UK Column Radio
UK Column News Podcast 9th October 2024
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And well, he began by talking about the various state of the nation with respect to terrorism and so on. Let's start with his comments on terrorism. Speaking from Sea Talk, I have to start with terrorism. Since March 2017, MI5 and the police have together disrupted 43 late stage attack plots. Some of those plotters were trying to get a hold of firearms and explosives in the final days of planning mass murder. Our vital work together has saved numerous lives. The headline split of our counter terrorist work remains roughly 75% Islamist extremist, 55% extreme right wing terrorism, but under that headline much has shifted. Straight forward labels like Islamist terrorism or extreme right wing don't fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see. Charles, I just want to start off by getting your thoughts on that. So 75% Islamist terrorism, 25% far right terrorism and of course, as usual, they claim to have foiled all kinds of plots that we never actually see the evidence of. So do you think it goes beyond claims? Well, I would say Kamen's got form in this area because he and Mark Rollie, if we cast our minds back to October last year, they were both talking up the state threat from Iran with absolutely nothing to substantiate it. So I would take anything that he said with an enormous quantity of salt and also giving a 75%, 25% split gives, obviously, absolutely no room for any other threat which seems naive in the extreme. Well, it's interesting you mentioned Iran because, well, he talks about Russia first. Let's listen to that and, well, he talks about Iran, of course, in a second, but let's get Russia first. I now want to turn to the threats posed by autocratic regimes. Russia continues its illegal attempt to subjugate Ukraine. While the Russian military grinds away on the battlefield at horrendous human cost, we're also seeing Putin's henchmen seeking to strike elsewhere in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve. Over 750 Russian diplomats have been expelled from Europe since Putin invaded, the great majority of them spies. This goes well beyond all historical precedent and has put a big dent in the Russian intelligence services ability to cause damage in the West. With allies, we're keeping up that pressure by denying diplomatic visa applications from Russian spies. It's not flashy, but it works. Kick them out, keep them out, kick them out and keep them out, so will they attack on Russia and as Charles just alluded to, that was followed by an attack on Iran. Now to Iran. Since the killing of Masa Amini in 2022, we've seen plot after plot here in the UK at an unprecedented pace and scale. Since January 2022, with police partners, we have responded to 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents. As events unfold in the Middle East, we will give our fullest attention to the risk of an increase in or a broadening of Iranian state aggression here in the UK. Like the Russian services, Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies. So now criminals in the UK are suddenly proxies for Iranian terrorism in the UK. It's quite incredible. No evidence presented, just statements made and of course the intelligence agencies have formed in this. If we think about yellow cake, for example, but he then inevitably went on to China. And thirdly, China. China is different. The UK-China economic relationship supports UK growth which underpins our security and there are also risks to be managed. The choices are complex and it rightly falls to ministers to make the big strategic judgments on our relationship with China, where it's in the UK's interest to cooperate and how we do so safely. MI5 continues to focus where you'd expect us to, disrupting attempts at harming or coercing people, where often we're protecting people of Chinese heritage, tackling threats aimed at our democracy and safeguarding valuable information against the threat that manifests at scale. Proportionate and targeted security protections are part of the foundation for a confident relationship with China that both enables economic growth and maintains the UK's values. So they have a bit of a problem with China because we have to rely on China so much for supply chains that it's got to be dealt with separately. But in the meantime, tomorrow, everybody will be delighted to know that the lovely Mark Ruder, the new head of NATO, is visiting the UK. Of course, he is here to stay care starmer. There will be no opportunity for the media to get involved in that whatsoever. This is a private meeting between the two of them. I'm quite sure to discuss the war agenda. But we should make the point here, remind everybody about this gentleman, Robert Fito. He's the Prime Minister of Slovakia. And if you remember, back a few months ago, lots of media coverage about him because he, of course, is the pro-Russia candidate that became, sorry, Slovakia's president to apologize. He's borrowing from Trump, said the Guardian. And so headline after headline about this man. And of course, what happened as a result of these headlines as the media stoked everything up? Well, there was an assassination attempt. And he ended up being taken away with several bullets in him. He's recovered from that. And he's now made a statement on the issue of war and the question of whether Mark Ruder is going to get his wish. As we mentioned a few days ago, Mark Ruder wants Ukraine in NATO as quickly as possible. So this is from Slovakia media. Let's do a quick translation of the headline. So Fito saying the war in Ukraine is desired by the West and continues only because it wants to deal Russia, deal Russians on their knees. That's a poor translation, perhaps, or they probably put Russia on their knees. But basically, this is what he had to say. As long as I'm the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, I will lead the legislators whom I have control over as party chairman to never agree to Ukraine's membership in NATO. Ukraine's entry in the NATO would serve as a good basis for a Third World War because once Ukraine is a NATO member and a conflict similar to the current one breaks out, it will kind of an attack on a NATO member and some extremely dangerous mechanisms can be triggered. Charles, don't know if you've got any thoughts on that, but I think bearing in mind, he's already had an assassination attempt, which injured him extremely badly. This is a pretty brave position to take. Well, it's absolutely a brave position to take in light of the others surrounding him that are not taking