Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 25th September 2024

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UK Column News Podcast 25th September 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the twenty fifth of September twenty
0:11
Speaker 1: twenty four, just after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK
0:13
Speaker 1: Column News. I'm your host, Mike Romson joining me today.
0:16
Speaker 1: We've got Vanessa Billy from Damascus and Charles Mallett. Welcome
0:19
Speaker 1: to the program both. Vanessa, we're going to get started
0:23
Speaker 1: with you and the situation in Lebanon as Israel continues
0:28
Speaker 1: striking that country.
0:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's a huge amount going on, so
0:33
Speaker 2: it's difficult to cover all of it, but I've tried
0:35
Speaker 2: to provide basically an overview. So since Monday, Israel's expanded aggression.
0:42
Speaker 2: They're now targeting even the central mountain ranges of Lebanon
0:47
Speaker 2: above Biblos and the northeast, and no longer only in
0:52
Speaker 2: the south. Five hundred and fifty eight people have been killed,
0:56
Speaker 2: including fifty children, and well over one thousand injured and
1:00
Speaker 2: many of course still missing.
1:03
Speaker 3: Under the rubble of the homes that have been destroyed.
1:07
Speaker 3: Just a very quick video clip of a number of.
1:09
Speaker 2: The air strikes since Monday, just to show the ferocity.
1:22
Speaker 4: Hid not of one mm hm.
2:03
Speaker 2: Multiple displacements of course, tens of thousands of people these
2:07
Speaker 2: are the queues heading from the south into the north,
2:11
Speaker 2: and even in Syria, we're receiving thousands of Syrian and
2:17
Speaker 2: Lebanese refugees and the Minister of Health has opened all hospitals,
2:22
Speaker 2: the President has opened all governorates to.
2:25
Speaker 3: Receive the refugees.
2:27
Speaker 2: At the same time, hays Bolla is responding and also
2:32
Speaker 2: expanding the war deeper into the occupied territories. They've targeted,
2:37
Speaker 2: among other areas, the Romat David Airbase or that it's
2:41
Speaker 2: a Weismann base or Wing one, which is the main
2:45
Speaker 2: base the is Raeli occupation forces used for aerial operations
2:49
Speaker 2: in the northern direction towards Lebanon and Syria. It's also
2:52
Speaker 2: the only Israeli Air Force air base in the northern
2:55
Speaker 2: occupied territories, the Medjido or Megido Aviation Company, which was
3:02
Speaker 2: established by British occupation forces in nineteen forty one. In
3:07
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, in an Israeli government committee led
3:09
Speaker 2: by former Air Force commander Bodingja decided to create a
3:13
Speaker 2: new airport at Midjda. In two thousand and nine, renovation
3:17
Speaker 2: and expansion operations were carried out, and today for the
3:20
Speaker 2: first time, Hezbola used one of their ballistic missiles. They've
3:24
Speaker 2: been using generally their lower grade missiles until now, but
3:29
Speaker 2: they used a ballistic missile to target the Mossad headquarters
3:32
Speaker 2: in Tel Aviv, and that again is the first time
3:35
Speaker 2: that Hezbollah has targeted Tel Aviv. Of course, Israel and
3:41
Speaker 2: the Israeli forces have been putting out messaging declaring victory,
3:45
Speaker 2: declaring that they've destroyed the majority of HESB missile launchers,
3:50
Speaker 2: but in reality these are both from Almyadin, a former
3:54
Speaker 2: Israeli security advisor, says that Israel is not even close
3:58
Speaker 2: to beginning to destroy the capabilites of the Islamic resistance
4:02
Speaker 2: in Lebanon and asking if Hesbalow has been defeated an
4:07
Speaker 2: article or opinion piece today in Israeli media, has it
4:11
Speaker 2: been defeated?
4:11
Speaker 3: Will it surrender? The answer is no.
4:15
Speaker 2: The IDF has also been producing its normal standard of
4:19
Speaker 2: propaganda to justify the slaughter of civilians.
4:22
Speaker 3: We have to remember that if it were Russia.
4:25
Speaker 2: Killing five hundred and fifty eight civillions, almost all of
4:28
Speaker 2: those in one day, there would be outrage from the West.
4:33
Speaker 2: So here the Israeli Defense Forces initially put out a
4:37
Speaker 2: tweet saying that the reason.
4:39
Speaker 3: That they had destroyed all of these houses.
4:43
Speaker 2: Was that basically Hesblla was storing and launching missiles.
4:47
Speaker 3: From those houses. Later on that post.
4:50
Speaker 2: Was deleted and it was rewritten to exclude the information
4:53
Speaker 2: about the missiles being stored in the houses.
4:55
Speaker 3: And of course this isn't new.
4:57
Speaker 2: This is the standard argument from the to justify targeting
5:02
Speaker 2: properties civilian properties in Gaza in Palestine.
5:06
Speaker 3: And now of course an ants in Syria.
5:10
Speaker 2: Last night to show that the escalation is also extending
5:15
Speaker 2: into Syria.
5:17
Speaker 3: The Syrian Air Defense.
5:18
Speaker 2: This is from Israeli media was triggered amid alleged Israeli
5:22
Speaker 2: strike on the city of Tartoos. Now what's interesting is
5:26
Speaker 2: that I'm being told by people here in the military
5:29
Speaker 2: that in reality it was an attack by drone from
5:33
Speaker 2: the al Qaedo factions to the north of Latakia on
5:37
Speaker 2: the coast and Idler.
5:39
Speaker 3: So this again demonstrates how.
5:41
Speaker 2: The so called rebels support their Zionist funders, backers, armors
5:47
Speaker 2: and supporters in Israel. And again this is also quite interesting.
5:56
Speaker 2: This story has been repeated twice in the last two weeks.
5:59
Speaker 3: That's why I wanted to point it out.
6:01
Speaker 2: So yesterday Horez published an article claiming that forty thousand
6:06
Speaker 2: militants had arrived at the border with the occupied Golan territories,
6:12
Speaker 2: which are of course Syrian territories occupied by Israel, from
6:16
Speaker 2: jenin Iraq and from inside Syria.
6:19
Speaker 3: Now I have to say this is nonsense.
6:21
Speaker 2: About two weeks ago there was a story about Yemeni
6:25
Speaker 2: forces of similar numbers.
6:27
Speaker 3: I think it was twenty five thousand.
6:29
Speaker 2: Coming to the same area, and of course this is
6:33
Speaker 2: virtually impossible, but it also hasn't happened.
6:35
Speaker 3: What I believe it is to frame a narrative.
6:40
Speaker 2: If we have a quick look at the map, it'll
6:43
Speaker 2: frame a narrative if we look.
6:46
Speaker 3: Where the drone strike happens.
6:47
Speaker 2: So that was on the western coast of Lovandon, where
6:50
Speaker 2: I've put the red star is where they're claiming that
6:53
Speaker 2: these forty thousand strong forces have gathered. Israel, we know
6:58
Speaker 2: has been clearing the minds that it had planted in
7:01
Speaker 2: order to prevent the Syrian army entering the occupied Golan,
7:06
Speaker 2: which suggests that there is potential of an Israeli ground
7:09
Speaker 2: up invasion. I think it's far more likely that there
7:13
Speaker 2: will be a bombardment on the basis of this narrative
7:16
Speaker 2: that Syria and the Resistance Access are gathering forces at
7:21
Speaker 2: the border with the occupied territories. Now there has also
7:25
Speaker 2: been a noticeable increase in C seventeen flights departing from
7:28
Speaker 2: Fort Campbell, potentially indicating the activation of the one hundred
7:32
Speaker 2: and first Airborne Division. According to US officials that this
7:37
Speaker 2: activity appears to be related to contingency planning for a
7:41
Speaker 2: possible evacuation of US personnel.
7:44
Speaker 3: Or a civilians from Lebanon.
7:45
Speaker 2: But of course we heard there a few months ago,
7:47
Speaker 2: if you remember, we actually reported on it and at
7:50
Speaker 2: the same time and actually interesting to note one hundred
7:54
Speaker 2: and first Division were deployed I think it was in
7:57
Speaker 2: November twenty twenty two to Romania on the borders with Ukraine.
8:03
Speaker 2: And here again you have confirmation from the BBC and
8:07
Speaker 2: from Disclosed TV that Starmer is telling Britain's to leave
8:11
Speaker 2: Lebanon immediately and sending seven hundred troups.
8:14
Speaker 3: Again, this is a repeat of a story.
8:16
Speaker 2: From a couple of months ago to Cyprus for possible
8:20
Speaker 2: Lebanon evacuation. There are not that many British and American
8:24
Speaker 2: civilians in Lebanon that need this level of evacuation. Support,
8:30
Speaker 2: so we have to speculate, speculate why those forces are
8:34
Speaker 2: there right now.
