Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 21st of
August 2024, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robinson, joining me in the studio today
with Charles Mallett. Welcome to the program, Charles.
Thank you, Mike. And from Damascus, Vanessa
Bailey, he's joining us as well. Now we're going to get kicked
off today, Charles, with yacht sinkings and other coincidences.
Yes, we are. Good afternoon all.
Yes, this is the news that within very close proximity to
each other two Co defendants of a case that's just been to trial
in America have respectively been killed and gone missing.
On the left, we see the BBC reporting the death of Stephen
Chamberlain, formerly of Autonomy and then invoke Capital
and associated with Dark Trace, which we're going to come on to
talk about. Hit by a car in Cambridgeshire
on Saturday. And then on Monday, the yacht
belonging to Mike Lynch was reportedly overturned in harbour
off Sicily. Also on board, Jonathan Bloomer
of Morgan Stanley and their solicitor Christopher Morvillo.
Now, of course, at first sight this does seem like a
coincidence beyond credibility, but what it does do is to shine
a spotlight on not just the court case that had closed, but
also the other activities that they respectively had been
involved with. So if we go back to the court
case itself, which concerned the suggestion that there had been
there had been a fraudulent inflation of the price of
Autonomy, which was founded by Lynch.
And indeed Chamberlain worked there at the company with him.
It was sold to Hewlett Packard. And the fraud allegation has
just been quashed in effect by a federal court in San Francisco.
So the the sort of celebration aboard the the yacht named
Bayesian, which of course is worth mentioning because it
refers to a statistical branch of mathematics predicting future
outcomes on past events in effect.
But, but, but this is giving us a further look at what they did
with the proceeds of the sale of autonomy to Hewlett Packard,
which was to put the money into a company called Invoke Capital
with which they were able to set up other businesses.
And I should just draw your attention to what it says on the
the front page of their website, which is that Invoke exists to
realise the commercial possibilities of Britain's
extraordinary science and deep technology base.
So commercial possibilities are the critical part of this entire
story. It would seem so.
With funding from Invoke Capital, a cybersecurity company
called Dark Trace was set up in 2013.
The headline there from the Dark Trace website, Invoke Capital
makes first investment in fundamental cybersecurity
technology. Now it wasn't terribly long
after, at least this is the first sort of report of it on
the Dark Trace website, that the UK government signed a
multimillion dollar contract with Dark Trace.
Now interestingly, the UK government is quite quiet about
this. Very difficult to find any
reference to Dark Trace specifically on the government
website. But nonetheless, it's going back
a tiny bit to 2016. There was a, a, an award, a
Queen's Award given to Dark Trace for what's described as an
enterprise, their enterprise immune system.
So just to get into the nuts and bolts of what Dark Trace
actually does, or at least says that it's capable of and it
concerns what's called pattern of life.
So it concerns artificial intelligence, so it says it's
powered by AI algorithms and the enterprise immune system works
by learning the pattern of life of each user and device across
the entire digital infrastructure using this
evolving understanding of normal dark trace spots, emerging
threats and autonomously responds to in progress attacks
before they do damage. But of course we have to
consider the type of threat and the type of damage.
Are we talking about threats to government and population or
corporate interests? And this is the the line that we
need to to understand better. They go on to say that it's
powered by machine learning and mathematics and it was developed
by specialists from the University of Cambridge and
intelligence from former MI 5 and GCHQ experts.
Dark Traces Self learning technology is able to monitor
network activity and tech threats as they develop, which
helps companies get ahead of the threats.
Now of course, with a capability like that, it's no great
surprise that they go on to say that some of the world's largest
corporations rely on Dark Traces self Learning technology in
sectors including energy and utilities, financial services,
telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and
transportation. So of course, with all of this
in mind, first of all, Dark Trace seems to be suggesting
that they can predict outcomes based on their monitoring and
surveillance of people and the way that they use devices in
particular. Now, should we be concerned
therefore that this is an arrangement that government have
gone into specifically because of course Invoke Capital, which
has funded Dark Trace and indeed has involved Lynch and Stephen
Chamberlain has of course declared that them their chief
concern here are the commercial possibilities for the
organization. Now the other connection that I
want to draw your attention to is that Dark Trace describes
Crowdstrike as being a Dark Trace technology partner.
And of course Crowdstrike was responsible, shall we say, for
an enormous IT outage recently due to an update, or at least
say the story goes, an update that in fact brought several
technologies to a standstill. But they say that they stop
breaches. They power, productivity,
technology, intelligence and expertise come together in our
industry leading Crowdstrike Falcon platform to deliver
security that works. And then we look at the
government website, of course, the government in effect selling
Crowdstrike products there. We can see that it's £120 for a
virtual machine on what they're calling their Falcon platform.
So the crowd strike of course, partnered with Dark Trace, which
is funded by an organization that specifically is set up to
further commercial interests or commercial possibilities.
And now we look at who's actually involved with Dark
Trace, of course, part from Lynch himself and Chamberlain
who had come from autonomy and invoke capital.
But we see first of all, in terms of sort of profile,
Jonathan Evans and we look at his background, former Director
general of MI 5, where he spent 33 years focusing on internal
and domestic counterterrorism and cyber threats.
And this is very much a pattern, one might say.
We've also got the ex CIA official, Alan Wade, who is
described as being the chief information officer of the CIA,
who's joined the board of advisors.
Now, this has been written about in the past by the classified UK
in an article back from 2020 saying how how Britain's
profiteering spy masters ignored the country's biggest threats
like coronavirus and endangered the public.
