Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 18th September 2024

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UK Column News Podcast 18th September 2024 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. It's Wednesday, eighteenth of September twenty twenty four,
0:11
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock. Welcome to the UK coll Them News.
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm your host Back Robinson joining me in the studio
0:15
Speaker 1: today Charles mel Welcome to the program, Charles right, and
0:19
Speaker 1: Vanessa Billy from Damascus. Vanessa, we're going to get straight
0:23
Speaker 1: on into this issue in Lebanon of exploding pages and
0:28
Speaker 1: just put a name to what that is. What that
0:31
Speaker 1: event is, well.
0:34
Speaker 2: I mean effectively it's state terrorism from Israel that ended
0:41
Speaker 2: in the massacre or eleven people killed and officially two thousand,
0:48
Speaker 2: eight hundred injured and maimed, and the figures are rising
0:55
Speaker 2: on hearing numbers for around four thy two hundred. So
0:58
Speaker 2: let's just a look at a video of what actually happened.
1:05
Speaker 3: Way way way way, way, way way way.
1:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, stly h.
1:53
Speaker 2: So basically an order of I think it was in
1:57
Speaker 2: the region of five thousand pages ordered five months ago
2:01
Speaker 2: and distributed to members of Hesbela, which could also be
2:06
Speaker 2: of course the political side of Hesbela will come into
2:10
Speaker 2: more detail than all of this. Shortly two children have
2:14
Speaker 2: actually died yesterday. There was only a ten year old
2:19
Speaker 2: Lebanese girl who was killed directly in the explosion. Today,
2:22
Speaker 2: a young boy I think the same age succumbed to
2:26
Speaker 2: his injuries and also died. As I said, there have
2:30
Speaker 2: so far been eleven fatalities. So this is in Al
2:35
Speaker 2: Monitor exclusive Hesbela suspicions forced Israel to expedite Lebanon Pa
2:42
Speaker 2: Lebanon Pajor attack. It was not that Israeli's preferred course
2:47
Speaker 2: of action, according to the sources who contributed to the article,
2:51
Speaker 2: to detonate the pages ahead of a full scale war
2:54
Speaker 2: with Hesbala, but security officials made an eleventh hour decision
3:00
Speaker 2: after at least two hospital members suspected something was amiss
3:04
Speaker 2: with the device. Now I've also heard, I think also
3:07
Speaker 2: from Al Monitor, that one of those Hosbala members that
3:12
Speaker 2: had suspicions was assassinated to prevent him saying anything. The
3:17
Speaker 2: second one, as far as I know, is still alive,
3:19
Speaker 2: but that was a more recent detection. So this is
3:23
Speaker 2: basically the timeline Hesbela suspicions forced Israel to expedite Lebanon
3:29
Speaker 2: Ajor attack. Bentigan denies its role will come into that
3:33
Speaker 2: in a second air. France and I think laf Thanso
3:36
Speaker 2: have canceled Tel Aviv flights and flights to Beirut in
3:42
Speaker 2: fear of escalation. Again, the US denies its involvement in
3:46
Speaker 2: the Lebanon explosions, but of course that's a familiar pattern.
3:50
Speaker 2: The Iranian ambassador was injured, I believe it's not Seriously,
3:55
Speaker 2: there were stories today that he had been blinded by
3:59
Speaker 2: the explosion. That's been denied now by the Lebanese health authority.
4:04
Speaker 2: So Israel carried out the pager attack against has Blah,
4:08
Speaker 2: but of course when you're talking about pages that many
4:11
Speaker 2: thousand pages in amongst civilian population in markets as you
4:17
Speaker 2: saw in the video, in crowded areas, it's going to
4:21
Speaker 2: impact also on civilians. As I said, following intelligence information
4:28
Speaker 2: that two members of the Hasbla group caught when that
4:31
Speaker 2: the pages had been reached, high level regional intelligence sources
4:36
Speaker 2: told Al Monitor that the decision to carry out the
4:38
Speaker 2: operation was forced on Israel following the intelligence luck. The
4:45
Speaker 2: sources revealed that thousands of pages Hasbela required for its
4:48
Speaker 2: members were booby trucked by Israel before they were delivered
4:52
Speaker 2: recently to the organization. And one has to assume we
4:55
Speaker 2: were discussing this mic that the explosives would have been
5:00
Speaker 2: planted in that interim time between manufacture and delivery to Hasbelo.
5:08
Speaker 2: This is in Reutter's Israel planted explosives in five thousand
5:11
Speaker 2: Hasbelo pages and let's see what they add to the
5:15
Speaker 2: Al Monitor report. This was a later report today, so
5:19
Speaker 2: it explains that sorry Hesbela fighters have been using pages
5:23
Speaker 2: as a low tech means of communication in an attempt
5:27
Speaker 2: to evade Israeli location tracking, two sources familiar with the
5:30
Speaker 2: group's operations told Reuters this year, but senior Lebanese sources
5:35
Speaker 2: said the devices have been modified by Israel's spy service
5:38
Speaker 2: at the production level, so this slightly contradicts the idea
5:41
Speaker 2: that something would have been implanted in that interim period.
5:46
Speaker 2: Mozad injected a board inside of the device that has
5:49
Speaker 2: explosive material that receives a code. It's very hard to
5:52
Speaker 2: detect it through any means, even with any device or scanner. Allegedly,
5:57
Speaker 2: the source said, three thousand of the pages floaded when
6:00
Speaker 2: a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
6:06
Speaker 2: Up to three gammed grams of explosives were allegedly hidden
6:10
Speaker 2: in the pages. I'm hearing actually that it was twenty grams.
6:14
Speaker 2: So we're getting sort of varying reports at the moment,
6:17
Speaker 2: just trying to make sense of them. Are again this
6:21
Speaker 2: was back to I'll monitor. Pentagon denies the role in
6:25
Speaker 2: suspected Israeli pager attacks in Lebanon. Top official Lloyd Austin
6:30
Speaker 2: called his Israeli counterpart uf Gullan for the second time
6:33
Speaker 2: in roughly thirty six hours on Tuesday, in the aftermath
6:37
Speaker 2: of I suspected is Rali attacked believe to have targeted
6:40
Speaker 2: HAS operatives by detonating mobile pager devices. So basically the
6:44
Speaker 2: Pentagon and Pentagon spokespeople are saying they had nothing to
6:48
Speaker 2: do with it. However, in Israeli media, if we just
6:53
Speaker 2: move on, I think yes, this was in whil Sorry
6:59
Speaker 2: for the massive the screenshot, that's how it comes out
7:03
Speaker 2: on the Hebrew website. But here they're actually saying that
7:07
Speaker 2: Defense Minister Gallant called his US counterpart counterpart Lloyd saying
7:12
Speaker 2: that Israel was going to take action in Lovanon soon,
7:16
Speaker 2: but refused to give any details. So probably the truth
7:19
Speaker 2: is somewhere in the middle of that. What is the
7:22
Speaker 2: response from the US State Department, particularly spokesperson Matthew Miller,
7:27
Speaker 2: who told reporters in Washington that US urges Iran not
7:32
Speaker 2: to escalate regional tensions following the Pajia attack. So, as usual,
7:36
Speaker 2: no condemnation from the US State Department of what is
7:40
Speaker 2: effectively state terrorism by their ally Israel. Now interestingly, again,
7:49
Speaker 2: as I've mentioned before, every time the US envoy or
7:54
Speaker 2: Secretary Lincoln arrives in Israel for talks, we see an escalation,
8:00
Speaker 2: normally in Gaza or in the West Bank. But this
8:02
Speaker 2: time Amos Watstein, the US envoy, arrived in Israel for
8:06
Speaker 2: talks to defuse potential war with Hazbolara. And of course
8:10
Speaker 2: we've seen an increase in the belligerent Israeli rhetoric regarding
8:15
Speaker 2: a war in the north in the last few days,
8:17
Speaker 2: particularly with Netanyahu threatening to sak yof Gallant. Defense Minister
8:25
Speaker 2: so Hasbola has put out a statement vowing to retaliate, Saidnasrallah,
8:31
Speaker 2: the Secretary General of Hezbolari, speaking tomorrow on Thursday. So
8:38
Speaker 2: then we assume more details following an investigation will be given.
8:44
Speaker 2: And of course what did I say, Lincoln heads to
8:48
Speaker 2: the Middle East, so we can expect potentially further escalation.
