Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 29th of May
2024, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News.
I'm your host, Mike Robson. Joining me in the studio today
is Charles Mallett. Welcome to the programme,
Charles. So much Mike.
And from Damascus, as usual, is Vanessa Bailey.
Now, Vanessa, we're going to get started off with Rafa.
We mentioned it briefly on Monday, but you've got the
details. Yes, I'm sure everybody is well
aware of what happened on Sunday night with the Israeli bombing
of what was effectively a refugee camp close to the UNRWA,
UN agency. So this is just a little video
to recap for everyone if we can just roll that None.
I mean, really as the UN described that this was an
abomination and and we've seen plenty of massacres in the last
seven months inside Gaza and even also in the occupied
territories. But this came in the context and
I think this is one of the interesting points to make.
So this bombardment was basically in, as I said, an
UNRWA area, a safe area. Supposedly the Knesset is the
whole preliminary vote designating UNRWA a terror
organization after their absolutely fraudulent claim that
members from us, we're working with UNRWA from the 7th of
October onwards. Bearing in mind, of course, that
Hamas is the official recognized government of Gaza.
Also. It came at the time also or just
after the ICJ International Criminal Court Gaza ruling.
Israel was ordered to halt its rougher offensive, open the Gaza
Egypt crossing parade, which has effectively been close since the
7th of October, thanks both to Israel and Egypt.
And of course, at the same time as the ICC had put in a request
for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoaf Gallant.
Now I just want to play those. Not my favorite person, and I
apologize for putting him out there again.
But let's have a look at how the US basically refuses to say that
even this massacre has not crossed any red line for human
rights abuses and war crimes. So this is John Kirby speaking
to reporters. Every case believes that the US
doesn't want to see a major ground operation in Rafa.
But. Israeli tanks just moved into
central Rafa. How is that?
Not a major military. Well, again, I don't want to
talk about Israeli Defence Force operations, but my understanding
is, and I believe the Israelis have spoken to this, that they
are moving along something called the Philadelphi Corridor,
which is on the outskirts of the town, not in the town proper.
That's what the Israelis have said.
We don't want to see a major ground operation.
We haven't seen that at this point.
How many more charred corpses does he have to see before the
president considers a change of policy?
We don't want to see a single more.
Innocent life taken and I kind of take a little offence at the
question. No civilian casualties is the
right number of civilian casualties and this is not
something that we've turned a blind eye to, nor has it been
something we've ignored or neglected to raise with our
Israeli counterparts, including Ed this weekend as a result of
this particular strike. Now they're investigating it.
So let's let them investigate it and see what they come up with.
Unfortunately for Kirby, the headline in Jewish media, in
Hebrew media, IDF thanks role into central Rafa in an
unprecedented thrust into the city.
So either the information that he was being given is wrong, or
yet again he's trying to fudge details.
Basically reaction internationally was strong
against massacre and Rafa from Spain, Norway, Ireland.
As the foreign minister in Ireland said, one cannot bomb an
area like that without shocking consequences in terms of
innocent children and civilians. All of these countries are
speaking about a Palestinian state.
Personally, I think A2 state solution is playing lip service
to the Zionist entity and it should basically be up to
Palestinians to be able to liberate the territories that
have been taken from them by the occupying force, including
territory that has been taken since the 7th of October.
Even a member of the Israeli Knesset aid to Miss Lima.
This bloody government refuses to obey all orders of the
tribunal and is taking the madness and vindictiveness for a
new criminal level. What did Netanyahu have to say
bearing in mind Kirby is waiting for the results of a war
criminal nation investigation into its own war crimes?
Netanyahu roughest strike is a tragic accident, will never cave
to Hamas while the UN is, as they said, calling it the most
cruel abomination as EU weighs up the ideas of sanctions on
Israel. But within 24 hours, having
called Rafa, the first rough bombing, a mistake, at least 21
were killed in Israeli attacks on 10th camp near Gaza.
Rafa and again close to an Unruh agency centre and warehouse.
And I just wanted to show this. This was from Haaretz article.
So this was rougher pre April 2024.
You can see that the majority of the buildings are intact and
this is our rougher looks now on a satellite match.
So we can see the extent to which Israel has effectively
deployed this entire area, which was sold by Israel as being a
safe area. And we shouldn't forget who has
given Israel the grim lights carry out these massacres.
Biden, Sunak von der Leyen, who is facing an ICC prosecution for
her simplicity in genocide, and of course, Keir Starmer.
And when I went to Twitter, both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak to
see what they had potentially said about this appalling
massacre. Imagine that this has been an
attack carried out by Russia against Ukraine.
They would be all over Twitter in outrage.
But in reality, on the very day that the attack was carried out,
this is what Rishi Sunak was doing.
Play the video. Not sure what to say at the end
of that, but there you go. No, there's not really much to
say, Vanessa. Of course, these people are
effectively enabling this. So we're playing balls and
playing at politics at this time.
Well, I think that clearly it seems to me that that this topic
and the issue of what's going on in Gaza is off the table as far
as the election is concerned. I think that all, you know, both
sides of the, at least the two main parties see this as a
divisive issue and they don't want to go near it at election
time. Yeah, absolutely.
But I think with demonstrations that have been going on since
the Rough Massacre, they're going to be forced to confront
the situation at some point. Yes, indeed.
OK, thank you very much for that.
Now let's come back to the UK and at least initially anyway.
Now on Monday we were talking about this issue of National
Service and we were, if you remember, we're drawing
parallels with what Admiral Sir Tony Rattigan had said earlier
in the year with respect to conscription.