that position. But of course, he speaks with great sense, and this is the position that UK column has been taking for months, if not years. And it's almost as though Mark Rudder has not been given the memo in that he doesn't seem to acknowledge that and to realise that the consequences for NATO and her members are catastrophic if Ukraine is brought in at a time where conflict with Russia is ongoing and therefore inevitable. And of course, it would drag everybody else in. So I think to hear a voice speaking out so prominently is absolutely what's needed, quite what happens as a result of his outspokenness will remain to be seen. Yes. Okay. Thank you for that. And well, let's stay on the issue of NATO. And this is from Develt in Germany. Again, we'll do a quick translation of the headline. NATO calls for 49 more combat troop brigades. So Develt is claiming to have seen a document from inside the German defence ministry, which they say, quote, shows the increase in military capabilities that NATO commanders consider necessary. The document is titled military capability requirements, and it's been approved by General Christopher Cavall and French Admiral Pierre Fandler, NATO's two top military commanders. And according to Develt, it calls for an increase in NATO ground combat forces from 82 brigades to 131 brigades, that's an increase of 49 brigades. And that is in fact an increase of somewhere between 200 and 250,000 troops. Now, the question then is, where are they going to get these troops? And of course, one place they might get them is through conscription or national service, as Rishi Sunak wanted to call it. Now the question is whether the current Labour regime is going to continue with this agenda and Keir Starmer at the time was very much saying no way. That was back in May, but as the Telegraph reporting here, thousands of teenagers should do national service for a year, say senior Labour figures. So this agenda, it continues to be pushed in this country. Charles, do you think it's realistic that NATO could see 250,000 extra troops? And where would they get them from, other than from conscription? Well, I think, yeah, as you say, conscription is the only way to go about it. So I think it's entirely probable in terms of administration to put that number of people into the system. I think the far bigger question is what capability will they have, how on earth will they be trained and equipped and indeed managed, who's actually going to operate this. But within the UK, we have to cast our minds back, I spoke about this before, to the legislation that was passed in 1939. And I think I'm right in saying the statistic then, was that 240,000 people were immediately conscripted within a day, okay, admittedly, that's not going to be people actually moving into a training capacity, but nonetheless, these things can be changed very quickly. But of course, what is actually delivered, and I would say that society now is in far worse shape, physically and mentally, than it was back in the late 30s. So it's going to, I mean, you know, absolutely ridiculous to suggest that 250,000 people somehow be conjured out of the woodwork into service of all the troops. Indeed. Well, look, I regret to say that Vanessa has not been able to join us so far. And she just sent me a message explaining the problem. So there is a technical problem in Syria. This is effectively a war zone at the moment once again, sadly, because there's definitely an expansion of the conflict in the Middle East into Syria now. So we will do our best to get Vanessa on perhaps later in the program, but otherwise, we'll see her next week, no doubt. But Charles, let's move on to your segment then on education and the money that the government has decided they're going to put into tackling antisemitism in education. Yes, thanks, Mike, and proper good afternoon to you all. What looks like a straightforward announcement, albeit one that's designed to score political points, a gesture of opportunism, one might say, the education secretary has announced a pledge of seven million pounds to tackle antisemitism in education. But to what end and where might this go? Well, they say that the funding will aim to educate people about antisemitism and better equipped schools, colleges and universities stamp out antisemitic abuse. Now, of course, that is very much open to interpretation and they go on to say the commitment comes after the number of incidents of antisemitic abuse nationwide, more than doubled in the first five months of 2024, compared to the same period of year earlier. On university campuses, the number of incidents grew by 465%. Now, clearly, that sounds like a remarkable increase and huge numbers, therefore, must be involved. But is that really the case that these statistics have come from a report by the Community Security Trust CST, which has the unique distinction of being part-funded by government, but also able to conduct joint patrols with the police in this country, making Judaism the only religion to be afforded such privileges. And in their report, in fact, we see that during the first six months of this year, there were 96 antisemitic incidents in which the victims or offenders were involved in student union societies or other representative bodies. Now, to put this in context, there are 2.9 million students in university education at the moment. Further, UK universities have compiled a report to suggest that ethnic minorities are represented as saying that 24% of them have experienced some sort of racial harassment over the course of the year, and when it comes to black university students, 45% say that they've experienced some sort of racial harassment over the course of the year. So the government absolutely cherry-picking their statistics in this instance, but of course, we then get this reinforced by the Prime Minister who gave a speech at the Holocaust Education Trust back on 16 September, and he says, yet, on October 7, of course, 2023, there were a thousand people were massacred by Hamas for the very same reason, because they were Jewish. And this is the line. So when we consider education, it's really a re-education Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories, contorted versions of history, pure hatred and prejudice. So I say tonight, we will not shy away from this, we will not be silent, we will not look the other way. Of course, unless it concerns the killing of Palestinians because they are Palestinian, we will build that National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Center and build it next to Parliament boldly, proudly, unapologetically, not as a Jewish community