8:36
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vanessa. Indeed, coming onto the Ukraine side of things, well,
8:42
Speaker 1: Russia has been talking in the last day or two
8:45
Speaker 1: about the use of nuclear weapons, and so I'm going
8:48
Speaker 1: to start off here with the sorry the Deputy Foreign
8:52
Speaker 1: Minister Sergei Riibkov he is talking was talking about the
8:57
Speaker 1: potential testing of nuclear weapons there to go, and he
9:00
Speaker 1: said nothing has changed as previously outlined by Russian President.
9:04
Speaker 1: We can conduct such tests, but we will not hold
9:07
Speaker 1: any so long as the United States for friends from
9:09
Speaker 1: such steps. So in other words, if the US maintains
9:14
Speaker 1: an embargo on nuclear testing, Russia will do the same.
9:18
Speaker 1: He went on to say that there have been media
9:21
Speaker 1: reports recently about infrastructure upgrades to the Nevaia Semya, this
9:29
Speaker 1: is the Russian main testing area, but he wanted to
9:35
Speaker 1: make the point that this was also in response to
9:38
Speaker 1: steps on the part of Washington, which has been focused
9:41
Speaker 1: on upgrading the infrastructure they have at their disposal in
9:45
Speaker 1: this sphere in the past few years. So the Russians
9:48
Speaker 1: continuing to push the idea that they are responding, and
9:52
Speaker 1: I think this is true. If you look at the
9:54
Speaker 1: time the timeline of events. They are responding to the
9:59
Speaker 1: US developments in terms of their use of nuclear weapons
10:03
Speaker 1: and so on. But we were talking some months ago
10:07
Speaker 1: about the failed the second failed attempt by the UK
10:11
Speaker 1: testing their Trident nuclear capability. The test failed. Russia not
10:17
Speaker 1: immune from this themselves, so apparently they have had a
10:23
Speaker 1: nuclear test explosion which has destroyed the facility that it
10:29
Speaker 1: was being tested from. So perhaps this feeds into the
10:34
Speaker 1: idea from certain Western leaders that the idea of using
10:38
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons in a restrained way, as they like to
10:42
Speaker 1: put it, ie tactical nuclear weapons is not that risky
10:45
Speaker 1: because the Russians, they claim, don't have the infrastructure. It
10:49
Speaker 1: just make the point that while this story is doing
10:51
Speaker 1: the rhymes, both the UK and the US have also
10:54
Speaker 1: had nuclear test failures in recent months, so that there
10:59
Speaker 1: is no better. Nobody is leading the way on this
11:03
Speaker 1: in any shape or form. Now the UK col News
11:07
Speaker 1: was talking about the Summer of the Future on Monday,
11:10
Speaker 1: and of course z Lensky was at that. He appeared
11:14
Speaker 1: to speak at the United Nations General Assembly and for
11:17
Speaker 1: the Summer of the Future, so he was very excited
11:19
Speaker 1: about that. But he then proceeded to run a tour
11:22
Speaker 1: of all the leaders that were there with his begging
11:25
Speaker 1: ball in hand. I'll just show a few of these
11:28
Speaker 1: because it's quite funny. So here he is with Prime
11:31
Speaker 1: Minister of Japan. Then he went to have a look
11:35
Speaker 1: at Prime Minister Modi. Then he had a chat with
11:40
Speaker 1: some US congressmen and senators. He also spoke to the
11:47
Speaker 1: US energy companies because of course Ukraine really desperate this
11:52
Speaker 1: winter because Russia has been so effective at destroying its
11:56
Speaker 1: energy infrastructure, so they're looking for help to try to
11:59
Speaker 1: maintain some level of energy capability over the winter. Who
12:03
Speaker 1: else we spoke at the Security Council, He met a
12:06
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other leaders as well. But he also
12:09
Speaker 1: went off to scrant An Army ammunition plant. And this
12:13
Speaker 1: is because the he wanted to say thank you to
12:18
Speaker 1: this particular group of arms manufacturers for the one hundred
12:22
Speaker 1: and fifty five millimeters shells that they have sent a
12:25
Speaker 1: couple of million, three million of those in fact, and
12:30
Speaker 1: so he was quite excited about that. But you know,
12:33
Speaker 1: on the other thing to note on this was he
12:36
Speaker 1: was he's been making comments like I think we're closer
12:39
Speaker 1: to peace than we think and I'm not quite sure
12:44
Speaker 1: how he comes to this conclusion. Perhaps he means that
12:46
Speaker 1: we're closer to peace than we think because Ukraine is
12:49
Speaker 1: closer to losing the war. We'll see how that develops.
12:55
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, David Lammi was also over at
12:58
Speaker 1: the United Nations and he was extremely well. I think
13:03
Speaker 1: we should say this was a bit of a comedy show,
13:06
Speaker 1: but I don't want to give a a health warning
13:08
Speaker 1: to anybody that's watching this, because it might make you
13:10
Speaker 1: feel physically ill. We'll discuss it a little bit afterwards.
13:18
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. That's completely We'll try that again.
13:22
Speaker 5: But I say to the Russian representative on his phone
13:26
Speaker 5: as I speak that I stand here also as a
13:30
Speaker 5: black man whose ancestors were taken in chains from Africa
13:34
Speaker 5: at the barrel of a gun to be enslaved, whose
13:38
Speaker 5: ancestors rose up and fought in a great rebellion of
13:41
Speaker 5: the enslaved imperialism. I know it when I see it,
13:46
Speaker 5: and I will call it out for what it is.
13:48
Speaker 5: In this week, when I'm here talking to other partners
13:52
Speaker 5: around the world about our shared futures and the future
13:57
Speaker 5: of the UN, Russia is trying to return us to
14:01
Speaker 5: a world of the past, a world of imperialism, a
14:06
Speaker 5: world of redrawing borders by force, a world without the
14:10
Speaker 5: UN Charter. We cannot allow this to happen. Ukraine's spite
14:15
Speaker 5: matters to all of us. The UK will remain Ukraine's
14:19
Speaker 5: staunchest supporter.
14:23
Speaker 1: Vanessa. I wanted to get your thoughts on this, because
14:25
Speaker 1: of course you've been discussing imperialism for many, many years.
14:30
Speaker 1: Are you recognized imperialism? What are your thoughts on whether
14:34
Speaker 1: Lammy recognizes imperialism or not?
14:38
Speaker 3: Well, you should look in the mirror.
14:40
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, this is what he's talking about,
14:42
Speaker 2: enslaved people, and he's not mentioning Palestine, and he's not
14:47
Speaker 2: mentioning the global sanctions against the global self. I mean,
14:54
Speaker 2: there is so much you could say about this speed.
14:58
Speaker 2: It leaves you a little bit each less.
15:00
Speaker 1: Really, it's total projection, absolute, absolute projection. Yes, that's absolutely right.
15:06
Speaker 5: But he went on, I also want to speak directly
15:13
Speaker 5: to the Kremlin and it's representative here today and Vladimir Putin,
15:22
Speaker 5: Russia sits on this council, but it's actions tear up
15:28
Speaker 5: the UN Charter. Russia sits on this council, but over
15:34
Speaker 5: the weekend we saw it put forward amendments designed to
15:37
Speaker 5: wreck the UN's future. Russia claims to stand for the
15:43
Speaker 5: global South, but it runs Russia over international law. Vladimir Putin,
15:50
Speaker 5: When you fire missiles into Ukraine hospitals, we know who
15:55
Speaker 5: you are. When you send mercenaries into African country, We
16:00
Speaker 5: know who you are when you murder opponents in European cities.
16:06
Speaker 5: We know who you are. Your invasion is in your
16:10
Speaker 5: own interests, yours alone, to expand your mafia state into
16:17
Speaker 5: a mafia empire, an empire built on corruption.
16:24
Speaker 1: I mean, the hypocrisy and is staggering. Charles, I don't
16:28
Speaker 1: know if you've got any thoughts just before you introduce
16:31
Speaker 1: your segment.
16:34
Speaker 6: Well, thank you, Mike, and good afternoon.
16:36
Speaker 7: All.
16:37
Speaker 6: Like every other speech we've heard Lammy read out, I
16:39
Speaker 6: don't think he understands a word of it, most obviously
16:43
Speaker 6: exemplified by him saying that he was standing when correctlearly
16:46
Speaker 6: he was actually sitting down. But no, I think to
16:49
Speaker 6: start talking about building empires on corruption is very opposite,
16:53
Speaker 6: because of course that is exactly where he is with
16:56
Speaker 6: his government as they set out on their campaign to
16:59
Speaker 6: completely all the sense of sort of decorum and good
17:04
Speaker 6: sense in society in the United Kingdom today. But yes,
17:09
Speaker 6: we'll be hearing more from m due course, I'm sure.
17:12
Speaker 1: Yes and day. So let's come on to the Afghan
17:15
Speaker 1: and quarry and the recent revelations about the activities of
17:18
Speaker 1: former Secretary of State for War Ben Wallace.
