Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News - 26th September 2025

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UK Column News - 26th September 2025 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Good afternoon. It's Friday, the 26th of
0:10
September 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Column News.
0:14
I'm your host, Mike Robinson, and joining me by video link
0:16
today are Mark Anderson and Patrick Hennigson.
0:19
Welcome to the program. Both.
0:21
Later in the program, we'll be looking at the potential for
0:24
Arab Israeli war. We'll also be looking at the
0:26
Gaza flotilla, the United Nations at 80, and the pandemic
0:30
treaty. A bit more on that.
0:32
But we're going to begin, of course, with the big news from
0:35
the UK today, which is digital ID, because the Starmer regime
0:41
has announced, the Starmer regime has announced a new
0:44
policy which has they've been warning about for years.
0:48
Actually, let's put this on screen.
0:51
Digital ID. What can we say about it?
0:53
Well, here's what Starmer said about it, He said I know working
0:58
people are worried about the level of illegal migration into
1:01
the country. A secure border and controlled
1:04
migration are reasonable demands and this government is listening
1:08
and delivering. He said digital ID is an
1:11
enormous opportunity for the UK. It will make it tougher to work
1:14
illegally in this country, making our borders secure.
1:18
And he said it will also offer citizens, ordinary citizens,
1:21
countless benefits like being able to prove your identity, to
1:24
access key services swiftly rather than hunting around for
1:29
an old utility bill. So there you go.
1:32
It's all about convenience. Well, he pushed out Lisa Nandy
1:37
this morning to do the round on the rounds on the various news
1:41
programmes. She's the culture secretary.
1:43
And, well, this is what she had to say to Sky News this morning.
1:47
Well, first of all, it's not a brick card that would obviously
1:50
raise all sorts of issues across the whole of the UK.
1:53
And so we we're calling it what it is, which is digital ID.
1:58
And the, the idea is that we've got a country that has for a
2:03
long time been living in a digital era, but operating in an
2:07
analogue way. We've been looking over the last
2:10
year at lots of different options and different countries
2:14
and the ways that they have rolled out Digital ID Estonia.
2:18
And the the major benefit of Digital ID of course, is that it
2:23
makes it far easier for employers to check whether
2:25
somebody has the right to work here.
2:27
So for people who come here and want to work, it will be
2:30
compulsory to show it. For all other UK citizens it
2:35
will be compulsory to have it but not to show it.
2:38
People will be able to choose whether they use it or not.
2:41
But we think for a lot of people, you know, me, me
2:43
included, who spend a lot of time digging out utility bills
2:47
and National Insurance numbers and copies of passports to to
2:51
prove verification in lots of different ways, that this will
2:54
have a big benefit as well. So you lose your liberty and for
3:01
in exchange for convenience, it's great stuff and it is going
3:05
to be mandatory. Some of the comments that she
3:07
made this morning suggested that she was trying to deny that.
3:09
But of course what she just splitting hairs there by saying
3:13
that it's not it's not going to be mandatory for UK citizens to
3:16
show it, but it's certainly going to be mandatory for UK
3:18
citizens to have it. Now the response to the news has
3:21
been pretty impressive and well, this petition has been running
3:26
since the 4th of September, but it's really kicked off in the
3:30
last 24 hours since this news broke yesterday.
3:33
Umm and well, when I looked at this at about 9:00 this morning,
3:36
there were 650,000 signatures on it.
3:39
And this screenshot I took just before we came, I guess actually
3:44
probably about midday or so or 12:15 and it's now it was
3:48
856,000. It was about 875,000 just before
3:51
I came down onto the for the news programme, and it's
3:54
probably well over 900,000 by now.
3:57
So this is going off the scales as far as the typical Parliament
4:03
petition is concerned. But let's have a look then at
4:08
what some of the opposition voices have been saying.
4:11
So this is Nigel Farage. I saw enough during the pandemic
4:16
with vaccine passports. It created A2 tier Society of
4:20
those who could go to places, those who could travel, all
4:23
based on the fact that unless you were axed, you see, unless
4:27
you were axed, you were a danger because you might pass the virus
4:31
on to somebody else. Then we learnt that simply
4:34
wasn't true. And yet our freedoms have been
4:36
taken away for that period of time in a way that has never
4:39
happened before. I am personally vehemently
4:44
opposed to this in every single way, let alone the abuse that
4:48
could happen if any of these sites are hacked and your data
4:52
is taken. So I am deadly against.
4:59
So before we move on then Patrick, let me welcome you to
5:02
the program and just get a couple of thoughts on on this.
5:07
Well for straight off the bat Mike, then thank you for for
5:10
having me today. It's a bit rich for Nigel Farage
5:14
to be sort of throwing up opposition now after the ball
5:19
has already moved down the field.
5:22
He could have opposed this a while back and he didn't say
5:25
much about this as it was linked to the immigration issue.
5:29
And we were warning. We were warning before everybody
5:32
else. OK there.
5:34
We used immigration crisis to fast track a digital ID.
5:39
So in this way. And you wonder why Elon Musk is
5:42
funding Tommy Robinson and and Peter Thiel and all these other
5:47
so-called conservatives, all these these big tech oligarchs
5:52
are pushing the immigration issue, the anti Muslim issue to
5:56
get people riled up. And there is on the so-called
5:59
right and there's Keir Starmer on the so-called left saying we
6:03
are listening to the people and we want to solve the problem and
6:07
deal with the immigrants and the digital idea is a solution.
6:10
I mean, this is such a Punch and Judy show, Mike.
6:13
The whole left right thing should be exposed as a total
6:16
pantomime. At this point.
6:18
I I don't know what to say. Well, I think you've said quite
6:22
a bit there and I absolutely agree with everything that
6:25
you've said. So let's have a look then at the
6:27
situation in other countries because Lisa Nandy mentioned
6:31
Estonia there. But in fact there are three
6:35
other countries that are being used as sort of sources of
6:41
authority, shall we say, for the best or best practice for this,
6:45
this roll out. One is Australia, another is
6:47
Denmark and another's India. So let's have a look at each of
6:53
these in turn and we'll have a look at, since she mentioned it,
6:56
we'll have a look at Estonia first.
6:58
So Estonia is enhancing the security of its digital
7:01
identities. This is a story from 2017
7:04
because they discovered a major vulnerability in their digital
7:08
ID. Then in July 2021, an attacker
7:12
managed to get hold of somewhere between 280 and 300,000 identity
7:17
document photographs from the state ID document database.