8:54
Speaker 2: So these are the actual pages. This was reported in
8:57
Speaker 2: TRT World ap nine hundred. This is what we know
9:01
Speaker 2: about one of the pages that exploded in Lebanon, and
9:04
Speaker 2: there you can see one of the destroyed pages. They
9:07
Speaker 2: managed to determine that it's the Apollo pager and if
9:13
Speaker 2: we look at who is the manufacturer of this just
9:18
Speaker 2: a brief description about the Apollo nine hundred. People can
9:21
Speaker 2: freeze frame and read it to get more details later.
9:25
Speaker 2: But basically it's a one way messaging service. I'm not
9:29
Speaker 2: very technical on these kind of things, but of course
9:31
Speaker 2: that is why Hezbollah. We're trying to avoid location detection
9:37
Speaker 2: by using these fairly simple pager devices. Taiwan's gold Apollo
9:42
Speaker 2: says it did not make the pages used in the
9:45
Speaker 2: Lebanon blast, and who does it basically finger for that
9:49
Speaker 2: the product was not ours. It was only that it
9:52
Speaker 2: had our brand on it. Gold Apollo founder and president
9:56
Speaker 2: Suching Kwan told reporters at the company's offices. Gold Apollo
10:01
Speaker 2: authorized a company called BAC to use our brand trademark
10:05
Speaker 2: for product sales and specific regions, but the design and
10:08
Speaker 2: manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC. The
10:12
Speaker 2: statements set. So let's have a look at who bac are.
10:16
Speaker 2: Bac are basically a Budapest based organization now having checked
10:23
Speaker 2: gold Apollo have a number of subsidiaries throughout Europe. But
10:27
Speaker 2: it's strangely coincidental to me that they fingered a Hungary
10:33
Speaker 2: firm following, of course, the disputes with Urban over his
10:40
Speaker 2: peace broking missions, et cetera. Blood is needed in Lebanon.
10:44
Speaker 2: There have been calls to Iran Iraq. Iran and Iraq
10:48
Speaker 2: are already there. Sirio is itself trying to organize blood
10:54
Speaker 2: banks here to collect blood to send it to Lebanon.
10:57
Speaker 2: But there are also injured being here in Damascus, I've
11:02
Speaker 2: heard in the last few hours Lebanon itself, So that
11:06
Speaker 2: is the government in Lebanon, Lebanon state, rather than of
11:09
Speaker 2: course Hesbela being a semi non state actor, although Hesbela
11:14
Speaker 2: are involved in the Lebanese government to file a complaint
11:19
Speaker 2: at the UN Security Council over the Israeli Paga explosion attack.
11:25
Speaker 2: And then also if we look at the potential context
11:31
Speaker 2: for this attack, I've already mentioned that there are claims
11:35
Speaker 2: that Israel brought the attack forward. They were planning to
11:38
Speaker 2: use it as a forward attack before escalating against Lebanon,
11:46
Speaker 2: and they brought it forward because of the detection. That's
11:49
Speaker 2: one theory, of course. The other theory is that in
11:52
Speaker 2: the last few days it has been admitted by Israel
11:56
Speaker 2: that the Hesbela strike, which if you remember, was in
12:00
Speaker 2: retaliation for the assassination of Ford Schruka in July from
12:05
Speaker 2: memory in southern Beirute, actually led to the fatalities of
12:13
Speaker 2: twenty two Unit eight two hundred members and seventy four
12:18
Speaker 2: reported members injured. So let's just have a very quick
12:22
Speaker 2: look at what al Nadine says about that. So it's
12:26
Speaker 2: European security sources have reported to al Niodine that the
12:29
Speaker 2: recent strikes by the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, targeting the
12:33
Speaker 2: headquarters of Unit eight two hundred in the Lilott base
12:37
Speaker 2: and the air base of Ein Schumer, have been substantially successful.
12:42
Speaker 2: According to sources, the attack, dubbed Operation of Vayen, has
12:46
Speaker 2: resulted in significant casualties within the intelligence unit, with fatalities
12:52
Speaker 2: reaching twenty two and seventy four members reported interests. So
12:57
Speaker 2: that was in reality attack. But you know, now we're
13:03
Speaker 2: left with the scenario where we have multiple amputations according
13:08
Speaker 2: to reports and receiving from medical sources in Lebanon, as
13:13
Speaker 2: I mentioned, I think five hundred eye operations, the majority
13:20
Speaker 2: of whom, of course, have had their eyes removed because
13:23
Speaker 2: the injury is irreversible, hands being blown off, internal injuries,
13:30
Speaker 2: injuries to hips, which are major injuries. If you imagine
13:34
Speaker 2: the pages being in someone's pocket, it doesn't take a
13:39
Speaker 2: great imagination, you know, to comprehend the diabolical nature of
13:48
Speaker 2: this attack is pure sadism. This isn't warfare, this is
13:52
Speaker 2: state terrorism, and it includes of course the maiming and
13:56
Speaker 2: injury and deaths of civilians that would have in those
14:00
Speaker 2: crowded areas when the pages were detonated. It's terrific, and
14:07
Speaker 2: of course it takes us back to the Auter explosion
14:10
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, when I think six thousand were killed.
14:15
Speaker 2: If the higher numbers are correct, four thy two hundred
14:18
Speaker 2: and heading up towards five thousand, we're getting close to
14:22
Speaker 2: that kind of tragedy for Lebanon.
14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Vanessa reading this morning quotes from eye surgeons
14:31
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, many people having had both eyes
14:35
Speaker 1: removed as a result of this. This is devastating for them.
14:38
Speaker 1: And you know that the final section of the video
14:41
Speaker 1: clip that you showed at the beginning of that, you
14:44
Speaker 1: know that the lidy who was on the till, who
14:47
Speaker 1: had nothing, didn't have a page, who had nothing to
14:50
Speaker 1: do with with anything other than she was working in
14:52
Speaker 1: a supermarket, clearly had eye damage as a result of that.
14:57
Speaker 1: It is it is horrendous. And then the other question
15:00
Speaker 1: is the other question that needs to be asked is
15:02
Speaker 1: where were these explosives added to the product? Was it
15:06
Speaker 1: in the manufacturing process itself, or as you suggest, in
15:09
Speaker 1: somewhere between manufacturer and delivery. Either way, those explosives must
15:15
Speaker 1: have been in a foreign country in this case, and
15:20
Speaker 1: therefore at least anybody that was involved in the potentially
15:25
Speaker 1: involved in the manufacture, but then also anybody potentially involved
15:28
Speaker 1: in the delivery of the devices as well at risk.
15:32
Speaker 1: So it's not just an attack on Levied, and it's
15:35
Speaker 1: actually an attack on other countries, including countries in Europe
15:38
Speaker 1: as well. And you know, we have all this rhetoric
15:42
Speaker 1: about Russia and it's bringing the warfare onto the European soil.
15:46
Speaker 1: But no comment about this from David Lammy or anybody
15:49
Speaker 1: else in the West. Yeah, absolutely, yes, Okay, thank you
15:56
Speaker 1: for that. Let's move on to David Lammy then, and
15:59
Speaker 1: he was tweeting this site yesterday. The climate and nature
16:04
Speaker 1: crisis is the most profound and universal source of global disorder.
16:08
Speaker 1: We're resetting Britain's approach to this agenda. Climate and nature
16:12
Speaker 1: will be central to all the Foreign Office does. Now
16:15
Speaker 1: why would that be. Is that about climate change and
16:18
Speaker 1: mitigation of climate change or is it about geopolitics. Let's
16:23
Speaker 1: just have a listen to a minute and a half
16:26
Speaker 1: or so of what Lamy said yesterday.
16:29
Speaker 5: But we need a hard headed, realist approach towards using
16:36
Speaker 5: all levers at our disposal, from the diplomatic to the financial.
16:42
Speaker 5: And I say to you now, these are not contradictions,
16:48
Speaker 5: because nothing could be more central to the UK's national
16:54
Speaker 5: interests than delivering global progress on arresting risingtures. My argument
17:02
Speaker 5: to you today is that demands for action from the
17:06
Speaker 5: world's most vulnerable and the requirements for delivering security for
17:11
Speaker 5: British citizens are fundamentally aligned. And this is because the
17:16
Speaker 5: crisis is not some discrete policy ara divorced from geopolitics,
17:21
Speaker 5: and insecurity, the threat may not feel as urgent as
17:26
Speaker 5: a terrorist or an imperialist autocrat. But it is more fundamental.
