Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News - 31st October 2025

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UK Column News - 31st October 2025 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Good afternoon, it's Friday the 31st of October 2025, just after
0:12
1:00. Welcome to UK Call News.
0:14
I'm your host Mike Robinson, my Co host in the studio today,
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Patrick Henningson. Welcome to the programme,
0:18
Patrick. Great to be with you, Mike.
0:20
And we're joined today by Mark Anderson, as usual on Friday.
0:23
Now, later in the programme, we're going to be looking at the
0:25
latest censorship news. We're going to be looking at
0:27
Trump in Asia and his threats of nuclear proliferation and the
0:31
latest on Russian oil sanctions. But we have to really begin
0:35
today with the former Grand Old Duke of York, who as we know a
0:40
couple of weeks ago was stripped of that title and has now been
0:43
stripped of the princely title that he has.
0:47
So if we put it on screen here, there is somehow from the grave,
0:53
somebody whispering in his ear there.
0:56
I'm not sure what's going on. But anyway, the royal family
0:59
claims to have announced that Prince Andrew is no longer
1:01
Prince Andrew. He's been stripped of his
1:03
princely title and is now going to be known as Andrew
1:06
Mountbatten Windsor. So let's see what the statement
1:10
said. It's said that His Majesty has
1:13
today initiated a formal process to remove the style title in
1:17
honours of Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew will now be known
1:20
as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has the
1:24
date provided him with legal protection to continue in
1:27
residence. It went on to say sorry and
1:32
formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease
1:35
and he will move to alternative private accommodation, I believe
1:38
to be paid for by the King personally.
1:41
These censures are deemed necessary notwithstanding the
1:45
fact that he continues to deny the allegations against them.
1:48
Their Majesties wish to make it clear that their thoughts and
1:52
utmost sympathies have been and will remain with the victims and
1:56
survivors of all forms of abuse. And my question, Patrick, is
2:00
really because I believe that when there's Full disclosure
2:04
about the now King's previous relationship with Jimmy Savile,
2:08
that we, you know, that that last paragraph of the statement
2:11
might have some, you know, status or standing to it.
2:15
But I I've absolutely questioned whether their first thoughts are
2:19
with victims of abuse at all. That's Sir Jimmy Savile OBE
2:23
absolutely order the British Empire.
2:25
Was he not the same Jimmy Savile that was Prince Charles social
2:29
secretary kept the diary for Prince at the time is the same.
2:33
Savile as that headline in LBC that we just showed a second
2:37
ago, we could put that back on screen, says Prince Charles beg
2:40
Jimmy Salva for help with royal public relations, secret letters
2:43
reveal so. They seem to be very close.
2:46
They were, they were clearly very close and many, many
2:49
questions about that relationship, which is never
2:51
actually if they've never been answered.
2:53
Charles is lucky he didn't have to give up his title and style
2:57
back then back. Then indeed, but but look at it,
3:01
it's the question is, well, first of all, we get before we
3:06
get to the question, let's just point this out because strangely
3:08
there's no announcement on the royal family website of this
3:12
situation, no announcement there.
3:15
No, no announcement on the on the ex profile that this has
3:19
happened. So this this statement has been
3:21
issued, I guess via the BBC primarily here, so nothing there
3:27
at all. But lots of people in social
3:30
media are calling this a scam because they're pointing out
3:33
that there's been no act of Parliament or letter patent
3:35
issued. But if we paid attention to what
3:39
the statement said, it said that a formal process has been
3:42
initiated. So we really have to wait and
3:44
see what the mechanism for this is going to be at the end of the
3:46
day. But my question, Patrick, is I
3:49
think this is what we need to discuss now is why now?
3:51
Why at this particular moment? Now, a couple of possibilities
3:54
here. 1 is that this is an effort to draw a line under
3:58
royal family connections to Epstein or Epstein however you
4:01
pronounce his name. I see some people are starting
4:03
to pronounce it the other way that now.
4:05
But anyway, there's another possibility and that is that
4:08
they're prepared to sacrifice the past in Andrew in order to
4:13
keep pressure on the present. And by that I mean Donald Trump,
4:17
because at least one commentator I heard talking about this this
4:20
morning claimed to be proud to be British today because the
4:23
royal family is cleaning house while the United States is in
4:26
complete denial. So the question is, is this
4:28
about Trump? If we just put that back on
4:30
screen in the United States, the pressure on Trump is starting to
4:33
build just at the right moment, apparently because this is a
4:37
headline here. Cracks emerging in Republican
4:40
loyalty to Trump as Epstein bomb is about to drop.
4:44
And we've got more here. The Epstein curse continues to
4:48
loom large from Spiegel International.
4:50
They're they're reflecting the fact that this is starting to
4:52
build in the United States. This is MSNBC, their
4:56
commentator, Lawrence Trump is using the government shutdown to
5:00
shut down the Epstein files. And so the question, Patrick,
5:03
is, is this about Trump actually?
5:06
And, and is it a coincidence this pressure is building up
5:11
even higher than it has been in recent months over there, just
5:14
at the time that this event happens over here?
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Well, I, I think it I think it really was even higher than it
5:20
is now arguably in in June and July.
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And that's when the White House issued this and Pam Bondi, the
5:28
attorney General issued this formal denial that this was even
5:30
a scandal and there's no black book.
5:32
And that's when Charlie Kirk and when came under significant
5:37
pressure and other MAGA organisations came under
5:41
pressure because there was a split, because Trump campaigned
5:44
on the Epstein files, made it a big centrepiece that oh, we're
5:48
going to release the files, my presidency is going to be
5:50
transparent and all of a sudden you have a cover up basically,
5:54
and then denials. And that caused a split and
5:57
these MAGA organisations were haemorrhaging support and
6:01
membership because of that. And that's one of the things
6:03
that I think also forced Charlie Kirk into that sort of position
6:07
where he was questioning this undying loyalty to Israel and
6:12
not be able to question Israel because of Epstein, Epstein's
6:15
connection with Israel. So I mean, so this has been
6:19
building up for a while. It's it's it's been building up
6:21
all summer, in fact. And now we have an opportunity
6:24
where you have some contrast now between the British and the
6:28
American side on this. OK.
6:31
But since you bring the Israeli connections in here, we should
6:36
it. I'm not ruling out the
6:37
possibility that it could also be about former Israeli Prime
6:40
Minister Ahud Barack. So we just put this on screen.
6:44
Virginia Guthrie accused him of raping her and choking her on
6:48
multiple occasions in court documents.
6:50
Now, Barrack of course, denies these allegations.
6:53
But obviously there's there's really connection here as well.
6:56
And in fact, you know that there is a connection to just about
6:59
the entire globalist billionaire class as far as I can see.
7:04
And really so the question underlying all this, is this an
7:08
attempt by the royal family to draw a line under it, or is it
7:11
is it an attempt to divert from other things or is it an attempt
7:14
to to put pressure on Trump? It may be all of.
7:17
Those, it could be all of those. I mean, this isn't just any
7:19
Israeli. That's Ehud Barack, former
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Israeli Prime Minister, former head of Israeli intelligence,
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pretty pretty central figure there and best friends with Jeff
7:30
Epstein photographed coming out of his New York Manhattan
7:35
mansion and so forth. So I mean, this is this is not
7:38
just anybody. So that's why I think they're
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potentially explosive there on that side at the time when
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support for Israel's is haemorrhaging in the in America,
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I think among Democrats, support for Israel's polling and single
7:53
digits, single digits, when has that ever happened in the United
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States? Good.
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Question. Yeah, OK, well, look, let's
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welcome Mark to the programme. And Mark, let's come back on to
8:06
the issue of of Venezuela. G'day, gentlemen and viewers.
