Good afternoon. It's Friday the 9th of January
2026, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host Mike Robinson. My Co host today in the studio
is Patrick Hennigson. Welcome to the program, Patrick.
It's great to be with you, Mike. And we'll be joined today by
Basil Valentine. Later in the program, we're
going to be covering the ongoing Palestine action hunger strike,
the killing in Minneapolis by an ICE officer and the sanctioning
of EU former military personnel and the ongoing destabilisation
of countries in the Sahel. But we're going to begin with
the taking of an oil tanker by the United States, supported by
the United Kingdom. Because on Wednesday I was
reporting that the US was going to going to go after the
marinera. This was CBS News was covering
this, if you remember, and this ship previously known as Bella
One and they were going after this with a view to seizing it.
And we also reported that the UK was to be involved.
If you hadn't seen what we covered on Wednesday, go on,
please go and have a look. The risks were clear because the
Baron era was at that time a Russian flagged tanker and so
Russia was making moves to counter the US action.
Well, about the same time that the UK column news went out on
Wednesday. In fact, the United States and
the UK and well, Patrick, you tell me if you think I'm wrong
in this, but what I could would only want to describe as an
active piracy seized the ship about halfway between the UK and
Iceland. So here's here's where the ship
was when it was attacked. Now.
It's nowhere near Venezuela. That's a no.
Struck me, Mike. No, indeed.
Now you won't. Sorry.
Just put that back on the screen for one second, William, please.
Because you'll notice that the line begins Mid-Atlantic there.
And the claim from the UK and the United States is that this
is because the ship, having left Venezuela already decided to to
re flag itself halfway across the Atlantic and rename itself.
And so they're claiming that this was in fact a stateless
vessel. Look, before we we comment on
this a bit more, let's just look at what John Healey said in the
House of Commons yesterday. Today, the US conducted a
military operation to intercept the M motor vessel Bella One in
the North Atlantic on its way to Russia.
The UK, at the request of the US, supported this operation as
part of global efforts to crack down on sanctions busting and
shadow shipping activity. The Bella 1 was falsely flagged.
It was falsely flagged and subject to US counter Iran
sanctions. The vessel refused to comply
with the USS exercise of its sanctioned jurisdiction on the
20th of December, after which the US Coast Guard vessel Monroe
pursued the ship across the Atlantic.
This is a sanctioned stateless vessel which carries a long
history of nefarious activity and shares close links with both
Iran and Russia. Following a request from the USI
authorised the use of UK bases and the deployment of Royal Navy
and RAF assets to support the operation, including airborne
surveillance and the RFA ship Tide Force.
A stateless vessel, Mr. Speaker, may be lawfully intercepted and
subjected to the law of the interdicting state.
EU s s enforcement action was based upon counter Iran
sanctions aimed at stopping Iran from fuelling instability
through the profits of illegal oil sales.
The UK supported this action to achieve 3 objectives.
First, to enforce counter Iran sanctions.
Second, to tackle the global security threat posed by
expanding shadowy maritime activity.
And 3rd, to reinforce British homeland defence and security in
this era of rising threats. So Homeland Security is clearly
top of the agenda both in the United States and the United
Kingdom, but we'll come back to Homeland Security a little bit
later. It's quite incredible what
they're, what they're arguing here, that they're talking about
deterring and disrupting the Russian shadow fleet being a
priority for the UK. They're trying to bring Iran
sanctions into it as well. It's quite amazing.
Well, at the end of that statement we didn't have that
part. We said we are, we are.
By doing this we are keeping the British people safe.
How exactly is apprehending an empty tanker keeping, well,
keeping the British people safe? I mean, Britain wasn't actually
involved in the operation. They were just there from a
distance assisting, assisting or going out and doing a kind of a
drill on top of the United States's pirate activities
there. So fueling instability by
illegal oil sales. So what he's saying is that
Iran's not allowed to sell oil to or Russia's not allowed to
give oil to or take oil from Venezuela, Give oil to
Venezuela. That's what really what this is
about, right? It's about isolating and
controlling the flow of goods and services to certain
countries controlled by the US. And Britain's just there to
assist, basically. And of course, they're, they
keep building this narrative of the Shadow fleet.
And, and we know that part of the part of this narrative is
the idea that captains of Shadow fleet vessels are dropping
anchors and dragging them across the seabed in order to disrupt
undersea cables and all this kind of stuff.
And put our pipelines at risk in the Baltic Sea, they say.
Yeah, I can't imagine who puts pipelines at risk in the Baltic
Sea. More than NATO, Nord Stream,
just saying. Sorry to point that out guys,
but. Yes.
So anyway, following the seizure of the tiger, then Starmer gave
President Trump a call on the phone and they said that they
discussed the joint operation to set intercept Bella one and they
keep insisting on calling at the Bella one rather than the the
the new name. But anyway, that's that's.
And so he phoned Trump once and then phoned him again because of
course he also wanted to discuss Greenland and and other stuff.
He also wanted to discuss Euro Atlantic security and he also
wanted to describe, discuss and increasingly this is, quote, an
increasingly aggressive Russia in the High North.
Starmer also yesterday called NATO Secretary General Mark
Ruta, not sure what he called them, but he phoned them anyway.
They began apparently by paying tribute to UK personnel involved
in the operations in the North Atlantic, but also in operations
in Syria. In recent days, they also spoke
about Euro Atlantic security and apparently they agreed that much
more needed to be done to deter Russia in the High North and
welcome discussions on how allies would further protect the
region from increasing Russian threats.
So that that's the way it's gone and and so that's where we are
with with that so. FAR 11 quick point on this,
Mike. He said that they're trying to
deter sanctions busting countries that are not using the
US dollar or the British pound and they're trading with each
other. Britain or the US has no
business physically interdicting.
The moment they go to physically interdict and to steal people
that are trading outside of the dollar, that's an act of war.
That's an act of war. That's not sanctions busting
because they're not using dollars.
So what they're doing is saying, Oh my God, they're trading
outside of our ability to sanction, which is financial
sanctions, and then they're using hard military power.
That is war. That is not sanctions busting,
just to be clear that that is illegal under international law.
