UK Column News - 11th July 2025

Hello, it's Friday the 11th of July 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host Mike Robinson, my Co host in this studio today, Patrick Hennigson. Welcome to the program, Patrick. Great to be with you, Mike. And journalist Mark Anderson joins us by video link from the United States. Now, yesterday, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron did some deals. The headline deal was one where a bunch of migrants would continue to cross the Channel in

small boats. They would be sent back to France. And in return, Britain would take exactly the same number of people from France, except these would be people that France is particularly keen to get rid of. I suspect that is what's going to go on. So, you know, this can be ignored because it will do nothing to reduce the number of people coming into the UK. And in any case, we should always keep in mind that the main source of migration in the UK by far is regular migration.

The small boats remain a small problem. It's a diversion. And so my question is, what was it that Star Starmer was diverting from? Well, first of all was his nuclear deal. And France and the UK will, they say, deepen their nuclear cooperation and coordination. A Franco British nuclear steering group is going to be established and that's going to provide political direction for this work. So this is absolutely a political agenda.

It's not something which is being driven by any other need. It'll be led by the presidency of the French Republic and the Cabinet Office in the UK. It's going to coordinate across nuclear policy capabilities and operations. And they say quotes. Our nuclear weapons exist to deter the most extreme threats to the security of our nations and our vital interests. Our nuclear forces are independent but can be coordinated and contribute significantly to the overall security of the alliance.

They don't specify in their press press release which alliance they're speaking about. But anyway, in the final communique, then they reaffirmed their determination to, quote, ensure Russia does not prevail in its illegal war of aggression, as well as their commitment to lasting support to Ukraine. They convened the coalition of the willing over the last couple of days with more than 30 nations participating, they say, all supposedly committed to

Ukraine's long term security. And in the course of that meeting, Secretary of State for War John Healey repeated Starmer's position that they're, quote, ready to put troops in Ukraine to help reinforce a ceasefire. Of course, no mention of how that ceasefire is going to be

arrived at so far. They agreed to launch a counter shadow fleet partnership to, quote, crack down on dangerous Russian backed vessels in the channel, reduce Russian oil revenues via these vessels and safeguard our maritime security. We are committed, they said, to defending democracy and stability in the wider European neighborhood and have agreed to work together on new support to strengthen resilience in the Western Balkans and Moldova. We'll come back to that in a

couple of minutes. They went on to let us know that Ukraine is is not enough. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon they said, and so they'll work with Germany to make sure that this doesn't happen. And don't forget China because China also has to be dealt with. I think North Korea must be breathing a sigh of relief at this point. They aren't even thought sorry, North Korea hasn't even thought about anymore. So they, Starmer and Macron also

announced Lancaster House 2.0. That is the new iteration of the Lancaster Lancaster House treaties which were signed by David Cameron in 2010, which brought Brit brought Britain into a 50 year defence pact with France and they announced they combined joint force, otherwise known as combined joint Expeditionary Force 2.0 and which will, they say build a shared capability of sufficient scale for war fighting and ready to operate in all domains, including space and cyber in the

defence of Europe. And they said, and I quote, we will maximize our impact against the highest threat terrorist groups, including deepening our counterterrorism cooperation in Syria. And if you haven't just fallen off your chair, well, I would seriously consider it because that's just such an incredible thing for them to say. Here's here is a quote from the communique.

As we've explicitly stated since 1995, we do not see situations arising in which the vital interests of either France or the United Kingdom to be threatened without the vital interests of the other also being threatened. France and the United Kingdom agree there is no extreme threat to Europe which would not prompt a response by our two nations. Now taking all of this into account, Patrick, I do wonder

what does that remind you of? Well, this, this is exactly where we were prior to World War One. So this is power politics writ large after the concert of Europe. And all of these entangling alliances and loyalties and so forth led to a situation where all it took was an assassination in the West Balkans. And all of a sudden you have all the various accesses and blocks hit it against each other. And there's the most important part, absolutely dedicated to a military path to resolve

disputes. No diplomatic track at all. The only way you can just resolve these is through military means. Isn't that what we're saying right now? Do you see anybody talking about political resolution or diplomacy to solve the Ukraine crisis? Because I don't. No, there is absolutely no effort at diplomacy whatsoever.

In fact, as as we have pointed out several times over the last few weeks, the rhetoric from both Britain and the United States is that basically Putin is effectively refusing to engage. It's similar to the the sort of strategy of Israel of putting a deal on the table that the other side absolutely cannot accept and then claim that the other side has refused to engage with it. It's a pantomime of negotiations.

It's it's getting old as well. Look, on the conventional front, what have what have Britain and the French done in response to the gravest threat Europe has ever faced since World War 2 that they tell us as you the war in Ukraine, What have they done? They haven't engaged aged at all. All they've done is pump weapons into a proxy to Ukraine and then do special forces to try to blow things up and sabotage and so forth. It's been an utter disaster and

a failure. So I guess they're going to do more of that because I don't see much on the conventional front from the British or the French side and France's has spent force as far as the conventional military go. But on the nuclear side, Mike, that's a problem. That's a problem because you have the Britain does not have an independent nuclear deterrent. It is controlled by the United States on every single conceivable level, including the command level.

Now, France may be less so, but even France is tethered to the United States in different ways. But having an independent to to what I would say to belligerent actors in Europe acting with their own agenda. We know Britain has their own geopolitical agenda and without the United States and Europe could very easily kick off a crisis or a war that would ultimately drag the United States into a European or a precursor to a World War Three situation or a European

conflict. But that already happened twice in the last century, right? So I think we shouldn't really be going there. But this is where the this is the conversation that we'd like to have, but it's not the conversation they're having. So it's on the French front, though there's something to be even more worried about. We'll bring this up on the screen here. And by the way, this is from the National Security Archives at George Washington University in the United States.

