UK Column News — 9 January 2026

Good afternoon. It's Friday the 9th of January 2026, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host Mike Robinson. My Co host today in the studio is Patrick Hennigson. Welcome to the program, Patrick.

It's great to be with you, Mike. And we'll be joined today by Basil Valentine. Later in the program, we're going to be covering the ongoing Palestine action hunger strike, the killing in Minneapolis by an ICE officer and the sanctioning of EU former military personnel and the ongoing destabilisation of countries in the Sahel. But we're going to begin with the taking of an oil tanker by the United States, supported by

the United Kingdom. Because on Wednesday I was reporting that the US was going to going to go after the marinera. This was CBS News was covering this, if you remember, and this ship previously known as Bella One and they were going after this with a view to seizing it. And we also reported that the UK was to be involved. If you hadn't seen what we covered on Wednesday, go on,

please go and have a look. The risks were clear because the Baron era was at that time a Russian flagged tanker and so Russia was making moves to counter the US action.

Well, about the same time that the UK column news went out on Wednesday. In fact, the United States and the UK and well, Patrick, you tell me if you think I'm wrong in this, but what I could would only want to describe as an active piracy seized the ship about halfway between the UK and Iceland. So here's here's where the ship was when it was attacked. Now. It's nowhere near Venezuela. That's a no. Struck me, Mike. No, indeed. Now you won't. Sorry.

Just put that back on the screen for one second, William, please. Because you'll notice that the line begins Mid-Atlantic there. And the claim from the UK and the United States is that this is because the ship, having left Venezuela already decided to to re flag itself halfway across the Atlantic and rename itself. And so they're claiming that this was in fact a stateless vessel. Look, before we we comment on this a bit more, let's just look at what John Healey said in the

House of Commons yesterday. Today, the US conducted a military operation to intercept the M motor vessel Bella One in the North Atlantic on its way to Russia. The UK, at the request of the US, supported this operation as part of global efforts to crack down on sanctions busting and shadow shipping activity. The Bella 1 was falsely flagged. It was falsely flagged and subject to US counter Iran

sanctions. The vessel refused to comply with the USS exercise of its sanctioned jurisdiction on the 20th of December, after which the US Coast Guard vessel Monroe pursued the ship across the Atlantic.

This is a sanctioned stateless vessel which carries a long history of nefarious activity and shares close links with both Iran and Russia. Following a request from the USI authorised the use of UK bases and the deployment of Royal Navy and RAF assets to support the operation, including airborne surveillance and the RFA ship Tide Force. A stateless vessel, Mr. Speaker, may be lawfully intercepted and subjected to the law of the interdicting state.

EU s s enforcement action was based upon counter Iran sanctions aimed at stopping Iran from fuelling instability through the profits of illegal oil sales. The UK supported this action to achieve 3 objectives. First, to enforce counter Iran sanctions. Second, to tackle the global security threat posed by expanding shadowy maritime activity. And 3rd, to reinforce British homeland defence and security in

this era of rising threats. So Homeland Security is clearly top of the agenda both in the United States and the United Kingdom, but we'll come back to Homeland Security a little bit later. It's quite incredible what they're, what they're arguing here, that they're talking about deterring and disrupting the Russian shadow fleet being a priority for the UK. They're trying to bring Iran sanctions into it as well. It's quite amazing. Well, at the end of that statement we didn't have that

part. We said we are, we are. By doing this we are keeping the British people safe. How exactly is apprehending an empty tanker keeping, well, keeping the British people safe? I mean, Britain wasn't actually involved in the operation. They were just there from a distance assisting, assisting or going out and doing a kind of a drill on top of the United States's pirate activities there. So fueling instability by

illegal oil sales. So what he's saying is that Iran's not allowed to sell oil to or Russia's not allowed to give oil to or take oil from Venezuela, Give oil to Venezuela. That's what really what this is about, right? It's about isolating and controlling the flow of goods and services to certain countries controlled by the US. And Britain's just there to assist, basically. And of course, they're, they keep building this narrative of the Shadow fleet.

And, and we know that part of the part of this narrative is the idea that captains of Shadow fleet vessels are dropping anchors and dragging them across the seabed in order to disrupt undersea cables and all this kind of stuff. And put our pipelines at risk in the Baltic Sea, they say. Yeah, I can't imagine who puts pipelines at risk in the Baltic Sea. More than NATO, Nord Stream, just saying. Sorry to point that out guys,

but. Yes. So anyway, following the seizure of the tiger, then Starmer gave President Trump a call on the phone and they said that they discussed the joint operation to set intercept Bella one and they keep insisting on calling at the Bella one rather than the the the new name. But anyway, that's that's. And so he phoned Trump once and then phoned him again because of course he also wanted to discuss Greenland and and other stuff.

