UK Column News - 29th August 2025

Good afternoon, it's Friday the 29th of August 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host Mike Rumson and my Co host this week in the studio is Patrick Hennigsen. Welcome to the programme, Patrick. To be with you, Mike. Now, later in the programme, I'm going to be reporting on TV in Washington. More on censorship and the announcement of a chicken pox vaccine.

Patrick who's going to be covering the Iran nuclear issue and Trumps attempts to make burning the US flag illegal? But we're going to begin today with Russias attacks on Kiev. Patrick. Well, the last 24 hours of Russia has hit Ukraine incredibly hard. We'll take a look at this story and this is really going to shape really how things are playing out with the negotiations with Russia, with Europe, with Trump as well. So Russia's pounding targets in Kiev, and we're going to take a

look at this. This is the second biggest aerial attack since the start of the conflict. This is what they're saying here. Let's look at what the Ukrainian reaction is to this missile and drone attack. Ukraine claims Russia's unleashed 629 strikes comprising of 598 drones and 31 missiles. Russia MOD saying it's struck military industrial complex enterprises and military air bases in Ukraine using high

precision weapons. And here is the thing that I find much interesting here, Mike, is that Russia's now flying is, according to allies of NATO, Russia's flying surveillance drones over routes the US and the Europeans are using to ship military supplies via Germany and probably via Poland as well, and the other countries on the other side of this new Iron Curtain. So that's pretty interesting. Absolutely. Now that very much the narrative is that Russia was attacking civilian targets.

I mean, what's your thoughts on that claimed by the Europeans and the United States? Well, it's coming first from Zelensky himself. Let's let's look at Zelensky's reaction actually on that, on that note, Mike, here he is obviously he is moved quickly to change costumes from Washington. He's in his war green here, his best war greens. This is the acting president. We're going to call him the acting president because he is acting like a president or

trying to anyway. But he's not the elected president. He's been out of mandate over a year. So not the democratically elected Zelensky. He's saying Russia chooses Ballistics instead of negotiate the negotiation table. It chooses to continue killing instead of ending the war. And this means that Russia still does not fear the consequences. So he uses the alliteration. This Netanyahu style

alliteration. You can see the 1st 2 lines of that Great public relations speech by Zelensky as usual. And here Zelensky has sent his chief of staff and head of the country's Security Council to meet with Trump's team in New York. This is just today, I believe, to discuss security guarantees to be included any future peace agreement. Well, I got news, bad news for Zelensky, Mike. There's going to be no security guarantees at all. Certainly, that's not going to

be front loading. But that's what the Europeans want to front load negotiations with. It's what Zelensky keeps doing and it's what the mainstream Western press keeps saying. But that's not what was agreed in Alaska. So I don't think this is going anywhere well. What? What was agreed in Alaska was anything agreed?

Well, the at least it was established that there would be a, a negotiated settlement 1st and then a ceasefire would come after that and that security guarantees would follow long after that. That would be at the treaty signing point of any agreement. And like we're a long way away from that. So they, they don't want to deal with the interim steps, which are the essential steps here.

And, and so this is how the Western mainstream press, of course, is, is portraying these this Russian attack Putin's accused of sabotaging peace efforts after diplomatic building hit in massive assault on Ukraine. More on that in a moment. EU facility hit. We'll, we'll talk more about that in a moment here. But in terms of like sabotaging any peace agreement, here's seven days ago, Ukraine hit a oil pipeline that supplies energy from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia.

But it's a transit pipeline goes via Ukraine. And I'll bet you that the Ukrainians are getting transit fees from that Russian oil and they're getting paid by Russia for those transit fees because that's pretty standard even in the midst of the war. So this was done for two

reasons. Hitting this pipeline was done to basically sabotage what was agreed at Alaska between Trump and and Russia, and also to, I think, divide Hungary to divide Europe. So it's kind of a divide and rule tactic by the handlers of Ukraine and Ukraine themselves.

Who are the handlers? Well, you've got the British, you've got the Germans and you've got that other sort of European actors behind the scenes that are sort of egging the Ukrainians on probably are CIA and the British MI 6 deeply involved in all of that. But again, dividing the Europeans, creating the Central Central European bloc.

It seems to not be with the programme and seems to be pro Russian. This is setting the stage for something that will show briefly, but Hungary's foreign minister is saying that this missile strike on the Drusepa pipeline, this infrastructure, is another attempt to drag Hungary into the war. So this is the way the Hungarians are looking at this right now.

So not only that Mike, but there's the Transcarpathian Hungarians in Ukraine. As we know, after World War One, Hungary lost most of its territory. But there's there's Hungarians, ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine and they're not being treated very well. Plus this conscription, there's accusations that they're being conscripted at higher rates than, you know, Western Ukrainians, for instance. So they look at this as basically Hungarian issue or a Hungarian world issue.

So this is a real emotional issue within the government in Budapest and the people more broadly. And I know having been to Budapest last November, and that was a very important issue that the deputy foreign minister brought up to some of the members of the press who I was with at that time. So this is a serious issue.

They really think that Ukraine is really doing provocations here to try to create another front or more tension to take the focus off of what they should be focusing on, which is winding this conflict down here. But look at the war of words here. This is the this is the Hungarian foreign minister here, Peter Sir Harto, and he's basically saying that Zelensky has used Ukraine's national holiday to threaten Hungary. We firmly reject his

intimidation. We regard sovereignty, territorial integrity, including energy infrastructure here as fundamental values of international politics. So, and here is the Ukrainian foreign minister's response to this. I will reply in a Hungarian manner. So totally condescending, slightly racist. And he's saying you don't need to tell the Ukrainian president what to do, say or when he is the president of Ukraine, not Hungary. Hunger, Hungary's energy security is in your own hands.