17:23
Speaker 6: Yes, there are too many strands really to this story
17:26
Speaker 6: to be able to encapsulate them in a short new segment,
17:29
Speaker 6: so we'll deal with the most significant part of it,
17:33
Speaker 6: and we start with a message put out by a
17:36
Speaker 6: rather huffy Ben Wallace, the former Secretary of State for Defense.
17:40
Speaker 6: It does appear in a way that it's a bit
17:42
Speaker 6: of a backscratching exercise between he and the BBC. He
17:45
Speaker 6: accuses Panorama of trying to subvert and inquiry that he
17:50
Speaker 6: had set up and that he was due to attend
17:52
Speaker 6: on Monday. So he accuses Hannah O'Grady, a producer at Panorama,
17:57
Speaker 6: of effectively stirring by asking questions that he described rather
18:01
Speaker 6: strangely as being leading and inaccurate. I don't know how
18:04
Speaker 6: a question itself can be inaccurate, but nonetheless he said
18:08
Speaker 6: that they were straight out of a conspiracy, and he
18:12
Speaker 6: went on to say that he wouldn't be effectively talking
18:16
Speaker 6: about such thing until he'd given evidence at the inquiry,
18:19
Speaker 6: which he did on Monday, so effectively we should stand
18:22
Speaker 6: by for answers to panorama. But what this goes back
18:24
Speaker 6: to are the allegations made against members of UK special forces,
18:30
Speaker 6: in particular the Special Air Service to to SAS. And
18:35
Speaker 6: we see an example. I mean there were many, but
18:37
Speaker 6: in particular the male carried a story back in twenty
18:41
Speaker 6: seventeen having spoken to somebody that claimed to have been
18:45
Speaker 6: in the SAS no longer serving about the policy really,
18:49
Speaker 6: which was shoot to kill or capture, shoot to kill
18:52
Speaker 6: being the first part of the policy. And as I say,
18:56
Speaker 6: there are many different areas that we could go into,
18:59
Speaker 6: but I think to give an impression of the sense
19:03
Speaker 6: of wheels within wheels, I should just refer you to
19:07
Speaker 6: Lord Lancaster, Mark Lancaster, who answered a question in Parliament
19:11
Speaker 6: in twenty seventeen, because of course this was being investigated
19:14
Speaker 6: by the role Military Police, the RMP under the banner
19:17
Speaker 6: of Op Northmore. And when Lancaster was asked then about
19:23
Speaker 6: Northmore and why it was being shut down by two
19:25
Speaker 6: separate MPs, his answer was that it would be absolutely
19:31
Speaker 6: beyond the control of a minister to interfere in such
19:35
Speaker 6: an investigation, which just goes to show that, of course
19:38
Speaker 6: such interference may be conducted as long as it suits
19:42
Speaker 6: the particular minister in question. I should also point out
19:46
Speaker 6: that Lancaster himself is a serving major General in the
19:50
Speaker 6: Reserve as a Royal Engineer, and also interestingly, up until
19:54
Speaker 6: the summer of twenty twenty he was Deputy Commander of
19:56
Speaker 6: seventy seven Bergame, which course was acting very much against
19:59
Speaker 6: the best in dress of the British people during the
20:01
Speaker 6: first lockdowns in the UK. But what this goes back to,
20:07
Speaker 6: or at least brings us forward to, perhaps is the
20:10
Speaker 6: Overseas Operations Act of twenty twenty one, which was sponsored
20:13
Speaker 6: by Ben Wallace in his capacity as Minister for Defense
20:17
Speaker 6: at the time. And this then the bill said that
20:21
Speaker 6: it was to make provision about legal proceedings and consideration
20:24
Speaker 6: of derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights in
20:28
Speaker 6: connection with operations of the Armed Forces outside the British Islands.
20:33
Speaker 6: Now you may have heard of Wallace talking about this,
20:35
Speaker 6: It's more likely you will have heard Johnny Mercer, who
20:38
Speaker 6: spent a lot of time as Minister for the Armed
20:40
Speaker 6: Forces or Veterans rather Veterans affairs, talking about essentially vexatious claims,
20:45
Speaker 6: and this was legislation in order to be able to
20:48
Speaker 6: put British servicemen outside of spurious claims being made overseas. Now,
20:54
Speaker 6: the question at hand is what Wallace knew at the
20:58
Speaker 6: time of introducing and indeed amending this bill to reduce
21:01
Speaker 6: the length of time beyond which vexatious or other claims
21:05
Speaker 6: couldn't be made, And how much he knew about allegations
21:08
Speaker 6: made against British Special Forces, and whether or not he
21:12
Speaker 6: is being honest about this. Now there is more than
21:15
Speaker 6: a whiff of dishonesty in the air, which is evidenced
21:19
Speaker 6: by an exchange between Stuart MacDonald of the SNP and
21:24
Speaker 6: the Ministry of Defense which he tweeted out in the
21:27
Speaker 6: summer of this year, and he was given initially an answer,
21:31
Speaker 6: followed by another answer which was described as being the
21:34
Speaker 6: correct one, and effectively it was to do with whether
21:37
Speaker 6: or not Afghans could be brought back into the UK
21:41
Speaker 6: with the chance of testifying as an inquiry that would
21:44
Speaker 6: shed light on whether or not the Special Forces were
21:46
Speaker 6: involved in any of the things that they've been alleged
21:49
Speaker 6: to have done. And the text that he was sent
21:52
Speaker 6: said this was determined following an internal review that highlighted
21:56
Speaker 6: instances of inconsistent application of the ARAP critis to a
22:00
Speaker 6: tranch of applications from applicants with links to former Afghan
22:04
Speaker 6: Specialist unit. Now that's the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy
22:08
Speaker 6: And although that's complete gobbledegoop, what it means is that, yes,
22:11
Speaker 6: it was possible for UK special Forces to prevent Afghan
22:15
Speaker 6: special forces from coming back and being put in a
22:17
Speaker 6: positions where they might be able to ineffect testify against them.
22:21
Speaker 6: And this takes us to the independent Inquiry relating to Afghanistan,
22:25
Speaker 6: which Wallace himself has set up and testified too on Monday.
22:29
Speaker 6: I should just point out that as part of his
22:31
Speaker 6: evidence there was a restriction order on a fifteen minute
22:35
Speaker 6: period of it which said that there may need may
22:37
Speaker 6: be no publication, dissemination, to disclosure or repetition of anything
22:41
Speaker 6: that was said or done during a fifteen minute period
22:44
Speaker 6: of him speaking. Now, as I say, I referred earlier
22:48
Speaker 6: to Johnny Mercer, and actually it's Mrster's testimony really that
22:53
Speaker 6: is more significant. At this point, he was asked back
22:55
Speaker 6: in February of this year when he was testifying by Glasgow,
22:59
Speaker 6: who was him and was there a sense that you
23:02
Speaker 6: were being hung out to dry here? And Mercer said no,
23:05
Speaker 6: there was a sense that I was being gained the
23:08
Speaker 6: entire time. Now, what he means by that is that he,
23:12
Speaker 6: in his position as Minister for Veterans Affairs, he was closely,
23:18
Speaker 6: very closely involved with this legislation as it was being
23:20
Speaker 6: pushed through and he was being led to believe that
23:24
Speaker 6: there was no substance to the allegations about members of
23:28
Speaker 6: UK Special Forces. But Mercer's position was that he wanted
23:33
Speaker 6: to see all the evidence that there was to suggest
23:37
Speaker 6: that these things had happened in order that he could
23:39
Speaker 6: be clear that this legislation should go ahead and wasn't
23:42
Speaker 6: going to protect people that shouldn't be protected. And he
23:45
Speaker 6: subsequently said that he thinks he was lied to by
23:48
Speaker 6: Director Special Forces DSF and the Chief the General Staff,
23:51
Speaker 6: the head of the Army. He stopped short of calling
23:54
Speaker 6: Wallace a liar, but he did say that Wallace was
23:57
Speaker 6: giving his opinion which he believed was wrong. So he
23:59
Speaker 6: thinks that Wallace was incompetent as opposed to wilfully dishonest.
24:04
Speaker 6: So there is a lot to this. There's a lot
24:06
Speaker 6: more to come out, and I'll just round off by
24:09
Speaker 6: looking quickly at the Rules of Engagement in the Joint
24:13
Speaker 6: Services publication which deals with this, which is JSP three
24:16
Speaker 6: nine eight and just a reminder really, because this is
24:19
Speaker 6: what this concerns as to how enemy combatants are dealt with,
24:22
Speaker 6: and it says a rules of engagement are one of
24:24
Speaker 6: the key means by which political control is exercised over
24:29
Speaker 6: the use of force and of ensuring that action taken
24:31
Speaker 6: by UKR on forces is lawful. And it goes on
24:34
Speaker 6: to clarify that strategic intent at governmental level, coupled with
24:38
Speaker 6: a legal basis for the offensive use of force, will
24:41
Speaker 6: govern the nature of rules of engagement, and goes on
24:44
Speaker 6: to talk about the Chief of the Defense Staff clarifying
24:48
Speaker 6: this through operational directives. So there's an awful lot to this.
