Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 6th March 2024

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UK Column News Podcast 6th March 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, the sixth of March twenty twenty four, just
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after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK Column News. I'm your host Mike
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Robinson joining me in this studio today back from Africa. Welcome back Charles,
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Charles Mallett and Vanessa Billy from Damascus, and we're going to start today with
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the budget. And of course we got the usual nonsense on Twitter from the
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government. Here as an example, the red box with something else sitting beside
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it, some kind of file or other, which I presume is the budget
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speech. But Jeremy Hunt very very keen to persuade us that he was up
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all night, the poor child, up all night preparing this speech and where
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it's happening right now. So I'm not going to bore anybody with the details
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of it. Let's just say that we should be confident that the bribe that
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Jeremy Hunt is presenting today is because he was up all night working so hard.
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And the question, though Charless, isn't going to work. I mean,
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lots of people naively talking about it being a bit ridiculous that he is
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attempting to bribe people with tax cuts today of whatever form. They are while
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public services are being cut, as if we're getting anything positive from public services
1:21
at the moment anyway. But anyway, that's what he's saying. We've got
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to keep in mind that while he might be giving something with one hand,
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local authorities are going to be taking it with the other because they're of course
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all going bankrupt at the moment. This is the House of Commons Library statement
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on what happens if a council goes bankrupt? What is it? They're expecting
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half the councils in the UK to go bankrupt over the next several years,
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and ten percent possibly next year. In the meantime, of course, we
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have care homes announcing closures in council area after council area. So what is
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going to happen to those people? That's the question. They're being thrown out
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of their care homes into what some private care homes? How's that going to
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be paid for? And so on. It's amusing they're saying that. Hunt
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was saying in the budget speech there that national debt is going to fall from
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currently being over one hundred percent of GDP to something like ninety four percent of
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GDP by twenty twenty nine. I think that's probably called inflation. It's not
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probably anything to do with any steps that the government has taken. But then
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the question is what happens in a few months time. I think the general
2:35
election likely to be in May. What happens if or when Keir Starmer becomes
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the next prime minister will be in a better situation. I don't think so,
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probably not. And I think for Jeremy Hunt to have the goal to
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prefix what he's going to say in the budget with the statement that we had
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to raise taxes during the COVID era, is is rich, especially since it's
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going to be people in care homes bearing the brunt. Yet again, yes,
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indeed so in the meantime back in the normality is it or is it
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normality? Well, it's getting ridiculous. People going to prison for placing stickers
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and places, yeah, or not even doing that. Yes, news that
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sam Melia has been sentenced to two years in prison. This refers back to
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a story that we reported on on the thirty first of January. Here the
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CPS declaring that a far right organized a fan guilty of intent to stir up
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racial hatred through distribution of stickers. So the offenses that sam Melia was convicted
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of were exactly as it says the public order of offense of intent to stir
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up racial hatred and also inciting racially aggravated criminal damage. For as Mike says,
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stickers being put up with what the CPS described as nationalists. Of course,
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the inference there being that nationalism is a criminal offense. And what is
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specifically important in this is that during the trial the judge directed the jury that
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this was a case concerning free speech and not the particular specific content of the
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stickers in questions. So regardless of your views on what sam Milia and the
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Patriotic Alternative might be putting forward, you really need to consider that the overall
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principles of the matter. So we'll just look at how this is being framed
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by the authorities, and here we see all over the base counter terrorism policing,
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the action against counter terrorism, prison sentence for leeds man intent on stirring
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up racial hatred. And don't forget that all of this was extrapolated from items
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found in his home and the inference that they could determine from that that he
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had such So here we have James Dunkey, head of counter Terrorism Northeast.
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These expressions of hate were an attempt to bring upset and stir up racial hatred.
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Well, how exactly does he know that? So he's essentially suggesting he's
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got inside the mind of Sam Melia in order to determine this. And he
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goes on to say that those that seek to bring hatred to our communities through
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actions such as stickering will be identified and brought to justice. Well, Patriotic
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Alternative, who obviously covered the story to date, had put out a post
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on their website saying that Sam Media has been jailed for telling the truth.
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And I've now got a video clip of Sam's wife Laura and Mark Collett of
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Patriotic Alternative speaking outside the Crown Court after the sentencing. So please have a
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look at this. I just want to say that I don't want what Goddle's
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and don't know what Condolen says. I don't want starts and prayers. I
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want people to get off their asses and fill their app and the void that
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Sam has left. You know, Sam will be uppily out in about eight
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months. He's not leaving this struggle. I'm not leaving this struggle. If
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you can't be ferce out that's absolutely fine. There's things that you can do
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behind the scenes. This is why we do what we do, because our
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people are persecuted for standing up for their own interests. So it's up to
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you. Now, if I can do this when I'm pregnant and having a
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baby in a month and I've got another toddler, and I've got a family
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business to run, and a husband in prison and a house to run,
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you can do something, so none more excuses. It's time for people to
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get up off their asses and I look forward to seeing you at the next
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event. Mark. Today, we've witnessed what has to be one of the
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greatest miscarriages of justice in British history. This is absolutely shocking. A man
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has been sentenced to two years in jail with the media's effect. Are not
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suspended for putting up stickers that the Crown admitted firstly contained only lawful speech and
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secondly did not lead to any criminal acts. They did not incite anyone to
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do anything, so there was really no case against him. The only case
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was that the Crown wanted to punish him because they felt his supposed motivations were
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racism. Now, that to me is the definition of a thought crime.
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So I think first of all, we should know Laura's indomitable spirit there.
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And as I said, this really does concern the principle of the matter.
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As Mark articulates with the suggestion that this is really a sentencing for thought crime.
