Good afternoon, it's Friday the 29th of August 2025, just after
1:00. Welcome to UK Column News.
I'm your host Mike Rumson and my Co host this week in the studio
is Patrick Hennigsen. Welcome to the programme,
Patrick. To be with you, Mike.
Now, later in the programme, I'm going to be reporting on TV in
Washington. More on censorship and the
announcement of a chicken pox vaccine.
Patrick who's going to be covering the Iran nuclear issue
and Trumps attempts to make burning the US flag illegal?
But we're going to begin today with Russias attacks on Kiev.
Patrick. Well, the last 24 hours of
Russia has hit Ukraine incredibly hard.
We'll take a look at this story and this is really going to
shape really how things are playing out with the
negotiations with Russia, with Europe, with Trump as well.
So Russia's pounding targets in Kiev, and we're going to take a
look at this. This is the second biggest
aerial attack since the start of the conflict.
This is what they're saying here.
Let's look at what the Ukrainian reaction is to this missile and
drone attack. Ukraine claims Russia's
unleashed 629 strikes comprising of 598 drones and 31 missiles.
Russia MOD saying it's struck military industrial complex
enterprises and military air bases in Ukraine using high
precision weapons. And here is the thing that I
find much interesting here, Mike, is that Russia's now
flying is, according to allies of NATO, Russia's flying
surveillance drones over routes the US and the Europeans are
using to ship military supplies via Germany and probably via
Poland as well, and the other countries on the other side of
this new Iron Curtain. So that's pretty interesting.
Absolutely. Now that very much the narrative
is that Russia was attacking civilian targets.
I mean, what's your thoughts on that claimed by the Europeans
and the United States? Well, it's coming first from
Zelensky himself. Let's let's look at Zelensky's
reaction actually on that, on that note, Mike, here he is
obviously he is moved quickly to change costumes from Washington.
He's in his war green here, his best war greens.
This is the acting president. We're going to call him the
acting president because he is acting like a president or
trying to anyway. But he's not the elected
president. He's been out of mandate over a
year. So not the democratically
elected Zelensky. He's saying Russia chooses
Ballistics instead of negotiate the negotiation table.
It chooses to continue killing instead of ending the war.
And this means that Russia still does not fear the consequences.
So he uses the alliteration. This Netanyahu style
alliteration. You can see the 1st 2 lines of
that Great public relations speech by Zelensky as usual.
And here Zelensky has sent his chief of staff and head of the
country's Security Council to meet with Trump's team in New
York. This is just today, I believe,
to discuss security guarantees to be included any future peace
agreement. Well, I got news, bad news for
Zelensky, Mike. There's going to be no security
guarantees at all. Certainly, that's not going to
be front loading. But that's what the Europeans
want to front load negotiations with.
It's what Zelensky keeps doing and it's what the mainstream
Western press keeps saying. But that's not what was agreed
in Alaska. So I don't think this is going
anywhere well. What?
What was agreed in Alaska was anything agreed?
Well, the at least it was established that there would be
a, a negotiated settlement 1st and then a ceasefire would come
after that and that security guarantees would follow long
after that. That would be at the treaty
signing point of any agreement. And like we're a long way away
from that. So they, they don't want to deal
with the interim steps, which are the essential steps here.
And, and so this is how the Western mainstream press, of
course, is, is portraying these this Russian attack Putin's
accused of sabotaging peace efforts after diplomatic
building hit in massive assault on Ukraine.
More on that in a moment. EU facility hit.
We'll, we'll talk more about that in a moment here.
But in terms of like sabotaging any peace agreement, here's
seven days ago, Ukraine hit a oil pipeline that supplies
energy from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia.
But it's a transit pipeline goes via Ukraine.
And I'll bet you that the Ukrainians are getting transit
fees from that Russian oil and they're getting paid by Russia
for those transit fees because that's pretty standard even in
the midst of the war. So this was done for two
reasons. Hitting this pipeline was done
to basically sabotage what was agreed at Alaska between Trump
and and Russia, and also to, I think, divide Hungary to divide
Europe. So it's kind of a divide and
rule tactic by the handlers of Ukraine and Ukraine themselves.
Who are the handlers? Well, you've got the British,
you've got the Germans and you've got that other sort of
European actors behind the scenes that are sort of egging
the Ukrainians on probably are CIA and the British MI 6 deeply
involved in all of that. But again, dividing the
Europeans, creating the Central Central European bloc.
It seems to not be with the programme and seems to be pro
Russian. This is setting the stage for
something that will show briefly, but Hungary's foreign
minister is saying that this missile strike on the Drusepa
pipeline, this infrastructure, is another attempt to drag
Hungary into the war. So this is the way the
Hungarians are looking at this right now.
So not only that Mike, but there's the Transcarpathian
Hungarians in Ukraine. As we know, after World War One,
Hungary lost most of its territory.
But there's there's Hungarians, ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine and
they're not being treated very well.
Plus this conscription, there's accusations that they're being
conscripted at higher rates than, you know, Western
Ukrainians, for instance. So they look at this as
basically Hungarian issue or a Hungarian world issue.
So this is a real emotional issue within the government in
Budapest and the people more broadly.
And I know having been to Budapest last November, and that
was a very important issue that the deputy foreign minister
brought up to some of the members of the press who I was
with at that time. So this is a serious issue.
They really think that Ukraine is really doing provocations
here to try to create another front or more tension to take
the focus off of what they should be focusing on, which is
winding this conflict down here. But look at the war of words
here. This is the this is the
Hungarian foreign minister here, Peter Sir Harto, and he's
basically saying that Zelensky has used Ukraine's national
holiday to threaten Hungary. We firmly reject his
intimidation. We regard sovereignty,
territorial integrity, including energy infrastructure here as
fundamental values of international politics.
So, and here is the Ukrainian foreign minister's response to
this. I will reply in a Hungarian
manner. So totally condescending,
slightly racist. And he's saying you don't need
to tell the Ukrainian president what to do, say or when he is
the president of Ukraine, not Hungary.
