

The move follows the publication of an official report which called for an overhaul of the country’s privacy laws in light of a number of data privacy investigations and concerns about Statistics Canada’s use of data.

In his annual report, Mr Therrien urged Parliamentarians to adopt rights-based privacy laws to better protect Canadians in the face of data-driven technologies and the risks they pose to privacy.

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Johnson plans PS relocations

LONDON (December 28): United Kingdom Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is studying plans for a significant shift of Government Departments out of London in 2020 — including a new Advanced Science Agency.

Sources said the priority would be to locate Government bodies in other parts of the United Kingdom, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in order to damp down secessionist sentiments.

The new science body is said to have been inspired by the United States Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and would develop “high-risk, high-reward” projects, the sources said.

The new institution would sit outside UK Research and Innovation, the primary Government funding Agency for research, and would receive £800 million ($A1.5 billion) over the next five years.

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PS blamed for public hatred

COLOMBO (January 1): Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said inefficiencies in the Public Service had caused people to hate successive Governments and this must stop.

He stressed the need for an efficient, simpler and corruption-free service to the public.

“Unnecessary laws and regulations need to be amended quickly and all public services should be implemented in a simple manner convenient to the people,” Mr Rajapaksa said.

“Reaffirming the public's confidence in the State service is one of the major responsibilities of all of the 1.5 million Public Servants and it is important to have open conversations, discussions and open-presentation of problems.”

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Pay rises linked to PS reform

DUBLIN (December 30): Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister) says he expects above-inflation pay rises in the Public Service during 2020 — but the increases must be linked to reform.

Leo Varadkar said that he was glad that pay cuts imposed a decade ago in the name of austerity had almost all been restored.

“It is inevitably going to be the case that during the course of 2020 we will negotiate a new pay deal with Public Servants. We anticipate that would allow public sector pay to continue to rise,” Mr Varadkar said.

“We also need to make sure it’s affordable for the taxpayer. We don’t want to go back to the past where we had massive pay increases one year and pay cuts a year later.”

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Salaries doubled as inflation bites

KHARTOUM (December 29): Sudanese Public Servants are to have their salaries doubled in 2020 as part of a raft of measures aimed to ease the burden of inflation, now standing at 58 per cent annually.

The new civilian Government is trying, with the help of donors, to launch a series of economic and political reforms after veteran ruler, Omar al-Bashir was deposed in April.

Minister for Finance, Ibrahim Elbadawi did not say how the 2020 Budget would be funded or what the Government was forecasting for revenue and expenditure.

“To alleviate the impact of inflation and poverty, we will double Civil Service pay and raise the minimum wage to 1,000 Sudanese pounds ($A22), up from 425 pounds ($A9.40),” he said.

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Bureaucrats baulk at railway merger

NEW DELHI (December 27): A decision by the Indian Government to merge eight existing rail services into a single Indian Railways Management Service has been described as “arbitrary, unfair and demotivating”.

Offices from three of the services, the Indian Railway Traffic Service, Indian Railway Accounts Service and Indian Railway Personnel Service, say they are professional administrators and should be separate from the other five which constitute the technical or engineering services.

Minister for Railways, Piyush Goyal told reporters that the reform would end departmentalism in the railway sector, encourage comprehensive and smooth working and expedite decision-making.

The unification has instead led to an aggressive social media campaign by officers from the three services, who believe their “Civil Service dream” has been shattered by the Government.

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Cyber security chief to quit

LONDON (December 29): The Chief Executive of the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is to step down in 2020 after more than six years in charge of the nation’s online defences.

Ciaran Martin said he would be leaving the NCSC in the northern summer and would take up a role in the private sector, although no more details were given.

His departure comes at a crucial time with the Government planning a strategic review of British defence and security, with cyber capabilities at the forefront.

Head of the Security Service MI5, Andrew Parker is also due to step down in 2020 while head of the Secret Intelligence Service MI6, Alex Younger was due to leave his post this year but was been granted an extension to help ease the post-Brexit transition.

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Touch up for visitor service

ROAD TOWN (December 27): New touch terminals placed at the Waterfront Jetty and the international airport of the British Virgin Islands will allow visitors to provide feedback about their immigration experience in real-time.

Deputy Governor, David D. Archer said that the move “reinforces the Government’s commitment to improving the standard of customer service that is offered in the Territory by public officers”.

The feedback provided by the terminals is uploaded to a central online dashboard for analysis, which allows Government Agencies to understand how various factors affect their service levels.

The information is accessible by all Government Departments and allows them to generate reports and find ways to improve customer service.

 The full International PS News service will resume on January 21