And could it not being in a traditional sense of the word
that they were using the term conscription back in January and
whatnot. Now it's not just the UK, at
least not just the Tory party that's talking about this.
This is something that's being talked about in other European
countries as well. So here is headline.
Italy's League party introduces Bill to bring back compulsory
military service. This is from the 22nd of May
Bill proposes 6 months of civil or military service for 18 to 26
year olds. It's not just Italy and Germany.
This is your act of saying Germany moles reintroducing
conscription. This one is from March this
year. But actually Germany just in the
last couple of days has been talking about pulling back from
making it a compulsory thing. So Germany attempting to talk
about this in the same kind of language as the UK as as being a
voluntary sort of thing, at least initially.
So this is the Bundes, the Bundesfair saying voluntary
military service, an opportunity, not an obligation.
Security cannot be taken for granted.
Protecting Germany and its citizens is and will remain the
central mission of the Bundesfair in the future.
Everyone can do their part to defend the values which whose
values? Because of course, the response
to this, at least in the UK and I suspect further afield, has
been an utter rejection of the entire idea.
So I see, as far as I can see, on one hand, governments needing
the personnel because they're clearly on a war footing now and
they see the need in the not too distant future for people at a
time, particularly in the UK, as we mentioned on Monday, where
there is a complete inability to recruit for the military.
So they're trying to force people into it.
But nonetheless, at least initially talking about it being
a voluntary thing. In the meantime, what do we have
going on? Well, a few days ago when The
Economist, The Economist interviewed Jans Stoltenberg,
secretary general of NATO. And if you want to see the full
interview, it's headline. NATO's boss wants free to free
Ukraine and strike hard inside Russia.
And let's just look at the complete insanity of what he's
saying here. The time has come for allies to
consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions
they've put on the use of weapons that they've donated to
Ukraine, especially now when a lot of the fighting is going on
in Kharkiv, close to the border. To deny Ukraine the possibility
of using these weapons against legitimate military targets on
Russian territory makes it very hard for them to defend
themselves so openly calling for Western weapons to be used
across the border in Russia. This is a direct attack,
therefore, on Russia, and Russia is very clear in its military
doctrine about what this what happens in retaliation should
that kind of thing take place. But it's not just Stoltenberg.
This is the Russian Parliamentary Assembly pushing
out a press release yesterday and they're saying in this UK,
Ukraine must be provided with all that it needs as quickly as
possible and for as long as it takes for it to win.
It went on to say that allied governments, so-called allied
governments, need to support Ukraine and its international
right to defend itself by lifting some restrictions on the
use of weapons provided by NATO allies to strike legitimate
targets in Russia. And this is something that they
describe as a hard hitting declaration.
So of course, the response from Russia, if we just put that back
a second, Stephanie. So here's the response from
Russia, this is Sergei Lavrov. I doubt that the secretary
general can take it upon himself to speak on behalf of members of
the bloc before the issue is discussed within NATO.
Well, it seems, based on this Parliamentary Assembly press
release, it has been at least to some degree discussed within
NATO. He went to say, he went on to
say, I believe that Stoltenberg has stepped outside of his
authority. I think that may be true.
This is Dmitry Peskov and his response.
This cannot be his personal opinion.
He is an official. He is the secretary general of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and that's how we
perceive it. He went on say NATO is
increasing the degree of escalation.
NATO is flirting with warlike rhetoric, falling into wartime
ecstasy. This is the reality that we have
to continue to deal with and I don't think that's an unfair
position. What are your thoughts?
No, I. Don't, I don't think it's an
unfair position at all. And I think this, you know, this
entire narrative is, is the crafting of an emergency.
Specifically with regard to the suggestion here of national
service, it's often said that people forget their history.
I think in a sense that politicians haven't, although
they have no regard for practical delivery troubles
because of course the armed forces were enormous.
I mean, you know, millions of men last time this was tried.
But what people forget is how quickly it was done.
The Military Training Act in 1939 happened before the war
started. It was in May, 240,000 people
signed up immediately. And then when war was declared
in September, the National Service Act came into effect
that day. So I think people would do well
to bear in mind how quickly these things can be changed.
Yes, it's it's. The unfortunate thing is that
should there be a complete rejection of the idea, they
don't have the prison spaces to put people in.
So at this point in time. So it is a bit tricky situation
for them. But it's not just NATO.
So here's Joseph Burrell, the foreign, so-called foreign
minister of the European Commission.
Let's listen to this. We discuss also about something
which has been high in the media and Secretary General of NATO
referring to it. It is the possibility of lifting
restrictions on Western weapons used by Ukrainian forces to
target military objectives in Russia territory, in self
defence, but in Russian territory.
It's clear that this is a legitimate action on the
international law when it is being used in a proportional
manner, but it's also clear that it is a decision for each
individual member states to take and to take their responsibility
on doing that or not. So Vanessa, very, very briefly,
I realize I'm hijacking you a little bit here, but he is now
claiming that this would be a legitimate action under
international law. We're going to come on to the
so-called rules based international order in a minute.
But this is just it's a perversion of international law.
Well, of course it is. You know, everything that the
West is doing and NATO is doing right now is a distortion of
international law that is being bent out of shape in order to
comply with their agendas. Whether it's Israel, whether
it's Ukraine, China. International law is effectively
non existent to the West. Yeah, indeed.
So we're going to come on a little bit more in a second on
that. But just to mention again,
Reuters here reporting that the Ukrainians at least believe that
the French are going to send boots on the ground for training
in, in order to train personnel in Ukraine.