And we've carefully gone through a lot of these various files to pick out the highlights, the untold story of Israel's nuclear deception. And let's look at that. How did Israel get nuclear weapons?

How did they get nuclear power? Well, they got it with the with the help of the French, and they stole the other bits from the United States. Israel had illegally obtained nuclear capabilities since 1967, largely due to substantial support from France, which helped it to become the 6th nuclear power worldwide, ensuring France a seat on the UN Security Council. The big club, right? But here's the problem with this. This is the detail that nobody wants to talk about.

In 1965, US visitors were told that spent fuel would probably be returned to France from Israel for chemical processing. Although he quote gave the impression that no detailed consideration had yet been given to this problem, we now know this was misleading. Israelis never returned the spent fuel to France. Instead, they reprocessed their own, and it was a radiated reactor core every six months.

So, So basically what happened here Mike, is that Israel stole from new mech facility the the weapons grade material then this the plans the know how and France built the Demona is a copy of the French nuclear reactor. OK, so they got their civilian nuclear reactor program built by France. In return, Israel gave the weapons grade material and, and know how to to France. So both of them built their nuclear programs together. And then France did the testing for the Israeli nukes.

Where did it? How could Israel do testing? And when it's the size of whales, they, they sent it out to Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific and to South Algeria or in around Mali. That's where in their colonies in Sahara and Africa. That's where the French tested their nukes and they tested Israel's at the same time. This is how it happened. So France is is partnered to an illegal not under supervision of the non proliferation treaty.

Israel has between 90 and 300 nuclear warheads undeclared. Nobody knows because they won't allow inspectors in a totally illegal nuclear weapons program sponsored and facilitated by France. Right. So this is a kind of a problem. If the British and the French are working with their own so-called independent nuclear deterrence, you really have to add Israel to that tripartite nefarious arrangement. OK, well, sticking with Israel

then of course something else has happened in the last couple of days is that Benjamin Netanyahu has been over visiting the Dawn. Yes, yes, the the the warlock himself has parachuted into Washington, probably asking for things and and hoping to get money and weapons and so forth, doing a bit of his Zelensky himself. But Netanyahu is also trying to throw his weight around, obviously. But but listen to this. This is this is the meeting around the big table.

Trump with his team assembled, Netanyahu with his team and he presents Donald Trump with a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. I I really this is this is special watch this we're. Going to have a lot of great results. So it's great to have you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I want to express the appreciation and admiration not only of all Israelis, but of the Jewish people and many, many admirers around the world for your leadership, your leadership of the free world, your leadership of a just cause, and the pursuit of peace and security, which you are leading in many lands, but now, especially in the Middle East.

We have great opportunities. President has an extraordinary team, and I think our teams together make an extraordinary combination to meet challenges and seize opportunities. But the President has already realized great opportunities. He forged the Abraham Accords. He's forging peace as we speak in one country and one region after the other.

So I want to present to you, Mr. President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize Committee. It's nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it. Thank you very much. This I didn't know. Well, thank you very much. Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful. Thank you very much, baby. Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you.

It's a great honor. When Trump said coming from you BB is extra special, I mean it's almost like that was a joke of sorts. I mean, this could just as easily be a skit from pick your comedy program, yes. I mean, pretty breathtaking, isn't it?

So. So Donald Trump, after having waged an undeclared war of aggression against Iran and in violation of every single UN Charter clause and treaty, he's been, you know, recommended the Nobel Peace Prize via Benjamin Netanyahu, Who should get the Nobel Peace Prize? Well, I would say argue that this woman should get the Nobel Peace Prize. Francesca Albanese, who's just been sanctioned by the United States, sanctioned by Marco Rubio. Let's take a look at this now.

She is the special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. And this is what Marco Rubio said today. I'm imposing sanctions on the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt the International Criminal Court action against the against US and Israeli officials, companies and executives.

Albanese's campaign of political and economic warfare, This one woman from Italy, she's waging warfare against the United States. Imagine that. And Rubio continues against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated. We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense. So Israel's only trying to defend itself in Gaza.

If you can believe that the United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to law and protect our sovereignty of that of our sovereignty in that of our allies. I mean, wow, that's pretty extraordinary stuff. Here's her response. We'll bring this up on screen here. Francesca Albanese response saying, just to be sure, on this day more than ever, I stand firmly and convincingly on the side of justice, as I always have done.

I come from a country with the tradition of a list illustrious legal scholars, talented lawyers and courageous judges who have defended justice at great cost and often with their own life. I intend to honor that tradition also. It is called the Rome Statute for a reason. And I'm, I'm proud of it. So she's not backing down from Rubio. I mean, it's kind of a disgraceful move by Marco. And to announce that while Netanyahu is in Washington, was he sending a signal to the

Israeli lobby? Like, hey, I'm still with you, 100% send more money for my presidential campaign in 2028, probably. Here's her response, though, in an interview she did with Al Jazeera English. This is Francesca Albanese responding to the charges. I want to remind everyone that the reason why these sanctions have been imposed is the pursuit of justice.

Of course, I've been critical of Israelis has been committing genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes, and not because I say that there are criminal proceedings and international Court of Justice proceedings against Israel for these crimes. Isn't it enough?

And what I've exposed is that this genocide doesn't only go ahead because of the relinquished territorial ambitions of Israel or because of ideological affinity of some groups with what Israel is doing, but also because there are companies who are profiting from it.