Hunger, Hungary's energy security is in your own hands.
Diversify and become independent from Russia like the rest of
Europe. Wow.
So the, the, they're, they're really talking almost like
adversaries here. And you have to remember that
what we'll talk about the European Union and and Ukraine's
membership later, Mike. But this is war talk between
Kiev and and Hungary and I so. Am I reading this right?
You're suggesting that that that they're splitting Slovakia and
Hungary away in this way because of course they have been sort of
naysayers to to quite a lot of this over the past couple of
years. And so the effort is to create
this much stronger British, French, German access within
around which the the coalition of the willing gather in the EU.
Is that what's going on? Yes, and the Orban government
and Robert Fizzo in, in Slovakia, they're, they're at
odds with Brussels. So Brussels is already sort of
declaring them persona non grata, threatening to take their
voting rights away because they're not on board with the
Ukraine programme and so forth. So there's already that split
happening. So it looks like the
intelligence services and Ukraine, the Western
intelligence services in Ukraine are trying to drive a wedge
through these sort of dissident governments in Central Europe.
So and perhaps open up a new front.
I, I don't think that's out of the realms of possibility at
this point. You have to remember Zelensky
and Kiev and Europe are desperate if if Russia's seem to
win this or come to a peace deal, it's devastating for not
just NATO, Mike, but the EU itself.
Right. So as Patrick says, with this
attack on Kiev, we've seen the typical response in the British
in the Western legacy media. But just to highlight one
example of this, this is the Sun, the the horror moment, a
Russian missile hit and damaged the British Council building in
Kiev during this the the attacks that were going on.
So that's how British legacy media reporting it.
They're reporting that the attacks killed at least 21
people and that and of course that it hit the British Council
building, but also the an EU building.
In fact, it was a third building that was actually struck.
And the damage to the British Council and the EU buildings was
pretty limited, as we'll see in a second.
But as I say, that didn't stop The Sun from producing this
video. And as you can see on screen,
the implication of this was that this was a direct attack on
Britain and the EU, and of course this supports the
narrative of security guarantees being required.
It does and but you know, the British Council building it
might be an integral part of British soft power, but it's not
sovereign territory. In other words, it's not an
embassy or a consulate. So, I mean, it doesn't really
fall under that. And you know, a lot of countries
would have evacuated some of these facilities already.
I mean, why wouldn't you if it's at risk of being hit or
something like that? Unless, of course, there's
activities going on there that you absolutely need to keep
going because it's part of, well, what the ACT many
accusations made against some of these NGOs and soft power
institutions. Well, let's just look at some of
the allegations that are made. So here is the FS BS flag here,
but this is the Russian intelligence agency.
And back in June, they made a comment on Britain and the
British Council, which I thought it was worth bringing in at this
point, Patrick. So let's just have a look at it.
They said in their statement that Britain is the main source
of global crises, A provocateur and instigator of wars.
London organises coups, weakens not only its geopolitical
enemies but also its closest allies, it's nations against
each other, and prevents the resolution of bloody conflicts
that it unleashed. I'm finding it very hard to
disagree with anything in that comment.
We've certainly reported on quite a bit of this, so you know
there is meat on the bones of these accusations.
Indeed. So let's have a look and see
what they said about the British Council themselves.
They said the British Council is a hostile organisation that
actively participates in the operations of the British
special services aimed at undermining the sovereignty and
security of the Russian Federation, as well as those of
other sovereign states. And again, I'm struggling to
disagree with that. And then they go on to say that
various projects are being implemented by the British
Council to systematically discredit the domestic and
foreign policies of the Russian Federation.
Well, OK, I wanted to remind myself exactly what the
situation is with the British Council.
How much money does it get from, for example, the Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office?
So let's have a look at that. So here is the FCDO spending
website that the UK column has produced.
And as just as a reminder, this is an effort to make the data
which the Foreign Office produces more accessible and
more obvious to people. So let's see what this website
has to say. Well, if we look at the top 20
recipients of FCDO money, which is on that front page, the
British Council is third on the list to the tune of £1.6 billion
over the course of the the time frame that we're talking about
with this website. So about the last seven years.
Well, let's just have a look at this in a little bit more
detail. So there's the graph.
So it begins in December 2017. And what we can see there is
that they receive around £20 million per month from FCDO,
with some spikes of up to £100 million per month.
And right there, Patrick, if we put a ring round, it is a spike
of just under £100 million in February, March 2022.
What else happened around that time?
That was the outbreak of the Ukraine Russia conflict.
Right. Yeah, February 24th, so 2022.
Isn't that a coincidence? One would say yes.
One would say that's an anomaly on the graph.
I can't imagine that those two things have anything to do with
each other though. Anyway, those are the
allegations of the Russian Federation and you can take
those as you see fit. I, as I say, struggle to find
any anything incorrect about what the FSB said there.
If that makes me a mouthpiece for the Putin regime, well,
that's that's well and good. But that that's how it looks to
me. Well, everything that they have
said about the British Council is exactly what everything
including scholars and journalists have been saying
about USAID. This institution of this
instrument of sub quote soft power and smart power by the
United States as ACIA cut out organisation.
So one could look at the British Council in roughly the same way
a soft power or smart power outlet NGO and an extension of
British intelligence like the USAID constellation is an
extension of American intelligence.
I mean, I I can't, I don't see the problem in looking at these
things that way. And and what about the
allegation that I've seen that the British Council was somehow
performing some kind of coordination role in Ukraine?
I, I have not looked close enough at the exact, you know,
allegations there, but certainly it would, it would be
interesting and it wouldn't be unusual.
And like I said, USCID have played the exact same role.
There's also been accusations about the OECD and other
international organisation as well involved in giving
targeting information out during from the front lines and during
breaking the MINX peace process basically.
And Dombass another another discussion, but you know, not
not unusual. But so anyway, an EU building
was damaged as well, and Ursula was outraged.