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And Brian spoke on Monday about the British Sunac's extraordinary address with its redacted
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political content concerning extremism and the apparent rise of extremism that really, where is
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the documented evidence and delivered in an impartial fashion to suggest that this is actually
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the case? Where is this coming from? And so we'll just focus on
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one of the individuals involved, which is Lord Walney, the former Labor MP
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John Woodcock, going back to twenty twenty announced as an independent advisor. I've
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highlighted the independence of Walney. We'll just look at the statement from that time
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the coronavirus pandemic has coincided with an increase in activity and prominence among far right
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far left in other political groups. Well, that's incredibly disingenuous, because of
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course the fabricated or probably fabricated pandemic itself had absolutely nothing to do with the
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reaction. It was to do with the supposed response and the authoritarian measures taken
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by government ruling by dictat. It goes on to say, Walney will examine
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the points at which activities of such groups can cross into criminality, will again
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in Parliament that there is now the constant refrain of introducing new offenses, so
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behaviors that had previously not been considered criminal may now be done so by new
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legislation. It goes on the Independent Review of Prevent will continue to provide the
9:16
required scrutiny of the UK's approach to countering violent extremism. So PREVENT of course
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active very much in schools and education and targeting the youth, where of course
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these sorts of ideological suppositions are best placed to sort of get in there early.
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So we'll just look at the government website reporting extremism in education. Well,
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what exactly do they mean by that? The Government's definition of extremism the
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vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including our fundamental values are fundamental
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values exactly, so yes, including democracy, the rule of law, individual
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liberty, and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We
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also regard calls for the death of members of our armed forces as extremists,
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so well quite correctly talks about what is meant by our fundamental values. The
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other thing is that mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs, but
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to what point, to what extent? And also ironic, really sort of
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disturbing, the ironic talking about the death of members of our armed forces,
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just as conscription is being sort of wafted around in the corridors of Parliament.
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So the other thing I would draw your attention to in relation to this is
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an excellent interview that Debbie Evans put on published back in January, Prevented Education
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Controlling the Narrative in Colleges and Universities, explains exactly in detail how the prevent
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strategy does affect at the youth level, and I really would encourage you to
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listen to that if you haven't already. So now we'll just go back to
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Lord Walney to see exactly what it is that we are viewing when we consider
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him to be an independent advisor. Here he is on LinkedIn very much selling
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himself here introducing Lord Walney's services, so he's effectively sort of open to bidding.
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And then we go to the house of Lord's Register of interests members of
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the House of Lords, and here we see that he is a director of
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the Jewish Community Media Trust, and not just that, but also he's a
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person with significant control of a company for the same Jewish Community Media Trust,
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and of course he has shareholdings here too, And when it comes to overseas
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visits, the only one he has listed is a visit to Israel on the
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second to seventh of January of this year. So the point is that it's
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not necessarily especially relevant that all of these concern Israel or Jewish cultural issues,
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but really that he is being put forward as an independent and impartial advisor where
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extremism is concerned. And yet we're hearing from not just the Prime Minister but
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also the head of the Metropolitan Police Service that extremism and anti Semitism are in
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effect being conflated to suggest that there's enormous overlap between the two, and we
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see quite clearly that such a person as Lord Walney can in no way be
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described as independent. So, Mike, I don't know what your take is
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on this, and where you see this sort of push for describing so many
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people now as being extremist is going well, One point I would make is
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that, you know, going back a lot of years when we were talking
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about PREVENT, when Prevent was mainly focused on so called Islamic extremism, a
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lot of people were saying, that's okay because it's Islamic extremism and that it's
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there to deal with. When I found it that other people expressing other views
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are now being classified as extremist, and suddenly we're finding PREVENT being applied in
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that direction as well. And of course it is a trap that people always
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fall into. They see a piece of legislation which happens to coincide with a
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particular issue that they imagine in their minds, that's okay for that piece of
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legislation to go ahead, whether it be censorship or whatever it happens to be,
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until in fact it suddenly the focus moves in another direction. We've got
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to recognize when a piece of legislation is draconian or totalitarian, and we've got
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to oppose it. Whether the initial destination of that of that legislation is to
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a group that we don't particularly like ourselves, we've got to recognize what that
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is and oppose it. And I think this is a good illustration of that
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absolutely, and I think the only thing I didn't at the times it's interesting
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to see going back to twenty twenty, how the appointment of Lord Walnet refers
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to far left extremism which is now being completely dropped from the narrative, and
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you can only be on the far right. Okay, Vanessa, let me
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welcome you to the program, and we're going to have a look at Israel
14:16
and its use of technology. Yeah. I mean, what I wanted to
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try and do, because I started to look into it in the last few
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days, is to show the crossover between basically what Israel has been doing for
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some time to Palestinians in Gaza and in the occupied territories, and what our
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governments are doing to us, and how the Israeli technology perhaps connects in to
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what our governments are doing to us. So this article was published a couple
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of days ago Israel's e warfare using smartphones to kill the Lebanese resistance, and
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from within the article there is a link to an article in Laurient Today.
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It's not only about monitoring phone calls, messages and so on. Your mobile
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smartphone is connected to the internet and has microphones which Israel can enable remotely to
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listen to all conversations and can also record everything happening through the mobiles cameras.
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Now, from personal experience, when I entered Basa in twenty twelve, and
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obviously I was given a simcard that clearly is it emanates from Israel, I
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was receiving text messages from the IOF, so they were perfectly aware of who
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I was and my telephone number. But just going back to the Cradle article,
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what it actually points out in the next slide. So to counteract Israeli
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surveillance, the Lebanese Resistance has been active in dismantling radar and spice systems on
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the border with Lebanon. However, Israel has now turned to utilizing cameras placed
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in homes, neighborhoods, and streets, often by penetrating existing surveillance networks.
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In an effort to thwart these tactics, Hezbollah has urged residents of border towns
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in southern Lebanon to disable surveillance cameras, which I presume also include CCTV.