They have no business interdicting that ship and
there's no justification to say this is a global security
threat. It's just complete.
Nonsense I. Don't know what to say.
Really. Yeah, Basil, let me welcome you
to the program. Have you got any thoughts on
what happened yesterday? Well, the rhetoric keeps getting
ramped up. Pat McFadden, who's a, if I may
say so, gentlemen, particularly odious member of the cabinet,
was speaking to Times Radio and he said we have to be able to
exert hard power as well as soft power.
And very much echoing what Stephen Miller told CN NS, Jake
Passer, Jake Tapper a couple of days ago, we live in a world
that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that
is governed by power. McFadden specifically made
reference to the changed world that we live in, which we've
seen in many dimensions this week.
So obviously referring to Venezuela as well as the seized
oil tanker and McFadden effectively giving nod of
approval to the abandonment of international law by Donald
Trump and the new might is right doctrine which Miller has
articulated. Will to power.
We've heard that before. It reminds me of the that German
government. When was that?
The 19. 30s yeah. They thieves that term a lot.
But, but look, obviously, as I mentioned, Starmer speaking to
Trump and to Ruda and very concerned about Russia in the
High North and of course, Greenland is the next potential
target. I guess what's what's going on
there? Well, Marco Rubio is set to meet
the Danish Prime Minister, Mattie Frederickson and the
Danish delegation to discuss the terms and conditions the United
States is interested in taking Greenland.
There's Rubio there, the Secretary of State who double S
as national security advisor. Little bit of a conflict of
interest with those two job descriptions, but a, where are
we to point out things like that?
He's also got a third title, Mike.
He is crowned himself viceroy of Caracas.
Marco Rubio, he's a busy man and he's got a busy cabinet
portfolio there. So the lot of pushback from the
Europeans, Mike, already. I want to get Basil Valentine's
comment and yours as well, Mike. But we'll go to Bloomberg here
and now because of the pushback, Trump, whenever there's
pushback, Donald Trump always backpedals.
And so here he is backpedaling. Bloomberg's pushing it out.
Why would Trump buy Greenland? Why would he take it?
And then he would buy it? Now it's rented.
So they're talking about leasing it for 100 years here, and he's
saying a mutually beneficial deal that avoids antagonizing
the local population can be struck with relative ease, as,
geez, Playbook for Africa shows. So Bloomberg got their own
agenda there, Mike, basically accusing China of colonialism in
Africa when it's probably more like the opposite. the United
States and France and the European countries, which we'll
talk about later. But about Basil on the Greenland
front. I mean, what do you make of
this? And also Trump's constantly
modulating his positions based on the pushback, the press, what
Europe's doing. It's it's a tough front he puts
on. But then once The thing is put
out, the big ideas put out, then all sudden it it changes with
Trump. What what?
What are your thoughts on this? Well, people, commentators in
America are saying Trump is increasingly unstable and
unpredictable, you know, vacillating somewhere between
dementia and narcissism and that he needs sort of endlessly
bigger thrills to keep going. That he's actually become rather
bored of the presidency and the sycophants that he's surrounded
himself by, and that only by sort of ramping up the
international scene is he able to continue to sort of engage
with the job. But, you know, sort of era of
somebody approaching Nero or Caligula, he's been likened to,
you know, Venezuela gave him a thrill.
The idea of taking Greenland gives him an even bigger thrill.
There's no real strategic need. People are talking about the
need for a strong NATO presence in Greenland.
That obviously feeds into the whole bellicose rhetoric as
regards Russia. But when it comes to threatening
an existing member of NATO, this is absolutely off the charts.
It's never been seen before that we've been saying it would be
the end of NATO, the end of the whole post war security pact, if
ever a thing such a thing existed.
Halley Thorning Schmidt, former Prime Minister of Greenland, has
described it as an act of aggression that Denmark is being
bullied. The Interestingly though, the
opposition leader in Greenland itself has said that the
Americans couldn't be any worse than the days in terms of being
an imperial power. But, you know, we always hear
about the right of self determination, you know,
spreading democracy. Well, surely therefore, it
should be up to the people of the Greenland to decide their
future. And I don't think when they want
to have anything to do with the Americans at all.
So the, the BBC this morning on on the Radio 4 Today program had
a representative phone from Greenland who was basically
saying, well, you know, there are deals to be done here.
We can give access to allow the United States to place its
military bases in Greenland soil.
We can give them access to rare earths and the mining
opportunities to come. So, so they clearly the rhetoric
from Greenland itself is recognizing Trump as being the
man of the deal. And so they're now offering
deals and so well, we'll see where that.
Goes US offered to buy Greenland Mike after World War 2 for the
princely sum of $100 million that would have been a steal
right, right. Not as bad, not as good as the
Alaska deal, but, you know, pretty good deal there.
And so it's always been there. the US has always kind of had
its eye on this. But it's so funny.
The Republican talking point is on this, the Rubio.
And so they're saying we need to rescue Greenland from the
colonial clutches of Denmark by by taking agreement.
The irony is something I don't think these people are capable.
No, they don't get it. Of detecting anyway well.
OK. Well, well, look, since you've
mentioned Venezuela, let's just come up to date with what's
going on there. Sure.
Now as people know, since since the all the fireworks over the
weekend have have happened, these have been the new
revelations which we'll share with you right now.
First of all, it's it's now confirmed, Mike, that there are
at least 80 dead, 80 Venezuelans have been killed during this
USUS bombing run and this abduction, this kidnapping of
the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro.
And including in that are 60 security forces, including
Maduro's, a close protection team, many of whom were Cuban
nationals. And this is a long running
arrangement between the country of Cuba and the Bolivarian
Republic, Mike. So that that sort of undercuts
this conspiracy talk that's going on through the media that
there was a stand down order in Venezuela and that Maduro was
betrayed by treasonous members of his government because quite
a few people have been killed. Now what we what we do know is
the United States unleashed a pretty hardcore electronic
warfare wave technological wave to basically render the radar
systems basically off and disable many of their air
defense systems, their computer networks and their electrical
grid. OK.
So we know that this capability exists.