Diversify and become independent from Russia like the rest of Europe. Wow. So the, the, they're, they're really talking almost like adversaries here. And you have to remember that what we'll talk about the European Union and and Ukraine's membership later, Mike. But this is war talk between Kiev and and Hungary and I so. Am I reading this right?

You're suggesting that that that they're splitting Slovakia and Hungary away in this way because of course they have been sort of naysayers to to quite a lot of this over the past couple of years. And so the effort is to create this much stronger British, French, German access within around which the the coalition of the willing gather in the EU.

Is that what's going on? Yes, and the Orban government and Robert Fizzo in, in Slovakia, they're, they're at odds with Brussels. So Brussels is already sort of declaring them persona non grata, threatening to take their voting rights away because they're not on board with the Ukraine programme and so forth. So there's already that split

happening. So it looks like the intelligence services and Ukraine, the Western intelligence services in Ukraine are trying to drive a wedge through these sort of dissident governments in Central Europe. So and perhaps open up a new front. I, I don't think that's out of the realms of possibility at

this point. You have to remember Zelensky and Kiev and Europe are desperate if if Russia's seem to win this or come to a peace deal, it's devastating for not just NATO, Mike, but the EU itself. Right. So as Patrick says, with this attack on Kiev, we've seen the typical response in the British

in the Western legacy media. But just to highlight one example of this, this is the Sun, the the horror moment, a Russian missile hit and damaged the British Council building in Kiev during this the the attacks that were going on. So that's how British legacy media reporting it. They're reporting that the attacks killed at least 21 people and that and of course that it hit the British Council building, but also the an EU building. In fact, it was a third building that was actually struck.

And the damage to the British Council and the EU buildings was pretty limited, as we'll see in a second. But as I say, that didn't stop The Sun from producing this video. And as you can see on screen, the implication of this was that this was a direct attack on Britain and the EU, and of course this supports the narrative of security guarantees being required. It does and but you know, the British Council building it might be an integral part of British soft power, but it's not

sovereign territory. In other words, it's not an embassy or a consulate. So, I mean, it doesn't really fall under that. And you know, a lot of countries would have evacuated some of these facilities already. I mean, why wouldn't you if it's at risk of being hit or something like that? Unless, of course, there's activities going on there that you absolutely need to keep going because it's part of, well, what the ACT many accusations made against some of these NGOs and soft power

institutions. Well, let's just look at some of the allegations that are made. So here is the FS BS flag here, but this is the Russian intelligence agency. And back in June, they made a comment on Britain and the British Council, which I thought it was worth bringing in at this point, Patrick. So let's just have a look at it. They said in their statement that Britain is the main source of global crises, A provocateur and instigator of wars.

London organises coups, weakens not only its geopolitical enemies but also its closest allies, it's nations against each other, and prevents the resolution of bloody conflicts that it unleashed. I'm finding it very hard to disagree with anything in that comment. We've certainly reported on quite a bit of this, so you know there is meat on the bones of these accusations. Indeed. So let's have a look and see what they said about the British Council themselves.

They said the British Council is a hostile organisation that actively participates in the operations of the British special services aimed at undermining the sovereignty and security of the Russian Federation, as well as those of other sovereign states. And again, I'm struggling to disagree with that. And then they go on to say that various projects are being implemented by the British Council to systematically discredit the domestic and foreign policies of the Russian Federation.

Well, OK, I wanted to remind myself exactly what the situation is with the British Council. How much money does it get from, for example, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office? So let's have a look at that. So here is the FCDO spending website that the UK column has produced. And as just as a reminder, this is an effort to make the data which the Foreign Office produces more accessible and more obvious to people. So let's see what this website

has to say. Well, if we look at the top 20 recipients of FCDO money, which is on that front page, the British Council is third on the list to the tune of £1.6 billion over the course of the the time frame that we're talking about with this website. So about the last seven years. Well, let's just have a look at this in a little bit more detail. So there's the graph.

So it begins in December 2017. And what we can see there is that they receive around £20 million per month from FCDO, with some spikes of up to £100 million per month. And right there, Patrick, if we put a ring round, it is a spike of just under £100 million in February, March 2022. What else happened around that time? That was the outbreak of the Ukraine Russia conflict. Right. Yeah, February 24th, so 2022. Isn't that a coincidence? One would say yes.

One would say that's an anomaly on the graph. I can't imagine that those two things have anything to do with each other though. Anyway, those are the allegations of the Russian Federation and you can take those as you see fit. I, as I say, struggle to find any anything incorrect about what the FSB said there. If that makes me a mouthpiece for the Putin regime, well,

that's that's well and good. But that that's how it looks to me. Well, everything that they have said about the British Council is exactly what everything including scholars and journalists have been saying about USAID. This institution of this instrument of sub quote soft power and smart power by the United States as ACIA cut out organisation.

So one could look at the British Council in roughly the same way a soft power or smart power outlet NGO and an extension of British intelligence like the USAID constellation is an extension of American intelligence. I mean, I I can't, I don't see the problem in looking at these things that way. And and what about the allegation that I've seen that the British Council was somehow performing some kind of coordination role in Ukraine?