And excuse me, I mean, I record the, the offensive and rude posture that has come from some of these companies in reaction to, to my report like Google. But I, I mean, look, I'm also user of Google. I don't, I don't want the end of Google. I want Google to stop being, I mean making profits by supporting a government that has killed 60,000 people, including 18,000 children.

Is it too much to ask? So of course the sanctions are going to to affect me and they are not going to stop my quest for respect of justice and international law, as I've been mandated to do by the Human Rights Council. So, and she doesn't want the end of Google. Microsoft is also named in her report. I know a lot of people like to see the end of Microsoft actually, but that's another debate.

It is indeed now. At the beginning of this month, Matt Campbell was back in the High Court in the continuing effort to force the British government to hold a proper inquest into the death of his brother Jeff. Jeff died in the North Tower of the World Trade Centre on the 11th of September 2001 and his remains were identified through DNA analysis in 2000 and two 2000 and four 2008 and 2013.

The coroner's original findings stated that at 8:46 AM on the 11th of September 2001, the deceased was on the 106th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center when an aircraft was deliberately flown into the building, causing its collapse. 10:28 AM. This event was part of a coordinated attack by the Islamist militant group Al Qaeda. The Campbell family. That's the end of the quote, sorry.

The Campbell family, of course, disputes this finding and alleges that substantial evidence was not considered by the coroner and as a result they've been campaigning to have a new inquest held, including taking the Attorney General to court. So I'd like to welcome Matt Campbell to the programme. And Matt, the first question I have is what happened in the latest court hearing?

Well, yeah, they didn't do judgement on the date on the 18th of June. They gave us handed down a judgement on the 1st of July and we lost, which you know, we kind of half expected. The day went very well for us, certainly wouldn't. There was 2 judges. One of the judges was very on side I think with the arguments

they were making. But essentially they have made a ruling and said that they're tied by precedent set in a higher court in the Court of Appeal some years back going back to 1978. And whilst it's obviously disappointing that, you know, that decision has been made, that ruling, we kind of expect in the ruling that there'd be some positive noises towards what we were trying to do. So that would be a route for us to go and appeal.

But they kind of made it really easy for us by basically saying I just read the relevant section from the judgment. He said. In our judgment, the combined effect of Gurier EDA and expert Taylor, they're the cases that set precedent. It is that it is not now open to any court below the Supreme Court to decide otherwise, however anomalous this may seem in the light of the rest of the modern law of judicial review. And that language is really important. I mean, anonymous is actually

mentioned in another section. I mean, it just sticks out like a sore thumb. And what we're looking to do is apply for a what's called a leapfrogged certificate straight to the Supreme Court, where essentially, as that ruling said, they're the only, that's the only court that can make a decision on this completely unencumbered by, you know,

previous law. But whilst it's it's in place, it doesn't really have a place in, in the way that judicial review has evolved and that and the law around that. So we're, you know, confident that we would get that certificate and we would be able to apply and, you know, ultimately be heard in the Supreme Court. And efforts are underway right now hurriedly, because we have a deadline fast approaching to raise the necessary funds to do

that. I mean, the that's, that's a positive piece of news that, that, that there's a prospect of getting it to the Supreme Court. My question then would be, what are you, how confident are you that about how the Supreme Court would look at the case? Do you think that there is a real possibility of of a positive outcome? Yeah, I think, I mean for for the reasons that we argue, but actually they were made in the actual judgement.

It it just, it's so anomalous to the way that other areas of, say, the attorney general's decisions where their property powers or the statute powers to have something like an inquest not be able to be overseen or looked at by the judiciary, just flies against what the judiciary can investigate or can look at the decisions that the attorney general makes.

So, you know, this is certainly an opportunity for the courts to wrestle back some power, much needed power, I think from, you know, the likes of the attorney general. You obviously change with every single government. Sorry, yeah. Have you got any thoughts on this? Well, I just wanted.

To get to Matt's, Matt's comment on this, I mean, Matt, for, for you and your family, this has been a long, long road and you've been through so many different legal proceedings and attending all these hearings, all the preparation, all the lawyers and solicitors you've been working with. What what's this been like for, for you and your family? How? How difficult has this been over the years? It's just difficult because it keeps going on. I mean, it's dragged on so long.

I mean, we, I first started thinking about opening My brothers in CEST about six months after we had it in 2013. My mum's always been very supportive, I mean, as of my entire family. But she was there in the High Court, you know, it was a week before her 80th birthday. I don't think she expected to be there trying to fight for truth and justice for my my brother, you know, the week before 80th. Crazy. Yeah. Incredible. Yes.

OK. Well look, Matt, I think we'd like to wish you all the best with this. How do people find out more? I've on X Matt Campbell 911. Otherwise, if you go to the Internet International Centre of 911 Justice, that's ic911.org, They they cover what I've been doing pretty well. That's going to happen in the next few weeks. So yeah, fingers crossed we can we can get that certificate and apply to the Supreme Court. Brilliant. Thank. You and and we should absolutely recognize the support of

ic9911.org. If you haven't seen the ic911.org website, please do. We've held events with them in the past and we will be in the future. So. So we'd like to wish you all the best, Matt and you. Keep us posted on how things are going. Yeah. Cheers. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Patrick. Thanks. OK, where does that take us? Then we'll head to the to the ad

break. And if so, we'll say if you like what the UK column does, you'd like to support us, please have a look at the front page of the UK column website. You'll see a link there to a page. We'll give you all the details. Once again, a massive thank you to everybody that's supporting us financially and but if you can't do that, at least share the material if you possibly can. So that's that. Now tonight at 7:00 PM, the work weekly banter with Charles,

myself and Jerem will be live. So join us for that if you can. It's another interesting conversation. And yesterday's interview with Michael Yon is on the website. Now question is who's running the jungle? If you didn't see that yesterday, it's not available for on demand for now the and then the final thing to mention today is the UK column on location event taking place on Saturday the 18th of October 2025.