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This is an addition to suspicious calls from individuals claiming to represent official or private
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associations speaking information about family members or inquiring about specific individuals, and several homes
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have faced Israeli shelling following such calls. Then the following info graph is from
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an organization called Visualizing Palestine. You can find them on Twitter. So they
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talk about Israel's use of AI driven warfare automating genocide. They mention a few
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of the systems that I've actually looked at. But you'll see that the Alchemist
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and the Gospel, both of them sort of enabling the targeting of civilians,
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in particular in Gaza Emanate from were created by Unit eight two hundred of the
17:11
infamous Israeli spy unit. Now having a look at the Gospel, which was
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reported by nine to seven two mag which is an Israeli media outlet, and
17:21
by The Guardian, how Israel uses AI to select bombing targets in Gaza,
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but also enables them to increase the number of targets on a set basis.
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But that's not all they do. Let's have a look at the Blue Wolf
17:37
technology, the new Israeli espionage technology against Palestinians which was then re labeled Red
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Wolf, an automated Israeli occupation. And then if we look at what that
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actually does so. The Red Wolf is deployed at military checkpoints in the city
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of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where it scans Balestinian's face and adds
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them to vast surveillance databases without their consent. Founding familiar yet, the Israeli
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authorities are using sophisticated surveillance tools to supercharge segregation and automate apartheid against Palestinians.
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In the H two area of Hebron, we documented how a new facial recognition
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system called red Wolf is reinforcing draconian restrictions on Palestinian's freedom of movement, using
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illegitimately acquired biometric data to monitor and control Palestinian movements around the city. And
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that came from Anya's Kalamarch, Amnesty International's secretary journal, then from an article
18:44
in the Washington Post. While developed countries around the world imposed alleged restrictions on
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photography, facial facial recognition, and surveillance, the situation described in Hebron constitutes
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a severe violation of basic rights such as the right privacy, as soldiers are
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even incentivized to collect as many photos of Palestinian men, women and children as
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possible. In a sort of competition, said Ronnie Purley, a lawyer with
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the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and then going on within the Washington
19:18
Post article, a separate smartphone app called white Wolf has been developed for use
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by Jewish settlers in the West Bank, a former soldier told breaking the Silence.
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Although settlers are not allowed officially to detain people, security volunteers can use
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white Wolf to scan a Palestinian's identification card before that person enters a settlement,
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for example, to work in construction. The military in twenty nineteen acknowledged the
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existence of White Wolf in a right wing Israeli publication. In addition to Blue
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Wolf or Red Wolf as it now is, the military has installed face scanning
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cameras and the divided city of Hebron. The help soldiers at checkpoints identify Palestinians
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even before they present their ID cards. A wider network of closed circuit television
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cameras dubbed Hebron Smart City, provides real time monitoring of the city's population,
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and one former soldier said can sometimes even see into private homes. And then
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this from Middle East Eye, how Israel turned Palestine into a surveillance tech dystopia
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and then just moving on to what it mentioned regarding the COVID nineteen pandemic,
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which is interesting. They say that this exacerbated the situation as Israel has used
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the guys of public health to roll out new invasive surveillance measures. Palestinians face
20:49
severe restrictions on freedom of movement and must apply for travel permits, but in
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light of the pandemic, Israel last year launched a mobile application to replace in
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person permitting services. And guess what when they app was framed as a public
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health measure, its more insidious intentions are clear and it's terms of service which
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force uses Palestinians to provide access to the data stored on their phones, such
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as calls and photos. Then equally, and this becomes a little bit more
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sinister. Israel deploys remote controlled robotic guns in the West Bank, and I
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can attest to the fact that those are already in use in Gaza along the
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border walls. So this is from Associated Press. In twenty twenty two,
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twin turrets, each equipped with les and gun virarel, were recently installed atop
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of God Tower brists in Fujika. Than when young Palestinian protesters pour into the
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street hurling stones and firebombs. That is ready soldiers the robotic weapons unleash tear
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gas or sponge tipped bullets on them. Witnesses say, what's interesting is a
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Pubestinian active versus pointing to that we are not a training and simulation for Israeli
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companies. They mentioned they talk about this red potic garden as if it's only
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released tear gas or sponge tip bullets. The following video which I do want
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create in us from if we can just see that video, very very distressing
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video. Now, who makes uh this technology? Smart Shooter is the name
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of the organization, and if we look at one of the items that they
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produce is this smash system which is mounted on any rifle, enables you to
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select your target. It tracks the target for you and make sure you hit
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it even if you are moving and the target is moving. And guess who's
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just brought into this technology. The British Army is to get the counter drone
23:56
smash smart weapon sites. This was in twenty twenty three and it provides anti
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drone capabilities. Now I would ask the question here, of course, the
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greatest threat proceed to Ukraine is the use of drones. So why is the
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British Army buying into anti drome equipment now Unit eight two hundred, which is
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the unit involved in much of the production of this technology, very quickly running
24:26
through their connection to us here in the worst massive data eleaks in twenty twenty
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one revealed the Israeli NSO groups fywear used to target activist journalists and political leaders
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globally. The Pegasus project lades there. How nisospywear is a weapon of choice
24:45
for repressive government. You have the connection of course to Infhosis, the father
24:51
in law of Rishi Sunak's wife who basically employed Uri Levine formerly with Unit eight
25:00
two hundred. Then you have new labor MP Damian Egan in the South elected
25:07
to the Southwest of the UK, whose husband Yossi Felberbaum has connections to two
25:15
hundred. He was believed to have been recruiting for them. And then back
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in twenty twenty one, Kissed Farma employed a former eight two hundred operative to
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run his social media campaigns and funnily enough, this from the Defense Mirror.