Absolutely outraged. So let's just have a listen what
she had to say. I'm outraged by the attack on
Keaf also hitting our EU offices.
This was the deadliest drone and missile attack on the capital
since July. And as you can see behind me on
the screen, it was an attack also on our delegation.
I just spoke with our deputy ambassador and I'm relieved that
none of our staff were harmed. Last night's attack struck in
close proximity of the diplomatic mission.
The representation of our Union 2 missiles hit in a distance of
50 metres of the delegation within 20 seconds.
And this is another grim reminder of what is at stake.
This is why we are keeping maximum pressure on Russia.
That means tightening our sanctions regime.
We will come forward soon with our 19th package of hard biting
sanctions and in parallel we are advancing the work on the
Russian frozen assets to contribute to Ukraine's defence
and reconstruction. So hard biting sanctions and
stealing Russian frozen assets. That's the response.
Stealing. Yeah.
That's, that's the Ursula. Yeah.
I mean, where is this righteous indignation for what Israel's
doing in Gaza? I mean, seriously, by the way,
they, they keep saying that Ukraine is at war and that the
Ukrainians are at risk. Why do they have a mission in
Kiev? Why don't they move it to Livov,
which is completely out of range of pretty much any of the
hostilities? Why?
I don't understand, if you care about your staff and you claim
that this is a war zone, why are you, you know, still keeping
your building staffed in right next to a target that could be a
military target? Because she wasn't hit directly.
She's claiming it was attack on the EU mission.
It wasn't. It was ancillary damage, wasn't
it? Maybe you want justification for
security guarantees. Well, yeah, of course that she's
advancing that that argument. Absolutely, absolutely.
So So yeah, that's interesting, Mike.
So where where is Europe on, on Ukraine?
Well, let's just take a look at this.
So, and this is Politico here grasping at straws.
Europe floats Ukraine, Russia buffer zone in a push for peace.
So they're still at it basically pushing these ideas here.
They're grasping at straws as Jim Towns and former Pentagon
official who oversaw Europe and NATO's policy under the Obama
administration here. Totally unrealistic, this idea
of flooding the zone with European troops, a coalition of
the willing doing this outside of NATO, technically.
So there's no Article 5 tripwire.
I mean, it's just, it's just another workaround that's just
not practical, not not going to happen.
Actually, if they push on this, it's going to probably create a
huge crisis, security crisis for Europe because Russia is
obviously not going to respect what what Europe's doing there.
And so here's here's the number. The issue, however, Mike, the
Russians are not afraid of the Europeans, says Jim Townsend,
former Obama administration official.
And if they think that a couple of British and French observers
are going to deter them from marching into Ukraine, then
they're wrong. So that's from the Democratic
appointee side that are normally pretty hawkish on these matters
here. But on the issue of Europe, so
here, here's where you're upset right now.
They they're still dangling this Ukrainian membership into the
EU. And here's the Hungarian foreign
minister here. And obviously you're not allowed
to see this if you're in Britain or France because it's RT.
So what we're showing you here is statements from the Hungarian
foreign minister, which you're not allowed to read in in
Western Europe because it's too dangerous and your governments
are concerned about you falling under the the spell of the
sorcery spell of Russian disinformation.
OK, so here's what he says. Now, this is important because
Europe needs to understand this. If someone realistically and
rationally observes Ukrainian accession to the EU, what impact
it would have. And you can see that this would
be the coup de gras to the European Union.
In other words, this would be the death knell for the EU.
So there's a lot of people that are cheering this on.
Actually. I think rightly maybe Hungary
would like to see this happen because they would like to see
the European Union possibly disintegrate the political union
anyway. Not the Common Market, of
course, but Brussels would have to redirect practically all EU
financial resources towards supporting.
Kiev the ultimate welfare state here, while quote much of lower
quality agriculture products would destroy European
agriculture. Big complaint, especially in
Poland and the quote Ukrainian mafia would roam freely in
Europe as well as the Nazis of the hundreds of thousands of
radicalised Ukrainian nationalists and Nazis that
would probably be homeless at that point.
I don't know what would happen. But so this this is from the
Hungarian side here. So it's a non starter.
You know, you by the way, NATO membership for, for they don't
have to give Russia guarantees because hung Hungarian Slovakia
would never vote. They need unanimous vote, right
for NATO membership, right? They're not going to get it.
There's probably 3 or 4 NATO members that will not vote for
Ukraine full stop. So it's not going to happen.
And by the looks of this, EU membership is hugely
problematic. What a financial drain this
would end up being on Europe. They require complete
entitlement and welfare support on every aspect of their
political economy. I mean, forget it, it's it's not
going to happen. But they're going to keep
dangling this because that's the dream isn't it?
Euro Maidan. And what suggests to finish this
segment off, Patrick? What does does Russia have to do
before the West admits defeat? Probably wins so decisively on
the battlefield that they'll have to scramble to freeze the
lines. Are they not doing that already?
That's what Alaska was all about.
I, I, I personally, I think the Ukrainian front lines collapsing
in so many key areas that I think that's what pushed Trump.
And the Europeans were totally behind Trump.
Did you notice that? Oh, just completely.
They were like school kids there in the Oval Office just waiting
to see what daddy is going to say.
But because they know that the US is the only chance they have
to potentially freeze the front lines, because if they don't,
Russia's just going to keep rolling on.
And quite frankly, they're going to keep rolling on now in lieu
of any sort of serious political negotiations.
It's just going to, it's just going to carry on.
That's probably where it's going to end up.
I hope it doesn't trigger an irrational reaction from some of
the Hawks in Europe. That would be unfortunate.
But yet we we wait. End date OK, let's move on.
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On location event which is taking place on Saturday the
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website now. So if you haven't didn't see
that yesterday, please have a look at that discussion.
OK, that brings us then to TB in Washington.
Now, am I talking about tuberculosis?
An outbreak of TB in Washington? I think that's what you're
talking about. It is indeed, so let's just have
a look at it here, because it is quite horrible to watch.