Now, they're not actually suggesting that coronavirus was
the country's biggest threat. The point they're making is the
government was talking about it as though it was the biggest
threat and yet they weren't dealing with it in the in the
same way they were other things. So the key phrase from the
declassified article is is revolving dawn.
They they go on to say that the revolving door between
government and industry is meant to be regulated for conflicts of
interest by the Advisory Committee on Business
Appointments. However, the E classified can
find no evidence that an intelligence chief has ever had
an Acoba application rejected. This allows them to lobby their
old agencies on behalf of their private interests after they
leave office. So we'll just have a look at the
detail of that. Specifically, we've talked about
Evans, Jonathan Evans. So the letter that concerned his
appointment back from 2013 said that it was approved on a a dual
condition that he should not draw on privileged information
available to him from his time in Crown Service.
They felt it was especially pertinent in this case given the
sensitive nature of his job and also the need to avoid the
perception that Dark Trace was gaining an unfair advantage due
to it. And then also from 2 years from
his last day of service, he should not not become personally
involved in lobbying the UK government on behalf of his new
employer. And they go and say it's parent
company or it's clients. So these, the accidents that
have befallen these two men have, well, either by design or
not, brought into the public domain now, an awful lot of
information. There's still going to need to
be picked through in some considerable detail to see
exactly, first of all, what has happened to them, how it did
happen. I mean, it does seem
coincidence. Absolutely.
As I said at this at the outset, beyond credibility, there will
be all sorts of wild speculations one shouldn't
doubt, But really to examine the relationship between government
and corporation and where those relationships overlap in terms
of a united desire to pursue civilian populations by means of
monitoring and surveillance in order to protect behaviour and
therefore control it. So there's an awful lot more
that's going to come out of this story, one imagines.
Indeed. And Vanessa, once again, it
highlights the very tight links between cybersecurity companies
and intelligence agencies. We've been highlighting
connections to Unit 8200 with so many of these, but it's it's not
just Israeli intelligence as Western, other Western
intelligence agencies as well. Yeah, absolutely.
And as I say, that's a very important aspect of what we're
talking about to keep an eye on for the future.
But today I wanted, because there's a lot of conversations
going on about the threat of nuclear escalation between
Russia and NATO. But in my view, everyone's
rather ignoring the very real threat of Israel's Samson Option
and its nuclear capability, which has been kept very under
wraps, as many people describe it, sort of basement nuclear
capability. So this is from the Strategic
Vision Institute, deconstructing Israel's Samsung option and what
it means. So the Samsung option can be
employed in a case conventional deterrence fails.
The CIA believed as early as 1976 the Israelis had stockpiled
10 to 20 nuclear weapons. By 2002, it was estimated that
the stockpile number had increased to more than 75.
In 2006, George W Bush's Defence Secretary Robert Gates admitted
in a Senate hearing that Israel has nuclear weapons, and two
years later, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter also said
that the number of Israeli nuclear warheads is more than
150. That number is is now considered
to be much higher. Those testimonies by senior U.S.
officials established the fact that Israel does possess nuclear
weapon capability. So what does this actually mean?
This is an article at the at progressive.com.
Israeli nuclear ambiguity. It's lack of official
confirmation or denial. It's also not a signatory to the
Non Proliferation Treaty and it's the only country in the
region or any state in the region that does possess nuclear
weapons. But that secrecy persists to
this day. Nevertheless, as of 2021,
researchers estimate that the country possesses 90 nuclear
warheads. These figures do change,
according to the reports, capable of being delivered by
aircraft, land based ballistic missiles and sea based cruise
missiles. Israel is reserving these
weapons for the Samsung option, an all out assault on the
civilian population centres of its opponent, but also of its
friends if under threat. So let's have a look at the next
part of that article. It stands in contrast the
Samsung option to doctrines embraced by other nuclear
powers, such as the Mutually Assured Destruction MAD
developed during the Cold War. MAD posits that nuclear powers
like the US and Soviet Union or now Russia could deter each
other from ever using nuclear weapons through the threat of
retaliatory strikes. That would ensure mutual
destruction. However, Israel doesn't adhere
to this policy as it does in its defence policy.
Generally it believes in pre emptive strikes.
And so if we look at what that also entails, I mean in in the
80s Mordecai Vanunu for his was given the Right Livelihood award
for his courage and self sacrifice in revealing the
extent of Israel's nuclear weapons.
He was imprisoned for 18 years by Israel for treason. 11 of
those years were spent in solitary confinement.
And even though he was released in 2004, he basically is not
allowed to talk to foreign journalists and his movements
are restricted. So this is the recent image in
Israeli media of the Damona nuclear power facility that has
been targeted in the recent escalation.
And if we look at what it says in the Jerusalem Post, this was
in June of this year, Israel is upgrading its plutonium for its
reactor at the nuclear research facility in Damona.
And basically, so basically this is effectively admitting that
that Israel has nuclear warheads.
But the IAEA, sorry, I always got that one mixed up.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has not to date been able
to inspect those facilities. Now what I want to point to
because in in a sense with the NATO Russian conflict, we're
dealing with, particularly from the Russian side, a degree of
rationale. This is an article in the cradle
saying Israel isn't crazy crazy, it's just mad MAD.
And that doesn't mean mutually assured destruction.
It means literally mad. So let's have a look at what
they mean. Basically what Israel is doing
is presenting itself as an over like a rabid dog in its war
policy. So I'm just going to read down
the middle column first. People are more likely to attack
you if they see you as weak or vulnerable.