So not to go to the front lines they claim.
But anyway, that's, that's the the French themselves still
trying to pull back from this position, but that seems to be
increasing. But let's come on to the
international law aspect of this because it's an article that was
published in the Financial Times by Gideon Rachman.
And it's really quite incredible because he's he's effectively
admitting that the rules based international order is basically
whatever Britain and the United States decides that it is.
And he basically says that because it's really something
that's mutable and can be changed and whatnot.
That's just abandoned the term rules based international order
completely and instead use a completely different term and
something which is which is really just about protecting the
West or some nonsense like this. So defending the free world,
that's what it was. So that was what he was trying
to do. So we need to rebrand and make
it defending the free world. In the meantime, Zelensky has
been in Europe and Spain in particular, but he's mostly
concerned about the fact that there's going to be a so-called
peace conference in Switzerland in a few days time.
And President Biden might not be there because President Biden is
also campaigning and he's apparently running a fundraising
event or so on. But of course, Russia hasn't
been invited to this peace conference.
And so it's not a peace conference at all.
It's much more about organizing the the war effort and so on is
how it seems. So, but he's unhappy that Biden
might not be there because of electoral commitments.
Now, if anybody thinks of course, that getting rid of
Sunak is going to get rid of the war agenda and that that Starmer
is going to be better, I don't, I'm sure pretty sure not if our
viewers think that. But anyway, just in case you do,
let's just remind ourselves what Starmer's attitude was during
the COVID pandemic, and you can decide for yourself whether he
was he's prepared to take a sort of opposition stance.
Anti vaxxers getting platforms and so on well.
We have to deal with the anti vax campaigns because they will
cost lives and if we need to pass emergency legislation to
deal with them, I'd be quite prepared to work with the
government on that. We could pass it in a couple of
days in Parliament and the sooner we do that, frankly the
better because for many NHS staff it is really distressing.
They're under huge pressure and it's been building over the last
few weeks and months. They're all doing their level
best. They're all seeing that it's
getting very, very difficult and to come out and to have to
confront that or even hear that is against the national interest
and let, if we need legislation, I'll sit down with Boris
Johnson. We can draft it, we can pass it
very, very quickly because that misinformation.
So there you go. Quite clearly at that time he
was quite happy to be a member of the UNI party.
And I suspect that nothing has changed there.
We're going to get the same kind of nonsense.
So look, here's my point. This is where we're heading
unless we change TAC. And this isn't to scare anybody,
but we've got to be realistic about the kind of lunatics that
we have running the asylum at the moment and we need a change.
And so I want to really strongly urge people to get involved in
this general election and get these fools out because there's
nobody from any of the mainstream parties that is
actually taking a pro peace position at the moment.
And the direction of travel is extremely dangerous.
But anyway, extremism, that might be an extremist view, you
see. So we've talked about extremism
and the new definition of extremism, which Charles is
going to mention again in a second, but there's been an
update on this. It has.
Thanks very much, Mike. Yes, essentially the The
Continued reframing of extremism, most recently updated
last week in the House of Commons with the Land for
Parliament of Lord Warney's report on what's called
Protecting our Democracy from Coercion.
The then Minister of Security, Tom Tuguenad, from whom we've
heard a lot on this issue, talked about it being a timely
and compelling report identifying a rising tide of
extremism. And its central finding is that
political intimidation and the incitement of hatred by
extremist groups and individuals are infringing on the essential
rights and freedoms of the British people.
So we'll have a look into the report itself here.
It is protecting our democracy from coercion.
And he starts with a a forward talking about the elected
representatives facing violent threats on a daily basis and
intimidation, slightly surprisingly, or maybe not, he
refers to noble causes such as the battle against climate
change being hijacked by extremist groups.
And at the same time, hostile states have been emboldened.
So he's very much conflating the apparent sort of risks and
threats from within and without the country.
I've compiled a sort of scorecards.
You might be interested to know what topics turn up more
frequently than than others. Perhaps far right, Top of the
pops with 171, far left only 154, transgender, Black lives
matter, anti vax, climate change, anti-Semitism, a fairly
high score with 103. And of course nationalism, which
crept in as being guarded now as a sort of criminal offence.
But he also makes recommendations, and I think
this one's particularly telling. Specifically left wing anarchist
and single issue threats to provide ideological coherence to
the categories and add the word extreme to avoid unintentionally
conflating mainstream left wing views with the far left.
Now of course the the far right has not been afforded the same
privilege or indeed the right also a recommendation for MI 5
and Counter terrorism to publish information specifically to
allow researchers, journalists and the wider public to track,
report on and better understand the threat from failed terrorist
attempts. Now my question is what sort of
researchers, journalists and wider public, because I would
doubt that it includes absolutely everybody and as Mike
said, the definition of extremism, which is enabling all
of this narrative to be put forward.
But just to remind you, it's now defined as the promotion or
advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or
intolerance that aims to negate or destroy the fundamental
rights and freedoms of others or undermine, overturn or replace
the UK system, system of liberal parliamentary democracy and
democratic rights or, or to create the environment where
either of those things is possible.
Now the point of that is really what it's doing is shifting the
ground in order to demonise people and describe them as
being intolerant or full of hatred.
And the shift here, as I say, is described as being the threat
from extremism has been steadily growing for many years.
So it's this idea that this is getting worse and worse.
But also he goes on to say this is in line with the first duty
of our government to keep our citizens safe and our country
secure. Most extremist materials and
activities are not illegal and do not meet a terrorism or
national security threshold. I think that's a very important
point. But of course glossed over.