I, I have not looked close enough at the exact, you know, allegations there, but certainly it would, it would be interesting and it wouldn't be unusual. And like I said, USCID have played the exact same role. There's also been accusations about the OECD and other international organisation as well involved in giving targeting information out during from the front lines and during breaking the MINX peace process basically. And Dombass another another discussion, but you know, not

not unusual. But so anyway, an EU building was damaged as well, and Ursula was outraged. Absolutely outraged. So let's just have a listen what she had to say. I'm outraged by the attack on Keaf also hitting our EU offices. This was the deadliest drone and missile attack on the capital since July. And as you can see behind me on the screen, it was an attack also on our delegation. I just spoke with our deputy ambassador and I'm relieved that

none of our staff were harmed. Last night's attack struck in close proximity of the diplomatic mission. The representation of our Union 2 missiles hit in a distance of 50 metres of the delegation within 20 seconds. And this is another grim reminder of what is at stake. This is why we are keeping maximum pressure on Russia. That means tightening our sanctions regime.

We will come forward soon with our 19th package of hard biting sanctions and in parallel we are advancing the work on the Russian frozen assets to contribute to Ukraine's defence and reconstruction. So hard biting sanctions and stealing Russian frozen assets. That's the response. Stealing. Yeah. That's, that's the Ursula. Yeah. I mean, where is this righteous indignation for what Israel's

doing in Gaza? I mean, seriously, by the way, they, they keep saying that Ukraine is at war and that the Ukrainians are at risk. Why do they have a mission in Kiev? Why don't they move it to Livov, which is completely out of range of pretty much any of the hostilities? Why? I don't understand, if you care about your staff and you claim that this is a war zone, why are you, you know, still keeping your building staffed in right next to a target that could be a

military target? Because she wasn't hit directly. She's claiming it was attack on the EU mission. It wasn't. It was ancillary damage, wasn't it? Maybe you want justification for security guarantees. Well, yeah, of course that she's advancing that that argument. Absolutely, absolutely. So So yeah, that's interesting, Mike. So where where is Europe on, on Ukraine? Well, let's just take a look at this. So, and this is Politico here grasping at straws.

Europe floats Ukraine, Russia buffer zone in a push for peace. So they're still at it basically pushing these ideas here. They're grasping at straws as Jim Towns and former Pentagon official who oversaw Europe and NATO's policy under the Obama administration here. Totally unrealistic, this idea of flooding the zone with European troops, a coalition of the willing doing this outside of NATO, technically. So there's no Article 5 tripwire.

I mean, it's just, it's just another workaround that's just not practical, not not going to happen. Actually, if they push on this, it's going to probably create a huge crisis, security crisis for Europe because Russia is obviously not going to respect what what Europe's doing there. And so here's here's the number. The issue, however, Mike, the Russians are not afraid of the Europeans, says Jim Townsend, former Obama administration official.

And if they think that a couple of British and French observers are going to deter them from marching into Ukraine, then they're wrong. So that's from the Democratic appointee side that are normally pretty hawkish on these matters here. But on the issue of Europe, so here, here's where you're upset right now. They they're still dangling this Ukrainian membership into the EU. And here's the Hungarian foreign

minister here. And obviously you're not allowed to see this if you're in Britain or France because it's RT. So what we're showing you here is statements from the Hungarian foreign minister, which you're not allowed to read in in Western Europe because it's too dangerous and your governments are concerned about you falling under the the spell of the sorcery spell of Russian disinformation. OK, so here's what he says. Now, this is important because

Europe needs to understand this. If someone realistically and rationally observes Ukrainian accession to the EU, what impact it would have. And you can see that this would be the coup de gras to the European Union. In other words, this would be the death knell for the EU. So there's a lot of people that are cheering this on. Actually. I think rightly maybe Hungary would like to see this happen because they would like to see the European Union possibly disintegrate the political union

anyway. Not the Common Market, of course, but Brussels would have to redirect practically all EU financial resources towards supporting. Kiev the ultimate welfare state here, while quote much of lower quality agriculture products would destroy European

agriculture. Big complaint, especially in Poland and the quote Ukrainian mafia would roam freely in Europe as well as the Nazis of the hundreds of thousands of radicalised Ukrainian nationalists and Nazis that would probably be homeless at that point. I don't know what would happen. But so this this is from the Hungarian side here. So it's a non starter. You know, you by the way, NATO membership for, for they don't have to give Russia guarantees because hung Hungarian Slovakia

would never vote. They need unanimous vote, right for NATO membership, right? They're not going to get it. There's probably 3 or 4 NATO members that will not vote for Ukraine full stop. So it's not going to happen. And by the looks of this, EU membership is hugely problematic. What a financial drain this would end up being on Europe. They require complete entitlement and welfare support on every aspect of their political economy. I mean, forget it, it's it's not

going to happen. But they're going to keep dangling this because that's the dream isn't it? Euro Maidan. And what suggests to finish this segment off, Patrick? What does does Russia have to do before the West admits defeat? Probably wins so decisively on the battlefield that they'll have to scramble to freeze the lines. Are they not doing that already? That's what Alaska was all about.

I, I, I personally, I think the Ukrainian front lines collapsing in so many key areas that I think that's what pushed Trump. And the Europeans were totally behind Trump. Did you notice that? Oh, just completely. They were like school kids there in the Oval Office just waiting to see what daddy is going to say. But because they know that the US is the only chance they have to potentially freeze the front lines, because if they don't, Russia's just going to keep rolling on.

And quite frankly, they're going to keep rolling on now in lieu of any sort of serious political negotiations. It's just going to, it's just going to carry on. That's probably where it's going to end up. I hope it doesn't trigger an irrational reaction from some of the Hawks in Europe. That would be unfortunate.