7:22
This incident was was discovered, the suspect was
7:26
arrested, the system was patched, but the data was lost
7:31
to the Internet and well, of course these kinds of things
7:34
happen reasonably regularly. Then if we look at Australia
7:38
beginning in 2019, there's been a large and growing number of
7:42
mygov. It's called mygov in in
7:44
Australia. Account takeovers and scams, so
7:47
phishing scams, SIM swaps, credentials stuffing, all the
7:50
usual stuff. With thousands of accounts
7:53
suspended and more than 10,000 reports of misuse into ID Care
7:57
Services Australia reported sharp rises in social
8:00
engineering breaches in 2024. And certainly thousands if not
8:05
10s of thousands of accounts were affected.
8:07
And they've been repeated waves of this between 2022 and 2025.
8:12
And we have Medi secure, this is the Electronic Prescription
8:15
provider with government links and contracts.
8:17
And they suffered A ransomware data theft incident which
8:20
affected 12.9 million Australians prescriptions
8:24
including contact details and Medicare details.
8:27
And then the Services Australia and Centrelink breaches which
8:31
were highlighted in the the Commonwealth Ombudsman report
8:35
here on screen keeping my Gov secure and saying that failures
8:39
to take protective action after breaches we're causing growing
8:43
misuse of Centrelink and Medicare linked accounts in
8:48
Denmark. Then between 2015 and 2020, a
8:51
software or a configuration error, whichever in the
8:54
government tax portal led to 1.26 million a personal ID
8:58
numbers being exposed to 3rd party services and otherwise
9:02
leaked. And then the local here they ran
9:05
an an investigation which reported vulnerabilities that
9:08
allowed attackers to guess MIT ID usernames and to lock
9:13
accounts that required changes to to the MIT ID system.
9:17
And then the NEM ID system, which is the successor digital
9:20
ID in in Denmark experienced major outages and crashes that
9:25
caused government services to fail.
9:29
And as I say, mid ID is gradually replacing NEM ID, so
9:35
not so great in Denmark either. And then finally in India in
9:40
2018, the Unique Identification Authority of India which runs
9:44
the biometric identity card scheme.
9:46
There they looked into they launched a police probe into
9:50
major security breach in 2023. Then data from the Indian
9:55
Council of Medical Research database appeared online with a
9:59
hacker apparently saying that India's biggest data breach on
10:04
have has leaked the personal data over 8 of over 800 million
10:09
Indians and so on. So that included name, father's
10:13
name, phone number, other number, passport number, the
10:16
digital ID number and age. And in fact, there've been
10:19
dozens of data breaches related to the unique identification
10:23
authority of India over the past decade or so.
10:26
And these these four countries are the countries that are being
10:29
used or being looked to by Britain for best practice.
10:34
But, you know, that should be no surprise to anyone that Starmer
10:37
is pursuing this. I remember he stood on a
10:40
platform of change at the last general election.
10:42
So it was obvious that he would obviously, that he would
10:45
continue doing exactly what the Tories were doing before him.
10:50
So. But we should also remember that
10:53
it's Tony Blair that's been driving this policy the hardest.
10:57
And since Starmer is Blair's poodle, there should be no
11:00
surprise here either. Now here's a brand new article
11:03
on screen at the moment from the Tony Blair Institute.
11:06
It's time for digital ID. It says the British public are
11:09
running out of patience with a state that does not work, where
11:11
interactions with public services are beset by
11:14
inconveniences and delays, even as outcomes slip and costs rise.
11:18
This is a good point. Convenience, Because that is the
11:22
mantra. And we should all keep in mind
11:24
that if we're going to resist policies such as this, signing
11:27
petitions probably isn't enough. Something we should do, but it's
11:30
not enough. We must.
11:32
It seems to me we need to accept inconvenience in our lives.
11:37
Anyway, they go on in this article and Modern Digital ID
11:39
does three things that allows people to prove who they are,
11:42
who they say they are, prove that certain things about them
11:46
are true and seamlessly and securely access services on that
11:49
basis. So that's what they had to say.
11:53
Now they went on to to post a load of stats and so on.
11:59
They're claiming that something around 62% of Britain's are in
12:03
support of this initiative and that only 19% of people are
12:08
actually against it. So well, that's their claim.
12:12
And of course, we could probably suggest that the reason that
12:16
Keir Starmer thinks that it's a sensible thing to proceed with
12:20
this particular policy is because of the statistics
12:23
provided to him by the Tony, the Tony Blair Institute.
12:27
Now, as Patrick said there a couple of minutes ago, of course
12:32
we've been warning about this for quite a number of years.
12:36
It was all about, if you remember back, it was all about
12:40
a safer Internet. It was all about the Online
12:43
Safety Act when it was still a bill and not yet passed, we were
12:47
told how great it was going to be, especially for children.
12:51
And children of course, are going to be protected from
12:54
online pornography. In those days, it was Nadine
12:58
Doris who was leading the charge.
13:00
Age verification was the Clarion cry and age verification is what
13:04
we got. And of course that's what we got
13:07
under Starmer. So that's change you see.
13:11
And so that was digital. Idi believe this is 20/20/18
13:16
when we were reporting this. It's this is already of course
13:21
as well as age verification rolled out as digital ID for
13:25
company directors with the recent promise that non
13:29
compliance will result in your company being shut down.
13:31
So if you don't get your digital ID registered with Companies
13:35
House, they will go to court and have your company shut down if
13:40
necessary. And let's not forget the data
13:43
use and digital, sorry, the Data Use and Access Act, which we
13:47
were talking about all the way through its passage that
13:50
recently passed and it's something which we once again
13:54
warned about. It included making provision for
13:57
the regulation of the processing of information related to
13:59
identified or identifiable living, being a living
14:03
individual. Sorry.
14:04
So, and if we remember what Peter Kyle said at the time, we
14:07
have an outdated approach to data which is holding back
14:10
Britain's economy. This bill will take the brakes
14:12
off unleashing a new era of wealth creation for all.
14:17
Well, it won't be an era of wealth creation for all, but
14:20
maybe for a few. And if we remember, this is what
14:23
the digital identity architecture was going to look
14:27
like. A wallet that sits on your phone
14:29
with attributes. Attributes such as your legal
14:33
name, date of birth, right to reside, right to work or right
14:36
to study. And this was published by the
14:39
Tory government years ago, several years ago.
14:42
And it's not going to, nothing is going to change here either.
14:46
So, you know, if we're talking about who's going to be making
14:48
lots of money, then we've got to remember it's got to be people
14:52
like this Lot Yodi and all the other digital ID providers that
14:58
because the digital ID industry has expanded exponentially over
15:00
the last few years as it became clear that this policy was going
15:05
to become law. So just a quick reminder of the
15:08
petition. And let's just remember that
15:12
there are people out there that are opposing this and maybe
15:15
people would want to get involved with that.