8:13
Yeah, the, of course, the mainstream press organs have
8:17
been ablaze with headlines about a major troop, troop build up in
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the lower Caribbean area. And that would involve, of
8:25
course, turning up the heat against Venezuela, against that
8:29
regime, as Trump calls them. And I was looking through
8:32
various sources trying to find something pretty objective and
8:36
not go to the New York Times and not go to the Pentagon or
8:39
whatever. And the this slide shows the
8:41
University of Southern California Dornsyth, one of
8:45
their more active branches in the USC system, the College of
8:48
Arts and Letters and Jeffrey Fields October 29 published this
8:52
article entitled Trump's anti Venezuela actions lack strategy,
8:57
lack justifiable targets and lack legal authorization.
9:02
President Trump okayed a naval build up in the Caribbean,
9:05
strikes on boats in international waters and covert
9:09
OPS in Venezuela, says Jeffrey. Without a discernible strategy
9:13
or objective, of course the president and the the military
9:16
is not going to always announce its objectives and strategies or
9:20
they're going to give you a wag the dog type scenarios.
9:23
But nevertheless, some pretty strong points being made by
9:27
that, by that source. And that source added the
9:29
following, stressing that there's no evidence, the Trump
9:33
administration claimed without evidence that the boats were
9:36
carrying illegal drugs. 14 boats that the administration alleged
9:39
were being operated by drug traffickers have been struck,
9:43
reportedly killing 43 people. On 24 October, the
9:46
administration, Trump administration began A
9:49
substantial military buildup in that region.
9:51
The Pentagon moved the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford there and
9:55
some of its strike group along with several other naval ships
9:59
to that area and moved F35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico.
10:02
And this is being called, get this, the largest US naval
10:06
deployment in that area since the Cuban Missile crisis.
10:10
So a very significant events going on there with lots of
10:13
potential ramifications. But that's a pretty good account
10:17
overall that is not partisan to outline what's going on there.
10:23
Smart we were talking about on on Wednesday's programme,
10:27
Patrick, of course the question of drugs is never too far away
10:32
from this region and and the question of whether what this is
10:37
really about. Is it about the oil in Venezuela
10:39
or the rarest in Venezuela? Or is it about the fact that
10:43
Chavez and and Maduro have been pushing back against the drug
10:46
drug trade, which of course the United States Deep State has
10:50
been deeply involved in for decades?
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Well, let's just go by what the what the president himself, what
10:57
the administration is hanging this on and they're hanging the
11:00
whole thing on allegations that Venezuela is a narco state.
11:05
So, I mean, the more you dig into this, it's it's very, very
11:09
much becoming like a WMDS in Iraq type rabbit hole where
11:14
there's no actual evidence of the accusations being made.
11:17
But let's look at the big picture.
11:19
We'll bring this up on screen here.
11:21
This is from the Washington Post.
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Trump merges the war on drugs with the War on Terror in the
11:26
Venezuela showdown. Now, if you survey the US media,
11:30
especially on the right wing side, there's all sorts of
11:33
conspiracy theories. These are these are nothing new
11:36
in the Newsmax and one American news in Fox world that somehow
11:40
Hezbollah is working with the cartels.
11:42
This is from like Marco Rubio himself working with the cartels
11:47
to do what I don't know, ship drugs and ruin the lives of
11:50
American teenagers. Who knows?
11:52
But so, and Hamas has got sleeper cells in Mexico and al
11:56
Qaeda and ISIS or have got sleeper sales in Mexico.
11:59
They found a Quran somewhere in the desert by the Arizona
12:02
border. This is normal sort of fodder.
12:05
But Trump is basically formalising this year and they
12:08
have a number of hacked journalists that are pushing
12:10
this stuff out on social media and so forth.
12:14
All these sleepers. Laura Loomer is one of them
12:17
who's in this kind of an Israeli influencer, Israeli American or
12:21
whatever. I'm not sure what where she
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where she's from or what her loyalty is, but nonetheless.
12:26
So this is the narrative that they're they're they're bringing
12:28
in here. So these are the two worst
12:30
things of the Clinton administration and the and the
12:33
Bush neocons, the War on Terror and the war on drugs.
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Trump has managed to put them together fantastic.
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So and, and behind him is in Marco Rubio, who seems to have
12:45
his own personal vendetta against all Latin American
12:49
governments that don't lean far right.
12:52
And he's made it his career as a senator to sort of take the lead
12:56
on that. Somehow he thinks it somehow he
12:58
knows more than anybody about what where Latin America is,
13:01
what it should be and how to bring down these governments.
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And then behind him is a Fox News weekend host named Pete
13:07
Hegseth, who somehow gifted the head of the Defence Department.
13:11
But that's the disturbing trend there.
13:14
So let's let's go to this video here now on on the issue of the
13:20
drug accusation, Mike, is is there any legs to that?
13:26
Is there any legs to that? Let's listen to Trump and then
13:28
let's listen to a 60 minutes report from 1993.
13:32
Roll this. Why did you authorise the CIA to
13:36
go into Venezuela? We have a lot of drugs coming in
13:39
from Venezuela. A tonne of cocaine, pure cocaine
13:42
worth hundreds of millions, is smuggled into the United States.
13:46
Sound familiar? Not the way this tonne of
13:48
cocaine got here. According to what the former
13:51
head of the Drug Enforcement Administration told Mike
13:53
Wallace, this drug shipment got here courtesy of what he calls
13:57
drug trafficking by the CIA in partnership with the Venezuelan
14:01
National Guard. Now we understand what you're
14:03
saying. A tonne of cocaine was smuggled
14:05
into the United States of America by the Venezuelan
14:10
National Guard. Well, they in cooperation with
14:13
the CIA. That's what that's exactly what
14:17
appears to have happened. Until last month, Judge Robert
14:20
Bonner was the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the
14:23
DEA, and Judge Bonner explained to us that only the head of the
14:26
DEA is authorised to approve the transportation of any illegal
14:31
narcotics like cocaine into this country, even if the CIA is
14:35
bringing it in. Let.
14:36
Me put it this way, Mike, if this has not been approved by
14:39
DEA or an appropriate law enforcement authority in the
14:41
United States, then it's illegal.
14:44
It's called drug trafficking. It's called drug smuggling.
14:47
So what you're saying, in effect, is the CIA broke the
14:49
law, Simple as that. I don't think there's any other
14:53
way you can rationalise around it.
14:55
Back in the 1980's, the CIA was mandated.
14:59
So, Mike, so they're taking Colombian cocaine and
15:02
trafficking it through Venezuela, and then the CIA and
15:06
the DEA would then bring it into the United States and it would
15:09
end up on the streets of America.
15:10
That was in the early 90s. Now something happened in
15:13
Venezuela. Hugo Chavez became president and
15:16
that was the end of that. No more drug trafficking using
15:19
the National Guard as mules for the Central Intelligence Agency
15:23
in the DEA. So the biggest drug traffickers
15:26
in the Western Hemisphere are the CIA and the DEA working in
15:30
collaboration with the cartels. So where's Trump coming up with
15:33
this? And we only have to look at the
15:35
work of the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb,
15:39
the late Gary Webb, the great Gary Webb over his Alliance
15:43
series is historic. And this basically documents how
15:47
the CIA brought crack cocaine onto the streets of Los Angeles
15:51
and major U.S. cities. And then to to blame and
15:54
demonise the African American community and also just to sort
15:58
of destroy it ultimately. And so that was fleshed out in
16:03
the 1990s. So I mean that it's interesting.
16:07
There's a few other elements to this, I think, but that's,
16:10
that's what happened. And Nicolas Maduro carries is on
16:13
that same legacy of Chavez and if anything Venezuela is an anti
16:17
narco state. So how on earth can any of these
16:20
accusations stick without any evidence?
16:23
That's the big question here. Just before you move on from
16:26
Gary Webb, we should just remind everybody, of course he
16:30
committed suicide and inverted commas by shooting himself twice
16:33
in the head, which is. From behind with a shotgun
16:37
something. Practically important.
16:38
It was a handgun, but it was practical, A practical
16:40
impossibility and if if not a total impossibility, And I'm
16:44
just going to say that that in the months leading up to his
16:47
death, I was on a mailing list that he was part of.