initiative, but as a national initiative, a national statement of the truth of a Holocaust and its place in our national consciousness. Now, as has been said many times on UK column before, the National Holocaust Memorial is highly contentious because it concerns planning legislation in the Victoria Tower Garden, which absolutely is not a given that it will go through. And calling it national initiative about something that did not happen in this country to people of this country is perfectly extraordinary, but that's the way we're being pushed with this. He further reinforced all these points with a statement to the Commons on the 7th of October, in which he says, "With the Middle East, close to the brink, in the very real danger of regional war, last week the Iranian regime chose to strike Israel, the whole House will join me in condemning this attack. We support Israel's right to defend herself against Iran's aggression, in line with international law. So as I say, we are concerned here with re-education. The whole House will join me in thanking our brave servicemen and women who have shown their usual courage in countering this threat, but make no mistake, this region cannot endure another year of this. So the inference being that our servicemen and women have been closely involved in military action so far. All sides must now step back from the brink and find the courage of restraint. There's no military solution to these challenges, so we must renew our diplomatic efforts." Well, now he said this, Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, appears to have said something slightly different or has not ruled out military action. This was him, speaking to Laura Coonsberg, on Sunday just past. Now, the UK has helped Israel on some of the occasions when it has defended itself from Iranian missiles. Would you rule out the UK military being involved in any way, in any attacks on Iran? These are operational decisions that must be taken—no, no, no, no, these are operational decisions that will be taken by the Defense Secretary and the Prime Minister and also the Foreign Secretary—these are delicate negotiations, delicate situations. Britain will do what it needs to do to support our allies in a time of need, but it is very clear from what we have said publicly that Britain will use all of its influence, all of the tools we have at our disposal to move towards a swift diplomatic solution based on a ceasefire as quickly as possible. Now, we're working very closely with our international allies. We will take actions in concert with our international allies. If there is a sign of a swift diplomatic resolution, just in the last ten days, diplomacy failed to stop the attacks that were coming. This is a question—for some people in your own party, this is a question of principle that it's okay some people's view for the UK to be supporting Israel when it's defending itself, for our jets to be in the air, if there are missiles raining down on Tel Aviv, and it would not be acceptable for the UK military in any way to play a part in Israel attacking Iran. That's a question of principle. Would you be comfortable with the UK military helping Israel attack Iran? We simply don't know the circumstances of what is happening. It might or might not happen in the days ahead. And I think all of you fools would understand why. I'm not going to get involved in operational circumstances for an action that may or may not happen and we don't know the details of in the days ahead. Do you think, on the left, that people would—how do you think they would view the UK government? When we cut it—sorry, my apologies, that was the wrong clip, which went on slightly too long—but you get the message, purist, double-speak there by Peter Kyle, absolutely suggesting that there will be a likelihood that our servicemen would be engaged in conflict with Iran at the behest of Israel. So we go back to the education theme here, and just a reminder, which we talked about many times, that the Holocaust, as reported by the Holocaust Educational Trust, has a place in the curriculum by law in England. Children have to be taught about the Holocaust. In fact, the Holocaust is the only historical event whose study is compulsory on the national curriculum, which turns us to the subject of home education. And this is because, during a written question in September, the permanent undersecretary Stephen Morgan was asked about the register, and he said that we can also ignore the rising numbers of home-educated children, and then he goes on to say that there's an increase in the number of those being home-educated due to mental health concerns or lack of provision for special educational needs, essentially reframing the idea of home education as being for children who have issues and therefore require government intervention, which is why they're pushing ahead with the homeschool education registration and support bill. In which they say that any other information about child's characteristic circumstances, needs or interactions, that the sexual estate thinks should be included in the register for the purposes of promoting or safeguarding the education, safety or welfare of children. So we return to the idea that antisemitism is now becoming the key part of the education of children, and that therefore those that are outside of the system via home education need to be brought back into it in order that they can be indoctrinated. Yes, thank you, Charles, and we'll be talking a little bit more about education and how children are being indoctrinated a little bit later in the programme. But I'm very glad to say that Vanessa Hasman is to join us now after all, and Vanessa, welcome to the programme, the war apparently beginning to expand towards Syria. Yeah, I mean, there's been a low key intensity war against Syria for more than a decade now from Israel, but we've seen the expansion, heavy expansion into Lebanon, now more than 2,000 dead, 9,000 to 10,000 injured in Lebanon, not mentioning, of course, the genocide in Gaza. So last night, Israel was defending itself by bombing three residential apartments in the middle of the city of Damascus in an area called Mezze. You can see there, it's pretty built up, nine civilians dead, 11 plus injured and still searching for people under the rubble. The claim by Israel is that they were targeting IRGC, the Iranian forces, commanders, Iran has denied the death of any Iranian citizen, then they changed it to a Hezbollah commander responsible for allegedly smuggling weapons. That's also not yet been confirmed, but we do know that these nine civilians have died, one of whom was