15:18
Sign the petition. Big Brother Watch is 1 running a
15:21
no digital ID no to digital ID campaign together is another one
15:25
that's running no to digital ID cards.
15:27
And if you're in Glasgow tomorrow, you might want to
15:31
attend this event, which is taking place tomorrow between
15:35
12:00 and 3:30. Digital slavery, slavery
15:39
information, communication operation details on screen.
15:42
And they'll be in the show in the show notes as well.
15:46
OK, that's that. Clearly everybody or not
15:50
everybody, but lots of people becoming very motivated by this
15:53
topic. It's, I think the Starmer regime
15:57
is going to get a lot more push back to it than they perhaps
16:00
expected. And that's to be welcomed.
16:02
Let's move on then to the Middle East and Patrick, the
16:07
possibility of conflict between the Arab nations and Israel,
16:11
which perhaps spells the end of the Abraham Accords.
16:16
Very, yes, very well put, Mike. And we'll, we'll explain how
16:20
this is the fear right now. How you I, I do scan and I do
16:24
study the mainstream media very closely, especially papers of
16:27
record and daily headlines, because when they start to get
16:31
into certain topics, you know that things are moving.
16:35
And on this issue, things are moving in a probably not, not a
16:39
great way for Israel or the United States, but there could
16:44
be a prelude to to an actual war here.
16:47
In other words, we could be returning to the 1960s and 70s.
16:52
So take a look at how first clue.
16:55
The New York Times runs this as a front page story on their
16:59
print edition as well as on their website.
17:02
For Arab nations with ties to Israel talking about the Abraham
17:06
Accord, attacks on Qatar and Gaza City raise anxiety.
17:12
Now, it's a pretty tame headline, but what are we
17:14
looking at here? This is Qatar is the main focus.
17:19
They've just got hit and the United States and Israel on the
17:21
other side. And so this is the Arab world
17:25
looking at Israel in the United States as kind of 1 unit now.
17:29
And the US is not able to play that sort of game of deniability
17:34
or the fact that they're, you know, Israel's an independent
17:36
actor and has his own agenda. Now, what precipitated this?
17:39
Let's look at this. This was just recently the
17:41
Israeli attack on the Qatari capital of Doha, attempting to
17:46
assassinate the Palestinian Hamas negotiation team.
17:50
That was, that's one of the big things here that's precipitating
17:53
this anxiety in the Arab world. And the other is this which is
17:59
Israel's invasion of Gaza. And you can see Benjamin Yahoo
18:04
there is all smiles right now as he sees a residential buildings
18:09
being downed on a daily basis in Gaza City.
18:13
He says that's to prevent them from being used by Hamas.
18:17
I mean, what a flimsy excuse after two years of this, but yet
18:22
it's a lot of people are swallowing it.
18:24
That was an Axios headline there.
18:27
They're just kind of reporting on this.
18:28
But I think the world is seeing this very differently now.
18:32
Let's look at how this is shaping up and how this is
18:34
history repeating itself. Now, in terms of the Arab
18:37
countries, what we're talking about here are the ones that no
18:40
longer feel secure. First up is Egypt.
18:44
This is probably the most important.
18:47
Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel.
18:51
Is that going to hold? There's al Sisi there, President
18:54
Sisi. Next up is Jordan.
18:56
They also share a border with occupied Palestine and Israel.
19:02
King Abdullah, they're normally regarded as a client state by of
19:06
the US and Britain. But now things aren't changing.
19:10
And then next Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you can see Mohammed bin
19:14
Salman there lot of changes going on this week with Saudi
19:17
Arabia, their stance and their position as well.
19:21
And then last but not least, not an Arab country, but Turkey, and
19:24
that's why we put an actress there.
19:26
It's not an Arab country, but Turkey.
19:28
It may find itself now in the crosshairs somewhat of Israel,
19:33
and we'll explain how. Now the most important piece, as
19:36
I said, is Egypt. Let's go over and look at what
19:39
the issues are for Egypt. And this is a very serious
19:43
situation indeed. And so we look at this first and
19:46
foremost is the issue of the Palestinians.
19:50
Egypt's issue is they don't want Palestinians and Egypt regarding
19:55
this as a red line. Now, mind you, many have already
19:58
been displaced into Egypt, medical evacuees and so forth.
20:02
But the next one is important. They're looking for a place to
20:06
host the Hamas delegation. There are people in Egypt to do
20:10
out of solidarity with the Palestinians in Egypt.
20:14
So hosting Hamas negotiations could invite attacks by Israel.
20:19
That could break their long held peace agreement here.
20:21
Next, Israel informed Washington they are concerned about
20:26
Egyptian military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula.
20:29
OK, now Egypt have has every right to move troops inside of
20:34
its own borders. This kind of reminds you,
20:36
doesn't it Mike, about Western concerns of Russian troop build
20:41
UPS within Russian borders prior to February 2022.
20:45
And we all know what happened after that.
20:48
And of course, Russia was demonized and sanctioned and so
20:51
forth and blamed for everything, including an 8 year civil war
20:55
that was precipitated by the US coup in Maidan.
20:59
Has not digressed next. Now things.
21:02
You can see where this is heading.
21:03
Next, Israeli concerns about Hamas militants who've managed
21:08
to cross the border with refugees or so Israel claims.
21:13
This could provoke an Israeli attack on Egyptian soil.
21:16
Egypt is already accepted 100,000 medical evacuees and
21:20
others who fled during the genocide.
21:22
And the last but not least, this is risking a repeat of the 1978
21:27
PLO Lebanon traps. Important to understand history.
21:32
This is what kicked off the mainly what kicked off the
21:35
so-called Lebanese civil war was the PLO being pushed into South
21:40
Lebanon and then Israel using that as an excuse to attack,
21:43
invade and occupy South Lebanon for many back of decades.
21:49
OK, so you could see the exact same scenario playing out here
21:54
with Egypt. Now, is this something Israel
21:57
would like? Possibly.
21:59
And so it seems like they're doing everything possible to
22:02
make this happen. So keep in mind, on this
22:05
Egyptian situation, all of the signs in this New York Times
22:08
article point to a narrative that is being constructed here.
22:11
Next up, let's go to the Kingdom of Jordan.
22:15
There's King Abdullah there now mainly there's fears Israel
22:20
force millions of Palestinians over Jordan's border with the
22:23
West Bank. That's the number one concern
22:25
now for Jordan. Next, Israeli officials becoming
22:29
more vocal about annexing the West Bank and the Jordan Valley,
22:32
again bordering the Kingdom of Jordan.
