UK Column Radio

UK Column News Podcast 27th November 2024

Mike Robinson, Vanessa Beeley and Charles Malet with today's UK Column News. If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/ Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-27th-november-2024

Duration:: 1h 4m
Broadcast on:: 27 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

Hello it is Ryan and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day couldn't we just to make up for things like sitting in traffic doing the dishes counting your steps you know all the mundane stuff that is why I'm such a big fan of Chumba Casino Chumba Casino has all your favorite social casino style games you can play for free anytime anywhere with daily bonuses so sign up now at Chumba Casino dot com that's Chumba Casino dot com sponsored by Chumba Casino no purchase necessary vgw group void where prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply. >> [MUSIC] >> Good afternoon it's Wednesday the 27th of November 2024 just after one o'clock welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host Mike Robinson joining me today for a video link we have Vanessa Bailey, Charles Mallard and Kimberly Ischwood welcome to the program everyone. Vanessa we're going to start with you and of course the big news over the last day or so has been claims of a ceasefire and so tell us give us a background. >> Well the ceasefire came into effect at 4 a.m. this morning and prior to 4 a.m. of course Israel was heavily bombing pretty much all of Lebanon and all of the borders and infrastructure in Syria until 4 a.m. when the ceasefire came into effect. If we just have a look at how western media is portraying it so this is in the ABC news and if we look at the wording in the report itself. The Lebanese army and security forces will deploy in southern Lebanon over the next 60 days and take control of the territory controlled by Hezbollah notice the wording. Biden said at the same time Israel will withdraw its forces over the next 60 days in order for civilians to return to their homes on both sides of the border and I have to say that today we have seen Lebanese civilians returning to their homes both in the southern suburbs of Beirut and also heading to the southern border despite the warnings from the Lebanese army not to do so because the Israeli army is still embedded and many of the border areas. Israel appreciates the US contribution to the process and reserves its right to act against any threat to its security so we're back in the self to defense paradigm. Many resistance followers are very much seeing this as a victory for the resistance because Netanyahu has effectively accepted a ceasefire agreement which is a watered down version of the UN resolution 1701 and doesn't include many of the extra clauses that the Israelis were trying to get included. I'm perhaps a little more cynical in that I don't believe Netanyahu would accept anything that is not to the advantage both of Netanyahu and of the Zionist regime and movement. As Tim Anderson, Professor Tim Anderson pointed out we haven't seen any official statement from Hezbollah and in fact we're very much at that point we're getting fed information purely by Israeli and Western media which of course is very much in lockstep. With Israel and this is just a very short video showing the exodus from the central areas of Beirut that actually hadn't been targeted by Israel before which include areas around Hamra which is the main shopping area in the center of Beirut so as I said typical of Israel prior to any kind of ceasefire which throughout history Israel has never honored any of the ceasefires that it has agreed to but what they always do is intensify their attacks prior to any kind of arranged ceasefire. So Netanyahu's speech prior to the ceasefire coming into effect was quite interesting and to some degree bears out my reading of the situation so let's have a look at first of all what he says about Iran at the beginning of his speech. [Music] [Music] [Music] So very clear message from Ham and as I said one of the first parts of his fairly long nine minute speech and of course with the view that Trump will then be in the throne in the United States, Vance, his running mate has made it very clear that the US will be going after Iran. And so my feeling is this agreement gives Israel time to regroup, to rearm and to basically wait for Biden to go and for Trump to come in when I think they feel that they will have greater support. And again that's borne out by what he next says about President Assad and Syria. [Music] And of course this goes hand in hand with a number of threats that have been issued by spokespeople of the Zionist regime, threatening the life of President Assad basically if he continues to ally himself with the resistance axis. And then a very typical message from Netanyahu and from Israel regarding self-defense in relation to the ceasefire so let's just play that section. [Music] [Music] So I think that's pretty clear from that message that self-defense sort of a cannot is going to be rolled out at any minute that Netanyahu feels ready to renew the conflict. And then if we look at the three reasons, the first two are described in this section of the speech for the ceasefire, it becomes clearer again. [Music] [Music] So what he's basically saying is actually what I said focus on Iran, regroup, rearm, wait for Trump to come in in the belief that Trump will provide even better and more sophisticated weapons to Israel. And then finally his third reason is Hamas so let's see what he says about this. [Music] So he believes with the ceasefire that he succeeded in isolating Hamas. Of course the two fronts have been kept separate anyway. Initially Hezbollah in support of Gaza was providing a second front to distract the Israeli forces from using full power against Gaza. And aside, Nasrallah said before his assassination, those two fronts will never be separated. In some ways Hezbollah was put under pressure to agree to a ceasefire now because of the internal divisions that are being stoked by Israel. And of course the United States in Lebanon itself. And because Israel was expanding war to include the Lebanese people, not only the southern Hezbollah front, there was a need for some kind of cessation of hostilities to give people time to recover. As said, Miranda says of course there is also the opportunity for Hezbollah to recover and in my second segment today, I'll cover the attacks by Israel on Syrian infrastructure last night in an attempt to prevent this. And I'll end with