And I simply finished by with with the the quotes attributed
to the Code of Hammurabi from 1772 BC.
In actual fact, saying that the first duty of government is to
protect the powerless from the powerful, which is quite a
significant diversion from what Walney has suggested.
And if you want to know where this comes from and indeed why
we're on this path, we look at the document Operating with
Impunity, which is referenced. This goes back to February 2021
and Sir Mark Rowley, the the Metropolitan Police Commissioner
involved in putting that together in which he said my
last role in policing was a national responsibility leading
counter terrorism policing. During those years I saw
terrorism and extremism transforming terrorism more from
small secret organisations to terrorism inspired and
encouraged via social media, something we've talked about a
lot in the past. Terrorism leaders split their
efforts between the long established tactic of planning
large scale events and the new tactic for spreading their
ideology online and through their agents to grow support and
use this outreach to inspire some of their new followers into
lone actor attack. So it looks like that that in
order to cement this seed in in people's heads, the the there
are going to need to be lone actors found around who's next.
This sort of accusation can be hung.
But but this to just make the point that this was rarely in in
2021. Of course, he was appointed
Metropolitan Police commissioner in 2022.
And I would put it that this is a very obvious reason for why
that's why he was put in the job.
OK, if you like what the UK column does, you'd like to
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because that helps us out greatly as well.
Now tomorrow at tomorrow is the anniversary of the passing of
Arnie Burkhart, who did so much work on mRNA vaccines and so on.
Now Taylor Hudak will be introducing a short a summary of
her interview with him, the the last interview that she did with
him that'll go out at 1:00 PM tomorrow.
Please join us for that. So that's the anniversary of
Arnie's passing and we want to, to note to, to take note of that
and so on. So also at the weekend or sorry,
on the weekend of June the 2nd of 2024, if you would like to
head over to Glasgow, if you're in Scotland and there's going to
be an event there for the vaccine injured.
So please do visit that if you possibly can.
And of course, Charles, on Monday you were travelling back
from the Stand in the Light event, Yes.
Go through driving rain. But the the festival itself was
a great success. And so just to feedback, I think
that the sense of delight at being able to encounter people
face to face and share broadly similar views was really
appreciated by everybody that turned up.
UK column had a had a stand there, which I'll just show you.
You can see Brian sort of surrounded by people who were
very generous in their words and coming up to engage with us at
UK column. Also a great opportunity for
Kenny and Claire there to to sell a good quantity of very
special merchandise. But really just an encouragement
to people to get out to these sorts of events because the the
they're very, very good-natured. They're they're a great way of
re engaging and encountering people with someone who's to,
you know, to push the things forward that you care most about
in life. So it was a real success, very
well organized, absolutely beautiful countryside and.
There were about 1200 there were.
About 1200 people there, I think.
Yeah. So it was a lovely, it was a
really good size too. Yeah, brilliant.
OK, Now on Monday we were discussing the launch of the
World Health Assembly and, well, one of the video clips that Mark
Anderson showed was this one. Let's just have a look at it
again. Also at the Assembly, WHO will
be launching a new global health strategy developed in
partnership with 194 Member States and partners, Which?
Sets a course for getting the world back on track to hit the
health related Sustainable Development Goals.
Crucial decisions are expected on a range of health priorities
such as climate and health, WH OS work in health emergencies,
access to transformative tools, communicable diseases, non
communicable diseases, mental health, Women's Health and the.
Reform of WHO itself On 26th May, WHO will be launching our
first investment round, a new mechanism for WHO, which the
Executive Board approved in January.
The investment round is designed to ensure that voluntary
contributions, which are currently the majority of our
funding, will be more predictable, flexible and
sustainable. Our new investment case outlines
why and how supporting WHO is essential for progress in global
health and saving millions of lives.
It will be launched on 28th May during the Assembly.
And indeed, it was launched yesterday.
And here is the first graphic that they want to show.
We're not sure what kind of salute that is that they're
giving, but what the World Health Organization will deliver
between 2025 and 2028. So this is all about working
with existing donors and other partners.
They are calling it an investment round.
So it's like a venture capital kind of thing that they're
attempting to to sell it as here.
And it aims to attract new donors through an inclusive,
inclusive engagement process will culminate in a high level
financing event in the fourth quarter of 2024.
So let's just look at what they're doing.
So 40 million additional lives saved globally.
This is their elevator pitch that you're seeing right now, by
the way, because this is what you know, it's like Dragon's
Den. So they're attempting to sell
this to investors. What else did they say?
7 billion people protect better, protected from health
emergencies. This is the World Health
Organization's doing this. It's fantastic work.
It deserves massive investment. 6 billion people unable to live
healthier lives, they claim, and 5 billion people able to access
health services without financial hardship.
But they had produced in the actual report a nice little
infographic which tells us what the funding gap is that they
have between 2025 and 2028. So there's $7.1 billion short of
what they need. And I would say that that
there's an opportunity for a campaign that they to make sure
that they remain $7.1 billion short of their with respect to
their funding. And well, what more can we say?
We're going to have James Rogowski with us on Friday's
programme to give us a full update on what's been going on
this week at the World Health Assembly.
So join us for that on Friday. Now, in the meantime, avian flu,
Charles. Yes, yes, again, but this time
there is rather more to talk about I think, because what we
see is the slow March towards a well choreographed move into the
creation of a pandemic. And I will just go through this
sort of step by step. This morning the Human Animal
Infections and Risk Surveillance Group, part of the UK Health
Security Agency, published a document called Avian Influenza
in Livestock, The risk statement.