22:35
And after the Abraham, of course, Netanyahu had declared
22:38
in 2020 the Jordan Valley belongs to Israel, but
22:43
temporarily held off in exchange for Arab normal normalization.
22:48
That was a call by the UAE has been using the Abraham Accords
22:53
in conjunction with its own sort of expansionist military
22:58
operations to basically play the West and play the other Arab
23:02
countries and in in the meantime change facts on the ground.
23:06
This has been Israel's game. The problem is King Abdullah,
23:10
who's been put in a corner by his American and British and
23:14
Israeli handlers and he they made him detain and arrest over
23:19
1000 people right after October 7th.
23:23
And this really on behalf of Israel in the United States.
23:26
So his, his legitimacy as a ruler is really coming into
23:30
question according to the opposition there.
23:33
Now, put this in context here. Marco Rubio, what was he doing
23:36
in Israel recently? There is the walls, putting the
23:41
note in to the wall, that's the the old Roman Garrison wall.
23:45
It's not the old Temple, by the way, the old Roman Garrison
23:48
wall. And during his recent visit,
23:50
Rubio said that the United States warning about recognition
23:55
of the Palestinian state by other UN member states outside
24:00
of negotiations. So he's saying countries don't
24:03
have a right to recognize a Palestinian state unless they go
24:06
into US-led negotiations. So it's really an anti sovereign
24:11
or anti sovereignty signal by Rubio in the US saying they
24:15
won't accept anybody having their own foreign policy on this
24:18
issue. And he's basically saying that
24:21
Israeli politicians talk of annexations was a reciprocal
24:26
action to unilateral moves through recognizing the
24:28
Palestinian state. But it what Rubio's saying is
24:31
trying to twist what's actually happened and say Israel's only
24:35
being aggressive because of this threat of a Palestinian state
24:38
being recognized, when in fact, according to the Europeans, it's
24:42
the opposite. So you can see how the Punch and
24:44
Judy game was playing. So here's Donald Trump yesterday
24:47
and he's been confronted about Israel openly calling for the
24:52
annexation of the West Bank. Here's Donald Trump few promise
24:58
leaders this week that would not allow Israel to annex the West
25:01
Bank. Is that something that?
25:02
You. I will.
25:02
I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
25:05
Nope, I will not allow it. It's not going to happen.
25:07
Did. You speak with Netanyahu about
25:09
this? Yeah, but I'm not going to allow
25:10
it. Whether I spoke to him or not, I
25:12
did. But I'm not allowing Israel to
25:14
annex the West Bank. There's been enough.
25:17
It's time to stop now. OK.
25:23
Question here is, do you actually trust Donald Trump?
25:27
Do you trust that Donald Trump is, is what he said?
25:30
Does that carry any weight at all?
25:32
That's what he's saying. I won't allow it.
25:34
But that's not what Israel's saying.
25:36
So we we'll see how that one plays out.
25:39
So back to the other actors here, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
25:44
there is Mohammed bin Salman. OK, What is the different deal,
25:49
an Arab NATO or a new Middle East NATO?
25:51
Saudi just announced a new strategic defense pact with
25:55
Pakistan. Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
25:59
This is big news, OK, just happened this week.
26:03
OK, in conjunction with everything that we've just said
26:05
this week, next realizing now Saudis realizing the Abraham
26:10
Accords aren't worth the paper they're written on.
26:13
So I think we can say at this point it really after the Qatar
26:18
attack by Israel and the latest Gaza, Abraham McCord, they're
26:23
dead in the water. It's only the UAE hanging on by
26:26
a thread probably. And so next now Saudi Arabia no
26:31
longer regards Iran as the primary threat in the region.
26:35
Very important. So the gambit by the US and
26:39
Israel is basically out the window every the gambit they've
26:42
been playing for a very long time is now out the window
26:46
because of the actions of Israel.
26:48
And the US and GCC ally Bahrain also now has made signals they
26:54
feel insecure about this as well.
26:57
So think about it. Israel's basically attacking the
27:00
Arab countries. He is assassinating heads of
27:03
state. He took that they tried to kill
27:06
and somewhat successfully most of the Yemeni parliament while
27:10
they were in session. OK, So this is what targeted
27:13
assassinations, unprovoked attacks.
27:15
This is what Israel's now engaged with around the Arab
27:18
world. So, and so now for Turkey,
27:21
Turkey, some of their military facilities were hit recently
27:25
inside Syria by Israel, OK, that includes missile stocks and
27:30
other things that they were that were dotted around in key
27:34
positions in Syria. This is a change right now.
27:38
And next, Erdogan's HTS Jelani project may long may no longer
27:44
be useful for Israel and the United States.
27:47
So it's past its sell by date. They've achieved what they
27:50
wanted in terms of annexing the Golan Heights.
27:53
So, but Turkey's safe for now, so long as they're a NATO
27:56
member, so long as they're a NATO member.
27:59
If you start seeing talk about Turkey being kicked out of NATO
28:03
by the Trump administration, then you know, the game is on.
28:06
So we'll go here to responsible statecraft.
28:09
And they're even saying this is this week.
28:12
So what I'm telling you is that a narrative is after Israel
28:16
stroking Qatar, is Turkey next. So this is a major foreign
28:20
policy microphone in the United States.
28:24
So some clues there. So now we're back to the end of
28:28
this sort of analysis of the axis of chaos.
28:32
United States and Israel can only be described objectively as
28:36
state terrorists and they are using and are allied with very
28:40
closely now Syria that has a self appointed president Al
28:46
Jilani al Sharar, whatever his name is this week, former
28:50
terrorist leader, former ISIS head, deputy head, former
28:54
founder of al Qaeda in Syria. This is now one of the main
28:58
tools of the United States and that is to to soak chaos in
29:03
Lebanon as well as other parts of the region.
29:07
So this this is where things are at right now.
29:10
All of the ingredients might point to an escalation, A
29:14
broader regional escalation here if things continue on the
29:18
trajectory there, Yeah. Patrick, thank you very much for
29:23
that. Sorry about that.
29:27
That's quite concerning. We'll talk about that an extra,
29:30
I have no doubt. Now if you like what the UK
29:32
column does, you'd like to support us, then the details of
29:36
how you can do that, sorry, let's take that off screen, are
29:40
on the front page of the UK column website.
29:43
There is a Big Blue button there that you can click.
29:45
I want to say thank you once again to everybody that is a
29:47
member or is making donations and so on.
29:50
Your support is much appreciated.
29:52
If you can't support us financially, please do support
29:54
us by sharing our reports and our material because that helps
29:59
us beat the censorship regime in this country.