The tickets will be available from the end of this month on the 20th of July. That's Monday. So keep that date in your diary as well and hopefully we see as many people as possible there too. OK, now the propaganda machine took a new turn in the last few

days with claims of Russian use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. Now, during a press conference, Donald Trump was asked about it. Let's have a listen to this little exchange. What does US? Intelligence believe And what do you believe about the use of chemical? Weapons and would you would. You free the Well, I'd ask. John, maybe to discuss it, if you'd like, John. Well, Mr. President. Obviously chemical weapons, if it's documented in its use, it's illegal.

It's against all international laws of armed conflict and treaties. And obviously I can't share in this room with this audience the intelligence that I can share with you privately, but obviously you're not going to stand or allow for any violations of international law by anyone. That's right. Thank you so very. Briefly, Patrick, that was very interesting little exchange he had to seem. It seems like he had to go to Hesketh to find out who he needed to speak to about this question.

Well, John, John Ratcliffe absolutely in the pocket of the Israeli lobby, everybody knows that, and probably in the pocket of Mossad as well. So a very vague though, and you know, the timing of this mic is so suspect, but there's more on this. Well, it could be.

Coming back to this, but before we come back to the main part of this report of Patrick, let's just have a look at the British statement on this, because the statement goes that a statement published last week by the Dutch in German intelligence services indicating Russian use of chemical weapons on the front line is deeply concerning. The OPCW has now published 3 reports confirming the presence of CS gas in samples collected

by Ukraine from the battlefield. That is why the UK announced the second package of sanctions this week against 2 senior military officials and a Russian Research Institute for their involvement in Russians chemical Russia's chemical weapons violations. So you know, as was stated by EU guy in the US there and also the British statement, no actual evidence of Russian use of chemical weapons. We've seen this MO before, haven't we? Yeah. It's tell but don't show. It's always the problem here.

So here's the thing CS gas by the way, I mean I've I've been a victim of CS gas tear gas basically that our police use in America. So but as that constitute a war crime we don't know is still undocumented. But here's the problem. The timing of this MIC is so suspect. Why did why was this pushed this week? Well, I don't believe in coincidences and politics. And let's bring this up on screen here. Date is July 1st.

Note the date there. Russian forces discover a cachet of Ukrainian chemical drone munitions as if by magic on the week before. So Moscow has accused Kiev of systematically violating the Chemical Weapons Convention. And let's look at some of the details here. Footage released by the FSB in chemical protection protection gear. So they found vials of chloropicrin or chloropistrin. OK, Choking agent prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

According to the agency, substances were packaged with plastic explosives rigged into improvis. Improvised improv, improvised munitions. Pardon me, designed to be dropped from drones. So. And they go on. Oh, sorry, we'll go back there. If you could reverse the frame for me, that would be wonderful. So here's the problem with this. OK, the that was last week. OK, that was last week, July 1st. And so Russia was scheduled to present this on the 8th of July. Trump's statement was on the 8th

of July, so the Russians were. Going to present this to him. It was. It was presented to the OPCW at the executive committee meeting. So do you believe in coincidences? Not really, no. And so here's the Atlantic Council here, obviously pro war think tank. On July 10th, Russia accused of escalating chemical weapons attacks in Ukraine. So again they're saying Russia's using chloropicrin, exactly what Russia found a week ago in the Ukrainian A makeshift lab.

And this was banned as an anti riot agent first used by the Germans during World War One. So again, they're bringing the Germans in to kind of bracket Russia with with Nazi Germany. So again, create the war crimes, Sir. So back to this. And again, as I was saying, it's going to be submitted here, Mike, to the executive session on July 8th, OK, as we said. So here is the chemical in question again used by Germany in World War One band. So it's infamous in that respect.

So July 9th, 2024, exactly 1 year ago, Ukraine violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, Russian engineering troops discovered a laboratory that was using hydrogen cyanide. OK, very well documented. They sent all of the information to the OPCW. OK, so and just further on that, the facility had a Rotary evaporator and several chemical reactors, protective clothes, clothing was there, including US made gas masks and Polish hazmat suits. Interesting, allegedly found the site.

So all of this has been supplied to the authorities. And just to be clear, to date, Russia's filed 40 diplomatic notes, 40 regarding Ukraine's use of toxic chemicals in the battlefield over the last three years. And this is from one of their senior ministers there. So in terms of Mike, the evidence, the preponderance of evidence is absolutely on the Russian side in what they've presented to the official bodies.

So so just. To be clear, this is not a case of he said, she said, because Russia is providing documentation, they're providing evidence to the OPCW. And my question to you would be very briefly, is the OPCW past the politicization that we've seen of it in the last few years or are they actually in a position to do anything?

So whether they can attribute blame or not, that mechanism, which I'm not sure about the technicalities of that, but that was something that they didn't have, but that they acquired through their executive during the whole Syria OPCW scandal. But the Syrian question is very different than this.

This is a battlefield between two state actors, A very well documented Russia's providing GPS location, they're providing chain of custody, all of the things that Britain in the White Helmets and everybody that was saying Assad was never did. So Russia's doing all that. So all of the Russian claims could be debunked very easily by the experts. And Russia's also offered to facilitate more of an investigation should the OPCW want to go down that road.