16:51
And you know, obviously I never met him.
16:54
I never spoke to him in person, but he did not seem to be at the
16:59
point of suicide in any of the communications that I saw no
17:03
with that group. No, and in the late Robert Perry
17:05
also worked with him on on these same stories and Robert in
17:09
effect was support supported in a bit of a mentor for him.
17:13
Robert had told me that as well in an interview which we
17:16
published before he passed away a few years ago.
17:20
Right. The great Robert Perry,
17:21
investigative journalist, founder of Consortium News, Yes.
17:25
But let's look at look at this because here's where it gets
17:28
interesting. So then it's not enough to
17:30
demonise Venezuela. Trump is now imposing sanctions
17:34
on Colombian President Petro or Gustavo Petro.
17:38
Now, Colombia was the number one US ally, okay, 4th, 3rd or 4th
17:43
largest recipient of U.S. military aid and but they had a
17:47
right wing government and so obviously very friendly with
17:49
Washington and very supportive. And there's another connection
17:54
here, not just the United States.
17:55
Why all of a sudden are they demonising Colombia?
17:59
It's strange, but maybe not. Let's look at listen to this
18:02
video very closely. This is President Petro at the
18:07
UN General Assembly just last month.
18:10
And this is what he said about a very close friend and ally of
18:13
the United States. Go ahead and roll this.
18:16
First and foremost, we need to stop the genocide in Gaza.
18:20
Humanity cannot allow single day more of this genocide or for the
18:27
genocidal Netanyahu and his allies in Europe and the United
18:32
States to continue. The United Nations must uphold
18:37
the decisions of the international Court of Justice.
18:41
International law is the basis of civilization and united for
18:45
peace for Palestine. We should establish A
18:48
peacekeeping force to to protect where it's not.
18:52
Not blue helmets. There's no what we need is a
18:55
powerful army of countries that do not accept genocide.
19:00
That is why I invite nations of the world and their peoples,
19:04
more than most importantly as a integral part of humanity, to
19:10
bring together weapons and armies and to defend Palestine.
19:18
He's calling for more than peacekeepers there.
19:20
He said no blue helmets. We need to bring armed forces in
19:23
from other countries to defend Palestine.
19:25
That's a bridge too far for for Israel.
19:28
So they've clearly putting pressure on Washington to
19:32
basically move on Colombia. I think this is a major issue
19:36
and it I wonder why. What else about Colombia and
19:39
Israel? There's some history there.
19:41
Look at this. OK.
19:42
There's a very good, very well researched article here by the
19:45
way. Security and context.
19:47
Colombia shifts everything. Military ties moving away from
19:50
decades of Israeli sponsored violence in Colombia.
19:55
What's this all about? What?
19:56
What's Israel's business in Colombia for the last 25 years?
20:00
Kind of interesting, isn't it? What were they doing there?
20:04
It turns out Israel was selling loads of billions in fact, of
20:09
weapons to Colombia. OK.
20:12
And the other thing they were doing, they were training the
20:16
radical far right paramilitary forces that were fighting the
20:19
FARC in Colombia, OK, trained by the Israelis.
20:23
And these were known as death squads, OK Didn't get a lot of
20:26
bad press in America because they're allied with America at
20:29
the time, right? So isn't that interesting?
20:32
And there's other things, there's allegations potentially
20:34
of Israeli military involved in, who knows, maybe some some of
20:38
the drug trade, maybe some import export activity into the
20:42
Middle East and Europe, who knows.
20:44
There's a lot of accusations flying around on this.
20:46
But Israel's deeply involved in Colombia, but not under Gustavo
20:51
Petro, you see. So we see this split in policy
20:54
and all of the sudden they're demonised.
20:56
I find it to be more than a coincidence.
20:58
And here is Venezuela, just to remind people on the Venezuelan
21:02
side, Venezuelan president says Palestine is the most just cause
21:06
for humanity. On the day of solidarity with
21:09
Palestinian people, he's wearing the scarf there.
21:11
That's Maduro. How many world leaders will wear
21:14
a Palestinian scarf at a major state rally in Venezuela?
21:19
This is normal. So this is another reason.
21:22
So by the way, 2009, the first country to recognise a
21:26
Palestinian state in the Western Hemisphere was Venezuela.
21:31
So this is nothing new. It's it's been a tradition from
21:34
Chavez all the way through to Maduro.
21:36
So it's just funny that they're being singled out with all sorts
21:40
of fake allegations of substantiated allegations of
21:43
Venezuela being a narco state, when in fact, as we said, Mike,
21:48
the biggest drug traffickers in the hemisphere are the DEA, the
21:52
Drug Enforcement Agency of the United States and the CIA.
21:56
Traditionally, that's documented fact, as we showed.
22:00
OK, well, let's move on then to Donald Trump in Korea with
22:05
President Xi Jinping. They've met in South Korea.
22:10
Well, the question is what happened?
22:12
Did did Trump Kiev again in terms of trade?
22:15
Because the tariffs on China are now around 20%, which is lower
22:20
than some of what the US calls their allies.
22:23
In exchange for China buying soybeans, Trump got rid of the
22:28
fentanyl tariff. He suspended the targeted
22:32
sanctions on Chinese shipping. He suspended the BIS 50% rule
22:37
targeting China, China's semiconductor companies.
22:40
And this is a rule which says that if AUS subsidiary company
22:44
is owned 50% or more by entities on the BIS entity list or
22:48
military end user list. So in other words, Chinese
22:51
companies, they own 50% or more of of the US subsidiary than
22:55
those subsidiaries would be subjected to the same trade
22:58
restrictions as the parent companies.
23:01
In exchange for all this, then China will roll back rare earth
23:07
export control imposed after the 6th of October.
23:11
But any export control before October is still in place.
23:15
So still no rare earths for the United States.
23:18
But so I'm going to say thank you very much to Carl Zafra for
23:21
that breakdown of what happened there.
23:24
But anyway, the Dutch government is now going to feel very silly
23:29
for this situation, this story. This is Nexperia, which is a, a,
23:34
a semiconductor company and this was done on behalf of Trump's.
23:38
Basically, the Dutch government took control of Nexperia from
23:42
its Chinese owner, Wing Tech Technology on the 30th of
23:45
September after the the Dutch arm claimed that the Chinese
23:50
unit had supplied the They were not supposed to be supplying
23:55
local customers in China with semiconductors, but they were.
23:59
They were doing that and more to the point, the Dutch company.
24:03
The Dutch company was stipulating that distributors
24:06
would need to settled these deals in in dollars rather than
24:12
one and and they were being settled in yuan.
24:15
So anyway that this caused the Dutch government to step in and
24:18
take over the thing. And well, the question is, are
24:22
is China going to make an example out of out of the Dutch
24:25
government or the Dutch for this?
24:27
So with the Dutch are nationalising that.
24:30
They effectively took control of it.
24:31
Yes, that's exactly what the Germans are planning to do with
24:34
Rosneft of affiliates in Germany nationalising.
24:39
So it's taking these state assets of Russia and the private
24:42
assets of Rastaf and nationalising under the German
24:46
aegis. So not only did they take
24:48
control of the company, they then tried to send diktats to
24:50
the to the Chinese arm and and of course that just didn't fly.
24:54
So and and then finally on this, of course, the question is that
24:59
all the companies that changed supply chains and pulled out of
25:03
China because of the previous or the trade regime up until just
25:08
now, they're going to be losing money.
25:10
As a result, so when Trump had his quote liberation day, right,
25:14
a lot of people were like getting ahead of the game and
25:16
thinking, well, we need to basically cut supply chains with
25:20
these sort of hostile nations like China, right, and suit to
25:24
great expense, right? And all of a sudden.
25:27
It seems it seems to be back on again so.
25:29
It's back on again, so they lost a lot of money.