24:51
Speaker 6: There's an awful lot more to come out. But effectively,
24:53
Speaker 6: what it is looking like this is unlikely to be
24:56
Speaker 6: battered away by the evidence that Wallace did give on Monday,
24:58
Speaker 6: is that this has caught a lot of people in
25:00
Speaker 6: an enormous lie and it just reins to be seen
25:03
Speaker 6: whether or not. Like every other inquiry that we could
25:05
Speaker 6: really bring to mind, this will also be a whitewash.
25:09
Speaker 6: So I will continue to dig into this and report
25:12
Speaker 6: back as necessary.
25:15
Speaker 1: Charles, thank you very much for that. Now, okay, if
25:18
Speaker 1: you like what we do and you'd like to support us,
25:21
Speaker 1: please go to support dot UK column dot org. There
25:24
Speaker 1: are options to help us there. You could make a donation.
25:27
Speaker 1: Now I'd just like to make the point that one
25:30
Speaker 1: or two people have been making donations thinking that that
25:32
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25:35
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25:57
Speaker 1: thank you very much to everybody that does help us.
25:59
Speaker 1: We need your support. Now. We have added the telegram
26:04
Speaker 1: button to the share buttons on the articles and so on,
26:07
Speaker 1: so please share material you find on the various platforms
26:11
Speaker 1: and of course if you're a member, you can get
26:13
Speaker 1: access and make comments on the material we post on
26:16
Speaker 1: the UK column website. Now, Pierce Robinson, Doctor Piers Robinson's
26:22
Speaker 1: published an article on the latest attacks on academic freedom
26:26
Speaker 1: from The Times and the links to six Vanessa, you've
26:31
Speaker 1: obviously been subject to some of these attacks. I don't
26:34
Speaker 1: know if you've got any any brief thoughts on this.
26:38
Speaker 2: No, it's well worth reading just to understand how the
26:42
Speaker 2: media complex is triggered by the security.
26:46
Speaker 3: Agencies or intelligence agencies to.
26:49
Speaker 2: Effectively discredit smeer and disappear the evidence provided by academics
26:56
Speaker 2: journalists who are challenging.
26:58
Speaker 3: How are rather the working.
27:02
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, Vanessa. Now at the weekend, Brian was
27:05
Speaker 1: invited to chair a discussion between Scott Ritter and the
27:11
Speaker 1: Major General Bakshi from a former Indian Army combat veteran
27:16
Speaker 1: ex Directorate of Military Operations in India and close links
27:22
Speaker 1: to the Indian government. And so that is being streamed
27:25
Speaker 1: out one pm tomorrow. If you are able to watch that,
27:29
Speaker 1: please do watch it and please share it. And Charles
27:33
Speaker 1: then you have spoken recently to Lord Debon and well
27:39
Speaker 1: we've got a little clips so maybe you could introduce that.
27:43
Speaker 6: Have Deeban in fact named off the river in Suffolk
27:47
Speaker 6: is not not perhaps the typical UK column interviewer, but
27:49
Speaker 6: nonetheless he has strong views on extradition. Having known Mike
27:52
Speaker 6: Lynch personally. He's also recently stood down as the chairman
27:55
Speaker 6: of the Climate Change Committee. It's a short interviews in
27:59
Speaker 6: just a Now I really would encourage you to listen
28:02
Speaker 6: because he talks about corporate influence and the ending of
28:06
Speaker 6: the interviews somewhat ironic, but here he is on extradition.
28:11
Speaker 7: Because the Americans are already using their power to get
28:17
Speaker 7: advantage commercially. What they do is to threaten things like
28:23
Speaker 7: this so that people are afraid not to do what
28:29
Speaker 7: they want. They use it to extend American commercial interests.
28:36
Speaker 7: America pretends to be the great pre enterprise economy, and
28:40
Speaker 7: of course it is one of the most protective protectionist
28:46
Speaker 7: economies there are.
28:50
Speaker 1: And there's some spectacular commentary at the end of that video,
28:56
Speaker 1: so I do encourage everybody to watch it now. Bristol,
29:01
Speaker 1: of course, we've got a new name for that, Charles
29:04
Speaker 1: Rachel Matthews.
29:06
Speaker 6: We have, yes, very pleased to be putting Rachel Matthews
29:09
Speaker 6: onto the roster. She will be well known to the
29:11
Speaker 6: UK Column audience, having pushed forward significantly with Colchester Council
29:16
Speaker 6: Watch and setting the example in tackling local authorities head
29:20
Speaker 6: on and also kraling people who've sort of had similar experiences.
29:24
Speaker 6: So she's an absolute font of information not just on knowing
29:28
Speaker 6: how the system works, but also how to push against
29:31
Speaker 6: it and make real progress. So we're delighted that she
29:33
Speaker 6: will be joining us on the nineteenth of October.
29:37
Speaker 1: Fantastic. If you haven't got to your tickets, please get
29:40
Speaker 1: them at the UK Column Shop, And just want to
29:43
Speaker 1: very briefly mention the Heritage Party conference on Saturday. I
29:46
Speaker 1: unfortunately now I can no longer attend because I've got
29:49
Speaker 1: to go to a funeral. But Charles, you are, You're
29:52
Speaker 1: going to take my place.
29:55
Speaker 6: Yes, I'll be talking about free speech and I'm very
29:58
Speaker 6: much looking forward to it, and I hope that they'll
30:00
Speaker 6: many of the audience represented. But yes, brand and I
30:02
Speaker 6: will be there, and well, yeah, it should be a
30:05
Speaker 6: fantastic event, so please do come along or tune in.
30:09
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, Charles. Let's set move on to biosecurity.
30:15
Speaker 6: Yes, now, this has been a theme for many a month,
30:20
Speaker 6: but it's very much ramping up, and of course as
30:23
Speaker 6: autumn falls upon us, there is the suggestion for not
30:28
Speaker 6: just humans but also animals that infectious diseases are on
30:32
Speaker 6: the rise, and we have the Animal and Plant Health
30:35
Speaker 6: Agency sort of at the epicenter of this, really putting
30:38
Speaker 6: out a tweet that's been forwarded by the Chief Vet,
30:42
Speaker 6: Christine Middlemiss with her little Ukraine flag, which has nothing
30:46
Speaker 6: to do with veterinary science, but they're talking about veterinary
30:50
Speaker 6: surveillance news, so giving the impression that they're keeping very
30:54
Speaker 6: close tabs on everything that's happening across the United Kingdom landscape.
30:58
Speaker 6: And indeed that does seem to be the case as
31:00
Speaker 6: far as the internet's concerned. You can now go to
31:02
Speaker 6: a website and pick your chosen disease and find out
31:06
Speaker 6: what it's affecting, where and how. And this is being
31:09
Speaker 6: reinforced by ministers from DEFRA hand in glove of course
31:14
Speaker 6: with the NFU the National Farmers' Union as per always.
31:18
Speaker 6: Now I think that the particular situation does bear closer
31:23
Speaker 6: scrutiny in terms of the detail. Middle Myss that I've
31:27
Speaker 6: just referred to, has tweeted just last week that blue
31:30
Speaker 6: tongue three is spreading across Europe. I have confirmed the
31:34
Speaker 6: virus in one animal imported with other cattle which are
31:37
Speaker 6: negative to devon. This animal has been culled and the
31:40
Speaker 6: others will be repeat tested. This is our standard post
31:44
Speaker 6: import practice. Now I've pulled out what I think is
31:46
Speaker 6: the most significant clause there, which is the others will
31:49
Speaker 6: be repeat tested. It's like leaving the European Union. If
31:52
Speaker 6: you get the wrong result, you just do it again.
31:54
Speaker 6: And of course the alarming thing is the powers to
31:57
Speaker 6: cull what could be perfectly healthy animals. And this is
32:00
Speaker 6: the time to pull out the old adage, which course
32:03
Speaker 6: is that PCR test, according to its designer its inventor
32:07
Speaker 6: carry malice, may not be used as a diagnostic tool.
32:10
Speaker 6: It cannot predict whether or not something will be ill,
32:14
Speaker 6: It does not provide evidence of a virus, and it
32:16
Speaker 6: certainly may not tell you whether one organism will make
32:20
Speaker 6: another organism ill. Nonetheless, it is exactly what APHA hang
32:25
Speaker 6: almost everything they own off. They also describe themselves as
32:29
Speaker 6: being working to safeguard animal and plant health for the
32:32
Speaker 6: benefit of people, the environment, and the economy. But most
32:35
Speaker 6: tellingly in their priorities for twenty twenty five, they or sorry.
