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UK Column News Podcast 11th October 2024
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Police says Jeremy Lefretto faces his really quote over reporting Iranian missiles striking several Israeli air bases, US fears possible diplomatic incident following reporters actions. Now Jeremy Lefretto is an independent journalist who often contributes to the Grey Zone and the report they did was for the Grey Zone. Let's just listen to 30 seconds of it or so. I'm Jeremy Lefretto for the Grey Zone in Israel where last night Iran fired over 200 ballistic missiles and retaliation for the assassinations of Lebanese and Iranian political and military leadership. Since the missile strikes, Israeli authorities have attempted to downplay the significance of the attacks, censor the locations of missile impacts for media publication and claim that Iran was targeting Israeli civilians. What I saw today, here in Israel, is clear evidence that Iran was targeting the same Israeli intelligence and military infrastructure that's been used over the past year to carry out brutal assassinations and attacks. So he has been arrested, Kit Klarenberg, who also contributes to the Grey Zone, put this out on his Twitter feed day before yesterday. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, everyone, but we've had a terrible update in the case of Jeremy Lefretto. Jeremy is a 28-year-old US citizen and independent journalist who two days ago was arrested by Israeli military officers while crossing a checkpoint in the illegally occupied West Bank. He has been held in an Israeli dungeon ever since. Out of hearing earlier today, he has been formally charged with aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy. This is despite, as his attorney made clear of the hearing, a spy would never have acted so publicly and transparently. Jeremy has done nothing wrong with these allegations, which can result in life imprisonment or the death to each other. Okay, so that's what he's looking at, life imprisonment or the death penalty. Now, Grey Zone themselves have said that the charges stem from his Jeremy's report for the Grey Zone, that the Israelis are officially police are holding him on suspicion of serious security offenses for publicly publishing the locations of missile drops near or inside sensitive security facilities with the aim of bringing this to the notice of the enemy and thereby assisting them in their future attacks. But the point that Grey Zone makes in their comments is that in fact he didn't say anything that other media outlets hadn't said, including ABC News and PBS, and they are not facing similar charges. Grey Zone says that originally the judge overseeing Jeremy's case ordered him released, saying that since Israeli military centers agree to allow Israeli military to publish both word of Jeremy's arrest and the publications that led to his arrest, that Israel could no longer justify his continued detention, the police then appealed that decision. And so for now he remains in Israeli custody. I wanted to highlight some particular parts of the Grey Zone statement here, because they said that the Grey Zone unequivocally rejects these outrageous accusations from Israeli police. We stand by Jeremy's legitimate reporting, the claim that Lefredo and the Grey Zone represent Israel's enemy in wartime merely suggests that the Israeli government views the American people and free press as a legitimate target. They went on to say, "We will fight against these charges and ask that you contact the State Department at urgent act and defense of the citizen detained in Israel. The U.S. has an obligation to defend its journalists who are merely adhering to the ethical obligations to inform the public of pertinent facts." Marc, I wonder if you've got any thoughts on this, because the first thing that strikes me is that if this had been Russia that had pulled this kind of situation, had arrested a journalist, whether it's for the Grey Zone or for the mainstream media or whoever, the U.S., the U.K., the EU would have all been up in arms about it. We would have been hearing it all through mainstream media publications. And in the meantime, Western media absolutely silent on this, so I've seen RT covering it, is really press. I've covered it, but in the U.K. and the United States and the U.U., I have not seen any coverage of this whatsoever, complete silence. So I don't know if you've got thoughts on this, but it just seems to me incredibly hypocritical, particularly from the U.K. government. In fact, who are absolutely claiming to defend journalist's rights and freedom of speech all around the world? Yes, it always runs into a blockade when it's the state of Israel, always wanting to be beyond reproach, always wanting to be the exception to the rule. One thing to look out for would be journalist organizations like the Society for Professional Journalists, excuse me, and other journalistic trade organizations and journalistic advocacy organizations and see if they raise a stink and say Israel should not be an exception, maybe Amy Goodman of Democracy Now might be another one. Israel should not be an exception, and they should be held to the same standard, and this journalist should be treated fairly and in accordance with the spirit of a free press. I didn't realize until right away, as you did this report, Mike, that he was American. So we claim to be sort of the flagship of the free press and the First Amendment. So let's see the U.S. live up to its image and not hold Israel to a separate standard. Well, I think we can already see that they're going to do that. If we accept the why nets subhead there, Mark, they're saying the U.S. is worried about a diplomatic incident, I mean, this clearly seems to suggest that the U.S. is trying to walk away from this reporter. Yeah, that's really regrettable. He seems to be a very competent reporter. One thing he did, he's right on the ground, he's right where he can see things firsthand. I don't know if ABC, NBC, and some of those kind of reporters, NPR, the BBC, I don't know if they have people on the ground. And that might be what particularly worries Israel is that this reporter seeing things firsthand. Indeed. So we wish him well, and he does need support. So I think we should be all asking mainstream media and politicians why they are not commenting on this. But Mark, let's move to the United States then. And sticking with the media, to some degree, a potential murder between think tanks and media. Yeah, this is something I've been watching a long time, Mike. You might recognize that picture. That's when I was in the U.K. last in 2018, and I'm standing next to this unusually large-looking door at the front door of Chatham House, and it makes me look like a hobbit. I'm no taller than the