Dr. Rahaf come here, urologist with the Damascus Health Director, and then an entire family of Yemeni civilians, Yemeni professor Dr. Shahi al-Aud, his wife and three daughters were killed in the bombing. And then the Ministry of Defence in Syria put out an official statement toward around 2015. So again, this is a very busy time in the city centre. The Israeli enemy launched an air aggression with three missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian god-an in the south, targeting a residential and commercial building and the densely populated Mezze neighbourhood, which led to the martyrdom of seven, it's now nine, including children and women in the injury of 11 others as an initial toll and work is still ongoing, as they say, to rescue others from the rubble. But I just wanted to bring people up to speed with what the intention potentially is, of course, not only in Syria, Lebanon and in Palestine, but in the entire region. So Netanyahu's speech at the UNGA, you had the curse and the blessing, or the curse, of course, is Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and we presume Palestine, although they're not even marked on the map. The blessing, as we've talked about before, also is effectively the Indian Middle East economic corridor going through Saudi Arabia, the occupied territories of Palestine, and then Egypt and into Europe, also isolating Turkey, which is another point we can possibly talk about in extra. Then basically, a few days ago, Israel bombed the main border road from Syria to Lebanon on both sides, you can see that the crater is quite extensive. Again, the claim was that they were targeting tunnels that were being used for carrying weapons. There is, of course, no sign of any weapons, but Syria is now completely isolated and Lebanon is unable to sell sent refugees into Syria for safety. Now I just wanted to spend some time, you're going to look at this, Matt, and think what on earth is she doing? But I just wanted to point out the threats that now face Syria, so effectively, in the last week or so, we fired a series of bombing raids by the Israelis that have effectively been trying to clear pathways through the Syrian air defense and radar systems in the south, to the west on the coast, and centrally near Homs, which is their written as hymns, which is how it's sometimes written, but you can see it on the map. In the south, the greatest threat is actually of invasion by the Israeli forces from the occupied Golan territories in the sort of the southwestern corner of Syria, and why I've put that red circle, that's where I think Israel intends to try to reach, so it's going to intend to try to harness the remaining terrorist forces in the south. The separatists, Druze, the al-Tanif military base of the US, which is also housing and training multiple armed groups, group ban refugee camp, which is rather, you've mystically called a refugee camp, it is also a recruitment and training ground for the various extremist groups, that's in the blue on the eastern border with Jordan, so they will have the support of the al-Tanif camp, they will have the support of factions in the south, and of course that has been their intention from the beginning of the regime change war against Syria. The little sort of lightning, straight there, is the closure of borders with Lebanon, which again as I said, isolates Syria. We know that NATO forces have been gathering in the north, we know that British military intelligence operations have been ongoing in the north of Lebanon, potentially of course targeting the border with Homs in Syria. We recently had strikes from Israel but coordinated also with the terrorists and Idlib in the northwest of Syria coming in from the eastern Mediterranean and I'm circling Cyprus because I do believe there's also a threat from the gathering of NATO forces in Cyprus if there is to be an escalation of the war against Syria. Now in the northwest, you'll see that it's been announced that Grolani or Grolani, the head of Al-Qaeda, or Huayet, Talia of Sham, as it's now known previously, ISIS, is it's been announced that he's going to be leading a major ground assault in that area with drones and ground forces. We also know that Ukrainian special intelligence forces have been in Idlib both to recruit terrorist forces to go to Ukraine but also we assume, training the terrorist forces in the northwest. Now in the Red Square, you will see Al-Bukamal, which is the last remaining open corridor under the control of Iraq and Syria. So the US is now, or has been, for some time attempting to take control of that corridor to completely close that eastern border for Syria and of course the northeast there is occupied by the Kurdish countries, the Kurdish separatists under the control of Israel and the US and the US which is occupying the oil fields and agricultural sources in that area. So very much sort of heightened threat alert right now for Syria and that appears to be where we're heading and I just wanted to come back again to the greater Israel map so people can understand why this is happening. Of course three quarters of Syrian territory is perceived to belong to greater Israel and where I've put the red circle is the area east of the Euphrates occupied by the US and the Kurdish colonial settlers that have effectively ethnic and clans, much of that area of the Assyrian and Syrian population so you can see precisely why the US is occupying that area in particular to ensure that if Israel takes control of three quarters of Syria it will not be faced with an antagonistic state in that area and you know many photos have been taken in Gaza of Israeli forces wearing a patch that shows very clearly the map of greater Israel and as we were talking about anti-Semitism the support for this project and this agenda in Syria in the entire region is supported across the board in the EU pretty much for the majority of EU countries and certainly in the US and in the UK and I just wanted to show this latest video of Trump talking about removing the Jew haters. We will remove the jihadist sympathizers and Jew haters we're going to remove the Jew haters who do nothing to help our country they only want to destroy our country and we will never let the horrors of October 7th be repeated here on Americans we will not let that happen and we will solve the problem that we have. I wonder what he's going to do about the Jews that hate the Zionist interesting dilemma there but I mean you know we're just heading into uncharted territory in my opinion at the moment. Yes very interesting Vanessa thank you very much for that now if you like what the UK column