Second, they cannot know for sure that you're weak.
They depend on the signs that you give out through your
behaviour, both present and past.
Hit them where you sense they may be vulnerable and make it
hurt. Well, we're definitely seeing
that in Israel's genocidal policy.
You are not acting out emotionally.
That is a sign of weakness. You're simply hinting that you
are a little irrational and that your next move could be almost
anything. So just relate this back to the
Samsung option. This reputation can be for any
number of things, being difficult, stubborn, violent,
ruthlessly efficient. You must build your reputation
carefully, allowing no inconsistencies.
Instead of threatening your opponents openly, you take
action that is indirect and designed to make them think.
And I would also point out that in 2003, Ariel Sharon said that
we possess several 100 atomic warheads and can launch them in
all directions, perhaps even at Rome.
Most EU capitals are targets for our Air Force.
We have the capability to take the world down with us.
And I assure you that will happen before Israel goes under.
So this is coming back to this the the threat of the Samsung
option that can even be directed at what would be considered
friendly nations. And not forgetting that since
October the 7th, it was the heritage minister who was
suspended after calling for the new king of Gaza as being an
option. And more recently, the
ambassador at the UN, Gilad Erdan, who's outgoing, in his
final speech, said that the UN building should be wiped off the
face of the earth, that it was a twisted and distorted
institution, which I would agree with to some extent, but not for
the same reasons as he does. And then finally, I thank 65% of
Israeli Jews oppose criminal prosecution for soldiers
suspected of raping Palestinian detainees.
So we're looking at a very unstable, deliberately
irrational nation with the potential of pre emptive nuclear
strikes. OK, thank you for that, Vanessa.
Now let's come back to the UK and censorship, perhaps perhaps
a bit more than that. Richard Medhurst put this tweet
tweet out a couple of days ago talking about his arrest under
the Terrorism Act because of his reporting.
Now we have a little bit of video from this.
Let's have a look at what he had to say on Thursday as I landed
in London Heathrow Airport, I was immediately escorted off the
plane by 6 police officers who were waiting for me at the
entrance of the aircraft. They arrested me.
Not detained. They arrested me under Section
12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 and accused me of allegedly,
quote, expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a
proscribed organization. UN quote but wouldn't explain
what this meant. So I was taken to an adjacent
room, patted down, my phone confiscated.
I was not allowed to inform my family.
Despite being calm and cooperative, I was handcuffed
with something that placed my shoulders in an awkward position
and and my wrists on top of, rather than next to each other.
The handcuffs were extremely tight despite the police
loosening them. They left marks on me for two
days. They searched me again for the
second time within 10 minutes. I was told to sit on a bench,
remove my shoes, remove my socks.
I was told to turn my socks inside out and hold them up for
the officers to inspect. They also made me hold up my
feet so they could check them as well.
The officers took me to an to a room with UV lights, which they
told me is used to catch burglars who are sprayed with
something as I've no idea why they did this since they just
removed me off of a plane. My suitcase was then opened in
the lobby and ransacked. All of my journalistic equipment
and devices were seized, including phones, SIM cards,
wireless microphones, microphones, headphones, even my
shoelaces. They later took my DNA as well
my fingerprints, palm prints and photographed me.
I was placed in solitary confinement in a cold cell that
smelt like. Urine.
Now there's quite a bit more in that video clip, so I do suggest
everybody goes and watches the full clip.
But he was talking about being arrested, Charles, under section
12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Let's bring this on screen and
just have a look at the government summary of this.
Section 12 of TAAC 2000 makes it an offence.
To invite support for a prescribed organization, express
an opinion or belief that is supportive of a prescribed
organization or to arrange or manage to in a sorry to or
assist in arranging or managing a meeting in support of a
prescribed organization. Now, I guess in this case the
the situation is the prescribed organization is Hamas.
But I mean, what what were your thoughts based on the on the
clip of how this was handled? Was was an arrest appropriate,
for example? I mean, it's, it's very hard to
say, but it's certainly what did happen to him.
Having been arrested does highlight the ability with which
police can run a sort of domino rally of events.
So if if their goal is to find certain bits of information or
indeed articles, you know, he talked about having his
journalistic equipment to kind of look through and whatnot,
then the arrest is the unlocking device, then that that sets the
chain in motion. So I think that's the critical
thing here. And like so much, this
legislation that's been designed over the last sort of 50 years,
it specifically enables this, this interpretation, which makes
it almost impossible, you know, not to have the power of arrest
in, in these sorts of situations.
So I think that's the thing. It's just the, it's the way in
which it's written up it, it makes it too easy for police to
do that. Certainly you know, the way what
he's describing of being in custody that I'm afraid is, is
standard. That's not related to terrorism.
Okay. And of Vanessa, when similar
happened to you, of course, you were held for not quite as long.
Sorry if we just put the graphic on screen here, please,
Stephanie. And we just look, because you
were held under Section Schedule 7, which is kind of an addendum
to the main act itself, which gives pretty unique powers to
the British government to examine people without needing
to arrest them first. So that's a different thing.
But what I really wanted to get your thoughts on were what you
thought about the issue of having an opinion about a
prescribed organization. Playing an opinion is that it's
about who is prescribing them as a terrorist organization.
But if as a journalist it's your job basically to talk about
prescribed organisations in, in any particular conflict or, or
arena. And to a degree that's what
Richard is doing as a journalist, it's what all of us
do. So, you know, are we talking
about the conflict here in the Middle East going to be accused
of promoting a prescribed organization?