door knob, but the door is actually a very unusually large door. But going back to around that time, I wrote an article, our think tanks becoming like the media, or actually becoming the media, Chatham House's chief's 11,000-word article says globalist think tank network must unite or lose the neoliberal order. And this is just early rumblings at this time, Mike, about what direction think tanks might be going, and that they might become more like media. And it's interesting how it is today compared to when I wrote this article. This is some of my writing from that post at my blog, thetruthhound.com. Chatham House director Dr. Robin Niblett wrote an 11,000-word article entitled Rediscovering a Sense of Purpose, the Challenge for Western Think Tanks in a particular volume of the Chatham House Journal International Affairs in it. He declared to devise a common work program, do think tanks from across the world also need to possess a common sense of purpose. After something like 100 years of think tank experience, the answer is yes, he said, and he echoed the grave concerns expressed during early 2018 by Council on Foreign Relations President at that time, Richard Haas. He spoke to the International Relations Committee of the UK's House of Lords. You shared a video on that, Mike, with me. And Dr. Niblett, regarding that, noted in his article that he's apprehensive about the rise of populist politics, the implication being that think tanks must either modify their mission or risk becoming increasingly irrelevant, possibly to the point of losing their grip on influencing government policy largely from behind the throne. And we'll move on from there. This is a particular quote from Sir Robin Niblett, he's the former director of Chatham House at this time. He's still a fellow there. He said, "This think tanks have to apply a growing proportion of their resources to try and mobilize popular engagement. One approach has been to raise their public profile by commenting more on current policy developments rather than analyzing their underlying drivers." And here's the key part of it, emphasis added, the danger he thinks it's a danger, at least he did at that time. The danger is that this blurs the line between think tanks and the media. Well things have evolved since then, and we'll move forward. And this is actually from 2015. So things started rumbling this way, heading this way rather early, almost 10 years ago. This is from Kepin or Kapan, K-A-P-P-A-N, when think tanks bypass media outlets and do their own journalism. So at this point, it was seen as think tanks bypassing media outlets. And this is just an excerpt from that source. Many Washington think tanks have been hiring well-known journalists in recent years in an effort to beef up their efforts to get good writers, network with media types, and better disseminate information and policy proposals to a wider audience. And it refers to a recent economist article and points out that it's not just op-ed articles in the editorial pages, and it's not just conferences anymore. Think tanks are becoming more like media. We've seen bits and pieces of that from education think tanks like Fordham, Carnegie, Brookings, in New America, and we'll move on from there. This is that economist reference, making the headlines, the divide between having ideas and reporting on them is dissolving, that divide is dissolving. This is still 10 years ago. And what this basically says, the left slide was a paywall, so the text began to fade. So I put it in the right slide so you could read it. Rat-like cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability, the qualities of a successful journalist, one of the breed, are not traditionally valued in think tanks, the semi-academic institutions that come up with ideas for politicians. Their policy papers are meant to be dry. Their wunks much more politicized civil servants than hacks, excuse me, but increasingly think tanks are doing journalism, not just blogging and tweeting, but foreign reporting, too. And we'll go on from there. A think tank watch is another source. People can look that up and it gets into some of these things, think tanks doing journalism, and we'll move on from there. This is from Think Tank Watch, citing the economist. In policy, a magazine now runs Democracy Lab, a website paid for by the Legatum Institute, L-E-G-A-P-U-M, or Legatum Institute, however you pronounce it. And that's the think tank based in London. It has a modest budget, excuse me, for freelance journalists and so on and so forth. People can read these individual slides if they want all the details. But from there, we can learn more about Democracy Lab. This is an ongoing one, it still exists even though this stuff started popping up the better part of 10 years ago. Democracy Lab is foreign policies home for coverage of transitions to democracy, published in partnership with the Legatum Institute. Democracy Lab also runs Transitions, a blog featuring on-the-ground coverage of transitioning countries, meaning transitioning from autocracy to democracy as they see it. And Democracy Lab, this is a little bit more detail about it. When World War II came to an end, there were only a dozen or so electoral democracies in the world. Today, there are over 100, many of the current members of the club joined within the last quarter century and so on. A partnership between foreign policy magazine and the Legatum Institute, Democracy Lab is a unique journalistic effort coming out of Think Tanks to cover the political and economic challenges facing countries that are striving. Here's that theme again, striving to make the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. And that's one sign, Mike, that they're not really objective because they assume all so-called authoritarians are not democratic and they assume all democracies are open and free. And we're learning that the US, the UK, many European nations defined as democracies are actually the ones that are most intent on censoring free speech on social media and the internet. Now, on this last slide, coming to the current time, we're no longer in the past. The ubiquitous Chicago Council on Global Affairs, arguably the most busy Think Tank in the US, possibly in the world, the former Chicago CFR, they actually formed in 2023 an actual news outlet. They're not just flirting with the idea. Now, they have created what they call their own news outlet. It's called Blue Marble, which refers to an image of the earth and space, Blue Marble. And I'll just cite a little bit of this. In 2023, Blue Marble was founded as a news outlet by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, an independent so-called nonpartisan nonprofit organization to transform the way we see our world at Blue Marble, where prioritizing connection over clicks and pursuing stories that go beyond headlines and beyond borders. We're keeping our eye on the now and the not yet, seeking out what the next generation needs to know to shape a more open and promising world. Like the Apollo 17 crew, we believe that remarkable things happen when the world, the Blue Marble comes into view. And the bottom is just a description of Blue Marble being supported by the Chicago Council, just basic information. But anyway, Mike, that's basically it. This evolution from Think Tank to Media is moving along, and Blue Marble is at least at this time the most concrete example that the transformation is almost complete or very well might be complete. So back to you. Thank you, Mark. Debbie, let's welcome you to the programme. And well, everybody is aware of the World Health Organisation by now, but perhaps we've another organisation that people aren't so aware of, World Medical Association. Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Lovely to be here. And I don't know how this passed me by the World Medical Association. What do they do? Well, let's have a look and see what they do, because they seem to do an awful lot. So if you go to their website, you can see that they cover medical ethics, hooray, we all say to ourselves, human rights, hooray, public health campaigns, and they also have a strategic plan. So who are the World Medical Association? Because like you say, we've all heard of the WHO, but the WMA. So very briefly, really, they were founded in 1947, 27 countries, but actually they were born from the British Medical Association, who were concerned over medical ethics, and they're funded by their members. They've got 114 National Medical Associations, and they've got their own strategic plan as well. So when you go further into the website, you can see much more information. Here's their strategic plan, the 2020 to 2025, adopted by them at their General Assembly in Tbilisi in 2019. So what do they say? Well, they've got a mission, they want to serve humanity. I mean, this is a very big mission, isn't it? Serve humanity by endeavoring to achieve the highest international standards in medical education, medical science, medical art, medical ethics, and health care for all people in the world. Now, what I'm seeing with this is we know that we've got doctors on the ground in hospitals, and then we've got their associations, and all doctors are part of associations. And this is where we see this part of the pyramid filled in. So let's look at their vision. So they want to represent all physicians around the world. They want to advocate on behalf of physicians of the world. They want to work with partners, and here we go. They want to take leadership, they are ready to leave, they're ready to take accountability for people's ethical behavior. We think this is all great, this is a really good organization, isn't it? But actually, if we go further on and we look at autonomy, human rights and health, priorities and deliverables, we can see that they're working partnerships, partnerships with their members, but also they're giving advocacy to politicians, they're looking at health care that's in danger, so places where there are armed conflicts, wars, for example. So they've got an awful lot of responsibility, and they also represent doctors in the media and in court, too. So following on to the partnerships alliances, because it does sound, you know, that this has got quite good hopes, hasn't it, but oops, here we go. We can see that they are partners officially with the World Health Organization, and not just the World Health Organization, actually, they're going to be partnered with the World Health Professionals Alliance, which brings in nurses and pharmacists. So we've got all of these associations partnered up with the WHO, so who's in charge? Well, currently in charge is Dr. Lujane Al-Kudami, who's the president. She's also a director for Global Action, she's been very heavily involved with women's global health. But of course, if she's heading this organization, she's got a council of members, so when I went to look at the council of members, each country, and a lot of countries are involved in this, heavy influence from the USA, heavy influence from Kuwait, Saudi, and also Israel. So I just went to look at the UK representatives. Please feel free to go to the website to look for your own country because they are all there. So first of all, we've got Professor Philip Banfield, who's a consultant obstetrician gynecologist. He wants to lower maternal and infant mortality, and he lives in North Wales. I could plainly have a chat with him and perhaps offer him a few suggestions how to lower maternal and infant mortality, what do you think? And then we've also got Latifa Patel, Dr. Latifa Patel, who's a pediatric respiratory doctor. She's up in the northwest of England. And to her credit, actually, she did stand up and she talked about Palantir's involvement in the NHS. So we can thank her for doing that. And she spoke up quite vehemently as well because they've picked up this £480 million data deal. And she says, and I quote, "She is deeply worried. She urges the Secretary of State for an urgent rethink. She fears that patient information may be used, or how information may be used." And also, is patient data being exploited? Well, with all of these things going on, at least we should thank her for that. But let's just finish this little segment on the World Medical Association, with a few words from the President. My name is Lujanu Kudmani. I am the President of the World Medical Association, representing more than 10 million physicians who are advocating for health and wellbeing for all with no discrimination. I'm speaking to you here in Geneva, attending the 77 World Health Assembly, together with my colleague, to really voice the concerns and the call for actions by physicians and the rest of healthcare workers. I'm here in Geneva to represent you, to represent our members, the work that you have done in really educating your voice and your concerns regarding several issues. The challenges that you're facing at the workplace, the challenges that you're facing at a national level, whether with direction to your governments, the health budget in your healthcare system, the harassment and the violence that you face at the hospitals, the lack of equity, the education and the capacity building opportunities that you look for. And this is why we're here to ensure that your voice is heard and that your concerns are addressed, not just by the WMA, but by the governments and the policymakers and the international buddies. So my message to all of my colleagues and doctors that are speaking up to you, Phil, you are being represented by the World Medical Association, over to you, Mike. Good question. Thank you, Debbie. If you like what the UK column does, you