Well, Trump is bragging about that during the original press
conference. So I think the, the, I think
there is ACIA agenda to plant the story of betrayal within the
Venezuelan government in order to try to create a rift or a
civil war, if you will, with inside the Chavista movement.
So I I think that's worth pointing out my including in the
targets, the United States hit two medical research centers,
one of which is the kidney dialysis Center for Venezuela.
Why on earth would they want to do that?
Well, if you look at what happened in Gaza over the last
two years, I think that probably doesn't need to be explained.
Also, two residential buildings, apartment buildings were also
destroyed. Many Venezuelans have been
injured. The numbers we do not have in
front of us. But to say this was bloodless
and also many US, there are a number of U.S. soldiers who were
injured as well. There's no details forthcoming
on that. The Cuban security detail died
protecting Maduro. This is what the, the, the, the
Venezuelan media are saying here.
So this is interesting. Now, let's just be clear.
I want to just debunk a few things because I think this is
important to do. First of all, this was not a
regime change. It was not a successful regime
change. The government is still in
place. The the duly elected vice
president has been sworn in Adelci Rodriguez.
So and the government is there. This the whole apparatus of the
Chavista government is in place. So the Trump hasn't achieved
regime change. The other thing is the narco
trafficking. This is the lead accusation on
the indictment. The US has withdrawn it from the
indictment because it's it's now been admitted that it was
completely fictitious. Imagine something this high
profile, the lead accusation that the Trump's backed off it.
So there's no, there's no drugs or there's no narco trafficking
here. And Trump's own intelligence
assessment of his own intelligence agency say there's
no link between Maduro and Trendella Ague, the supposed
Venezuelan gang that they claim is ravaging the streets of the
United States. So again, it's looking tenuous
on that basis alone. That could be a call for
dismissal for the trial because that was the basis of their
arrest warrant, which they say is legal.
But the international law says it's not legal.
But anyway, it's illegal under international law.
It's unconstitutional. You violated the 1973 War Powers
Act. He did not get any permission
from Congress before this. Also, it violates and undercuts
US treaty law regarding extradition and law enforcement
cooperation with all countries, not just Venezuela.
That's why this is a very dangerous precedent.
And then the justification for this is that Maduro is an
illegitimate government. He's an illegitimate government.
And so we're told that British officials, U.S. officials say
all US allies agree that they don't recognize Maduro is
legitimate. So that's their justification,
that all allies agree. And they based that on the 2024
elections. They say that they were
illegitimate. He didn't win.
They weren't transparent. But Mike, we've been speaking to
election monitors from Venezuela, and we will probably
have one of them on the program next week, who was there during
the 2024 election working with independent international
election monitoring organizations.
And they're saying it was absolutely legitimate and one of
the most transparent in South America, according to
independent assessors. So we'll speak to them next week
with more details on that. Human rights violations, these,
they're all an Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, all these NGOs, they all emanate from one single western
backed opposition NGO. This reminds us of something,
doesn't it? The Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, exactly the same and the Caesar report all used as the
basis for sanctions. And that leads us to the main
accusation, which is Maduro has ruined the economy.
He's run the oil industry into the ground.
Well, I I don't think so. Was it him or was it the
sanctions? It was the sanctions under
Donald Trump in front starting from 2016.
And when they dropped the hammer, it dropped oil sales by
75% and average GDP per capita went down 65%.
It was an economic disaster for Venezuela and they're blaming
it, the US media, our politicians blame it on Maduro
and his mismanagement. And so this is a, a total psyop.
They do with all these target countries.
No mention of sanctions in any of.
These critiques of Venezuela and Maduro and his legitimacy and
the last one, Mike, is the most beautiful of all. 8 million
people left the fled the Maduro regime.
Trump's Under Secretary for political Affairs, Tom Shannon
and John Bolton both admitted under Trump's first term it was
their policy to make sanctions create out migration.
They are both on record out migration.
They wanted our people to flee Venezuela to the United States
where they gave them automatic asylum if they were anti Maduro.
Reminds us of something else, doesn't it?
When you show up at Lesbos or fleeing from Syria and you say
down with Bashar al-Assad, immediate asylum straight
through to the UK, to Europe, to Canada, to the United States.
So I mean, I could go on and on, but I think it's important to
point these things out. We can talk about this more an
extra. I mean, this is, this is
critical. Well, how many regime change
operations have we seen run by the United States, United
Kingdom over the last 30-40 years?
And it's always the same. I will cut the hot head off.
Sanctions. Sanctions but but a propaganda
campaign against the head of state for a long time claiming
they're this, that and the other thing.
Get rid of them and then move your.
Own and why is this important Mike because that justifies the
regime change it moderate like before say center right, center
left. You say I don't support the war,
but at least Maduro is gone. I don't support the Iraqi
invasion, but at least Saddam is gone.
I don't support the bombing of Yugoslavia, but Milosevic had to
go, Gaddafi had to go, Assad have to go.
We don't like Al Qaeda ruling of the Black Flag over Damascus,
but Assad's gone, so that's a good thing.
This is a way to get moderates in the West to back regime
change through a propaganda campaign that was repeated every
single time. We have so many examples of
this, but anyway we can discuss more.
Yeah, well, OK. Well, in the meantime, then,
Trump has announced an increase in war spending.
I just wanted to to play Tucker Carlson's take on this.
Have a listen. Well, today, about an hour and a
half ago, the President announced that he is hiking the
Pentagon budget from 1 trillion to 1.5 trillion.
Just announce that. Why?
Well, it's hard to know without asking him.
He'll explain. But big picture, obviously,
that's the kind of budget that a country that anticipates a
global or regional war has for its military.
There's no other reason to do that.
That's not a peacekeeping budget.
That's a war budget, a big war budget.
So I think it's fair to expect, and all the signs suggest that
we're going to have a big war soon.
It's hard to argue with that, Patrick.
It is. And look at Venezuela.
What's that about? Securing a fuel source in the
Western Hemisphere in advance of a third World War when
everything is going to be shut down, the Straits of Hormuz,
everything but the United States and its allies, like Israel,
still have a supply of heavy crude, which is needed for jet
fuel, naval vessels, might power plants, heavy lubricants for
heavy machinery, all the things that you need to run a military
machine. So that really speaks to
Tucker's point. Absolutely.