some more cheerful pictures of Lebanese returning to the southern suburbs of Beirut to very much decimated areas but still displaying a sense of victory and a sense of relief that they can finally return to their homes without being bombed. However, I have been told that the drones are still everywhere performing their surveillance and spying act above Beirut itself. So, uncertain times, I don't have an awful lot of faith in Israel's integrity. And as I said, my cynical side is saying that Netanyahu is seeing it as an opportunity to take a breather until Trump is fully in power when he believes, and the rest of his cabinet also believe that Trump will be far more behind them than Biden was in respect to war with Iran. Yes, and remind me, Vanessa, how long this ceasefire is for? Well, it's officially 460 days to give Israel time to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon, which isn't very far because they didn't achieve very much territory in the south. But Biden is pushing the idea that it could be permanent. However, as I said, we all know Israel, Netanyahu's language that they are prepared to react if basically anything happens on the Lebanese side that they deem to be a threat. So, I think, you know, I think time will tell. Personally, I don't think it's going to be permanent. Okay, thank you very much for that, Vanessa. Now, let's come back to the UK and to Wales. In fact, and welcome Commissioner Wood to the program. Kim, you have a story for us here, a young in Wales, who has come up against the Welsh health and social services infrastructure when with respect to bodily autonomy. Give us the details. Who has a giant fibronoma. So this is a benign lamp in her breast. She has had a biopsy and this biopsy has come back. The lamp is benign. They have been keeping on top of this lamp, looking into things, you know, regular appointments and everything else. Another kind of being railroaded. They've been forced to have another biopsy. As you rightly said, social services as well have been putting pressure on the family. Even though this is beyond their jurisdiction, this is medical. There's no family issues whatsoever. The devil is in the detail. The family were under the impression this second biopsy was being forced on them until the court papers arrived on Friday. The family had no idea that the NHS had action this case. So when you look at the actual details of this case, the consultant has applied for full control over the breast. So they want another biopsy. And if that biopsy comes back as benign, they are going for removal of the lamp. And if they deem the lamp too big, they will perform a full mastectomy. So they are going for full consent over this child's breast. You know, she's still developing the most common form of lamp you can get for another lesson anyway. And this is all being actioned by a consultant who openly admits they have little to no experience dealing with patients of this age. Therefore they could not comment on Gaelic competence. So it was quite scary. Really, this court case has been actioned for next week and it's in the High Court in London. So that's pretty much where we're after the mic. So the issue of Gaelic competence cuts both ways, doesn't it, Kim? Because of course, during the vaccination program, we had people suggesting that Gaelic competence could be applied when youngsters wanted to choose to be vaccinated against their parents. Parental wishes, for example. But in this case, Gaelic competence doesn't seem to apply. And in fact, the parents wishes don't apply in this case either, because the consultant and the social services in the NHS opinion applies here. You know, many, many people have felt that they stood up against, or for the idea of bodily autonomy during the COVIDocracy. And now that's forgotten about in many people's minds apparently. But this issue of who decides what medical treatment someone is subjected to still exists is still a thing. And so that's why this case is so important. Well, yeah, it is important because this is not the parents decision. This is the child's decision. I will add as well. This child is 16 in March. So this is the child being supported by Mum. However, Mum, this all been twisted as if Mum is in control of it all. And their husband, they've even threatened this young girl that she's going into foster care. If she doesn't have the biopsy. This family have never had any local authority involvement. She's the third girl out of four. She has two sisters in their twenties. You know, so it's a female household. And they're all supportive of each other. But because Mum will not persuade the young girl to go ahead with this, Mum has now been taken to court. Like I said, if you look at the court order on the statement as well, they are going for a fall. They want permission for a full massectomy, even when the results are if the results come back again as benign. They also state they will not be 100% satisfied until 100% of the lump is removed. And if the lump is too big. And these are their words. If the lump is too big, we're going for a full massectomy. These are life changing decisions that adults usually make under life threatening conditions. You know, it's quite, this is quite scary here. I don't want to put my own personal opinion across because I've only been asked to speak about certain aspects of this case, but it is alarming. It is concerned and I cannot get my head around it. And like I said, the family have been misled and kind of bullied into consent in to another biopsy under the impression that all of this is going to go away when they get the results of that. But the court order, which was submitted last week without anybody knowing clearly states that they do have intentions of going for a fall massectomy, if they deem this lump too big. And again, I'll go back to the fact that this consultant has admitted she doesn't have experience dealing with patients of this age. So who is going to deem this too big. And whose watch is this too big, you know, is this person even experienced enough to make these decisions. So as far as I'm aware now there are other medical experts on the case. Experts are half dealt in the pediatric field, you know, so this is pretty much where we're at is quite alarming when you look at the details of this case. Right. And just finally then Kevin, what is what I'm not clear about is if this court case were to go against the family and the child. What are they going to do? Are they going to arrest her? Are they going to hold her down? Tired to bed and wheeler into