But as yet they haven't, right? Why haven't they? They haven't pursued any of the charges in a serious way against Ukraine. So yes, Mike, they are very politicized, but Russia is going to go with the institutions that are available. This has always been their stoic policy here. So here's a here's a video on it's a documentary called toxic the Toxic war. And this was on RT International last year, I think. So this is around Difka. The big battle after Bakmut was

a Difka just over a year ago. Watch this this trailer here. What? I. That's available on Rumble in its entirety. Unfortunately, Mike, if you're in the UK, you're not allowed to see any of the material which we just showed because the British government banned RT. So if you're trying to be a do journalism or make a case or look at counter arguments, you can't do it because of censorship. So again, if you want to debunk any of these claims made by Russia, you're more than welcome.

That documentary was filmed around the village of Ugladar, which is just not in the vicinity of a deep cut, but where heavy fighting was going on. And again, all of that which was shown you in that documentary film was supplied to the European authorities, to the OPCW. So Russia's not hiding anything. They've got a lot of evidence that they've been supplying, but no action has been taken. No, no inquiries into Ukraine's

use of chemical weapons. But yet they're ramping up the Russian chemical weapons card making. Don't you think that's kind of bizarre in a way? Because it's, you know, it's, that's the last card you pull. And if you look at the British statement on this issue, the opening paragraph is Russia has launched a record-breaking attack of drones and missiles on Ukraine and they're under threat and so forth. And then Russia has the audacity

to use chemical weapons. I mean, honestly, does Russia need to use MacGyver style chemical weapons when they have Arushnik missiles and they're absolutely pounding Ukraine? So this is basically we're losing the war. That's the subtext. We're losing badly to Russia. Let's pull the chemical weapons card because isn't, wasn't that the case in Syria as well? The rebels were getting hounded and pounded in, in Ghouta, in Kanchehun, in Duma.

And as if by magic, a chemical, yeah, a chemical attack manifests itself and all of a sudden you have air strikes and by the US and everyone's up in arms in the outrage. So it's just this pattern that we can't escape in the West. The chemical card is literally the last card of desperation. Absolutely. Well, let's then welcome Mark to

the program. And Mark, the since we've been talking about the destruction of Ukraine, the conversation about the reconstruction and the recovery of Ukraine continues. So what's the latest on that because it's been another conference? Indeed. Good day, everyone. Yeah, the your your Ukraine. Excuse me, The Ukraine recovery Conference.

It's surely here in Texas. The 4th Recovery Conference is winding up today in Rome, Italy. And that this first slide kind of gives the overall framework of what's been going on actually

the last eight years. And they had the Berlin conference last year, the year before London, the year before that, Logano, Switzerland. And prior to those 3 and now the 4th Recovery Conference that have won on the last four years, there were four prior reform conferences in Vilnius, Toronto, Copenhagen and London dating from 2021 back to 2017. So overall this year that's winding up in Rome is the 8th Ukraine event. Four of them have been reformed and now four of them have been recovery.

And this is a little bit of an explanation of the philosophy behind it. They're dedicated to the swift recovery, they say, in the long term reconstruction of Ukraine since the beginning of what they call Russia's full scale war of aggression. And governments, international orgs, financial institutions, businesses, regions, municipalities, civil society have come together. And they're united, they say, by a shared commitment to strengthen the long term resilience of Ukraine.

And it reflects the Lagano principles laid down in Switzerland back at that event. And some of those principles are reform focus for Ukraine's European integration. And that's really the main goal here along with multi stakeholder engagement. That's another example, gender equality, inclusion, some very liberal social sentiments there as well as environmentally speaking, sustainability, a very

green philosophy. And this year in Rome, as they wind up yesterday and today, these are the four planks They have business dimension, human dimension, logical and regional, excuse me, local and regional dimension, pardon me, which includes recovery of municipalities and regions. But the all important fourth one, the EU dimension, EU accession and related reforms. Again, that's really kind of where this is going to make your crane part of the EU officially.

And this is a quote that sort of sort of summarizes that 4th plank. Now that's a picture of Ursula von der Lion at last year's recovery conference in Germany, as I indicated in the Photo, Credit there to make it clear.

But this quote comes from the organizers this year, emphasizing that 4th plank advancing European integration and the perspective of joining the single market will help align Ukraine's policies and institutions with European standards and Dr. long term economic and social progress. So again, that's really where this is headed, irrespective of the war. They definitely want Ukraine fully in with both feet into the European Union.

But what's interesting, I took a little harder look at this and they had what they called all these side meetings. Well, there was a total of 26 side meetings around July 9 and 10 before the official Ukraine Recovery conference took place in Rome. And these are just some samples. And I think the side meetings is really where the action was. Energy solutions for sustainable regional development investments, innovation and resilience investments is a big

thing. Another one, private Public Partnerships and regional development, unlocking opportunities together. I got a couple other examples of these so-called side meetings, and this one's interesting. Strong media, transparent recovery, how journalism builds Ukraine's future. And of course, that's conventional journalism. No, no real alternative

journalism is allowed. And then the Marshall Plan governance, The last example here of the side meetings, I'm showing 4 out of 26. This last example, a forum on the eve of the Ukraine recovery conference, and it gets into the German Marshall Fund of the United States and basically compares rebuilding Ukraine with the Marshall Plan in the aftermath of World War 2. There's a comparison being made there. And lastly, we have Larry Fink,

everybody's favorite financier. And what's interesting here is the the left slide is from the Ukraine government itself in the latter part of December 2022. So the conflict wasn't even a year old and President Zelensky was discussing with the CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, the coordination of efforts to rebuild Ukraine. Even back then it was a much younger war yet. This other slide is from July 7th, just a few days ago, and this is from the Kiev Post.