Well, the BBC can come to Idlib and sit down for tea with a
prescribed organization, Al Qaeda or with ISIS affiliates
and get away with it Scott free. I'm sure they're not stopped as
they come into Heathrow. Indeed.
I think the other brief point to make just following that is the
absurdity of the date of the prescription.
Hamas in this country was only prescribed in November 2021.
So of course, had he said or done anything that encompassed
expressing support for Hamas prior to that no one be able to
touch him. And and the reason that date's
significant is that in the United States, the the similar
condition I think goes back to 1997 or 98.
So it it is like we see with all these things, it's the United
Kingdom sort of pushing the edge of the envelope in order to be
able to, in effect, capture people that it feels like wants
to capture. I think the thing that concerns
me most about this is who decides what the line is and,
and you know, this line that gets drawn effects what people
say, what they're able to say. We're saying this this line
being pushed ever further towards prescribing anybody from
saying anything which is in any way critical of government
policy. I think this is extremely
dangerous. We'll talk about this much more
in extra, I'm sure. Now, if you like what the UK
column does, you'd like to support us, the place to go is
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We're back on the the new YouTube channel after a week's
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We don't expect this channel is going to last very much longer,
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You can pick something up at the UK Column Shop.
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Please do that if you possibly can, especially your life in
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available. Please do that or pick up a
ticket for the event on the 19th of October 2024.
We were very delighted to have Bob Moran visiting us yesterday
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19th as well. Many others.
We'll we'll name more names. Very, very shortly.
Now, the interview that Alex did with Calistrat, Marvin Tadore,
if I've pronounced that name correctly, is now on the
website. Please do watch this.
We've got a very good response in the chat box yesterday.
I think everybody enjoyed it. So do watch this.
And then tomorrow, an interview with Kevin Lister.
Kevin raised safeguarding concerns in his capacity as a
teacher at a College in Swindon, but these were concerns about a
student of his that was wanting to be referred to by a different
name and to be considered to be a boy rather than a girl.
And Kevin's life has been systematically dismantled as a
result of challenging the transgender agenda.
I really would encourage you to listen to this, especially if
you're a parent or in any way involved with education.
So that goes out at 1:00 PM tomorrow and join us for that.
On Sunday, September the eighth, the International Centre for 911
Justice and UK column will be holding a symposium on entitled
Aviation and Possibilities, deconstructing the official
story of the 9/11 hijackings and air defence failures.
Ted Walter Olivier, Karen Mason, Aidan Monaghan and Kevin Ryan
will be speaking. Pierce Robinson will be hosting
and so that begins at 6:00 PM UK time, 1:00 PM Eastern Time and
join us for that if you possibly can.
September the eighth So Katie Joes and Hope Sussex Freedom
Music Festival another reminder for that 23rd to the 26th of
August. Get to that if you possibly can.
And finally. Yeah, taking control of your,
your own food supply, such a critical part of life these days
that the Attack on Food and Farmers Symposium, 6th and 7th
of September, it's going to be hosted by Children's Health
defence@chd.tv/events and there are some very, very good and
knowledgeable speakers. So I would advise that you tune
in to that. Also, Brian and I will be
speaking at the Heritage Party Conference on the 20th of
September. Details on screen and in the
show notes. And then in November of this
year in London, there's going to be a Died Suddenly art
exhibition, which is to put the spotlight on the excess deaths
that have not been sufficiently explained or given attention by
the government. If you're able to help with that
or you would like to know more about it, get in touch with Jake
Fern at Jake H fern@yahoo.co.uk. OK, so lots going on at the
moment. I hope everybody will find
something in that lot. Now perhaps you'll find this
interesting because of course we all clapped for the NHS.
We now all need to clap for Ukraine.
This is a new campaign being run through the Ministry of Defence
and others for Ukrainian Independence Day.
So I'm sorry, I'm going to impose this little piece of
video on you. None.
Slavo Green. Hello Slavo.
I appreciate it's lunchtime and that may have made you feel
physically ill, but let's just, they have produced a whole
document, a whole PDF document giving advice on how to how to
take advantage of this whole thing.
So they provide sample social media graphics, they provide
sample social media posts for you, they provide a hashtag that
we don't have to think, we just have to do.
And so just as with the NHS Charles, we need to be out there
banging our pots for Ukraine. It's great stuff, isn't it?
Yes, yes. OK, let's move quickly on to
more serious things and we'll space.
Yes, space, which we will focus on quite a bit today and have
done over the last few months because of course, space is now
becoming very much an integral part not only of defense, but
also of the overlap between defense, corporate interests,
weather modification, surveillance, and so many other
things besides. So we've got UK Space Command
announcing that a satellite, the Taiki satellite, was sent into
space as part of program Istari. Now, as with so many things in
this age, the names are always rehashed.
They're seldom anything to do with British culture.
So it's just worth pointing out here that in Greek religion,
Taiki is the goddess of chance with whom the Roman fortuner was
later identified, a capricious dispenser of good and ill
fortune. I thought that was a bit odd.
But anyway, capricious dispenser, I just want to
highlight this as the conflict in Ukraine has shown.
So the government, administrative defence here and
equipment and support just using whichever sort of sweet spot or
emergency that they can here. Of course, we've got the
conflict in Ukraine, but they're talking about it being the first
satellite to be launched under the Ministry of Defence's space
based Estari program, which will deliver a constellation of
satellites and sporting ground systems by 2031.