Well, Chinese press then is asking will China boost spending
too? And of course they will because
this is going to start an arms race.
But my question, Patrick, for you just very briefly is how is
this different to COVID, for example?
So we had the great enemy came along the the virus and that
resulted in what? That resulted in limitations on
freedoms that resulted in billions being pumped into
Pharmaceutical industry. It resulted in surveillance and
narrative control while the general public was destabilised
through fear. Here, here we are.
The stakes are higher this time for sure, but we keep the fair
narrative or a fair narrative going and we pump billions into
so-called defense companies rather than pharma companies.
We continue to build a surveillance in the censorship
states. It looks like the same kind of
MO to me. That's what I said at the
Digital ID rally Mike on Whitehall a couple weeks ago.
I said Kovid was the warm up, COVID was the warm up.
Imagine the lockdowns during World War three, all planes
grounded, borders shut. You can't have this or do that
without your digital ID. And if you don't comply, then
you're a threat to national security, right?
Do I need to explain any further how this works?
And the company's providing the digital ID and doing the back
end databases, the Elon Musk's, the Larry Ellison's, the Peter
Thiel's of the world, the Alex Carbs of the world.
These are the people they're going to profit from this
globalist system. All of Trump's backers are the
globalists. How do I get it through to
peoples heads? And these same people who are
going to benefit from this lockdown, who are all invested
in military firms as well. These are the people paying
paying to to drive the right wing anti immigration movement
in Europe in the UK which is now being used by the government in
the UK to justify digital IDs. Isn't that amazing how it all
comes full circle? Absolutely.
Well, the question then, is Trump going to get his own way
with respect to war budgets? Because five Republican
senators, led by Rand Paul voted yesterday to enact a War Powers
Resolution. This resulted in a bill passing
52 votes to 47. So is Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski,
Todd Young, Susan Collins and Josh Hawley.
So where does that leave Trump? Listen, I, I think this is a
very positive development. Then it's too early to
celebrate, Mike. There's a lot of work to be
done, but at least it tells us, at least in the Senate, that
there are people that do not want to escalate.
And this is a good thing. And I'll tell you what, if you
look at the polling now, before and after Christmas, Trump was
underwater on independence before Christmas.
Now he is even worse in terms of the Republican Party.
So as the polling stands out, we can look at more data perhaps
next week. But the Democrats will carry the
midterms and I don't think he'll ever get the independence back
because he's gone against all of his core principles that he ran
on for 2024, which is for MAGA. So I don't think he's going to
get us back. And that's bad news for the 2028
presidential election as well. So while the Empire might have
got a short term win, Mike, for Trump and maybe for the Empire,
we don't know. This could be a major setback.
So we'll give you more, hopefully more information on
that polling. I'll make a note.
We'll get some of that information together for next
time. Okay, super well, let's come on
to the Palestine action situation, which continues to go
on. The hunger strikers are still
striking. Yes, they are.
I mean, we, we talked about this before Christmas on the, the UK
column Christmas edition and these were the original 8 here.
But right now this situation we're in and again, it's, it's
important to recognize these people because what they're
doing is very brave. But two of them in particular,
two of them in particular are in critical condition.
These are Cameron Ahmed and Heba Moreisi and we'll go to the
update here. They're now in their sixty 67th
and 60th days respectively as part of a rolling protest at
which began in November. So we're we're getting to the
point of organ failure now. So this is getting quite
serious. So I don't know what to say
beyond this, but I know Basil Valentine has been following
this story extremely closely from the beginning.
So where are we at right now with these two hunger strikers
and just with this issue in general?
Is the government going to give any ground on this?
Well, the government aren't even commenting on it at the moment.
There's no indication that there are any talks between the hunger
strikers, lawyers or representatives and the
Department of Justice for just get standard statements from the
prisoner state about how the hunger strikers are being
treated no differently to anybody else with respect to
their immediate physical condition.
Well, we could hear at any moment that one of them has
died. The most likely candidate is
probably Kamran Ahmed, who's gone 60 days without food.
He was hospitalized for the sixth time on Wednesday of this
week. He's experiencing shrinkage to
the muscle of the heart and has been diagnosed with bradycardia,
with his heart rate dropping to 40 beats per minute, according
to his sister, who is a pharmacist.
She was speaking through Novara Media.
There are significant changes in his ECG putting him at risk of
sudden cardiac arrest. He said the government must act
now. Now, of course, amongst their
demands is the deep prescription of Palestine action, something
that's under judicial review and the result of that we should
know before the end of this month or certainly before the
end of next month. There's no way the government
are going to give ground on that issue in the interim because
somebody is hunger striking and Ahmed's representatives and
advisers would be advised to tell him that because the UK
government will let him die. But before they overturn the ban
on Palestine action, before the result of the judicial review.
So, you know, there's a collision course here at the
moment. They they have been given
vitamins, niacin and things like that, vitamin B, which do help
sustain life. But it's highly likely that the
next major news we hear is of somebody's death.
Mike, this is incredible. I mean, what, what would you
think that the fallout would be, Mike?
If if one of them did die, I mean, it's horrible even to
imagine it, but would that change the government's position
at all on this issue? No, I don't think so.
They will they will stand on their decision that Palestine
Action is a terrorist organization.
They they have form on this in the past.
So I don't I don't think this is going to change their position
at all. If if that if the worst should
happen. Basil, it's extraordinary.
Just a brief comment. We just got a minute left, but
you know, we've seen hunger strikers in the past, Bobby
Sands, etcetera, in history in Britain.
It's it, these have been big political events in the past.
This is different though, isn't it Basil?
It's got a global scope to this story, which makes it very
different. Your your final thoughts
briefly. I mean, the UK government were
equally intransigent when it came to the H bloc hunger
strikers in the 1980s. And Bobby Sands, of course,
famously died. That sparked rioting.
You can claim that his death did ultimately lead to the process
that bore fruit in the Good Friday Agreement.
And, you know, obviously the situation in Northern Ireland is
vastly better than it was during the Troubles in terms of
changing the government. But Mike's perfectly right.