does you would like to support us the place to go support.uk column.org there are options to help us there you could make a donation or you could join as a member and the various membership levels to join at you pick something up at the UK column shop if you can and well a couple of people asking what our relationship with Clive to Carl.com is well it's an affiliate relationship so if you buy something at Clive to Carl.com doesn't cost you any more money but that we will get a small percentage of that of that money that you spend so that's helpful to us as well and of course it helps Clive too so we applaud that if you possibly can but please share any material you find on the various platforms use the share links that are on the UK column website and if you want to see the comments that go with the articles and videos you can do so by clicking on that link there. Now yesterday the interview with Dr Robert Everett UK column member went out fantastic interview and if you haven't seen that yet please do have a look at it it's on the front page of the UK column website at the moment and tomorrow Charles we're delighted that you have spoken to Chris Coverdale. Yeah Chris Coverdale gives an absolutely fascinating interview to its charts his many years of resisting tax because it is used with which to fund wars and he describes this as being completely illegal according to UK legislation so he plots the course between taking a position on tax resistance and reinforcing it by all various articles of legislation that show that that's what he believes he should do so definitely worth tuning into to learn how he does what he does and why. And at the weekend you're speaking at an event. Yes that's right yes in Stroud run by Project Libertas your life in their hands and I'll be there with Gemma Cooper Andrew Bridget and Sandy Adams so if you haven't got a ticket do go to Eventbrite and search Project Libertas and Stroud. Thank you Charles now we don't have a graphic for the UK column event on the 19th of October because all the tickets are now sold so we will maybe have another announcement about that in the not to listen future but in the meantime if you're in Glasgow and you'd like to take part in the Glasgow Peace March being run by Stand for Peace Dakota UK that is at 1230 on Sunday the 13th of October at George Square and get along to that if you possibly can and a reminder of the alternative view live stream which is taking place on Sunday the 10th of November. Mark Anderson taking part in that long side Pippa King, John Kitson and David Jibain and this will follow up to the Smart Cities agenda live stream which we hosted previously and we'll be coming on to the topic of Smart Cities a little bit later in the program but before we get to that let's come back on to education and education and AI in particular and I want to introduce you to this organization called Century. So Century says that any student or pupil that is using Century AI to take help with their education ends up with a 10 times national average grid improvement that's quite a claim so we have a little bit of video here introducing Century so let's have a listen to this. In 2013 I found a century to solve one of the biggest problems in the world. Children do not receive the required levels of literacy and numeracy and therefore we wanted to build technology that could transform teaching and learning. Our vision is to ensure that every teacher and every learner has access to intelligent tools to help them succeed. In order to fulfill this vision we have brought together the world's leading data scientists, engineers, neuroscientists, teachers and educational psychologists to build Century. Century is an intelligent intervention tool that's able to understand each student's individual strengths, weaknesses and behaviours. So what could possibly go wrong and well Century has been in the media in the last couple of days. We'll come on to that in a second but my first question was who's funding them and well it seems that they've had quite a bit of venture capital money and some of it coming from this organization HPE which is growing world-class technology in Europe and I just wanted to highlight a couple of points here. First of all they are a B corporation, a B Corp as Ben has been talking about quite a lot and also of course they're very interested in pursuing investments which help develop the sustainable development goals. What could be better? So there we go, that's with that. So why are we talking about this today? Well before we get onto that we'll just remind everybody that Century is very keen to welcome Sir Tony Blair and Lord Higgs' report on recommending the use of AI in the classroom. But we're talking about this today because they are now taking part in a pilot scheme in Liverpool and they're talking about this in a blog post on their website entitled Revolutionizing Learning, AI Tech's Centre Stage in Liverpool and what it's saying is in April 2024 the author of this blog post had the opportunity to meet the Liverpool Mayor Steve Rotherham as he was planning his reelection campaign and what struck him was that Steve Rotherham was really into technology and it was really exciting and so they invited the mayor, the new mayor, once he was elected to running meets in Edwards Catholic primary school in Liverpool to show off their wares and as a result of that bit of lobbying they've had apparently the opportunity to expand this to the Liverpool city region and so thousands of pupils are going to be taking part in it so let's bring the lady founder on screen and she was asked about this issue of AI coming into the classroom and whether that would risk the jobs of teachers but and there was a comparison with checkout staff at Supermarkets that have had their jobs replaced by automated checkout and she said that with all due respect to checkout cashiers are you comparing scanning your bread across a barcode and the bagging of the bread which you probably do yourself as requiring the same skillset as a teacher she said teaching is a profession it's an art and a science at century we will robustly and vigorously defend the teaching profession and the skill it requires and you have made a poor analogy there well I would question whether it is a poor analogy because of course she's going to robustly defend the teaching profession because it's a teaching profession that she needs in order to sell her product into the schools in the first place she needs the teachers on board but I would suggest very strongly that this is the end of the teaching profession and why because of course if teaching is being done by