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Guess who is excluded from the US norms for responsible use of AI in military
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It does not include Israel and I want to remind people of the twenty thirty
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roadmap for UK Israel bilateral relations, which includes security, military, defense,
25:56
cybersecuritory, surveillance, health technology, etc. So we can assume that eight
26:03
two hundred that has its tentacles everywhere globally, will be heavily involved in this
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twenty thirty roadmap. Then I just picked up on this by the Stop the
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Wall organization. There is a Living Israel's High Tech System of Oppression online conference
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on the fourteenth of March. If people want to look into this a little
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bit more deeply. Okay, thank you, thank you very much for that.
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Vanessa and I I just want to remind everybody kind of related to this
26:34
comments that Ben Wallace mid a couple of years ago. This was with the
26:41
launch of the latest defense review. We will ensure that we embed dual use
26:45
at the heart of our capability management processes, considering how we can share a
26:48
defense at space capabilities and output with other government departments, including the security and
26:56
intelligence services, as well as potentially with commercial use. Now, of course,
27:00
he was making that comment at the time when the British government was doing
27:04
its best to get rid of Huawei from the UK's telecommunications that works, and
27:11
the reason for that is because the UK's five G networks in particular are going
27:17
to be used for dual use some military and civilian purposes, as will satellites
27:22
and so on. So I thought it was a good time to remind ourselves
27:25
what's going on with five G in this country. And I hears a little
27:27
bit of video from Andy Kirby, who pushed this site in the last couple
27:32
of days. The link to the full video b in the show notes,
27:34
but just have a look at this little clip. So I've bought around my
27:38
tiny Essa spectrum analyzer to see if we can actually see some signals from this
27:44
thing, and you can. You can actually see there on around three point
27:48
six gigahertz, which is the five G band, if we sort of hold
27:52
it up here, you can see the signals get a little bit taller there.
27:56
So look there, you can see on that that bit at the end,
28:00
that is this bit of the spectrum where five G is, So you
28:04
can see there's a there's definitely presence there, So that's coming from that how
28:11
and it's obvious because if you kind of hold it up, it gets a
28:14
bit taller and the height of it is the strength, but in reality the
28:19
strength of that is pretty is pretty insignificant, so it's not beaming any any
28:25
harmful radiation into here. So the point here is he's talking about three point
28:33
six gigahertz, which is one of the two frequencies that is already being used
28:36
for what's being described as five G in the UK, but at the moment
28:38
it's only four and a half G actually, so seven hundred megahertz and three
28:44
point six gigurehurts is what's being used. But Ofcom is about to auction millimeter
28:48
with now. They published this particular document paving the way for improved five G
28:53
and innovative new wireless services back in November last year, and here's just a
29:00
little bit of the text from it. Three categories of spectrum lots will be
29:03
auctioned twenty six gigaherts lower, twenty six gigaherts upper, and forty gigaherts.
29:08
Each lot will comprise a block of two hundred megahertz reserve. This is reserve
29:14
prices in the auction, so this isn't what it's going to go for.
29:17
Reserve prices will be two million pounds for each lot of twenty six gigaherts lower
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and upper, and one million pounds for each lot of forty gigaherts. In
29:25
practice, if they take the average of what's happened in other auctions throughout Europe,
29:30
eleven twelve million pounds is more likely what each of these lots is going
29:33
to go for. They held a consultation with the industry which ended at the
29:41
ninth of January about how they're going to actually run this auction, and so
29:47
they've had feedback from that and it's imminent now that that will happen. So
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that's where we are with five G at the moment milimeter. We've still not
29:53
rolled out in the UK, but coming very very soon. But the question
29:57
is what's coming next, And we need to look at this in the context
30:00
of what Vanessa has just presented, because the question is what's coming with six
30:06
G. So let's just remind ourselves this is something that Huawei published in November
30:11
twenty twenty one. This video is doing the runs and social media at the
30:15
moment, and thanks to personal who sent me this. Let's just have a
30:19
look at a clip from the video that Huawei produced. Six G will serve
30:26
as a distributed neural network for future intelligence of everything. Network sensing and native
30:32
AI will become two new usage scenarios to fuse the physical, biological and cyber
30:38
worlds, leading to an era of connected intelligence. Every thinking of network architecture
30:45
is also considered necessary to enable massive machine learning and knowledge sharing on robots.
30:52
Six G will continue the journey of connected everything initiated in five G, but
30:56
with larger variety of devices human machine interfaces, higher density of connections, and
31:03
need of trustworthiness. So don't worry, it's going to be trustworthy natively.
31:10
So that's all we need to be concerned about. Look what's going on in
31:14
Palestine, what's going on in the UK with Israeli technology. This is something
31:18
we need to be paying attention to, and also with Chinese technology. And
31:22
the question is is this the direction that we want humanity humanity to be going
31:26
in. And I think there are many many questions to be asked in a
31:30
discussion to be had there, but let's move on. If you like what
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we do here at the UK Column, you'd like to support us, and
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support dot UK column dot org. There are options to help us out there
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of course pick something up at the UK Column shop if you can. And
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as we mentioned, the MHRA T shirt with June Rin's face on it has
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resulted in June Rein apparently resigning. This happened with Matt Hancock as well.
32:00
Unfortunately we didn't get the t shirt out for Victoria Newland, but she has
32:02
obviously resigned now. But anyway, that we missed that one, so do
32:08
share material. Find out the various platforms UK colun dot org, UK column
32:13
extracts dot co dot UK, especially Brian's monologue podcast series. Episode two of
32:21
Walking the Dog will be YouTube some premier ing on his YouTube channel at eleven
32:25
eleven am this Sunday, the tenth of March. This is a new YouTube
32:29
channel. The link will be in the description later on. Hopefully that YouTube
32:35
channel channel will stay up for longer than two weeks, but anyway, do
32:38
join them at eleven am for that if you possibly can. Episode ones on
32:43
the UK Column website at the moment a reminder of the Climate Science masterclass with
32:47
David Siegel. We only got a few more days to take advantage of early
32:52
bird pricing pricing on that, so do have a look at Climatecourse dot UK.