25:31
Yeah. So, I mean, who knows how this
25:33
is going to turn out. The the problem is that no
25:35
sooner had that meeting, you could look at the meeting in
25:38
itself, in and of itself in a positive light.
25:40
But no sooner at that meeting happened.
25:42
And the next thing was Trump is saying, oh, well, China, China's
25:45
rebuilding this nuclear building, a nuclear arsenal
25:47
here. We've got to start testing
25:49
nuclear weapons happens again. And Mark, I don't know what your
25:52
thoughts are on that, but but Trump's, the independent was
25:56
saying that Trump's comments on nuclear test testing up and
26:00
decades of U.S. policy. What?
26:02
What are your thoughts? Well, my initial thoughts and we
26:06
can show that independent headline as I'm talking, my
26:09
initial thoughts are of course Trump's comments in and of
26:13
themselves are not going to up and anything actually changing
26:17
U.S. policy and at least planning or carrying out renewed
26:21
nuclear testing that would definitely upend decades of U.S.
26:24
policy. This subhead in that story says
26:28
Trump has suggested the US will restart nuclear weapons testing,
26:32
a move again saying that they're saying that it up ends decades
26:35
of American policy. It reminds me of Ronald Reagan
26:39
who also was a peace through strength guy and there was a lot
26:42
of Sabre rattling during his president presidency, but that's
26:45
typically all it amounts to is Sabre rattling.
26:48
At any rate, theatomicarchive.com turned out
26:53
to be a pretty objective source on this, and I have a chart here
26:58
that I found that puts things in pretty good perspective.
27:02
There's been a total of 2056 nuclear tests since 1945, and
27:08
the US has been responsible for about half of those.
27:11
Or 1030 seven, 115 from Russia, the United Kingdom a mere 45.
27:17
France 210. China also 45I3 and Pakistan 2
27:23
and North Korea 6. And right around the early 90s,
27:29
testing began to fall off a lot. And by the time you got to the
27:32
early 2000s, there's no record of any known nuclear tests.
27:39
But atomicarchive.com also had this to say.
27:41
Just for clarification, since the first nuclear test explosion
27:45
on 16 July 1945, of course that was the Trinity test by
27:49
Oppenheimer, at least eight nations have detonated 2056
27:54
nuclear test explosions at dozens of test sites, including
27:57
Lapnor and China, the atolls of the Pacific.
28:00
Lots of exposure to radiation, of course, in the Bikini Atoll,
28:05
Nevada, Algeria, where French conducted its first nuclear
28:08
device, A WA where the UK exploded nuclear weapons, and
28:13
the southern Atlantic across Russia and elsewhere.
28:17
And I remember during my nuke activist days, in my early
28:20
journalist days, I was sort of a nuke activist.
28:23
And there was a book that came out then when the US was doing
28:27
open air testing. And the book was called The Day
28:29
We Bombed Utah. And it spoke of nuclear fallout
28:34
coming down on cities and towns in Utah and spikes in cases of
28:39
cancer. And so the open air testing that
28:42
the US did in the 50s was especially dangerous.
28:45
And that's why they moved it underground.
28:47
I think if memory serves, we have one more slide on this at
28:50
any rate. And yes, no, I maybe we're done.
28:57
At any rate, I think that's sufficient.
28:58
But that's kind of a picture of who's been doing the testing and
29:02
how many. And so it would be a very, you
29:06
know, dramatic and sharp move to go back to that after all that's
29:11
been done and after the relative lack now of testing ever since
29:15
the early 2000s. So back to you guys.
29:17
Yeah, absolutely. And and I mean the other thing
29:19
to talk about here Mark is, is sorry Patrick, I'll bring you in
29:23
at this point. The the removal of the
29:28
withdrawal of various countries from non proliferation treaties.
29:31
I mean 2002 the United States left the the ABM, the.
29:37
Ballistic. Missile Treaty.
29:40
And that was sort of seen as a trigger that started 20 years of
29:44
erosion of nuclear arms control. 2018 Of course, Trump pulled out
29:48
of the JCP away. And although that didn't
29:52
directly cause Russia to suspend new starters CCTBT, it certainly
29:57
contributed to that. But also opened up the door with
30:00
aggression against Iran, which ended up with a war this past
30:03
summer. Absolutely.
30:05
And then of course, 2019 Internet Intermediate Range
30:08
Nuclear Forces Treaty that the US withdrew from 2023 as Russia
30:14
removed themselves from the New START and from the Comprehensive
30:17
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. And so, you know, this is this
30:21
is a trend which has been developing for quite some time,
30:24
but we're now starting to see us getting pretty close to pretty
30:27
dangerous territory if we're starting to test again.
30:30
Yeah. And by the way, Russia removing
30:31
itself from those agreements, we're basically mirroring the
30:35
United States, basically not not fulfilling their obligations.
30:40
And Russia suspended its obligations, right.
30:42
But it's obviously being spun in the media a certain way.
30:45
But yeah. And the other thing is, by the
30:47
way, we were talking about testing.
30:48
So this is how Israel got around the issue of how does Israel
30:53
with a secret nuclear arsenal, test its weapons?
30:56
Well, the French did it for them in Bikini Atoll in the South
31:00
Pacific and in the Saharan Desert in Algeria.
31:04
That explains why the French number that Mark just showed was
31:07
was quite as high as it was. Yeah, and we showed the data for
31:09
that. Freddie Ponton, journalist from
31:12
France, did a great job of breaking a lot of that down on
31:15
on reports that we did on 21st Century Wire.
31:18
But isn't that amazing how Israel managed to sidestep that
31:22
huge problem is how do you test a secret nuclear arsenal?
31:26
Well, let's just let's just look at this then, because the
31:29
Telegraph a couple of days ago was reporting that Britain must
31:32
look at sharing nuclear weapons with Germany to counter the
31:36
critical threat posed by Russia, of course.
31:39
And this is according to British defence chiefs.
31:42
Now they're saying that that this includes, by the way,
31:47
George Robertson, the former head of NATO, who was the man
31:51
who's just written the defence review on behalf of the British,
31:54
the Starmer regime. So, so they're they're basically
31:57
saying that the UK needs to open talks with Berlin over what
32:01
they're describing as a fresh defence pact.
32:04
Germany, they say, is already in quote, strategic discussions
32:08
with Paris over how the French could provide potential
32:11
protection in in the form of its own nuclear deterrent.
32:14
Mertz apparently is very keen to speak to Starmer about Britain
32:18
getting involved in this as well.
32:20
Now this is really important because of course we've been
32:22
talking about the development of the European defence capability
32:25
for a long time now. But the core of this has been
32:29
the Franco British axis until more recently when Germany
32:33
started joining that. So, you know, from a from a
32:36
defence pushing a defence narrative, Britain and France
32:39
have been pushing that. The political union narrative,
32:41
of course, in the EU has mainly been France and Germany.
32:44
So it makes sense to get everybody together.
32:46
In an axis. In an axis, an axis of evil, I
32:49
would even go as far as to say, but but this, this France,
32:54
Britain, Germany axis is also expresses itself in the form of
32:59
the E3, which is this grouping that's now sort of driving
33:02
defence and foreign policy within the EU.
33:05
So. But Britain of course left the
33:07
EU so. You know, well, no, it's
33:10
extraordinary. Well, not quite.
33:12
But you know what's extraordinary about this is
33:14
Frederick Mertz. Not very popular in Germany?
33:16
Not very popular. It's debatable whether he will
33:19
survive the next round of elections for his party of the
33:24
Coalition, Macron. To say he's unpopular is a
33:27
massive understatement, right? And then there's Keir Starmer.
33:31
So you have 3 unpopular, hugely unpopular leaders that are
33:35
ruling or governing by threads and they're doing this major
33:40
paradigm shift in the European security architecture that is
33:44
basically nuclear proliferation. Yeah.
33:46
But we've always got to remember that this is not their policy.
33:49
They're they're merely enacting it.