AI the behaviour is being tracked by AI then every student gets a very tailored education which hopefully brings them and frames their minds in the way that the AI is programmed to frame their minds now if you want to get any more background on this you should watch the interview that Debbie Evans had with Ben Rubin back on the third of August last year entitled master of puppets the future of Britain which covers this issue and this organisation in a little bit more detail and then in the meantime then I want to mention this because Tesco Mobile has decided to help fund digital matters so Tesco Mobile they say is expanding a partnership with internet matters this is a not not-for-profit which offers internet safety advice and what are they doing well they're basically looking at creating things like the little digital helps toolkit and they produce lesson packs for teachers so teachers don't have to think for themselves they just regurgitate the lesson packs covering such as areas as misinformation and disinformation so the agenda is out in force and the teachers need to waken up I think to what they're being asked to promote but let's move on Vanessa to the issue of smart cities yeah well I wanted to try to sort of to make the connections between what is happening right now in most Asia with Israel introducing the new order and the blessing and curse maps and so on and how that basically interlinks with what is also coming and has been coming for some time in the last because I think it's very easy to disconnect the two so I'm going to have a quick look at Azerbaijan which is of course on the border with Iran and the small section then Nagano Karabakh thank you or Atsak as it's known by the Armenians and of course that was a majority Armenian area that has effectively now been occupied by Azerbaijan and as I said is right on the border there with Iran remember the curse map Iran is included in the direction of travel at the end of that journey of expansionism so then let's have a look very quickly at the historic connection between Israel and Azerbaijan so this was back in June last year 92 flights from Israeli base from real arms exports to Azerbaijan parats investigation reveals dozens of cargo flights from Baku to Israeli airstrip used for the export of explosives Israel sells Azerbaijan weaponry worth billions and per sources receives oil and access to Iran tensions between Azerbaijan and both Iran and Armenia have ratchered up recently so let's have a look at what that includes so they've had a strategic alliance with Azerbaijan for the past two decades and they sell the large Shiite majority country weapons worth billions in return Azerbaijan supplies Israel with oil and access to Iran according to foreign media reports Azerbaijan has allowed the Mossad to set up a forward branch to monitor what is happening in Iran Azerbaijan's neighbor to the south and is even prepared an airfield intended to aid Israel in case it decides to attack Iranian nuclear sites reports from two years ago stated that the Mossad agents who stole the Iranian nuclear archive smuggled it to Israel via Azerbaijan and according to official reports from Azerbaijan over the years Israel who sold it the most advanced weapons systems including ballistic missiles air defense and electronic warfare systems kamikaze drones and more and of course we shouldn't forget that the helicopter of President IEC and Foreign Minister Abdul Heyan of Iran crashed very close to the border with Azerbaijan so coming forward Israel offered Azerbaijan corporation to create smart cities guess where in Nagorno-Karabakh so in an area basically that is occupied and inhabited by majority Armenians this you can freeze frame and read I'm not going to read all of it but clearly the smart city is exactly what we know it to be a way to control information to control your electricity and water supply and usage to control education to control your movements or at least to surveil your movements as actually as we expect it to be in the west when they are introduced or are being introduced but this then becomes of course interesting this connects back to Palestine this is a documentary made by Mint Press News Menar Adley automated apartheid walking through Hebron smart city and remember we've talked about Una 8200 the various tech startups and surveillance startups in Israel that now have their tentacles basically across the west but particularly in the UK so let's have a look at what Menar said about you you can go to the Mint Press report the link will be in the notes of course and you can actually watch the documentary I do recommend it so she talks about the largest city in the west bank where history collides with modern home of daily life this Sentinel is not a person but a network of surveillance technology known ominously as the Hebron smart city designed by Israeli authorities this system blankets the city in a web of cameras sensors and even automated weapons tracking every movement of its Palestinian residents Palestinians and Hebron are the most surveilled people on the planet highlighting the omnipresence of cameras and face scanning technology Adley says that the area also known as Al-Khalil Palestinians has become a testing ground for Israel's surveillance apparatus with advanced technologies like the wolf pack surveillance system in operation the system collects vast amounts of data on Palestinians including their personal details and movements creating an atmosphere of constant surveillance even inside the houses of the Palestinians living in Hebron and of course I have to bring you full cycle in that case back to the 2030 Israel UK roadmap bilateral relations the roadmap is an ambitious agreement to ensure the UK and Israel's partnership remains forward looking and continues to innovate to address shared challenges let's have a look at this being described not only as a collaboration but as an actual partnership Israel and the UK are united in the common belief that a democracy which empowers citizens with the opportunity to innovate creating fulfill their dreams is the finest form of government we are clear that democratic norms are the mainstay from maintaining a rules based international system and respect for universal human rights it's very hard not to feel extremely ironic about this statement as outward looking patriotic nations we know that a mutually prosperous future lies in stronger economic technological and security ties with like-minded partners in order to meet our ambitions we will upgrade the institutional mechanisms that enable us to set and achieve goals across our mutual priorities now we