32:55
Column dot org. If you want to find out more, char be
33:00
mentioning this a little bit later in the program, but just to mention it.
33:02
There's an event taking place tonight related to farming, and see that on
33:07
screen and Charge will be talking about that more detailed later. And then on
33:12
the sixteenth of March in the Solidarity rally will be taking place drive between Archill
33:19
and Trafalgar roundabout so details. There's QR code on screen at the moment for
33:22
that. And then an evening with Richard Voges Sandy Adams Applive to Carl take
33:28
a place in Blastombury on Saturday the thirtieth March, seven to ten pm.
33:31
Details on screen at the moment. Okay, let's move on then to the
33:37
issue of war. And on Monday Alex was talking about the leaks from Germany
33:45
and their preparations apparently for war with Russia. But let's just have a look
33:51
at some of the other contexts that that leak happened in. So of course
33:55
we've got to stop putting this is the message you've been hearing for the last
33:59
two years. But on the twentieth of February, Lloyd Austin said this quite
34:05
frankly, if Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a
34:07
fight with Russia. Now that, naturally, as you would expect, resulted
34:12
in Russia speaking out on this. So here's Sergei Lavrov and what he had
34:17
to say. The meaning of this Austin statement is that if Ukraine loses,
34:22
NATO will have to go against Russia. In a Freudian slippy blurt, blurted
34:25
out what they had in mind. He said before that everyone was saying,
34:30
we can't let Ukraine lose because Putin will stop, will not stop at this,
34:36
We'll take over the Baltics, Poland and Finland. And he said,
34:40
But it turns out, according to mister Austin's open, unambiguous statement, it's
34:45
the other way round. We do not have such plans and cannot have them,
34:49
but the Americans do, and this is increasingly seems to be the case.
34:52
So let's have a look around Europe as the war narrative continues to build.
34:58
Complete insanity from multiple leaders around Europe at the moment. So here is
35:04
a manual Macron and he was talking about getting French boots on the ground in
35:08
Ukraine in the last couple of days. We'll do everything necessary to prevent Russia
35:13
from winning this war. He said. Now, this did not go down
35:17
very well with the French people, in fact, and sixty eight percent of
35:22
them basically told Macron this is not a good idea. The French foreign Minister
35:29
Stevan Sejurne said the French will not die for Ukraine. We will not send
35:34
troops. And it seems to be division even within the French government, and
35:38
in fact Macron has now walked back somewhat from that statement, but not entirely.
35:45
In the meantime, Nuclear's NATO's nuclear deterrent must be real for Finland,
35:51
says a new president, So Finland finished. President Alexander Stubb, once Finland
35:57
inside NATO's nuclear umbrella, wants nuclear weapons there if possible. We've got the
36:04
Polish saying this is Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign Minister, and the Telegraph
36:09
reporting him with the headline West dethering over Ukraine could spark nuclear arms race,
36:15
and he's saying if America cannot come together with Europe and enable Ukraine to drive
36:20
put in back, I fear that our family of democratic nations will start to
36:22
break up. Allies will look for other ways to guarantee their safety. Some
36:27
of them will aim for the ultimate weapons, starting a new nuclear race,
36:31
and so it goes on. So the Atlantic Council doesn't want to be too
36:36
far behind, buying the Putin's nuclear blackmail will make nuclear war more likely.
36:40
So then we come on to this gentleman Boris Pastorius, who of course is
36:45
a German defense Minster Alex was talking about him on that Monday and the German
36:51
leak, and they're trying to claim that the feruor over this Lake is really
36:55
just part of the information war that Putin is waging. There's no doubt about
37:00
it. The officers were doing what they were here to do. They were
37:02
thinking about different scenarios without making plans in any way. So they're trying to
37:07
build a narrative which is suggesting that these guys were just having a chat,
37:12
you know, nothing to worry about here, just having a chat, imagining
37:15
scenarios and so on, no planning taking place at all. The Germans now
37:20
saying that the leak was caused because one of the people participating in that chat,
37:25
one of their military officers, was at a conference and joined the call
37:31
on an insecure line with which the Russians were snooping on. But he's also
37:37
doubling down on trying to keep things together by saying that there's no question of
37:43
anybody being asked to leave their jobs as a result. But in the meantime,
37:47
NATO, now that Finland has managed to drop its neutrality and join NATO
37:53
very determined to try to encourage other European countries to do the same. So
37:58
Ireland is the next target for dropping its neutrality. But of course this is
38:02
something that Ireland itself has been talking about for quite some time. So this
38:07
is going back to twenty twenty three in April, Ireland to consult public and
38:10
military neutrality neutrality in wick of the Ukraine War. So, Vanessa, I
38:16
don't know what your thoughts are on this, but the rhetoric coming out of
38:21
the West is is it too much to describe it as insanity? No?