would like to support us, the place to go is support.ukcolumn.org. There are options to help us out there. You could make a donation. You could join as a member and we do encourage everybody to join as a member that gets access to a UK column news extra and so on. And you could pick something up at the UK column shop. And of course, we'll remind you again that we do have an affiliate relationship with Clive2Carlo.com for health products, if you're interested in that as well. But please do share material now. The interview that went out yesterday with Chris Coverdale on tax resistance has been very popular with UK column members, but it doesn't seem to be getting traction for some reason on social media. And we could make assessments about why that is, but do use the share buttons because the algorithms Chris Coverdale over the years has been heavily censored by the social media platforms. And we are seeing evidence of that once again. So please try to overcome the limitations of the algorithm by using the share buttons that are on that. And if you'd like to have a look at the comments, there's a link there for you as well. Now, a reminder that Expose A2024, your life in their hands being run by Project Libertas is taking place in stride on the 12th of October. That's tomorrow. It begins at 10.30, Gemma Cooper speaking, Andrew Bridgian, Sandy Adams, and UK column's Charles Mallet. We'll be speaking there as well. Tickets are available at Eventbrite, and so the link to that will be in the show notes. Glasgow Peace March taking place on Sunday the 13th, that's in a couple of days time. They're meeting at 12.30 in George Square. If you can possibly get along to that, if you're in that neck of the woods, please do. And a reminder that alternative view will be hosting their live stream, which Mark will be taking part in on smart cities in the surveillance agenda. That's on the 10th of November. So if you can get hold of a ticket for that as well, that would be fantastic. Now, I want to move on then to the Northern Ireland Public Health Bill. And well, 38 degrees, we're hosting a petition for this that received several thousand signatures on it. They've now taken a down on the basis that it is in breach of their terms of service, particularly the one which says that the wording and claims in your petition must be factual and true. So what they say is here is we have reached out to the petition starter, asking them to edit the petition to include links to reputable news sites that show that this bill will introduce parts of entry, forced medication examinations and interventions as well as monitoring vaccination. The only article we can find that's 38 degrees says the bill does not explicitly mandate compulsory vaccination. The state's regulations must allow exemptions from vaccination and include provisions about how someone can show that exemption. So they go on to say we have also found a statement from the Northern Ireland Health Department that says the following. And they quoted us saying there is currently no public health bill. There is a public consultation on options for inclusion in a new bill when the consultation is concluded. All the submissions received will be reviewed and a proposed bill will then be prepared. The health minister has stated publicly he does not favor any mandatory vaccination parts being introduced. This option has been included in the public consultation to give people the opportunity to have their say. So the first point I would make here is that there's quite a lot of comment on social media that 38 degrees was unfair in taking this petition down. I think in fairness to 38 degrees, I'm not a fan of 38 degrees in any way actually, but in fairness to the I think a petition on this issue was not the appropriate way to go. The appropriate way to go was to take part in the consultation. Sadly finished, but let's just run through what that consultation was giving people the opportunity to have their say about. So this was the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, public policy, sorry, policy proposals to inform development of a new public health bill for Northern Ireland. And they were saying that domestic regulations may be made for the purposes of preventing, protecting against controlling or providing a public health response. They said that the regulations may impose restrictions or requirements on or in relation to persons things or premises in the event of or in response to a threat to public health. And they highlight, for example, requiring a person to submit to a medical examination, being removed to a hospital or other suitable establishment be detained in hospital or other suitable establishment, keep a person in isolation or quarantine, require a person to be vaccinated or to receive other prophylactic treatment, a person to be disinfected or decontaminated, require a person to be fact sorry, that's a repeat. And that the person provide information or answer questions about the person's health or other circumstances, and that the person's health be monitored and the results reported that the person's attend training or advice sessions and how to reduce the risk of infecting or contaminating others, that the person be subject to restrictions as to where the person may go or with whom the person may has contact, that the person abstain from working or trading. And so they ask questions such as do you agree or disagree with the proposed restrictions or requirements that may be included in health protection regulations, please give reasons for your answer. So as I say, because there is no health bill yet, the petition probably wasn't the right way to go in any case, let's just bring this one on screen, this is showing that the consultation itself closed on the 27th of September. So it is too late to answer if people haven't done that already, but certainly UK column covered this in time for everybody to get involved in our consultation. So the comment about the petition is maybe a little bit unfair, maybe this was the right way to go in the first place, but maybe we'll talk about this a bit more in extra. Let's change topics and come on to artificial intelligence. Oh, yes, let's and how is safe is your data, because let's face it, data is the new oil and how safe is your data going to be pushing forward? Well, I'm going to introduce you to AC, so AC is the AI safety institute, but my question is going to be is how safe is the safety institute? So let's look at the ministerial forward, which came from January, 2024, Michelle Donilon, then MP, she says that AI is the product of human creation. And she says, actually, it's a chat GTP chat, GTP was a sputnik moment for humanity. Really, this is all about acceleration of artificial intelligence and going into artificial general intelligence as well. So moving on, let's