There's the virus right there. Right there.
So Tony Blair and Jared Kushner attended the meeting with Trump
at the White House to discuss plans for post war Gaza.
That's what they said. They missing from the meeting,
of course, was anyone representing the people of Gaza.
Of course they're not invited. They're not invited.
Blair and Kushner were apparently there to discuss
ideas for how Gaza can be governed without Hamas in power.
And to take a quote from some of the coverage on this, President
Trump has been clear that he wants the war to end and he
wants peace and prosperity for everyone in the region.
The White House has nothing additional to share on the
meeting at this time. So this was what a White House
spokesperson said. An anonymous White House House
official said that to the mainstream.
So Trump wants it to end by any means necessary, including
ethnic cleansing and. Moving everybody out of.
The OR or killing whoever doesn't want to leave.
OK, we get that. OK.
So why was Blair there? Well of course after remind you
that after stepping down as Prime Minister of the UK in
2007, he took on the role of Middle East envoy for the
Quartet, so called Quartet. Just remind everybody what that
is that was. That was a sort of confab of
countries and formally they were trying to, you know, midwife
some kind of a peace process in the Middle East and of course
that include the Western powers. I even think Russia was involved
somewhat in the Quartet as well. Complete abysmal failure, as we
can see. Absolutely.
And he held that role until 2015.
But also he was also there because of course, as we
reported a couple of weeks ago, Tony Blair Institute was also
involved in creating the whole Trump Gaza Riviera plan
alongside Boston Consulting Group.
And if you remember this, this plan was announced back in June.
It was a post war Gaza plan that envisaged kick starting Gaza's
economy with a quotes Trump Riviera and an Elon Musk smart
manufacturing zone. Now the FT as we can see on
screen reported that one lengthy documents.
So what they said was 1 lengthy document on post war Gaza
written by TBI staff member was shared within the group for
consideration. This included the idea of a Gaza
Riviera with artificial islands off the coast akin to those in
Dubai, blockchain based trade initiatives, a deep water port
to tie Gaza into the Middle East Europe economic corridor and a
low tax special economic zone. And, and my first question then
was, are these akin to these, this Freeport idea that we're,
we're getting in the West where we're supposed to have these low
tax zones? I I'm not sure but but I guess
it's the same, it's the same kind of policy.
So so glitzy glitzy high rise Dubai style apartments that are
basic and and and rivers of blood.
Rivers of blood, yes. Around them.
I mean, who, who, who? Who wouldn't want that, really.
Tony Blair is midwifing that project.
I'm so shocked. Well, indeed.
Now, it was the news website Axios which broke the story of
this latest meeting. And they quote unnamed sources,
as I believe they tend to do. Patrick is that that they?
They tend to quote unnamed sources.
Yeah, that's standard practise from mainstream media.
So that's how you know Axios is mainstream, yeah.
OK, well these unnamed sources said that Steve Witkoff has been
discussing a post war plan for Gaza with Kushner and Blair for
several months. And the sources said that Blair
met Witkoff at the White House in July on the same day that
Netanyahu met Trump. Now there's a coincidence, isn't
it? Now, according to U.S.
officials, Trumps Gaza meeting on Wednesday this week, it was
also to focus on AUS plan for humanitarian aid for Gaza.
So the quote from this is it's expanding the food plan, the
quantity and distribution method, the number of people
that could be served. And this again was said by an
unnamed US official. The same US official said that
Trump's instructions are get this fixed.
And this is very similar Patrick narrative to the to, to, to
Britain and, and France in particular, saying that if
things aren't fixed by September, they're going to
recognise the Palestinian state. That some people thought this
was a great thing. But what that that message to me
was telling Israel, get this, get this sorted out.
In other words, ramp up what you're doing and get the things
finished. Yeah, we're expanding food
distribution, but at the same time Israel's expanding bombing
and mounting a full scale invasion of Gaza.
I mean, you can't make this up. How Orwellian is this whole
thing? I mean, this is just beyond the
pale at this point. Well, later on in the day then,
a senior White House official told Reuters that Trump and
along with top White House officials Larry and Kushner were
discussing all aspects of the Gaza issue, including food, as
we just mentioned, the hostage crisis, post war plans and more.
The official described the session as simply a policy
meeting of the type frequently held by Trump and his team.
I don't think so. And then we have the Times of
Israel here confirming that. Sorry, we'll go back here.
There we go. Confirming that Netanyahu
advisor Rob Dermer had also arrived in Washington on
Wednesday that they did not confirm that he was involved in
the meeting. Dermers presence in Washington,
they said, is a reflection of the Trump administrations close
coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu counts who
counts the strategic affairs minister as a close confidant,
according to the Times of Israel.
And according to his spokesman, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon
Saar was also in Washington to meet US Secretary of State Marco
Rubio at the State Department. He apparently did not take part
in the White House meeting. And again, I ask, isn't that all
a coincidence? And so the question is, what is
being cooked up here that it could be no more than just
keeping the pressure on Israel and making sure that it's all
done by September as they're wanting it to be.
I wonder is there anything else in this?
No, this is a big property deal. That's what this is, I'm sure.
I wonder what Tony Blair's kickback is on this.
What is it going to be? A penthouse at the top of one of
those big, you know, shiny skyscrapers or you know, what's
his, what's his, his action going to be on the back end of
this because Tony doesn't do this stuff out of the goodness
of his heart. There's got to be some kind of
kickback. But this is just disgusting on
on so many levels, Mike, Not least of all because there's no
talk about the welfare at all of the Palestinians.
It's just Trump wants to get it done.
Netanyahu wants to get it done. And they again, as you said,
they they're not allowed to invite.
There's no Palestinians at the table and there hasn't been
through the whole quote, Abraham Accords peace process right till
now. And now they're really talking
about the final solution in Gaza, the final solution that
Israel is proposing. the US are on board with it.