30:02
Another reminder of the York event taking place on the 18th
30:06
of October. Live tickets are all sold uh,
30:09
but there's still the opportunity to uh, watch on live
30:12
stream. Please do if you possibly can.
30:15
It's gonna be a fantastic day and uh speakers on screen at the
30:18
moment uh, you know who they are anyway, uh, it's gonna be a
30:21
fantastic day. Don't miss it.
30:23
Now, Jerem is still in China. So we're showing again his
30:28
discussion with Mike Eden asking, is science dead at 7:00
30:32
PM tonight. So keep us, join us live for
30:37
well on the live stream for that.
30:39
And then on Sunday at 7:00, the first of the new series of the
30:46
1000 Words podcast will be out. Let's just have a look at the
30:50
trailer for that 1000 Words is coming to UK column.
30:55
Watch Katie Jo Murphy, Co founder of Hope Sussex sit for
30:58
her portrait whilst deep diving into life, the universe and
31:01
everything. First episode airs this weekend
31:04
on UK column, 7:00 PM Sunday For that.
31:13
If you didn't see the discussion I had with Vanessa on the
31:16
sectarianism building in the UK and Europe that that went out at
31:21
1:00 yesterday, it's on the UK Column website now as an on
31:24
demand version. I want to point out two
31:28
articles, one published actually at the end of August from David
31:33
Miller entitled How the British Intelligence Network of
31:35
Astroturfed Muslim Civil Society groups is Kept Secret and
31:39
Deniable. If you haven't read this yet,
31:41
please do read it and share it. But there's an update to that
31:45
now and the latest article is entitled How Muslims Civil
31:49
Society Groups are Astroturfed into into Products by British
31:52
Intelligence. This is Part 2 of this series of
31:55
articles. It's extremely important to
31:58
understand. Please read it and share it as
32:01
you see fit. And and then a final reminder
32:05
that on Sunday the 20th in Edinburgh is the Food and Health
32:10
Festival details on screen and in the show notes.
32:14
OK, let's let's come back then. And Mark, let me welcome you to
32:18
the program. It's the 80th anniversary of the
32:21
United Nations this year. What have the think tanks been
32:25
saying about it? Well, that's an interesting
32:29
juxtaposition versus what Donald Trump recently told the General
32:33
Assembly upon the 80th meeting of that body.
32:37
Of course, American conservatives, many MAGA
32:40
supporters will give Trump a little bit of kudos for speaking
32:44
out against the green agenda, which is part of this part of
32:46
the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN, and speaking
32:51
out against the insecurity of borders and and way too much
32:55
migration, things like that. However, it was a very mixed bag
32:59
as you reported Wednesday, to say the least, Mike, in terms of
33:02
what Donald Trump had to say. But the ever busy Chicago
33:05
Council on Global Affairs are arguably one of the busiest
33:08
think tanks in the world, a close cousin of the Council on
33:12
Foreign Relations. And of course, the former leader
33:15
of Chatham House is now leading the Chicago Council.
33:18
While they brought out another one of their surveys amid the
33:22
appearance by Trump at the UN. This is the Leicester Crown
33:25
Center on US foreign policy being involved.
33:28
This also the 50th anniversary of these ongoing Chicago Council
33:32
surveys about various issues. And Lester Crown, the family,
33:36
the Crown family, keep in mind, is a defense industry related
33:40
family General Dynamics. So there could be some bias.
33:43
Is there some things to think about?
33:46
Anyway, there's some just, well, well, and large bullet points
33:50
here I'll share on screen. Just to very quickly summarize
33:53
what's going on. We have the CCGA survey.
33:57
Survey, excuse me, key findings. 2/3 of Americans say the US
34:02
should be more willing to make decisions within the United
34:06
Nations, even if it means the US will sometimes have to go along
34:10
with policies that aren't its first choice.
34:12
There tends to be a much more Democrat than Republican support
34:16
of the UN and its policies. Majorities of Democrats and
34:20
independents support this compromise approach compared to
34:23
just four in 10 Republicans. And there's a couple more brief
34:28
bullet points that round out this survey.
34:30
And this is especially interesting.
34:32
Let's show this one. Largest ever partisan gap, Four
34:36
and ten Americans view strengthening the UN and this
34:39
keeps coming up in this survey. The idea of strengthening the
34:43
strengthening the UN as a very important goal for the US,
34:46
similar to attitudes over the past 50 years of this Chicago
34:50
Council survey. And here it gets a little more
34:52
interesting. Democrats are far more likely
34:55
than independents or Republicans to say strengthening the UN is a
34:58
very important US goal for foreign policy.
35:01
And this is the largest partisan divide on this UN question in
35:06
the entire 50 years of the Chicago Council's polling of the
35:11
Chicago Council used to be called the Chicago Council on
35:13
Foreign Relations. Of course, the original CFR in
35:16
New York had a lot to do with bringing the UN into existence
35:20
when the League of Nations failed.
35:23
Lots of propaganda at that time for for world governance.
35:27
Anyway. This is the only chart I'll show
35:29
as part of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey.
35:33
Let's put this up there. It's interesting in its own way.
35:36
And the question is, should US leaders consider UN resolutions
35:40
in policy making? When you look at a great deal to
35:44
the answer to that question, you see Republicans fairly low and
35:48
Democrats much higher and independents in between.
35:52
But when you say that US leaders should consider UN resolutions
35:56
to a fair degree, you actually see Republicans and Democrats
36:00
almost on the same level, the orange and the blue there at the
36:03
second line down. And that is mainly the MAGA
36:07
movement that creates that that schism there.
36:11
And when you read through the survey, you kind of get the
36:14
impression that the MAGA movement is almost another
36:17
political party unto itself that rode the Republican banner to
36:21
get into office. That's a theory of mine at this
36:24
point. It seems to be panning out more
36:26
and more now in association. Mike, with that survey, there
36:30
was a discussion at the Chicago Council headquarters in in, in
36:36
Chicago. And here is the title page to
36:39
that, The Future of Multilateralism, the UN at 80
36:42
and beyond. And I I have a slide that shows
36:45
the speakers and a very quick summation of what they had to
36:48
say. This forum was on the 22nd of
36:51
September to go along with that survey, The moderator, Paul
36:55
Post, University of Chicago political science professor.
36:58
He said a key item is the future of multilateralism as embodied
37:03
in the UN system. Important words there.
37:06
The UN is a system, not just a forum.
37:09
And Professor Ian Hurd of Northwestern University, he had
37:14
this to say. The International Criminal Court
37:16
is AUN reform, a free standing institution when the idea of UN
37:22
reforms was brought up during the discussion.