So this is under the intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance function. But what I really want to draw
your attention to this slide is that the MOD are claiming to
have complete ownership of this. They are making out that this is
entirely their project. But we should also be very
mindful of the fact that they say it will contribute to other
government tasks. And they don't list those.
But look at what it is able to do to include natural disaster
monitoring, development of mapping information,
environmental monitoring and tracking.
I've highlighted effectively it's an eye in the sky, low
orbit, and it is specifically tasked with capturing daylight
imagery. We have a little sorry on back
that. Yeah, Anyway, that was a very
short video of it. Here we go.
No, sorry, sorry. OK, never mind, It's gone.
But it was part of the Defense Space strategy, which goes back
to February 2022, which reported on very comprehensively by UK
column at the time that it's part of a 1.4 billion
investment. And again, there's going to be a
network of these satellites. But again, here we see the same
terminology to support greater global surveillance and
intelligence for military operations.
But what sort of military operations?
But the science inside gives us a bit more of an answer to that,
which of course is where this does come from, from DSTL, the
Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, 2022.
And this is the very opening phrase in that publication.
We live in times of increasing volatility and uncertainty.
The threats we face today, both at home and abroad, are more
complex and dynamic than ever before.
So we're looking at surveillance, tracking,
monitoring and military operations, and we're talking
about threats at home. So I will leave you to draw your
own conclusions, but I think that sends quite a clear message
of where this is going. They also point out their
science and technology capabilities, and it's just
worth noting how many of those relate to human behaviours.
We've got AI and data science, communications and networks,
cyber, Homeland Security and CT systems, counterterrorism, human
and social sciences, information systems, operational research
and sensing. So it does look very much like
space. Here, a chapter within this
publication is being used as yet another means of surveilling the
population. But the critical part comes out
here when I talk about the MOD claiming to have ownership.
They say that they will provide a test platform for
sophisticated imaging and monitoring radio signals,
including GPS. Well, think about GPS.
In this day and age, everybody carries a GPS tracking device
with them all the time, paving the way for a more collaborative
and connected space communication system with our
combat allies. Well, who exactly are they?
Because of course, the bit that wasn't mentioned initially was
that this was only put into low orbit by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
So in fact, is it owned by the Ministry of Defence or not?
And well, let's just have a look at Mint Press news here.
Speculating admittedly, but they say that Elon Musk stopped
Ukraine from striking the Russian Navy by switching off
Starlink. So when you think that the UK's
defence, what's called the defence capability is in effect
put into orbit by somebody who owns a company, company
privately. And then we see on the right, of
course, Musk having a very friendly conversation with
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. It's it's perfectly reasonable
to ask questions of the judgement of the government and
the Ministry of Defence. So there we go.
SpaceX valued at 210 billion. But as I say, it's at the moment
a privately owned company. And now some slides that I've
talked about in the past just to just to highlight this.
So SpaceX here broadcasting that they provide secure satellite
comms networks for government entities.
But of course a spin off of this or part of it is what they call
Star Shield, which they say supports national security, but
who's national security? And again, Star Link, which is
in effect part of the same stable is not possible to use in
Russia, China, Belarus, Afghanistan, North Korea,
Venezuela, Cuba, Syria or Iran. So it just goes to show how any
of these engagements have gone into, they're spoken about as
though we own them. We absolutely don't.
They are. We are totally at the behest of
corporations and in this case individuals like Elon Musk,
which from a defence point of view seems an absolutely absurd
position to enter into. So if that's space warfare in
the UK, what's happening in the United States?
Well, just recently they have held a conference here.
It is Space and Mission Defence Symposium.
And well, I've just thought it was quite amusing that their
titanium patron was Boeing, since Boeing not only doesn't
seem to be able to manufacture aircraft that don't crash at the
moment, but don't seem to be able to manufacture spacecraft
that are capable of bringing anything back from the
International Space Station because they're their capsule is
currently stuck up there at the moment.
But anyway, this symposium featured this gentleman.
This is General Stephen Whiting, who's head of space com in the
United States. And they're told he was talking
about their their latest list of requirements.
The latest on the list or the top of the list at the moment is
a request, a requirement for what they're describing as space
fires. Now, this is pretty undefined at
the moment. It has been used several times
over the years by Space Command, but they haven't really defined
it to enable them to establish space superiorities.
This is what he said. Missile defeat effects will
significantly enhance our ability to defeat trans regional
ballistic crews and hypersonics missile threats as well as air
launched a ground launched direct ascent threats.
But he said that these involve new and innovative approaches
across all domains which evolve beyond point solutions and one
versus one missile interceptor. So to translate that a little
bit, that seems to be suggesting, Charles, that they
are looking perhaps at electromagnetic effects where
they can affect multiple warheads or multiple weapon
systems at a time, rather than attempting to shoot things down
directly. Yeah.
I. Think.
I think that'd be exactly right. Which of course begs the
question, if it can be done there, it can certainly be done
elsewhere. But will it be?
Indeed, so if we bring him back on then he went on to say this
dynamic space operations is based on the idea that in a
future fight, some of our assets in space must be able to do what
our terrestrial assets do all the time, manoeuvre and sustain
themselves. Doing so will allow our space
based capabilities to execute their mission until the
objectives are met, not until they run out of the gas they
launched with. And so the question is, what is
this power source going to be that there that is going to
survive until the mission is complete?
And the only thing that I can think of would be some kind of
nuclear power source. Whether they're actually
intending to use nuclear power in space remains to be seen.