look at what AC are going to do. Well, they're going to inform the UK about international policy and about international policymaking. And they're going to provide technical tools for governance and regulation, but they are not a regulator. However, it's a bit of a role close to this because they're going to collaborate with civil society, government, academia, and the private sector. So here we go again, we can see another massive private public philanthropic partnership and the real agenda is actually to promote the UK's position on the global stage. So what are their functions? Well, their functions as well as safety and information, they're also looking at information exchange. And this was the one that really stuck for me because they're collaborating with other people. It's a Trojan horse for information sharing with pretty much everybody in order to get the UK on the global stage. But the AC directorate, who are they? So this is their funded and supported by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. So this is a big deal. And what does that actually mean? Well, if you get slipped to the next slide, it actually says there that AC is the first state-backed organization dedicated to advancing the goal. But what are they currently building and running? What are they actually doing? So they're looking at misuse for dual cyberchemical biological attacks, something like cyber polygon, for example, that the WEF were talking about, they're looking at autonomy and could AI make models of itself and replicate itself, and how dangerous is AI moving forward? Well, let's move on just one slide again, because they've recruited top talent, so who is this top talent? Well, we've got Ian Hogarth, now Ian Hogarth is an entrepreneur. He started off with a company called Songkick, which was basically getting music lovers to their concerts. He's also been very involved in lots of startup companies as well. And one of those startup companies I want you to just take notice of is one that's called anthropic, but he's been involved in something called facecraft, all sorts of things. And this is how he's gotten to the top of where he is now with AC, but he's going to model AC on the Vaccine Task Force, which let's not forget, was run by our very own Harry Scary Dane Kate Bingham. But let me introduce you to Ian Hogarth. I think we've got a little bit of video of Ian, have him listen to what he says about AC. Recently, haven't we, about artificial intelligence? Both the opportunities it presents and the dangers it poses. Yeah, no, the UK's first ever AI czar has been appointed to manage those risks and rewards. His name is Ian Hogarth, he's been speaking to our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman, about the challenges that lie ahead. The world is waking up to the potential and the dangers of the most advanced forms of artificial intelligence. Across the globe, countries are racing to try to both harness and regulate this technology. Here, Ian Hogarth, the tech entrepreneur, is the man appointed by the Prime Minister to lead the charge on AI in the UK to ensure that it's developed safely. We've seen the results in terms of how powerful these systems are now, and so the question is if we keep doing that and we keep feeding these systems more and more computing resource, more and more data, and we keep having stronger and stronger incentives for the private sector to accelerate this stuff, when do we cross a line when these systems become dangerous in a new way, where they become, you know, closer to human intelligence or exceed human intelligence? No one can tell you a definitive answer for when that's going to be. So that's Ian Hogarth and let's just remind ourselves that AC is working with Google, a deep mind is working with Oxford University. It's working with so many big organisations, and this is where the question is, how safe is the safety institute? Let's look at the safety cases at AC and the collaborations that they're going to be working with. And some of those collaborations, if we go on, we'll see that they're working with companies called Apollo Research and Redwood Research. But there's a lot of disagreement, a lot of people saying that this AI is way too dangerous, it poses way too many risks. But just to show you very quickly who they're working with, Redwood Research, this is to reduce risk, and this is a company that is a young startup seed company, probably seeded actually from Plural, which Ian Hogarth has got quite a big saying, and this is Buck Schlegaris, this young innovator. And then we go to Apollo Research, who are working with Google, and they're also working with anthropic. And I just wanted to point that out because Ian Hogarth, again, this is the revolving door, he's got interests in anthropic. So here we are, Apollo Research, and what have they been doing? Well, with their partners, again, young innovators that seed funded, what have they been doing? Well, according to BBC News, they've been very busy designing AI bots that are capable of trading and lying. So we've now got an AI bot that can actually make illegal purchase of stocks' financial deals, and it denies having done it. So these are the kind of people, and these are the kind of organisations that's going to be looking after our artificial intelligence. Do you trust the Safety Institute is my question? Thank you, Debbie. Right. Let's come back to the UK and the issue of devolution, and well, you'd be glad to know that the first day in all-girl, Mayor's Council was held yesterday, so if we're ever going to lift our regions, says the Mayor of East Midlands Clear Ward, mayors need more powers and proper say in government's devolution plans. That's why it's great to join Angela Renner in Newcastle to kick off the first mayor's council. So this was organised by Angela Renner, and they say the government said that regional mayors were invited to the roundtable at the common room in Newcastle upon time to share their views on the development of the upcoming English devolution white paper. This will set up the government's plans to widen devolution to more areas and deepen the powers of existing mayors and their combined authorities, ensuring they have the tools needed to boost economic growth, but it's not really about economic growth, is it? So this is the promotional graphic for the International Investment Summit that the government was pushing out today. This is taking place very soon. And of course, this is one of the major top of this all about Net Zero, frankly, and innovation in Net Zero, innovation in carbon neutral energy production, amongst other things. So this is what they're pushing very hard at the moment. And of course, related to that is this whole structure around mayors, this new form of governance, which is being created, we've been talking