37:24
And lastly, Juliet Sorenson, a Loyola law professor, she
37:29
suggested eliminating the permanent 5 veto and that of
37:33
course would have a lot of ramifications.
37:35
And she said the UN Charter is amendable in regards to critics
37:41
of the UN and some of the things they have to say.
37:43
And Leslie Benjamuri, as I mentioned, the former head of
37:47
Chatham House is now leading the Chicago Council of Chatham
37:51
House. That the New York CFR, the
37:53
Chicago Council are birds of a feather here.
37:55
They they're ideological cousins.
37:57
She had this to say. If turning up is what matters,
38:01
like showing up somewhere, then the sheer popularity of the
38:05
forum with world leaders is a clear indicator that the UN is
38:09
widely viewed to be politically relevant and an important
38:13
platform for shaping international discourse and and
38:17
influencing public opinion. She also had this to say.
38:20
There's one more quote from her. When measured by its ability to
38:24
deliver impactful material solutions to the most critical
38:29
global problems, however, EU NS relevance looks far worse,
38:35
Leslie Vinjamuri said. It's been radically diminished,
38:38
she went on to say, by the US decision to delay critical
38:42
budgetary support. Now, much of the discussion by
38:47
that panel portrayed the UN as little more than a forum and a
38:53
platform. But actually the UN is a lot
38:55
more than that. And there's some history,
38:59
historical things to talk about with regards to that.
39:01
Briefly, of course, the UN Charter was only 5 years old
39:05
when a war under UN auspices, the Korean War, was fought
39:10
starting in 1950 to 1953. And my first newspaper boss who
39:15
served in Korea said that everybody called it Aun War or
39:18
UN LED military operation. That's what he and other
39:22
soldiers were were calling it anyway.
39:25
This article from 1996 revisits an important facet of the UN and
39:31
this is having to do with Michael New from the Spokesman
39:35
Review in Spokane, WA mid 1990s Court martialed.
39:39
The court martialed goes easy on the Army medic Michael New,
39:43
convicted of disobedience and discharge for refusing UN
39:46
Insignia and refusing you in command.
39:49
And Michael New at the time was the 22 year old American soldier
39:52
and medic who was court martialed for refusing to accept
39:56
foreign command on the United Nations operation.
40:00
And lastly, this is just a reminder this next slide, Mike,
40:04
that on the UK column website is an interview I did almost
40:07
exactly 1 year ago with Daniel New, the father of Michael New.
40:11
At the time, Michael New chose not to be on the interview with
40:14
us, but it talks about Michael New's experiences in the mid 90s
40:19
as an Army soldier in Germany when he showed up for revelry
40:24
one day. And they just said you're going
40:26
to put on the UN Insignia, you're going to put on the UN
40:29
berets and the arm bands, and you're going to serve under UN
40:32
command in Macedonia. And he refused because on
40:35
constitutional grounds, he had only signed up to defend the US
40:39
Constitution from all enemies foreign to domestic.
40:42
So that shows some of the conflicts that sovereign nations
40:45
can have with the UN system that the Chicago, a professor
40:50
moderating that discussion talked about some interesting
40:53
perspective there. And of course that shows there's
40:55
much more of that Donald Trump could have talked about that
40:59
would have made maybe a better case for him.
41:01
But I think he he went down a very perilous road and a very
41:04
controversial 1 criticizing the UN for supporting Palestine,
41:09
which is one of EU NS brighter spots, of course, but maybe we
41:13
can go more in in in extra Mike. But that provides a pretty broad
41:17
perspective for the time being. Thank you, Mark.
41:20
Thank you for that, Patrick. Let's go back to the Middle East
41:24
then, and what has been going on with the the flotilla?
41:30
Well, let's just give an update on this situation.
41:33
There's over 50 boats at Gaza departed from Barcelona, from
41:39
Sicily and also from Tunisia and a few other ports.
41:42
And what's what's incredible is this is now getting global
41:46
mainstream, finally global mainstream attention here.
41:50
And what we're reporting is very interesting.
41:52
I just put this in an article as an example, Italy and Spain to
41:57
deploy naval ships to help Gaza aid flotilla targeted in drone
42:02
attacks. So there's been multiple drone
42:04
attacks. We've spoken to some of the
42:06
numbers on boat that have been attacked in the last 24 hours.
42:10
And we, we, we have a video clip we'll share in a little bit of
42:14
one of those people, Frank Romano, who is on, I believe
42:18
the, the Specter, a boat called the Specter.
42:20
But so they are getting attention now.
42:24
So it looks like along with this announcement of the recognition
42:27
of the Palestinian state, they are getting some attention here.
42:31
And this is Israel's response. It's just somewhat comical from
42:36
the Israelis basically saying that we're starting the what,
42:42
what they're calling a terror, a terrorist flotilla, basically
42:46
response from the Hamas flotilla representatives that the
42:49
flotilla insists on his pursuing a violent course of action,
42:54
etcetera. And you could look above and
42:57
there's one of the flotilla boats and they're singing peace
42:59
songs led by a guitar player and so forth.
43:03
So, I mean, to characterize this as a Hamas flotilla, it's just
43:07
par for the course for Israel. More lies, unfortunately.
43:11
So here is Frank Romano on board the the the Spectre just off the
43:17
coast of Crete, where there's a rallying point happening now.
43:21
And we're not giving away anything because this is all
43:23
public. And of course, those attacking
43:26
them with drones or miserable. Exactly.
43:28
Is anyone? Here's Frank Romano with, I
43:31
think a very positive message after being attacked in the last
43:36
2448 hours. Hello, here we are getting
43:46
ready. We're putting all the boats
43:48
together to start the the last leg of our journey to Gaza.
43:54
Here we are outside of Crete Islands.
43:59
You see all the boats. And we are towing a boat.
44:21
It's like an old fishing vessel that perhaps the motors not
44:24
working. Anyway, we are waiting for the
44:29
final decision to group together the boats from Barcelona,
44:36
Tunisia, Italy and Greece and finally head on our last leg to
44:42
Gaza. It should take about 5 to 6
44:44
days, God willing. You see all the boats there and
44:48
the Cove over there. And we are very, very upbeat.
44:54
We want to send a message to the Gazan people, to the Gazan
44:57
Palestinians. We're on our way.
45:01
You have not been forgotten. We're we're going to open up the
45:05
people's corridor, then we're going to break the siege
45:11
aspiring other activists to follow us.
45:13
So in other words, we're not giving up on this.
45:15
We'll have massive number of boats by sea and then hopefully
45:20
a massive number of people continuing to March to Gaza
45:23
movement and coordination eventually until Israel has to
45:27
withdraw from Gaza with its AIDER and a better United States
45:32
war criminals and from the West Bank.