They're not, they're not going to change their position at all.
But in terms of changing public opinion and mood towards the
government on this issue, that's another matter.
It's a shame if somebody has to be martyred.
I mean, really there should be a conversation between the hunger
strikers, representatives and lawyers and the government.
I'm sure that if the government agreed that they would abide by
the result of the judicial review, the other demands,
immediate bail and a fair trial, well, they're perfectly
reasonable. They've already been held for 13
months, which is far longer than the government's own
recommendations for detention prior to a trial.
Mike, what Basil said I think is crucial.
He said if, if the government or if they could convince the
government that took state that they would abide by the results
of the judicial review, would that not apply some additional
pressure on the judiciary for that judicial review?
But that's normal, isn't it, because this is a political
process at the end of the day. What are your thoughts briefly?
I mean, I do, I agree completely.
I don't really have anything else to add to that.
I mean, I really think that that that could be a potential yeah
solution. And it would show good faith on
the part of the government to at least take some kind of a
principled position, even if it's.
I don't believe this government understands the word principle
so. Even if it's saying they're
going to respect due process, right?
I mean, I don't know. We're not left with many options
here. And that's that's the sad part
now on on on the back end of this, this story here at the
Canary judicial review launched against the NHS adoption of the
IHRA anti-Semitism definition. And this is from the Canary
Mike. And they're saying the right to
protest group has instructed lawyers to begin judicial review
proceedings against NHS England for adopting the unfit.
They say International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA
working definition of anti-Semitism that suppresses
freedom of speech of Israel. Now, this isn't just about
policing NHS staff, Mike. As we've reported previously,
they're talking about applying this to NHS patients.
Basil Valentine, have you been following this story and is this
how deep it goes? Yes, it's Imran Khan and
partners that have launched this on behalf of a right to protest
group. Very much welcomed.
It's yet to be discovered whether or not they are granted
A judicial review. Lawyers have said that they're
going to petition for one. It's a different matter whether
they get one, of course. I I think they should, because
the key thing about the IHRA definition is it's only ever
supposed to be a working definition.
It was never supposed to be set in stone.
Even it's author would say that. So given Israel's actions over
the last two years, widely perceived by all sorts of
international organisations to be genocide, therefore some of
the examples in the IHRA definition, such as singling out
Israel for criticism, surely that needs to be updated if the
country, any country has been committing what is the ultimate
crime. So you know, the government are
trying to impose it in a monolithic way and a way that I
mean excludes even patients being admitted to hospital with
a 3 coloured watermelon type in or badge or something that would
be beyond the pale apparent. I mean, absolutely extraordinary
stuff as well, of course, as the attacks on staff, you know,
Rehana Ali, Rami Alidwan, Dr. Krisles as well, who've been
hauled up before the GMC for opposing genocide, so.
We're going to continue this, we're going to continue this in
the extra time because we're we're just going to we're
running on on it interest of time, but that's extraordinary
issue and we're going to we're going to expand on that with
Basil during the extra. Yeah, OK.
So thank you. Thank you for that, Basil.
Now, OK, we should go back to the United States at this point.
And of course, the shooting of an armed, an unarmed white U.S.
citizen by an ICE officer in Minneapolis has shocked many,
many people. Now, I'm going to suggest that
it was the result of placing mass paramilitaries on the
streets. And I find it really shocking
that anyone finds that the pretence of mass paramilitaries
acceptable, actually. But it's Trump's response that I
want to focus on here. In order to to do that, we've
got to actually, unfortunately watch what happened.
So let's look at the at the event itself.
No, no. Shame, shame.
Oh my fucking God, what the fuck?
What the fuck? You just fucking what the fuck
did you do? OK, so for anybody that's just
listening to this, what happened was that he literally shot
through the driver's side window of the car at head height.
The window was down. The window was down, absolutely,
but I wanted to, I wanted to highlight Trump's response to
this. So, so put this.
If we put this on screen, this is what he said on True Social.
I've just viewed the clip of the event which took place in
Minneapolis, MN. It is a horrible thing to watch,
that much is true. The woman screaming was
obviously a professional agitator.
I, I just, I mean, I just, I don't even know where to start
with this. A woman screaming was a
professional agitator and the woman driving the car was very
disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently,
wilfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to
have shot her in self defence. This is just an outright lie.
The video shows very, very clearly that she did not run
over anybody. Just put that back up again,
please. And he then went on to say based
on the attached clip, it's hard to believe he is alive.
That's the ICE officer, but is now recovering in hospital.
Now to be absolutely clear about this, if you're watching closely
as as she was shot, the car continued to move off and then
crashed into a a car further on down the street.
He walked calmly towards the car in towards the the road accident
that that he had created. So there was no question of him
being in hospital or requiring to go in hospital and putting
Trump back on screen again. Then he said the situation is
being studied in its entirety. But the reason these incidents
are happening is because the radical left is threatening,
assaulting and targeting our law enforcement officers and ICE
agents on a daily basis. And so first of all, we have
what can only be considered an execution here because that was
that was beyond incompetence. What happened was beyond
incompetence. But now we have a president who
simply lies blatantly on his true social account and then
tries to turn this into something which is killing by
law enforcement and inverted commas and turn it into
something which is right, left immigration issue.
And, and I just think that's that is pretty despicable.
It's so lowbrow. I mean, we're going to spare you
JD Vance's comments, which were equally as reprehensible, but
basically blaming the victim. So and basically an unarmed
woman, a mother of 337 year old white American citizen.
I just thought I'd throw that out there because if if she was,
if she wasn't white, this would have a completely different
political scope to it, a la George Floyd.
I'm just putting that out there. But she was She was shot at
point blank range by a masked federal agent who's effectively
A paramilitary. Donald Trump deployed 2000 of
these masked troops into Minneapolis as a political show
of force as he did in Los Angeles, which caused riots.
So guess what's happening now this week there's big protests
which will likely careen into riots.
So again, it starts from a spark and becomes a brush fire.
So that's what it is. So they're blaming the victim,
the mega media, the supporters of Trump.
It's just so incredible. It's almost statistic,
nihilistic, sadistic and just completely bereft of any morals.