Tony Blair's on board with it, and so are all the other
grifters and glad handers that are circling like vultures right
now around Gaza. It's just disgusting.
So what about Israeli reservists then?
What are they up to? Well, slight problem, slight
problem with the reservists, some of them are failing to show
up. This is the New York Times here.
I mean, the fact that this is running in the New York Times
and nominally pro Israeli outlet traditionally is something on
its own, but let's just let's take a look at this.
So thousands are basically either not showing up or coming
in with deferments and things like that.
So over the last few months, the IDF have noticed increased
numbers of reservist soldiers just basically haven't showed up
to their posts for military service.
They're disillusioned. They left the country.
They're exhausted, many of them. There's more conscientious
objectors now in the IDF. So this is bringing up a lot of
question marks about whether they can mount the type of full
scale invasion of Gaza, which it's not an invasion of Gaza,
it's ethnic cleansing of Gaza and killing whoever doesn't want
to leave. I mean that the way the press is
characterising what's going on right now is, is pretty
incredible. So I, I hope that, you know,
there's some journalists and some editors of some of these
major organisations like the BBC for instance, that might have a
conscience and might start acting and like real reporters,
voters and real journalists at this point because we're looking
at history unfolding in the worst possible way.
OK. Let's move on to the topic of
Iran, Patrick and the question of the nuclear deal then.
Yeah, Let's take a look at this here.
So this is what's dominating the headlines right now of the last
24 hours is the Iran nuclear issue here.
And when we say Iran nuclear issue, what are we really
talking about? Well, we're talking about this.
It is really an Israeli nuclear issue.
It really has more to do with what Israel wants out of
Washington and with Iran because Iran's one of the last countries
in the in the area, in the Middle East, in West Asia that's
standing up for the native Palestinian population and the
people of the Levant. So let's take a look at the
particulars here. So, so what's going on?
Iran faces, quote, snapback sanctions over its nuclear
programme. So here's what that means.
So remember the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal that Trump
basically destroyed in his first term?
It it the, the deal was that there would be snapback
sanctions. So sanctions, UN sanctions were
lifted against Iran if they did the JCPOA.
They did the JCPOA and now they're threatening to put the
sanctions back because they're saying that Iran is derelict of
its obligations and responsibilities for the JCPOA.
I mean, it's pretty incredible. Let's look at the particular
here for France, Britain and Germany.
That's the E3, the E3. They've initiated a process of
triggering SNAP, a snapback mechanism that automatically
reimposes all of the UN sanctions on Iran over its
nuclear programme or its alleged its alleged nuclear weapons
programme, saying that Iran has willfully departed from their
2015 deal. That's pretty incredible,
bearing in mind what the US and Israel just done to Iran.
But we'll leave that aside for the moment the sanctions were
put in effect. In fact, there's basically
conventional arms embargo, restrictions on ballistic
missile development, asset freezes, travel bans and a ban
on producing nuclear related technology here.
And then finally, the E3 offered Iran delay in the snapback talks
back in July if Iran met three conditions, resume negotiations
with the US over its nuclear programme, allowing the UN
nuclear inspectors access IAEA inspectors access to the nuclear
sites and accounting for over 400 kilogrammes of highly
enriched uranium. So apparently went missing that
Trump said he destroyed, but it turns out he didn't or it
doesn't. They don't believe he didn't
here. Here's Iran's response, Mike,
this is Iran's. Tehran, which now enriches
uranium at near nuclear weapons grade levels, has rejected the
proposal. So that's the, that's the thing,
the, the while they're negotiating Israel, it mounted a
sneak attack on Tehran. I mean, we all saw what
happened. Of course, Iran retaliates.
Then the US strikes Iran, an unprovoked attack by the US.
So and so the US left the JCPOA unilaterally in Trump's in 2018
May. And then so they're out.
So Iran kept playing ball with the JCPOA and then Israel and
the US attack Iran and its civilian nuclear programme.
And now they're saying that Iran is somehow breach and breach of
the agreement. It's a joke.
The EU didn't even fulfil its obligations, its financial
obligations. They didn't.
Iran's been complaining about that for years.
Nothing. So this, this is just so
disingenuous on the part of Europe.
But this is where I think this is where Israel wants Europe to
go on this. And they're quite happy to abide
by whatever Israel wants. So this is a total sham, as as
we can see. But here's another problem.
Take a look at this. So Iran, IAEA inspectors to
return after Supreme National Security Council gives their
approval. This is a strategic move by
Iran, Mike. But the hardliners in Iran are
basically going crazy right now saying how can you let them back
into the country after what happened?
And here are the accusations. This is Trita Parsi.
He's with the Quincy Institute, responsible statecraft in the
United States to say. On the surface, these demands
seem reasonable, but Tehran has legitimate reservations.
Iranian officials suspected that the IAEA of leaking sensitive
information that enabled Mossad's assassination campaign
against Iranian nuclear scientists.
And they fear that revealing the stockpile's location would
simply invite another round of US air strikes.
Iran was at the negotiation table when Israel and the US
began bombing it. The E3 now insists Tehran
returned to talks, yet make no parallel demand that Washington
refrain from bombing again. And Israel refrains, quite
frankly, because that was an unprovoked attack by Israel.
So Trita Parsi, of course, very astute, a political commentator,
of course he's, I think he's absolutely correct on this.
But this is, this is a problem now in Iran because the
hardliners are like, why are we, why are we playing ball?
I think Iran's playing a long game and I think Russia might be
advising them that this is the way to go in order to build
consensus more broadly in the international community.
Even though it's a risk, they think it's a calculated risk
that they're willing to take, that somehow they'll be an exit
out of this. I don't think so.
I think Iran and the US are planning for another war.
They're going to attack them again, probably in the next
couple of Israel and the US are going to attack Iran again.
They're because the US are moving long range like the the
Aegis and the THAAD missile systems.
They're moving more of these into Israel right now.
So that's clearly to defend Israeli installations and cities
from Iranian missile strikes. Because one of the things that
came out of the previous attack was that they got to see where
their weaknesses were in their own defence.