Now I'm not going to go through the specific details of it, but
the point is that you put the suggestion out there that there
is a defined risk or threat and you allow that information to
circulate whilst submitting at the same time that there are
evidence gaps. So they admit that the source of
infection to the index farm is a gap of gap in evidence.
So is the severity of clinical signs, critically, the risk to
other ruminants and mammalian livestock.
And also there's uncertainty around the transmission risks to
humans in contact with affected cattle, risk factors associated
with increased susceptibility and disease severity in human
cases. So they're putting it all out
there. But of course, the headline
really is there is a risk or a threat.
Now where is that coming from? The UKHSA put out a
extraordinary graphic suggesting that bird flu in Europe seems to
be coming from Russia, but of course they don't substantiate
that even at all. Russia is not actually referred
to. And yet here we are now, also
from last month, avian influenza in US cattle, of course
suggesting therefore that this could be anywhere.
So here we go. Bird leaf cows were monitoring
reports of highly pathogenic avian influenza identified in
dairy cattle. We'll come on to exactly how it
was identified later. These reports do not change the
risk level for animals in the UK, which is currently low.
And we've no reason to suspect the virus is circulating in our
cattle. Not for now at least.
And nor is this virus strain circulating in Europe.
So the Food Standard Agency remaining advice remains that
avian influenza poses a very low food safety risk.
But of course that doesn't matter because if the food has
tested for it, then it will be destroyed and will not be fit
for human consumption because that's what they say.
So that's the first bit. You put that sort of information
out there and then you need a willing media to effectively
corroborate the the suggestion that there is going to be a
pandemic coming to here. We have the BBC obliging and of
course the question is cows in the US of bird flu?
Is it inching closer to humans? And they are of course desperate
that it should be despite the absolute absence of evidence.
And here written up as the long feared leak, the H5 N one strain
of avian flu has been around since 1996.
Well, that's very much a qualified statement, but until
now it has been largely confined to animals.
But now it's jumped to cattle in America, and some think it means
we're inching towards eventual human to human infection with
potentially serious consequences.
I should point out this article was written by somebody called
David Aronovich, who has absolutely no background in
science, medicine, or anything to do with animals.
Anyway, the next thing is of course to be prepared for the
outcomes. And here we have the Animal
Welfare Commission reporting just last week on the use of
high expansion nitrogen foam for culling poultry.
This is effectively where you just fill poultry sets with
nitrogen foam in order to starve them of air with which to
breathe. This hasn't been used on a large
scale before, but nonetheless they're putting forward this as
an idea for disposing of all the poultry that will be disposed of
later this year. Now, these are the conditions
that are being set in the UK and of course these things don't
always necessarily move at the same pace.
So to highlight the difference, what I thought we'd do is take a
look at New Zealand, which had an extraordinary and draconian
response to the apparent pandemic in New Zealand in 2020.
But of course here, interestingly, they they say
that you do not need a license if you want to keep animals in a
rural area. So they are behind the UK.
And the reason for that is that their Ministry for Primary
Industries declares that New Zealand has never had a case of
highly pathogenic or avian influenza.
Nonetheless, the the Department of Health has it it within its
pages highly pathogenic avian influenza and believe it or not,
they state at the moment this chapter is currently under
review as of April 2024. The guidance is being updated in
the event of a case of HPIA occurring, sorry, AI occurring
ahead of publication of the VICE guidance, interim guidance will
be communicated to public health services.
So here we have a country that has never, ever declared that
it's had a case of Avalon influenza updating its
literature based on what's happening around the world.
This is almost exactly the same as what happened at the tail end
of 2019-2020. And it's, it's frankly, it's
just, it's only a matter of time.
And of course, the only thing they're basing this on was what
was reported on UK columns some months ago, which was the
apparent discovery of bird flu in elephant seals in South
Atlantic. And that that is what they're
basing this on. Nonetheless, the next step, of
course, having confirmed that it's possible to jump from one
animal to another, is to suggest that people are also at risk.
And here we've got the CDC in America talking about monitoring
influenza data to better understand the current avian
influenza situation in people. Updated May the 24th, 2024.
So here we are moving into lockstep.
And how do they do this? They do this by talking about
testing. And this goes back to 2023,
where in the UK we were told that it'd been detected in two
individuals, but when we scrutinize the detail of it, we
found it wanting. The two people returning
positive tests are known to have recently worked on an infected
poultry farm in England. But what does that mean?
Neither has experienced any symptoms of avian influenza, and
both have since tested negative. Detection of avian influenza and
poultry workers can follow contamination of the nose and
throat from breathing in material on the affected farm or
can be true infection. So already they're admitting
they have absolutely no idea of what they're talking about.
And they finish by saying it can be difficult to distinguish
these in people who have no symptoms.
So just just think about that for a moment and consider that
the tests used, the PCR test cannot, in the words of Carrie
Malis, it's inventor, be used as a diagnostic tool.
It cannot tell you whether or not the thing it's detecting has
come from another animal or whether it's going to result in
illness. So that that needs to be
considered. But of course the, the, the
direction of travel therefore is towards vaccines and they have
all bases covered here. So first of all, we look at the
pen medicine news talking about pen researchers developing an
experimental mRNA avian flu vaccine.
Well, I think this is again beginning to sound very, very
familiar. And look at the date May 23rd.