the operating theater? How are they going to force the issue? Well, your guess is as good as mine, Mike, you know, this is very new to us all. There's a lot of anxieties in our household. The family is distraught. They have absolutely no idea what's going on. You know, they're being told one thing, but the paperwork is saying something different. We have absolutely no idea what's going to happen the other side of this, you know, but they go in for full control over the breast up until the age of 18. Okay, Kim, thank you very much for this. Where can people keep tabs on this story? Would you be publishing details on public child protection wheels? Yeah, with public child protection wheels isn't actually dealing with a case, which is supporting the family right now. But yeah, with the family's permission, we will be publicising details on their behalf on details of the court case in London next week as well. Right. Thank you very much, Kevin. We'll keep everybody posted on that as well. So thanks for joining us today. Thank you. Charles, let's move on to you then. And, well, the question of gender, which has been in the Supreme Court. Thanks very much, Mike. Good afternoon. Good afternoon all, yes, indeed, yesterday and today there is a case in the Supreme Court, which I think may be regarded as a first world problem that might be seen to epitomize the so-called law. And epitomize the so-called progressive culture, which is responsible for so much degradation in the United Kingdom and indeed other parts of the world. But this is brought by four women, Scotland, and as I say, is being heard in the Supreme Court yesterday and today. Now, the issues are stated to be is a person with a full gender recognition certificate, which recognises that their gender is female, a woman. For the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. So it boils down to, on the one hand, the question, what is a woman, but also it concerns the scrapping really between two different bits of legislation. And this is articulated by four women, Scotland, will just put their point of view on screen. They say that they believe that there are only two sexes that a person's sex is not a choice, nor can it be changed. Women are entitled to dignity, safety, and fairness. Now, there is a lot of technical detail to this. And as I say, it concerns the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010. On the four women, Scotland website, there's a very good, concise briefing note. And I would recommend that you do go to it. Their website is four women dot Scott for further background for details on the case itself. And what is actually happening. Nick Wallace, independent journalist going, who's at the trial at the moment, is broadcasting from the Supreme Court on Twitter, and is producing sort of up to the minute reports. But I think the significant detail seems to concern sort of section nine of the Gender Recognition Act. And as I say, the complete contradictions being highlighted and have been highlighted by four women, Scotland, since 2020, and this course has gone on for considerable period of time already. So has taken up a huge amount of bandwidth, legal bandwidth, and now seems to require the presence of a number of judges in order to try and establish what a woman actually is now in terms of the mental contortion side of things. We see that the responses have been different across the board Amnesty International, saying that it's a human rights issue and that they're intervening on that basis, as for the mainstream media. We've got the BBC having just announced that the Zambian footballer, Banda has been voted as the Women's Football of the Year, of course, she or he was withdrawn from the Africa Cup of Nations, due to questions over the biological sex of the player at the BBC. I recently had a section in that business, part of their website called Women at the helm and I was wondering whether this presented something of a challenge to them. I looked at their website today and couldn't find this I had already previously taken this screenshot, but, but it does the result of this case will be thrown to some doubt the way in which mainstream media are to play this agenda, got the telegraph course going back a few months with the writer and journalist David Thomas now wants to be referred to as Diana Thomas. Rather remarkably saying they don't want to be famous for being transgender whilst writing about being famous for being transgender. At some point in the next six months, I hope to have my gender confirmation surgery, it will be a very intimate gory personal event. And I'm not sure that it's a good idea to share that with the world. And as I say they go on to say I don't want to be famous for being trans if I dream of a happy ending it simply consists of being a perfectly normal, reasonably contented woman with a roof over her head. And someone to love and be loved mine I think it could be contested there's nothing perfectly normal about this whatsoever but the problem is it has been allowed to go so far and has become, therefore, a very, very contentious issue from which it seems very difficult to extricate oneself. On a related note, the Labour MP, sorry former Labour MP now independent MP Rosie Duffield has been allocated a conservative slot on the women and the qualities committee she notably wrote a very, very strongly worded letter of resignation to Keir Starmer and this is a subject that she takes a great interest in so it will be worth noting what kind of contribution she makes to this committee, especially in light of the decision from the Supreme Court. And to refer back to what was just being talked about in Kim segment under Gaelic competence there are obviously many issues surrounding all of this and I would point you towards an article I wrote for UK column just over a year ago, really about the horrific harm, both mental and physical that's being done in the name of a parent progress and freedom over the choice of gender even if it's biologically impossible but the article does refer specifically to the cherry picking that goes on with Gaelic competence and as Mike quite rightly pointed out. It was used as a means by which child could decide that they wanted to take a vaccine where the parents did not want it but of course it doesn't work the other way around so in effect it is used as a weapon with which to prosecute the chosen narrative but nonetheless, we will continue to look at the result of this Supreme Court decision whenever it does actually come out today and to see where this takes