And after all this time, BlackRock, they say, is backing out of a Ukrainian rebuild funding initiative. So Larry Fink was supposed to reportedly show up in Rome. Now, he probably still went, I imagine, but he was supposed to go to Rome and kind of present the findings and present the overall plan of how to rebuild your crane. But reportedly they're pulling back. The things didn't go quite as well.

It's a little bit vague, but he's saying that people that were going to be involved in the investment got cold feet, among other things. So apparently he was not prepared to make that presentation in Rome. These are just some of the developments. But obviously we've been concerned about BlackRock and their machinations a long time. Who's going to control the resources of Ukraine, The farmland? Will Will Ukrainians become serfs in their own land? These have been concerns a long time.

So back to you guys on this subject I guess. Maybe it's the way the financial situation in Ukraine, such a mess at the moment. Maybe it's too big a mess even for Fink. No, it's. It's because all the high performing mineral energy assets are in the East under Russian control. That's why they're backing out. So. So is this another? Acknowledgement that the the the wars lost them. It was all.

A delusion from the beginning, because they're pretending to do this reconstruction confab, when in fact there was nothing really worth reconstructing because all the damage done on the Russian side. Guess who's going to be rebuilding that? Russia and maybe China, but not the West. So there's no contracts available. We were saying this two years ago. We were saying this two years ago. But anyway, it's good that Larry's caught up with us, yeah. Isn't that just Mark?

Let's change topics and and what's the latest on the

International Health regulations? Well, this. Is an all important deadline that I talked about a few weeks back. We have to keep an eye on these things, of course, to keep our readers in the US as well as abroad up to speed on this. It's a very, of course, perilous thing.

The International Health Regulations and the World Pandemic Treaty, there's a lot of concern that if there's another major declaration of international concern in terms of a pandemic, that the lockdown could be even worse than 2020-2021. We don't want that. We may never recover from it freedom wise. So this James Roguski very urgently share this with me in the wake of me being on one of his programs that I mentioned recently. It's an open letter to world

leaders. The deadline to reject the 2024 amendments, that's when they were made last to the International Health Regs is July 19th this month, 2025. And this is a call for leaders around the world to invoke Article 61 of those regulations and reject the amendments. And the all important website is reject theamendments.com the so the the regs contain their own element for not taking part. Individual nations can can opt out. That's what's being stressed here.

The basic status of The Who member states under the IHRI mentioned the deadline July 19th for the heads of state of 192 out of 196 nations that are parties to those regs to reject the 2024 amendments. There are 4 holdouts, Iran of all places, Netherlands, New Zealand and Slovakia. They operated a little differently in the context of the procedure of this. So the deadline for these Four Nations to reject the 2024 amendments is March 19 of next

year. They're on a little bit different track again, due to the procedures and the the red tape of how this thing operates. And Raguski is mainly calling on people to call the White House in the United States for those US listeners that are inclined to do that. I know that number is 202-456-1414. And you can wait to talk to an attendant who takes public input in person. Evidently it's not prerecorded,

it's an actual live attendant. But you're you're advised to give very brief comments and to be patient and wait to be connected. The difficulty for UK and European residents is is a little more pronounced in terms of getting their voices heard. But it's best to contact your members of Parliament and spread this, you know, spread the link to this episode of UK column. Go to rejecttheamendments.com and and spread that word. You know, spread that website

around your social media. That's what regards he's suggesting anyway. He, he provided top 10 reasons to reject the amendments. These are just a couple examples. He's saying director general of The Who Tadros, he would be empowered if these amendments are improved to declare a pandemic emergency based solely upon his determination with no checks and balances.

And the director general, Roguski is also pointing out, failed to properly submit the final version of the proposed amendments with at least four months prior notice as required by Article 55, Section 2. So evidently that rule was abridged. And also another example of the top ten. It's absolutely unacceptable that healthy people who are merely suspected have have of being exposed to a contagion may be quarantined. Article 27. So that's a protest saying

that's unacceptable. And this just shows that there is a online poll about this at reject the amendments at that website. So this is just a punctuated kind of urgent message guys to to keep an eye on this issue amid all the other headlines we're dealing with. Thanks Mark. Now Patrick.

On Wednesday, Charles ended the program with this rather strange tweet that came from Grok or Strange Grok 4, and with the new improved. Grok the new improved. Grok the Singularity. Is upon us, I hear. Yes. Which of? Course is X's AI platform. What happened following that? Well, the. CEO resigned Linda Yakarino, we'll bring this up on screen here. So she basically resigned and and partly because of this meltdown by Grokwood, which is being characterized as

anti-Semitic meltdown. And just look how the press is, is is basically positioning this ex advertisers very key because she was brought on as CEO to increase their advertising revenue because that's her wheelhouse. Ex advertisers remain silent after Grok goes off the rails and the CEO resigns. So Grok apparently is anti-Semitic. So if the if the singularity is here, I guess the singularity is going to be anti-Semitic, at least the one that Elon's programming here.

But but Linda Yacarino, you know, that's, that's interesting. She's taking this, you know, moral stance, right? Just look at this. Remember the Israeli attack on the using the pagers in Lebanon that killed hundreds and, and and injured thousands, including medical workers, women and normal people? That there's Linda Yacarino basically, and that's her tweet at the time. Take a closer look at that.

We'll just do move that up and show she gave a little explosion emoji to basically say how cool it was that the Mossad waged this pager attack on the Lebanese. So she herself is a little bit of an extremist, but I'll be an acceptable extremist as far as the US establishment go, IE pro Israel. So I just thought I'd throw that any particular? Statement on this she said anything publicly yet about. What about Croc?