17:33
Speaker 5: It is systemic. It's pervasive and accelerating towards US at pace.
17:40
Speaker 5: Look around the world, countries are scrambling to secure critical minerals,
17:46
Speaker 5: just as great powers wants raised to control oil. We
17:50
Speaker 5: cannot let this become a source of conflict. In the
17:55
Speaker 5: Artic and Antarctic. Global warming is driving geopolitical competition over
18:00
Speaker 5: the resources lying beneath the ice, and in places like
18:05
Speaker 5: the Sahel South Sudan, Syria, rising temperatures are making water
18:14
Speaker 5: and productive land even scarcer. These are not random events
18:21
Speaker 5: delivered from the heavens.
18:25
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, sorry, I've got card there. It must be catching,
18:28
Speaker 1: must be a mimiates of disease. These are not random events.
18:32
Speaker 1: These are absolutely not random events. That's probably the only
18:34
Speaker 1: thing I agree with him on in that particular segment.
18:37
Speaker 1: But what we very clearly get from that is that
18:41
Speaker 1: the agenda isn't a boy temperature or climate or any
18:44
Speaker 1: perceived climate emergency. It's about raw materials. It's about assets
18:50
Speaker 1: under the ground or under the ice, or wherever it
18:52
Speaker 1: happens to be. And of course the Arctic is mentioned,
18:55
Speaker 1: and so on. We'll come on to that in a second.
18:57
Speaker 1: So this is a graphic they were pushing out on
19:00
Speaker 1: Twitter this morning. We will build a global Clean Power Alliance.
19:05
Speaker 1: Well I'm not clear how they're going to do that
19:06
Speaker 1: since half the world seems to have gone the other
19:09
Speaker 1: way with with bricks and so on. But they're going
19:11
Speaker 1: to build this global clean Power alliance, unlock more climate finance,
19:15
Speaker 1: that's another key part of this, and reverse the decline
19:18
Speaker 1: in global biodiversity. Nonsense, they're not doing anything to do
19:23
Speaker 1: to do any of that. In fact, with the warfare
19:27
Speaker 1: that they're pursuing, they're only increasingly decline in global biodiversity.
19:31
Speaker 1: And but just this whole idea of you know, this
19:35
Speaker 1: hell of the Arctic and so on, let's just remind
19:38
Speaker 1: ourselves of some of the comments that we've seen in
19:41
Speaker 1: recent weeks. This is from Young Stottenberg talking about NATO
19:46
Speaker 1: and not wanting to view moving NATO into the South
19:50
Speaker 1: of China Sea, but taking into account that China is
19:52
Speaker 1: coming closer to us in the Arctic in Africa. This
19:56
Speaker 1: narrative about the Arctic, the Antarctics and this hell is
20:00
Speaker 1: something that we see time and time and time again
20:02
Speaker 1: from multiple voices. It is something that is clearly a
20:07
Speaker 1: common narrative that's been decided upon. The European Union very
20:11
Speaker 1: in particular interested in the region in particular, and so
20:16
Speaker 1: is the UK with their Regional Development partnership that goes
20:23
Speaker 1: back a number of years. And we've got we can't
20:25
Speaker 1: forget Tony Blair's absolute interest in this area, that Tony
20:29
Speaker 1: Blair Institute very active in the hel region. The question
20:33
Speaker 1: is why, we'll see in the second this is something
20:36
Speaker 1: that the Africans are particularly keen to sort of push
20:42
Speaker 1: back against. But we've got to remember why this is.
20:45
Speaker 1: This is because the Russians, the Chinese are active in
20:52
Speaker 1: that area. They are developing those countries, they're providing infrastructure
20:55
Speaker 1: and so on. This is something that the West perceives
20:59
Speaker 1: as getting out of its control very very quickly, and
21:03
Speaker 1: something that they feel that they need to deal with
21:05
Speaker 1: very very quickly. But Lammy's speech nothing to do with
21:09
Speaker 1: temperature of the atmosphere and everything to do with raw
21:14
Speaker 1: materials and what we can dig out of the grind
21:16
Speaker 1: and making sure that we maintain control of what can
21:18
Speaker 1: be dug out of the grind. I don't know if
21:20
Speaker 1: you're any thoughts on that.
21:22
Speaker 6: Well, I think he sort of joins the queue of
21:24
Speaker 6: ministers to whom we should invert everything they say when
21:29
Speaker 6: we listen to them. I mean, he's really talking about
21:32
Speaker 6: the exact opposite that his words suggest, and particularly on
21:37
Speaker 6: the mineral side of it, and not just the destruction
21:39
Speaker 6: of the landscape that we're supposed to be protecting under
21:42
Speaker 6: all this sort of restoric but also the enormous cost
21:46
Speaker 6: to life and welfare of the people that are forced
21:49
Speaker 6: to mine cobalt and lithium and all the rest of it.
21:53
Speaker 6: But of course that's never referred to.
21:55
Speaker 1: No indeed, Okay, well let's move on then, and well child.
22:01
Speaker 6: Abuse, child abuse in the news again, although one might
22:06
Speaker 6: say it was a right reason. But in this instance
22:09
Speaker 6: Hugh Edwards, who having been found guilty of a number
22:12
Speaker 6: of offenses pertaining to indecent images of children, received a
22:20
Speaker 6: six month suspended sentence which means he.
22:24
Speaker 4: Will not go to prison.
22:26
Speaker 6: And the CPS say that WhatsApp chat between the male
22:30
Speaker 6: this is a person he was communicating with and Edwards
22:33
Speaker 6: was sexual in nature, and it also showed that Edwards
22:36
Speaker 6: was giving him gifts and money.
22:38
Speaker 4: Within the chat.
22:39
Speaker 6: There were numerous sexually explicit images, including forty one indecent
22:43
Speaker 6: images of children. Now this gives us cause to think
22:48
Speaker 6: about the wider criminal justice system, but also about the
22:51
Speaker 6: overall attitude towards abuse of children. And we can start
22:56
Speaker 6: with his former employer, the BBC, who in a statement
22:59
Speaker 6: back in August said mister Edwards pleaded guilty to an
23:03
Speaker 6: appalling crime. Had he been upfront when asked by the
23:06
Speaker 6: BBC about his arrest, we would never have continued to
23:09
Speaker 6: pay him public money. He has clearly undermined trust in
23:12
Speaker 6: the BBC and brought us into disrepute. Well that might
23:16
Speaker 6: well be the case, but that's quite the conditional in
23:18
Speaker 6: that the BBC are effectively washing their hands of responsibility
23:22
Speaker 6: by saying that they effectively had no further duty to
23:26
Speaker 6: investigate and should just take at face value anything that
23:28
Speaker 6: he told them. And of course, by extension, had he
23:31
Speaker 6: not said that, and had this not come to light,
23:33
Speaker 6: then they would have been absolutely right in just sweeping
23:36
Speaker 6: it under the carpet and carrying on as normal. So
23:39
Speaker 6: that reflects very very poorly on the BBC, but not
23:41
Speaker 6: necessarily in the way that they're suggesting. And we just
23:45
Speaker 6: go back now to UNISEF and to nineteen ninety one
23:49
Speaker 6: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And
23:51
Speaker 6: I think this is particularly pertinent since we've head relentlessly
23:55
Speaker 6: towards the idea of one world government. But just a
23:57
Speaker 6: point an article nineteen and thirty four. Article nineteen Protection
24:01
Speaker 6: from violence, abuse and neglect. Governments must do all they
24:04
Speaker 6: can to ensure that children are protected from all forms
24:07
Speaker 6: of violence, abuse, neglect and bad treatment by their parents
24:11
Speaker 6: or anyone else who looks after them. Or Article thirty
24:14
Speaker 6: four Sexual exploitation. Governments must protect children from all forms
24:18
Speaker 6: of sexual abuse and exploitation. Well quite in the United
24:22
Speaker 6: Kingdom we have enshrined in law the Children Act sorry
24:26
Speaker 6: Protection of Children Act, nineteen seventy one, and this is
24:29
Speaker 6: what piece of legislation Edwards was effectively tried against either
24:34
Speaker 6: way though, meaning that he in fact went to the
24:36
Speaker 6: magistrates court and not Crown court, the maximum.
24:40
Speaker 4: Being ten years custody.
