Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News - 30th April 2025

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UK Column News - 30th April 2025 · UK Column Radio

0:07
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, It's Wednesday, the thirtieth of April twenty twenty five,
0:11
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK column News. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: your host Mike Robinson. Joining me in the studio today
0:15
Speaker 1: is Charles Mullett. Welcome to the program, Charlesig and by
0:19
Speaker 1: video link we have Vanessa Billy and Sandy Adam Snylitter
0:22
Speaker 1: in the program. We're going to be covering the latest
0:25
Speaker 1: on the censorship of gender here in the UK, new
0:27
Speaker 1: private security company working in Syria. But we're going to
0:30
Speaker 1: begin with carnage, and well there's carnage in the world.
0:34
Speaker 1: In Canada, Mark Carney has been elected as the new
0:37
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, having taken over from Justin Trudeau and calling
0:41
Speaker 1: an early election. He's suggesting that his election is another
0:45
Speaker 1: example of the Trump effect. So let's just have a
0:49
Speaker 1: look at a little bit of what Mark Carney had
0:51
Speaker 1: to say.
0:53
Speaker 2: As I been warning for months, America wants our land,
0:59
Speaker 2: our resources, our water, our country never But these are
1:06
Speaker 2: not these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying
1:12
Speaker 2: to break us so that America can own us. That
1:16
Speaker 2: will never that will never ever happen.
1:21
Speaker 3: But we.
1:25
Speaker 2: But we also must recognize the reality that our world
1:29
Speaker 2: has fundamentally changed.
1:33
Speaker 1: So there we are again with this narrative that the
1:35
Speaker 1: world has fundamentally changed. This is something we're hearing from Starmer,
1:38
Speaker 1: from Barcelona, underlyon from Mark Krnage himself, and of course
1:42
Speaker 1: Trump is the excuse for it. I have to say, though, Charles,
1:46
Speaker 1: the crowd's reaction to all that was thoroughly underwhelming. I
1:50
Speaker 1: don't think too many were buying it well.
1:53
Speaker 4: I think the underwhelming seems to be the theme of
1:55
Speaker 4: the whole affair. I mean, the fact that anyone would
1:58
Speaker 4: be inspired by such a man speaking in such a
2:00
Speaker 4: way is completely extraordinary, I would say, in the first instance.
2:04
Speaker 1: Indeed so in the meantime, according to the mainstream press,
2:07
Speaker 1: at least, it was carnage in Spain and Portugal on Monday,
2:11
Speaker 1: with a total power adage in Spain which also severely
2:14
Speaker 1: disrupted Portugal, and there were also reports of impacting impacts
2:18
Speaker 1: in France and Belgium in a much smaller way. Now, unsurprisingly,
2:22
Speaker 1: the Wags were out in force, and this tweet is
2:25
Speaker 1: pretty typical example, offering congratulations to Spin and Portugal for
2:29
Speaker 1: achieving net zero. At last, it was only a week
2:33
Speaker 1: or so ago that the media was full of congratulations
2:36
Speaker 1: for Spain achieving one hundred percent renewable energy production, so
2:41
Speaker 1: it's perhaps no surprise at one of the main suggestions
2:43
Speaker 1: for why this happened is a massive spike in solar
2:47
Speaker 1: and electricity generation which overloaded the grid. This all resulted
2:52
Speaker 1: in tweets such as this, highlighting the central role of
2:56
Speaker 1: Agenda twenty thirty in Spain's thinking. So in this case
2:59
Speaker 1: they have Enda twenty thirty all over the trains, the
3:02
Speaker 1: Agenda twenty thirty logo and so on. But nevertheless it
3:06
Speaker 1: was It wasn't long before darker explanations started appearing in
3:10
Speaker 1: the press, accusations that this was a result of a
3:13
Speaker 1: cyber attack by you guessed at Russia. But is that likely?
3:17
Speaker 1: And the question I'd ask is what has spin done
3:20
Speaker 1: to Russia that Russia would carry out an attack on
3:22
Speaker 1: this way. On the other hand, just a few days
3:25
Speaker 1: ago Spain canceled a so called defense contract with the
3:30
Speaker 1: world's pre eminent cybersecurity nation, which is Israel. And remember
3:34
Speaker 1: that Unit eighty two hundred spawned tech companies. They run
3:39
Speaker 1: just about every layer of the modern Internet in the West.
3:42
Speaker 1: So if anyone is in a position to pull such
3:44
Speaker 1: a so called cyber attack Israel is Now, I'm not
3:47
Speaker 1: claiming that Israel did it, but if there's any attempt
3:50
Speaker 1: to claim that this is the result of a cyber attack,
3:52
Speaker 1: then I would say it's pretty important to keep that
3:55
Speaker 1: possibility in mind. Now. The mainstream press, of course filled
3:59
Speaker 1: their pages with claims of mass panic such as this
4:03
Speaker 1: one no power, no phone, no transport, spin in a panic. Well,
4:08
Speaker 1: in fact, social media was not quite in agreement with
4:12
Speaker 1: that situation. So this is a typical tweet that we
4:15
Speaker 1: saw a massive power blackout in Spain and Portugal. No internet,
4:19
Speaker 1: no payments, flights are canceled, media chaos, People are in panic.
4:24
Speaker 1: What really happened? We just took blankets, beer and had
4:27
Speaker 1: a great time together. So, you know, I don't really
4:30
Speaker 1: know what to say. Clearly the mainstream press turning this
4:35
Speaker 1: into something that perhaps isn't quite accurate, but also the
4:38
Speaker 1: attempts to blame Russia for, you know, without any substantiation,
4:44
Speaker 1: for a cyber attack or hilarious. Vanessa, let me just
4:48
Speaker 1: ask you quickly for a comment on this. Russia or Israel,
4:53
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts?
4:57
Speaker 5: Well, I think both are perfectly capable of it. But
4:59
Speaker 5: I think the most likely in my view, would be Israel.
5:03
Speaker 5: But of course we're not making that claim. We're just
5:05
Speaker 5: suggesting that they're very good at it.
5:09
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, Okay, thank you for that. Let's move on
5:12
Speaker 1: and sticking with I suppose that zero and the Jenda
5:16
Speaker 1: twenty thirty in the sense, let me welcome Sandy to
5:19
Speaker 1: the program.
5:20
Speaker 5: Uh.
5:20
Speaker 1: And well, what's going on in Malvern with the Malverne
5:25
Speaker 1: Environmental Protection Group?
5:27
Speaker 6: Well, they they've been formed really because the Malvern Hills
5:31
Speaker 6: Trust the I think it's the MHTS that they you know,
5:37
Speaker 6: what do you call it? The thing that the Malvern
5:43
Speaker 6: Hills Trust is the body that look after the Malvern
5:46
Speaker 6: Hills and it's financed by the by the council tax
5:49
Speaker 6: people that pay their council tax. And what's happened is
5:52
Speaker 6: that they've changed the structure and they've tried to modernize
5:58
Speaker 6: its governance. This is the Malvin Hill Trust and they've
6:01
Speaker 6: proposed a private bill which really takes the power away
6:06
Speaker 6: from the trustees. At the moment, I think there's twenty
6:10
Speaker 6: twenty nine of them, I think it was, and they've
6:13
Speaker 6: reduced it down to twelve and six of those are
6:17
Speaker 6: not They don't even live Six of those trustees have
6:21
Speaker 6: been cherry picked and they actually don't live in the area.
6:26
Speaker 7: And so what the people are worried about.
6:29
Speaker 6: Is that it's actually going to create tension because they're
6:34
Speaker 6: you know, this trust is saying that they're going to
6:37
Speaker 6: be using s sis. You know, we call them sites
6:41
Speaker 6: of scientific interest. There's a worry that this will restrict
6:45
Speaker 6: people's movement on the hills, and this, you know, the
6:52
Speaker 6: Protection Committee are you know, sort of heading up this
6:57
Speaker 6: kind of you know, a big campaign again because it's again,
7:01
Speaker 6: it's another corporate takeover of our land. And unfortunately that's
7:05
Speaker 6: what we're seeing. We're seeing governance being taken over from
7:09
Speaker 6: from people's representation. So the community members fear that the
7:14
Speaker 6: bill could have paved the way for increased commercialization of
7:17
Speaker 6: the hills, potentially prioritizing you know, revenue generating activities, and
7:22
Speaker 6: I'm sure that's what will happen. I think we've really
7:26
Speaker 6: got to look at this. So this this corporate takeover
7:29
Speaker 6: of our land and taking it out of the hands
7:32
Speaker 6: of the people and the trustees that look after it
7:34
Speaker 6: and have done for many, many years, and putting it
7:37
Speaker 6: into corporate private hands. For commercial interests and this is
7:41
Speaker 6: what we're finding. It's just, you know, it is absolutely
7:46
Speaker 6: appalling what's going on. And I think you know the
7:49
Speaker 6: the Environmental Protection Group, do look them up.