the effectively the gender and what is a woman question. Thank you Charles Thank you. Now, let's come on to the issue of false communications. Now this was the absolutely disgraceful article in the BBC. Rioter 61 find hanging in cell in quest told this course is referring to the death of Peter Lynch, who is funeral is taking place today, but of course Peter Lynch was not a writer so this headline an absolute lie. Now just to give an idea of how much Peter Lynch was not a writer let's just look at a little bit of video of him speaking. Right, tell us why you're here today. Because we did a vote in 2016, the Democratic vote, it's not being upheld, power notes took it on to them since. The corrupt MPs have took it on to themselves to deny power what we've been in power for, but now they're in power, they're stuck there defying what we've put in here for. And all these corrupt MPs that I've seen the game picked on and it builds, but why not? They actually went in there to do a job and they're going to turn against will it people, which is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, how do we go by our rights and bring our children over? If the corrupt system all the way from police, judicial services, everything it's all involved, parliament MPs, everything, they're all corrupt. So how can we tell our children to bring them up straight and narrow when everybody above them is corrupt but yet they're expecting the people to do as they're told by people that's not going as they're told what would have been here for. So I just can't see you running west of the map to Brexit. Of course, that was a few years ago but nonetheless, clearly a gentle man and therefore, you know, it absolutely outrageous the way that the BBC in particular presented them but I'm going to divert a little bit here and talk about the air crash of the DHL cargo plane in Latvia. So this happened a couple of days ago as everybody will know because we just want to highlight a couple of the headlines that were presented as a result of this. Here's the Guardian DHL plane crash in Lithuania. Maybe the result of sabotage says German Minister, and this was the narrative right across mainstream press immediately after the accident nobody at that point knew anything about what had happened. The planet crashed one person was dead. It was a cargo plane so only four people on it so three others survived, but the narrative in the mainstream press was Russia did it. And the most egregious example of it in the British press at least was the Sun. Putin's jet blast DHL plane crash sparks fear of deadly Russian terror op a secret service investigates the vids and vids emerge of jet fireball. It wasn't just the mainstream media, the so called influencers were in force on social media Russian sabotage bombs already nearly down DHL aircraft now this said Edward Burke is Burke. I want all growth here crash of DHL plane in Lithuania I automatically think of the DHL parcel fire at Leipzig and so on and this narrative that the parcel fires and warehouses in Leipzig that this plane came from Leipzig and therefore this plane was was blown up by the Russians it was absolutely nuts. Anyway, this article at least was a bit more reasonable cargo plane crashes and Vilness, and I just want to highlight a couple of parts out of this because this was published about the same time as all those article. All those other articles came out and making the point that the police had already spoken to one of the crew members at this stage. They said there'd been nothing unusual on the aircraft at this point so the question is what did happen. Well let's just have a look. So this is the information plate that the pilots have on board. This is the jebison one others may have others but they all say the same thing. And a couple of things to note here first of all at various way points as they're approaching it's very clear what's supposed to happen. First off here they're supposed to be at a maximum of 230 knots and the reason for this is because the turn they have to make once they get to the next way point is quite tight for a commercial jet and therefore they need to be a little bit slower. And so this is giving them speeds and heights that they need to be at and in fact by the time that this particular jet had got to get me at the just as they're about to join the incident landing system, they were too fast. They were they overshot this turn and so they had to compensate for that. And by the time they got to the point where they're supposed to be in a stabilized approach for the runway they were just about stabilized. They were still too fast they were a little bit high. And at the same time they completely misunderstood the instructions from air traffic control for the frequency that they had to change to to speak to the tower. And so as a result by the time they were heading down the instrument landing system, they were busy clearly busy trying to actually reestablish communications with air traffic control which they had lost. So why am I talking about this because if we compare what happened with the people who were commenting following the riots and so on and in and around the riots and we compare it with this type of thing from the sun and the treatment of people. It has been quite different in each case, so just remind ourselves, this was the headline DHL crash sparks fear of deadly Russian terror op, this was complete false communications by the sun. And if we remember the online safety act a person commits false communications offense if they send a message conveying information that they know to be false. And at the time of sending it they intend the message to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience I would argue that the sun headline absolutely did those things. And so they were guilty of that offense except they can't be because the online safety act then says that a recognized news publisher cannot commit an offense of false communications. And in fact a broadcaster cannot commit an offense of false communications. So I would argue that the police should be around to visit this guy Edward Burke if they've been around to visit the people that were that were alleged to be winding up the riots a few months ago. They should be around to visit Kitty Davis, the journalist at the sun, because the day that we start treating one section of society different to another section of society, then we are not in a democracy. We are in a dictatorship because we are supposed to be standing by the rule of law the rule of law is supposed to apply to