Yeah, she, I need to, obviously we haven't reported on the details of that because we just got this story just in the last 24 hours, but maybe we can elaborate on that in the future. We don't have, I don't have that to hand. Yeah, sure. OK. No. Problem. That's cool, Mark. Let's bring you back then.

And of course, the tragedy in Texas, where you live over the last few days, has been with respect to the flooding and the deaths resulted. Indeed, it's about 220 miles north northwest of where I live. And this is from the US Drought Monitor, a legitimate source of information here. Kerr County, Texas, interestingly enough, experienced a dry spell or drought before the flash

flooding. Flooding that took place on Independence Day, the 4th of July in the early morning hours according to the US Drought Monitor. And I emphasize this, Kerr County was experiencing severe to exceptional drought conditions before the downpours began. Drought conditions in Kerr County have persisted since the start of 2025.

This dry spell likely contributed to the severity of the floods as the compacted soil, which can turn to clay and kind of act like a retaining bowl from the drought, reduced the grounds ability to absorb rainfall. And as we've heard and our hearts and prayers go out, of course, 120 plus dead in a six county area total and 170 plus missing. Those aren't necessarily the latest numbers, but they're reasonably close.

Now this is AUS drought monitor map and you'll see that along with the Texas, New Mexico border a little further east in Texas. And then where I put the arrow, Kerr County, Texas is here. Those were three of the main major drought areas as of July 1st, that deep red color so that it really was very dry there and that's definitely a contributing factor. You can also have situations where the ground is so saturated, there's nowhere to go but up see. So it can it can get you both

ways. Now moving on from there, there's a number of other points of interest. This shows some B roll of a major bridge there through Kerr County. This is from a Fox News affiliate probably out of San Antonio, and it gives you some idea of the the severity of the flood, that's for sure. A house is swept away, such as that one butting up against highway, highway right of ways and things like that. A pretty scary situation along the Guadalupe.

I've been along that part of the Guadalupe River once a very popular area. There's a summer camps and all sorts of activities all along that river. It's it's a very pretty area northwest of San Antonio in what's called Hill Country. So we got to look at that now. This is an Associated Press item getting into the controversy that exists on social media. Not taking sides here, just reporting the phenomenon. Associated Press fact Focus. No weather modification. Excuse me, no comma.

Weather modification Did not 'cause the deadly flash floods in Texas. Got to make sure I honor that comma there when I read it. The claim my sum is a July 2nd cloud seeding operation by Rainmaker Technology Corporation, which does exist and they did, they did conduct an operation. The claim is that they somehow caused the floods in Texas Hill Country on that weekend.

The facts as Associated Press sees it, is it's not possible that cloud seeding generated the floods as the process can only produce limited rain using clouds that already exist. I think that's generally thought to be true forecast predicted for that weekend, forecasting rain were prior to July 2nd in what's generally known as a flood prone area. And a friend of mine, Ron Avery, who lives to the east over in Seguin, he used to live along the Guadalupe River.

He said most of it at least is indeed a flood prone area. He even built a house there and he had to put the house kind of on stilts, he was telling me. But anyway, just as a point of fact about Rainmaker as a company, this is almost a separate story. This is their website. Their slogan is making Earth habitable. And when you read their stuff, they kind of take a more climate change is real green sustainability kind of

philosophy. Whereas other cloud seeding companies I've looked at like the South Texas Weather Modification Association, they tend to take a more non political or apolitical stance. Whereas Rainmaker again is more of that green philosophy. But here's Augustus Dorico and for the record he's the Rainmaker Technology Corporation founder and CEO. And for the record, he was a Peter Thiel Fellow. In 2024, he received a $100,000

Teal Foundation grant. And this picture is taken from a YouTube interview of him over 2 hours long by Shawn Ryan, a noted commentator who that identifies himself as an ex Navy SEAL and ex CIA contractor. So August Historico, I watched part of it. He explains a lot of things

pretty clearly. He says they actually work more on making it snow than they do on making it rain, and they emphasize using drones to do so. Now this is a little bit about their philosophy from that website, just to give you a flavor of it. Increasing global consumption and changing climate patterns are accelerating the depletion of freshwater resources. Humanity is responsible for protecting the vitality of the natural world of civilization.

Rainmakers precipitation enhancement technology is the only immediate scalable solution to create abundant freshwater. And then I've got a little something on the areas they cover and that is keep growing, which is agricultural to help the farmers supply utilities, mitigate drought.

And maybe that was part of the July 2nd plan when they were in Rungi and Karn County. Rungi is a city in Karn County, Texas, on the other side of San Antonio, where we learned from that drought newspaper that I mentioned a little while ago, We learned that there was very dry conditions. So whatever limited operations they had July 2nd may have been to mitigate drought and nothing more and restoring ecosystems.

So that that's the essential stuff for today on this just to get the full gamut of what's being discussed and what the controversies are. But overall, that pretty much wraps it up for now, guys. Thanks. Mark, do you have any thoughts on the controversy itself? Well, A. Couple of points jumped out at me, of course 1 is that there was forecast for major storms beforehand so and prior to the cloud seeding on July 2nd. So that would lend one to believe that yes, there was a

monsoon on the way. And so that would sort of cancel out the theory that the rainmaker caused the a major monsoon, 15 inches of rain in a very short space of time. The other thing is they do do cloud seeding in these areas. This specific area as well has had cloud seeding done to it for for many, many years. So why haven't there been a massive flood, for instance, like this one we've seen this

week? Or is just we're looking at a situation where it is feast or famine when it comes to the weather and some of these drought prone areas and flash flooding is just a reality? Certainly I I found that to be the case in other parts of the United States. Texas is particularly bad in that respect, yes. OK, well, look, we're going to thank you for that, Mark, but

we're going to finish today with a little bit of a an amusing story, I suppose we could say in a certain sense. And and that's this because the UK column has been reporting on the narrative building by successive British regimes for war in the Arctic since around 2016. And if you use the search function on the UK column website and just put the word Arctic and you'll see all the reporting that we've done over the years. Now the narrative goes a lot like this.