7:54
Speaker 7: It is a Malvin Hills Environmental Protection Group.
7:58
Speaker 6: I think Jeff Buys Cars did a wonderful YouTube on it,
8:03
Speaker 6: so do look that up as well. He interviewed one
8:06
Speaker 6: of the trustees from from this group and really went
8:10
Speaker 6: into how they're that that they're taking literally the power
8:14
Speaker 6: away from the people who pay for it.
8:16
Speaker 7: I mean, we pay for this in our council tax.
8:20
Speaker 6: And I just wanted to really highlight the fact that
8:24
Speaker 6: there is there is this kind of well, there's always
8:28
Speaker 6: been an infiltration to take away our power from from
8:35
Speaker 6: these charities that were formally set up like the National
8:39
Speaker 6: Trust and the RSPB. I'm doubi about the World Wildlife Fund.
8:44
Speaker 7: But there's an.
8:45
Speaker 6: Infiltration to bring extreme climate fascism I call it into
8:51
Speaker 6: all these all these bodies and and this is what's happening.
8:56
Speaker 6: And unfortunately we've got this The Living Planet Act is
9:02
Speaker 6: coming up and it's the r the World Wildlife Fund
9:08
Speaker 6: are trying to get this into into Parliament, and that
9:11
Speaker 6: there is a succeeding. They're going to try and get
9:14
Speaker 6: an act called the Living Planet Act, which it hasn't
9:18
Speaker 6: been enacted in law yet, but it remains in a
9:20
Speaker 6: legislative proposal advocated by the w w F to establish
9:25
Speaker 6: a legally binding framework that integrates the efforts to address
9:29
Speaker 6: climate change by a diversity loss and food security.
9:32
Speaker 7: Which is interesting.
9:34
Speaker 6: So we're you know, we've got we've got these these
9:38
Speaker 6: these people, these bodies, these charities that seem to have
9:43
Speaker 6: adopted this kind of completely radical, crazy climate you know, fascism,
9:51
Speaker 6: I call it, because they're just adopting all these these
9:55
Speaker 6: ideologies that are forcing people off the land and taking
9:59
Speaker 6: everybody's you know, represented representative bodies who actually pay for
10:04
Speaker 6: the land away. And this is what we've got to
10:07
Speaker 6: really look at and fight against here.
10:12
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sandy Nice. Sticking with the question of food
10:15
Speaker 1: security and whether when they talk about food security they
10:18
Speaker 1: actually want to see us being able to feed ourselves
10:21
Speaker 1: properly is a good one. So let's move on to
10:24
Speaker 1: that topic. Absolutely.
10:25
Speaker 4: We will get to somewhere near there anyway. And as
10:28
Speaker 4: it stands, two thirds of adults in this country are overweight,
10:32
Speaker 4: and half of those who are abese, and the government
10:34
Speaker 4: has just announced last month that it's going to come
10:36
Speaker 4: up with yet another food strategy to sort everything out.
10:40
Speaker 4: As the image accompanying the press release shows, it's got
10:43
Speaker 4: off to rather inauspicious start with the depiction of a
10:46
Speaker 4: supermarket trolley laden with many of the root causes of
10:50
Speaker 4: ill health. With this in mind, it comes as little
10:54
Speaker 4: surprised to find that the nascent Food Strategy Advisory Board
10:57
Speaker 4: is stacked out with industry heads who have every interest
11:00
Speaker 4: in preserving the status quo, or at least adopting it
11:03
Speaker 4: slightly in order to maximize maximize profits on fake food.
11:07
Speaker 4: Of course, the National Farmers' Union talks of prioritizing growth
11:12
Speaker 4: and therefore is right behind it, by which they mean
11:14
Speaker 4: really falling in line with government initiatives to give up
11:17
Speaker 4: on the production of real food or looking after the environment,
11:21
Speaker 4: and to go in for subsidy based on inefficient energy
11:24
Speaker 4: schemes and artificial food via robotics and AI. This comes
11:30
Speaker 4: as the BBC's Panorama program exposes what should have been
11:33
Speaker 4: common knowledge that baby food is full of sugar. There
11:36
Speaker 4: is also talk of a sugar levy being applied to
11:40
Speaker 4: milk based drinks, which makes it relevant that the only
11:44
Speaker 4: farmer to sit on this new board is a man
11:47
Speaker 4: named Sam Godfrey, who until last year was on the
11:50
Speaker 4: NFU's sugar board, literally promoting a product that should not
11:54
Speaker 4: belong in any human diet. Now notable by its absence
11:58
Speaker 4: from the board are the fisheries and here is Elsbeth
12:01
Speaker 4: McDonald of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, and she's written to
12:05
Speaker 4: Daniel Zeichner, the Minister, to ask for an explanation as
12:08
Speaker 4: to why they should be omitted. And since this initiative
12:10
Speaker 4: says that it's concerned with health, why would there be
12:13
Speaker 4: no room at the table for the National Health Service
12:15
Speaker 4: which spends the equivalent of the entire farming budget every
12:19
Speaker 4: five days. The remit of the Food Strategy Advisory Board
12:23
Speaker 4: is ironically to provide more easily accessible and affordable healthy food,
12:28
Speaker 4: to maintain our food security by building resilience in the
12:32
Speaker 4: face of climate shocks and geopolitical changes, strengthening the supply
12:37
Speaker 4: chain which operates so effectively to keep us fed, and
12:41
Speaker 4: inevitably to reduce the impact of farming and food production
12:44
Speaker 4: on nature, biodiversity and climate, whilst ensuring growth is at
12:48
Speaker 4: the heart.
12:49
Speaker 1: Of our strategy.
12:50
Speaker 4: It's a word soup, though not a digestible one, and
12:54
Speaker 4: I would say it's plainly influenced at its core by
12:56
Speaker 4: legion people who have no interest in understanding, sorry interest
13:02
Speaker 4: or understanding of the landscape which surrounds us, nor the
13:05
Speaker 4: means by which food may be produced for the mutual
13:08
Speaker 4: benefit of the farmer and the consumer. Exhibit A in
13:13
Speaker 4: this regard would be the latest offering from UK Fires,
13:15
Speaker 4: who wrote the Absolute Zero document in twenty nineteen, which
13:19
Speaker 4: attempted to suggest that it's possible for an entire country
13:22
Speaker 4: to stop producing any carbon dioxide. This time around, there
13:25
Speaker 4: suggesting doing anything except for actually growing things. They say
13:29
Speaker 4: here technology is relating to electrification, alternative protein production, precision
13:34
Speaker 4: agriculture and controlled environment agriculture must be adopted at scale.
13:40
Speaker 4: So when it does come to growing things, mainstream industrial
13:43
Speaker 4: agriculture dictates that this comes at a significant cost, both
13:47
Speaker 4: to the land and of course anyone eating that which
13:50
Speaker 4: has come off it. As reported on consistently by UK column,
13:54
Speaker 4: ultraprocessed food is the result of a system driven by
13:57
Speaker 4: chemical inducements at every turn. One of these is the
14:00
Speaker 4: constant application of pesticides. Another subject ignored thus far by
14:05
Speaker 4: the board. However, the suggestion that something toxic enough to
14:09
Speaker 4: kill insects could present a danger to people has got
14:12
Speaker 4: through to the World Health Organization, which remains determined to
14:15
Speaker 4: do nothing about it. The UK government prefer to employ
14:19
Speaker 4: more or less the same head and sand technique wherever possible,
14:22
Speaker 4: and this is from twenty twenty one in which they
14:24
Speaker 4: attempt to dismiss any causal link between consuming toxins and
14:29
Speaker 4: getting ill, stating here that evidence has not established these
14:33
Speaker 4: causal links between low level, long term pesticide exposure and
14:38
Speaker 4: health impacts. That said, they do report on a regular
14:42
Speaker 4: basis on the pesticide residues found in foods coming into
14:47
Speaker 4: and grown within the UK. Now, a link to this
14:50
Speaker 4: document will be in the show notes. And if you
14:52
Speaker 4: really do want to know what you are eating or
14:54
Speaker 4: might be eating, then I would urge you to scan
14:56
Speaker 4: through it. Not only our a bewildering array of pests
15:00
Speaker 4: sides listed, but an extremely high percentage of the food
15:02
Speaker 4: tested was found to have pesticide residue present. Of course,
15:06
Speaker 4: it remains up to the government to set the maximum limits. Now,
15:11
Speaker 4: rather than go through a massive chemicals I'll focus on
15:13
Speaker 4: just one in order to illustrate just how little regard
15:16
Speaker 4: the government and the industry has for health. It's noted
15:19
Speaker 4: that there's an issue with sodium chlorate and this is
15:22
Speaker 4: a weed killer which is banned in the UK and
15:25
Speaker 4: the EU, but because it's also used in what's called
15:29
Speaker 4: microbiological safety, the term they give to for killing anything
15:33
Speaker 4: that isn't already dead, the government states that these residues
15:37
Speaker 4: are unavoidable and important for the maintaining of micro biological control,
15:42
Speaker 4: vital for food safety. So we are not treating these
15:45
Speaker 4: results as breaches of the maximum residue limit. So in
15:49
Speaker 4: other words, absolutely they do what they please in that regard,
15:54
Speaker 4: and they go on to say that they're not advising
15:56
Speaker 4: any organization to change its practices, but that they are
15:59
Speaker 4: going to quote consider what to do about chlorate residues
16:03
Speaker 4: in food and water now. To reinforce the point that
16:07
Speaker 4: there is no pressure to act. This is what happens
16:11
Speaker 4: when companies do exceed the limits, which is that they
16:14
Speaker 4: get a letter sent to them and they're given four
16:16
Speaker 4: weeks to provide a statement for inclusion in the report.