32:39
Speaker 6: Leading up to twenty twenty five, they are protecting the
32:41
Speaker 6: UK by introducing the new Border Target Operating Model, which
32:45
Speaker 6: essentially is to do with movement of plants and animals
32:48
Speaker 6: cross borders and protecting the UK from animal and plant
32:52
Speaker 6: related threats to human health. Now. I spoke about this
32:56
Speaker 6: most recently on the twenty ninth of May on the
33:00
Speaker 6: News and I sent a freedom of information request into
33:03
Speaker 6: APHA specifically to do with expanding nitrogen foam and methods
33:08
Speaker 6: for the mass culling of poultry. I asked them a
33:10
Speaker 6: number of questions and I just pick out some of
33:12
Speaker 6: the answers that they gave me. Essentially, what are they
33:16
Speaker 6: going to do if there is to be a mass
33:17
Speaker 6: deep population exercise of poultry. They say they have upgraded
33:21
Speaker 6: and they've got twelve twelve new Mark three containerized gassing
33:25
Speaker 6: units stored across APHA depots capably being deployed across England,
33:31
Speaker 6: Scotland and Wales. They've also enhanced their training to include
33:35
Speaker 6: the newer culling methods like using nitrogen foam, wholehouse gassing
33:40
Speaker 6: and also alternative methods for fertilized egg destruction, so they
33:44
Speaker 6: are going about it absolutely wholesale, indeed even increasing the
33:50
Speaker 6: number of authorized firearms officers up from five to thirteen
33:55
Speaker 6: in response to the demand for culing infected game birds
33:59
Speaker 6: in release pens. So there's a lot to be digested.
34:04
Speaker 6: But I think given the way we're being pushed as humans,
34:08
Speaker 6: as I say, and this constant suggestion that zoo no
34:11
Speaker 6: ses mean that any animal getting ill presents a risk
34:14
Speaker 6: to humans getting ill. I think the most significant part
34:17
Speaker 6: that they gave me in their answer on the freedom
34:20
Speaker 6: of information request was concerning vaccinations for humans, because they
34:25
Speaker 6: say that APHA employees do not require any inoculations or
34:29
Speaker 6: vaccinations to undertake avian influenza work. Now, I think that
34:34
Speaker 6: would be one to cut out and keep in the
34:35
Speaker 6: scrapbook for such time as it becomes effectively more being
34:42
Speaker 6: pushed into our lives, specifically with regard to human health.
34:45
Speaker 6: That I've just got a video that shows the direction
34:48
Speaker 6: that I think we're going in, because this was when
34:52
Speaker 6: Catherine Middleness herself was sorry Christiane Middlemiss was working in
34:56
Speaker 6: New South Wales, Australia, and this was the legislation that
34:59
Speaker 6: ca with the emphasis on collective responsibilities. So let's have
35:03
Speaker 6: a quick look at this.
35:05
Speaker 8: Produce and save food. Biosecurity can often be taken for granted,
35:10
Speaker 8: but it's so important to maintain our twelve billion dollar
35:14
Speaker 8: primary industry sector, strong international reputation and lifestyle that is
35:19
Speaker 8: the envy of many in New South Wales. We are
35:23
Speaker 8: improving how we manage our biosecurity with a new Biosecurity Act.
35:27
Speaker 8: This new piece of legislation brings together fourteen separate acts
35:31
Speaker 8: and introduces the concept of shared responsibility through the General
35:35
Speaker 8: Biosecurity Duty. The General Biosecurity Duty recognizes that everyone has
35:41
Speaker 8: a role to play in protecting our state from biosecurity risks.
35:45
Speaker 8: The Act provides a modern and flexible framework to manage
35:49
Speaker 8: risks and support business, and we need your input before
35:52
Speaker 8: it comes into effect in twenty seventeen. We now need
35:56
Speaker 8: to develop the regulations and policies that will spell out
35:59
Speaker 8: what you and government need to do to share the
36:02
Speaker 8: responsibility in managing biosecurity risks.
36:09
Speaker 6: So as you see shared responsibility at its core, and
36:11
Speaker 6: that is really what the bisecurity state is built around. Now,
36:14
Speaker 6: you might be wondering why this gets to go ahead
36:17
Speaker 6: at all, and it's because there are compensation scales, so
36:21
Speaker 6: DEFRA putting out information with APHA about what poultry farmers
36:25
Speaker 6: in particular can get, and they say that government has
36:28
Speaker 6: powers to cull in order to control the spread of
36:31
Speaker 6: diseases and for bird through and Newcastle disease, or get
36:34
Speaker 6: compensation for any healthy birds that are culled by government.
36:38
Speaker 6: So I think the big question that falls out of
36:39
Speaker 6: that is why are farmers consenting to have animals tested
36:45
Speaker 6: when they should know that the test is not worth
36:48
Speaker 6: the paper it is not even written on and indeed
36:51
Speaker 6: there is no mechanism by which illness can be discerned
36:54
Speaker 6: in these creatures, so effectively they are trying to deny
36:58
Speaker 6: at the same times offering conversation that very compensation. There's
37:01
Speaker 6: a lot more to come out on this as we
37:03
Speaker 6: go into Automan winter.
37:05
Speaker 1: Charles, thank you. Now, let's come on to censorship and well,
37:10
Speaker 1: the news from Pavel Durov is that well Telegram is
37:14
Speaker 1: going to start cooperating with the authorities. This is following
37:17
Speaker 1: his arrest. So he was of course arrested by the
37:21
Speaker 1: French a couple of weeks ago, and he's announced on
37:24
Speaker 1: his Telegram channel at IP addresses and phone numbers of
37:27
Speaker 1: those who violate our rules will be disclosed to relevant
37:30
Speaker 1: authorities and response to valid legal requests, and of course
37:34
Speaker 1: in the past Telegram had refused to do this. He
37:37
Speaker 1: also said that the search functional Telegram, which allows people
37:41
Speaker 1: that of course find public channels and so on, is
37:44
Speaker 1: going to be much more censored than it has been
37:47
Speaker 1: in the past because he's worried about what he described
37:50
Speaker 1: as problematic, problematic content any and unsafe or illegal content
37:56
Speaker 1: and so on. Now people have been commenting on this,
38:00
Speaker 1: and Mike Eden was pushing this article around from a
38:05
Speaker 1: substock from Anthony Colpo entitled the Telegram sham. Pavlo Durov
38:11
Speaker 1: is a World Economic Forum young global leader and his
38:14
Speaker 1: encrypted messaging app stinks like a syop. Well, there are
38:18
Speaker 1: you know, many points in this that I mean, there's
38:21
Speaker 1: nothing incorrect in this article at all. I would just
38:24
Speaker 1: make the point that, of course we shouldn't be looking
38:27
Speaker 1: at these apps as being safe in any way. We
38:30
Speaker 1: shouldn't be looking at any of these great tech leaders
38:33
Speaker 1: as being a safe pair of hands for us to
38:36
Speaker 1: store our messaging in, and we should treat all of
38:39
Speaker 1: these with immense skepticism. That's on one hand, on the sorry,
38:43
Speaker 1: on the other hand, we absolutely should be doing things
38:47
Speaker 1: in the open, in my opinion, and not hiding hind
38:50
Speaker 1: attempts at anonymity. So perhaps it doesn't really matter to
38:55
Speaker 1: what degree these people are working with the state, because
38:58
Speaker 1: you know that we should use the facilities that are
39:00
Speaker 1: available to us in the full knowledge that that's the case.
39:04
Speaker 1: The same goes for x. X of course, had been
39:07
Speaker 1: taking a stand in Brazil because the Brazilians were attempting
39:12
Speaker 1: to force Twitter to take the close accounts that the
39:16
Speaker 1: Brazilians accused of creating disinformation. Elon Musk was taking a
39:21
Speaker 1: stand against that. He is now capitulated because basically the danger.
39:26
Speaker 1: He was forced to close Ex's office in Brazil because
39:30
Speaker 1: of the danger of arrest of Ex's employees. So he
39:33
Speaker 1: shut x down in Brazil completely, which cut off twenty
39:38
Speaker 1: million people. But he switched it all back on again.
39:41
Speaker 1: So that's good news, isn't it. Now. I just want
39:43
Speaker 1: to briefly mention a little bit about what's going on
39:46
Speaker 1: in Germany, and so we'll do a quick translation of
39:49
Speaker 1: this headline here. Citizens Council Forum against fix Hands over
39:54
Speaker 1: reports the Federal Minister Pfizer havn't pronounced that right. Alex
39:58
Speaker 1: will be smacking me around the back of the head
40:00
Speaker 1: when he sees me in October. But anyway, expert reports
40:03
Speaker 1: are the result of a citizen participation project with recommendations
40:08
Speaker 1: for action on how to deal with disinformation. So this
40:11
Speaker 1: is censorship related, but it's also related to the sortition
40:14
Speaker 1: which we've been covering heavily in the last number of weeks.
40:18
Speaker 1: And so what were they up to here? They said
40:20
Speaker 1: the German government should consider whether criminal prosecution or other
40:23
Speaker 1: types of penalties are possible based on the definition of disinformation.