24:42
Speaker 6: But of course we see that the incredible range of
24:46
Speaker 6: sentence being from a community order up to nine years
24:49
Speaker 6: of custody. So just to look at the detail of
24:51
Speaker 6: this and how open to interpretation all of this is
24:55
Speaker 6: seven He had seven what to call category A images,
24:58
Speaker 6: which i'll define in the sec and it starts by saying,
25:01
Speaker 6: in most cases, the intrinsic character of the most serious
25:05
Speaker 6: of the offending images will initially determine the appropriate category. If, however,
25:10
Speaker 6: the most serious images are unrepresentative of the offender's conduct,
25:13
Speaker 6: a lower category may be appropriate, so effectively giving the
25:18
Speaker 6: magistrate or the judge a lot of room for maneuver,
25:21
Speaker 6: presumably depending on the defendant himself or herself. So with
25:27
Speaker 6: apologies for the nature of this, but it is written
25:31
Speaker 6: down by the sentence in Council Indecent Images category A
25:35
Speaker 6: possession of images involving penetrative sexual activity, possession of images
25:40
Speaker 6: involving sexual activity with an animal, or sadism. Now Edwards
25:44
Speaker 6: had seven of those and possibly many more. Of course,
25:48
Speaker 6: because the device that was initially sought was not found,
25:51
Speaker 6: there was a delay, so it's entirely possible that a
25:53
Speaker 6: lot of evidence went missing in terms of what this
25:57
Speaker 6: government well I was talking about track records concerning individuals.
26:01
Speaker 6: Of course, the perennial reminder that Keir Starmer was indeed
26:05
Speaker 6: Director of Public Prosecutions when the Jimmy Savill case was
26:10
Speaker 6: effectively bungled. And of course, again just like the BBC
26:14
Speaker 6: being caught out and therefore talking about shortcomings is going
26:18
Speaker 6: back to twenty thirteen, but effectively absolutely not shouldering responsibility
26:23
Speaker 6: for what was not done. I should just point out
26:26
Speaker 6: that first of all UK column does have a substack page,
26:29
Speaker 6: so please if you do use substack, do make use
26:32
Speaker 6: of that. But you'll find a piece circle therein read
26:35
Speaker 6: about the seven men committing offenses. This is going back
26:39
Speaker 6: to Rotherham, but jailed for one hundred and six years,
26:42
Speaker 6: and this of course points to the persistent failure by
26:46
Speaker 6: police to actually be able to deal with this under
26:48
Speaker 6: what was then Operation Stove Would and these highlighted by
26:52
Speaker 6: the Jay Report of twenty fourteen going into the inquiry
26:55
Speaker 6: into child abuse in Rotherham. So there is absolute agree
27:00
Speaker 6: in this area of failure to deal with defenses of
27:04
Speaker 6: this nature. Now, the reason this is so important is
27:08
Speaker 6: that the government of course does at its disposal have
27:11
Speaker 6: a judiciary with which it can dispense justice. And the
27:16
Speaker 6: reason I put it in those terms is that we
27:18
Speaker 6: have a big, big issue now about whether or not
27:20
Speaker 6: we have separation of powers. Of course, the interview with
27:22
Speaker 6: Claire Will's Harrison the Wonkey Scales of Justice recently we
27:25
Speaker 6: go into the failure of the separation of powers. And
27:29
Speaker 6: of course over the last couple of months we've seen
27:32
Speaker 6: a response to what's being called far right violent disorder,
27:36
Speaker 6: and so we have the Home Office putting a tweet
27:39
Speaker 6: out being effectually tough apparently on crime, but only certain types.
27:44
Speaker 6: So let us be very clear those violent and criminal
27:47
Speaker 6: attacks were not protests. They were about they were not
27:49
Speaker 6: about a grievance. They were thuggery, racism and crime. The
27:53
Speaker 6: Prime Minister and I being the Home Secretary, made it
27:56
Speaker 6: clear that criminals would pay the price for their violence
27:59
Speaker 6: and we meant it. And that's from Evak Cooper, the
28:01
Speaker 6: Home Secretary, back on September the fifth. So there are
28:05
Speaker 6: many examples one could pick out to highlight the utter
28:08
Speaker 6: hypocrisy and inconsistency of her position. And here we have
28:11
Speaker 6: BBC reporting manjailed for shouting at police dog and using
28:16
Speaker 6: racist slurs. So apparently fine to promulgate images of abused children,
28:22
Speaker 6: especially if you're a highly paid BBC correspondent reporter. But anyway, nonetheless,
28:28
Speaker 6: with the political capital of course highlighted here by NSPCC
28:32
Speaker 6: in a sense in that whilst it is of course
28:36
Speaker 6: fair to point out that these images are put about
28:40
Speaker 6: the place by the use of communications platforms.
28:44
Speaker 4: It's how exactly this is address.
28:46
Speaker 6: So we've got from the NSPCC saying that we're calling
28:48
Speaker 6: on tech companies to take swift and ambitious action to
28:51
Speaker 6: address what is currently happening on their platforms, and we're
28:55
Speaker 6: urging OFFCOMB to significantly strengthen its approach to tackling child
28:58
Speaker 6: sexual abuse through effective enforcement of the Online Safety Act.
29:03
Speaker 6: And we go back to the government document on end
29:05
Speaker 6: to end encryption, which is the way in which these
29:07
Speaker 6: messages apparently are.
29:08
Speaker 4: Made secure and child safety.
29:10
Speaker 6: So in effect one might say quite right to deal
29:15
Speaker 6: with this, but it's a question of where it goes
29:17
Speaker 6: and what the parameters are. But they specify in this
29:21
Speaker 6: document that there were thirty four over thirty four thousand
29:23
Speaker 6: offenses in the UK relating to online indecent images of
29:26
Speaker 6: children in twenty twenty two, and that this means that
29:30
Speaker 6: they are reckoning that there are over eight hundred thousand
29:32
Speaker 6: people who could pose a sexual threat to children and
29:36
Speaker 6: the prevalence of the most severe forms of online child
29:39
Speaker 6: sexual abuse have more than doubled since twenty twenty so
29:43
Speaker 6: if indeed they can be corroborated, of course, very alarming statistics.
29:47
Speaker 6: But it should not be ignored that with the Online
29:50
Speaker 6: Safety Act and the way that the Government is treating this,
29:52
Speaker 6: it is as though it is a lever with which
29:55
Speaker 6: to surveil and monitor communications at large, as opposed to
29:59
Speaker 6: necessarily dealing with the specific issue of child abuse. And
30:04
Speaker 6: the government's track record or government's track records on this
30:08
Speaker 6: are terrible, and one might say that the modus operandi
30:12
Speaker 6: of the government is simply being extended by its complete
30:15
Speaker 6: failure to deal with this, especially when there is the
30:18
Speaker 6: opportunity to.
30:20
Speaker 4: Use the phrase that.
30:21
Speaker 6: Of course, the Home Secretary has many times over the
30:23
Speaker 6: last few months to set an example. For the example
30:26
Speaker 6: that's been set by not giving Hugh Edwards, a very
30:28
Speaker 6: public figure, a proper prison sentence is a terrible one.
30:32
Speaker 6: So I only need to remind you how children were
30:34
Speaker 6: treated in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. Here we
30:38
Speaker 6: have a piece in a New Scientist where small children
30:41
Speaker 6: were forced to cover their faces for no apparently good
30:44
Speaker 6: reason whatsoever, with disastrous effects that were quite obviously known
30:48
Speaker 6: about at the time. And a reminder of course that
30:52
Speaker 6: the Committee on Vaccines recommended that children as young as
30:57
Speaker 6: six months old were given a drug that had not
31:01
Speaker 6: been trialed, so might be a deviation from section Abuse
31:06
Speaker 6: of Children, but nonetheless, the wider topic of child abuse
31:09
Speaker 6: is something this government is absolutely failing on.