This is the state of. Part of America, I'm not going
to say all Americans are this insensitive, but but generally
it's I don't know. I never thought I would see the
day, especially these are the conservatives that were crying
after January 6th about the dash death of Ashley Babbitt.
Well, that was during a protest that, you know, got inside the
Capitol building. And, you know, I didn't, I
thought that was a very wrong unlawful assassination, if you
will, of a protester, Ashley Babbitt.
I was against it. But this is a totally different
situation. This is the federal government
deploying armed people who are drawing their weapons on
civilians in in a public setting where they have no jurisdiction
to draw their weapons because they're not in the process of
apprehending any illegal person in the case of this woman in the
car. So I mean, it's just kind of
unbelievable and it's a very dangerous precedent.
So now the the person in question has been named, and
this is by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
We'll bring this up here. His name is Jonathan Ross.
This is the masked ICE agent. So he will probably be in hiding
for a very long time and he may, very well may or may not be
disciplined. And this is the thing the Trump
administration, even if he was to, you know, be held
accountable through a federal legal process, maybe if he was
sentenced to on any federal charges, Mike, he would most
likely be pardoned by Donald Trump.
I'm just guessing because Trump in advance are doubling down on
this and again, blaming the the woman who's dead.
I mean, this is if if you want to a recipe for mass protests
and social unrest. Donald Trump has just whipped up
a souffle here. They couldn't be engineering it,
could they? Well, it's it will engineer
itself, let's put it that way. But how did we get here?
Let's take a look at this. So this is Trump's Gestapo is
really what we're talking about here.
This is a very strange individual who is Donald Trump's
White House deputy chief of staff for policy and Homeland
Security. His name is Stephen Miller, and
this is what Stephen Miller had to say.
He set the groundwork for this when he publicly stated that he
declared that ICE agents are legally protected from
prosecution and local officials cannot arrest them.
So they could kill somebody, according to Stephen Miller, and
they have total immunity, total federal immunity.
That's not exactly true. They, they are, they do, they do
have a code and they would be held accountable under a federal
due process on this. So he's, but he's basically
saying we can invade the Gestapo can invade your community and
you can't do anything about it. And this is really the key
point, isn't it? Because we're seeing the United
States, the UK behaving in the way that they're behaving with
respect to Venezuela and the oil tigers.
They're behaving exactly the same way against their own
population. It's attack on the rule of law
internationally and it's attack and on the US Constitution as
well. So to all ICE officers, says
Miller, you have federal immunity in your, in the conduct
of your duties. So that is a statement of
intent. So if you were to take this to
trial, I would take Stephen Millers.
If I was the, the, the, the, the prosecution, I would take
Stephen Miller's comments there straight at the ICE agent here.
So where does this lead us here? Well, this is the reality of it,
Mike. ICE has offered $280 million to
immigrant tracking bounty hunter firms.
So some of these ICE agents, Mike, are mercenaries.
OK. And some of these mercenaries,
as has been reported, we're still tracking the details, but
they're circulating on social media right now.
But there are people who are former, according to reports.
ID EF soldiers as well who are, you know, for hire security
bounty hunters not uncommon you would find such people from
different militaries there. But this shows you this is the
privatization of this process here.
These aren't public servants. These are mercenaries here.
So where does that lead us? Let's take a look.
So inside ISIS tool to monitor phones in entire neighborhoods.
Absolutely. So this is the headline in Four
O 4 Media, if we just put it back on screen there.
So Four O 4 Media has obtained material that explains how
tangles and weblock 2 surveillance systems, ICE
recently purchased work weblock and track phones without a
warrant and follow their owner's home or to their employer.
So this is the the what Four O 4 Media is saying.
And they're saying that a social media and phone surveillance
system that ICE bought access to is designed to monitor a city,
neighborhood or block for mobile phones, track the movements of
those devices and their owners over time and follow them from
their places of work or home to other locations.
According to material that describes how the system works
obtained by four O 4 media Links to this will be in the show
notes. Of course, now they're saying
that that this technology is owned by a company called
Penlink. But the issue is that Penlink
only obtained this technology a couple of years ago.
They bought it via an organization called Spire
Capital. So this is from Globes Spire
Capital buys is really web intelligence firm Cobwebs.
So Cobwebs was an Israeli. Now, although it's not directly
declared that it was linked to Unity 200 as such, it's saying
that it was absolutely linked to or formed by IDF intelligence
agency staff. So this is the type of
technology that we're seeing deployed for these types of
operations. No surprise there.
Well, let's take a look at how deep this goes here.
And this is ICE and U.S. Department of Homeland
Security's long standing operational technological ties
with Israel. First of all, since the early
2000s, DHS has maintained A liaison presence inside Israel.
That's the US Department of Homeland Security.
They've even got their investigations offices inside
Israel working with Shin Bet, Israelis, MOD on technology and
data transfers. All of this stuff is pretty much
open between these two countries here.
And so it goes. In 2022, DHS signed a bilateral
security agreement. Biometric data sharing, cyber
intelligence, border surveillance technology, all of
this agreements between ICE, the DHS and the Israelis.
So I mean, does that worry you? Well, this is make going to make
you even a little more worried here.
They've they've been Paragon solutions spy Ware, surveillance
Ware, all of this stuff, location tracking, cell phone
communication monitoring, data scraping, all has been Rd.
tested in the West Bank and Gaza and Elbit systems.
Mike is this name that people are familiar with here.
They've built a large portion of the US Mexican border
surveillance infrastructure, radar towers, drones, remote
sensors, all again, Rd. tested in Gaza, Rd. tested in the West
Bank. Oh, and it doesn't end there.
If only it did they their joint research program is called Bird.
This is for new technologies right across the board.
And to hide this, these programs are being organized outside
through nonprofits and universities.
This is how they're laundering these joint ventures, Mike,
because obviously there would be a lot of protests that people
knew they should. Now, key programs include the
Anti Defamation League's National Counterterrorism
Seminar and and so on. You can see all the data here.
We'll put the links to this, by the way, in our show notes.
But here is a whistleblower who was in Gaza.
Listen to what he has to say. Anthony Aguilera, former U.S.
special forces and military person.