That's right, that's right. So, so right now where it is
where the potential stalemate here if Iran leaves the non
proliferation treaty and they're exactly in the same status as
Israel, they could have an undeclared nuclear weapon of
they're not part of the MPT like Israel.
And that is a sort of unofficial stalemate in the region.
But it's I don't think it's going to work because the United
States has overwhelming force. Well, it's not going to work
because there are no honest brokers in the West.
That true? That too.
It's not a level playing field, and that's the source of the
whole problem. Yeah, no honest brokers in the
West and yeah, I'm not not really sure what else we can say
about that. It's, it's right.
The other thing I was going to mention there was the E3 and
this this isn't, we've mentioned this many times in this
programme, but it's one of these sort of descriptions that tends
to go under the radar. But the E3 is is kind of an
informal block between the UK, France and Germany.
And we were talking about the fact that Slovakia and Hungary
are sort of being paired off from, from the coalition, the
willing and inverted commas. But right at the core of that is
this E3 structure. And although that was originally
set up to deal with the Iran nuclear issue, it's it's become
something much more at the heart of this whole European Defence
Initiative. It's like the concert of Europe.
This is where we're going, you know.
By the way, Mike, you mentioned Hungary and Slovakia as peeling
off and becoming dissidents within NATO and the EU.
I'll tell you if the United States did not meddle in the
Romanian elections, Romania will be right there shoulder to
shoulder with Hungary and Slovakia.
But there was meddling and they took the they took the front
runner out of the race who was clearly against this war in
Ukraine. Like Orban and Fiso said, it's
unwinnable. We need to de escalate.
And so they had him removed. I think the United States were
deeply involved in that coup. And so they didn't get honest
elections in, in Romania and who knows with three major countries
ordering Ukraine, where, where that where does that leave the
the other countries? Where does that leave Poland?
I mean, that would certainly put pressure in Poland as well.
Well, I mean, Poland's inviting the pressure, you know, because
Poland is absolutely 100% on board with the whole Ukraine,
Russia. Well, the political class is.
Yes, yes, for sure. Yeah, probably not the voters.
No, that for sure that is the case.
So and and same with Moldova as well.
A lot of effort to install the current, you know, leader in
Moldova. They're afraid that somehow
they're going to fall into the Russians fear of influence.
Yeah. So this is this is the new
battle lines. Oh, OK, let's let's move on then
and we'll move on to the issue of censorship.
Now over the last few weeks, we've been highlighting this
issue of so called age assurance under the Online Safety Act
regime. And as we've made the point,
this is effectively one of the paths towards the digital ID
rollout. But it's not just a British
thing. Britain is leading the way as
usual, but others are catching up.
So I just wanted to very briefly have a look at the situation in
the USA because it's tricky because of constitutional
protections. And so these policies seem to be
being rolled out at the state level instead.
So let me introduce you to an organisation called Dream with
Dream with Studios. This is what just explain what
they describe themselves as a home for creative artists of all
types. Share your writing, your artwork
or your innermost thoughts. Find others who create the sort
of things you like to enjoy. Control who can see your
creation with our fine grained privacy controls.
Participate in communities for everyone at any one of 100
topics. We are an independent, open
source, community centric service and we support diversity
in all its forms. Come dream with us.
Well, that's what they said about themselves, but they have
just issued or made an announcement that they're also
introducing Geo blocking, but not for the UK or for UK users
as other websites have been doing, as we've been describing
over the last few weeks, but for users in the state of
Mississippi. And the reason is that
Mississippi residents, I'll just quote a little bit from the
website, they say Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry.
We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Net
choice have been fighting for, you had a temporary set back
last week. You genuinely and honestly
believe we're going to win it in the end.
But the 5th Circuit appellate court said that the District
Judge was wrong to issue a preliminary injunction back in
June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the
state from enforcing the law. Requiring any social media
website, which is very very broadly defined in which we
definitely qualify as the DE anonymize and age verify all
users and obtain parental permission from the parent of
anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.
The Mississippi the Mississippi law they say is a breath
breathtaking state overreach. It forces us to verify the
identity and age of every person who accesses dream with from the
state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of
18 by collecting identity documents to save that highly
personal and sensitive information and then obtain a
permission slip from those parents users parents who allow
to allow them to finish creating an attack an account.
Sorry. And of course, this is, I
understand the concerns, aside from the privacy concerns, This
puts a massive obligation on them to maintain, to maintain
certain levels of security standards because more and more
personal information is required to be held by them.
The UK column doesn't hold anybody's personal information.
In fact, the only thing that you're theoretically obliged to
provide to us is your first name.
But most people don't provide a genuine first name there.
And an email. Yes, an email, but and for that,
yes, people are setting up sometimes specific emails for
our website as anybody with any sense would do for.
Other websites. The same for other websites, the
same. So look, I need some help here,
Patrick. This is clearly
unconstitutional. But it looks to me like by
rolling out legislation like this at the state level, global
influencers can impose policy that in the hope that no one has
the financial resources to take this all the way to the Supreme
Court to challenge it. And, you know, the Constitution
of the United States has effectively undermined, it's
possibly even made irrelevant through this strategy.
Or am I reading that wrong? No, you're not reading it wrong.
I mean, how how it's going to work is that, you know, the
state, states have certain rights.
If it's not, if the, if the rights are in question are not
specifically, specifically mentioned in the US
Constitution, then under the 10th Amendment, they're kicked
back to the states. Basically, that's what the
overturning of Roe V Wade, the abortion federal ruling was
about right in the end. So what will happen here is that
if a number of states go this route, then it will be up to
people within that state or websites or business owners then
to to do a legal action. And if it raises to the level
if, if they're able to, as you say, Mike, afford the appeals
process and they have the funding to do that and they have
the legal muscle to do that, then they could make it up to a
high enough federal ruling whereby it would be overturned.
And then that would be a federal precedent.
Then it becomes a constitutional precedent at that point.