So this is all being brought out at exactly the same time, and
this is again based on the assumption that everybody will
pick up the narrative at an illness that is only determined
in a laboratory and ascribed to poultry can infect other animals
and therefore humans. That is the basis of this.
And now another chance to use UKC verify, because just
yesterday, Reuters and many, many other news agencies put out
news or apparent news that bird flu vaccines for laying hens
prove effective in practice. They go on and say the Dutch
government has implemented the use of a particular vaccine,
that they're going to roll it out across their poultry
population because it's been proven to be effective on farms.
Now this is not true. We see here the particular
university in question and they talk about two vaccines being
effective against Bird. This is from September 2023 and
their laboratory tests, which I think we can safely say were
compromised to say the least, suggests that it's been
effective. But in actual fact, what they
say quite clearly here is the trial on the two farms will last
until the third quarter of 2025. So there's absolutely no way
it's possible to say whether or not there is any sort of
effectiveness or efficacy of this vaccine in this instance.
And of course, this again should reinforce the message that the
premise that avian flu exists in the 1st place is the construct
of laboratory experiments and and of course culturing of
samples, which is not possible to do in the field.
And just to finish off, they say 1st results are expected in the
second quarter of 2024, which of course is where we are now, but.
The point is that we're seeing this play out in slow time and
it is effectively a complete rehash of the COVID narrative,
and it's going in exactly the same direction, and the
consequences will be almost identical if it's not stopped in
its tracks. Yes, thank you, Charles.
OK, Vanessa, back to you. And what's the latest on the
Rafa Crossing? I just wanted to mention on that
report about the bread flu also, doesn't that result in
contaminated or vaccine contaminated meat, eggs,
etcetera? Anyway we can talk about that in
extra. Yeah, this was a just an odd
story that sort of jumped out at me.
Biden officials are in talks with an EU group help reopen the
Rafa crossing, which is currently controlled by
effectively Israel and Egypt. So the US is proposing bringing
in a so-called mutual third party to take control of the
crossing, the European Union Border Assistance Mission, or U
ban to the Rafah crossing point. The organization previously
worked at the border in Gaza, but suspended its operations in
2007 after Hamas took over the EU border assistance didn't
comment. Representatives with the EU
Commission also did not respond. It's an EU funded organization
in partnership with the International Organization for
Migration. So I just wanted to have it.
So I, I, I basically went to EU Band site and let's have a look
at it's kind of mission statement on the website on, on
the next slide. What do we do?
Who are we? So basically it, it's head
offices are in Odessa in Ukraine and then Moldova.
It basically monitors the borders between Moldova and
Ukraine. It seems to be a sort of quasi
military security organization just from looking through its
various press releases. And I guess what I really want
to do is to put the question out to the audience because
obviously this is about bringing in EU control into Gaza, into
the border itself. The connection to Ukraine, the
connection between Ukraine and Israel has also been talked
about consistently. But why now, and why this
particular organization, although it has a history of
having been at the Rafa crossing, it was established in
2005. It was at the Rafah crossing
until, as they said, the Zionist settlers and forces withdrew in
2005. Hamas was elected in 2007.
So if anybody has any bright ideas why this organization in
particular? Not as far as I can see.
Funded by the US, funded specifically by the EU and it
has actually been held on a retainer of 2.6 million.
So sorry, yes, no. No, that that was, I was just
going to make that point. They've been held on this
retainer to do nothing on 2.6. €1,000,000.
A year their, their funding runs out in June this year and then
they've got to get a new tranche of funding.
And so this announcements we made just in time for that new
tranche of funding perhaps. Yes, possibly, yes, you could be
right. But but then why are we funding
it for that purpose? Of course this could be related
to basically the destruction of the 320 million US peer if we
just have a look at the video. So, dare I say it, American
build quality. I think at least two ships were
washed up shore and are currently under repair.
But yeah, just anybody has any comments on that story, please
let me know or let UK column know.
Yeah, brilliant. Thank you.
Vanessa and Charles back to you then on Energy.
Energy, yeah, something we've talked about in conjunction with
food security quite a bit over the last few months.
But I just want to look quickly at the Energy Trends, or at
least the way that some we're being told the Energy Trends are
playing out. So the most recent report from
the tail end of last year says that total demand has been down
for 2023. The renewable share is at a
record of 47.3, but we'll come on to explain exactly why that
may not be the case. Wind generation, they're saying,
is at 28.7%. Overall electricity generation
down 11%, the lowest since 1983, and fossil fuel generation down
22%, lowest since the 1950s. Now I'll explain what I mean
when I say that things are not quite as they seem.
Here we see the what I've described as the cooking the
books feature, which is that that the increase of 115% import
of electricity for that quarter has skewed the statistics
absolutely dramatically, which is the only reason that they're
able to claim that renewable energy has made such
contribution. But of course, we bang the same
drum about the winds not blowing all the time, the sun not
shining all the time, because of course they have to go and
qualify by saying with the exception of 2021, renewable
generation has been largely stable.
Now that's in itself an admission because the amount of
renewable generation facility or capability has increased
dramatically in that time and yet the outputs has remained the
same. So the vulnerability is
enormous. Anyway, they talk about the
drivers of changes in generation being complex for renewables,
but of course they are with the impact of new capacity
interacting with variable weather conditions.
I mean the suggestion is that perhaps they'd imagine the
weather would not have variable conditions.
And we go on to see this in a a graph format.
The arrow that I've inserted there, the red arrow show the
solar generation and of course everything coming down below the
line is a decrease. And we've talked a lot about the
amount of farmland that's being used for the construction of
these enormous, great solar farms.