The the other question of whether they're actually talking
about any kind of kinetic weaponry in space is also
remains to be seen. At this point, they're still
denying that. But the use of the word fire in
this is remains undefined. And we have to wait and see what
where that actually goes. But clearly space both in the UK
and in the United States being ramped up as a domain to be
played with. And then just finally on this,
the Army space vision supporting multi domain operations was
published a couple of months ago.
And I just wanted to highlight one paragraph in this that they
intend to interdict adversary space capabilities by delivering
necessary fires and effects at echelon to protect friendly
forces from observation and targeting by counter satellite
communications, counter surveillance and reconnaissance
and navigation warfare operations.
And again, to translate that a little bit, it's a bit unclear
whether interdict means blow up, but certainly they certainly
mean to disrupt the ability of so-called enemies from observing
them or their so-called allies. Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's a, it's a brilliant word because in
effect, yeah. Delay, destroy, disrupt.
Yeah, any of those. OK, Vanessa, let's come back to
you then and the Middle East and of course, we have so-called
ceasefire plan in the offing. Yes, something that is
developing really into what I described recently on X as being
a sadistic fast designed really to enable the continuation of
the genocide. So this was the BBC News after
the most recent so-called ceasefire negotiations in Doha
and Qatar. Of course Hamas had refused to
actually send anyone to negotiate because as they
described it, it was a waste of time and Israel was continuously
putting a spanner in the works. So the BBC runs with the
headline Israel accepts the bridging proposal for the
ceasefire deal, says Anthony Blinken.
And then let's have a look at a few other headlines going from
basically May this year until this week.
Blinken calls on Hamas to accept ceasefire agreement.
They should take it. Blinken says Netanyahu
reaffirmed commitment to Gaza ceasefire plan.
Blinken says Israel agrees to AUS backed proposal for a
ceasefire. So is anyone noticing the
pattern here that it's blinking that's constantly saying that
Israel is accepting and this is Aylan Mizrahi on X?
Did you notice this pattern where Blinken always announces
on Netanyahu's behalf that Netanyahu agreed to the deal but
Netanyahu never says so himself? Did you notice how this time
around, as in previous fake negotiations, Netanyahu never
goes on record to say that he agreed to any deal?
You know why this is? It's because Blinken is
committed to Netanyahu's political standing among Jewish
right wingers, and agreeing to any deal would make Netanyahu
look weak to them. So at the service of Netanyahu's
image and the genocide, Blinken just Bluffs with offers
specifically tailored to be unacceptable to Hamas and lies
that Netanyahu accepted them, knowing full well that Netanyahu
will never have to live up to any deal because blink and make
sure that no deal will happen, while making sure the lie of
Hamas inflexibility will become the official narrative.
And of course, that's exactly what has happened.
And in the last few days, Hamas again has accused the US of
buying time for Israel to continue its genocide.
And if we just move on, so Netanyahu this time around again
added new conditions to the ceasefire proposal.
So again, he changed the actual proposal, remembering that Hamas
had accepted the blink and broker deal back in July and
before that in May. So let's have a look at why
Hamas rejects Israel's new conditions in Doha, as it says
in the article. Basically, Netanyahu's new
conditions put forward during talks in Doha and again Hamas
were not present in Doha. Israel's new conditions include
keeping troops inside Gaza along its border with Egypt, an
informed source said. That's now been confirmed while
Hamas demands a complete ceasefire, a complete withdrawal
from the Strip, a normal return of the displaced, and a prisoner
exchange deal without restrictions because Netanyahu
now has demanded veto rights for up to 100 of the prisoners to be
exchanged. So in other words, Palestinian
prisoners to be exchanged in return to the Israeli hostages.
Netanyahu is demanding the right to veto up to 100 of those
prisoners. So then just moving on.
So this is from Moeen Rabbani again on X.
So he goes through it. You can freeze frame and read it
yourself, but basically he says the same thing. the US presents
an Israeli ceasefire, pushes it through the UN Security Council,
and then contrary back in July to US and Israeli expectations,
Hamas accepts the initiative. Israel responds by rejecting
adding new conditions to its own initiative designed to be
rejected by Hamas. Under the guise of presenting a
bridging proposal that would address the implementation of
the original initiative. The US rewrites the initiative
to incorporate the Israeli conditions presented after the
UN Security Council endorsed and Hamas accepted the initiative.
Hamas predictably rejects the new US document on the grounds
that it's a different initiative rather than a plan to implement
the initiative it accepted. Amid March fanfare and lavish
praise showered by Anthony Blinken, Netanyahu accepts the
revised initiative and then adds more changes to the initiative.
So I, I, I think you can freeze frame and read it for yourself,
but it becomes very clear that this is nothing more than a
farce and a very sadistic one. And I just want to show Blinken,
in part of his press conference, the area where he talks about
the importance of the ceasefire. No.
Is this With every passing day that there's not an agreement,
two things can happen. One is of course, more hostages
can perish and 2nd intervening events come along that may make
things even more difficult, if if not impossible.
And we've, we've experienced that throughout this process.
So there's a the fierce urgency of now.
That's what I think we're all feeling.
And we do see this is the best opportunity to finally get this
over the finish line. We'll never give up on it, but
the the challenge is the longer this goes on, the more again,
hostages will will suffer and possibly perish and the more
other things happen that could make things impossible.
So that's why we're so intensely focused on getting this done and
getting it done now. Quite extraordinary.
There is absolutely no mention of the continuing genocide and
slaughter of Palestinians in that statement.