know for a fact of course that that which Israel is looking to introduce into UK society has been developed through genocide in Palestine thank you for that Vanessa thank you very much Charles that's well I was supposed continuing with a theme on this because smart cities of course will have smart cars well they will they may they might not have very many of them and just in case I am the only person to have read the traffic commissioner's annual report 2024 I will pull out of it a few details which I think relevance firstly autonomous vehicles they say that trials continue to be successful now that's highly questionable and the powers are now in place for a potential future role for traffic commissioners in regulating such vehicles significant that they have put the powers in place because the statistics really do not back up but there should be in a position to do that nonetheless self-driving vehicles is what we're talking about here described by parliament as such in July 2022 the highway code was updated to clarify that when a self-driving vehicle in which the person in the driver's seat maybe asked to retake control is in the self-driving mode that person may turn their attention from the road but must always be able and ready to take control when prompted so just like you to think a little bit about how that will play out in reality and whether it sounds like a safe option this is not the case for more limited driver assistance systems where the drivers are required to exercise proper control as per the highway code at all times now back in June 4th of June 2024 Debbie Evans referred to the automated vehicles bill as it then was now the automated vehicles act 2024 which tries to pin some of this jelly to the wall and in talking about the offense of driving in a dangerous state it puts it like this it would be an offense if it would have been obvious to a competent and careful user of the vehicle at the moment when the authorized huge user in charge feature in question was engaged that the current state of the vehicle would make it dangerous to use it sorry to use it in the way in which it is being used and if anyone can make any sense of that do write in now you'll be wondering where this comes from of course the United Nations in June 2020 they passed regulation 157 which was supposed to enforce this across the entire world what's known as automated lane keeping systems admittedly that's not the entirety of the autonomous vehicle capability but what they say is similar to what the government have said once activated ALKS are in primary control of vehicle however the driver must be in a position to respond to a takeover request from the system now this is very much like the AI in the classroom in that if you're not operating this system yourself all the time then inevitably you're going to become tired and used to the fact that you're not really in control of it and therefore are you going to be able to respond as quickly as the vehicle system is actually asking you to which brings us on to this idea of threat dangers and you know unforeseen consequences or indeed unintended consequences of this highlighted very well I think by the national accident helpline which have summarized the dangers as such and this is not an exhaustive list but first of all and we've seen this before with trials in the United States who takes responsibility for collisions specifically when these types of mode of autonomous driving are engaged there is a lack of regulation there's certainly a lack of clear regulation and I think that what I've just read out from the autonomous vehicles act highlights that exact point skill fade which is what I was just referring to in that the less people drive the less able they will be to drive their reactions will fade to vehicles like this course are prone to hacking so in effect anybody can take control of them there's an increased radiation threat with all the various devices like GPS Wi-Fi Bluetooth and indeed all the LED lighting coming off these things there is the health threat of radiation within the vehicle there are then of course the ever-increasing lithium-ion battery fires which in fact have been reported on say I think it's eBay have just been prohibited from selling such things due to the regular regularity with which fires are starting and then of course there is the failure of the technology which no one ever wants to admit to being a possibility but in effect the glitches in the system which will mean that the vehicle will be unable to respond to a threat in the road and obstacle like a pedestrian like a child for example or just simply a road barrier and if you can stay on for news extra today please do because I'm going to ask Mike to recount his experiences with a hierarchical recently and the degree to which this is already happening and the way in which it's going to go an extraordinary story so please stay tuned for that thank you Charles yes we will now of course another aspect of smart cities is digital ID so let's talk about that for a little while because here is a blog post from Martha Lee and Fox which is entitled working in the open digital government in the UK in 2024 and so the UK government has created a panel of tech experts which is co-chaired by Martha Lee and Fox and this is to steer the government's digital strategy with the aim of changing the landscape of public services and this group is consisting of leaders from academia and industry they say it's tasked with creating a 10 year vision for a digital center for government and so what they've done is that they've merged three cabinet office in number 10 units with the department for science innovation technology in order to consolidate efforts driving digital transformation so this is something we've got to look forward to this is coming in parallel with the new digital infrastructure services development bill which replaces the data protection and digital transformation bill it contains most of the same kind of stuff it includes for example provisions on digital identity and also on data protection which actually means data sharing enabling data sharing particularly internationally with a focus on data preservation particularly in relation to online safety they say so of course digital ID being used as one of the mechanisms for implementing the online safety act that's not just in the UK the European Commission has just proposed digital passports and ID cards for easier travel and they're saying that both EU citizens and non EU citizens are subject to systematic checks in person when crossing the EU's external borders and that therefore the Commission has