And yet of course, the output is actually going down at the same
time, the capabilities going up. So it's completely topsy Derby.
Nonetheless, the ESO, the part of the National Grid that's due
to operate the system's electricity system operator, has
put out future energy scenarios in which they're trying to work
out how we're going to do something towards finding
credible ways that the UK can achieve net 0 by 2050.
And won't surprise you much, I shouldn't think to learn that.
It's largely based on research and modelling and of course it
is because we're not there yet. They use what they call the
scenario framework, which has some variables, the worst of
which they're calling falling short and the scenario not
meeting the next zero target by 2050.
And it's just interesting to specifically see what I've
underlined there. The electric vehicle take up
grows more slowly. Well, I think that does seem to
be exactly what is happening. So this is already presumably
way off course. We thought at the other side of
it, consumer transformation and this is the behavioral change
part. So the next zero target is met
with measures that have a greater greater impact on
consumers and is driven by higher levels of consumer
engagement by which they mean behavioral modification.
They will have made extensive changes to improve their homes
energy efficiency and most of their electricity demand will be
smartly controlled to provide flexibility to the system.
Yes, but will they have chosen that for themselves or will it
have been chosen for them? So just to highlight what
they're wanting to do here, the projected increase in annual
demand by the year 2050 is 254%. So they're wanting to move from
286 terawatt hours of electricity generated now up to
726. And bearing in mind what I've
just said about renewables, which seems to be the direction
they want to go, that looks extremely unlikely.
They do talk about large electricity demands and in
particular they highlight hydrogen electrolysis, which is
effectively unproven. Nonetheless, they refer to it as
being an emerging technique that if commercially developed could
provide one of the following. And I have to say it doesn't
necessarily sound like the best bet.
It could provide a higher level of general protection for the
environment, or at least the same level.
So again, not particularly convincing.
But I just had a look elsewhere and in the private sector I
found a company called Recharge, which say that it's much cheaper
to produce green hydrogen from waste than renewable.
So tellingly the the chief executive here, John Louis
Kindler in 2020 talks about creating hydrogen, but without
using the vast space that solar panels require.
So again, sort of finding some sense of it somewhere, but
certainly not from the ESO or indeed the British government.
But data centres really what I want to talk about a little bit
because of the, the, the push towards the fourth industrial
revolution, where in fact everything is controlled by the
Internet. It's worth noting that data
centres now consume about 2 1/2 percent of UK energy, which is
an enormous figure. And because they run round the
clock, it's possible that they might waste up to 90% of the
energy that they actually consume. 40% of that energy is
just, is just spent in, in cooling the various machinery
required for in these data centres.
UK has the largest data capacity in Europe.
Just to give an indication of the exponential rise, it said
that there were 2.8 zettabytes of data in the world in 2012 and
at the last count in 2020 there were 44 zettabytes.
So it's very, very unlikely that this can be managed on the
current projections. But what I want to point out
going back to the, the frameworks that they're putting
out is the, the effectively the push required.
So societal behaviour and the growth of remote services to
facilitate hybrid working because of the COVID-19
pandemic. So it's just another thing to
look at is now the use of electricity.
And of course, the, the point again, the second bit of
highlights and text people being first instructed to work from
home. So the suggestion is that people
are doing this because they want to be doing it.
And the reality is, in actual fact, they're just being told to
do it. But again, we just finish off
because everything now is about data and electronic systems.
The Bank of England, of course, working on their CBDC are very
keen to put forward the case that centrally controlled
digital currencies are better for the environment.
And in fact, they're ticking the climate box because they're
going to be energy efficient, whereas decentralized ones are
bad and not, you know, not good for the environment.
So they, they talk about it minimizing its impact on the
environment and the physical effects of climate change and
the transition to a nextary economy can create financial
risks and economic consequences. So that's again a telling
statement that that really should be applied to the, to
the, the, the idea that digital currency, centralized digital
currency has anything to offer at all.
Yes, thanks for that, Charles and Vanessa.
Back to you for one more time in this news bulletin and Egypt and
Israel having problems. A couple of days ago, there was
basically a skirmish, as it's described here, by Al Mayadeen
on the Rafah border, during which at least one Egyptian
soldier was shot and killed. And if we just have a look at
the report, so Israeli investigations disagree with the
Egyptian armed forces. Basically, Israeli sources
report that Egyptian soldiers opened fire.
Egyptian soldiers are of course saying that Israel basically
targeted I think one of their watchtowers.
There were reports today and Al Akbar saying that both Egypt and
Israel have agreed to basically defuse the situation and any
inquiry the the results of which are going to be kept
confidential so as not to inflamed.
Particularly an an Egyptian public that is already pretty
much up in arms against Egypt's role in facilitating the
genocide and the blockade of Palestinians in Gaza.
In fact, the Egyptian Nasurist party, which to a degree
reflects much of the population's opinions on
Palestine, calls for the cancellation of the Camp David
of cords signed by President Sadat in 79, which was
effectively Egypt's normalization process with
Israel. So let's have a look at what
they're talking about. So they're saying severing all
ties with the Israeli regime, cancelling all treaties for most
of which are the shameful Camp David accords and peace
agreements. And that, of course, includes
the Philadelphia Accord signed in 2005 that gives Israel some
control of the Rafah border, providing all forms of support
to the valiant Palestinian resistance.
Asserting Egypt's sovereign rights over the Rafah border
crossing by opening it for humanitarian aid and the
transfer of injured people without coordination with the
Israeli regime. Lifting the security
restrictions imposed on the citizens and releasing the
prisoners of conscience, especially those detained due to
their participation in pro Palestine protests.