31:13
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, thank you Charles for that. Okay, Now we
31:16
Speaker 1: do need your support, so if you would like to
31:18
Speaker 1: support us, let's see how you might do that. So
31:20
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31:22
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31:24
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31:27
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Speaker 1: options for helping us side. But I just wanted to
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Speaker 1: also point out that there are other things on the
31:46
Speaker 1: UK Column front page that you might want to have
31:48
Speaker 1: a look at, particularly the Editor's Choice section, and what
31:50
Speaker 1: we do each week is that we choose some articles
31:54
Speaker 1: that are from the past that are relevant to what's
31:58
Speaker 1: going on in current affairs. Just a reminder of what
32:01
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32:04
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32:09
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32:47
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32:55
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32:57
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33:00
Speaker 1: that is the main place to go to find the
33:03
Speaker 1: UK Column content, but to share it on the platforms
33:06
Speaker 1: if you possibly can. Now tomorrow we have an interview
33:10
Speaker 1: going out with doctor Robin Kelly, if we can put
33:13
Speaker 1: that on screen. So this is looking at this is
33:18
Speaker 1: Debbie Evans looking at this asking a number of questions
33:22
Speaker 1: of doctor Robin Kelly, including what is the future of healthcare?
33:27
Speaker 1: So let's just have a quick listen to a short
33:30
Speaker 1: excerpt from this.
33:32
Speaker 7: Evidence based medicine has been based on papers studies in
33:38
Speaker 7: journals which we know from so many of the editors
33:43
Speaker 7: have most of come out and saying that you can't
33:46
Speaker 7: trust it.
33:47
Speaker 4: You know the was it.
33:49
Speaker 7: Maria Engles from the New Nion England Journal of Medicine
33:54
Speaker 7: several years ago said, look, ninety percent of the papers
33:57
Speaker 7: a rubbish. Now AI is just going to collect all
33:59
Speaker 7: that information it's come from academic departments who have been
34:03
Speaker 7: funded by big corporations and collate those and say this
34:11
Speaker 7: is the way you're going to practice medicine and the
34:14
Speaker 7: actual discriminating doctor has been cut out of this.
34:20
Speaker 1: So join us for that one PM in the usual
34:23
Speaker 1: places if you possibly can. Then yesterday's interview, which was
34:28
Speaker 1: with doctor Sabine Hazan, is up on the UK Column
34:31
Speaker 1: website if you'd like to go and have a look
34:32
Speaker 1: at that. Don't forget the event in Bristol UK Column
34:36
Speaker 1: on location nineteenth of October twenty twenty four. Tickets are
34:40
Speaker 1: selling fast. There are a few tickets left. If you
34:42
Speaker 1: can possibly pick one up, please do so. Fantastic range
34:45
Speaker 1: of speakers are going to be at that. UK Column
34:47
Speaker 1: team will be at that as well and we look
34:50
Speaker 1: forward to seeing as many people as possible there, and
34:54
Speaker 1: Brian and I, another reminder, will be speaking at the
34:56
Speaker 1: Heritage Party conference on the twentieth of September. Details at
34:59
Speaker 1: he Party dot org and Charles you are speaking.
35:04
Speaker 6: Yes in Stroud for a Project Libertas event on Saturday
35:08
Speaker 6: the twelfth of October, alongside Jemma Cooper, Andrew Bridgen and
35:13
Speaker 6: Sandy Adams. So for tickets go to eventwrite dot co
35:16
Speaker 6: dot uk and search Project Libertas and Stroud to pick
35:20
Speaker 6: up a ticket for that.
35:22
Speaker 1: Fantastic thank you for that. My Let's move on then
35:25
Speaker 1: to assisted dying.
35:26
Speaker 6: Yeah, indeed, which is getting increasing amounts of coverage and
35:30
Speaker 6: certainly being couched in terms that suggests that we all
35:32
Speaker 6: agree that it's absolutely got to happen and that it's
35:35
Speaker 6: a very good idea highly questionable, of course, But the
35:39
Speaker 6: reason that this is being discussed right now and was
35:42
Speaker 6: referred to on the UK Column News by Debivans on Friday,
35:45
Speaker 6: is because the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has produced the
35:50
Speaker 6: document referring to a citizen's jury that was put together.
35:54
Speaker 6: Now there are many details from that that will come
35:58
Speaker 6: on too, but just to give it an indication of
36:00
Speaker 6: how the narratives being built and effectively the sort of
36:04
Speaker 6: conflation of assisted dying with all the other things that
36:07
Speaker 6: were going on. We look at the work of Matt
36:09
Speaker 6: Hancock reported back in twenty twenty in the Daily Mail
36:14
Speaker 6: about slightly ludicrous position of people apparently being able to
36:18
Speaker 6: leave the country to die in an assisted fashion during
36:22
Speaker 6: the coronavirus lockdown. Hancock, of course then put to the
36:26
Speaker 6: four for the full sort of indoctrination treatment in twenty
36:30
Speaker 6: twenty one the Telegraph there towards legalizing it. Now to
36:35
Speaker 6: give a flavor of what the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
36:39
Speaker 6: deals with, these are the five reports that it's produced
36:42
Speaker 6: in the year twenty twenty four. First of all the
36:44
Speaker 6: assisted dying one, which is just about to go into
36:47
Speaker 6: the future of health and artificial intelligence, which again DeBie
36:50
Speaker 6: has covered in great detail previously. Then we've got research
36:54
Speaker 6: using neural organoids, again something a UK column has dealt
36:58
Speaker 6: with in detail well as it has stem cell based
37:01
Speaker 6: embryo models and genomics, healthcare and research. Those are the
37:05
Speaker 6: sort of areas that they get into. Now, particularly on
37:08
Speaker 6: this idea of what's called the citizens jury, we look
37:11
Speaker 6: to the Sortition Foundation, which again Ben Rubin in particular
37:15
Speaker 6: has talked about, and I know there's going to be
37:16
Speaker 6: a lot more concentration on this by UK column. But
37:20
Speaker 6: the foundation rather proudly declare that they use the fairest
37:25
Speaker 6: selection algorithm. And of course what I should point out
37:27
Speaker 6: at this stage is by using terminology such as algorithm
37:32
Speaker 6: and effectively stating that all of this is done by computers,
37:34
Speaker 6: it's as though to suggest that it is legitimized by
37:38
Speaker 6: the fact it's done by machine and not man, and
37:40
Speaker 6: therefore must be impartial and objective.
37:43
Speaker 4: But I would say not so.
37:45
Speaker 6: However, the article from Nature, in which they try to
37:49
Speaker 6: reinforce the point that algorithms or there is an algorithm,
37:52
Speaker 6: may be fair. They talk about citizens assembly being selected
37:56
Speaker 6: by Sortition, which they describe as being a microcosm of societ.
38:00
Speaker 6: Its participants are represented a representative of the population, and
38:05
Speaker 6: thus its deliberation simulates the entire population, convening under conditions
38:10
Speaker 6: where it can really consider competing arguments and get its
38:13
Speaker 6: questions answered from different points of view. However, whether this
38:16
Speaker 6: goal is realized in practice depends on exactly how assembly
38:20
Speaker 6: members are chosen. Exactly a bit of a chink in
38:23
Speaker 6: the armor there. Now, they go on and say, as
38:25
Speaker 6: the final and most complex component of the selection process,
38:28
Speaker 6: the selection algorithm has great power in deciding who will
38:32
Speaker 6: be chosen to represent the population. Well, of course it does.
38:36
Speaker 6: And in this case we are being led to believe
38:38
Speaker 6: that after the selection of thirty four people in the
38:41
Speaker 6: United Kingdom, only thirty of whom could actually turn up,
38:44
Speaker 6: whether virtually or in person, and only twenty eight of
38:47
Speaker 6: whom in fact had a bearing on the outcome. It
38:50
Speaker 6: is perfectly ludicrous in the first instance to suggest that
38:53
Speaker 6: that smaller number of people could possibly represent the views
38:57
Speaker 6: of the entire nation. So what we're going to do now,
39:00
Speaker 6: just have a quick look at the Harvard Business Review
39:02
Speaker 6: talking about what's called algorithmic bias, because, of course algorithms
39:06
Speaker 6: are written by people. An algorithmic bias occurs when algorithms
39:10
Speaker 6: make decisions that systematically disadvantage certain groups of people. It
39:15
Speaker 6: can have disastrous consequences when applied to key areas such
39:18
Speaker 6: as healthcare, criminal justice and credit scoring.
39:21
Speaker 4: Now, the point they're.