33:51
This is this is a deep state policy that's been in operation
33:54
for This is just the culmination of something that's been running
33:57
for a long time. Sure it is, but still they're
33:59
the ones who are going to basically put it in motion or
34:02
sign for it on behalf of the electorate.
34:04
Yeah, but we don't have any say no in any of that.
34:07
And, and you know, for the, the US, this is not good news.
34:10
If you don't want another nuclear variable in Europe,
34:13
it's, it's enough. But in the Cold War, Mike, there
34:15
was a balance in the bipolar distribution.
34:18
There was a balance between the United States and the Soviet
34:21
Union. It they sort of cancelled each
34:23
other out in the old doctrine. But you add a third actor.
34:26
Do you trust some of these European actors that they'll be
34:28
rational? I don't trust some of the
34:30
British actors that they'll be rational.
34:32
They're insane. I don't necessarily trust the US
34:35
under the current administration, but I do I trust
34:39
the USA lot more because they have a a long pedigree, as do
34:42
the Russians in having this kind of long standing count
34:47
cancelling each other out bipolar arrangement.
34:51
But Europe has a a great tradition in starting massive
34:54
wars and basically trying to wipe each other out.
34:58
This has happened a number of times in the last 150 years.
35:00
So I mean, I'm just saying I'm a little sceptical.
35:03
Absolutely. Now, sticking with defence, just
35:06
briefly, what's going on with the media and and the Department
35:11
of War in the United States? This this is from last week.
35:14
OK, And this should really shock people.
35:18
Journalists turn in their access badges and after a row with the
35:21
Pentagon over new reporting rules, basically Pete Hagseth
35:25
again, a Fox News weekend host that Trump gave or Israel told
35:31
Trump to hire him as defence secretary.
35:33
He's basically saying that all the media outlets have to run
35:36
their reporting through his office for approval.
35:40
So any reporting on the DoD, which is now called the
35:42
Department of War, OK, has to run through the Pentagon's Sorry
35:48
to. Say this again, but this is real
35:50
Nazi Germany stuff. Yeah.
35:52
I mean, if China does this, they'll say, oh, there's no
35:54
transparency, It's not democratic.
35:56
If Russia does it, they'd say the same thing.
35:58
But in America, I mean, seriously, this is like going
36:02
against the 1st Amendment. So again, this is a pattern of
36:05
the Trump administration undermining the US Constitution,
36:08
freedom of the press. And so let's take a closer look
36:11
at that. Let's bring this up.
36:13
So this is the response. So the war departments have
36:16
replaced AP and obviously there's there's this is this is
36:20
going into the courts, by the way.
36:22
So this could change. But as of last week, the new
36:26
media outlets for the Department of War were Lindell TV.
36:29
That's Mike Lindell. He sells pillows and slippers on
36:33
cable. The Gateway Pundit, not really
36:36
the best website in terms of hard news and defence and
36:41
geopolitics. The Post Millennial, they
36:43
specialise in anti woke articles and going after trans and LGBT
36:48
in Portland. That's their mainstay.
36:51
What do they know about geopolitics and defence policy?
36:53
Not much. Human Events.
36:55
That's Jack Posobiak, that's MAGA.
36:58
It's basically a MAGA website. And then the National Pulse,
37:00
that's Raheem Kasim I think and again, very MAGA.
37:06
OK, so I mean, are, are they going to be critical with
37:10
anything the US is doing and starting wars around the world?
37:14
Any of these MAGA outlets, websites, basically these are
37:17
websites. So listen, the mainstream media,
37:20
for all its faults, they do have people on staff who do this for
37:25
a living their whole career. And if if if they are going to
37:28
call out the US government or the president or something like
37:31
that, or at least get accountability, there's a higher
37:34
chance they'll be able to do it than the Gateway Pundit.
37:37
So I'm just saying this is a really shocking development.
37:41
And I think people should. But there was more.
37:44
Oh, there's more. Sorry, there's one more.
37:46
Let me see. There's another.
37:48
Yeah. The list also includes Turning
37:50
Point USA is media brand front lines.
37:52
I never heard of that. Don't know what it is.
37:54
Influencer Tim Pools, Tim Cast. That's a YouTube channel and the
37:59
sub stack based newsletter called the Washington Reporter.
38:03
These are guests are paragons of journalism.
38:06
What can we say? Maybe, maybe we should apply for
38:10
for a pass. I'm probably not going to get
38:11
it. They don't like anybody who's
38:13
critical of Trump, doesn't like any media outlets critical of
38:17
him and will deny them access. So this is like what's going on?
38:21
So pretty incredible. OK, OK, then let's keep an eye
38:25
on that. OK, If you like what the UK
38:27
column does, you'd like to support us, please have a look
38:29
at the website. There are options to help us out
38:33
if you have a look at that section on on screen at the
38:36
moment. If you can't support us
38:38
financially then please do share material that you see on the
38:41
website and help us beat the censorship regime in the UK and
38:46
elsewhere. Now tonight at 7:00 PM, Charles
38:49
and I, as usual, are speaking to Jerem for the Weekly Banter.
38:52
Join us for that. And then at 9, Carl Zhao is
38:56
speaking to Doctor Warwick Paul on the unravelling of Trump's
38:59
trade war. And this is focusing on the
39:02
Trump she visit. So have a look at that.
39:05
At 9:00 PM tonight, a reminder of the interview between me and
39:10
Jose Biomorgi, the Venezuelan ambassador to Lebanon and Syria
39:15
yesterday that went out yesterday.
39:17
It's now on the website on Demand if you want to have a
39:19
look at that. It covers a lot of some of the
39:23
topics that we spoke about in the Venezuelan segment today,
39:26
but we're hearing it from from the horses mouth as it were.
39:30
And certainly he absolutely is putting quite a lot of the
39:35
responsibility for what's going on at Marco Rubio's door.
39:39
And well, we can talk about that a bit more in extra.
39:42
Now, I want to highlight an article which is going to cause
39:45
people, some people, some difficulty, but I'm just going
39:49
to say it's worth reading. It is fantastic.
39:51
Islam is not the enemy of Christianity.
39:53
This is an Arab Christian perspective.
39:56
This is from someone in the Middle East who is an Arab
40:00
Christian and just wanted to put her perspective.
40:05
On the relationship between Islam and Christianity, or at
40:08
least how it should be. And but as I say, it might cause
40:12
some cognitive dissonance in in some people.
40:15
And if it does well, I've just urge you to to consider what's
40:20
being said. Just take a step back and
40:23
consider it because it's worth consideration.
40:25
Yeah, sometimes a shock to some people in the West to know that
40:28
there are actual Christians living in Palestine peacefully
40:32
with Muslims and in Lebanon and Syria as well.
40:36
Maybe not with the current Syrian regime, which is AUS
40:39
backed terrorist leader, but before that under the Assad
40:43
government, all denominations living in harmony with each
40:46
other mostly anyway in Iraq as well.
40:49
It's the same in Iraq. So I know that comes as a shock.
40:53
Yes, Christians in the Holy Land, Arab Christians, but it's
40:56
true. We, we testified.
40:58
This is a fact. They've been there for thousands
40:59
of years or no, we're not Christians.
41:02
Well, 2000. Yes.
41:04
So, but anyway, now the 1000 Words podcast that went out last
41:09
week, the second part of that is going out on Sunday at 7:00 PM
41:13
is James Delingpole is being painted by Jake Fern.
41:17
And of course they're having discussions on on, I think this
41:21
week they're focusing on the things that brought James
41:25
Dillingpole from where he was to where he is today.
41:30
So this is a bit more about his how he has his opinions have
41:35
evolved since he was. His demising conversion from
41:39
from the Telegraph to where he is now, it's probably
41:41
fascinating. Absolutely.
41:43
Now that's for members only, so, but do join us for that. 7:00 PM
41:47
on Sunday. And finally, a reminder of
41:52
tomorrow, the digital ID protests in Edinburgh. 1:00 PM
41:58
The Mound Princess St in Edinburgh.