45:34
And we can help Palestine to to free itself.
45:38
And I've said a million times before, Palestine has led the
45:41
way to the world to show we can resist this military industrial
45:46
complex. We can resist this money powers
45:48
that control the entire world today to either directly or with
45:52
respect or indirectly with respect to Russia and China.
45:55
The anytime any country that doesn't agree with the United
45:59
States or Israel does something different, they're subject to
46:03
sanctions. But we are saying we're going to
46:05
free ourselves from the clause of this military industrial
46:08
complex, money interests that control us, this oligarchy, the
46:13
stifling, vicious, evil oligarchy that that controls us,
46:18
including that's really pushing to exterminate the Gazan
46:22
Palestinians. We will free ourselves from
46:24
that, God willing. Real passionate message there
46:34
from Doctor Frank Romano. And again he he also informed us
46:39
that Israel had contacted the these boats message saying that
46:45
they're welcome to sail to Ashkelon, which is an Israeli
46:51
port and drop off of their aid there.
46:54
And who knows what would happen, whether they would be their
46:57
boats would be seized like last time with the Madeline
47:00
conscience and the the, the other boat that was was seized
47:05
as well. And then what would happen to
47:06
the aid? He said they don't trust the
47:09
Israelis. So they're they're they're
47:11
making their way to Gaza nonetheless.
47:13
So you can see the Israelis are trying different ethics.
47:15
They're even trying Coke them to basically stand down as it were
47:20
and not go to Gaza. They're calling ships going to
47:23
Gaza as illegal when in fact it's completely legal under
47:27
international law, maritime law and so forth.
47:29
So Israel has their own sort of version of international law
47:33
now. And this is also I think an
47:36
important development here. Spain is one of the European
47:39
countries here that has deployed a military vessel to support the
47:42
flotilla. They're staying at a a safe
47:45
distance they're in. They're to provide perhaps some
47:49
kind of support should these boats fall under a serious
47:54
attack or something like that. But they're obviously not going
47:57
to engage the Israelis. I would think not.
48:00
And Italy as well. Italy has done the same.
48:03
We've actually of one of the flotilla members and has cited
48:06
the Italian ship, one of one of multiple Italian ships, naval
48:11
assets that have been deployed. Here's the video clip.
48:16
But then we said last Saturday, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did see that
48:20
one in the in the. Talk.
48:26
About the Navy. Ships.
48:32
That joining us so we got we have quite quite a quite a bit
48:35
more material on this and updates, but I would encourage
48:38
people to go to their Instagram page Global Sumud Flotilla and
48:43
also on X. We have a lot more video
48:46
messages that were sent to us from the boats.
48:49
We we'll play more in extra Mike, but in the interest of
48:52
time we'll show you this. But just to suffice now leaving
48:57
Greek territorial waters and really due to arrive on the
49:01
shores of Gaza if they are successful in sort of four days
49:06
time. But again, we don't know how
49:09
this is going to end. We hope it doesn't end with
49:13
anybody being hurt or worse. That would be horrible.
49:16
But with the Israelis, I don't think they care about the
49:20
welfare of the people in the boats at all, judging by how
49:23
they treat the Palestinian population.
49:26
So I'll leave it. I'll leave it there.
49:28
Thank you, Patrick. Thank you for that.
49:30
We wish them all the best. Now sticking with this topic to
49:33
some degree, if you remember in August we talked about Unit 8200
49:40
and the fact that they were using Microsoft as yours, the
49:45
Microsoft Cloud Platform, Azure for processing various forms of
49:50
surveillance that they had collected from the telecoms
49:54
networks and so on. And there were allegations that
49:56
this was being used for targeting in Gaza.
49:59
This was blown by the Guardian, +972 Magazine and a couple of
50:04
others. And so this article here
50:07
Microsoft storing is really intelligence trove used to
50:09
attack Palestinians was the headline on this.
50:13
And if you remember, we were talking about another example
50:17
here, Intel news saying is really intelligence using
50:19
Microsoft servers to store intercepted phone call data.
50:23
Now Microsoft said that they they responded to this.
50:27
They said that they had opened the second investigation into
50:32
it, but that was on August the 15th.
50:35
And by the time we reported this at the beginning of this month,
50:39
there was about a month had gone past or certainly since the
50:42
beginning of the of the inquiry. And Microsoft still had taken no
50:48
action. In the meantime, though some of
50:51
their staff were beginning to protest.
50:53
And this organization know as you're for apartheid was set up
50:57
and the Microsoft staff saying we refuse to be complicit.
51:00
Well, the Guardian here is reporting now.
51:05
Sorry, that's the that's actually the the the Guardian
51:08
today. I don't have the the graphic for
51:10
it was reporting then that Microsoft has now decided to
51:16
kick unit 8200 off. It's as your platform and this
51:20
has happened quite quickly is how it's being described.
51:24
I would say that it's actually happened extremely slowly.
51:27
It's taken them months to to reach this decision.
51:29
I think that Unit 8200 for PR purposes has decided to move off
51:36
that platform. Undoubtedly, they've found an
51:39
alternative solution. It remains to be seen exactly
51:42
what that is. Microsoft then gets to claim
51:45
that a success from for purely for PR and perhaps the protests
51:50
end. But you know, in the meantime,
51:53
the targeting will not stop and Unit 8200 will be continuing to
51:58
gather it's bulk data for processing, undoubtedly using a
52:03
different platform. So I'm not entirely as positive
52:06
about Microsoft's announcement as perhaps they are.
52:10
But Patrick, back to you then and well people, a quick preview
52:14
there because it looks like Tony Blair is going to have a role to
52:18
play in in the new Gaza. Yeah, the convergence of digital
52:25
IDs and real estate deals in Gaza and, you know, ethnically
52:29
cleansing the native Palestinian population.
52:32
Of course, ATB outbreak in Gaza is the last thing that people in
52:37
the region need, but there he is.
52:39
So Washington is Trump, Donald Trump is backing Tony Blair's
52:45
role as the head of the transitional authority in Gaza.
52:49
So. So a war criminal is being put
52:53
in charge of a disaster fomented by other war criminals.
52:58
I mean, you can't make it up. President Trump is backing the
53:01
plan would see Tony Blair had a quote temporary administration.
53:05
It's like he'll be the Paul Bremer of Gaza lording over the
53:09
ashes of this genocide initially without direct involvement of
53:13
the Palestinian Authority. According to Israel, there's
53:16
Israel's guy Tony Blair, agent of chaos here.