39:22
Speaker 6: Trying to make is that is the sort of the
39:23
Speaker 6: social justice context, effectively saying that it persecutes ethnic minorities
39:28
Speaker 6: and that sort of thing. But of course the obverse
39:30
Speaker 6: is true in that it can be used perfectly easily
39:33
Speaker 6: to discriminate, discriminate in what might be called a positive
39:37
Speaker 6: sense against any group. But the fact is that it
39:39
Speaker 6: is entirely fallible and it is led by humans. And
39:43
Speaker 6: of course we see that the Sortition Foundation itself has
39:46
Speaker 6: significant bias by indicating how pleased they are that Labour
39:49
Speaker 6: has the intention to use citizens assemblies to address assisted
39:53
Speaker 6: dying and the House of Lords reform. Now, for more
39:56
Speaker 6: on Sortition, there are other places to go the UK
40:00
Speaker 6: Column website, but one I should draw your attention to
40:02
Speaker 6: because it is part of a whole series is a
40:05
Speaker 6: Dissidence Guide to the Constitution. The episode five they're part
40:09
Speaker 6: one Democracy a British Value question mark. But that series
40:14
Speaker 6: is absolutely well worth listening to and Sortition is a
40:16
Speaker 6: big part of it and UK Column will come on
40:18
Speaker 6: to explain exactly why that is. But with this in mind,
40:22
Speaker 6: and with the particularly the Nuugh Field, which of course
40:25
Speaker 6: is part of a much bigger, effectively sort of Nuffield.
40:31
Speaker 4: Landscape.
40:32
Speaker 6: We look at the founder or the man that set
40:36
Speaker 6: up this, who became vicoent and Field, William Morris, the
40:40
Speaker 6: car Magnate from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and
40:44
Speaker 6: it's just worth pointing out when we consider all the
40:47
Speaker 6: various social biases and the things that the Sortition Foundation
40:51
Speaker 6: in particular would take great care to avoid getting ensnared in.
40:55
Speaker 6: He was persuaded back in nineteen thirty apparently, they say
40:58
Speaker 6: Biles or Mosley during the slump, to put up fifty
41:01
Speaker 6: thousand pounds to help Phond his new party in the
41:04
Speaker 6: mistaken belief that Bosley favored some of his ideas on
41:07
Speaker 6: involving businessmen in government to secure economic stability and rational action. Well,
41:12
Speaker 6: that's very much a watered down version of what Nuffield
41:15
Speaker 6: has actually been perhaps accused of saying or thinking about
41:20
Speaker 6: certain things in the way that society should work. But
41:23
Speaker 6: of course again this is completely glossed over. The other
41:25
Speaker 6: point worth making is that Nuffield Health, which again is
41:29
Speaker 6: formed on the back of the enormous Nuffield wealth, receives
41:32
Speaker 6: a lot of money from Government's had two hundred and
41:34
Speaker 6: fifty million pounds from government in the last four years
41:38
Speaker 6: and would stand if it moves into the area of
41:40
Speaker 6: sisted dying to make an enormous sum of money. So
41:44
Speaker 6: that is very very relevant to the push for assisted
41:48
Speaker 6: dying run here by the Campaign for Dignity in Dying,
41:53
Speaker 6: and they give us an update. Again this has been
41:55
Speaker 6: reported on much, but Lord Faulconers build the assisted Dying
42:00
Speaker 6: Bill set for its second reason on the fifteenth of November,
42:03
Speaker 6: and just to give an indication of the public programming
42:06
Speaker 6: that's done, I've just taken a couple of screenshots off
42:09
Speaker 6: the campaign website and here we see a picture of
42:11
Speaker 6: a lady with the caption the true cost how the
42:14
Speaker 6: UK outsources death to dignitass which course is in Switzerland,
42:18
Speaker 6: and that's where people were apparently prohibited from getting too
42:21
Speaker 6: or find prohibitively expensive. The cost of dying in Switzerland
42:26
Speaker 6: under such conditions as reckoned to be about fifteen pounds.
42:30
Speaker 6: And of course, to save the idea again that we
42:33
Speaker 6: must all consider this must happen. One British person travels
42:37
Speaker 6: there every eight days. The reason I've chosen these two.
42:40
Speaker 6: Is that and this is across the campaign website. The
42:44
Speaker 6: images used of people are quite clearly not extremely old,
42:49
Speaker 6: extremely frail, or extremely ill, at least visibly. I know
42:53
Speaker 6: it's very hard to tell. But the point that's being made,
42:56
Speaker 6: that has been repeatedly by Mike, going back to the
42:58
Speaker 6: Matthew Paris article, is that we are conditioned now to
43:03
Speaker 6: think that assisted dying forms part of the whole idea
43:07
Speaker 6: of taking social responsibility and doing the right thing and
43:10
Speaker 6: effectively removing yourself from society no matter what your age,
43:14
Speaker 6: which is a very very disturbing track to go down.
43:18
Speaker 1: It certainly is okay, let's move on the censorship then,
43:21
Speaker 1: and we're heading over to Australia first and see how
43:24
Speaker 1: they're doing in terms of bringing forward this narrative. So
43:28
Speaker 1: here is the right Honorable Michelle Roland, MP, Minister for
43:33
Speaker 1: Communications in Australia. It's time to act on misinformation and disinformation.
43:39
Speaker 1: So let's just have a quick look at some of
43:41
Speaker 1: the points that she makes here. Seriously harmful misinformation disinformation
43:46
Speaker 1: spreads at speed and at scale across the digital world.
43:49
Speaker 1: Recent events in Australia and abroad, and she's talking about
43:52
Speaker 1: Southport here demonstrate the real world impact that it's having
43:56
Speaker 1: on social cohesion and safety of communities. She said, well,
44:01
Speaker 1: misinformation and disinformation may be shared by well intentioned people
44:04
Speaker 1: who believe the information is credible, it's often spread with
44:08
Speaker 1: intent to do harm. I'm not quite sure how she
44:11
Speaker 1: knows that, but she talks about bad actors using bots
44:13
Speaker 1: and troll farms, and she's particularly worried about interference in democracy, economy,
44:20
Speaker 1: and society. And so they have introduced the Communications Legislation
44:25
Speaker 1: Amendment Brackets Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill twenty twenty four,
44:29
Speaker 1: which is going to hold big tech too account while
44:32
Speaker 1: balancing the freedom of expression. So we're hearing the same
44:35
Speaker 1: kind of rhetoric. So, looking at this bill itself, they
44:40
Speaker 1: define disinformation as any content that contains information that is
44:44
Speaker 1: reasonably verifiable as false, misleading, or deceptive. And my first
44:48
Speaker 1: question would be is how much information that comes out
44:51
Speaker 1: from government or mainstream press is reasonably verifiable as false.
44:55
Speaker 1: It's quite a significant proportion. But anyway, it goes on
44:59
Speaker 1: to say when the provision of the content on the
45:01
Speaker 1: digital service is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to
45:05
Speaker 1: serious harm, And then the question is well, what is
45:07
Speaker 1: serious harm and they define that is vilification of a
45:10
Speaker 1: group in Australian society distinguished by race, religion, sex, sexual orientation,
45:15
Speaker 1: gender identity, intersects, status, disability, nationality or national or ethnic origin,
45:21
Speaker 1: or vilification of an individual because of a belief that
45:24
Speaker 1: the individual is a member of such groups as such
45:26
Speaker 1: a group, so this just like in the UK. Then
45:30
Speaker 1: the other point to make is that the dissemination of
45:33
Speaker 1: professional news content is explicitly excluded from the bill. So
45:39
Speaker 1: that's what's going on in Australia. It's mirroring very much
45:42
Speaker 1: what's going on in the United Kingdom. And we'll have
45:45
Speaker 1: more to say on this idea of professional news content
45:48
Speaker 1: in the not too distant future. But in the case
45:51
Speaker 1: of professional news content, let's have a look at this
45:53
Speaker 1: as the latest survey from offcom talking about where people
45:57
Speaker 1: are finding their news or getting their news. And there's
46:01
Speaker 1: some good news in this little graft because what we're
46:03
Speaker 1: discovering is that the number of people going to BBC
46:06
Speaker 1: one for the news has fallen from forty nine percent
46:10
Speaker 1: in the UK to forty three percent between last year
46:13
Speaker 1: and this year. The number of people that is going
46:15
Speaker 1: to ITV or to STV or to UTV has fallen
46:18
Speaker 1: from thirty four percent last year to thirty percent this year.