He also wanted to discuss Euro Atlantic security and he also wanted to describe, discuss and increasingly this is, quote, an increasingly aggressive Russia in the High North. Starmer also yesterday called NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta, not sure what he called them, but he phoned them anyway.

They began apparently by paying tribute to UK personnel involved in the operations in the North Atlantic, but also in operations in Syria. In recent days, they also spoke about Euro Atlantic security and apparently they agreed that much more needed to be done to deter Russia in the High North and welcome discussions on how allies would further protect the region from increasing Russian threats.

So that that's the way it's gone and and so that's where we are with with that so. FAR 11 quick point on this, Mike. He said that they're trying to deter sanctions busting countries that are not using the US dollar or the British pound and they're trading with each other. Britain or the US has no business physically interdicting. The moment they go to physically interdict and to steal people that are trading outside of the dollar, that's an act of war.

That's an act of war. That's not sanctions busting because they're not using dollars. So what they're doing is saying, Oh my God, they're trading outside of our ability to sanction, which is financial sanctions, and then they're using hard military power. That is war. That is not sanctions busting, just to be clear that that is illegal under international law. They have no business interdicting that ship and there's no justification to say this is a global security

threat. It's just complete. Nonsense I. Don't know what to say. Really. Yeah, Basil, let me welcome you to the program. Have you got any thoughts on what happened yesterday? Well, the rhetoric keeps getting ramped up. Pat McFadden, who's a, if I may say so, gentlemen, particularly odious member of the cabinet, was speaking to Times Radio and he said we have to be able to exert hard power as well as soft power.

And very much echoing what Stephen Miller told CN NS, Jake Passer, Jake Tapper a couple of days ago, we live in a world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. McFadden specifically made reference to the changed world that we live in, which we've seen in many dimensions this week.

So obviously referring to Venezuela as well as the seized oil tanker and McFadden effectively giving nod of approval to the abandonment of international law by Donald Trump and the new might is right doctrine which Miller has articulated. Will to power. We've heard that before. It reminds me of the that German government. When was that? The 19. 30s yeah. They thieves that term a lot.

But, but look, obviously, as I mentioned, Starmer speaking to Trump and to Ruda and very concerned about Russia in the High North and of course, Greenland is the next potential target. I guess what's what's going on there? Well, Marco Rubio is set to meet

the Danish Prime Minister, Mattie Frederickson and the Danish delegation to discuss the terms and conditions the United States is interested in taking Greenland. There's Rubio there, the Secretary of State who double S as national security advisor. Little bit of a conflict of interest with those two job descriptions, but a, where are we to point out things like that? He's also got a third title, Mike. He is crowned himself viceroy of Caracas.

Marco Rubio, he's a busy man and he's got a busy cabinet portfolio there. So the lot of pushback from the Europeans, Mike, already. I want to get Basil Valentine's comment and yours as well, Mike. But we'll go to Bloomberg here and now because of the pushback, Trump, whenever there's pushback, Donald Trump always backpedals. And so here he is backpedaling. Bloomberg's pushing it out. Why would Trump buy Greenland? Why would he take it? And then he would buy it? Now it's rented.

So they're talking about leasing it for 100 years here, and he's saying a mutually beneficial deal that avoids antagonizing the local population can be struck with relative ease, as, geez, Playbook for Africa shows. So Bloomberg got their own agenda there, Mike, basically accusing China of colonialism in Africa when it's probably more like the opposite. the United States and France and the European countries, which we'll talk about later. But about Basil on the Greenland

front. I mean, what do you make of this? And also Trump's constantly modulating his positions based on the pushback, the press, what Europe's doing. It's it's a tough front he puts on. But then once The thing is put out, the big ideas put out, then all sudden it it changes with Trump. What what?

What are your thoughts on this? Well, people, commentators in America are saying Trump is increasingly unstable and unpredictable, you know, vacillating somewhere between dementia and narcissism and that he needs sort of endlessly bigger thrills to keep going. That he's actually become rather bored of the presidency and the sycophants that he's surrounded himself by, and that only by sort of ramping up the international scene is he able to continue to sort of engage

with the job. But, you know, sort of era of somebody approaching Nero or Caligula, he's been likened to, you know, Venezuela gave him a thrill. The idea of taking Greenland gives him an even bigger thrill. There's no real strategic need. People are talking about the need for a strong NATO presence in Greenland. That obviously feeds into the whole bellicose rhetoric as regards Russia. But when it comes to threatening an existing member of NATO, this is absolutely off the charts.