put forward a common framework for the use of digital travel credentials and a new EU digital travel app for travelers to create and store their digital travel credentials which is very convenient because at roughly the same time that that was announced a so-called important development has emerged from the international identity and verifiable credentials summit held in Australia on the third and fourth of October and this proof of concept demonstration showcased a successful validation of digital credentials across three continents North America Europe and Australia but it's not just the big organizations it's well first of all we'll just show a LinkedIn post commenting about how great this was as they queued up to show their credentials but as I said it's not just the big organizations that are doing this the big multinational organizations it's also small country so Fiji has now decided to put a three-year deadline timeline on their rollout of national digital ID so digital ID going ahead very quickly and very strongly unless people decide to argue against it perhaps what does that take us Charles well net zero and carbon capture perhaps another aspect of the smart city almost certainly but we must be questioning the word smart by now yes the department for energy security and net zero announcing with great pride they've pledged 22 billion pounds into what's called carbon capture and we have referred to it on the news before but essentially it's the idea that by putting carbon dioxide underground you may expect the temperature of the whole world to change so they say that they're launching a new clean energy industry obviously this is via Twitter where else they say that they're tackling climate change and they're a couple of projects going live on MOSI side and T side CCUS carbon capture utilization and storage technology removes CO2 emissions before it reaches the atmosphere and stores it safely beneath the sea bed using tried and tested technology that's been deployed for over 20 years now stores it safely is underlined and I will come back to explaining why that is in a second here's a diagram showing an oil an oil drilling platform and then something onshore which of course would be creating lots of carbon dioxide which is why when they say that CCUS carbon capture and storage is critical to the UK achieving net zero the government aims to capture and store 20 to 30 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2030 and then 50 million by 2035 these figures are obviously largely irrelevant because so far no target on carbon capture has ever been met but nonetheless what is clear is that even attempting to do this costs an awful lot of money refers to a variety of processes and they capture and store carbon dioxide emissions generally from industrial processes this carbon dioxide can then be transported including via repurposed gas pipelines and stored for example within rock formations in the UK CS my apologies I can't remember what CS stands for but I think it's it must be something to do with the sea bed including depleted oil and gas reservoirs now the reason I've highlighted industrial processes what they really mean are petrochemical plants onshore and then pumping the carbon dioxide that they're producing away and back under the sea bed including depleted oil and gas reservoirs even being suggested that carbon dioxide could be used as a flushing agent with which to push out oil and gas so in actual fact this has absolutely nothing to do with reducing carbon dioxide content but all to do with furthering the interests of the petrochemical industry going back to safety here an article from the national talking about a pipe explosion raising fears about Scottish carbon catch plans this was in February 2020 in Satartia in Mississippi where 50 people were hospitalized foaming at the mouth unconscious after being poisoned by a carbon dioxide leak and then we had another example more recently in interestingly named tone of sulfur in Louisiana where effectively the same thing happens so the incredible irony of course in suggesting that carbon dioxide is dangerous when it isn't they then concentrate it to the point where it does become an asphyxant and and intoxicant and is then ready to harm anybody in the vicinity should there be a leak but of course we now have to examine the incredible arrogance of the climate science body and indeed the complete ignorance of any unintended consequences the scientific American asked several years ago does rising carbon dioxide benefit plants effectively ask the question if carbon dioxide levels are increasing and they cannot be attributed to man is this because there is a requirement for more carbon dioxide in order to stimulate plant growth because we are bashing so many plants down a scientist there Richard Norby said you can't just look at carbon dioxide because the overall context really matters well that seems to be a lesson not learned as we continue to look only at carbon dioxide we go on to see why these things happen and in particular concerning lobbying and back in January of this year the then Green Party MP Caroline Lucas drew attention to this by saying in spring 2023 OE UK board members of harbor energy and Equinor met with treasury officials the minutes secured by a freedom of information requests state that the Equinor reps smiled at the government's reinsurances yes I am sure they did and indeed she's quite right when we look at transparency internationals very good database of the lobbying of government at open access dot transparency dot org you're able to look up very readily how many engagements have taken place between industry and government and it is an awful lot and i'll just round off by saying that this really is a good business to be in on the government's contract finder at the minute there is a four point four million pound contract for an organization who will write the policy on standards and method methodologies of greenhouse gas removals so effectively with this technology there's no need for it to work or for it to make any sense but there is an awful lot of money in it yes indeed there is thank you very much Charles well that brings us to the end of today's program thanks to Charles and Vanessa for joining thank you all for watching as Charles mentioned we'll be having a slightly interesting conversation about automation in cars extra in a few minutes time but do join us for that if you're a UK called member otherwise don't forget the interview with Chris Coverdale 1 p.m tomorrow and we'll see you at 1 p.m as usual on Friday for 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