everybody. In this case it clearly doesn't. So we're going to talk a little bit more about this in extra. Now let's move on. If you like what the UK column does you'd like to support us please head to support.uk column.org there are options to help us out there you can make a donation. You can join as a member and there are various membership levels if you'd like to join for longer periods of time. And you could pick something up in the UK column shop that helps us a lot as well. And also if you pick something up at clav.com we get a small percentage of that I'll just say that items for sale on the UK column shop we can now ship internationally. So if you are outside the UK please have a look at UK column shop as well. Do share the material that you find on the UK column website and there are share links there for you to do that. Now tomorrow this is we're putting out an interview at 1pm which Alex Thompson is we say chairing a debate. This is east versus west I suppose we could say because here we have major general Bakshi from India. Speaking to former British military personnel Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Grant and also major general Chip Chapman. Now we've got to say absolutely straight away here that anybody that's been paying attention to the UK column over the last period of time may recognise him. Glenn Grant because of course we've described him as Glen of Riga in the past and he is a senior or was a senior fellow at the Institute for statecraft so he was absolutely in the integrity initiative program. So this is a debate and it's somewhat different to the type of thing we may have hosted in the past but it was a very interesting conversation nonetheless. And well you may, you may take a certain view on the position of the two British participants in this. So do watch this, watch it at 1pm if you possibly can. Finally, just want to mention this once again. The CC advisory assembly, Dakota UK concerned citizens advisory assembly, they're organising a series of zoom calls details on screen. More information in the show notes. Charles, let's come back to you now and an update on farming. Typically the finances involved in farming which course been under spotlight for the last few weeks and therefore have been diversing attention perhaps from some of the bigger issues concerning not to farming but the environment overall and yesterday statistics concerning the what's called the balance sheet of farming in England was updated. I've drawn out some of the significant details which is that the average debt per farm is reckoned to be in the region of 295,000 pounds which is an 8% increase this course sorry for the financial year 2223. The average net worth of a farm, obviously meaning us in some senses because its average is 2.2 million which bears scrutiny in some senses because of course the inheritance tax threshold is going to be introduced at 1 million from 2026. The return on capital employed is just half a percent which is down half a percent relatively and just give a frame of reference a business is reckoned to be doing well or well enough if that figure is around 20%. So this is 40 times lower than one might expect it to be on a similar note the gearing ratio is a large unchanged 12% which is roughly the relationship between overall assets and liabilities. And then on the more current basis liquidity is at 321% which is an increase every year over the last five years which in effect is the ability of farm to be able to satisfy its debts on a current basis but of course all these figures are in some way misleading just to add a little bit of detail just to give an idea of how much farms make again on average here's a graph showing the return on capital employed just 9,000 pounds per farm versus the capital employed of 1.6 million per farm obviously average figures so not huge amount to be said about the specifics of it but the point to be made here is that these figures are set in light of the changing value of money and not land. So this graph which is slightly difficult to read produced by Savile shows how land values have changed since 1993. And the arrow is pointing at the figure the overall figure the different colors of different types of land but in effect they all show the same trend. And the value of land has gone from about 1000 pounds and acres in 93 up to over 8000 pounds an acre today and as I say it's not that the land has necessarily increased in value it's just that the money represented by it has been devalued so significantly when we come back to the money and the inheritance tax thing, it was reckoned that perhaps 520 million would be recouped by introducing inheritance tax or getting rid of agricultural property relief from 2026 the daily express here highlighting the absurdity and it's like the larger amount is to be handed over to foreign farmers, note the advertisement for Tesco at the bottom of the page which I'll come back to in a second. This is something that's been looked into by the taxpayers Alliance and they quote a figure of 536 million, sorry, billion in foreign aid, which again is just a ludicrous statistic if the figure calculated for the agricultural property relief. The property relief loophole being closed is actually to be treated as as verifiable. Now we talked a bit about the gathering that Mike and Brian went to on the 19th and in particular the requirement for registration and exactly why that may have been I was in touch yesterday with one of the organizers, Ollie Harrison, just showing his Twitter profile here because it's interesting to note that he describes himself as a media personality in terms of the capturing of that data which has now been got rid of. It was in effect at the behest of the police, much more than police who required it in order to be able to ascertain the type of space that was going to be appropriate for it. And I've already reckoned about one in three people did actually register which means in attendance for about 40,000 people, probably. I think the more significant thing about Harrison is that his pinned tweet on his profile talks about the necessity to farm with the herbicide glyphosate and without going too much further into the detail. I just wind the clock back to 1962 when Rachel Carson published her very, very significant book Silent Spring in which she said, "Chemical sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in soil, entering into living organisms passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death." With industry pressure and indeed government subsidy, this