42:00
If you can possibly get along for that, please do go and
42:04
support those guys because this is a topic which of course, is
42:07
very close to many, many people's hearts.
42:10
So as much support as possible would be fantastic.
42:13
Now, Patrick, let's move on then to the issue of Russian oil
42:19
exports and sanctions and so on. Well, it's an interesting topic.
42:22
We were going to have a a guest international lawyer, Arnold
42:26
Devolo, join us. There were connection issues,
42:28
big tech issues between the East and the West right now because
42:32
of sanctions. So we'll we'll.
42:34
Find a work around for that and we'll we'll speak to him again.
42:36
We'll bring him on in future, but but but nonetheless, let's
42:39
bring this up. So this is the big question.
42:42
Will Trump sanctions against Russia make a dent in in their
42:46
oil exports? You know, basically how how
42:49
serious is this? And just to there they are now,
42:54
I guess all the goodwill from Anchorage is expended and now
42:58
we're at with economic new levels of economic war.
43:01
So what what Trump's trying to do here, Mike, is extract some
43:05
kind of concessions from Russia in terms of getting them to
43:10
agree to freeze the conflict in Ukraine as an example.
43:14
So this does have a lot to do with what's happening on the
43:16
battlefield in Ukraine right now.
43:18
The question is how serious is they've sanctioned Russia to
43:21
high heaven since 2014. In fact, after the Russia after
43:26
Crimea reunited with the Russian Federation or an A Russia
43:30
annexed it, depending on which perspective you take.
43:33
And then after the Ukraine conflict kicked off in February
43:38
2022, another another level of sanctioning.
43:41
So what could, what could the West possibly do to Russia that
43:45
would really hurt it if Russia has weathered the storm and and
43:48
is out competing Europe in terms of GDP growth and economic
43:53
performance? Well is but is this really a
43:55
checkmate? Well, let's take a look.
43:57
And just to to review, this is something we mentioned earlier
44:00
here. We're talking about these two
44:02
major producers, Rosneff and Luke Oil, which comprise of 5%
44:06
of the global oil trade, which is significant.
44:09
This might not sound like a lot 5%, but it is a 20th of the
44:13
global oil trade. So it is a lot, but China is
44:17
halting oil purchases from these companies.
44:22
That's massive. Before China was basically still
44:25
training and basically sidestepped any threats.
44:28
And India, same. So these are three main founding
44:34
BRICS countries, Russia, China and India.
44:37
So has Trump done a major move here, a checkmate, if you will,
44:41
against bricks and against Russia?
44:44
Well, Mike, the the consensus is this is going to hurt Russia in
44:48
the short term for sure. And what's interesting is in
44:52
November, I think the end of November is, is the deadline
44:55
where Luke Oil, which has facilities all over the world.
45:00
And these can be now seized under kind of, you know, eminent
45:04
domain under these sanctions. So they're now trying to sell
45:06
all of their facilities and properties in the next three
45:09
weeks and they're going for nothing basically.
45:12
So that's what that's what those are the reports that we've got
45:14
out of Russia. So they're basically if it
45:17
whatever is not basically liquidated, but by I think
45:21
November 17th right around there, then it's basically they
45:25
they can lose them. What does international law say
45:27
about this? Is this, is this legitimate what
45:30
the United States doing? Absolutely.
45:32
It's not by this should go into some kind of a forum like, you
45:37
know, the UN General Assembly or the Security Council or some
45:40
kind of arbitration. So it's completely against
45:43
international law. And the and especially at a time
45:46
when the US doesn't want to come to any political settlement over
45:49
Ukraine, they want to settle it on the battlefield.
45:51
The Europeans want to settle on the battlefield and then they're
45:54
waging economic warfare against against Russia and then
45:57
sanctioning anyone who's buying Russian oil.
46:00
So that's also secondary. Sanctions are absolutely in
46:03
violation of international law. So Hungary wants a waiver there
46:08
will probably get a waiver. Same with Slovakia and a number
46:12
of other countries. Germany's got a waiver for
46:14
Rosneft and Germany. They still rely on Russia and
46:18
Germany's, as we said, they're going to seize, possibly sees
46:21
and nationalise those Russian Rosneft refineries and so forth
46:27
in Germany because that's the only way around it is to steal
46:30
it and nationalise it. So this is kind of crazy what's
46:34
going on here. I.
46:36
Mean should Russia not view that as an act of war?
46:39
It it is wars have been started over over this in the past.
46:43
In fact, this is arguably one of the reasons why Japan attacked
46:46
Pearl Harbour in 1941 was they were being strangled and shut
46:50
off from the global markets by the Americans and the British.
46:53
So they, they, they, it was really kind of a pre emptive
46:56
move to hit the US bases in, in Hawaii and Pearl Harbour.
47:02
There's more to it than that. But so the, the questions that
47:05
this raises, Mike, is OPEC, how's OPEC going to respond?
47:09
Is OPEC going to increase production to keep the price of
47:12
oil down? Because what the US don't want
47:14
is a spike in oil prices because that's going to create problems
47:17
economically for Trump and for the West, but also it's going to
47:21
benefit Russia because according to Russian experts, just a
47:25
slight increase in price will make up for the lost trade.
47:29
You see. So I mean that that those are
47:31
the sort of variables that we're dealing with here.
47:34
And so it is interesting. And you know what else is
47:37
interesting is the Rosa Tom is the nuclear yeah, provider for
47:44
Russia. They're exempt from all
47:45
sanctions globally. They've got a they've got a
47:48
white waiver for every every everyone relies on them around
47:51
the world. They do a full end to end
47:53
solution from uranium to clean up to facilities to build the
47:57
facilities, maintain the facilities to fantastic company,
48:00
which is mostly, I believe state owned.
48:02
They have a complete waiver and Japan is basically ignoring any
48:07
threats of sanctions. They buy a lot of LNG from
48:10
Russia. The Sakhalin site is a joint
48:13
venture between the Japanese and the Russian government And Japan
48:16
saying no, we're we're we're keeping our relationship with
48:18
Russia. They don't buy a lot of oil from
48:20
Russia and Japan. They get it from other places.
48:23
They only get a small percentage from Russia.
48:25
So Japan is basically not affected by this at all and is
48:29
pushing back against any pressure not to buy Russian
48:32
liquefied natural gas. So that's interesting.
48:35
So Asia is, it'll be interesting to see what direction this goes,
48:40
how China and Russia will adapt on this and we might see some
48:44
changes in the structure of the Russian.
48:47
These companies could become nationalised in Russia itself
48:51
and it becomes much more difficult to sanction if these
48:54
are state owned companies. So last question Patrick,
48:57
because on this bearing in mind that the so called Glo Global S
49:02
is the global majority, why, why isn't there much more of a sort
49:06
of an international outcry about this?
49:09
I, I don't know per per SE, no, I think there's just so many
49:12
terror. There's tariff wars and
49:14
sanctions. the US is basically using tariffs as sanctions to
49:17
punish people for not behaving the way they want or not
49:20
submitting to whatever the, the weekly DIC tats are, which are
49:24
constantly changing from the Trump administration.
49:26
So there's a lot of chaos, I think, and there's a lot of
49:30
noise and hysteria going on right now.
49:33
So trying to get a consolidated response to what the US is doing
49:37
here is going to be difficult, OK?
49:39
Everyone's just trying to survive in this economy.
49:42
So I mean, there's a lot of problems with that.
49:45
So I think personally, in the long term, I think in the short
49:49
term, the, the sanctions against Russia, these particular ones
49:52
are going to hurt Russia in the short term.
49:55
And you're going to see probably Q 4/20/26 that that that's when
50:00
you'll start, start to see on the balance sheet what sort of
50:04
effect this has. But I've been speaking to
50:06
experts in Russia, Mike, on this and they said that this Ukraine
50:10
war is going to be done by Q4 of 2026.