But like even in in Britain as well, you have to muddle through
the legal system before everything is confirmed that
that was an overreach or that wasn't an overreach.
So unfortunately, I think what you're saying is right is this
policy can be enacted, policy could be enacted around the law.
And if you get enough buy in, maybe at the corporate level and
it becomes a political issue, then who knows it there.
There might be a way to subvert the constitutional rights issue
more broadly, and it could be just done by Fiat somehow, like
so many other things have online as well.
Yeah, indeed. Well, look, in the meantime, The
Hill here is reporting that a bunch of Republicans through the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are launching A
congressional inquiry into Wikipedia for bias.
Now hold on to your hats here, because what's the driver for
this? Well, you got it.
It's anti Semitism. So multi multiple studies and
reports have highlighted efforts to manipulate information on the
Wikipedia platform for propaganda aimed at western
audiences. They say one recent report
raised troubling questions about the potential systematic efforts
to advance anti Semitic and anti Israel information on Wikipedia.
See how they conflate those two things there in Wikipedia
articles related to conflicts with the state of Israel and
they're particularly concerned that this bias will end up being
used to trade AI chat box the chat box, sorry.
So the bias will become endemic. So that's that's that is their
one of their of their main concerns.
Why would anybody want to be anti Israeli, Mike?
I just can't imagine why anybody would want to hold such views.
I mean, what's Israel doing that's negative or bad?
I just, I can't, I don't, I don't know.
I'm shocked, you know? I'm shocked as well.
How people would be engaged in such behaviour but.
Well, indeed. Clearly, it's clearly
antiseptic. What indeed?
Shush. Now look also a freedom of
speech issue and something which has traditionally been viewed as
a freedom of speech issue and an act of protest in the United
States has been burning the flag.
Right here we go, flag burning. So a lot of people will look at
this and say, well, why would you want to burn the American
flag? Well, for one reason it's
because it's constitutionally protected speech here.
So Trump. Trump's flag burning order test,
Supreme Court ruling and talking about Texas versus Johnson in
1989. President Donald Trump signed
executive order I highlight executive order on Monday
directing federal agencies to vigorously prosecute as if
there's not other crimes, to prosecute anyone who desecrates
the US flag because it defends the president and to detain and
revoke visas at such non citizens who've been accused of
such behaviour here. And this.
So this is Trump and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, as
you can see, flanked with the assistant attorney general
Jeffrey Epstein really controls that office at the end of the
day. So what are we looking at here?
This is just a big distraction. What's the distraction?
2 things one is, is the fact that they've duffed up the
Epstein thing, claimed that it didn't happen.
They're not going to be releasing the files and the
whole Israel, Gaza and genocide issue clamping down on free
speech. Clearly UN American to cut down
free speech to cut down the 1st amendment, which is what the
Trump administration have been doing systematically and why
have they been doing it for the defence of Israel and Israeli
interests. So and I'll show you just how
bad things are getting. So, so they're dragging us back
in time to defend Israel ultimately.
But on the flag burning issue, I think this is a complete
distraction. It's, there's no way it's, it's,
it's constitutionally protected speech.
But there's some conservative judges, there's more
conservative judges. Trump believes that if we can
get this issue back up to the Supreme Court that there'll be
instances where they could say there was motivation against US
National Security or something that they'll be able to rule
that some of these flag burning cases will be they'll be able to
enforce, you know, criminal prosecutions on that.
So that's that's what I think Trump is betting on his Supreme
Court, you know, majority on that because the previous ruling
was different. But here here's here's what's
actually going on. And this is what this is where
the Trump administration's getting hammered.
And this is where they're losing student newspapers, suing
Secretary of State Marco Rubio over targeted deportations of
student journalists who are not U.S. citizens but are here on
student visas and so forth here. What's at stake in this case is
whether when you're in the United States, you're free to
voice your opinion critical of the government without fear of
retaliation, says Connor Fitzpatrick.
He's an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights
and Expression Civil Civil Liberties group, representing
the plaintiffs in this case. The plaintiffs is the Stanford
student newspaper, the Stanford Daily here.
And this is the, this is the bottom line.
It does not matter if you are a citizen here on a green card or
visiting Las Vegas for the weekend.
You shouldn't have to fear retaliation because the
government doesn't like what you have to say.
That's, that's the, this is the point that knuckle dragging MAGA
conservatives and arch Zionists and people like that, people
that are demanding that students be deported or locked up for
student protests. They don't get this.
It doesn't matter if you're AUS citizen, it's with if you're in
the US jurisdiction, you are protected under the US
Constitution, your First Amendment free, no speech
assembly as well as protected as long as you're not breaking the
law and the law protects that speech according to the US
Constitution. Anybody attacking and
undermining the US Constitution is an enemy of the US
Constitution, including the current U.S. government
technically. And that's why they're being
sued and hammered in the courts. And Rubio will lose, most likely
is going to lose on this case as they have done on the previous
ones. Yeah, OK.
But in the meantime, the ICE officers are going around
lifting people off the streets, treating them extremely.
I mean it's real 1930s Germany style stuff from some of the
video clips that I've seen exporting them to other
countries, not just to where was it this sorry the South American
country? Is El Salvador.
Thank you. Not just El Salvador, but also
to some African countries is. Rwanda.
They're doing their Rwanda. The Rwanda thing, right?
And, and, but, and they're sending people to those
countries where those people have no ties to those countries
whatsoever, basically leaving them destitute in those
countries were in a prison or whatever it happens to be.
With no due process. No due process and with no
support in those countries. I mean it is despicable and and
actually pretty by the sort of what most people would
understand by the definition of fascistic, it is pretty
fascistic. It's very fascistic and Trump,
Trump doing the flag burning thing through an executive order
is a very, very bad precedent. It's also gonna, I don't think
it's good for Trump and his legacy because this is like
something that a desperate authoritarian would do.
And why? Just to make some kind of a
statement in order to somehow virtue signal to his hardcore
base on this. But as we pointed out, Mike,
it's absolutely tied to these other issues.