has become a practice that has become completely part and parcel of farming and is now not really questioned in the way that it should be. And Carson went on to say, "Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called insecticides, but biocides." She was talking, of course, specifically about DDT and her work had a very significant impact on that particular industry. Now I'm going to show a slide that I've used in the past and indeed Mike has, but these are all the types of businesses that largely are stocked by supermarkets. And of course, the point I'd like to make under the heading of, "What can I do?" is to draw people's attention to the fact that producing food in a effectively a chemically induced environment is simply not conducive to achieving optimal human health. It's a very straightforward point to make, and the message is that if people keep buying this, not only are we financing the globalist corporations, but we are also leading to bad health outcomes. Now, to get further into all of this, I would encourage you to go to a new series page on the UK column website, which the address is listed on the screen there. You can call them.org/series/pharming. It will be in the drop-down menu from the series tab, and it contains all the content that we have, which is now very wide, very varied. And I really encourage you to take a good look at that, because there's a lot of very, very worthwhile information to research there. Thank you, Charles. Now, let's come back onto the issue of war, sadly, but we have to deal with it. We're going to start off with a video clip of Rob Barr speaking yesterday. Now, this Rob Barr, for anybody who doesn't know, is chair of the NATO military committee, has been since June 2021. Let's just have a quick listen to this. Business leaders in Europe and America need to realize that the commercial decisions they make have strategic consequences for the security of their nation. Businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. So he's absolutely clear that we are heading into a war footing. That's where we're going. Now, if anybody thinks that the emergency legislation was brought in with respect to COVID with draconian, that is only a fraction of what we are likely to see. Should we actually end up on a war footing and openly declared war footing, at least? Now, the next thing that another quote or another section of that after he gave his full presentation was asked a few questions. Let's have a listen to a little bit more from Rob Barr. And I'm very happy that we had it and that we have now changed this attitude from... I mean, the idea was we're defensive alliance, so we will only sit and wait until we're attacked. And then when we're attacked, we will be able to shoot down the arrows that come to us. But this smarter, not only to do that, but also to attack the archer that is in Russia. So it should be pretty clear this guy appears to be off his head at the moment, absolutely, instead of insanity. One final clip, however. There were security guarantees for Ukraine in 1994 when they gave away their nuclear weapons. Those parties were US, UK, and surprisingly, Russia. So one of the parties that was supposed to provide security for Ukraine, invaded Ukraine in 2014, as you said, for the first time. And the full fledged invasion in 2022. So... Well, we'll talk a bit more about that in extra as well. It's all an issue of who invaded home and so on, and whether there was a coup or not, and whether there was... and so on. But anyway, in the meantime, one of the other points that Barr made was he was talking about nuclear weapons in Ukraine being part of the sort of disincentive or the protection for Ukraine in the past. And the timing of that was very interesting because the headline in Reuters here, Russia condemns irresponsible talk of nuclear weapons for Ukraine because suddenly there's talk of nuclear weapons going back into Ukraine. And what they say in here is that several brackets unnamed officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent, but such a step would be complicated and have serious implications. Well, it certainly would. But I just find it interesting that that narrative appears in the New York Times at the same time that Barr is talking about this in his presentation or in the questions following his presentation. But coming back to the UK then, here we have the Defense Accelerator, the Defense and Security Accelerator. Sorry. And they have announced the appointment of an organization called IOT Tribe as its delivery partner for business acceleration services operating from DAS's London Hub. And they're saying that IOT Tribe will lead a group of specialist organizations operating under the name as Janice, sorry, reflecting the dual use nature of technologies. And this issue of dual use nature of technologies is one that we've been talking about for quite some time. We'll come on to that in a second. But first of all, here, here is IOT Tribe. They say they are building a technology enabled future together, but together with whom? Well, first of all, with atmos ventures in this case, at least with respect to Janice atmos ventures building a future with trailblazing founders pushing the limits and what's possible. So this is all seed capital. And then we've got set squared who are transforming telecoms. And of course, this is where we saw the first instance of this sort of dual use between government and civilian use of infrastructure and telecoms infrastructure being the key point of it. And also our our the electronics company. So these are the key deliverables from Janice dual use innovations, expert technical support. Okay, access to investment opportunities, including the NATO Innovation Fund connections with the Pan NATO ecosystem and tailored business acceleration support. So this is bringing NATO and NATO innovation directly into civilian use as well. So there are many, many questions and concerns to be had here. But in the meantime, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden was speaking at NATO's cyber defense conference on Monday. And this is what he had to say, and NATO has stayed relevant over the last seven decades by constantly adapting to new threats. Now it needs to adapt to the world of AI because as the tech involves the threat involves as we develop this technology, there's a danger, it could also be weaponized against us. As we sorry that's a duplication because our adversaries are also looking at how to use AI on the physical and cyber battlefield. They won't hesitate to use AI to gain