40:28
Speaker 1: But they said that preserving freedom of speech is important
40:31
Speaker 1: to us, of course it is. Nevertheless, the creation and
40:33
Speaker 1: dissemination of disinformation has to be deterred and the perpetrator's
40:37
Speaker 1: sense of wrongdoing heightened. And then they went on to
40:42
Speaker 1: recommend that the European version of the Online Safety Actor,
40:46
Speaker 1: this is part of their legislation equivalent to the Online
40:48
Speaker 1: Safety Act, the Digital Services Act, that this should be
40:52
Speaker 1: extended to force very large online platforms to reserve one
40:58
Speaker 1: percent of their entire global term and over for the
41:00
Speaker 1: purpose of combating disinformation. So you know this as I
41:05
Speaker 1: say is sorticians, let's just have a look at what
41:07
Speaker 1: is a citizens Assembly and Germany. This page gives an
41:12
Speaker 1: idea of it. It's in English, and they say the
41:14
Speaker 1: Citizens Assembly is one of the three pillars of the
41:16
Speaker 1: permanent citizens dialogue in the German speaking community. That the other
41:20
Speaker 1: two are the Citizens' Council and the Permanent Secretary. The
41:23
Speaker 1: Citizens Assembly is composed of about thirty members and these
41:26
Speaker 1: citizens are chosen by lot, so it's a lottery. Now
41:30
Speaker 1: who's allowed to participate. People who are registered in the
41:32
Speaker 1: population and people who are at least sixteen years of old,
41:37
Speaker 1: so quite young people are entitled to take part in this.
41:41
Speaker 1: And the Citizens Assembly is mandated by the Citizens Counsul
41:44
Speaker 1: to deal with a particular topic. The members of the
41:47
Speaker 1: Citizens Assembly first look into the topics and listen to experts.
41:51
Speaker 1: Who chooses these experts this is the question on the matter.
41:54
Speaker 1: Then they discuss what recommendations should be made to politicians.
41:59
Speaker 1: As a result, the Citizens Assembly makes recommendations to the
42:02
Speaker 1: Parliament and the government of the German German speaking community
42:06
Speaker 1: in all decisions, and Citizens Assembly is supported by the
42:09
Speaker 1: Permanent Secretary. The Permanent Secretary as a staff member from
42:12
Speaker 1: the Parliamentary administration. So this demonstrates one of the dangers
42:18
Speaker 1: of the so called citizens assemblies. And well we will
42:22
Speaker 1: be reporting much more on this in the coming days
42:25
Speaker 1: as this gets rolled out in the UK as well.
42:28
Speaker 1: And then to just want to mention the issue of devolution,
42:32
Speaker 1: because the Government has announced what they're describing as the
42:36
Speaker 1: first step of our major ambition to drive forward their
42:39
Speaker 1: devolution revolution, to ensure that we empower more communities and
42:44
Speaker 1: strengthen the existing parts of our brilliant mayors a is
42:46
Speaker 1: Angela Rinner was tweeting this out and so they said
42:50
Speaker 1: that government will prioritize remaining northern areas in the next
42:54
Speaker 1: wave of devolution deals. Progression for deals covering Lancashire, Greater Lincolnshire,
42:59
Speaker 1: how in East Yorkshire and Devon and Torbay have been
43:02
Speaker 1: announced and that they are backing these devolution deals. This
43:09
Speaker 1: is continuing from the announcement of the English Devolution Bill
43:12
Speaker 1: announced in the King's Speech and establishing the Council of
43:16
Speaker 1: the Nations and Regions, with more details to be announced
43:19
Speaker 1: in due course. And I'm just going to say, if
43:21
Speaker 1: you haven't got a copy of Agenda twenty one, your life.
43:24
Speaker 1: In their hands, yet, please pick up a copy, or
43:27
Speaker 1: maybe pick up a copy for somebody else, because if
43:29
Speaker 1: you want to understand what this devolution agenda is all about,
43:33
Speaker 1: it's all in that report. We think that this is
43:35
Speaker 1: a really important report that needs to be shared as
43:38
Speaker 1: far and wide as we possibly can. Now, Charles, let's
43:44
Speaker 1: come back to you and back to armed sales.
43:53
Speaker 6: Thanks Mary. Yes, something we've talked about quite a bit before,
43:56
Speaker 6: but brought into focus really by the sort of inconsistency
43:59
Speaker 6: in the governments speaking out about people in Lebanon, British
44:03
Speaker 6: citizens in Lebanon needing to get out, and indeed deplying
44:06
Speaker 6: soldiers to Cypress with this specific possibility of evacuating them,
44:11
Speaker 6: as opposed to considering that actually suing for peace and
44:15
Speaker 6: ceasing arming the Israelis might be a better course of action.
44:20
Speaker 6: So what I thought we'd look at is the sort
44:23
Speaker 6: of the two way traffic in effect. And I just
44:26
Speaker 6: start with a picture from the Raphael Defense website. You
44:30
Speaker 6: might think they were advertising Teddy Bears or something, but no,
44:34
Speaker 6: in actual fact, they are in the business of making
44:38
Speaker 6: weapon systems to kill human beings. Despite the fact that
44:41
Speaker 6: was a soldier hugging to young children was founded in
44:46
Speaker 6: nineteen forty eight as part of the military science core
44:49
Speaker 6: of the IDF, and I just want to give an
44:52
Speaker 6: insight into how arms fares work. I thought i'd show
44:56
Speaker 6: David Shubridge, an Australian senator, here at short video from an
45:01
Speaker 6: arms fair in Melbourne recently.
45:04
Speaker 9: I'm down here in Melbourne having literally just stepped out
45:07
Speaker 9: of Landforces twenty twenty four, which is an extraordinarily dystopian
45:11
Speaker 9: festival of largely multinational arms manufacturers, and it's football field
45:17
Speaker 9: after football field after football field of exhibition space and
45:20
Speaker 9: the Melbourne Exhibition Center with arms manufacturers from the United States,
45:24
Speaker 9: the UK, Europe, Israel, all trying to get billions and
45:28
Speaker 9: billions of dollars more from Australian taxpayers.
45:31
Speaker 3: Because when you're in that space and.
45:33
Speaker 9: You see all the highly paid execs, all the pamphlets,
45:36
Speaker 9: all the free food, every single dollar comes from the public,
45:40
Speaker 9: it's an extraordinary and extraordinary dystopian place to be. Who
45:44
Speaker 9: was particularly disturbing to see multiple Israeli arms manufacturers. They're
45:48
Speaker 9: selling their products saying that they had been battle tested
45:51
Speaker 9: literally in Gaza. That's their sales pitch. It's a pitta
45:54
Speaker 9: oil government s should be rejecting, but instead the Albanezi
45:58
Speaker 9: government is doubling down on it. If you really want
46:01
Speaker 9: to know about this type, and the whole place is
46:03
Speaker 9: run by ASO called charity and it's tax deductible.
46:11
Speaker 6: Well, David Lammy considerably likes about Empire building, but I
46:13
Speaker 6: think although Shuebridge is Australian, I think he could speak
46:17
Speaker 6: well for the United Kingdom. And the reason I cited Raphael,
46:20
Speaker 6: of course, is that they are an Israeli defense company.
46:23
Speaker 6: And we're not so much talking about sales of arms
46:26
Speaker 6: too Israel by the United Kingdom, but the other way
46:29
Speaker 6: around the production of Israeli weapons systems that are used
46:32
Speaker 6: by the British Army. So I've talked about some of
46:34
Speaker 6: these before. But we've got first an automated vehicle for
46:39
Speaker 6: what's called the last mile capability and this is project THESEUS,
46:43
Speaker 6: so Raphael's being awarded a three million contract. It's also
46:45
Speaker 6: worth pointing out that Horober Mirror their sited, also have
46:48
Speaker 6: very close relations with Israeli companies. Further, we've got the
46:52
Speaker 6: Challenger three missile protection system, which actually was the trophy
46:56
Speaker 6: thing we saw advertised that at first Trophy Active Protections
47:00
Speaker 6: system to go on to Challenger three to provide enhance
47:04
Speaker 6: protection against rocket and missile threats basically to counter fire
47:08
Speaker 6: before being hit. And then another one which is here
47:12
Speaker 6: by Royal engineers sky Saber there but critically the interesting
47:17
Speaker 6: part is the brain here surprised by Raphael talking about
47:21
Speaker 6: the surface to our Missile Center command and control system
47:24
Speaker 6: and that it links the tactical data link that allows
47:27
Speaker 6: Skysaber to communicate with the Royal Navy and Royal Air
47:30
Speaker 6: Force ships and aircraft as well as UK allies. Now specifically,
47:35
Speaker 6: the reason I refer to this now, of course, is
47:37
Speaker 6: with what happened last week. In mind Vanessa reported in
47:42
Speaker 6: very great detail about the attack on Hamas and the
47:47
Speaker 6: use of electronic devices communit effectively, communication systems, pages and
47:52
Speaker 6: walk talkies. And to think that the mod has gone
47:55
Speaker 6: wholesale in with not just one but many Israeli defense companies,
47:59
Speaker 6: who of course do retain the overall intellectual property of
48:04
Speaker 6: all the technology they're designing and putting into our systems.