But yet we we wait. End date OK, let's move on. If you like what the UK column does, you'd like to support us. There's a Big Blue button on the front page of the website that takes you to the page where we list the options. You can make a donation or you can join as a member, or you can

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Please join us for that. And a reminder that Alex Thompson and Charles's discussion on why did the Church of England go wrong that went out 1:00 PM yesterday is on the website now. So if you haven't didn't see

that yesterday, please have a look at that discussion. OK, that brings us then to TB in Washington. Now, am I talking about tuberculosis? An outbreak of TB in Washington? I think that's what you're talking about. It is indeed, so let's just have a look at it here, because it is quite horrible to watch. There's the virus right there. Right there. So Tony Blair and Jared Kushner attended the meeting with Trump at the White House to discuss plans for post war Gaza.

That's what they said. They missing from the meeting, of course, was anyone representing the people of Gaza. Of course they're not invited. They're not invited. Blair and Kushner were apparently there to discuss ideas for how Gaza can be governed without Hamas in power. And to take a quote from some of the coverage on this, President Trump has been clear that he wants the war to end and he wants peace and prosperity for everyone in the region.

The White House has nothing additional to share on the meeting at this time. So this was what a White House spokesperson said. An anonymous White House House official said that to the mainstream. So Trump wants it to end by any means necessary, including ethnic cleansing and. Moving everybody out of. The OR or killing whoever doesn't want to leave. OK, we get that. OK.

So why was Blair there? Well of course after remind you that after stepping down as Prime Minister of the UK in 2007, he took on the role of Middle East envoy for the Quartet, so called Quartet. Just remind everybody what that is that was. That was a sort of confab of countries and formally they were trying to, you know, midwife some kind of a peace process in the Middle East and of course that include the Western powers. I even think Russia was involved

somewhat in the Quartet as well. Complete abysmal failure, as we can see. Absolutely. And he held that role until 2015. But also he was also there because of course, as we reported a couple of weeks ago, Tony Blair Institute was also involved in creating the whole Trump Gaza Riviera plan alongside Boston Consulting Group. And if you remember this, this plan was announced back in June.

It was a post war Gaza plan that envisaged kick starting Gaza's economy with a quotes Trump Riviera and an Elon Musk smart manufacturing zone. Now the FT as we can see on screen reported that one lengthy documents. So what they said was 1 lengthy document on post war Gaza written by TBI staff member was shared within the group for

consideration. This included the idea of a Gaza Riviera with artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai, blockchain based trade initiatives, a deep water port to tie Gaza into the Middle East Europe economic corridor and a low tax special economic zone. And, and my first question then was, are these akin to these, this Freeport idea that we're, we're getting in the West where we're supposed to have these low

tax zones? I I'm not sure but but I guess it's the same, it's the same kind of policy. So so glitzy glitzy high rise Dubai style apartments that are basic and and and rivers of blood. Rivers of blood, yes. Around them. I mean, who, who, who? Who wouldn't want that, really. Tony Blair is midwifing that project. I'm so shocked. Well, indeed. Now, it was the news website Axios which broke the story of

this latest meeting. And they quote unnamed sources, as I believe they tend to do. Patrick is that that they? They tend to quote unnamed sources. Yeah, that's standard practise from mainstream media. So that's how you know Axios is mainstream, yeah. OK, well these unnamed sources said that Steve Witkoff has been discussing a post war plan for Gaza with Kushner and Blair for

several months. And the sources said that Blair met Witkoff at the White House in July on the same day that Netanyahu met Trump. Now there's a coincidence, isn't it? Now, according to U.S. officials, Trumps Gaza meeting on Wednesday this week, it was also to focus on AUS plan for humanitarian aid for Gaza. So the quote from this is it's expanding the food plan, the quantity and distribution method, the number of people that could be served. And this again was said by an

unnamed US official. The same US official said that Trump's instructions are get this fixed. And this is very similar Patrick narrative to the to, to, to Britain and, and France in particular, saying that if things aren't fixed by September, they're going to recognise the Palestinian state. That some people thought this was a great thing. But what that that message to me was telling Israel, get this, get this sorted out. In other words, ramp up what you're doing and get the things

finished. Yeah, we're expanding food distribution, but at the same time Israel's expanding bombing and mounting a full scale invasion of Gaza. I mean, you can't make this up. How Orwellian is this whole thing? I mean, this is just beyond the

pale at this point. Well, later on in the day then, a senior White House official told Reuters that Trump and along with top White House officials Larry and Kushner were discussing all aspects of the Gaza issue, including food, as we just mentioned, the hostage crisis, post war plans and more. The official described the session as simply a policy meeting of the type frequently held by Trump and his team. I don't think so. And then we have the Times of

Israel here confirming that. Sorry, we'll go back here. There we go. Confirming that Netanyahu advisor Rob Dermer had also arrived in Washington on Wednesday that they did not confirm that he was involved in the meeting. Dermers presence in Washington, they said, is a reflection of the Trump administrations close coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu counts who counts the strategic affairs minister as a close confidant, according to the Times of Israel.

And according to his spokesman, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar was also in Washington to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department. He apparently did not take part in the White House meeting. And again, I ask, isn't that all a coincidence? And so the question is, what is being cooked up here that it could be no more than just keeping the pressure on Israel and making sure that it's all done by September as they're wanting it to be.

I wonder is there anything else in this? No, this is a big property deal. That's what this is, I'm sure. I wonder what Tony Blair's kickback is on this. What is it going to be? A penthouse at the top of one of those big, you know, shiny skyscrapers or you know, what's his, what's his, his action going to be on the back end of this because Tony doesn't do this stuff out of the goodness of his heart. There's got to be some kind of

kickback. But this is just disgusting on on so many levels, Mike, Not least of all because there's no talk about the welfare at all of the Palestinians. It's just Trump wants to get it done. Netanyahu wants to get it done. And they again, as you said, they they're not allowed to invite. There's no Palestinians at the table and there hasn't been through the whole quote, Abraham Accords peace process right till

now. And now they're really talking about the final solution in Gaza, the final solution that Israel is proposing. the US are on board with it. Tony Blair's on board with it, and so are all the other grifters and glad handers that are circling like vultures right now around Gaza. It's just disgusting.