46:23
Speaker 1: Facebook stays the same as thirty percent. Eyeplayer is roughly
46:27
Speaker 1: the same. YouTube unfortunately, is going up as a source
46:31
Speaker 1: of news for people in the UK. Sky News has
46:34
Speaker 1: also gone up a little bit. Sorry no, it's come
46:37
Speaker 1: down from twenty one percent to nineteen percent. BBC News
46:41
Speaker 1: Channel itself, the main BBC News channel, has fallen from
46:44
Speaker 1: twenty three percent to eighteen percent, and the BBC News
46:48
Speaker 1: website and app has fallen from twenty two percent last
46:51
Speaker 1: year to eighteen percent this year. Instagram is up two
46:55
Speaker 1: percent and x is the same as last year. So
47:00
Speaker 1: it's you know, we can take this these statistics. It
47:03
Speaker 1: is a survey, after all, we can take them as
47:05
Speaker 1: far as we as we like. But you know, it
47:08
Speaker 1: seems to be offering a little bit of good news
47:10
Speaker 1: in the sense that the BBC in particular is finding
47:13
Speaker 1: itself being switched off. But in the meantime, then, following
47:18
Speaker 1: on from the United States criticism of RT recently and
47:23
Speaker 1: the claim that RT has been funding so called influencers
47:26
Speaker 1: on the internet to push Russian disinformation, and the US
47:29
Speaker 1: has now decided to alert the world to RT's global
47:33
Speaker 1: covert activities and has decided to sanction FT. The Foreign
47:38
Speaker 1: Office then has made a statement on this saying that
47:41
Speaker 1: the UK supports the US and their assessment that RT
47:43
Speaker 1: is not only a state funded propaganda house but deliberately
47:46
Speaker 1: working to undermine our collective security on behalf of the Kremlin.
47:50
Speaker 1: US information shows that RT is engaged in information operations
47:54
Speaker 1: and covert influencer around the world. These activities strike at
47:57
Speaker 1: the democratic foundations of other countries, inc sorry, using intelligence
48:01
Speaker 1: operations and shadowy networks to incite political violence and spread
48:05
Speaker 1: the center around the world. We're going to talk about
48:07
Speaker 1: this with Vanessa much more an extra. But I just
48:10
Speaker 1: want to remind everybody, of course that that same Foreign
48:13
Speaker 1: com Wealth and Development Office, through its so called kind
48:16
Speaker 1: of disinformation and media development program, funded the Integrity Initiative.
48:20
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about that, get on
48:22
Speaker 1: the UK column website. And we also need to mention
48:26
Speaker 1: BBC Media Action and their actions around the world, also
48:29
Speaker 1: the Thompson Rugers Foundation. But we'll talk about more a
48:33
Speaker 1: bit more about this extra and sticking with media, then, Vanessa,
48:38
Speaker 1: let's come to you and there's SAMs. A bit of
48:41
Speaker 1: a problem has been happening at the Jewish Chronicle.
48:46
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean basically since October the seventh. You know,
48:49
Speaker 2: the Zionist has borrow machine propaganda machine has been struggling,
48:54
Speaker 2: let's say, and has been routinely exposed for providing applications
49:00
Speaker 2: fake news, misleading reports, etc. So The Jewish Chronicle put
49:05
Speaker 2: this out by one of its leading writers, Elon Berry,
49:09
Speaker 2: on September the fifth Sina was Yapa Sinwa. Of course,
49:14
Speaker 2: the newly elected leader of Hama's secret plan to smuggle
49:19
Speaker 2: the Israeli hostages to Iran. So apparently Sinewa had a
49:24
Speaker 2: secret plan to take the hostages out of Gaza through
49:27
Speaker 2: the tunnels and take them to Iran. So let's have
49:32
Speaker 2: a look at This is just one of the articles
49:35
Speaker 2: covering this, but this is probably one of the most
49:37
Speaker 2: in depth from Israeli media. Nine seven to two magazine.
49:41
Speaker 2: Why did a British Jewish newspaper publish fake Israeli intelligence?
49:46
Speaker 2: So let's have a look at what they say about
49:49
Speaker 2: it in the article. I do recommend reading the whole article.
49:52
Speaker 2: There's a lot of detail in there that I can't
49:54
Speaker 2: cover today. The Jewish chronicle scoop quickly. Gain traction was
50:00
Speaker 2: up and amplified via plethora of right wing Israeli media
50:04
Speaker 2: outlets and influences, including Natanyahu's son ye Even the Prime
50:10
Speaker 2: Minister's wife, Sarah, met with the parents of remaining hostages
50:13
Speaker 2: and reportedly told them there's no choice with the Philadelphia Corridor,
50:17
Speaker 2: which is between Gaza and Egypt. There are reports that
50:21
Speaker 2: are mass willfully to Iran with the hostages. There's only
50:24
Speaker 2: one problem. The story is totally made up. So let's see.
50:28
Speaker 2: Two days later WHYET journalist Ronan Bergmann quoted four sources
50:32
Speaker 2: from Israeli's intelligence community and the Israeli Armies Prisoners and
50:38
Speaker 2: Missing Person's Division, who described the Jewish Chronicles' claims as
50:42
Speaker 2: wild fabrication and stated that no such document which the
50:47
Speaker 2: article was based on exists. Another described as one hundred
50:52
Speaker 2: percent lies. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagery also officially dismissed the
50:58
Speaker 2: story as being based on interesting that at the same time, Build,
51:03
Speaker 2: one of the leading German propaganda outlets, also produced another
51:08
Speaker 2: story based on fake documents. But let's have a look
51:11
Speaker 2: at who is Elon Perry. This is where it actually
51:14
Speaker 2: becomes a complete Walter Mitti story, and again I go
51:18
Speaker 2: to the actual article to read the full detail of
51:22
Speaker 2: his fabrication of his own CV. The story gets even stranger.
51:27
Speaker 2: The author of the Jewish Chronicle article is manned by
51:29
Speaker 2: the name of Alan Perry, who's published a series of
51:33
Speaker 2: scoops in the newspapers since the war began, so since
51:36
Speaker 2: October the seventh, including revealing new details about the Israeli
51:39
Speaker 2: army's recent assassinations of Hamas military commander Mohammed Dif also
51:44
Speaker 2: proven false. Perry's bio on the Jewish Chronicle website states
51:49
Speaker 2: that he served as a commando soldier in Israel's Golani
51:53
Speaker 2: Brigade for twenty eight years, that he has twenty five
51:57
Speaker 2: years of journalism experience, that he lectures on Middle East
52:00
Speaker 2: in both the US and the United Kingdom. He goes further,
52:05
Speaker 2: and all of that has effectively been debunked by the
52:08
Speaker 2: nine seventy two magazine. So what happens. The proverbial rats
52:12
Speaker 2: as I call them, have quit Jewish Chronicle, not out
52:15
Speaker 2: of principle, I would surmise, but because they don't want
52:18
Speaker 2: to be todd with the same brush. Sorry, So columnist
52:24
Speaker 2: Jonathan Friedland hardly. Fridlan and David Ranovich have resigned from
52:30
Speaker 2: The Jewish Chronicle after it became embroiled in a scandal
52:33
Speaker 2: over a widely debunked story, and Elan Perry's work has
52:37
Speaker 2: been entirely scrubbed from the website. But who else has
52:40
Speaker 2: also jumped ship so to speak. David Badiel, who we
52:45
Speaker 2: know very well at UK Colin has no plans to
52:48
Speaker 2: write for The Jewish Chronicle amid the fabrication role. So
52:52
Speaker 2: quite extraordinary, really.
52:55
Speaker 1: Absolutely that it's very drop of the dead donkey. And
53:01
Speaker 1: well we'll talk about more about that and extra as well.
53:04
Speaker 1: Now let's come back to the United States then, and
53:07
Speaker 1: the decision by the US Congress to pursue legislation to
53:11
Speaker 1: ban Dji drones in the United States. So this would
53:15
Speaker 1: not ban anybody that currently owns a drone manufactured by
53:20
Speaker 1: Dji of course the main manufacturer of drones in the well,
53:26
Speaker 1: they're Chinese company, but they sell mostly all Western countries
53:31
Speaker 1: on this and probably the most popular drone product that
53:33
Speaker 1: people have. But the US have decided that this is
53:36
Speaker 1: a major security risk, so they brought this piece of
53:39
Speaker 1: legislation through HR two eight sixty four, countering CCP Drones Act,
53:46
Speaker 1: and well the question is why. So we have a
53:49
Speaker 1: little bit of video here from Representative Frank Palone from
53:53
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago talking about this, and let's
53:57
Speaker 1: just have a listen to what he has to say.