48:08
Speaker 6: So is that a sensible thing to be doing? Is
48:10
Speaker 6: my question? The host of commons it provides the detail
48:13
Speaker 6: on how significant the arms trade is to Israel because
48:16
Speaker 6: of course there was a hohoha recently about the prevention
48:20
Speaker 6: of certain sales, but they say that during the current
48:24
Speaker 6: Hamas Israel conflict, some MPs have raised concerns about UK
48:28
Speaker 6: arms exports, citing that they could be used to violate
48:31
Speaker 6: international humanitarian law, and they go on to say that sorry, wrong,
48:38
Speaker 6: They will not grant a license if it determines that
48:41
Speaker 6: there is a clear risk that the items might be
48:43
Speaker 6: used to commit or facilitate serious violation of international humanitarian law. Well,
48:48
Speaker 6: that seems to have been stretched to the absolute limit,
48:50
Speaker 6: but nonetheless they did grant forty two millions worth in
48:53
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two, which it said is less than one
48:56
Speaker 6: percent of Israel's defense import That dropped to eighteen million
49:00
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty three. So whilst it might be fair
49:02
Speaker 6: to say that the United Kingdom has less of an
49:05
Speaker 6: input into Israel arms sales, of course we are taking
49:09
Speaker 6: a lot from them. But we'll just have a quick
49:11
Speaker 6: look at the fact sheet from cipriy the complete actronom
49:15
Speaker 6: I forget, but it's the Stockholm Peace Research Institute and
49:20
Speaker 6: they've put forward an updated report on the trends across
49:23
Speaker 6: worldwide arms sales. So what's very significant given the geopolitical situation.
49:29
Speaker 6: I would say with civic regard to Ukraine and Israel,
49:32
Speaker 6: exports from the United States have gone up by seventeen percent,
49:36
Speaker 6: which takes their global share from thirty four percent to
49:39
Speaker 6: forty two percent of all worldwide arms exports. They provide
49:45
Speaker 6: sixty nine percent of Israel's arms, Germany provides thirty percent
49:50
Speaker 6: of those. Russia's exports are down fifty three percent, which
49:52
Speaker 6: of course we've talked about before and is very obvious
49:54
Speaker 6: reason for that, and Ukraine's imports are now equaled to
49:57
Speaker 6: twenty three percent of all those across U Europe, which
50:00
Speaker 6: is very significant that The graphic illustration of this shows
50:04
Speaker 6: that the chart the enormous section on the right being
50:07
Speaker 6: the United States, France is the second largest seller of
50:12
Speaker 6: arms across the world, and then we've got the UK
50:13
Speaker 6: and Israel still in the top ten. So this is
50:17
Speaker 6: how things lie. But I think really the main question
50:20
Speaker 6: is what on Earth does the Ministry of Defense think
50:22
Speaker 6: it's doing. First of all, in not doing peace in
50:24
Speaker 6: any of these countries, but specifically bringing Israeli technology into
50:30
Speaker 6: weapons systems and indeed control systems for United Kingdom weapons,
50:34
Speaker 6: it seems to make absolutely no sense to all.
50:37
Speaker 1: Thank you, Charles, just a quick correction, you said hamas
50:40
Speaker 1: with respect to the pages and what not. Of course
50:42
Speaker 1: that was Hesbala, which brings us onto the final segment, Vanessa,
50:47
Speaker 1: and that is to take a look at Hesbela, because
50:51
Speaker 1: quite a lot of shall we say, misinformation about Hesbela
50:56
Speaker 1: and the mainstream press in the West.
51:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean, you know, the mainstream media is
51:02
Speaker 2: i'll demonstrate, is simply channeling the Israeli lying on Hazbala.
51:06
Speaker 2: And I know Charles has received a question in the
51:09
Speaker 2: past related to Habella, so I just thought, you know,
51:13
Speaker 2: it's a good moment perhaps to give a little bit
51:16
Speaker 2: of an explainer. And of course if people want to
51:18
Speaker 2: ask more questions, they can join extra. So first of all,
51:22
Speaker 2: let's just play a video message from Netanyahu to the
51:27
Speaker 2: Lebanese people.
51:30
Speaker 10: I have a message for the people of Lebanon. Israel's
51:34
Speaker 10: war is not with you, it's with Hisbala. For too long,
51:38
Speaker 10: his Bala has been using you as human shields. It
51:42
Speaker 10: plays rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage.
51:46
Speaker 10: Those rockets and missiles are raigmed directly at our cities,
51:50
Speaker 10: directly at our citizens. To defend our people against hisbella strikes.
51:54
Speaker 10: We must take out those weapons now, starting this morning.
51:58
Speaker 10: The IDEA has warned you to get out of harm's way.
52:02
Speaker 10: I urge you take this warning seriously. Don't let his
52:06
Speaker 10: Bala in danger your lives and the lives of your
52:09
Speaker 10: loved ones. Don't let his Bala in danger Lebanon. Please
52:13
Speaker 10: get out of harm's way now. Once our operation is finished,
52:17
Speaker 10: you can come back safely to your homes.
52:22
Speaker 2: Well, except, of course the homes will be destroyed. And
52:26
Speaker 2: of course there is no mention of the threat of
52:29
Speaker 2: Israel and its allies to the region. So anyway, let's
52:33
Speaker 2: say a look at the BBC, who are a couple
52:34
Speaker 2: of days ago put out this article What is has
52:37
Speaker 2: Balar in Lebanon and will it go to war with Israel?
52:41
Speaker 2: What is has Baloren? Where does it operate? So of course,
52:44
Speaker 2: what does the BBC do? It channels the Israeli description
52:47
Speaker 2: of has Bla that it's effectively created by Iran, it's
52:52
Speaker 2: an Iranian proxy, it's dominant SHA. So in other words,
52:57
Speaker 2: it's its sectarian organization.
53:00
Speaker 3: Let's have a look again. I'm taking much.
53:03
Speaker 2: Of this information from Western think tank so I'm not looking.
53:08
Speaker 2: Let's say hesbelar aligned or sympathetic media.
53:11
Speaker 3: In many cases, this is basically a map showing in
53:16
Speaker 3: a very reductionist.
53:17
Speaker 2: Way the influence of Hesbela in the south, going up
53:21
Speaker 2: towards the east with the border with Syria and Israel,
53:27
Speaker 2: and also of course in the capital city of Beirut.
53:31
Speaker 3: Let's have a look at when Hesbela was founded.
53:35
Speaker 2: They were founded, This is just one of many commentators
53:39
Speaker 2: on x They were founded, of course, after the Israeli
53:42
Speaker 2: invasion of Lebanon and siege of Beirut in nineteen eighty two,
53:47
Speaker 2: ten young men met in a mosque in the random
53:50
Speaker 2: suburbs of Beirut and pledged to resist Israeli invaders until martyrdom.
53:58
Speaker 2: The name is well known, and of course shes for
54:00
Speaker 2: Ali Shuker, who was assassinated by Israel back in July.
54:06
Speaker 3: And of course in nineteen eighty two, we should.
54:08
Speaker 2: All remember the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, which was
54:14
Speaker 2: one of Although it wasn't directly carried out by the Zionists,
54:18
Speaker 2: it was carried out by their proxies in the Falanche
54:22
Speaker 2: Christians militia.
54:25
Speaker 3: One of the worst.
54:26
Speaker 2: Massacres in the history of massacres by the Zionist entity.
54:31
Speaker 2: If people want to read more about it, I do
54:34
Speaker 2: recommend Robert Fisk, who was actually there during or came
54:39
Speaker 2: just after the massacre. And then I wanted to have
54:43
Speaker 2: a look at this article by Charmin Naani, who's Lebanon
54:46
Speaker 2: based reported from Syria from twenty twelve onwards.
54:52
Speaker 3: So she says for Lebanon, has.
54:54
Speaker 2: Blur is more than just the first Arab force to
54:56
Speaker 2: militarily expel the Israeli defense forces from its territory permanently.
55:01
Speaker 3: Of course, that was in two thousand and six.
55:04
Speaker 2: In Lavandon, has Balara is a political party two with
55:06
Speaker 2: members of parliament and seats in the cabinet. In twenty
55:09
Speaker 2: twenty two, the Hasbalar Alliance one sorry thirteen seats out
55:17
Speaker 2: of one hundred and twenty eight seats, and in fact
55:19
Speaker 2: it lost a narrow majority that it had had for
55:22
Speaker 2: many years before then. The group runs a remarkable array
55:26
Speaker 2: of social services across the country, from subsidized schools, hospitals
55:30
Speaker 2: and clinics to agricultural centers and environmental programs. Then those
55:35
Speaker 2: are basically open to all denominations. Inside Lebanon, Furthermore, has
55:41
Speaker 2: Bala's appeal is not limited, as I said to Lebanon's
55:44
Speaker 2: sheer community, which.