So what about Israeli reservists then? What are they up to? Well, slight problem, slight problem with the reservists, some of them are failing to show up. This is the New York Times here. I mean, the fact that this is running in the New York Times and nominally pro Israeli outlet traditionally is something on its own, but let's just let's take a look at this. So thousands are basically either not showing up or coming in with deferments and things like that.

So over the last few months, the IDF have noticed increased numbers of reservist soldiers just basically haven't showed up to their posts for military service. They're disillusioned. They left the country. They're exhausted, many of them. There's more conscientious

objectors now in the IDF. So this is bringing up a lot of question marks about whether they can mount the type of full scale invasion of Gaza, which it's not an invasion of Gaza, it's ethnic cleansing of Gaza and killing whoever doesn't want to leave. I mean that the way the press is characterising what's going on right now is, is pretty

incredible. So I, I hope that, you know, there's some journalists and some editors of some of these major organisations like the BBC for instance, that might have a

conscience and might start acting and like real reporters, voters and real journalists at this point because we're looking at history unfolding in the worst possible way. OK. Let's move on to the topic of Iran, Patrick and the question of the nuclear deal then. Yeah, Let's take a look at this here. So this is what's dominating the headlines right now of the last 24 hours is the Iran nuclear issue here. And when we say Iran nuclear issue, what are we really

talking about? Well, we're talking about this. It is really an Israeli nuclear issue. It really has more to do with what Israel wants out of Washington and with Iran because Iran's one of the last countries in the in the area, in the Middle East, in West Asia that's standing up for the native Palestinian population and the people of the Levant. So let's take a look at the particulars here. So, so what's going on? Iran faces, quote, snapback sanctions over its nuclear

programme. So here's what that means. So remember the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal that Trump basically destroyed in his first term? It it the, the deal was that there would be snapback sanctions. So sanctions, UN sanctions were lifted against Iran if they did the JCPOA. They did the JCPOA and now they're threatening to put the sanctions back because they're saying that Iran is derelict of its obligations and responsibilities for the JCPOA.

I mean, it's pretty incredible. Let's look at the particular here for France, Britain and Germany. That's the E3, the E3. They've initiated a process of triggering SNAP, a snapback mechanism that automatically reimposes all of the UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme or its alleged its alleged nuclear weapons programme, saying that Iran has willfully departed from their 2015 deal. That's pretty incredible, bearing in mind what the US and Israel just done to Iran.

But we'll leave that aside for the moment the sanctions were put in effect. In fact, there's basically conventional arms embargo, restrictions on ballistic missile development, asset freezes, travel bans and a ban on producing nuclear related technology here.

And then finally, the E3 offered Iran delay in the snapback talks back in July if Iran met three conditions, resume negotiations with the US over its nuclear programme, allowing the UN nuclear inspectors access IAEA inspectors access to the nuclear sites and accounting for over 400 kilogrammes of highly enriched uranium. So apparently went missing that Trump said he destroyed, but it turns out he didn't or it doesn't. They don't believe he didn't

here. Here's Iran's response, Mike, this is Iran's. Tehran, which now enriches uranium at near nuclear weapons grade levels, has rejected the proposal. So that's the, that's the thing, the, the while they're negotiating Israel, it mounted a sneak attack on Tehran. I mean, we all saw what happened. Of course, Iran retaliates. Then the US strikes Iran, an unprovoked attack by the US. So and so the US left the JCPOA unilaterally in Trump's in 2018 May. And then so they're out.

So Iran kept playing ball with the JCPOA and then Israel and the US attack Iran and its civilian nuclear programme. And now they're saying that Iran is somehow breach and breach of the agreement. It's a joke. The EU didn't even fulfil its obligations, its financial obligations. They didn't. Iran's been complaining about that for years. Nothing. So this, this is just so disingenuous on the part of Europe. But this is where I think this is where Israel wants Europe to

go on this. And they're quite happy to abide by whatever Israel wants. So this is a total sham, as as we can see. But here's another problem. Take a look at this. So Iran, IAEA inspectors to return after Supreme National Security Council gives their approval. This is a strategic move by Iran, Mike. But the hardliners in Iran are basically going crazy right now saying how can you let them back into the country after what happened? And here are the accusations. This is Trita Parsi.

He's with the Quincy Institute, responsible statecraft in the United States to say. On the surface, these demands seem reasonable, but Tehran has legitimate reservations. Iranian officials suspected that the IAEA of leaking sensitive information that enabled Mossad's assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists. And they fear that revealing the stockpile's location would simply invite another round of US air strikes.

Iran was at the negotiation table when Israel and the US began bombing it. The E3 now insists Tehran returned to talks, yet make no parallel demand that Washington refrain from bombing again. And Israel refrains, quite frankly, because that was an unprovoked attack by Israel. So Trita Parsi, of course, very astute, a political commentator, of course he's, I think he's absolutely correct on this.

But this is, this is a problem now in Iran because the hardliners are like, why are we, why are we playing ball? I think Iran's playing a long game and I think Russia might be advising them that this is the way to go in order to build consensus more broadly in the international community. Even though it's a risk, they think it's a calculated risk that they're willing to take, that somehow they'll be an exit out of this. I don't think so.