It's never been seen before that we've been saying it would be the end of NATO, the end of the whole post war security pact, if ever a thing such a thing existed. Halley Thorning Schmidt, former Prime Minister of Greenland, has described it as an act of aggression that Denmark is being bullied. The Interestingly though, the opposition leader in Greenland itself has said that the Americans couldn't be any worse than the days in terms of being

an imperial power. But, you know, we always hear about the right of self determination, you know, spreading democracy. Well, surely therefore, it should be up to the people of the Greenland to decide their future. And I don't think when they want to have anything to do with the Americans at all. So the, the BBC this morning on on the Radio 4 Today program had a representative phone from Greenland who was basically saying, well, you know, there are deals to be done here.

We can give access to allow the United States to place its military bases in Greenland soil. We can give them access to rare earths and the mining opportunities to come. So, so they clearly the rhetoric from Greenland itself is recognizing Trump as being the man of the deal. And so they're now offering deals and so well, we'll see where that. Goes US offered to buy Greenland Mike after World War 2 for the princely sum of $100 million that would have been a steal

right, right. Not as bad, not as good as the Alaska deal, but, you know, pretty good deal there. And so it's always been there. the US has always kind of had its eye on this. But it's so funny. The Republican talking point is on this, the Rubio. And so they're saying we need to rescue Greenland from the colonial clutches of Denmark by by taking agreement. The irony is something I don't think these people are capable. No, they don't get it. Of detecting anyway well.

OK. Well, well, look, since you've mentioned Venezuela, let's just come up to date with what's

going on there. Sure. Now as people know, since since the all the fireworks over the weekend have have happened, these have been the new revelations which we'll share with you right now. First of all, it's it's now confirmed, Mike, that there are at least 80 dead, 80 Venezuelans have been killed during this USUS bombing run and this abduction, this kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro.

And including in that are 60 security forces, including Maduro's, a close protection team, many of whom were Cuban nationals. And this is a long running arrangement between the country of Cuba and the Bolivarian Republic, Mike. So that that sort of undercuts this conspiracy talk that's going on through the media that there was a stand down order in Venezuela and that Maduro was betrayed by treasonous members of his government because quite

a few people have been killed. Now what we what we do know is the United States unleashed a pretty hardcore electronic warfare wave technological wave to basically render the radar systems basically off and disable many of their air defense systems, their computer networks and their electrical grid. OK. So we know that this capability exists. Well, Trump is bragging about that during the original press

conference. So I think the, the, I think there is ACIA agenda to plant the story of betrayal within the Venezuelan government in order to try to create a rift or a civil war, if you will, with inside the Chavista movement. So I I think that's worth pointing out my including in the targets, the United States hit two medical research centers, one of which is the kidney dialysis Center for Venezuela. Why on earth would they want to do that?

Well, if you look at what happened in Gaza over the last two years, I think that probably doesn't need to be explained. Also, two residential buildings, apartment buildings were also destroyed. Many Venezuelans have been injured. The numbers we do not have in front of us. But to say this was bloodless and also many US, there are a number of U.S. soldiers who were injured as well. There's no details forthcoming

on that. The Cuban security detail died protecting Maduro. This is what the, the, the, the Venezuelan media are saying here. So this is interesting. Now, let's just be clear. I want to just debunk a few things because I think this is important to do. First of all, this was not a regime change. It was not a successful regime change. The government is still in place. The the duly elected vice president has been sworn in Adelci Rodriguez.

So and the government is there. This the whole apparatus of the Chavista government is in place. So the Trump hasn't achieved regime change. The other thing is the narco trafficking. This is the lead accusation on the indictment. The US has withdrawn it from the indictment because it's it's now been admitted that it was completely fictitious. Imagine something this high profile, the lead accusation that the Trump's backed off it.

So there's no, there's no drugs or there's no narco trafficking here. And Trump's own intelligence assessment of his own intelligence agency say there's no link between Maduro and Trendella Ague, the supposed Venezuelan gang that they claim is ravaging the streets of the United States. So again, it's looking tenuous on that basis alone. That could be a call for dismissal for the trial because that was the basis of their arrest warrant, which they say is legal.

But the international law says it's not legal. But anyway, it's illegal under international law. It's unconstitutional. You violated the 1973 War Powers Act. He did not get any permission from Congress before this. Also, it violates and undercuts US treaty law regarding extradition and law enforcement cooperation with all countries, not just Venezuela. That's why this is a very dangerous precedent. And then the justification for this is that Maduro is an

illegitimate government. He's an illegitimate government. And so we're told that British officials, U.S. officials say all US allies agree that they don't recognize Maduro is legitimate. So that's their justification, that all allies agree. And they based that on the 2024 elections. They say that they were illegitimate. He didn't win.