50:13
When I say done, we, we're talking about Odessa, Kharkiv,
50:18
Dinapia, Petrosk, and these sort of key regions that they're
50:23
fighting over right now, which geopolitically change the whole,
50:29
you know, viewpoint of this conflict.
50:31
For NATO, that means basically they're done.
50:33
NATO's southern flank is finished.
50:36
If if that's the case, they're really pushing Russia's hand.
50:39
Because if, if this is going to create pain in Russia, Mike, and
50:42
that's going to create political pressure for Putin and this
50:45
government, then it they're incentivizing Russia to move
50:48
quicker and harder in Ukraine. And so what's that?
50:52
Is that going to elicit an aggressive response from Europe?
50:55
Is this how we're going to get war?
50:57
That's a legitimate question as well, yeah.
50:59
Absolutely. OK, let's come back to the UK
51:02
then. And online safety, because
51:05
Sunday was the Online Safety Act's second birthday.
51:11
We should all have been celebrating.
51:13
I hope everyone was celebrating. We appreciate my sarcasm there.
51:16
But anyway, Ofcoms Group director for Online Safety
51:19
Oliver Griffith said that real change is happening.
51:22
We've laid the foundations for a safer life online.
51:25
Do you feel safer online, Patrick?
51:28
Yeah, OK, he said. He said tech platforms now have
51:33
clear legal duties to protect people, especially children,
51:35
from legal and harmful, from illegal and harmful content.
51:39
Now, this is important because the concept of legal but harmful
51:43
content never really went away. So we have to look a bit behind
51:47
what he was saying there. Anyway, Ofcom announced that
51:50
they're going to publish a report detailing their progress
51:54
to creating a censorship industrial.
51:59
Sorry, I've completely forgotten the word that's going to be
52:01
published in December. Anyway, here's Ofcom's head DM,
52:06
Melanie Doss, because she's written to the chairs of the
52:09
Communications and Digital Select Committee and also the
52:13
Science, Innovation and Technology Committee to claim
52:15
all kinds of success so far. She said the most visible and
52:19
significant change so far has been the introduction of age
52:22
cheques across online pornography sites.
52:25
Another sites hosting primary priority content as defined in
52:28
the ACT to prevent under eighteens from being able to
52:31
access this content. So I mean, this is, this is
52:37
absolutely her position. But of course this business of
52:40
under eighteens being able to access content, well that might
52:44
be the case, but it does nothing to prevent those over 18 from
52:47
posing as under eighteens on sites that target children.
52:51
So it should come as no surprise then that the first imprisonment
52:54
under the Online Safety Act is of an adult who abused a 17 year
52:58
old and caused her to self harm. This is presented as a huge
53:02
success for the Online Safety Act, but in fact it's another
53:05
failure. The ACT did and does nothing to
53:08
prevent this type of abuse and the crimes committed by this
53:12
person were already illegal. So this this prosecution could
53:18
have been on the basis of already existing legislation.
53:22
Child abuse and causing self harm were not legal before the
53:25
Online Safety Act. So the claim that this is some
53:27
kind of success is complete and utter nonsense.
53:30
But anyway, in the meantime, the war of words between Wikipedia
53:34
and the UK regime continues because Wikipedia is also
53:39
subject to the age verification requirements that the
53:41
pornography sites are. And this is upsetting Jimmy
53:44
Wales because the best Deep state editors of the planet's
53:47
greatest propaganda machine wish to remain anonymous.
53:50
And Jimmy wants them to remain anonymous.
53:53
He wants them to be able to remain anonymous.
53:54
But Starmer's saying no to that. And so that fight is continuing.
53:58
Well, so intelligence agencies are battling the government
54:04
absolutely on this. On this yes, professional
54:07
trolls. In the EU then, LinkedIn has
54:11
been ramping up its censorship regime and the European
54:13
Commission has been forced to deny that it had anything to do
54:17
with so that the censorship had anything to do with the Digital
54:19
Services Act, which is the EU's equivalent to the Online Safety
54:23
Act. That's a pretty lame excuse
54:26
because of course LinkedIn and all the platforms are responding
54:29
to the legislative framework they find themselves in,
54:32
primarily because LinkedIn doesn't really have any skin in
54:35
the game as far as advertising is concerned.
54:37
So they're not worried about content that that may put
54:40
advertisers off as such. So this is mainly about the the
54:44
the Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Act, but I just
54:47
wanted to to end this topic with this article.
54:51
This was rubbished originally published a couple of months ago
54:54
on the conversation website, but the Cobb Courier here.
54:58
The Cobb Courier is a local website in the United States has
55:02
just republished this and the headline is Self Censorship and
55:06
the Spiral of Silence. Why Americans are less likely to
55:08
publicly voice their opinions on political issues.
55:11
And it talks about people self censoring because people are
55:16
being driven to extreme positions as a result of current
55:19
events and and people are therefore afraid to speak out
55:22
because of the abuse they received from people on the
55:24
other end of the political spectrum.
55:26
And so what's being described here is that the polarisation of
55:30
opinion is in and of itself a mechanism of censorship.
55:35
You know, because the divide and conquer policy, in other words,
55:38
is a gift that keeps on giving. If people want to, you know, I'm
55:42
going to suggest here that if people want to resist policies
55:44
they disagree with, maybe we should be engaging people that
55:47
we, you know, the people that we disagree with in a way which
55:51
sort of enables conversations rather than rather than, well,
55:55
what is sort of digital bloodshed as we see on on X and
55:59
other platforms at the moment. But I think I thought that was a
56:02
pretty insightful article, because there is no question
56:06
that is people's opinions move to the extremes.
56:08
It gets harder for them to express them without ending it,
56:12
ending up in just a massive war. Yeah, in my experience
56:16
personally engaging with other Americans on on just my germane
56:22
political conversations is there's a huge gap between what
56:26
people know or think they know and what's actually true.
56:30
And some for some people, you can't get over the conversation
56:33
that they don't. They believe Michelle Obama is a
56:35
man basically. And and and they're just stuck
56:38
on that. They believe all sorts of
56:40
things. But so you can't really have an
56:42
intelligent political conversation that's, you know,
56:45
of course, that's just my opinion that Michelle Obama is a
56:49
biological female. But people have been
56:52
radicalised. I couldn't possibly comment.
56:55
They've been radicalised on this stuff, so you it is kind of
56:58
frustrating. And because of that it's
57:00
affected. Both sides will not talk to each
57:02
other basically. So if you're intelligent, you
57:04
want to have a intellectual conversation somewhere in the
57:07
middle. You're not welcome.
57:09
You're not. Welcome.
57:10
That's the case. And so conversations aren't
57:13
happening. But in the meantime, Speaking of
57:14
conversations, at least an attempt to stop conversations
57:19
happening, what's the latest on the doctors that are being
57:23
censored? What's Auk story here?
57:25
And we'll bring this image up on screen.
57:27
So this is this is UK Israeli censorship.
57:30
Let's just call it what it is. This is here Doctor Ramey Ladwan
57:36
and she they're attempting to revoke her licence to practise
57:39
medicine get her struck from the the General Medical Council on
57:45
this year and the the coverage on this is just unbelievable.
57:49
So we go to the to the right. This is the Telegraph NH Doctor
57:52
Who celebrated Hamas October 7th attack knows how they put that
57:56
in single quotes. Is is arrested and they put it
58:00
in single quotes. So this is an accusation
58:02
probably from, I don't know, an Israeli lobby or a Jewish lobby
58:07
organisation. They put it in single quotes.
58:09
It's highly libellous and defamatory.
58:11
Cause clearly she wasn't celebrating October 7th.
58:15
But the Telegraph are playing bit cute with that one by
58:19
putting in single quotes. And now on the left world
58:21
socialist website defending her UK government backed persecution
58:25
of anti genocide medic Dr Rahme, a large 1 continues.
58:29
You see the difference between the media coverage, but the the
58:33
the entire mainstream in Britain is railing against her.