16:19
Speaker 4: The Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues reviews any replies received,
16:25
Speaker 4: and this is how much they care. Supplier response is none.
16:31
Speaker 4: Now the involvement of Nestor confirms that behavioral change really
16:38
Speaker 4: is at the heart of all of this, which sets
16:40
Speaker 4: the conditions for more and more farmland to be taken
16:42
Speaker 4: from its owners. This is a document from twenty twenty
16:44
Speaker 4: three in which controlling obesity was linked solely to the
16:47
Speaker 4: input of calories regardless of nutritional content, a form of
16:52
Speaker 4: social credit system therefore which can be applied across the board.
16:55
Speaker 4: The media continues to reinforce the narrative that a diet
16:58
Speaker 4: of whole foods devoid of chemicals silly and difficult, here
17:01
Speaker 4: showcasing Gwyneth Paltrow who's taking up the content space with
17:05
Speaker 4: the news that sheets bread. And finally, we should not
17:08
Speaker 4: forget the words of a previous Environment Secretary Therease Coffee,
17:12
Speaker 4: who was adamant that the world's most harmful herbicide, glyphosate,
17:16
Speaker 4: was an integral part of regenerative farming, thereby confirming that
17:20
Speaker 4: when it comes to health, food and nutrition, neither the
17:23
Speaker 4: government nor industry should ever be listened to. You spoke
17:28
Speaker 4: at the start about food security, and I think this
17:32
Speaker 4: is all very much part of the process by which
17:37
Speaker 4: food security is stripped away and stripped away either via
17:40
Speaker 4: subsidy or so called innovation, in that farmers are pushed
17:45
Speaker 4: away exactly like Sandy's being described. People are pushed away
17:48
Speaker 4: from being able to control the land that they may
17:51
Speaker 4: own or indeed.
17:53
Speaker 1: Have access to.
17:54
Speaker 4: And it just looks like it's going to be a
17:57
Speaker 4: sort of a one way journey from here. And if
17:59
Speaker 4: you have any particular thoughts on any of that.
18:02
Speaker 1: No, we I'm sure we'll talk more about it than
18:05
Speaker 1: extraly for sure. Okay, well, look, let's let's move on.
18:08
Speaker 1: And well, Vanessa and I recorded another episode of the
18:12
Speaker 1: Syria Podcast at the weekend and that went up on
18:14
Speaker 1: the UK Column website. If you haven't heard that yet,
18:17
Speaker 1: please do go and listen to it. But in the
18:19
Speaker 1: course of that recording, Vanessa, you mentioned a private security
18:24
Speaker 1: company which you didn't name at the time, so let's
18:28
Speaker 1: let's name it now.
18:31
Speaker 5: Well, yes, and I hasten to also say that in
18:35
Speaker 5: addition to the podcast, there will be a series of
18:38
Speaker 5: articles that I'm writing published at UK Column going into
18:42
Speaker 5: greater detail this into this organization and its potential practices
18:47
Speaker 5: in Syria. But the name of The company is Emerald
18:51
Speaker 5: Emerald Syria, part of the Emerald Group. It's based in
18:56
Speaker 5: Dubai and the UAE, but it is effectively staff predominantly
19:01
Speaker 5: as always with many of these pmc's private military companies
19:07
Speaker 5: or private military security companies by former British military and
19:13
Speaker 5: this is no exception.
19:15
Speaker 8: So basically there were two.
19:17
Speaker 5: Articles published, one in Online Intelligence, another in Turkish media,
19:21
Speaker 5: which is this one UA group launches security firms in
19:25
Speaker 5: Syria after a sad fall. So let's have a quick
19:29
Speaker 5: look at the logo up at their Instagram. We are
19:32
Speaker 5: excited to announce the establishment of our new company, Emerald
19:36
Speaker 5: Solutions Syria, dedicated to providing exceptional services in Syria, which
19:40
Speaker 5: according to them, it includes the protection of media outlets
19:46
Speaker 5: operating in Syria. And then within the article itself it
19:51
Speaker 5: explains a little bit more about how Emerald god established
19:55
Speaker 5: in Syria if we can just have a look at this.
19:58
Speaker 5: So what it talks about is the in fact that
20:00
Speaker 5: Emerald has clients already that are being housed in fortified
20:05
Speaker 5: villas in Damascus and protected by local forces. One assumes
20:09
Speaker 5: that's members of the HTS unelected government effectively al Qaeda.
20:16
Speaker 5: They entered Damascus, and this is interesting before just before sorry,
20:21
Speaker 5: on the day of the fall of Damascus, so on
20:24
Speaker 5: the eighth December, which of course is the day that
20:26
Speaker 5: I managed to get out of Damascus, and that was
20:30
Speaker 5: according to them, in order to work with international media
20:33
Speaker 5: covering the historic events. They were registered apparently in Syria
20:39
Speaker 5: officially on March the eleventh, twenty twenty five, which was
20:43
Speaker 5: facilitated by the then Trade minister. He's now actually been replaced.
20:49
Speaker 5: Now the head of operations in Syria is a Simon Ralton.
20:54
Speaker 5: If we can just have a quick look at his
20:57
Speaker 5: LinkedIn so he's described as managing director of Emerald Solutions Iraq,
21:02
Speaker 5: Syria and Lebanon. And interestingly, I'm not going to go
21:07
Speaker 5: into massive detail, but Simon rout And in particular was involved.
21:13
Speaker 8: This is him again.
21:14
Speaker 5: Emerald Solutions successfully repatriated Travis Timmerman from Syria, reuniting him
21:20
Speaker 5: safely with US forces at the altanav illegal US military
21:26
Speaker 5: base on the border with Syria and Jordan. Now just
21:28
Speaker 5: very quickly to cover the Travis Timmerman's short story, which
21:31
Speaker 5: is relatively interesting. He entered Syria, I would guess about
21:35
Speaker 5: a year ago illegally. He was smuggled through the Lebanese
21:39
Speaker 5: border into Syria, and perhaps unsurprisingly, at a time when
21:44
Speaker 5: tourism was actually booming in Syria under the former Syrian government.
21:49
Speaker 5: He was arrested for entering illegally and without any papers
21:53
Speaker 5: or permissions. He claimed he was on a religious pilgrimage,
21:57
Speaker 5: and he was eventually found barefoot. After all the prisons
22:01
Speaker 5: were opened up by the marauding Al Qaeda gangs and
22:06
Speaker 5: he was allegedly found by Emerald Solutions and then with
22:13
Speaker 5: the help of Syria Emergency Task Force, which is another
22:17
Speaker 5: CIA linked regime change focused operation, he was taken to Altanif.
22:23
Speaker 5: So this suggests that Emerald was already well aware of
22:28
Speaker 5: the situation in Syria prior to the actual operation by
22:33
Speaker 5: HTS and in connection with another CIA operator in Syria itself.
22:39
Speaker 5: So I found that quite interesting as a story. And
22:42
Speaker 5: also Routon only joined Emerald Solutions in November twenty twenty four,
22:48
Speaker 5: so one month prior to the fall of Damascus. I'm
22:52
Speaker 5: sure that's also just coincidental. He looking at his LinkedIn profile.