Supporting campaigns, boycotting the companies and products
affiliated with the Israeli regime, the movement also found
the right of the Egyptian and Arab people to utilize all means
and methods of expression and support of the Palestinian
people. Now interestingly, today in
China and Beijing, there is the Arab state comet heads of Egypt,
Bahrain, Tunisia and UAE to attend cooperation forum in
Beijing during state visits to China.
Basically again Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are floating the idea of
the two state solution. I've given my opinion on that.
But I think really despite the rhetoric that we're hearing,
this may be a potential opportunity for China to try and
bring some of these states on board and away from the US and
normalization with Israel. That's the hope.
It remains to be seen. I think it's going to be
extremely difficult with Egypt, who's, you know, completely in
hoc through the IMF and to Saudi Arabia, UAE and to Israel to a
large extent. Yes, OK.
Thank you very much for that, Vanessa.
Now let's let's just bring UKC Verify back on screen again
because this was published in the BBC this morning.
It's another bite at the cherry of the Singapore Airlines plane
which experienced extreme turbulence a few days ago.
Tragically, a British man passed away as a result of this and his
wife and, and a number of other people injured in it.
But never let the cynical British media, you know, take
that. They're going to use that as any
opportunity to suggest climate change, which is what they did,
of course, but the interim report is out on this now.
And so they decided they had to create the sensationalist
headline. Singapore Airlines plane dropped
178 feet in five seconds, according to the preliminary
report. But first of all, well, what can
we say about Isaac Newton here, Charles?
Because I wanted to highlight this paragraph in particular,
their preliminary report. This is the the Singaporean
equivalent to the NTSB or the the investigation team for for
Air Accidents, the AAIB would be the equivalent in the UK.
Their primary report said that rapid changes in gravitational
force caused the altitude drop. What happens when the when
gravity changes, Charles? I'm not sure.
I mean, I, I suspect there was a sort of scrabbling in Newton's
grave as he's struggled to get out to contribute to the news
today. I I don't know.
Yes, indeed. But anyway, the truth is
forgetting about any claims about and I believe Sky News by
the way also tried to claim it was there was some kind of
change in gravitational force involved here.
But what actually happened was that this aircraft flew into
absolutely between two major thunderstorms.
Now, unfortunately, the the weather radar on these aircraft
can see what they're approaching, but can't really
see through it, particularly if it's dense thunderstorms and so
on. And there was a third
thunderstorm, major thunderstorm behind the two that it was
flying in between. So it ended up hitting some
major turbulence. And apparently what the interim
report says is that it went from experiencing within a few
seconds plus one point 35G to -1 1/2 G.
And that of course caused anybody that wasn't wearing a
seat belt to hit the ceiling in the aircraft.
Quite an aggressive change in direction.
And so there was 178 feet foot drop.
But bearing in mind there were 37,000 feet, 178 feet in and of
itself is not a major problem. It was the the speed at which
the altitude change happened that was the problem.
So absolutely fantastic reporting from the BBC on this
and well, we'll do more to highlight their errors in the
coming days and weeks. I just wanted to end with this
report from Declassified UK. The headline here is King
Charles accepted award from Nazi veteran.
So what they're saying here is that a photograph has been
discovered of the then Prince Charles receiving an award from
former member of the Waffen S S Charles was given an honorary
law degree during a ceremony at the University of Alberta and
Edmonton, Canada in 1983. In his acceptance speech, he
praised those who'd sacrificed their lives 40 years ago,
referring to the Second World War.
Yet the award was conferred to on him by Nazi collaborator.
I go further than that. I don't think that's the
appropriate word. The university's chancellor,
Peter Savarin, originally from Ukraine, he served in the 14th
Waffen Grenadier Division, otherwise so-called Glacia
Division, that particular group responsible for absolute
atrocities in Poland, in particular Total War crimes.
They were vilified for it after the war, but nonetheless,
Britain helped a lot of these Ukrainians out of Ukraine at the
end of the Second World War and they got quite a lot of them got
sent over to Canada. So anyway, maybe, maybe, perhaps
if we were being charitable, we could argue that Prince Charles
can't have known that at the time.
I do wonder about this. We should remember that of
course, the family ties to the Nazi party.
This is Prince Philip his father at the funeral of his sister
which was course was attended by most of the Nazi dignitaries at
the time including his brother-in-law.
The Prince Philip's brother-in-law which who was
Prince Christophe of Hesse who joined the s s in 1932, so well
before Hitler came to power. And also Christophe's brother
also called Philip except with two PS on the end instead of one
who joined the SA in 1930. He was considered Hitler's
favorite Prince and actively acted as go between between
Hitler and Mussolini all the way through the war.
So until obviously Mussolini was no longer in in charge in Italy
as it were so. So many, many questions to be
asked about Prince now, King Charles and the entire family in
fact. And of course, bearing in mind
he is pushing and leading the charge towards net zero, I think
these are reasonable questions to ask as to what his ideology
actually is. But anyway, we'll leave it
there. But undoubtedly we'll talk a
little bit more about that and extra as well in a few minutes.
So if you are Auk column member, join us for extra in a couple of
minutes. Just stay on the stream and
we'll be back. If you're not AUK column member,
please do consider joining us and then you can watch Extra
Live and On Demand afterwards, but otherwise, we will see you
on Friday at 1:00 PM As usual, don't forget the Arnie Burkhart
interview at 1:00 PM tomorrow. See you then.
Bye, bye, bye bye.