I mean, they deported a student from Tufts University, which is
also what this Stanford case against Rubio is for writing an
op Ed. She was Turkish, I believe, and
she wrote an op Ed critical of Israel, Israel's doing in Gaza.
And they black sacked her practically.
I mean, they sent A-Team and just kidnapped her basically and
sent her off Mahmoud Khalil, who reported on the Columbia student
protest leader who's a Palestinian legal resident in
the United States, married to I think AUS citizen or legal
resident. And they, they tried to deport
him and they lost. He won an appeals and now he's
out advocating against the Trump administration in Washington,
DC. It's usually embarrassing.
And all Marco Rubio can do is cry and scream and, and, and
pout on Twitter. That's the, and, and that
they're making the State Department pout with these
childish tweets coming off the official State Department
Twitter account. I mean, there's no dignity left
with these U.S. officials. I mean, they, they clearly don't
give a, you know, what about the US Constitution.
To them, it's an impediment to whatever the Israeli lobby wants
or whatever they, their donors want.
And they just want to remove it, get around it, subvert it or
just basically, you know, destroy it.
I mean, that's kind of where this administration's at.
I don't think this is very good for the Trump administration and
certainly not good for America. Yeah, absolutely.
Couldn't agree more. OK, back to the UK then And
well, everybody will be glad to know that a free chicken pox
vaccination is going to be offered for the first time to
children across England. That's via the NHS.
That's going to happen from January and their government is
saying that thousands of children are going to be
protected against chicken pox because of this new programme.
Now they're going to offer a combined vaccine for measles,
mumps, rubella and varicella. So this is MMRV now.
So it's going to be not a triple vaccine, but a quad vaccine all
in one dose. And so that's as part of the
routine infant vaccination schedule.
And this apparently is going to mean that children are going to
miss fewer days in nursery and school, while parents won't need
to take time off work to care for them.
And they're saying that research shows the chicken pox in
childhood results in an estimated 24,000,000 lbs in lost
income and productivity every year in the UK.
That's going to save the NHS £15,000,000 a year in cost.
Is it? How much is the vaccine going to
cost? Anyway, So what?
They're leaving out one stat, Mike.
How much is the Pharmaceutical industry going to profit off
this? Precisely, right.
So that's the point. But we don't need to worry
because the chicken pox vaccine's been safely used for
decades. It hasn't been safely used for
decades as part of MMR, right? So, So what we're doing here is,
is trying to suggest that there's a set a safety track
record for for something that's didn't previously exist.
Right. And and is this a new outbreak?
Is this a new virus, the chicken pox virus?
Is it brand new? Must be brand new.
I mean, I don't remember chicken pox parties when I was a child.
Don't remember those at all. And how many?
How many they must They must be rolling this out because it's a
deadly virus, right? How many children have died from
chicken pox over the last 100 years?
Well, I don't understand your cynicism here, Patrick, because
the government says this is going to result in the
healthiest generation of children ever.
Is the number of children that have died of chicken pox?
Is it 0 or is it under 100 in the last 100 years?
Globally it's pretty low whatever the number is, I would
think so. Why do you need to be vaccinated
against something as an incubation period of a couple of
days? Because apparently, according to
the press release, this is going to protect children from serious
complications that can cause hospitalisation, such as
bacterial infections like strep a, brain and lung inflammation
and stroke. Children having strokes.
This is also new news. I haven't heard about this
before. How often does that happen?
Is it a number between zero and zero and and one or maybe range
of probability children's having strokes from chicken pox?
I mean, this is new. This is a great scientific
discovery. This is right up there with, you
know, alien life on another planet.
I mean, this is just, I'm so in awe of the Pharmaceutical
industry. Well, what they've done to the
government for sure. Is incredible.
Acting as propagandists. But I believe we do have a good
news story and. And the reason is, Mike, is
we're so tired of the complaints and the whining in the chat
rooms that UK call them so negative.
You guys never have anything positive.
It's just all scrolling at the UK com.
It's war, it's viruses, it's scandals, it's corruption.
And when are you going to do a feel good story?
Well, I'm going to change that today.
We have got a feel good story and in fact this could be the
beginning of something special, a feel good story.
This will be the feel good story of the day or you can say of the
week or whatever. So we're going to leave you
something for the weekend that's going to make you feel
definitely feel good. It's going to put a smile on
your face and a spring in your step.
Here it is right here. And this is from the Blaze.
This is John Bolton as you can see coming out emerging from the
bushes there. The Blaze media.
That's that is not an LGBT website.
That's Glenn Beck's website, if you're confused by the name.
But we finally have an idea of why John Bolton is in hot water
and the factor that could bring things to boil.
What's going on there He is. That's the pensive profile shot
John Bolton. Trump's former advisor Arch Neo
Con, is reportedly under investigation for allegedly
mishandling classified information.
If held to his own standard, then his days as a free man
might be numbered. So yes, you've read that right,
folks. John Bolton going.
To prison. He could end up in the clink for
the very thing. And so obviously this is a
retribution by Trump because during the Mar a Lago raid, John
Bolton was all over MSNBC and Jen Pasaki show saying that
Trump is harbouring and, you know, stealing classified
information, hiding it at Mar a Lago.
So I mean, Trump's getting revenge here on John Bolton.
And but but let's be honest, is anybody upset to see John
Bolton, his home getting raided and his office is getting raided
this week? I can't see many people that
would sort of, I think a lot of people be smiling at that.
Hence that's why that's the feel good story of the day.
Thank you very much. Hopefully that makes the weekend
a lot better for a lot of people.
Thank you, Patrick, thanks to everybody that's joined us
today. We will be back in a few
minutes. If you are AUK column member for
some UK column News Extra, if you're not a member, please
consider joining because you're missing a lot.
And well, have a great weekend. If you're not joining us and
we'll see you at 1:00 PM as usual on Monday.
See you then. Bye bye.