The IDF trains American police officers and ICE officers in
Israel. They train with US, ICE with US,
Homeland Security, NYPD and that's what's called through SME
program, subject matter exchange where our police etcetera
trained with them. So these National Guard soldiers
that will soon be in or are in Chicago have trained with and
trained with Israel habitually for years.
So when you look at all of these pieces of who do we have
operating on the streets of Portland, in the streets of New
York and on in DC and who's going into Chicago, all
components and elements that have trained hand in hand with
the IDF or the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, Jean de Marie
paramilitary police, that's absolutely amazing.
That's not a coincidence. They do anti-Semitism training,
not just physical training but brainwash training basically for
them too. When we entered Israel, they
took us on the hospital tour, they took us to Kibbutz Bierity,
they took us to the Nova Film Festival site, and they also
took us to Stared Out, which is the overlook just outside of
northern Gaza City and Bait Hanoon.
It's on the Israeli. Side of the border that
overlooks all of Gaza City. They've turned that into a
spectacle. It's a picnic site.
You can go up there. There's vending machines,
there's an area to park, there's an area where you can get your
panoramic view with Gaza in the background.
And if you time it just right, there might be a bomb that drops
for your photo I. Mean.
That's pretty cynical. It's pretty shocking, but you
know, we've got the receipts for this and again, we'll drop the
links in the show notes here. But just so people know, DHS
increasing cooperation with Israel.
That's our source. Our source is the Department of
Homeland Security. All the documents you'll be able
to access through the links in your show notes here.
This is another one of our sources, Deadly Exchange.
This is a not-for-profit. These are Jewish Americans who
run this organization who are against this use of cooperation
between the IDF and the US law enforcement and ICE.
So again, a Jewish American group, liberal group is coming
out to oppose this here. And we track some of the
contracts, Mike, on this. It's very interesting with
regarding ICE and Paragon here. And so they're using AI,
Palantir's involved. And so this is coordinating all
of these software to integrate social media monitoring always
on surveillance pipelines. It never switches off.
This is what these big data centers are being used for.
And when you combine that with the digital ID, you can see
where this is part of the police state, the high tech police
state. And here's Whitney Webb
explaining the really uncomfortable connections here
with Palantir. Go ahead and roll this.
But Palantir, you know, also works extensively now in the
private sector as well. They're a major AI engine for
Wall Street banks, for example. And they have different programs
that are sold to different entities.
But ultimately, they are a massive contractor to
essentially every U.S. intelligence agency.
And that includes DHS and ICE, which a lot of the reporting,
critical reporting on Palantir focuses on their contracts with
ICE specifically. But all of that is intended to
also be used against people that are not illegal immigrants.
It's a meant to be an entire dragnet of basically pre crime.
And Palantir, in concordance with Poindexter's ambitions, has
been a major piloter of pre crime technology in the United
States. I think they began doing that in
New Orleans initially. They call it predictive policing
is the term that that they use. But a lot of other companies
have attempted to also get in on this.
One of the most notorious being Pred Pol.
That was a partnership, I believe with UCLA, an LAPD or
something to that effect. And they're notoriously
inaccurate. And they're almost always
piloted in low income minority neighborhoods.
In essence, what happens because the accuracy rate is so low is
that you're creating this pipeline of people basically
being sent to prison or, you know, being caught up in crimes
that are very petty. But I mean, you're just sending
police to all these areas in a relatively, you know,
discriminatory way. And then in in some of these
areas where Palantir ended up leaving another Peter Thiel
backed entity called Carbine also has a predictive policing
component, but has been sort of taking over 9911 emergency call
systems throughout the United States, which is, you know,
generally at the county level. But this is a company that that
wasn't just found, you know, funded by Peter Thiel.
It was funded by Jeffrey Epstein and was led for a significant
amount of time by Ehud Barack, the former Israeli Prime
Minister as well and has sort of expanded outwards.
So a lot of Poindexter's, the ambitions and unfortunately have
been becoming true at a really rapid pace.
So again, Whitney Webb, a great researcher on these topics here.
So that leads us just on the Palantir issue.
So knowing what we know now about Palantir and does this
bother anybody here, They just landed the biggest ever UK
defense deal, 240 million contract with the UKMOD.
So they're really in bed with Palantir here.
And we just go to the UK's government website.
These are the details of a £1.5 billion cooperation deal here
that's going to feature Palantir as one of the biggest central
players in this. And of course, we have a photo
there that is John Healey smiles from ear to ear there with Alex
Karp, the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp being also a major
Bilderberg member now, as we saw during the last Bilderberg
meeting here. So I mean, people should start
connecting the dots really quickly before it's too late.
Absolutely. Now, if you like what the UK
column does, if you'd like to support us, please have a look
at the website and on the front page there you'll see a link
that takes you to a page that explains how you can't support
us. We do need your ongoing
financial support and we would like to say thank you once again
to everybody that does support us.
That way. If you can't support us
financially, do share this program and everything else that
we put out if you possibly can because that helps us beat the
censorship. Now tonight, the overwhelming
majority of Jews support genocide, says Zachary Foster.
That's on German Warfare at 7:00 PM.
And on Sunday at 7:00 PM Abby Roberts is the guest for Jake
Fern for the 1000 Words Podcast. And Abby will be having her
portrait painted by Jake while they have an in depth discussion
about a whole host of topics. Now let's move on to a gentleman
called Colonel Jacques Bode. Now a number of years ago, in
fact three years ago this month, Jacques, we published an article
by Jacques Bode on the UK column entitled Ukraine the Search for
Peace. If you haven't read that
article, please do. The link will be in the show
notes. Why am I mentioning him?
Well, because he has now been sanctioned by the EU, because
he's an outspoken critic of EU policy with respect to Ukraine
and Russia Since the war began, a petition has been set up to
raise awareness of the sanctions and to demand their removal.
So here it is. The text of the petition makes
the point that Bode and others have been sanctioned not for
criminal acts, but for engaging in lawful activities such as
journalism, academic analysis, political commentary that are
explicitly, they say, protected under European fundamental
rights frameworks, including freedom of expression and
freedom of thought. Increasingly, of course, that's
being ignored by the EU, the UK, the United States.