38:27
I mean I've been describing it as such for quite a long time, and
38:31
it's very difficult to find the same voice anywhere in the worst. Have you
38:37
any thought? Well, I think it's amazing how little Putin has to do
38:43
in order to generate such extraordinary vestoric sort of in his direction. And I
38:47
think also the other thing that's just not really dealt with at all. Decorations
38:52
like Macron saying he wants to put French boots on the ground. That's insane
38:57
as it may be, it's obviously realistic to be able to do that with
39:00
the army that you currently have. However, I think the transition, or
39:06
the massive chasm between standing with Ukraine on a Facebook profile and actually turning up
39:14
at a recruiting office is much much bigger than I think any leader wants to
39:19
concede. Yes, Okay, Vanessa, let's go back to Gaza then,
39:22
And of course the Flower massacre has been generating headlines. I do just very
39:29
quickly also to remind people that there were French military under siege. In the
39:36
as of wealth siege, I think French military could potentially already be on the
39:40
ground. Yes, the Girls of Flower massacre textbook case of Israel's war crimes
39:47
and cover ups. It appears to have been, if proven, of course,
39:52
one of the worst massacres of the genocidal campaign that's been ongoing since the
39:58
seventh of October. And they are early hours basically of the twenty ninth of
40:01
February, so it was around four point thirty eight am Israeli troops opened indiscriminate
40:08
fire on people waiting for a food aid delivery. Actually it was heading towards
40:14
the North, where there is a declared famine amongst the seven hundred thousand that
40:20
are sort of imprisoned in the North. Now, Press TV a claiming one
40:25
hundred and sixteen people were killed. That's in line with many other reports and
40:30
more than seven hundred and sixty others injured. Claims are between two hundred to
40:35
four hundred two seven hundred and sixty, and of course it's very difficult to
40:38
tell right now. The investigation is ongoing. But what Press TV do a
40:45
good job of is demonstrating the flip flopping by Israeli Army spokespeople. For example,
40:52
Rear Admiral we had fired a few warning shots to try to disperse a
40:58
mob who'd ambushed the ad trucks. And then also they say that many of
41:06
the gardens were killed actually in the stampede. They also claimed that the trucks
41:10
themselves ran over members of the so called mob. Ben Gavie, the firewright
41:19
minister, Sorry, could I just go back for one second? Sorry?
41:27
Said the as Ready soldiers acted excellently against the garden mob that tried to harm
41:32
them. I'm not quite sure how a crowd of starving, unearned Palestinians are
41:37
going to be a threat to Israeli tanks and soldiers. But then moving on
41:43
to the Palestinian accounts that basically said most of the people at the scene fell
41:47
victim to Israeli gunfire and the stampede occurred only after the Israeli troops started indiscriminately
41:53
firing them local journalists. A reporter for a Palestinian news agency who witnessed the
42:00
incident said the chaos and confusion was sparked after Israeli forces opened fire, which
42:07
led to people being hit by a trux, and another Al Jazeera journalists said
42:10
that Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured people.
42:16
There are videos showing that online. The acting director of Alauda Hospital said they
42:22
received one hundred and sixty one wounded patients, most of whom appeared to have
42:28
been shot. And what I want to show now is a video. It's
42:30
an interview by Christian armanport of Mark Rajev, the Israeli spokesperson, and in
42:37
the beginning of the interview Armenport asked asks Rejev who sent the trucks into Gaza,
42:44
because the UN have basically said it wasn't under their auspices, So let's
42:47
play the video. Do you know who it was? Another following that,
42:54
in order to help alleviate the food shortage in Gaza, that we authorized in
43:00
a convoy of I think some thirty trucks entered Gaza last night, headed for
43:06
the northern Gaza strip, and this shows that Israeli is interested in seeing aid
43:12
and food stuff's reached the civilian population. Unfortunately, we saw a situation where
43:17
there was a mass casualty tragedy where it looked like the civilians were storming the
43:24
trucks trying to take the food out of desperation and the people a crowd was
43:36
pushing and shoving and people were killed. I can't tell you the exact numbers.
43:38
I don't as you know, don't trust the numbers put out by the
43:42
Hamas controlled Ministry of Health and Gaza. There were reports that maybe the drivers
43:46
were driving over parts of the crowd. It appears to be a tragedy,
43:51
but I can tell you Israel was not involved directly in any way. When
43:54
you say not involved directly in any way. What do you mean. I
43:58
mean you and these convoy, this convoy, as you said, and your
44:01
forces are there on the ground and open fire, they said it themselves.
44:06
What does that mean, not involved in any way? So this was we
44:10
well, we allowed the aid to come in. We were involved that way.
44:14
That's our policy to allow food to go into Gaza for the civilian population.
44:17
But in the incident of people storming the trucks and the way the truck
44:21
drivers pade and people getting squashed and pressed and apparently there being a mass casualties,
44:28
Israel was not there on the ground, okay, but they did open
44:32
fire and people were killed. So I'm completely confused by what you're saying,
44:36
because they admitted the IDEA spokesman said it, said it on our air.
44:42
They opened fire. That's that's a separate incident, not connected to the tragedy
44:47
with the trucks, and that was that was That was different place, different
44:52
time. Now what's interesting is that famnth of power ahead of you, I
44:59
sayed, met with the coordinators within the Israeli military the day before. So
45:05
just speculating here, did Israel send this convoy in as a bait to effectively
45:10
draw out the Palestinian young men who would be the ones going to find the
45:15
food and then open fire on them. We can maybe go to the last
45:22
video, Mike, which just shows part of the Euromed investigation. And I
45:30
just wanted to point out when you look at these images, the IOF video
45:34
footage, this was disseminated by the majority of mainstream media, and in my
45:38
view, this increases the dehumanization of Palestinians because this is the only footage scene
45:45
in the mainstream media which makes them look very much like ants. It basically
45:52
objectifies them. So let's have a look at the Euromed investigation very quickly,
45:58
and as you see that will betage from on the ground. I come in
47:21
laughter. It's certainly not the first time, of course, that civilians trying
47:52
to get aid from trucks that invented gods have been allowed twenty gods I have
47:57
been fired on. Yes, okay, thank you, Vanessa, And now
48:01
let's move on. This is the anniversary of the so called poisoning of the
48:07
scripp Als this week, so the last I think the actual anniversary was Monday.