I think Iran and the US are planning for another war. They're going to attack them again, probably in the next couple of Israel and the US are going to attack Iran again. They're because the US are moving long range like the the Aegis and the THAAD missile systems. They're moving more of these into Israel right now. So that's clearly to defend Israeli installations and cities

from Iranian missile strikes. Because one of the things that came out of the previous attack was that they got to see where their weaknesses were in their own defence. That's right, that's right. So, so right now where it is where the potential stalemate here if Iran leaves the non proliferation treaty and they're exactly in the same status as Israel, they could have an undeclared nuclear weapon of they're not part of the MPT like Israel.

And that is a sort of unofficial stalemate in the region. But it's I don't think it's going to work because the United States has overwhelming force. Well, it's not going to work because there are no honest brokers in the West. That true? That too. It's not a level playing field, and that's the source of the whole problem. Yeah, no honest brokers in the West and yeah, I'm not not really sure what else we can say about that. It's, it's right.

The other thing I was going to mention there was the E3 and this this isn't, we've mentioned this many times in this programme, but it's one of these sort of descriptions that tends to go under the radar. But the E3 is is kind of an informal block between the UK, France and Germany. And we were talking about the fact that Slovakia and Hungary are sort of being paired off from, from the coalition, the willing and inverted commas. But right at the core of that is

this E3 structure. And although that was originally set up to deal with the Iran nuclear issue, it's it's become something much more at the heart of this whole European Defence Initiative. It's like the concert of Europe. This is where we're going, you know. By the way, Mike, you mentioned Hungary and Slovakia as peeling off and becoming dissidents within NATO and the EU.

I'll tell you if the United States did not meddle in the Romanian elections, Romania will be right there shoulder to shoulder with Hungary and Slovakia. But there was meddling and they took the they took the front runner out of the race who was clearly against this war in Ukraine. Like Orban and Fiso said, it's unwinnable. We need to de escalate. And so they had him removed. I think the United States were

deeply involved in that coup. And so they didn't get honest elections in, in Romania and who knows with three major countries ordering Ukraine, where, where that where does that leave the the other countries? Where does that leave Poland? I mean, that would certainly put pressure in Poland as well. Well, I mean, Poland's inviting the pressure, you know, because Poland is absolutely 100% on board with the whole Ukraine, Russia. Well, the political class is.

Yes, yes, for sure. Yeah, probably not the voters. No, that for sure that is the case. So and and same with Moldova as well. A lot of effort to install the current, you know, leader in Moldova. They're afraid that somehow they're going to fall into the Russians fear of influence.

Yeah. So this is this is the new battle lines. Oh, OK, let's let's move on then and we'll move on to the issue of censorship. Now over the last few weeks, we've been highlighting this issue of so called age assurance under the Online Safety Act regime. And as we've made the point, this is effectively one of the paths towards the digital ID rollout. But it's not just a British thing. Britain is leading the way as usual, but others are catching up.

So I just wanted to very briefly have a look at the situation in the USA because it's tricky because of constitutional protections. And so these policies seem to be being rolled out at the state level instead. So let me introduce you to an organisation called Dream with Dream with Studios. This is what just explain what they describe themselves as a home for creative artists of all types. Share your writing, your artwork or your innermost thoughts. Find others who create the sort

of things you like to enjoy. Control who can see your creation with our fine grained privacy controls. Participate in communities for everyone at any one of 100 topics. We are an independent, open source, community centric service and we support diversity in all its forms. Come dream with us.

Well, that's what they said about themselves, but they have just issued or made an announcement that they're also introducing Geo blocking, but not for the UK or for UK users as other websites have been doing, as we've been describing over the last few weeks, but for users in the state of Mississippi. And the reason is that Mississippi residents, I'll just quote a little bit from the website, they say Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry.

We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Net choice have been fighting for, you had a temporary set back last week. You genuinely and honestly believe we're going to win it in the end. But the 5th Circuit appellate court said that the District Judge was wrong to issue a preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the

state from enforcing the law. Requiring any social media website, which is very very broadly defined in which we definitely qualify as the DE anonymize and age verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account. The Mississippi the Mississippi law they say is a breath

breathtaking state overreach. It forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses dream with from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents to save that highly personal and sensitive information and then obtain a permission slip from those parents users parents who allow to allow them to finish creating an attack an account.

Sorry. And of course, this is, I understand the concerns, aside from the privacy concerns, This puts a massive obligation on them to maintain, to maintain certain levels of security standards because more and more personal information is required to be held by them. The UK column doesn't hold anybody's personal information. In fact, the only thing that you're theoretically obliged to provide to us is your first name. But most people don't provide a genuine first name there.

And an email. Yes, an email, but and for that, yes, people are setting up sometimes specific emails for our website as anybody with any sense would do for. Other websites. The same for other websites, the same. So look, I need some help here, Patrick. This is clearly

unconstitutional. But it looks to me like by rolling out legislation like this at the state level, global influencers can impose policy that in the hope that no one has the financial resources to take this all the way to the Supreme Court to challenge it. And, you know, the Constitution of the United States has effectively undermined, it's possibly even made irrelevant through this strategy. Or am I reading that wrong? No, you're not reading it wrong.

I mean, how how it's going to work is that, you know, the state, states have certain rights. If it's not, if the, if the rights are in question are not specifically, specifically mentioned in the US Constitution, then under the 10th Amendment, they're kicked back to the states. Basically, that's what the overturning of Roe V Wade, the abortion federal ruling was

about right in the end. So what will happen here is that if a number of states go this route, then it will be up to people within that state or websites or business owners then to to do a legal action. And if it raises to the level if, if they're able to, as you say, Mike, afford the appeals process and they have the funding to do that and they have the legal muscle to do that, then they could make it up to a high enough federal ruling whereby it would be overturned.