advantage against us. So we have to stay one step ahead in terms of this new AI arms risk. So that's how it's being described as a new AI arms risk. And therefore he is pleased to announce that they've launched a new laboratory for AI security research at the University of Oxford backed by 8.2 million pounds of funding from the UK government's integrated security fund. For NASA we're going to come on to Syria now but you know this this issue of AI, correct me if I'm wrong but it has been used quite actively by Israel in Gaza. A hundred former members are involved in such research and development would be interesting to dig a bit deeper to find out. Yeah so we're back in Syria and related very much to my first segment talking about the ceasefire because last night, I mean I'm about 15 minutes from the main border. But my windows were rattling from about midnight onwards while Israel was bombing virtually the entire Syrian border with Lebanon this is just a photo of the mass border which is the main border that I used to use to go into Lebanon. It's interesting that since the ceasefire came into effect I am being told that now the borders can be repaired having on them in the last eight hours quite extraordinary. I've written extensively about this situation at my sub stack so before the ceasefire Israel intensively bombs the Syrian border with Lebanon and let's just have a look at the Ministry of Defense statement. So it's after midnight the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory targeting the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon in the western countryside of Homs. The aggression led to the martyrdom of six people including two soldiers and the rest civilians and the injury of 12 others including children, women and workers or other volunteers in the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. And the occurrence of significant material damage let's just have a look at a few seconds of video of those attacks particularly at the main border in the north. So extensive damage and people might remember that when I last went to Beirut a few weeks ago I had to use that northern border at Alarida which has now been put out of service and there were actually people killed on the Lebanese border as well as on the Syrian border and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said that there were a greater number of the volunteers killed and injured three I think critically. So let's have a look at what else is going on inside Syria which kind of bears out what I'm saying that there is potential that Israel will use the ceasefire with Lebanon to focus on Syria. And the Lebanese general security who maintains all border crossings and that's the 12 of their members were injured in the strikes overnight on border. At the same time is Israel Homs countryside and border crossings it also targeted crossings closer to Damascus in Safaya and al-Zabadani these crossings are often used to bring Lebanese goods into Syria and are a lifeline for many Syrians. So Israel Isis terrorists have been attacking military transport trucks on the Al-Hasaka to Iraq a road from the US occupied northeast, the attack killed two drivers and critically injured a third curfew has been imposed for motorbikes on the roads used by Syrian oil convoys after they were attacked by gunmen on motorbikes. The road from Al-Hasaka to Daresaw for a two week period the Syrian government of course is forced to negotiate oil supply with the Kurdish countries under the control of the US occupation forces so again, attacking the meager oil supply to the Syrian state. This is a map just showing the areas that were attacked so all around the Homs countryside on the border with Lebanon and then with Damascus also on the border with Lebanon and about 10 crossing points both major and minor were put out of action and serious damage to infrastructure and to bridges in the area. I wanted to show this final map which shows Syria this was drawn up in 2019 and was printed by mint press news, but the red circle shows, sorry, another explosion here, the red circle shows the area around Homs and you can actually see the concentration of air defence and protection systems and Homs is known partly because of its geographical location in the centre of Syria with access to all areas of Syria is being the military capital. You'll remember last year the attack on the Homs military academy that killed hundreds that was carried out by drones of the terrorist groups in the northwestern Edlev under the control of Turkey but also of course supported by Israel. So, in my opinion, what Israel is going to do during this time and it's made it very clear in the bellicose rhetoric and statements that it's been putting out. I think it's going to ensure that the supply routes to Hezbollah are destroyed, not only the supply routes, but also the manufacturing centres in Syria that themselves have been producing the weapons and military equipment that has been supplied to Hezbollah. And the green arrow shows the land bridge it should actually drop a little bit lower to Abu Khmer crossing, but it shows that Syria is crucial to the resistance access as a land bridge from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon, of course, on to Palestine. So I think this is an opportunity for Israel to put its focus on Syria and to potentially destroy any futurability for Hezbollah to receive weapons, whether it succeeds or not is besides the point, but I think that that is very much the agenda. Thank you, thank you for that Vanessa Charles let's come back to the UK and of course the closure of the Luton van plant yesterday is linked to this requirement of car manufacturers to produce produce electric vehicles, but this is becoming a big argument. Yeah, absolutely it is my yeah well effectively the continued collapse of the climate change and net zero narrative but of course the fallout is that these very destructive policies to have a real effect on industry and of course the people that are employed by them the BBC here not just the closure that you refer to but of course the government effectively being forced or at least looking like they might have to row back on the absurd demands they've made on the vehicle manufacturing industry at the BBC saying that there are flexibilities in the system manufacturing industry can't meet the targets to buy credits from those that can, in practice this means buying credits from companies such as Tesla or Chinese firm BYD, which build electric models exclusively of course they do talk about