58:36
So you know, if you if you're if you're into the underdog and you
58:39
don't trust the establishment, then maybe you should consider
58:42
what side you're taking on this. But here's here's what's
58:44
happened to her since she has been released.
58:49
She says this is on her ex account.
58:51
A few days ago I'm effectively on a form of house arrest, my
58:55
bail conditions for lawful speech, a July talk she gave and
59:00
three posts on X. She's banned from any public
59:03
demonstration or event in London relating to Palestine or Israel.
59:08
Curfew to live and sleep at a specific address.
59:12
Must notify a detective if she is to leave home for more than
59:16
48 hours. Yesterday, the chair of the
59:18
tribunal cut her off from reading, fought one sentence.
59:22
The GMC had also specifically requested that I am not to
59:28
speak, says Doctor Aladwan. This is what the political
59:31
persecution of a doctor looks like in Britain today.
59:35
Pretty, pretty amazing House arrest for tweets.
59:39
So all all the people on the right that were railing and Elon
59:42
Musk and JD Vance about people being, you know, arrested or
59:46
door knocked by the police for tweets.
59:49
None of those people on the so called conservatives are coming
59:52
to her rescue because they don't like the fact that she is
59:56
defending Palestinians. So is and she herself is from
1:00:00
the Levant, if I'm not mistaken. So yeah, she's I believe
1:00:04
Jordanian, of Jordanian Palestinian descent.
1:00:07
So she's talking about her people effectively, but yet this
1:00:11
is criminalised speech. So we're all the free speech
1:00:14
warriors on the right. Are you going to defend her on
1:00:19
principle or not because Israel's involved in the issue?
1:00:23
No, is apparently the case. Yeah, indeed.
1:00:26
Mark, let's come back to you then to end and just bring us a
1:00:31
little bit more on what the White House has been saying
1:00:34
about Gaza. Well, this just then, you might
1:00:38
say, Mike, you had asked me to look this up and everything I
1:00:42
looked up was about a week, week and a half old regarding White
1:00:47
House negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
1:00:49
This is from Politico. 20 October.
1:00:52
Those two guys returned to the Middle East and met with Prime
1:00:55
Minister Netanyahu and Israel after a weekend where the
1:00:59
ceasefire at that time looked increasingly in danger as Israel
1:01:02
launched a wave of strikes on targets in Gaza around October
1:01:06
19, which Palestinian authorities said killed dozens
1:01:09
of people, including children, after two Israeli troops, I
1:01:13
would say, allegedly were killed by militants.
1:01:16
Hamas said it was not responsible for the attack on
1:01:18
those soldiers. So there's, of course, a lot of
1:01:21
concern about wanting to make Gaza a real estate Mecca in the
1:01:25
wake of all this tragedy. And these negotiators are, you
1:01:29
know, working around a ceasefire that really never was.
1:01:34
And it truly is a, a disheartening and tragic thing
1:01:37
to see with Israel getting away with so many crimes, Internet
1:01:42
breaking, breaking international law, and as we mentioned
1:01:45
earlier, escaping the the overall chronicling and
1:01:51
archiving of data on nuclear weapons tests when they have a
1:01:55
nuclear arsenal they've had for a long time.
1:01:58
And yet it's been kept unofficial.
1:02:00
And that that really adds insult to injury after as to what
1:02:05
Israel's been doing in Gaza. So I didn't have a lot of time
1:02:09
to look into this in detail, but I think that puts a good ending
1:02:12
on today's show, kind of sums things up.
1:02:15
Well, of course, Witkoff and so on, they were seen on camera
1:02:20
recently causing each other, Kushner and Witkoff causing each
1:02:24
other a little bit of embarrassment.
1:02:25
What? What was going on there?
1:02:27
We'll go to that in a second. They had the interview of 60
1:02:29
Minutes and Leslie Stahl, really embarrassing, actually.
1:02:32
We'll show that clip in a minute.
1:02:33
But Israel's basically pioneering a new concept here,
1:02:36
Mike. It's a temporarily permanent
1:02:38
ceasefire. The temporarily permanent
1:02:41
ceasefire. And I might add, under
1:02:43
international law, Israeli soldiers I, the IDF or IOF,
1:02:48
depending on which acronym you use, they have no rights under
1:02:51
international law in as illegal occupiers in Gaza.
1:02:55
Just saying the fact that that their safety is somehow a part
1:02:59
of any negotiation or or ceasefire agreement is patently
1:03:04
ridiculous. But unfortunately, you're
1:03:06
dealing with a perennial violator of multiple UN
1:03:10
resolutions over the last 80 years.
1:03:12
But so, so this is clip. Watch this clip and watch the
1:03:15
reaction from Jared Kushner when the 60 Minutes host asks Steve
1:03:20
Witkoff and Steve Witkoff seems to give away play the entire
1:03:24
game on this and just Kushner is panicking, visibly dishevelled.
1:03:30
Watch this. You're builders, you've been in
1:03:34
real estate. Tell us more about the plan and
1:03:38
how much it's going to cost. Where's the money going to come
1:03:41
from and who's going to award the contracts?
1:03:45
I think it's going to cost a lot of money.
1:03:48
What's a lot of money? You know, the estimates are in
1:03:51
the $50 billion range. It might be a little bit less,
1:03:53
it might be a little bit more. I happen to think that that's
1:03:56
not a lot of money in that region.
1:03:58
You have governments that are going to jump on in.
1:04:00
Middle East countries are going to provide the money.
1:04:04
Yeah. What?
1:04:05
You'll see European participation and so forth.
1:04:07
The beginning of this plan is how to get it going.
1:04:11
That's what me and what me and Jared work on all the time.
1:04:14
The money raising, we think is the easy part, but it's the
1:04:17
master plan and we're working with a group of people who have
1:04:21
been working on master plans for the last two years.
1:04:24
So there are plans already. We have plans already.
1:04:26
We have a master plan already. And by the way, and Jared's been
1:04:29
pushing this and we're working together on it, and I think if
1:04:33
the world saw the progress so far, they'd be pretty impressed.
1:04:39
Well, it's always good to end the programme on the comedy
1:04:42
moment, Patrick. But that, you know, in a sense
1:04:46
it's a comedy moment because clearly Kushner was extremely
1:04:48
embarrassed by that. But but you know, what we're
1:04:51
actually looking at, we should always keep in mind is
1:04:55
thousands, 100, you know, 10s of thousands, hundreds of thousands
1:04:58
of people, basically a population decimated to make
1:05:01
room for this master plan. Yeah, yeah.
1:05:04
And, and he's been working on it for Jared's been working on for
1:05:07
two years since October 7th. And Steve Witkoff gave it away.
1:05:11
The delboy, the delboy of diplomacy.
1:05:14
Steve Witkoff gave the game away.
1:05:16
And that's what it's all about. Trump tweeted out this Gaza
1:05:19
Riviera thing with this gaudy AI video back at the beginning of
1:05:23
his term in February. And that was just kind of like a
1:05:26
big FUI think to the Palestinians and to the
1:05:30
international community on this. And there you go.
1:05:33
These two shysters, a couple of crooks, a couple of criminals
1:05:37
and their bosses running a protection racket, who is, I
1:05:40
don't know who their boss is. Which cabinet do they work for,
1:05:43
the Israeli cabinet or the American governments cabinet?
1:05:48
This is an open question that we don't actually know the answer
1:05:50
to the British at this point. Maybe, maybe, maybe there's a
1:05:55
Union Jack inside, Jared. Designer suit.
1:05:59
Well, we'll leave. We'll leave it on that thought.
1:06:01
So look, we'll be back. In a couple of minutes, if
1:06:03
you're UK column member for some news extra, join us for that if
1:06:07
you can. Otherwise, don't forget Jerem at
1:06:09
7 and 2nd Rd Podcast at 9:00. Join us at 1:00 PM on Monday as
1:06:15
usual and hope everyone has a great weekend.
1:06:17
In the meantime, thanks for joining us.
1:06:19
Bye bye.