22:58
Speaker 5: His first job the PMC industry was which with an
23:02
Speaker 5: organization called EGIS Defense Systems Limited, where he was from
23:06
Speaker 5: May two thousand and seven until June two thousand and ten.
23:10
Speaker 8: Why have I focused on this.
23:12
Speaker 5: Because I think it demonstrates very clearly that the kind
23:15
Speaker 5: of internal structure of pm scs globally and of course
23:20
Speaker 5: the majority of which.
23:22
Speaker 8: Are based in the UK.
23:23
Speaker 5: So let's have a look at who was basically the
23:27
Speaker 5: chairman of EGIS Defense when it was established in two
23:30
Speaker 5: thousand and two, Lord Nicholas Solmes, who you'll know better
23:34
Speaker 5: perhaps as an MP of Crawley in Sussex. He was
23:37
Speaker 5: the former chairman of EGIS Defense Services and member of
23:41
Speaker 5: the International Advisory Board for gard A World, who bought
23:44
Speaker 5: E just in two thousand and fifteen. So this shows
23:48
Speaker 5: very clearly a revolving door between this particular PMC and
23:53
Speaker 5: the British government and the House of Lords itself. And
23:56
Speaker 5: then who basically formed defense. This is a guy a
24:01
Speaker 5: Maverick known as Sorry, who is Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer
24:07
Speaker 5: given the OBE for his services about his book about
24:11
Speaker 5: the Man who Inspired Double Seven. So he formed AGIS
24:16
Speaker 5: in two thousand and two.
24:17
Speaker 8: Now, AGIS did.
24:19
Speaker 5: Not have a very good record in Iraq. In particular,
24:23
Speaker 5: they were kind of hauled over the goals for employing
24:26
Speaker 5: former child soldiers as mercenaries in child soldiers from Sierra Leone,
24:34
Speaker 5: and it was picked up that there was a very
24:37
Speaker 5: good reason according to the IGIs directors, that they would
24:41
Speaker 5: use these former child soldiers from Sierra Leone because they
24:45
Speaker 5: were much cheaper than using British or European mercenaries. They
24:48
Speaker 5: were only paying them around sixteen dollars per day. But
24:52
Speaker 5: prior to forming AEGIS, Spicer started another company called Sandline.
25:00
Speaker 5: This is their homepage. Formerly it was taken down from
25:05
Speaker 5: the Internet. They were formed in the early nineteen nineties
25:09
Speaker 5: and were.
25:10
Speaker 8: Dogged by controversy.
25:12
Speaker 5: So again Spicer involved in controversial events through his PMC.
25:19
Speaker 5: In nineteen ninety seven, Sandline and this was known as
25:22
Speaker 5: the Sandline affair.
25:24
Speaker 8: Sandline was hired to help put down.
25:26
Speaker 5: A rebellion in Papua and New Guinea and the local
25:28
Speaker 5: army wasn't happy to find a PMC was brought in
25:31
Speaker 5: and paid more than the overall military budget, so the
25:35
Speaker 5: army launched a coup and overthrew the government in Papua
25:38
Speaker 5: on New Guinea. This was written by Peter W. Singer,
25:41
Speaker 5: author of Corporate Warriors. But then, if we move on
25:45
Speaker 5: also in nineteen ninety six to ninety seven, no sorry,
25:52
Speaker 5: in ninety nine, Tony Blair was involved in the Arms
25:58
Speaker 5: to Africa Scanned, which was effectively I'm going to describe
26:02
Speaker 5: it very very shortly. In nineteen ninety seven there was
26:07
Speaker 5: a coup that put Johnny Paul Croma in power. However,
26:12
Speaker 5: the UK, EU and US wanted to restore the previous
26:15
Speaker 5: government of President Kaba. In ninety seven, the UN imposed
26:19
Speaker 5: an embargo on armed supply to Sierra Leone, and in
26:24
Speaker 5: ninety eight the supporters of Caaba, the former president, thought
26:28
Speaker 5: that they would employ Sandlined in an international to overthrow Coroma,
26:33
Speaker 5: which meant that he was supplying Spicer was supplying weapons,
26:36
Speaker 5: military equipment and personnel. When he thought he was going
26:41
Speaker 5: to be rumbled, his solicitors sent a letter to the
26:43
Speaker 5: Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook implicating for an office, personnel and
26:47
Speaker 5: mod officials and representatives of the then US administration, which
26:53
Speaker 5: then prompted Cook to initiate the leg inquiry. And this
26:58
Speaker 5: is Paddy Ashdown basically speaking to Tony Blair. Whilst the
27:05
Speaker 5: government has been playing past the parcel with the blame
27:09
Speaker 5: over this the Sierra Leone rebels who were defeated by
27:12
Speaker 5: British arms have now been re armed, apparently with the
27:15
Speaker 5: assistance of another British company. So again I just want
27:18
Speaker 5: to show the background to perhaps Emerald Solutions in Syria
27:23
Speaker 5: and the staff that are actually working within that. And
27:26
Speaker 5: then again coming back to Ijis, a UK firm awarded
27:31
Speaker 5: the largest Iraq security contract, so a two year contract
27:36
Speaker 5: four hundred and seventy five million dollars. They were also
27:40
Speaker 5: involved in the attack against Basra in two thousand and three,
27:45
Speaker 5: replacing British troops at the behest of the then Basra governor.
27:51
Speaker 8: And there was in two thousand.
27:53
Speaker 5: And five video of an Aegis contractor firing wildly at
27:57
Speaker 5: civilian cars on the Iraqi Highway to the tune of
28:00
Speaker 5: Mystery Train by Elvis Presley. And of course we will
28:05
Speaker 5: remember the crimes committed by Blackwater and BYCI who were
28:12
Speaker 5: accused of torturing prisoners under their detention and torturing them.
28:17
Speaker 5: So therefore, you know, I think this just sets the
28:21
Speaker 5: scene for what PMCs might be up to in Syria.
28:25
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vanessa. We'll come back to this topic a
28:28
Speaker 1: little bit later on, but in the meantime, if you
28:29
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Speaker 1: everybody to help us with that. But Charles, there is
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Speaker 1: an item on the UK Column Shop that we still
29:14
Speaker 1: would encourage people to get hold of.
29:16
Speaker 4: Absolutely there is. Indeed, I was wearing mine this morning
29:18
Speaker 4: and it definitely put as spring in my step. The
29:21
Speaker 4: UK Column on location I wasn't the only one listening
29:24
Speaker 4: from Cheltenham twenty twenty five is now up on the website.
29:27
Speaker 4: So if you were there, or you watch the live stream,
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Speaker 4: or you are about to watch the live stream because
29:32
Speaker 4: that is also still for sale, then do get a
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29:37
Speaker 1: Now you interviewed Sam sobel.
29:39
Speaker 4: I did and that went out yesterday. It's been very
29:41
Speaker 4: well received. She speaks very, very passionately and from a
29:44
Speaker 4: very well informed position on home education. And when one
29:48
Speaker 4: considers what Ben was reporting in the news on Monday's
29:53
Speaker 4: program about the suggestion that the government are going to
29:56
Speaker 4: be able to invage their way into the lives of
29:59
Speaker 4: primary school children, and when it concerns issues about which
30:03
Speaker 4: they may or may not speak or have a particular view,
30:06
Speaker 4: then this really is one to listen to, not just
30:08
Speaker 4: for people with children, but for those who just want
30:12
Speaker 4: to get a better idea of sort of how corrupt
30:13
Speaker 4: the system actually is and how it can be avoided.
30:17
Speaker 1: And at one pm tomorrow you interviewed Jeremy nil Jerrem.
30:21
Speaker 1: Warfare and Battle of ideas is the topic one pm tomorrow.
30:26
Speaker 1: Do not miss it, and there's a very good reason
30:28
Speaker 1: for not missing it, because Jerem has going to be
30:31
Speaker 1: providing us with a lot of content over the next
30:34
Speaker 1: coming weeks and months.
30:35
Speaker 4: He is indeed, Yeah, we're very pleased to announce that
30:37
Speaker 4: starting on Monday, the fifth of May, he will be
30:41
Speaker 4: producing a show for UK column under his Germ Warfare
30:45
Speaker 4: brand and that will go out seven pm Monday to Friday,
30:48
Speaker 4: and he will be resuming his consistently high quality service
30:53
Speaker 4: of interviewing fascinating people from all over the world about
30:56
Speaker 4: topics that we have all say reaped huge benefits from
31:01
Speaker 4: listening into to date. So we're really excited about that.