Climate change is opening up the northwestern and N northeastern passages for navigation resource exploitation, and that this is causing competition with Russia and China for navigation and mineral rights. Now, this is largely what, for example, what's behind Trump's claims on Canada and Greenland in recent months. Now yesterday, the BBC finally caught up, although rather than challenging the narrative, they naturally support it. But they published this article.

The struggle for control of the Arctic is accelerating, and it's riskier than ever. Which is really. Quite a coincidence, because just a few hours prior to the BBC publishing their article, a screening was held. I'm sorry. Oh, right. OK, so I've just blown that, but a screening was held for a documentary. Documentary produced by someone who has worked very closely with the BBC for many years. That's David Bailey and well, Patrick and I attended the

screening. The film was complete propaganda piece. I think it's fair to say, Patrick, or do you think I'm unfair in saying that it it did? Appear that way very pro military about the, you know, almost saying we need to militarize the Arctic to to to counter the Russian threat and the Chinese who are both up to no good. And so we need to pour lots of resources into the Arctic because this is the new frontline in in the new sort of not so cold, Cold War and.

And lots of imagery like this. This is just a short excerpt from it. Now, this film has yet to be released in the UK, although it has been released in other European countries, including those in the Arctic region. But you know, the message very much is that both sides, by that I mean the West and Russia and China are, are arming.

Now, one of the things that though I found quite strange in the narrative that was being presented was of course, the reason for this, Patrick, is climate change means that in fact, we have easy navigation through across the Arctic region and so on. And it's therefore possible to get places, not only to get places, but to exploit the raw materials as we're as we're saying.

And so that's on one hand and yet on the other hand, they're busy talking about the fact that China and Russia will China in particular, investing huge amounts of money building Ice Breakers like they're going out of fashion. And and so the question is, how do these these two positions stack up? Because it seems to me that if, if the ice is melting and we're heading towards an ice free Arctic, then there's no need for Ice Breakers.

Well, I. Think not yet, because there is no ice ice free Arctic and and Al Gore was promising an ice free Arctic. You remember the The Inconvenient Truth back in in 2005 basically saying that it will be ice free by like 2010 or something like that. Anyway, here we are in 2025. It's still not ice free. And the definition of ice free, according to the experts, isn't no ice. It's less than 1,000,000. Square. Miles of ice cover.

And so if you look at the work of Tony Heller at Real Climate Science or Piers Corbin and some of these other what you might call climate skeptics, you'll note that there is still heavy ice cover most of the year in the Arctic. And it's only during certain times in the summer where certain passages are opening up. And again, we don't want to get into the climate debate, but ergo, the thesis is because it's

melting. This is why Russia is ramping up its military activity to take over the resources of the Arctic. But there's no no one saying that. Isn't the reason Russia's remilitarizing is because of the NATO expansion into Finland and Sweden and let's say the blowing up of the Nordstrom pipeline and a few other things? And they'll say, no, no, no, it doesn't have anything to do with that.

It's, it's because of Ukraine that NATO has expanded, because somehow what happened in Ukraine means that Sweden and Finland are under threat. So that's the logic. And I'm, I'm sorry, but this is just, it's disingenuous at best. This is the same type of circular logic you see at every level of the NATO strata. And certainly our media has

bought into that narrative. So the reality is this type of a film, this, these types of stories in the BBC are sending a clear message, Mike, which is that war is coming, war is inevitable. There's no chance for diplomacy. We can't compromise with the Russians or the Chinese, and because they're up to no good as well. And so there's no diplomatic track.

So get ready for war. But yet Europe is not wanting to actually fight with Russia because they are afraid to even send any troops into Ukraine. Why is that? Because they don't want to fight Russia. They want Ukraine to be the proxy and they want to keep making money on all the defense industry contracts and so forth that are causing defense stocks in Europe to go through the

roof. If you have a stock portfolio with any of those companies and you know what I'm talking about so there's money to be made here. These are good jobs, good defense jobs. They call them. You remember just like good green jobs. You remember that good green jobs Well, now it's forget the green new deal. Now it's the defense. It's the defense new deal, good

defense jobs. So they want to remilitarize and mobilize society to fight a war that, let's face it, Europe's not really interested in fighting, and they would require American backup to do it anyway while all America is receding from the European theater. But hey, let's make some money

along the way. And it's a great distraction from all the real problems, the real problems in this country, in Europe and in the region, not to mention an increasing wealth gap, which is going to increase even more with these types of agendas. Mike. So resilience, it's all about resilience, Defence resilience, absolutely. And as I say, this is just the latest salvo in a narrative that's been building for several years now, which we've been tracking.

So do have a look at the UK column website for the history of this. OK, let's leave it there for today. I'm going to say thank you very much to Matt Campbell for joining us. Thank you to Mark and Patrick, of course, and thank you for everybody that's been watching. We'll be back in a few minutes of UK Column member for UK Column News Extra. Otherwise, have a great weekend and we'll see you at 1:00 PM as usual on Monday. See you then. Bye bye.