Now the sanctions being applied are being applied in the
context, in the following context.
They say that they lack judicial due process, that they have a
punitive effect despite being officially framed as foreign
policy measures, that they lead to severe personal and economic
hardship tantamount to civil death, and that they're
incompatible with values and legal principles enshrined in EU
treaties to Charter fundamental rights and the European
Convention on Human Rights. And they say that they call on
the Council to immediately delist Mr. Bode and similar
affected citizens and to refrain from using foreign policy
sanctions to regulate lawful internal speech or dissent.
And this again, this is now the third time in this program that
we've had to highlight that what these governments are doing on
an international basis, they're applying on a domestic basis as
well. And you know, this is the
integrated operating concept that the British military claims
to have got rid of in June this year.
The idea that the the front in this war that we're experiencing
at the moment is as much at home as it is abroad.
And it's absolutely clear that our that our own populations are
under massive attack now, Patrick.
You know, they're accusing Jump Boat of, of being a Russian
disinformation agent when he's totally objective.
He doesn't use Russian sources. He doesn't appear on Russian
media, yet he has still been sanctioned by the European
Commission. And what's important, just to
note here, Mike, is that he's done nothing illegal.
He's done nothing illegal. This is an administrative
measure designed to quote, change the behavior.
I'm quoting the paraphrasing the E the EU Commission's own
website to change the behavior of the individual.
But it basically it's punishing them.
They can't. He can't even buy food.
He can't even pay his rent without asking permission.
No, you can't give him anything as a donation.
That's a that would be a violation of sanctions.
Some of the other people have been sanctioned.
They've sanctioned their wife's bank accounts, their whole
family. They can't come and help them.
He can't travel. He can't fly over European
airspace. So this is something that has
been used against foreign targets.
So this that that's what this tool is.
It's used against as Natalie Yam from Switzerland as well.
She said they've been doing this to African politicians for
years. And now they're using the same
tools to target foreign targets against European citizens.
Jacques Boud is a decorated intelligence officer with the
Swiss government, has worked with NATO and the OSCE.
And that's why of course, because, because he is that that
standing within the, within the establishment as it were, that's
of course why they're targeting him and others of that type.
And there's something else quickly, Mike, I know we got to
move on, but this is coming from the French government.
They hand walk this to the European Commission and
Caliacalis and so forth. It's coming from France and
they've targeted. So France is worried about the
French language political ecosystem that they're really
panicking because they're losing control of Switzerland falls
within that French language sort of area of information.
They're really concerned about this.
Why would that be? Shows you how important France
is in Europe as as as A to either have on board or not have
on board with this wider agenda to go to war with Russia for
example. Absolutely.
Well, we'll, we'll stick with France knowledge just very, very
quickly because as Finnas and I were talking about yesterday on
on the discussion that we had, Burkina Faso and Niger, who are
both members of the Confederation of Sahel states
have apparently stopped major destabilisation operations to
overthrow their governments. Tuesday, Burkina Faso Security
Minister Sana released a video message, as you can see on
screen here on X what he exposing what he described as an
attempt to destabilise the country.
He said that the operation was planned for the 3rd of January
and that the intention was to assassinate President Triore and
several military and civilian officials and to disable a drone
base and follow up with the ground military intervention by
foreign forces. The coup was to be led by Paul
Henri d'amiba, the former transitional president who was
ousted by Triori on September the 30th, 2022 and who's now
exiled in Togo. And he he said a significant
portion of the funding came from Cote d'Ivoire, with latest
contribution reportedly amounting to 70 million CFA
francs. So the the sorry SANA said that
authorities have been arrested, numerous civilians will be
brought before the prosecutor of Burkina Faso, the full force of
the law will be applied. And then, of course, Niger on
the 1st of January declared that the first advisor of the Embassy
of Benin should be removed from the country as persona non
grata. They ordered him to leave the
country. But this is just part and parcel
of a number of operations that are going on in the Sahel.
So we've got Associated Press here talking about Mali, Burkina
Faso, amnesia, calling for joint large scale operations against
extremists. There is there are insurgencies
at work right across the Sahel at the moment of why would this
be? Well, we got to go back to a
couple of years ago when the wonderful yen Stoltenberg was in
charge of NATO. And of course he was talking
about the expansion of NATO towards China.
But he was saying this is not about NATO moving NATO into the
South China Sea. It's about taking into account
that China is coming closer to us in the Arctic, in Africa,
investing heavily in infrastructure.
The EU sees the Sahel region as being it's external
neighborhood, it's southern neighborhood that's it's
particularly interested. But so is the United Kingdom and
Tony Blair Institute absolutely 100% active in that region.
So when we're seeing in Niger and Burkina Faso, in Nigeria, in
the Horn of Africa, we're seeing these types of insurgencies
taking place. It's again the same MO that we
saw in Syria and other places. We fund the insurgency, we arm
the insurgency, we're even prepared to kill the insurgency
when it suits us to do so. But it's our effort to
destabilize the region for our control interests.
And you notice the the words in here, Mike, the verbage, if you
look close, it's about providing women and girls with the freedom
they need to succeed and getting them on board with climate
change in those countries, precisely so forth.
And by the way, it's South America.
Also, China is one of the sort of big reasons the United States
is saying it's a big threat to their hemispheres.
So there there is an agenda to evict China from Africa, from
South America, from the Western Hemisphere.
But if from Europe, how's Europe going to pull that one off?
Exports from China into Europe have reached record highs, Mike,
this past year. So that's going to be tough for
old Europe, isn't it? But this is part of the paradox.
Of course, Europe still buying Russian oil as well.
So you know, it is part of the paradox.
We'll talk about that more in UK called News Extra, which will be
on this live stream in a few minutes if you're if that.
Basil Valentine will be joining us as well.
Joining us, absolutely. So if you are AUK column member,
stick around for that. If you're not, well, maybe you'd
like to join and then you can join us for extra as well.
Thanks for joining us in any case today.
Have a great weekend. Don't forget German warfare
tonight, but we'll see you 1:00 PM as usual on Monday.
See you then. Bye bye.