They weren't transparent. But Mike, we've been speaking to election monitors from Venezuela, and we will probably have one of them on the program next week, who was there during the 2024 election working with independent international election monitoring organizations. And they're saying it was absolutely legitimate and one of the most transparent in South America, according to independent assessors. So we'll speak to them next week

with more details on that. Human rights violations, these, they're all an Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, all these NGOs, they all emanate from one single western backed opposition NGO. This reminds us of something, doesn't it? The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, exactly the same and the Caesar report all used as the basis for sanctions. And that leads us to the main accusation, which is Maduro has ruined the economy. He's run the oil industry into the ground.

Well, I I don't think so. Was it him or was it the sanctions? It was the sanctions under Donald Trump in front starting from 2016. And when they dropped the hammer, it dropped oil sales by 75% and average GDP per capita went down 65%. It was an economic disaster for Venezuela and they're blaming it, the US media, our politicians blame it on Maduro and his mismanagement. And so this is a, a total psyop. They do with all these target countries. No mention of sanctions in any of.

These critiques of Venezuela and Maduro and his legitimacy and the last one, Mike, is the most beautiful of all. 8 million people left the fled the Maduro regime. Trump's Under Secretary for political Affairs, Tom Shannon and John Bolton both admitted under Trump's first term it was their policy to make sanctions create out migration. They are both on record out migration.

They wanted our people to flee Venezuela to the United States where they gave them automatic asylum if they were anti Maduro. Reminds us of something else, doesn't it? When you show up at Lesbos or fleeing from Syria and you say down with Bashar al-Assad, immediate asylum straight through to the UK, to Europe, to Canada, to the United States. So I mean, I could go on and on, but I think it's important to point these things out. We can talk about this more an

extra. I mean, this is, this is critical. Well, how many regime change operations have we seen run by the United States, United Kingdom over the last 30-40 years? And it's always the same. I will cut the hot head off. Sanctions. Sanctions but but a propaganda campaign against the head of state for a long time claiming they're this, that and the other thing. Get rid of them and then move your.

Own and why is this important Mike because that justifies the regime change it moderate like before say center right, center left. You say I don't support the war, but at least Maduro is gone. I don't support the Iraqi invasion, but at least Saddam is gone. I don't support the bombing of Yugoslavia, but Milosevic had to go, Gaddafi had to go, Assad have to go. We don't like Al Qaeda ruling of the Black Flag over Damascus, but Assad's gone, so that's a good thing.

This is a way to get moderates in the West to back regime change through a propaganda campaign that was repeated every single time. We have so many examples of this, but anyway we can discuss more. Yeah, well, OK. Well, in the meantime, then, Trump has announced an increase in war spending.

I just wanted to to play Tucker Carlson's take on this. Have a listen. Well, today, about an hour and a half ago, the President announced that he is hiking the Pentagon budget from 1 trillion to 1.5 trillion. Just announce that. Why? Well, it's hard to know without asking him. He'll explain. But big picture, obviously, that's the kind of budget that a country that anticipates a global or regional war has for its military. There's no other reason to do that.

That's not a peacekeeping budget. That's a war budget, a big war budget. So I think it's fair to expect, and all the signs suggest that we're going to have a big war soon. It's hard to argue with that, Patrick. It is. And look at Venezuela.

What's that about? Securing a fuel source in the Western Hemisphere in advance of a third World War when everything is going to be shut down, the Straits of Hormuz, everything but the United States and its allies, like Israel, still have a supply of heavy crude, which is needed for jet fuel, naval vessels, might power plants, heavy lubricants for heavy machinery, all the things that you need to run a military machine. So that really speaks to

Tucker's point. Absolutely. Well, Chinese press then is asking will China boost spending too? And of course they will because this is going to start an arms race. But my question, Patrick, for you just very briefly is how is this different to COVID, for example? So we had the great enemy came along the the virus and that resulted in what? That resulted in limitations on freedoms that resulted in billions being pumped into

Pharmaceutical industry. It resulted in surveillance and narrative control while the general public was destabilised through fear. Here, here we are. The stakes are higher this time for sure, but we keep the fair narrative or a fair narrative going and we pump billions into so-called defense companies rather than pharma companies. We continue to build a surveillance in the censorship

states. It looks like the same kind of MO to me. That's what I said at the Digital ID rally Mike on Whitehall a couple weeks ago. I said Kovid was the warm up, COVID was the warm up. Imagine the lockdowns during World War three, all planes grounded, borders shut. You can't have this or do that without your digital ID. And if you don't comply, then you're a threat to national security, right? Do I need to explain any further how this works?