48:13
So let's bring on Johanna Ruper, who is the special representative of the
48:19
United Kingdoms to the Organization for Prohibition Chemical Weapons, and so she had this
48:23
to say. This week we also marked the sixth anniversary of the novelchalk nerve
48:29
attack agent attack in Salisbury. Five people were injured and Don Sturgis poisoned in
48:34
nearby Iwnsbury tragically died. The many many questions around the death of don Sturgis
48:39
and what actually killed her, but that's for another time. Johanna Ruper went
48:45
on to say only the Russian state had the technical mail means, operational experience
48:50
and the motive to carry out the attack. Well, that is a very
48:52
good point, is it true. Well, Alex Thompson doesn't quite accept that
48:58
it's true. If you go back to this article from twelfth of March twenty
49:01
eighteen, Scripball a Russian web or a Roosie web. Just take a quote
49:07
from this he said, where CBRN that's including chemical weapons is concerned in the
49:13
Scriball case, Scripball case, the organic chemistry subdomain thereof. HM government has
49:17
a dedicated facility DSTL, headquartered at porton Downe in Wiltshire, seven or eight
49:22
miles from the scene of the discovery of the scripballs. So there are many,
49:27
many questions still to be asked about this, But Joanna Rupper went on
49:30
to say, as we enter twenty twenty four, the work of the OPCW
49:35
is more important than ever. We welcome the approval of the biennial budget,
49:39
the decisions taken in November to improve the long term viability of this crucial organization.
49:45
Yet the threat of future chemical attacks by both state and non state actors
49:50
demonstrates the need for us all to work even more intensively to ensure chemical web
49:53
and uses confined. The history. Well, perhaps the way to do that
49:59
is to actually they be honest about the OPCW, because here we are this
50:04
article published in April last year by doctor Pierce Robinson on the UK column five
50:08
years on the nearly six years now, the OPCW Douma deception continues, and
50:15
it does continue. The answer the question still have not been answered and the
50:20
concerns of some of the scientists from within the OPCW have still not been answered.
50:24
And if you're not familiar with that case, please have a look at
50:28
that article and please share it. But the PCW has to my mind,
50:31
zero credibility until this issue is dealt with and finally on this, since it
50:37
is the anniversary, we still need to ask the question where are the scripballs.
50:42
They have disappeared from the face of the earth. No comment since then,
50:45
Are they alive? Are they dead? We have no knowledge and maybe
50:50
it's time that we did have some Okay, where does that take us?
50:55
Then back to the UK Charles, And indeed a week ago I spoke about
51:04
protests or are gathering in Cardiff of Welsh farmers, which was happening at the
51:08
time that the news was going out, So I've got a still from a
51:12
recorded video of that. There were several thousand people gathered there and of course
51:16
it's worth pointing out that farmers have plenty of other things to be doing before
51:22
deciding to trundle to Cardiff to protest. So clearly the situation is serious and
51:28
the reason for that are some of the more controversial parts of the sustainable farming
51:32
scheme, the consultation as you see from the red area closest tomorrow seventh of
51:37
March, and essentially the bits that are being rejected or at least sort of
51:44
getting pushed back on are the insistence from the Welsh government that regardless of the
51:50
type of land that somebody is farming or managing, ten percent of it must
51:53
go into sort of habitat recovery and ten percent must go into woodland. So
51:59
in effect, the the response to that across the farming community is that it's
52:05
inappropriate for it to be blanket treatment. But the course, the problem is
52:08
that because Welsh farms, like farms all over the United Kingdom, have been
52:13
within the grip of subsidy for such a long time, to try and break
52:15
those shackles is well nigh impossible. And therefore, with the combined pressure from
52:22
supermarkets and the purchasers of what they're producing, but giving them effectively a deal
52:28
with very little room for maneuver and these sorts of measures is putting the farmers
52:35
under absolutely intense pressure. So we'll just go on and have a look at
52:39
the statement that the Welsh Parliament had made, or at least First Minister and
52:44
the Farming Minister, Leslie Griffiths, they said just the day before the gathering
52:49
that farming plays an important role in Welsh life, it's part of the economy,
52:54
identity and culture, and that they're committing to supporting a successful future for
53:00
Welsh farming. Is this really the case. From this same letter, they
53:06
say that they're ensuring that actions are appropriately targeted at improving the economic resilience of
53:10
farms, and specifically it includes ensuring woodland and habitat requirements do not make farms
53:16
unviable. Well, that seems to be highly questionable because the way in which
53:20
they're trying to push it out. Ensuring farm payments are distributed fairly and accessible
53:24
to all and considering an evidence based review of any further and alternative proposals,
53:30
well, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating and therefore they
53:34
will have to pay attention to the responses to the consultation. They also say
53:38
they're going to establish regular reviewpoints between the Welsh Government and the farming unions and
53:43
representatives in formulating final proposals, and they'll carry out an updated economic analysis.