31:04
Speaker 4: To have him with UK column and the interview for
31:08
Speaker 4: tomorrow is not just sort of to lead up to that,
31:11
Speaker 4: but also his background he's been a cartoonist for a
31:15
Speaker 4: long time, having worked in the mainstream media and to
31:18
Speaker 4: have come out the other side, and also his perspective
31:21
Speaker 4: as a South African living in a sort of broken country.
31:25
Speaker 1: Okay, now, just a quick reminder of Standing the Light
31:29
Speaker 1: taking place in Cumbria. That's May Bank Holiday twenty third
31:33
Speaker 1: to twenty sixth and May twenty twenty five. Lots of
31:37
Speaker 1: it's hugely interesting people performing at that event and a
31:41
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other activities for people, So do get
31:43
Speaker 1: along to that if you possibly can. Okay, Now let's
31:47
Speaker 1: move on then to online safety and well. Good news.
31:50
Speaker 1: Everyone ofcom has set up its new Online Information Advisory
31:55
Speaker 1: Committee and appointed several members. Now the Online Information Advisory
32:00
Speaker 1: Committee is a requirement of the Online Safety Act, and
32:03
Speaker 1: it's there apparently to provide advice to OFFCOM with specific
32:06
Speaker 1: focus on misinformation and disinformation. Its first meeting is going
32:11
Speaker 1: to take place on the sixteenth of May, and OFCOM
32:14
Speaker 1: says their job under the Act is quote to make
32:17
Speaker 1: sure platforms in scope are taking effective action to address
32:20
Speaker 1: illegal content and other material that is harmful to children
32:24
Speaker 1: through implementing appropriate systems and processes. Our role will not
32:28
Speaker 1: involve us making decisions about individual posts, accounts, or requiring
32:33
Speaker 1: specific pieces of content to be taken down. No, they
32:36
Speaker 1: will merely be selling the precedent that everybody has to follow,
32:40
Speaker 1: and they're relying on the platforms to be their chief censors.
32:45
Speaker 1: So let's have a look at who's on the committee then,
32:48
Speaker 1: So if we bring this back on screen and will
32:51
Speaker 1: the chair is a guy called Lord Allen of Hallum.
32:55
Speaker 1: He's also a non executive member director of the board
33:01
Speaker 1: and Ben has been mentioning him on a recent news program,
33:03
Speaker 1: So look back through the archives to have a look
33:06
Speaker 1: for that. OFFCOM has now appointed five new members who
33:10
Speaker 1: will each serve three year term beginning tomorrow. In fact,
33:14
Speaker 1: the first one that we're going to mention here is
33:16
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Costa. She is the Chief of Innovation and Partnerships
33:21
Speaker 1: at the Behavioral Insights Team, and so behavioral behavior change
33:27
Speaker 1: in this kind of thing absolutely fundamental to this discussion.
33:31
Speaker 1: She's also, by the way, a senior Visiting Fellow at
33:33
Speaker 1: the London School of Economics. The next on the list
33:36
Speaker 1: here is Jeffrey Hard. He's Professor of Political Philosophy and
33:41
Speaker 1: Public Policy at University College London and he's the director
33:44
Speaker 1: of UCL's Digital Speech Lab. He's also a Senior Associate
33:48
Speaker 1: at the Institute of Ethics in AI at Oxford University.
33:52
Speaker 1: The next is another familiar name, Will moy. He's currently
33:56
Speaker 1: Chief Executive of the Campbell Collaboration, which they describe as
34:00
Speaker 1: International Social Science Research Network, but he is previously held
34:06
Speaker 1: for many years the leadership role in fact, in full fact,
34:12
Speaker 1: so there we go. He also took part in the
34:15
Speaker 1: Lewson Inquiry and so on. He's been a longtime campaigner
34:18
Speaker 1: on these kinds of issues. The next on the list
34:21
Speaker 1: is Mark Scott, who's a Senior Resident Fellow at the
34:24
Speaker 1: Digital Forensic the DFR Labs as everybody will recognize, and
34:28
Speaker 1: he's previously worked as a correspondent for Politico and The
34:31
Speaker 1: New York Times. And finally then we have Devika Shanker
34:36
Speaker 1: grand Pierre, who is a thematic panel member of the
34:40
Speaker 1: EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalization and a contributing
34:44
Speaker 1: author to the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. So
34:48
Speaker 1: there you go. That's who's on the panel, that's who's
34:50
Speaker 1: on the board. And I'm sure that's going to be
34:53
Speaker 1: extremely useful in terms of making sure that many dissenting
34:57
Speaker 1: voices are shut down over the coming weeks, months, and years.
35:02
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, and yet another act of share hypocrisy,
35:07
Speaker 1: we had to bring your attention to this because the
35:10
Speaker 1: British regime has updated its Country Policy and Information Note
35:14
Speaker 1: on social Media surveillance and surplus activities. And this is
35:19
Speaker 1: for Iran, and I'm just going to take a bit.
35:23
Speaker 1: I'm going to say I need to issue a health
35:24
Speaker 1: warning here because as I read what it says, various
35:27
Speaker 1: degrees of side splitting may result in the listener. So
35:31
Speaker 1: the first paragraph states Iran's constitution and legal framework restricts
35:35
Speaker 1: online freedom of expression. Penalties for breaching Iran's computer crimes
35:40
Speaker 1: law ranged from fines and judicial orders to custodial sentences. Well,
35:45
Speaker 1: in fact, it goes on to say that it also
35:47
Speaker 1: potentially in some cases leads on to the death penalty.
35:50
Speaker 1: Anybody who isn't saying exactly the same kind of attitudes
35:54
Speaker 1: and approaches in the British government is not paying attention.
35:58
Speaker 1: But then it goes on to say that social media
36:00
Speaker 1: users in Iran whose posts are deemed critical of the
36:03
Speaker 1: state or against itself, declared high moral standards, or who
36:07
Speaker 1: comment on sensitive issues may be subject to treatment including harassment, arrest,
36:12
Speaker 1: ill treatment, torture, criminal charges that are sufficiently serious by
36:17
Speaker 1: its nature, repetition to amount of persecution. And anybody again
36:21
Speaker 1: who doesn't recognize exactly the same behavior in the British government,
36:25
Speaker 1: the British regime isn't paying attention and the hypocrisy is
36:29
Speaker 1: just off the charts. But let's stick sort of with
36:32
Speaker 1: this topic. Charles and a royal.
36:35
Speaker 4: Marine, Yeah, very much with this topic. Yes, a serving
36:38
Speaker 4: Roe marine has found himself at the center of a
36:40
Speaker 4: highly politicized censorship attack, and this is for questioning the
36:45
Speaker 4: lowering of the standards within three commanding brigade. Here he
36:49
Speaker 4: is describing what he did.
36:53
Speaker 3: I'm in a survey about a particular issue that marines
36:56
Speaker 3: are concerned about. That particular issue is that we believe
36:59
Speaker 3: that we have of the high standards that we keep
37:02
Speaker 3: in the high standards that we keep for a very
37:04
Speaker 3: important reason, which is to prevent marines from being killed
37:08
Speaker 3: in dangerous situations when we go to war, and we've
37:10
Speaker 3: been told we will go to war very soon. We
37:13
Speaker 3: are concerned that those high standards are being dropped and
37:16
Speaker 3: selectively dropped for political reasons, with the bespoken tension of
37:20
Speaker 3: forcing women through ra marines training for a political victory.
37:24
Speaker 4: Lap Now we'll come to the issue at hand, but
37:30
Speaker 4: I think it should be noted as very significant that
37:32
Speaker 4: he believes that he will be going to war very soon.
37:36
Speaker 4: They'll be linked to the full half hour interview in
37:38
Speaker 4: the show notes, and it's very compelling listening. Anyway, within
37:42
Speaker 4: twenty four hours of what he described, his survey was
37:44
Speaker 4: taken down with nearly one thousand signatures on it's probably
37:47
Speaker 4: five and a half thousand or so in three Commondit Brigade,
37:50
Speaker 4: and it was being described as Russian disinformation. Now there's
37:55
Speaker 4: no doubt about the push for women in the Royal Marines,
37:57
Speaker 4: and this is an image from their own website that
38:00
Speaker 4: the BBC, of course are taking this up and so
38:03
Speaker 4: far just one woman has passed the shorter all arms command.
38:08
Speaker 4: Of course, that this one, Lily may Fisher. She is
38:11
Speaker 4: not therefore having passed them all arms command. Of course,
38:14
Speaker 4: She's not a Ron Marien, but has made clear from
38:17
Speaker 4: her Instagram profile she is a opportunity and as far
38:21
Speaker 4: as this story is concerned, the thing to sorry. The
38:25
Speaker 4: next thing to happen was that this man's regiment was
38:27
Speaker 4: visited by an official from the mod explaining that there
38:30
Speaker 4: was not a problem with any of this, standards weren't
38:32
Speaker 4: being lowered, and whoever put the survey up was a coward.