And in fact, since Blinken's visit, this is what always
happens. Israel has actually escalated
yet again, attacking Lebanon's Becca, which is in the
northeast, nowhere near the southern areas which have been
targeted. They attack Becca, wounding five
children under the age of eight and Kalang one, and multiple
massacres since Blinken's visit in Gaza itself, including the
wounding of 1 Palestinian journalist and the killing of
another, taking the number of murdered journalists up to
around 170 now. And a video I'm just going to
show in Han Eunice of how the quadcopters are used to randomly
fire on civilians. This is in a crowded refugee
area, and this is happening on a on an
enormous hourly basis. Israeli jets hit another Gaza
school, killing at least 2012. That number is now rising to
around 20. And I just wanted to show these
two maps side by side, which were produced by the UN
Satellite Centre. And I think it was back in July.
And on the left you can see the bombardment of residential areas
of Gaza. I mean, virtually all of Gaza
has pretty much been destroyed. Now, of course, there is
intensity in the north and in central Gaza and in the far
South, which if you remember, was supposed to be the safe zone
for people to flee to from to the north and on the right.
That combines the damage to residential areas and the
destruction of agricultural water reservoirs, everything
that is necessary for the maintenance of life in Gaza.
So pretty sobering mapping there of the devastation in Gaza,
which was not mentioned by Blinken and his rhetoric about a
ceasefire. Okay, Vanessa, thank you for
that. Now let's move on to defence
pacts and in this case, orcas. There's been quite a bit of
orcas news recently. If you remember what Orcas is,
it's this defence pact between Australia, the United Kingdom
and the United States. And well, maybe we get a clue a
little bit later as to what this is really all about.
So anyway, the government very, very excited that they have set
up a new, a new trade agreement. But they're saying that the
United Kingdom, United States and Australia have stood
shoulder to shoulder for decades to support the security and
stability of the Indo Pacific region and beyond.
And August is a demonstration of our collective commitment in the
in the region. So they announced a trade pact
between them which is going to cover up to 500,000,000 lbs of
UK defence exports, plus billions of dollars of trade
between the three nations in total.
They're saying that this trade breakthrough comes via the
publication of the UK's Orcas Nations Open General Licence,
combined with a new exemption to the US International Traffic
Arms Regulations for the UK and Australia and new national
exemptions for the UK and US in Australia's export control
framework. So it's all just about taking
the brakes of arms controls and making sure that we can pass
weapons between ourselves and so on.
Anyway, they went on to say today's actions will strengthen
our three countries combined military capabilities, the pace
of our collaboration and response to threat, and boost
our collective industrial capacity, giving ourselves a
military and strategic edge over our adversaries.
That's what they claim. Now of course, originally this
was how it was all being presented, as a submarine deal
so that Australia would get hold of nuclear parts submarines, not
nuclear weapons on board, but nuclear parts submarines.
By working together, the Orcas partnership is delivering a new
fleet of submarines based on EU KS world leading design.
Well, is that true? We'll see in a second.
But the other thing that they announced in the past couple of
weeks was advanced military capability spanning artificial
intelligence and autonomy. And it's the autonomy aspect of
this that I think is particularly interesting.
So we have a little bit of video here.
It's an excerpt from a longer video clip, but let's have a
look at this great, which stands for resilient Autonomy and
Artificial intelligence technologies are a series of AI
tools and techniques as well as autonomy packages that are being
brought together across all of the different nations.
And it's all about our ability to to deploy autonomous systems,
to deploy AI models, to test those models on these autonomous
systems and work collaboratively together.
Under the ORCAS partnership at PCC Four, we have UKUS and
Australian assets flying together to make common goals,
supported by a core team on the ground working on AI models to
detect targets. Push that back into army fires
chains. And.
Support Army decision making. And Vanessa, very briefly, I
mean that we've seen how Israel is using AI to allegedly target,
sorry, to target alleged insurgents or whatever they call
them in Gaza. This is a bad development I
think as as we all try to catch up with that capability.
Yeah. I mean, it does make you wonder
to what degree Unit 8200 is involved in this development,
because yes, there are, there's Lavender and Gospel, There are
systems that have been used to identify targets in Gaza and
that have effectively led to the massacre of thousands on the
basis that the AI is identifying them correctly.
And of course, they're not. Indeed.
And then we've got this undersea warfare and hypersonic
capabilities is also being part of this August deal, this latest
deal. Interesting that they mentioned
this just at the time that the Nord Stream Two pipeline
questioning around that is in the headlines again.
But the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating had this
to say about what August really is.
And I have to say, I find it hard to argue with his point
here. You see, we're going to get
orcas, but not the submarines. What we're going to get is what
Kurt Campbell, the deputy Secretary of State, has said.
When I tie these guys up for 40 years, what orcas is about in
the American mind is turning the suckers into Australia.
We're locking of us, locking us up for 40 years with American
bases all around. I mean what this?
Report today tells you they're going to have American bases all
around Australia, American bases, not Australian, but all
around Australia. So Orcas is really about, in
American terms, the military control of Australia.
I mean, what's happened? I I say, I say this, the
Albanese government with and their policy is likely to turn
Australia into the 51st state of the United States.
And I'd say hard to argue with that, Charles, really what he's
saying. And I think the the parallel
might be Israel, You know, if, if, if the United States is
wanting to look towards China, which it clearly is and has been
for for many times, it needs a base of operations.
Obviously it's got the West Coast of the United States
itself, but that's quite a distance away.