about this for a very long time and highlighting this organization as an example, Andy Burnham heavily involved with it, all the UK mayors heavily involved in it, this is a global parliament of mayors. They're holding their annual summit in a couple of months time, and we're going to get more of this type of thing from them. So if you want to see some of the background in this, have a look at this article, the global parliament of mayors and the abolition of the electorate, but mark this issue of the rise of the city mayors and the city regions and the city states has been one that you've been following for a very long time. Clearly, this is something that the UK government is pursuing extremely quickly now as we remove the control of or at least the perception of control of parliament towards this devolved mayoral organizations, but what we're actually seeing is centralized control coming to the lowest level locally. Exactly Mike, it's local globalism or globalism, and that's not my term, that's the term of these globalists. One of the main things to keep in mind briefly on this is that mayors and city officials are not authorized, they don't have the authority to act beyond their municipal function. In the US, there's no authority in city charters, state constitutions and so on for mayors and other city and municipal officials to assume this kind of power for themselves, and that's what they're doing. They're being self-aggrandizing, they're grasping at power, grasping at higher authority that they don't legitimately have. That's absolutely the case, and as far as the actual global parliament of mayors goes and so on, it's separating the idea of democracy from the voter because many of these people are appointed and not elected in the first place, but it's still an area where people don't perceive the dangers. Yeah, exactly, the mayors, corporations, civil society, which is kind of a meaningless amorphous term, and all these stakeholders, another meaningless term, they're the new constituents, the average person is no longer a constituent. Exactly, the stakeholders is the term, and of course we hear stakeholder capitalism being bandied about as we build these public-private partnerships of which the mayors are a major part. Okay, let's move on then, and Debbie obviously related to net zero policy, and the mayors absolutely pushing this as hard as they possibly can, central government big too slow, with respect to net zero, the rise of electric vehicles and so on, a big part of that, but you've been highlighting the dangers of electric vehicles for quite some time. Yes, I have indeed, and we've all been looking, I'm sure, at the devastation that's been going on the east coast of the USA with both Hurricane Helena and Hurricane Milton, and I just want to bring your attention to Hurricane Milton first of all, because as I hear 30 billion, sorry, trillion, trillion, trillion gallons of water landed through Milton, unlike Helena, so if we go to the next slide, you can see that Hurricane Helena devastated, absolutely devastated, and I hear from that 40 trillions gallons of water was dumped on North Carolina, and lots of deaths, and PolitiFact, I've been looking at the whole hurricane situation, and it's a huge, huge issue, perhaps we'll talk about it more in extra, but of course there's been lots of misinformation and disinformation going on, including PolitiFact, very quick to come out and rubbish these posts, suggesting that the mountains are full of lithium, for lithium-ion batteries in Carolina, and that this was all part of a land grab involving black rock, however, they were very quick to put this out, if your time is short, so you can read it in short, that there was no human weather modification took place, that the state's land is not being seized by lithium mining, and that there's nothing to look at here, so I've been watching all of the coverage, and I noticed during the briefings, I heard this from the officials, and I'd like you to listen to it too, listen carefully to what they say about floodwater and electric vehicles. Warning about lithium-ion batteries right now as well, so if you have any type of electric vehicle, whether it's a car, a scooter, a golf cart, a hoverboard, or any power tools that use those, make sure they are moved away from any potential flooding. Never drive through floodwater, water and EV batteries do not mix, water not only damage the battery, but can lead to dangerous battery fires, combustion can occur quickly or manifest for weeks or months when exposed to saltwater. Additionally, the city of Tampa has opened their parking garages for free, for EV owners in flood-prone areas, I would encourage you to park your vehicle in one of the parking garages, so to remain high and dry. And I can tell you, the one thing that you need after a flood, or as before a flood is coming as a car, because you need to get away. So thank you so much to Kenny, because he found me some footage of, well, what does an EV look like spontaneously combusting in saltwater? Have a look at this. So, pretty horrific car, and there are plenty of articles, and I want to draw your attention to the New York Times, can your electric vehicle catch fire during a hurricane? And then similarly, another article, Jalopnik, who gave a report after Helene, saying that EVs were spontaneously combusting in saltwater. The article goes on to talk about how, and it's because salt basically conducts electricity. And this was all picked up too in Hurricane Sandy in 212. So if the next slide tells you about how the mechanics, I mean, please do go and I'm not an expert in this, but if saltwater apparently is able to bridge the gap between positive and negative terminals of the battery, you get what's called thermal runway, which is where they short-circuit and heat up. And you know, this isn't just hurricanes, and this is floods everywhere. And we only had floods last week in Cornwall, his Cornwall live, telling us about the warning after the roads flooded in Cornwall. And I've got a little bit of silent video because it was taken by my son, whose language wasn't particularly great, but this was my road last week. Right, this is my house. I can't get across the road. Oh my God. Thank you so much to Stephanie and everybody who edited that. But yes, I mean, I was surrounded. We couldn't get in or out of the house. There were vehicles submerged in water. Now some people might say that's not saltwater, but actually we're only 500 yards from the beach. So nobody knows that it wasn't saltwater and many areas in Cornwall do flood from saltwater but let's just not forget King Charles, because he's got a real interest in EV and green insurance. We've covered it many times, but we've also covered it on green king, but here's the insurance post, how insurance are supporting King Charles. And