38:35
Speaker 4: This went on for some time. Things did not go quiet,
38:38
Speaker 4: and it resulted in this young man telling his chain
38:40
Speaker 4: of command that he was responsible for the survey, and
38:43
Speaker 4: somewhat remarkably, he was flown down to London for an
38:46
Speaker 4: interview in main building Ministry of Defense. No times given
38:50
Speaker 4: to his concerns, as he had articulated them, but instead
38:55
Speaker 4: the focus of the interrogation was on his politics, which,
38:57
Speaker 4: as he correctly states, are his affair. A short while later,
39:01
Speaker 4: after returning from some leave, this happened.
39:06
Speaker 3: So drag me into this room. This is a different instance.
39:10
Speaker 3: So I'm now being dragged in by police Scotland. I
39:12
Speaker 3: asked them, am I being detained? They say, no, you're
39:15
Speaker 3: not being detained, but we're holding you here under the
39:18
Speaker 3: Terrorism Act. I'm just shaking my head at this instance.
39:24
Speaker 3: And I said, have I committed any acts of terrorism?
39:26
Speaker 3: Am I expected to commit any acts of terrorism? And
39:30
Speaker 3: they said no, we have you here because you have views,
39:34
Speaker 3: And that was I don't even know if they meant
39:37
Speaker 3: to say that, because that's the truth. I think they
39:40
Speaker 3: are supposed to maybe not say the truth in that instance,
39:43
Speaker 3: but that's what they've clearly been asked to investigate, is
39:46
Speaker 3: my political views, which are none of their business. And
39:50
Speaker 3: as soon as they say that, I just say thought crime.
39:52
Speaker 3: And they're like, I'm like, this is thought crime. You're
39:54
Speaker 3: the thought police. This is thought crime. And they're saying, well,
39:56
Speaker 3: there's no illegal you know, it's not illegal to think things,
40:00
Speaker 3: and I just well, it clearly is, because I'm here
40:02
Speaker 3: in a room and I'm being treated like a criminal
40:04
Speaker 3: and take and my rights are being taken away from
40:07
Speaker 3: me because I have opposing political views to the political establishment.
40:13
Speaker 4: This was under Schedule seven of the Terrorism Act two thousand.
40:16
Speaker 4: That's been a feature of UK column news reporting for
40:19
Speaker 4: much of the last year, a very obvious misapplication of
40:22
Speaker 4: the law in order to provoke fear and to attempt
40:24
Speaker 4: to cling to some kind of control. Now, the wording
40:28
Speaker 4: is opaque enough to justify in staring anyone under this
40:32
Speaker 4: piece of legislation. We see here that it's to do
40:35
Speaker 4: with people traveling through the UK's borders who may be
40:38
Speaker 4: involved or concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of
40:42
Speaker 4: acts of terrorism. And it goes on to say that
40:47
Speaker 4: the examination of an individual is not conditional upon having
40:51
Speaker 4: grounds to suspect that person of being engaged in terrorism,
40:55
Speaker 4: but the decision must not be arbitrary. In other words,
40:58
Speaker 4: those acting under this ledge in the port to have
41:01
Speaker 4: completely free reign, as they can never really be asked
41:04
Speaker 4: be held to account for their actions. Now, as far
41:07
Speaker 4: as the Royal Rens are concerned, this is a command issue,
41:10
Speaker 4: and this is what the young man had to say
41:12
Speaker 4: about that particular point.
41:16
Speaker 3: Forward, So to thens that're concerned about this, go into
41:19
Speaker 3: work and the next day you're at work and stand
41:22
Speaker 3: up for this issue and pull up your chain of
41:24
Speaker 3: command on this issue and say you don't think it's
41:25
Speaker 3: right for marines to be treated like this, and for
41:28
Speaker 3: you to feel like you have to lie on this
41:30
Speaker 3: issue and you have to you have to keep your
41:33
Speaker 3: opinion silent, say tell them that you've believed that. And
41:36
Speaker 3: for the people high up in the chain of command,
41:39
Speaker 3: I ask you to make an environment where people feel
41:42
Speaker 3: like they can speak about these sorts of things because
41:44
Speaker 3: they don't. And that's not my fault, it's your fault.
41:48
Speaker 3: I have a responsibility to speak about that issue, and
41:51
Speaker 3: that's what I've done. You have a responsibility to take
41:54
Speaker 3: on what I've told you and act upon it.
42:00
Speaker 4: The last couple of points to make concern the charade
42:02
Speaker 4: of diversity in the Armed Forces, and it's here that
42:04
Speaker 4: we find the one sentence which undoes all of this
42:07
Speaker 4: nonsense at a stroke. The Armed Forces is exempt in
42:12
Speaker 4: that it can do what it needs to do without compromise.
42:16
Speaker 4: And if we just look at the biennial diversity statistics,
42:20
Speaker 4: we see here that clause from it saying that they
42:24
Speaker 4: are exempt from the provisions of the Equality Act twenty
42:29
Speaker 4: ten because of reasons for reasons of combat effectiveness. So
42:34
Speaker 4: for every other organization in the country they must compromise. Now,
42:37
Speaker 4: why would that have been accepted by any business at
42:40
Speaker 4: any point? And the crumbling of this particular narrative is
42:43
Speaker 4: now very much evident on the Equality and Human Rights
42:46
Speaker 4: Commission website with a note here saying that it must
42:49
Speaker 4: be updated due to the Supreme Court judgment on sex
42:52
Speaker 4: and gender as reported on last week. No doubt more
42:56
Speaker 4: to talk about in extra.
42:58
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say move on then to warfare. And last
43:03
Speaker 1: week we were talking about the size of the British
43:05
Speaker 1: Army and considering the likelihood of some form of conscription
43:08
Speaker 1: being necessary, and I received a comment saying that there
43:11
Speaker 1: was not really a problem because the army can get
43:13
Speaker 1: as many as it needs from the Gurkhas. There's currently
43:18
Speaker 1: around ninety six thousand Napoli ge Gurkhas. There are forty
43:21
Speaker 1: two thousand Indian Gurkhas and around four thousand in the
43:23
Speaker 1: British Army. And I believe the British Army recruits from
43:27
Speaker 1: Nepal exclusively though at this point, well that is until now,
43:31
Speaker 1: because a new artillery unit has been set up using
43:35
Speaker 1: Girka soldiers. Over the next four years, a grand total
43:38
Speaker 1: of four hundred new Gurkha personnel will join the unit
43:42
Speaker 1: known as the King's Girkha Artillery, bolstering UK security, according
43:47
Speaker 1: to the government, through the Plan for Change. This is
43:50
Speaker 1: all about the Plan for Change. Now four hundred isn't
43:53
Speaker 1: going to make much of difference. A new Girka cap
43:55
Speaker 1: badge is also being created. You saw that on screen
43:58
Speaker 1: a second ago. This is the first time of fourteen
44:00
Speaker 1: years to represent the new unit and they expanded breadth
44:04
Speaker 1: of specialisms that the Brigade of Gurkas deliver, continuing their
44:08
Speaker 1: prior tradition of military service to the UK, said the
44:12
Speaker 1: UK Government and the King's Girkha Artillery Unit will become
44:16
Speaker 1: an integral part of the UK Armed Forces artillery capabilities
44:20
Speaker 1: as part of the new offer for Gurkuz soldiers and
44:23
Speaker 1: in recognition of demands of modern warfare, they say, personnel
44:26
Speaker 1: who join the KGA will be trained in advanced equipment
44:30
Speaker 1: including archer and light gun artillery systems, and in the
44:33
Speaker 1: future they're also going to train on the remote controlled
44:35
Speaker 1: heart Er one five to five artillery system, so they
44:38
Speaker 1: should be extremely excited about that. In the meantime, though,
44:41
Speaker 1: the Defense and Security Accelerator supported by Innovate UK are
44:46
Speaker 1: offering defense innovation loans to six small businesses in the UK.