And then that would be a federal precedent. Then it becomes a constitutional precedent at that point. But like even in in Britain as well, you have to muddle through the legal system before everything is confirmed that that was an overreach or that wasn't an overreach. So unfortunately, I think what you're saying is right is this policy can be enacted, policy could be enacted around the law.

And if you get enough buy in, maybe at the corporate level and it becomes a political issue, then who knows it there. There might be a way to subvert the constitutional rights issue more broadly, and it could be just done by Fiat somehow, like so many other things have online as well.

Yeah, indeed. Well, look, in the meantime, The Hill here is reporting that a bunch of Republicans through the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are launching A congressional inquiry into Wikipedia for bias. Now hold on to your hats here, because what's the driver for this? Well, you got it. It's anti Semitism. So multi multiple studies and reports have highlighted efforts to manipulate information on the Wikipedia platform for propaganda aimed at western

audiences. They say one recent report raised troubling questions about the potential systematic efforts to advance anti Semitic and anti Israel information on Wikipedia. See how they conflate those two things there in Wikipedia articles related to conflicts with the state of Israel and they're particularly concerned that this bias will end up being used to trade AI chat box the chat box, sorry.

So the bias will become endemic. So that's that's that is their one of their of their main concerns. Why would anybody want to be anti Israeli, Mike? I just can't imagine why anybody would want to hold such views. I mean, what's Israel doing that's negative or bad? I just, I can't, I don't, I don't know. I'm shocked, you know? I'm shocked as well. How people would be engaged in such behaviour but. Well, indeed. Clearly, it's clearly

antiseptic. What indeed? Shush. Now look also a freedom of speech issue and something which has traditionally been viewed as a freedom of speech issue and an act of protest in the United States has been burning the flag. Right here we go, flag burning. So a lot of people will look at this and say, well, why would you want to burn the American flag? Well, for one reason it's because it's constitutionally protected speech here.

So Trump. Trump's flag burning order test, Supreme Court ruling and talking about Texas versus Johnson in 1989. President Donald Trump signed executive order I highlight executive order on Monday directing federal agencies to vigorously prosecute as if there's not other crimes, to prosecute anyone who desecrates the US flag because it defends the president and to detain and revoke visas at such non citizens who've been accused of such behaviour here. And this.

So this is Trump and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, as you can see, flanked with the assistant attorney general Jeffrey Epstein really controls that office at the end of the day. So what are we looking at here? This is just a big distraction. What's the distraction? 2 things one is, is the fact that they've duffed up the Epstein thing, claimed that it didn't happen. They're not going to be releasing the files and the whole Israel, Gaza and genocide issue clamping down on free

speech. Clearly UN American to cut down free speech to cut down the 1st amendment, which is what the Trump administration have been doing systematically and why have they been doing it for the defence of Israel and Israeli interests. So and I'll show you just how bad things are getting. So, so they're dragging us back in time to defend Israel ultimately. But on the flag burning issue, I think this is a complete

distraction. It's, there's no way it's, it's, it's constitutionally protected speech. But there's some conservative judges, there's more conservative judges. Trump believes that if we can get this issue back up to the Supreme Court that there'll be instances where they could say there was motivation against US National Security or something that they'll be able to rule that some of these flag burning cases will be they'll be able to enforce, you know, criminal prosecutions on that.

So that's that's what I think Trump is betting on his Supreme Court, you know, majority on that because the previous ruling was different. But here here's here's what's actually going on. And this is what this is where the Trump administration's getting hammered. And this is where they're losing student newspapers, suing Secretary of State Marco Rubio over targeted deportations of student journalists who are not U.S. citizens but are here on

student visas and so forth here. What's at stake in this case is whether when you're in the United States, you're free to voice your opinion critical of the government without fear of retaliation, says Connor Fitzpatrick. He's an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Civil Civil Liberties group, representing the plaintiffs in this case. The plaintiffs is the Stanford student newspaper, the Stanford Daily here. And this is the, this is the bottom line.

It does not matter if you are a citizen here on a green card or visiting Las Vegas for the weekend. You shouldn't have to fear retaliation because the government doesn't like what you have to say. That's, that's the, this is the point that knuckle dragging MAGA conservatives and arch Zionists and people like that, people that are demanding that students be deported or locked up for student protests. They don't get this.

It doesn't matter if you're AUS citizen, it's with if you're in the US jurisdiction, you are protected under the US Constitution, your First Amendment free, no speech assembly as well as protected as long as you're not breaking the law and the law protects that speech according to the US Constitution. Anybody attacking and undermining the US Constitution is an enemy of the US Constitution, including the current U.S. government technically. And that's why they're being

sued and hammered in the courts. And Rubio will lose, most likely is going to lose on this case as they have done on the previous ones. Yeah, OK. But in the meantime, the ICE officers are going around lifting people off the streets, treating them extremely. I mean it's real 1930s Germany style stuff from some of the video clips that I've seen exporting them to other countries, not just to where was it this sorry the South American country? Is El Salvador.

Thank you. Not just El Salvador, but also to some African countries is. Rwanda. They're doing their Rwanda. The Rwanda thing, right? And, and, but, and they're sending people to those countries where those people have no ties to those countries whatsoever, basically leaving them destitute in those countries were in a prison or whatever it happens to be. With no due process. No due process and with no

support in those countries. I mean it is despicable and and actually pretty by the sort of what most people would understand by the definition of fascistic, it is pretty fascistic. It's very fascistic and Trump, Trump doing the flag burning thing through an executive order is a very, very bad precedent. It's also gonna, I don't think it's good for Trump and his legacy because this is like something that a desperate authoritarian would do.