the telegraph, just to end this segment, a warning that electric car premiums are set to soar, especially the Chinese made cars because those batteries can be particularly sometimes problematic and repairability is going to get those insurance premiums up because they are so impossibly expensive to repair. So that's another reason to order your electric vehicle. I know you're going to be doing that straight after the program, Mike. I think we discussed that in the last extra. Debbie, I think that's doing okay on social media at the moment, actually my little rant on modern cars. But anyway, of course, it's not just the damage to the cars themselves as we saw from that video clip. It's the damage to surrounding area as well. So I understand why this would be viewed as a major risk by insurance companies. I just want to make one correction to what I said on the public health bill segment. Kenny was kind enough to post in the chat box and in fact that consultation has been extended to the 14th of October. So there's still a little bit of time apparently to make your thoughts felt on that. Now let's move on to the issue of war. And of course, here we have the lovely Vladimir Zelensky and Mark Rotter, who decided to come and visit the fawning, their care starmer almost forgot his name, eminently forgettable. They actually rolled out the red carpet for Zelensky literally. So here we are and there he is getting his hug and kiss as usual. They were very happy to discuss the Zelensky, what he's describing is a new plan for peace and so on. Of course, this is all about Ukraine's entry into NATO. This is Mark Rotter has made it absolutely clear. This has got to be his main priority over the coming days and weeks. Now, as we mentioned on Wednesday's program, I think that NATO had said that the war was there would be no media opportunity for this. There were a couple of opportunities and so Mark Rotter did make a couple of comments. He said, particularly talking about the issue of whether Ukraine has allowed to fire its weapons, its long-range weapons into Russian territory, he said, legally Ukraine is allowed to use its weapons if they can hit targets in Russia that present a threat to Ukraine. But the decision is not up to me. He went on to say it is up to the individual allies to decide how weapons that they deliver into Ukraine can be used. So very much trying to brush that off his own shoulders. He wanted to head that off to all the various individual countries to decide for him whether those were going to be allowed to be used by Ukraine. In the meantime, the question of whether the upcoming summit on further weapons to Ukraine is going to take place or not is up in the air because the Biden had postponed attending Germany for the latest Ramstein summit because he was worried about what was going to happen in Florida over the weekend. So he's postponed that but they have not created a new date for it yet. So Zelensky not so happy about that at the moment. We'll see what transpires there. In the meantime, of course, many other things going on around the world, not just in the Middle East and in Ukraine, the pressure on North Africa continues to build. And Ethiopia as Charles has been highlighting in recent weeks another area of tension. And this is from the new humanitarian, their headline here, tensions rise in the Horn of Africa as Ethiopia searches for a route to the sea. Now, as Charles has reported, Ethiopia trying to get access to the sea, to seaports, sort of export and import or well, mainly import stuff, but they're not, they're finding that problematic at the moment. And this is mainly because of tensions between Eritrea, Egypt and Somalia. So if you remember, there's a deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland to try to do this in Eritrea, Egypt and Somalia are unhappy about that. So they're building pressure on the situation in Ethiopia. But don't worry, because the UK has now started pumping money into the region to try to get people that have been fighting in the recent conflict in Ethiopia to put down their weapons and go back into civilian life. I'm going to say very clearly that anywhere the conflict stability and security money has gone in the past, we've found the conflict, in fact, escalate. And so it would not surprise me if Ethiopia starts to become a bit more problematic in the next weeks, months and years as this money starts to flow in. In the meantime, then, with respect to sanctions, the BBC here are very keen to tell us all about the fact that UK linked firms are suspected of, as the BBC says, busting sanctions. And this is, well, they're saying that basically a number of companies through freedom of information requests the BBC has discovered are under investigation by the Treasury for breaking the sanctions. And they are talking about this being done through an organisation called, or a body within the foreign, both in the Treasury, sorry, called the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation. Well, that's now been added to with a new body, the Office for Trade Sanctions implementation. So apparently, there must be lots of sanctions busting going on, because more and more various offices are being set up to try to deal with it. So this new Office for Trade Sanctions implementation, which launched yesterday, will work with industry to make applying with sanctions obligations as straightforward as possible by issuing guidance and user-friendly online tools. I'm sure the companies that are breaking the sanctions are really worried about that. But anyway, we'll watch it with interest to see how that develops. Mark, let's come on to you then. What's the latest in the US from the general election? Well, Mike, this is a lesson in contrast. Life news, a pro-life news outlet, just to be upfront, although this is not about the abortion industry, Donald Trump now given the best odds to win the presidential race. Of course, people in the UK and throughout the world want to have a better handle on who the next US president will be since the US claims to be the current empire of the world. And this is from Life News earlier this week. And this is as of October 9, so keeping that in mind when this came out, Republican nominee Donald Trump pulled ahead of his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, on a leading prediction website, a website that's said to be more legitimate than regular polling, projecting both candidates' odds of winning next month's presidential election. Because of the 8th of October, Trump was seen as the slight favorite on this special entity called Polymarket, which gave him a 52.6% chance of returning to the White House six points higher than the 46.7% chance that the site gave Harris. At times, Polymarket showed Trump having as much as an 8.6% lead over Harris, his biggest