54:00
Speaker 8: In the last few months, we've seen reports that hacking
54:03
Speaker 8: groups linked to China, Russia and North Korea and Iran
54:06
Speaker 8: are gaining access to our communications networks to conduct surveillance,
54:11
Speaker 8: collect massive amounts of data, and manipulate our elections. And
54:15
Speaker 8: because of this, there is a real risk that the
54:17
Speaker 8: information that they collect could be used to launch cyber
54:20
Speaker 8: attacks on our critical infrastructure and underminor democratic values of
54:24
Speaker 8: free speed.
54:27
Speaker 1: Our democratic values are free speech. Well I'm not quite
54:29
Speaker 1: clear how flying a drone around your back garden is
54:32
Speaker 1: going to do that, but okay, this is what they're claiming.
54:35
Speaker 1: And once again they are attacking Chinese companies because this
54:41
Speaker 1: is how we build a narrative which is going to
54:44
Speaker 1: take us to Warren and not to dis in future. Anyway,
54:47
Speaker 1: let's come back to the UK Charles and.
54:49
Speaker 4: Land Land again.
54:51
Speaker 6: Yes, I mean something we talk about persistently for all
54:54
Speaker 6: sorts of reasons, but underpin usually by the suggestion that
54:58
Speaker 6: we should not absolutely be growing food on it, we
55:00
Speaker 6: should be restoring nature and forgetting about the fact that
55:03
Speaker 6: the world's population is expanding. But in fact, before we
55:07
Speaker 6: come to the UK, we look at Brazil where there's
55:10
Speaker 6: a tweet from DEFRA saying that Daniel Zeichner, the Minister
55:13
Speaker 6: for DEFRA, has been at the G twenty talking about
55:17
Speaker 6: sustainable agri food systems, and of course, as with all
55:21
Speaker 6: these written documents, we see simply that food security is
55:24
Speaker 6: playing second fiddle to what's called nature recovery. This is
55:28
Speaker 6: the website itself about the G twenty agriculture part of
55:33
Speaker 6: the Brazil meeting. Now the reason this is pertinent or
55:38
Speaker 6: because it coincides with the Campaign for National Parks, among others,
55:45
Speaker 6: effectively flagging how little of the national park infrastructure in
55:51
Speaker 6: the UK is owned by the state, and they are
55:54
Speaker 6: lamenting the fact because they say that the Health Check
55:56
Speaker 6: reports showed that only six percent of national parks currently
55:59
Speaker 6: effective protected for nature. Next government needs to set out
56:03
Speaker 6: radical reforms to make these vital national assets wilder and
56:06
Speaker 6: accessible to all. The next Prime Minister sees the opportunity
56:10
Speaker 6: to renew and revive national parks. Now this goes back
56:13
Speaker 6: to the nineteen forty nine Act, which was supposed to
56:16
Speaker 6: grant the public access to areas wilder areas, particularly in
56:23
Speaker 6: close proximity to large populations, concentrations of population. And the
56:29
Speaker 6: reason there's been sort of debate triggered now is not
56:31
Speaker 6: because it was in the Low Party manifesto, but in
56:33
Speaker 6: effact they did make a sort of qualified pledge.
56:36
Speaker 4: To be able to deal with this.
56:37
Speaker 6: And this has been highlighted now by chuck called Guy Shrubsole,
56:40
Speaker 6: who's recently written a book called The Lie of the Land,
56:42
Speaker 6: which has got a lot of traction in certain quarters.
56:45
Speaker 6: And he points out that just ten percent of Britain's
56:48
Speaker 6: national parks owned by the nation, ninety percent being privately owned,
56:52
Speaker 6: and he says that the park authorities are almost powerless
56:54
Speaker 6: to influence the private landowners. So the influence being that
56:57
Speaker 6: land in private hands is bad, land in state control
57:01
Speaker 6: is good. So he goes on to say the new
57:03
Speaker 6: Labor government needs to complete this unfinished business. Ministers must
57:07
Speaker 6: update the legal purposes of national park authorities so that
57:10
Speaker 6: restoring nature is their primary mission and give them powers
57:14
Speaker 6: and resources to buy land for nature and for the nation.
57:19
Speaker 4: Now be very easy to.
57:23
Speaker 6: Look at a sort of simplified version of this without
57:25
Speaker 6: realizing to what degree the baby would be thrown out
57:28
Speaker 6: with the bath water, and to question whether or not
57:31
Speaker 6: government or state ownership and management of large tracts of
57:35
Speaker 6: land would really be any different, But nonetheless they're pushing
57:38
Speaker 6: ahead with it. The National Parks here in Northumberland and
57:41
Speaker 6: the Brecon Beacons to give two examples, looking for project officers,
57:45
Speaker 6: but specifically relating to what's called natural capital, which I
57:49
Speaker 6: have spoken about quite a bit in the past, and
57:52
Speaker 6: just a reminder from March twenty twenty three nature markets,
57:55
Speaker 6: which is really what natural capital is derived from, and
57:59
Speaker 6: it's described as a framework for scaling up private investment
58:02
Speaker 6: in nature recovery and sustainable farming. And the definition of
58:08
Speaker 6: a nature market would be a mechanism for private investment
58:10
Speaker 6: in nature through the sale of units of ecosystem services
58:14
Speaker 6: which are delivered by nature restoration projects or improvement to
58:18
Speaker 6: land or coastal management. So the point that seems to
58:22
Speaker 6: be lost here is that in people's enthusiasms for schemes
58:27
Speaker 6: of nature recovery, first of all, they're forgetting the enormous
58:30
Speaker 6: amount of control the government does actually have over private
58:32
Speaker 6: landowners by all the various environmental schemes and subsidy with
58:36
Speaker 6: which they may exert a sort of carrot and stick influence,
58:40
Speaker 6: but also the erroneous suggestion, or at least one that
58:43
Speaker 6: lacks evidence, that the government would in fact manage the
58:46
Speaker 6: land any better, and in effect, this would be trading
58:49
Speaker 6: private ownership for corporate ownership via the financing of these
58:53
Speaker 6: natural capital schemes. So it's yet another theme in the
58:56
Speaker 6: idea that food security doesn't really matter. It's all about
58:59
Speaker 6: grabbing the land for nature recovery. We'll keep eye where
59:01
Speaker 6: this goes.
59:03
Speaker 1: Okay, and we're going to finish today with Chris Underpants Bryant.
59:06
Speaker 1: And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just
59:08
Speaker 1: type Chris Bryant and underpants into any search engine and
59:12
Speaker 1: you'll find very quickly what I'm talking about. Well, he
59:15
Speaker 1: was speaking at the Connected Britain conference a couple of
59:18
Speaker 1: days ago, talking about the rollout of digital infrastructure and
59:23
Speaker 1: various fast internet connections and so on. Now let's have
59:27
Speaker 1: a quick look at what he was saying here he
59:31
Speaker 1: ended off his speech. I'm not going to bore you
59:33
Speaker 1: with most of it, but he was talking about Ian
59:35
Speaker 1: forcer's only connect. He wanted us as Forster wanted us
59:38
Speaker 1: to connect the heart and the brain. I want us,
59:41
Speaker 1: as Bryant, I want us to connect our artistic and
59:43
Speaker 1: our technical abilities, he said. I want us to connect
59:47
Speaker 1: our finance, venture capitalists and tech industries. I want us
59:50
Speaker 1: to connect every part of the country, every community and
59:53
Speaker 1: every family. And above all, I want us as a
59:56
Speaker 1: government to be plugged into the solutions that connect all.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Does that make you feel comfortable and warm at heart
1:00:03
Speaker 1: there that the government is connected into every aspect of
1:00:07
Speaker 1: our lives through this new digital infrastructure that they're rolling on.
1:00:11
Speaker 4: It does not great to say, it really doesn't.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: No, Well, just keep in mind who it is that's
1:00:17
Speaker 1: pushing this and perhaps we want to be starting to
1:00:20
Speaker 1: push back a little bit. We got to leave it
1:00:22
Speaker 1: there for today. I'm going to say thank you very
1:00:24
Speaker 1: much to Vanessa and Charles for joining me today and
1:00:26
Speaker 1: for everybody that's watched. We'll be back in a few minutes.
1:00:29
Speaker 1: If your UK Called a member, stay on the stream
1:00:31
Speaker 1: for UK Called News Extra. Otherwise, enjoy the interview at
1:00:35
Speaker 1: one pm tomorrow and we'll see it on Friday.
1:00:38
Speaker 4: Bye By