And why? Just to make some kind of a statement in order to somehow virtue signal to his hardcore base on this. But as we pointed out, Mike, it's absolutely tied to these other issues. I mean, they deported a student from Tufts University, which is also what this Stanford case against Rubio is for writing an op Ed. She was Turkish, I believe, and she wrote an op Ed critical of Israel, Israel's doing in Gaza. And they black sacked her practically.

I mean, they sent A-Team and just kidnapped her basically and sent her off Mahmoud Khalil, who reported on the Columbia student protest leader who's a Palestinian legal resident in the United States, married to I think AUS citizen or legal resident. And they, they tried to deport him and they lost. He won an appeals and now he's out advocating against the Trump administration in Washington, DC. It's usually embarrassing.

And all Marco Rubio can do is cry and scream and, and, and pout on Twitter. That's the, and, and that they're making the State Department pout with these childish tweets coming off the official State Department Twitter account. I mean, there's no dignity left with these U.S. officials. I mean, they, they clearly don't give a, you know, what about the US Constitution. To them, it's an impediment to whatever the Israeli lobby wants or whatever they, their donors want.

And they just want to remove it, get around it, subvert it or just basically, you know, destroy it. I mean, that's kind of where this administration's at. I don't think this is very good for the Trump administration and

certainly not good for America. Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't agree more. OK, back to the UK then And well, everybody will be glad to know that a free chicken pox vaccination is going to be offered for the first time to children across England. That's via the NHS. That's going to happen from January and their government is saying that thousands of children are going to be protected against chicken pox because of this new programme. Now they're going to offer a combined vaccine for measles,

mumps, rubella and varicella. So this is MMRV now. So it's going to be not a triple vaccine, but a quad vaccine all in one dose. And so that's as part of the routine infant vaccination schedule. And this apparently is going to mean that children are going to miss fewer days in nursery and school, while parents won't need to take time off work to care for them.

And they're saying that research shows the chicken pox in childhood results in an estimated 24,000,000 lbs in lost income and productivity every year in the UK. That's going to save the NHS £15,000,000 a year in cost. Is it? How much is the vaccine going to cost? Anyway, So what? They're leaving out one stat, Mike. How much is the Pharmaceutical industry going to profit off this? Precisely, right.

So that's the point. But we don't need to worry because the chicken pox vaccine's been safely used for decades. It hasn't been safely used for decades as part of MMR, right? So, So what we're doing here is, is trying to suggest that there's a set a safety track record for for something that's didn't previously exist. Right. And and is this a new outbreak? Is this a new virus, the chicken pox virus? Is it brand new? Must be brand new.

I mean, I don't remember chicken pox parties when I was a child. Don't remember those at all. And how many? How many they must They must be rolling this out because it's a deadly virus, right? How many children have died from chicken pox over the last 100 years? Well, I don't understand your cynicism here, Patrick, because the government says this is going to result in the healthiest generation of children ever. Is the number of children that have died of chicken pox?

Is it 0 or is it under 100 in the last 100 years? Globally it's pretty low whatever the number is, I would think so. Why do you need to be vaccinated against something as an incubation period of a couple of days? Because apparently, according to the press release, this is going to protect children from serious complications that can cause hospitalisation, such as bacterial infections like strep a, brain and lung inflammation and stroke. Children having strokes.

This is also new news. I haven't heard about this before. How often does that happen? Is it a number between zero and zero and and one or maybe range of probability children's having strokes from chicken pox? I mean, this is new. This is a great scientific discovery. This is right up there with, you know, alien life on another planet. I mean, this is just, I'm so in awe of the Pharmaceutical industry. Well, what they've done to the government for sure. Is incredible.

Acting as propagandists. But I believe we do have a good news story and. And the reason is, Mike, is we're so tired of the complaints and the whining in the chat rooms that UK call them so negative. You guys never have anything positive. It's just all scrolling at the UK com. It's war, it's viruses, it's scandals, it's corruption. And when are you going to do a feel good story? Well, I'm going to change that today.

We have got a feel good story and in fact this could be the beginning of something special, a feel good story. This will be the feel good story of the day or you can say of the week or whatever. So we're going to leave you something for the weekend that's going to make you feel definitely feel good. It's going to put a smile on your face and a spring in your step. Here it is right here. And this is from the Blaze. This is John Bolton as you can see coming out emerging from the

bushes there. The Blaze media. That's that is not an LGBT website. That's Glenn Beck's website, if you're confused by the name. But we finally have an idea of why John Bolton is in hot water and the factor that could bring things to boil. What's going on there He is. That's the pensive profile shot John Bolton. Trump's former advisor Arch Neo Con, is reportedly under investigation for allegedly mishandling classified information. If held to his own standard, then his days as a free man

might be numbered. So yes, you've read that right, folks. John Bolton going. To prison. He could end up in the clink for the very thing. And so obviously this is a retribution by Trump because during the Mar a Lago raid, John Bolton was all over MSNBC and Jen Pasaki show saying that Trump is harbouring and, you know, stealing classified information, hiding it at Mar a Lago. So I mean, Trump's getting revenge here on John Bolton.

And but but let's be honest, is anybody upset to see John Bolton, his home getting raided and his office is getting raided this week? I can't see many people that would sort of, I think a lot of people be smiling at that. Hence that's why that's the feel good story of the day. Thank you very much. Hopefully that makes the weekend a lot better for a lot of people. Thank you, Patrick, thanks to everybody that's joined us today. We will be back in a few

minutes. If you are AUK column member for some UK column News Extra, if you're not a member, please consider joining because you're missing a lot. And well, have a great weekend. If you're not joining us and we'll see you at 1:00 PM as usual on Monday. See you then. Bye bye.