advantage on the site since early August. Harris was considered by the site's odds to be the slight favorite to win the election since September 12. But that was two days after the one and only debate between her and Trump. But also, Polymarket showed that Trump is favored to win just enough battleground states to give him a slight majority in the electoral college, the electoral college that the Democrats largely want to get rid of. And we'll move on from there. Life news went on to say just a couple other tidbits, the site then showed Trump as the strong favorite to win the states of Arizona, 67%, Georgia, 64%, and North Carolina, 60%, keeping in mind that North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, however, are being seen as problematic due to the hurricanes and whether that will actually affect people's ability to vote in large numbers. That's a very big question right now. Polymarket brands itself as the world's largest prediction market and research shows prediction markets are often more accurate than polls and pundits, although that's according to Polymarket itself, which says traders aggregate news, polls, and expert opinions making informed trades. Climate incentives ensure market prices adjust to reflect true odds as more knowledgeable participants join in the process. This makes prediction markets the best source, they say, of real-time event probabilities. People use Polymarket, which is a prediction market, for the most accurate odds, gaining the ability to make informed decisions about the future. So all of this is basically saying that it's more realistic and more accurate to say that Trump is leading Kamala Harris by a fairly significant margin, and we're hearing opposite things or at least largely different things in the mainstream news. However, this is the contrast I talked about. Election transparency is a real problem, so you can say somebody's going to win or this person's going to lose, but what about the election integrity? Anyway, an uncertifiable election, 2024, this article is about, it comes from republic broadcasting.org, originally written by Lex Green. In order for an election to be certifiable, it must be verifiable. We must have total election transparency, law for procedures, unbiased reporting, secure voting mechanisms, and proof that only legally eligible American voters were able to vote in the elections. If we cannot verify that the elections are lawful and secure, then the elections will not be certifiable. And it talks about the Democratic Party being particularly problematic, wanting illegal aliens to vote, and all these things that drastically reduce security and therefore certifiability. And I'll just share some other tidbits, and that will basically wind this up. Also from that same writer, a numerous Democrat-controlled states are blocking election officials from requiring any form of legal ID to vote. California is a big one there, and all these yellow text areas in this slide are all actually live links and show the sources of where this came from. The next one, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice, is actually suing states for removing known ineligible voters from their state voter rolls, while Democrat-controlled states like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, which are pivotal states for Trump, they refuse to remove known ineligible voters from their voter rolls. And that concerns an estimated 218,000 of known ineligible voters in Arizona alone. States like Michigan have even unlawfully amended their state constitutions and rushed through new election laws since 2022, making it illegal for any one of the state to challenge election results even when the evidence is clear. And the Michigan Secretary of State Benson allegedly has been involved in an illegal collusion election tampering operation with the other swing states to establish unlawful insecure, non-transparent and fraudulent system in each, et cetera, et cetera. So you see these predictions Donald Trump is getting a handle on this. It looks like he's realistically perhaps going to win, and yet they run into this wall mic of not just democratic problems, democratically caused problems, but also Republicans that claim to be concerned about election integrity, but don't really do anything about it. And so we also have the states affected by hurricanes where the voters might not even be able to vote in large numbers. And so we see a very contrasting situation where the elections might run up against a wall. And so this might be a particularly problematic election for the US, one of the most problematic in recent history. So there we go. Is it possible for it to be more problematic than the last one? It is actually more, yeah, more, excuse me, it is possible, yes. And this is saying nothing of Garland Fabrito and the voter, excuse me, voter GA in Georgia, my profile on a UK column interview and the solid evidence he has from 2020 that that election in the state of Georgia was very unlawful and very likely stolen. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mark. Debbie, let's a final little video clip here. Yeah. And finally, do you want a better digital future? I actually don't want a digital future full stop. However, I would like to extend an invitation to Prince Harry to come and be interviewed to talk to UK column because I caught this little bit of footage when he was talking Archwell. I'm not quite sure what he means, but he's talking about a better digital future. And then I heard the word experiment. Have a listen to this. We need a better digital future, one that we all deserve. We will promise the human experience instead we'd be the human experiment. Human experiment. We should have had a human experience. Oh, please Prince Harry, if you're listening, I would love for you to clarify what you meant there and what better digital future are we heading for? Well, he was talking about Debbie, he was talking about social media companies experimenting on our children in particular. So, so that was, that was where he was going with that. Thank you very much for putting that on there. We need to leave it there for today. Thanks to Debbie and Mark for joining us. Thanks to everybody that watched. We'll be back in a few minutes if you can call a member for some extra. Otherwise, have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday at 1 PM as usual. Thanks for joining us. Hey Amazon Prime members, why pay more for groceries when you can save big on thousands of items at Amazon Fresh? Shop Prime exclusive deals and save up to 50% on weekly grocery favorites. Plus save 10% on Amazon brands, like our new brand Amazon Saver, 365 by Whole Foods Market, a plenty and more. Come back for new deals rotating every week. Don't miss out on savings. Shop Prime exclusive deals at Amazon Fresh. varieties.