53:50
Now, what seems clear at the moment is that there is no strong conduit
53:57
between Welsh farmers and the Welsh Government. Now, okay, the consultation is
54:02
still open, but this is critical to the success of any campaign that's going
54:07
to be run by Welsh farmers. Earlier in the week I spoke to Gareth
54:13
Wynn Jones, a well known farmer in Wales who's been very much part of
54:17
the action taken so far. He has a large social media following across many
54:23
platforms, and we spoke about some of the issues that have cropped up in
54:29
recent weeks. So I'm just going to play you a clip now, which
54:34
was in response to a question about the reduction of chemical inputs into farming and
54:39
essentially his vision for sort of wholesale change within the industry. I think soyl
54:46
health is the most important thing. We can use more degenerative ways, but
54:51
we have to have a fair place for what we're producing. So you know,
54:53
if they've opened the floodgates like Westminster out to the Australian trade deals and
55:00
then we're struggling and scraping, you know, to produce different products without what
55:07
they've got. And if you look into the Ukraine and Poland, they don't
55:10
have the legislations for some of the sprays out there, so they can still
55:15
spray with stuff that we haven't been allowed to use in this country for twenty
55:20
or thirty years, and they're able to produce you know, that crop and
55:24
then ship it into this country and then challenges So it has to be a
55:30
playing field that's fair for everybody. So these are important issues that the consumer
55:35
and the customer need to understand and once we can get their message out there,
55:38
and I think it is beginning to resonate. People are starting to ask
55:42
questions and they're beginning to look at where the food comes from and how it's
55:45
produced, and these are all important things because we can build a better Britain
55:50
on our bellies with a farming food revolution. And you know, if we
55:53
look at the way that we're producing the food and the nutrient density of that
55:59
food, as in grass fed beef and lamb, there's a heck of a
56:02
heck of a lot of you know, nutrients in that And for me,
56:08
that's what we should be pushing over onto the next generation. And if we
56:13
can get them to change the way they eat, to move them away from
56:15
fast foods and processed foods, you know, that is going to save the
56:21
NHS in the long run billions. Because we've got an ABCT problem, we've
56:24
got a diabetes problem in this country, and I do think a lot of
56:28
this is down to dietary problems within the youngsters of today. So Claith are
56:37
very passionate, very well informed and that's part of a sort of twenty minute
56:42
conversation which will be released in due course. Now, one of the big
56:46
issues that he brings up is the is first of all the sort of victimization
56:51
as it were, or farmers used as apparently as a soft target by the
56:54
Welsh government, but also this blanket treatment of farms as I mentioned earlier,
57:00
as though all types of landscape is suitable for the same treatment, which is
57:06
patently not a reasonable position to take. So we'll just have a sort of
57:10
look at the overview of land in the UK. This is from a twenty
57:14
twenty one document. But what I want to draw your attention to is that
57:17
permanent grassland down on the left hand side accounts for well over half of all
57:22
of the utilized agricultural area, which means that that is in effect going to
57:30
bear the brunt of this. And of course the knock on is again the
57:34
sort of furtherance of the campaign against the eating of meat. So this is
57:37
very much part of an agenda that's being driven from without the Welsh government,
57:44
and in effect devolution may well have happened, but ultimately all of this is
57:47
coming from the same place. Well, we'll also have a look at other
57:52
schemes that are already in place and really why is this necessary. Here we
57:54
have from the Welsh government the National Forest for Whales woodland sites in twenty twenty
58:00
and the commitment to developing a National Forest of the Whales, so in fact
58:04
there are all these schemes in place to make this sort of thing happen.
58:07
This is from the Forestry Commissioner graph sharing tree planting since nineteen seventy six up
58:12
to twenty twenty. I you can see the purple there represents Scotland, the
58:15
deep purple, so Scotts clearly have been making enormous headway in this area,
58:21
but whales not so much at all. So in effect it seems like that
58:25
sort of gone into panic mode and farmers are bearing the brunt of this.
58:30
But it also highlights the complete sort of contradiction and hypocrisy within not just national
58:37
but also local governments. On trees, in particular, we have from the
58:42
Forestry commission a questions sort of about felling trees and when it may be the
58:49
right time to fell trees, and there are numerous examples from the press of
58:54
councils, particularly urban councils, cutting trees down here we have from Plym where
59:00
UK column of course is based the Telegraph talking about the Midnight massacre. We've
59:05
got the Sunday Times going into a report about one hundred and ten thousand trees
59:09
being lost to council axe men. I couldn't resist including the authors because it
59:14
includes Audrey Ash but also the Camden Cyclists talking about fifty thousand trees being lost
59:21
over the course of five years. So the point is it seems to be
59:23
one rule for farmers and a completely different rule for anybody else. And this
59:28
is before we even start to consider the enormous infrastructure projects being conducted all the
59:32
way across the United Kingdom, the removal of huge amounts of habitat and forestry
59:38
to put in new roads and railways, housing developments with no regard paid really
59:44
to the landscape, and no sense of regenerating existing urban areas, and of
59:49
course also farmland that's been given over to solar farms. So the sense of
59:54
priority is perfectly extraordinary. And the other thing that's never con disidered is the
1:00:00
fact that the population of the United Kingdom has increased drastically over this period of
1:00:07
time, and there's no regard given to the fact that we supposedly have a
1:00:10
sixty percent percentage of food security within this country, of course are questionable statistic
1:00:16
in the first place, but to suggest that we might be producing more food
1:00:21
of less land for an increased population sounds utterly unrealistic. And so just a
1:00:29
reminder of where this comes from. This is the then Prince of Wales's Terra
1:00:32
Carta saying that one of the aims is that supporting the protection and restoration of
1:00:37
a minimum of thirty percent of biodiversity on land and below water by twenty thirty
1:00:43
and fifty percent by twenty fifty. How on earth is that going to be
1:00:46
made to happen. Mike showed this earlier, but if you want to follow
1:00:52
this and find out what you can do and more about what's going on,
1:00:55
the PFFA, the Forgotten, the pen I Have Food and Farming Alliance is
1:01:04
meeting tonight on zoom at their website the hyphen PFFA dot org. You can
1:01:08
register and join that tonight. So that's where we are in the world of
1:01:14
farming, okay, And that's where we are with the news for today.
1:01:17
So I'm going to say thank you very much to Charles and Vanessa for joining
1:01:21
us. We will be back in a few minutes. If your UK column
1:01:23
member for some extra stay on the stream. Otherwise, have a well what
1:01:30
days is Wednesday? Yeah, have a great Wednesday and Thursday, and we
1:01:34
will be back at one pm for another news program NW one pm tomorrow.
1:01:40
We're putting out the interview with that I did with Jose Viga. You saw
1:01:45
a quick clip of that last week on the UK Column News, but the
1:01:47
full interview will go out tomorrow, So do join us for that week one
1:01:51
pm tomorrow, but otherwise we'll see it on Friday, all right, right,
1:02:00
and at the