Summary
Various media outlets have reported that the death of a soldier from 36 Engineer Regiment, now named as Sapper Mark Antony Smith, who was killed in an explosion in the Sangin area of Helmand province, is being investigated as a suspected friendly fire incident. | Channel 4 News featured a report last night from Nick Paton Walsh who is currently embedded with soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army in Kandahar. | BBC News claims all training Hawks have been grounded after a fault was found with the ejector seat. | Various media outlets report that a paper by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has urged the Government to significantly scale back Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent in order to ensure it can be afforded in the future. | There has been further media analysis of the American military documents published on the WikiLeaks website, looking at how official military figures of civilian casualties do not match up with those reported by human rights groups. | The Guardian reports that survivors of an alleged NATO rocket attack on a small town in Helmand, which the Afghan Government says killed 52 civilians, spoke yesterday of their anger at what they claim was a deliberate air strike. | Various media sources have reported that in his evidence to the Iraq Inquiry yesterday, the UN's former chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said that Britain and the US should have realised that intelligence about Iraq's supposed 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' was wrong before the start of the war.
Sapper Mark Antony Smith killed in Afghanistan
It is with sadness that the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that Sapper Mark Antony Smith, from 36 Engineer Regiment, serving with the Counter-IED Task Force, was killed in Afghanistan on Monday 26 July 2010. Click here to read more.
Tonga to send troops to Afghanistan
It has been reported that Tonga has agreed to send a contingent of 55 troops to Afghanistan, following an invitation from the UK to get involved. The MOD welcomes the news that Tonga has agreed to deploy alongside UK forces in Helmand. Tonga has agreed to deploy 55 personnel in a force protection role - this deployment is currently planned for Autumn 2010. As part of their deployment the Tongan personnel will receive an operational allowance in UK pounds in addition to their standard salary for the duration of their deployment. Afghanistan is an international community effort and this additional deployment by Tonga reinforces this. The next step is for Tonga to complete the NATO process to be recognised as a non-NATO troop-contributing nation.
Civil Service Redeployment Pool
The Times reports that Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has said that thousands of civil servants are without jobs in most Whitehall departments but are still being paid. The newspaper says that it emerged yesterday that most departments have redeployment pools made up of civil servants who have come to the end of particular projects and have no defined roles. The paper says that some of these officials 'turn up for work with little to do for weeks, months or sometimes years'.
The Redeployment Pool (RDP) was introduced by the MOD in October 2005 to provide a mechanism for helping civilian staff find a new post when their current post comes to an end or they are placed in a redundancy situation, or are due to return from an extended absence or overseas posting.
On 15 June 2010, 1,343 MOD personnel were in the RDP compared to 1,256 on 1 January 2008. The total number of employees that are currently in the RDP and have been for four months or more is 842. This represents civilian MOD data consisiting of permanent civilian personnel and Royal Fleet Auxiliaries, but excludes Trading Funds and locally engaged civilians.