Australia is a little bit closer.
So what? What was the term that was used
with respect to Israel, America's aircraft carrier in
the Middle East? That seems to be what Australia
is becoming. Yeah, it absolutely does.
I mean, it seems, I think he's, I think Keith is absolutely
right. It seems very transparent.
So obviously not naive of the Australian administration.
Now, I mean it can't be accidental, but no, I'm certain
that would be the the reason for it.
Yes, OK, now let's let's come back to the UK then and what's
going on with respect to Greenbelt?
Yes, quite well. Greenberg is sort of yet another
of the many attacks on land and land use that we're seeing up
and down the United Kingdom and have done for many years.
But it's become more, more and more acute this year.
So we've got the many competing sort of aspects of food security
of what they're calling, well, nature restoration schemes.
Then of course the renewable thing.
And here now updated on the 2nd of August, we've got proposed
reform to the National Planning Policy framework, the NPPF and
other changes to the planning system.
There's a lot within this, but what I want to point out is that
it's this paragraph here that they want to remove from the
footnote, which is the availability of agricultural
land used for food production should be considered alongside
other policies in this framework when deciding what sites are
most appropriate for development.
So they want to remove that now. The consultation itself is is
open now and closes on the 24th of September, which you should
be mindful. Of course, you can go and view
this and contribute yourself, but in effect, what they're
wanting to do, or at least what they say, is that there's
confusion within the existing framework and sort of additional
documentation. So they say that they propose
correcting that to require local planning authorities to
undertake a review where an authority cannot meet its
identified housing, commercial or other need without altering
Greenbelt boundaries. So straight away they've jumped
the very obvious hurdle which is where exactly is the need for
housing being demonstrated or indeed commercial property that
there's no demonstration of that with which to meet to to meet
its via means of a planning policy framework.
So that's the first thing to point out.
But effectively they are compelling local authorities to
undertake a review and it's very easy to see how that's then a
step towards using Greenbelt. So we're calling this Greenbelt
release. We've proposed to insert a new
paragraph in the NPPF which will make it clear that in instances
where a local planning authority cannot demonstrate A5 year
housing land supply or is delivering less than 75% against
the delivery test, or where there is unmet commercial or
other need, development on the Greenbelt will not be considered
inappropriate. When it's on sustainable grey
belt land where golden rules for major development are satisfied
and where development would not fundamentally undermine the
function of the Greenbelt across the area of the planet as a
whole. I think we describe that as word
soup. What on earth do they mean by
it? Well, in effect, as I say, what
they're trying to do is push the authorities to Chuck the rule
book out the window and just build on Greenbelt.
But instead the way they do it is they decide, well we'll come
up with a new term called greybelt, which of course we've
preferred to in the past. And they define this as such for
the purposes, plan making and decision making.
Greybelt is defined as land in the Greenbelt comprising
previously developed land and any other parcels and or areas
of Greenbelt land that make a limited contribution to the five
Greenbelt purposes. So of course they could still be
making contribution, but just a limited one which may therefore
makes them vulnerable. We'll just look at what the
Greenbelt is supposed to do. 5 purposes.
To check the unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas, to
prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another, to
assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment,
to preserve the setting and special character of historic
towns, and to assist in urban regeneration by encouraging the
recycling of derelict and other urban land.
I think it's safe to say that absolutely none of those
purposes or objectives are being met, and the direction of travel
via planning policy, via environmental policy, and via
energy policy is in absolute contravention of the purposes of
the Greenbelt, most readily shown by the Renewable Energy
Planning Database Quarterly extract.
I've turned this into a graph format to make it clear how
these applications have gone up and up and up in the last few
years. Particularly we consider 2020 to
be the sort of the year of acceleration and limited sort of
output in that time. But we've gone up through 843 in
2021 / 1000, nearly 1500 and 2022 up to 1800 applications
last year and here at August now 745, which of course are written
down. So it's it's very obvious to see
that there's just an increasing push towards this relentless
destruction of the countryside, apparently in the name of the
environment, sustainability and all sorts of things that are
totally disingenuous descriptions for what's actually
going on. And Mike's going to talk now
more about how that's being affected with energy.
Just a very brief comment because again, 10 Downing St.
pushing this out on Twitter yesterday, telling us, reminding
us that we need to find all out all about great British energy
and how this is going to be great for us and what it can do
for us. Well, I just thought it was
funny that they were pushing this out when just the day
before Cornwall Insight had been releasing their latest forecast
for what the energy price cap was going to be for the final
three months of the year and expecting to see a nine percent
increase compared to July. So this of course is is
situation not improving as a result of an ever increasing
building of of wind turbines and so on.
Now the actual number will be published on the 27th of August.
So we've got to wait until then to find out whether that
forecast is anywhere correct. But you know this release of of
planning restrictions. Isn't actually hasn't, it's been
happening for quite a number of years now.
It's just accelerating, but it hasn't really resulted in the
capability of reducing energy costs for anybody.
So what is the benefit of it? It seems to be, as you pointed
out, all about restricting the use of land for farming.
Absolutely it is. Yeah.
And indeed, critically, people deriving pleasure from being in
it, which again is completely overlooked by all those that
should be protecting it. Indeed.
OK, well, we've got to leave it there for today.
So thank you very much to Charles and Vanessa and for you
all for joining us. We will be back in a few minutes
if you UK call a member for some extra.
Otherwise enjoy the interview at 1:00 PM tomorrow, but we'll see
you on Friday. See you then.
Bye, bye, bye bye.