55:46
Speaker 3: Of course is what Israel wants you to believe and
55:48
Speaker 3: the BBC.
55:49
Speaker 2: Since two thousand and six, has Belara has been in
55:51
Speaker 2: political alliance with the country's largest Christian based political party,
55:56
Speaker 2: the Free Patriotic Movement, whose leader, General Michelle A. Uhn
56:01
Speaker 2: is currently President of Lebanon. I own's close association was
56:06
Speaker 2: hesboler is an irritant to Washington and the Trump administration
56:10
Speaker 2: is pushing. So this was written back under Trump's presidency
56:15
Speaker 2: to tighten the sanctions noose on Lebanon as well as
56:18
Speaker 2: on Syria. In September, the House of Representatives voted to
56:21
Speaker 2: strengthen the twenty fifteen Hesbolar International International Financing Prevention. Now
56:28
Speaker 2: I just want to play because I want to go
56:30
Speaker 2: on to the idea of Hesbola being a prescribed organization
56:34
Speaker 2: both in the UK and in the US. So in
56:39
Speaker 2: the US from nineteen ninety seven and the UK, I
56:42
Speaker 2: think from two thousand and one. So this was a
56:45
Speaker 2: closed session, secret recording of John Gerry's conversation with the
56:50
Speaker 2: White Helmets at the UN and other so called opposition representatives.
56:56
Speaker 3: So let's just have a listen. You have to listen
56:58
Speaker 3: quite clearfully because the quality is not good.
57:01
Speaker 2: But I will provide a transcript to what he says,
57:04
Speaker 2: specifically about has plot.
57:07
Speaker 7: The reason for that is that they are both basically
57:11
Speaker 7: decided war on us and are plotting against US.
57:16
Speaker 3: And Hasbela is not ploting. Hesbala is exclusively focused.
57:22
Speaker 11: On Israel and they're not attacking now and in Syria
57:28
Speaker 11: where they are attact in support of the.
57:33
Speaker 3: Support Lessel.
57:34
Speaker 11: So it's a you know, I Italian understand your position
57:38
Speaker 11: as representing the American interest because these chief groups they
57:42
Speaker 11: do not attack the United States, of course, But how
57:46
Speaker 11: to make the majority of the client people accept.
57:50
Speaker 3: This approach, I'm sorry, how to.
57:55
Speaker 11: Main desilient people accept this argument that because he will
58:01
Speaker 11: from the.
58:03
Speaker 3: Angels, I'm not finding that stays now.
58:06
Speaker 4: So they are not.
58:08
Speaker 3: Targeted by the attacks against tourism is here they.
58:12
Speaker 11: Are, They are targeted by the opposition, and we are
58:17
Speaker 11: arming so and training.
58:23
Speaker 2: I do recommend listening to this entire recording because they're
58:26
Speaker 2: What he effectively admits is that Hezbolla is not opposed
58:31
Speaker 2: to the United States. It is effectively created to oppose Israel,
58:36
Speaker 2: and they are Hesbla are being targeted by the Syrian opposition,
58:41
Speaker 2: the terrorist forces who the US is arming and training. Again,
58:45
Speaker 2: you can freeze, frame the transcript and read it at
58:49
Speaker 2: your leisure, but let's continue with the idea of Hesbla
58:54
Speaker 2: carrying out terrorist attacks.
58:57
Speaker 3: On the next slide, please mark Mike even.
59:02
Speaker 2: No, sorry, no, but yeah, so you asked me Mike
59:08
Speaker 2: yesterday about whether Hisbalara has carried out terrorist attacks against
59:12
Speaker 2: the US or the UK or the EU. Charmin does
59:16
Speaker 2: actually cover this, and as she actually says, the evidence
59:21
Speaker 2: of this is extremely slow and as peppered with more
59:23
Speaker 2: use of qualifying terms allegedly reportedly assessments linkages than any
59:28
Speaker 2: objective journalists can comfortably swallow. So two are the US
59:33
Speaker 2: reports of Hezbela's international terrorist activities. Reporter Gareth Porter has
59:39
Speaker 2: done deep dives on various allegations of Hezbala link terrorism
59:43
Speaker 2: in Argentina, Bulgaria, Washington, d C, India and Saudi Arabia.
59:48
Speaker 3: So the link to that article with the links to Gareth.
59:52
Speaker 2: Porter's work obviously will be in the notes at the
59:56
Speaker 2: end of the news. And again coming back to this
59:58
Speaker 2: non sectarian concept. This is in International Business Times. Christians,
1:00:05
Speaker 2: Sunni and Shi'a meet Hezbola's non denominational military branch defending
1:00:11
Speaker 2: Lebanon fighting in Syria. So what do they say about
1:00:15
Speaker 2: that the Sunni Muslims are not the only ones to
1:00:17
Speaker 2: join up with Hesblal. Christians are nonpracticing Shiites who subscribe
1:00:22
Speaker 2: to Hesbela's brands and violent resistance can also join the
1:00:26
Speaker 2: non denominational brigade. Saraya al Mukawama is made for non
1:00:31
Speaker 2: extremist people, said Sami Ramadan as SUNI recruiter for the group.
1:00:35
Speaker 2: So again, very much like the Iraqi resistance factions, they
1:00:39
Speaker 2: are non sectarian. They are inclusive of all religious denominations
1:00:45
Speaker 2: now in Syria, and this is where it becomes very important,
1:00:48
Speaker 2: not only in Syria.
1:00:49
Speaker 3: Also in Lebanon.
1:00:51
Speaker 2: Hesbla was responsible for not only liberating bus swathes of
1:00:55
Speaker 2: territory from the various terrorist factions backed by Israel and
1:00:59
Speaker 2: the worst, but also in particular the Christian communities in
1:01:04
Speaker 2: a Labo in Hamma, on the border with EdLab In
1:01:08
Speaker 2: and around Damascus and in the Lamascus countryside.
1:01:12
Speaker 3: And I wanted to just.
1:01:13
Speaker 2: Play clips from two videos demonstrating the strength of feeling
1:01:18
Speaker 2: and solidarity from those Syrian Christians towards Pesbala. So the
1:01:23
Speaker 2: first one is from an area called Blue Dan, which
1:01:27
Speaker 2: is in the countryside of Damascus.
1:01:30
Speaker 12: It could not be Pla.
1:01:37
Speaker 6: No I'm.
1:01:46
Speaker 4: Borna and.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: Ubisuri.
1:02:03
Speaker 13: And the second clip is also from the Damascus countryside.
1:02:07
Speaker 2: To the rules a little monastery of Saint James the
1:02:12
Speaker 2: Mutilated in Kara, and this is from twenty thirteen.
1:02:19
Speaker 12: The very is of Como Primerodius dios acain Agri semos
1:02:26
Speaker 12: Aida is the dam Anileski sanbarasvid Ad the Latterstona. Before
1:02:37
Speaker 12: Magrat Vita Patrista in the Latin aegive he noticed on
1:02:46
Speaker 12: common mittle Malayiti.
1:02:49
Speaker 14: The negative image I got from and from Europe in
1:02:54
Speaker 14: general was completely changed when I had contact with the
1:03:00
Speaker 14: reality of the Hesbalant. We defended us, and so that
1:03:06
Speaker 14: convinced me not only by their worlds, but especially by
1:03:10
Speaker 14: their acts and also the lovely manner they were between us.
1:03:18
Speaker 13: And I have to say, from a personal experience in
1:03:22
Speaker 13: multiple Syrian Christian communities across Syria, I've had contact with
1:03:28
Speaker 13: the hospitala fighters that were defending and protecting those areas
1:03:32
Speaker 13: from the UK US cartel and Israeli of course backed
1:03:39
Speaker 13: terrorist factions, and they always conducted themselves with tremendous courtesy
1:03:44
Speaker 13: towards those communities. Extraordinary people, extraordinary protection of all denominational
1:03:53
Speaker 13: communities in Syria and in Lebanon.
1:03:58
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. And the key point here is
1:03:59
Speaker 1: this is clearly a much more nuanced organization than the
1:04:03
Speaker 1: Western media would like to portray. Yeah, absolutely, okay, thank you,
1:04:08
Speaker 1: thank you for that, Thank you for Charles as well.
1:04:12
Speaker 1: Thanks to everybody. What's today, But we are overtime, so
1:04:15
Speaker 1: we've got to leave it there. We will be back
1:04:18
Speaker 1: from a few minutes. If you're a UK called member
1:04:19
Speaker 1: for some extra plenty to discuss today, hope to see
1:04:23
Speaker 1: you there. Otherwise, enjoy the discussion tomorrow at one pm
1:04:28
Speaker 1: and we'll see you on Friday as usual at one
1:04:31
Speaker 1: pm for another news program. See then, Bye bye,