Stellantis who own voxel as well as where they're at Persia and Citroen having decided to close their luton plant which they say will cost 1100 jobs but of course the knock on effect is likely to be much greater than that and the what they're talking about there and buying the credits is that it's been imposed upon vehicle manufacturers that they must be selling on the standard of their stock as electric vehicles but like all these schemes there's effectively an offsetting in place in which the event unable to meet that themselves they can effectively pay another manufacturer who is doing it in order to satisfy the criteria clearly totally unsustainable and frankly absurd but nonetheless they carry on with it anyway guess who's fault all this is the extremists for spreading misinformation about the problems with electric vehicles catching fire and generally not actually being good for the environment, the reference there to BYD which some viewers and listeners may not have heard of build your dreams a Chinese business started in 1995 interestingly specializing in batteries first before moving into the automobile business and significant really to note that the whilst they do use lithium they do not use cobalt or nickel in the production of their batteries you are likely to be seeing one of these showrooms soon here is a distribution map of the United Kingdom I think there are over 130 outlets either in existence or planned for the UK so they'll be hitting our streets soon I've just returned from Hong Kong where I visited a showroom there just to get the picture on how really not so much the vehicles themselves but the push to get people into electric vehicles is going particularly via incentives so I hope we've got a video now of showroom in Saikeng Hong Kong This is the BYD showroom in Saikeng Hong Kong and of the vehicles on display here there is the dolphin the standard model which is their entry level vehicle with a factory that has a lifetime warranty you have no idea how long it might last from new but this significant detail here is that had you a combustion engine vehicle would say a resale value of even £500 you could trade it in on a scrappage scheme and effectively recoup many times its value in terms of the discount you get on the purchase of this which creates to nearly £4,000 and that is an incentive that is continuing to drive sales for BYD very considerably at the moment So really the point there that people are obviously gaming the system buying very cheap old bangers and then trading them in not not that you actually given a car but you get a massive discount on an EV which of course you could then sell on making considerable profit The significant point there is again compared with UK market they're offering a lifetime warranty on the battery the stipulation in the UK is 8 years or approximately 100,000 miles BYD currently at 125,000 miles but the question of what next is one that hasn't been successfully answered in the UK at all Now in terms of the effect on the industry here I've looked at data provided by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and traders which produce reports annually that you can see the graph here showing the decline in car manufacturing over the years And again a significant detail here when we consider smoke and mirrors being at heart of this of course the export percentage is vast respectively 2021 and 22, 82 and 78% of cars produced in the UK in fact being exported anyway A little bit more detail and we see really the grey section of the graph here which is diesel production is what's really being squeezed so this can't be trumpeted as a success of the EV it's more a squeezing out of the combustion engine Vehicles the government has an extraordinary amount of false confidence in their ability to deliver this in their office for zero mission vehicles document on batteries they say that there are more than enough resources to build EV batteries to meet the estimated demand until 2050 And they appear to have worked this out because the Faraday institution said so and they termed it as such which was many countries around the world are embarking on a similar path to electrification even so global markets for raw materials should be able to deliver the demand in the UK and elsewhere I don't think that's really grounds for suggesting that we're okay especially if everybody else in the world wants what we want and indeed this is very much adults with something produced by the world economic forum no doubt the prime minister has read it They said that as the world produces more batteries and EVs the demand for lithium is projected to reach 1.5 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent by 2025 and over 3 million tons by 2030 for context the world produced roughly half a million tons of LC in 21 So effectively production needs to triple by 2025 and increase nearly sixfold by 2030 although supplies being on an exponential growth trajectory can take anywhere from six to more than 15 years for new lithium projects to come online And as a result the lithium market is projected to be in deficit for the next few years something the British government doesn't know or doesn't want to acknowledge so we have really lie upon lie here and of course the fallout from all of this is that people are being pushed further and further away from being able to do what they want to do with regard to vehicle ownership and drive a ship and of course this is in conjunction with the declaration of the new iteration of the national grid that there's going to be an increase in the cost of electricity but also a decrease in the availability of it due to the continued push for so called renewable energy so a space to watch But obviously the hope will be that the government will be forced into a position of rowing back on the ludicrous decorations that they've made about production of electric vehicles, which nobody wants of course thank you very much for that Charles We got a hand there unfortunately time is up, we'll be back in a few minutes for some extra and one of the things we will be mentioning is the question of webcams in London, everybody's talking about this on social media at the moment but we'll talk a little bit about that And some other things in extra if you're a UK column member stay on the stream and we will start in a few minutes otherwise don't forget the discussion with Alex and his contributors tomorrow 1pm and we'll be back for the news at 1pm on Friday See you then, bye bye It is Ryan C. 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