44:50
Speaker 1: They say this is an opportunity for single and small, single,
44:54
Speaker 1: small and medium sized enterprises with solutions and defense themed
44:58
Speaker 1: problems to apply for defense innovation loan of between one
45:01
Speaker 1: hundred thousand and a million pounds with below market interest
45:05
Speaker 1: rate is seven point four percent. That's exciting for them,
45:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure. And this loan could be used to cover
45:11
Speaker 1: up to one hundred percent of eligible project costs. So
45:14
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Defense cited three examples. The first one
45:17
Speaker 1: was very presum that's how you pronounce it. They secured
45:22
Speaker 1: a loan to help commercialize their data capture and analysis
45:25
Speaker 1: technology and this technology, which has been tested by the RAF,
45:29
Speaker 1: is enabling trainers to assess and develop individualized training programs
45:34
Speaker 1: for trainee pilots. Maybe that would be good if we
45:37
Speaker 1: had any planes to fly trainee pilots in, but anyway.
45:41
Speaker 1: Another one is quick Block, which develops lightweight, rapid assembly
45:45
Speaker 1: building blocks for force protection and they have secured a
45:49
Speaker 1: defense innovation loan as well, and so that's going to
45:53
Speaker 1: help bolster supply chains, particularly in light of recent shipping
45:58
Speaker 1: disruption in the Red Sea. And then the last example
46:01
Speaker 1: that they gave was a company called Silicon Microgravity who
46:05
Speaker 1: are using their Defense Innovation loan to develop underground detection
46:09
Speaker 1: technology which is going to be ready for trials. Well
46:11
Speaker 1: it was ready for trials and twenty twenty four trials
46:14
Speaker 1: are due to take place anytime soon. And they're also
46:17
Speaker 1: going to use the money to help commercialize this product
46:21
Speaker 1: for security, border control, defense and civil engineering markets. So
46:25
Speaker 1: that's all very exciting stuff.
46:28
Speaker 4: Any thoughts, Well, I think on the Gurkha contingent, I
46:34
Speaker 4: mean it is interesting that that's the specific area the
46:38
Speaker 4: indirect fire is the area of choice for putting another
46:41
Speaker 4: four hundred blakes in, and I think with okay, they
46:45
Speaker 4: mentioned Archer and how it's and whatnot, but I think
46:49
Speaker 4: it depends how drones are to be classified insofar as
46:52
Speaker 4: indirect fire it is concerned, and whether there might be
46:56
Speaker 4: something concerning that. But also I would say what this
46:58
Speaker 4: really suggests is that the competition for such places compared
47:03
Speaker 4: with British Army recruiting from the UK, it's not comparable.
47:08
Speaker 4: The gurkhas get about twenty thousand blocks apply each year
47:11
Speaker 4: to become Gurkhas and that hasn't abated and so not
47:15
Speaker 4: just that, but also the retention retaining Gurkh soldiers is
47:20
Speaker 4: far far better for the Army, for the Minister of
47:23
Speaker 4: Defense than for the brit So it is as though
47:27
Speaker 4: there was no way of achieving this by pursuing British
47:32
Speaker 4: based soldiers or recruits. So I think, I mean that
47:34
Speaker 4: is incredibly telling. Absolutely absolutely is ESSO.
47:38
Speaker 1: Let's come back to you then, and looking at Emerald
47:41
Speaker 1: and Silly similar companies, the question of regulation, either regular
47:46
Speaker 1: or if they're regulated, springs to mind.
47:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, and dad, it's a very important question. So I'll
47:54
Speaker 5: start with a report from War on One from two
47:57
Speaker 5: thousand and eight so based largely on crimes that were
48:01
Speaker 5: committed by PMCs during the war against Iraq, the illegal
48:06
Speaker 5: war against Iraq, getting away with murder, the need for
48:09
Speaker 5: action on UK private military and security companies. So as
48:13
Speaker 5: they point out, tens of thousands of mercenaries working for
48:17
Speaker 5: PMCs outside legal control the US and Iraq at the
48:21
Speaker 5: time we're taking action. The UK government had failed to
48:25
Speaker 5: act despite as we've mentioned, being.
48:28
Speaker 8: The biggest player.
48:29
Speaker 5: And this is basically again repeated in an art in
48:34
Speaker 5: various articles, but this is from Open Democracy in two
48:37
Speaker 5: thousand and eighteen. CO written by doctor Ian Overton, who
48:43
Speaker 5: heads up the Action Against Armed Violence organization which tries
48:49
Speaker 5: to regulate PMCs to some degree. Britain is the world
48:52
Speaker 5: center for private military contractors and it's almost impossible to
48:56
Speaker 5: find out what they're up to. Welcome to the murky
48:59
Speaker 5: world of mercayaries and floating armories. Already setting the theme,
49:04
Speaker 5: and as part of the article points out the British
49:07
Speaker 5: pm SC industry, the private military security company industry. Britain
49:13
Speaker 5: has basically led this privatization.
49:15
Speaker 8: Of modern welfare.
49:16
Speaker 5: It leads the world in providing armed contractors to so
49:20
Speaker 5: called hotspots and some of the biggest clients are governments
49:24
Speaker 5: in those hotspots. Since two thousand and four, the UK
49:28
Speaker 5: government has spent approximately fifty million pounds annually. The total
49:34
Speaker 5: worth of the PMC industry stands between sixty nine billion
49:38
Speaker 5: and two hundred and seventy five billion, so it's a
49:40
Speaker 5: very very lucrative market sector. And then if we look
49:46
Speaker 5: at what doctor Ian Overton actually says within that article,
49:51
Speaker 5: he said that AOAV had investigated two hundred and thirty
49:55
Speaker 5: five UK based internationally operating pmsc's, So this is in
50:00
Speaker 5: twenty eighteen. These profits seeking entities are entrusted with government
50:05
Speaker 5: security tasks while themselves being subject to a perilously weak
50:10
Speaker 5: system of self regulation. So again we see and I'll
50:15
Speaker 5: come on to who else is being self regulatory shortly.
50:20
Speaker 5: But this is a response to Baroness tom in twenty
50:24
Speaker 5: twenty one during parliamentary questions, who basically asked Lord Ahmed
50:29
Speaker 5: of Wimbledon what legislation was in place to basically provide
50:35
Speaker 5: oversight for as she said, UK citizens acting as mercenaries
50:40
Speaker 5: or training with foreign militaries.
50:43
Speaker 8: Let's see what Lord Almutz said. First of all, he.
50:46
Speaker 5: Said, we draw a clear distinction between mercenaries and PSCs.
50:49
Speaker 5: We promote high standards for PSCs internationally through voluntary regulation
50:56
Speaker 5: of the sector. So we come back to this idea
50:58
Speaker 5: of voluntary regulation. And as they said said this was
51:00
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty one. He goes on to say members
51:04
Speaker 5: of UK armed forces regularly undertake training with a wide
51:08
Speaker 5: range of international actors, where this best supports the development
51:13
Speaker 5: of UK military capability, and this is important supports wider
51:18
Speaker 5: government objectives. Well, why is this so important? Because if
51:23
Speaker 5: we look at another organization which could be largely described
51:28
Speaker 5: as a PMC, is the White Helmets, which was established
51:33
Speaker 5: by a former British military intelligence officer, James Lemasurer, in
51:37
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen, was almost exclusively embedded with Al Qaeda derivatives
51:44
Speaker 5: in Syria and has been accused by Syrian civilians of
51:49
Speaker 5: involvement in organ trafficking, child trafficking and staging of course
51:53
Speaker 5: the famous chemical weapon events that basically sustained the regime
51:59
Speaker 5: change or narrative against the then Syrian government. They are
52:04
Speaker 5: also self regulatory. They don't come under any investigation by
52:10
Speaker 5: UN agencies or even by the British government that is
52:14
Speaker 5: effectively their primary funder. And then let's have a look
52:18
Speaker 5: again at Lord Ahmed. This was in twenty nineteen talking
52:21
Speaker 5: about the White Helmets. The UK has provided thirty eight
52:24
Speaker 5: million from the Conflict Stability and Security Fund. We've talked
52:27
Speaker 5: about that many times on UK column to support the
52:31
Speaker 5: White Helmets over the past five years. This assistance delivered
52:34
Speaker 5: through trusted third party implements as part of a coordinated
52:39
Speaker 5: international program of assistance. And for sure the White Helmets
52:44
Speaker 5: were furthering British Foreign Office objectives in Syria, which was
52:49
Speaker 5: effectively regime change. And then this is going to be
52:52
Speaker 5: part of the investigation that I will publish up at
52:55
Speaker 5: UK column. It will be a series of articles because
52:58
Speaker 5: there's a lot of.
52:59
Speaker 8: Information to trool through.