53:20
Arab states have said they would only contribute to aun mandated
53:25
international peacekeeping force if there's a clear political
53:29
timeline for the formation of the Palestinian state.
53:32
Just the the Palestinian state of the recognition by these
53:37
leading G7 countries and so forth and the hundred 156 UN
53:42
members have recognized the Palestinian state.
53:44
It's not enough. It's not enough for the Arab
53:46
states. They say they want to see some
53:47
concrete action otherwise they're not going to get
53:50
involved in the UN mandated peacekeeping forces.
53:54
So they're reserving that, right, Fair enough.
53:56
And then finally, but it seems it seems to it's, it's but
54:00
instead represents a different, more benign occupation than
54:07
Israel. So Tony Blair will be presiding
54:11
over a more benign occupation. Let's just say I think that's
54:17
something that should make you feel good about this whole
54:20
scenario. I'm just joking.
54:22
But this is incredible, Mike, that Blair of all people would
54:27
be but would be shoehorned into this role.
54:29
It's unreal. Incredible and unreal I have to
54:33
say Patrick are not words that I would be using.
54:35
Maybe we can during extra discuss which words might be I
54:40
might be happier to use. But anyway, let's, let's quickly
54:43
move on to the Arctic actually, because if you if you have a
54:47
look at UK column website and use the search function and type
54:51
in the word Arctic, you'll see a host of different reports on the
54:55
Arctic and why the Arctic is becoming important.
54:58
The BBC back in July had this article The struggle for control
55:03
of the Arctic is accelerating and riskier than ever.
55:06
And if you remember back a few weeks, Patrick and I attended an
55:10
event at Plymouth University which was showing a a new
55:16
documentary entitled Arming the Arctic, which was really a bit
55:19
of a NATO propaganda piece. The Arctic is something which is
55:24
absolutely featured in many reports from Parliament, the
55:29
House of Lords and so on. Why are we talking about it
55:32
today? Because, and why in fact, is it
55:34
strategically important in this way?
55:36
Well, this gives us a clue. This is the China Academy and
55:40
they've just published this article.
55:42
China, Europe Arctic route cuts transit to 18 days down from 30
55:46
via Suez. So this is the inauguration
55:49
effectively of the Arctic Silk Road.
55:52
And in this case they were taking goods, a cargo ship with
55:59
I think 1000 containers on it from a port in China to
56:04
Felixstowe in the United Kingdom.
56:06
And they were doing that in 18 days without the risk of the
56:09
Suez Canal and the the passing. Not that a Chinese ship would be
56:14
at at risk necessarily from passing Yemen, but nonetheless
56:19
this becomes a game changer as far as getting goods to UK and
56:25
Europe. Western Europe and China's been
56:28
working on it for a very long time.
56:30
It is therefore becoming a massive place for competition of
56:35
the so-called great powers. So we'll talk about that later
56:38
as well. And just very briefly, Mark then
56:41
related to that is the the digital foundation and and their
56:47
desire to consider the Indo Pacific as a region to look at.
56:55
Yes, viewers might recall, Mike, that I covered Ditchley right
56:59
around the time of Bilderberg in mid June or so.
57:03
They met exactly that at the time the Bilderberg met in
57:07
Sweden and Ditchley is kind of a ideological cousin of Bilderberg
57:13
and the Trilateral Commission, nominally more open than
57:16
Bilderberg, but this slide shows that they're meeting starting
57:20
today through the 28th of September and the conference is
57:25
at Greentree. I believe that's in the UK in
57:28
partnership with the American digitally branch.
57:30
There's also a Canadian digitally branch, of course,
57:33
it's it's another elitist think tank where big money is married
57:38
to big politics. That's kind of the leverage that
57:41
they make sure stays in place. But yes, the Indo Pacific,
57:44
including China, of course, is high on their agenda and the way
57:47
they operate. They won't release details on
57:49
this probably for at least three to four weeks.
57:52
And when they do, of course, we'll report that.
57:55
Thank you, Mark. And then let's just end today
57:58
with a brief update on the pandemic treaty.
58:03
Yeah, important stuff. I did a headline for American
58:06
Free Press a brief article recently and it shows in this
58:09
next slide. It shows that headline.
58:11
One Worlders Global Pandemic Treaty hits a few snags and the
58:16
US and Argentina withheld their participation in the still
58:19
ongoing treaty talks and Slovakia during recent talks had
58:23
the gall to request a vote. And when Slovakia took that
58:27
action, some 46 delegates of participating nations simply
58:32
left the room and did not return.
58:33
Reportedly, another 11 delegates talking about the treaty
58:37
negotiations at Stain and the remaining 124 delegates
58:42
improperly voted to adopt adopt the treaty.
58:47
Now, according to James Roguski, the noted treaty and
58:50
international health regulations watchdog.
58:53
There's a lot of double talk going on here.
58:55
And here's an important quote that I just got from him.
58:58
Adopted doesn't mean the same thing as ratified.
59:02
It doesn't mean the same thing as signed, and it doesn't mean
59:05
the same thing as entered into force.
59:08
They, the negotiators, failed to reach an agreement on the whole
59:11
reason that they were negotiating.
59:14
So in other words, they're putting on their best face.
59:16
But to a degree, the treaty talks are floundering and
59:19
hitting a lot of snags, procedural among others.
59:23
So that's some good news. But it's no time to rest on our
59:25
laurels. Of course, for those of us that
59:27
rightly fear another planned emic crackdown could happen,
59:31
Remember Exercise Pegasus coming up very soon, a dress rehearsal
59:35
for another pandemic in the UK. And lastly, we have the upcoming
59:39
meetings of the Intergovernmental Working Group
59:42
and this replaced the intergovernmental negotiating
59:46
body that was working on the treaty.
59:49
And N3 through 7. They're having the third meeting
59:52
early December, their 4th next February, mid February, their
59:56
fifth meeting, another meeting in March and finally the next
1:00:00
World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland in mid-May.
1:00:05
Very important stuff. And the pathogen access and.
1:00:10
Sharing system is another important thing to keep in mind.
1:00:13
We'll talk about more of that, more of that in the weeks to
1:00:16
come. So back to you, Mike.
1:00:18
Thank you very much, Mark. Thanks for that and thank you,
1:00:21
Patrick as well. So we got to finish there for
1:00:24
today. Thanks for watching.
1:00:26
We'll be back in a couple of minutes on the live stream.
1:00:28
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1:00:32
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1:00:34
consider joining and then you can join us for Extra as well.
1:00:37
But otherwise, have a great weekend.
1:00:39
We'll see you on Monday as usual.
1:00:41
See you then. Bye bye.