53:02
Speaker 5: But let's have a look at the founder and executive
53:04
Speaker 5: director of Emerald Solutions Group. They were formed in twenty twelve,
53:09
Speaker 5: one year before the White Helmets were put together by
53:12
Speaker 5: James le Measurer. As I said, he was a former
53:15
Speaker 5: British military intelligence operator. This is Wayne Christopher Connor. Now
53:21
Speaker 5: what is seriously interesting about his LinkedIn profile is that
53:26
Speaker 5: to a large degree you can see the crossover between
53:29
Speaker 5: him and James Lemeasurer's career. In two thousand and seven
53:36
Speaker 5: he joined Olive Group, which you will remember, Mike from
53:40
Speaker 5: the diagram we did way back about White Helmets that
53:43
Speaker 5: were then brought up by Blackwater and Sorry brought up
53:48
Speaker 5: by Academy who also incorporated Blackwater. And in two thousand
53:53
Speaker 5: and seven James Lemeasurer left Olive Group, so Wayne Connor
53:59
Speaker 5: was basically there prior to Sorry. He joined just as
54:02
Speaker 5: l James Lemeasurer was leaving. They also crossed paths in
54:07
Speaker 5: the Balkans and in other areas of operations.
54:11
Speaker 8: So very interesting.
54:12
Speaker 5: As I've said, the other self regulatory group backed by
54:16
Speaker 5: the West and the UK. Of course is HTS itself
54:20
Speaker 5: al Qaeda that was commissioned to form a committee to
54:24
Speaker 5: investigate its own crimes of ethnic cleansing and atrocities committed
54:29
Speaker 5: against Syrian civilians since the takeover in December twenty twenty four,
54:33
Speaker 5: and of course Israel as extremely self regulatory, it looks
54:38
Speaker 5: into the crimes of genocide committed against Palestinians.
54:43
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vanessa. Any brief thoughts on that, well, just.
54:47
Speaker 4: That in terms of UK column content, there's a very
54:49
Speaker 4: interesting interview with Morgan Lurett, who was in Iraq in
54:52
Speaker 4: two thousand and three four working for Blackwater, subsequently joined
54:57
Speaker 4: the US Armed Forces. It's entitled Outsource Morality up on
55:00
Speaker 4: the UK GOLMN website. That would be my first response
55:03
Speaker 4: would be to again and listen to that. Very very insightful.
55:06
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sandy. Let's bring you back to the program. Then,
55:10
Speaker 1: and over the last week or two we've been advertising
55:14
Speaker 1: what was described on the screenshot as a dissident meet
55:17
Speaker 1: up for the Southwest. Tell us about it.
55:22
Speaker 8: It was.
55:22
Speaker 6: It was a really good event. It was the tax rebellion.
55:26
Speaker 6: It was about looking at ways that we can resist
55:31
Speaker 6: financing this, this takeover, this corporate takeover that we appear
55:36
Speaker 6: to be financing through our council tax. And it was
55:40
Speaker 6: interesting because there's there were there were many, many different
55:43
Speaker 6: views on how to go about this, and what my
55:47
Speaker 6: takeaway was that we have to somehow bring it all
55:50
Speaker 6: together and find the best way because there's different people.
55:53
Speaker 6: There's a sovereign project, there's the Anna von rice Lot.
55:58
Speaker 6: I think it's the community assimilar to British Isles. And
56:01
Speaker 6: then we had Chris Coverdale who's amazing and David Lady
56:07
Speaker 6: who seemed to have got a kind of a thing
56:11
Speaker 6: together to address the non payment of council tax, or
56:15
Speaker 6: at least with holding it, keeping it in scrow perhaps,
56:18
Speaker 6: but challenging it saying.
56:20
Speaker 7: Look, we don't know where our money is going at
56:23
Speaker 7: the moment. The only thirty percent of our council tax.
56:29
Speaker 6: Actually goes to the services that we receive. The rest
56:33
Speaker 6: of it goes into central government and we don't know
56:36
Speaker 6: what they do with well, we do know what they
56:37
Speaker 6: do with it, but we are not we're not given
56:40
Speaker 6: the choice of where we spend our money. And we're
56:44
Speaker 6: financing illegal wars, we're financing all sorts of stuff that
56:47
Speaker 6: we should not be financing and we don't want to finance.
56:51
Speaker 6: So this is the thing is bringing people together and
56:55
Speaker 6: getting all the ideas and that's what the event was about,
56:58
Speaker 6: and it was it was very well attended.
57:00
Speaker 7: We had lots of people there and we.
57:05
Speaker 6: Just there was We had Glynn from the Concerned Citizens
57:09
Speaker 6: Advisory Assembly with Catherine Armitage there and they were, uh,
57:16
Speaker 6: they were sort of putting together another event that I've
57:19
Speaker 6: I've worked on them with which is on May the
57:21
Speaker 6: fifth and sixth.
57:22
Speaker 7: It's an online event.
57:23
Speaker 6: We will be obviously promoting it on the UK column
57:28
Speaker 6: because people can vote. People can vote about climate change
57:32
Speaker 6: and we're trying to get something together that will that
57:35
Speaker 6: will actually challenge the whole thing about paying our paying
57:38
Speaker 6: our council tax, you know, towards all the stuff that's
57:42
Speaker 6: going on with climate change.
57:44
Speaker 7: So we had David Laty.
57:46
Speaker 6: We had a wonderful you know sort of panel with myself,
57:51
Speaker 6: Chris Coverdale and David Laty. David Laty is a retired
57:55
Speaker 6: policeman of twenty two years with a law degree and
57:58
Speaker 6: he's been taking Lloyd's Bank to task and it's taken
58:02
Speaker 6: him over a decade to do so, but he's nearly there.
58:05
Speaker 6: It's a really interesting thing that he's doing challenging the
58:10
Speaker 6: validity of some of these banks. And Chris Coverdale, you know,
58:14
Speaker 6: was fantastic.
58:15
Speaker 7: He really is. He's been doing so much. Yeah that
58:19
Speaker 7: We've got a picture here of Glynn Owen and Catherine.
58:23
Speaker 6: Armitage from the Citizens' Advisory Assembly and they're doing fantastic
58:28
Speaker 6: work and I'm working quite closely with them as well.
58:32
Speaker 6: I talked about devolution and what's going on with the
58:36
Speaker 6: corporate land grab, but what my biggest takeaway was that
58:41
Speaker 6: we really have to come together and find solutions. And
58:44
Speaker 6: it was a great day for networking and really getting
58:48
Speaker 6: to grips with how we as people can challenge things
58:53
Speaker 6: and we can.
58:55
Speaker 7: We just need to have the.
58:57
Speaker 6: To have the you know, the backup and do it
59:00
Speaker 6: on mass. And that's what we need to achieve because
59:04
Speaker 6: if we don't, we're just financing so much stuff that
59:08
Speaker 6: we don't want and we have no reason to be
59:12
Speaker 6: financing illegal wars. We don't want this, we don't want
59:16
Speaker 6: what we're where our money is going. We don't want
59:18
Speaker 6: it to be going into these things. And next week,
59:22
Speaker 6: I mean, what's good is I was approached by a
59:24
Speaker 6: wonderful man called Nigel. I just call him Nigel, and
59:27
Speaker 6: he gave me some more information that really goes deeper
59:32
Speaker 6: into my research into the infiltration of extremist groups into
59:37
Speaker 6: English charities that are subverting the British democratic process, infiltration
59:43
Speaker 6: into National Trust, the Royal Society of Protection of Birds.
59:47
Speaker 6: I think the WWF has already been infiltrated for a
59:50
Speaker 6: long time, but it's basically it's ramping up with the
59:54
Speaker 6: People's Plan for Nature and the Living Planet Act that
59:57
Speaker 6: I spoke about earlier. So it's very important for us
1:00:00
Speaker 6: to get together at these events to share this information.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Sandy. Yes, indeed, we'll talk more
1:00:07
Speaker 1: about that in Extra. I think the WWF was never infiltrated.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: It was It began as a pre infiltrated organizations as
1:00:14
Speaker 1: was set up by the Duke of Edinburgh in the
1:00:16
Speaker 1: first place, and was absolutely one hundred percent on this
1:00:18
Speaker 1: agenda from the start, so the infiltration wasn't required in
1:00:24
Speaker 1: that case. Well, look, we are out of time for today.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: We will be back in a few minutes. If you're
1:00:30
Speaker 1: a UK, called member on the for the EXTRA program.
1:00:33
Speaker 1: If you are not a UK, call member, then please
1:00:36
Speaker 1: consider joining us and joining us for News Extra every
1:00:39
Speaker 1: day that we do a news program. Otherwise, don't forget
1:00:42
Speaker 1: the interview tomorrow at one pm. We will be back
1:00:46
Speaker 1: as usual on Friday, and we'll see you then. Bye bye,