And the company's providing the digital ID and doing the back end databases, the Elon Musk's, the Larry Ellison's, the Peter Thiel's of the world, the Alex Carbs of the world. These are the people they're going to profit from this globalist system. All of Trump's backers are the globalists. How do I get it through to peoples heads? And these same people who are going to benefit from this lockdown, who are all invested

in military firms as well. These are the people paying paying to to drive the right wing anti immigration movement in Europe in the UK which is now being used by the government in the UK to justify digital IDs. Isn't that amazing how it all comes full circle? Absolutely. Well, the question then, is Trump going to get his own way

with respect to war budgets? Because five Republican senators, led by Rand Paul voted yesterday to enact a War Powers Resolution. This resulted in a bill passing 52 votes to 47. So is Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, Todd Young, Susan Collins and Josh Hawley. So where does that leave Trump? Listen, I, I think this is a

very positive development. Then it's too early to celebrate, Mike. There's a lot of work to be done, but at least it tells us, at least in the Senate, that there are people that do not want to escalate. And this is a good thing. And I'll tell you what, if you look at the polling now, before and after Christmas, Trump was underwater on independence before Christmas. Now he is even worse in terms of the Republican Party. So as the polling stands out, we can look at more data perhaps

next week. But the Democrats will carry the midterms and I don't think he'll ever get the independence back because he's gone against all of his core principles that he ran on for 2024, which is for MAGA. So I don't think he's going to get us back. And that's bad news for the 2028 presidential election as well. So while the Empire might have got a short term win, Mike, for Trump and maybe for the Empire, we don't know. This could be a major setback.

So we'll give you more, hopefully more information on that polling. I'll make a note. We'll get some of that information together for next time. Okay, super well, let's come on to the Palestine action situation, which continues to go

on. The hunger strikers are still striking. Yes, they are. I mean, we, we talked about this before Christmas on the, the UK column Christmas edition and these were the original 8 here. But right now this situation we're in and again, it's, it's important to recognize these people because what they're doing is very brave. But two of them in particular, two of them in particular are in critical condition. These are Cameron Ahmed and Heba Moreisi and we'll go to the

update here. They're now in their sixty 67th and 60th days respectively as part of a rolling protest at which began in November. So we're we're getting to the point of organ failure now. So this is getting quite serious. So I don't know what to say beyond this, but I know Basil Valentine has been following this story extremely closely from the beginning. So where are we at right now with these two hunger strikers and just with this issue in general?

Is the government going to give any ground on this? Well, the government aren't even commenting on it at the moment. There's no indication that there are any talks between the hunger strikers, lawyers or representatives and the Department of Justice for just get standard statements from the prisoner state about how the hunger strikers are being treated no differently to anybody else with respect to their immediate physical condition. Well, we could hear at any moment that one of them has

died. The most likely candidate is probably Kamran Ahmed, who's gone 60 days without food. He was hospitalized for the sixth time on Wednesday of this week. He's experiencing shrinkage to the muscle of the heart and has been diagnosed with bradycardia, with his heart rate dropping to 40 beats per minute, according to his sister, who is a pharmacist. She was speaking through Novara Media. There are significant changes in his ECG putting him at risk of

sudden cardiac arrest. He said the government must act now. Now, of course, amongst their demands is the deep prescription of Palestine action, something that's under judicial review and the result of that we should know before the end of this month or certainly before the

end of next month. There's no way the government are going to give ground on that issue in the interim because somebody is hunger striking and Ahmed's representatives and advisers would be advised to tell him that because the UK government will let him die. But before they overturn the ban on Palestine action, before the result of the judicial review. So, you know, there's a collision course here at the

moment. They they have been given vitamins, niacin and things like that, vitamin B, which do help sustain life. But it's highly likely that the next major news we hear is of somebody's death. Mike, this is incredible. I mean, what, what would you think that the fallout would be, Mike? If if one of them did die, I mean, it's horrible even to imagine it, but would that change the government's position at all on this issue? No, I don't think so.

They will they will stand on their decision that Palestine Action is a terrorist organization. They they have form on this in the past. So I don't I don't think this is going to change their position at all. If if that if the worst should happen. Basil, it's extraordinary. Just a brief comment. We just got a minute left, but you know, we've seen hunger strikers in the past, Bobby Sands, etcetera, in history in Britain. It's it, these have been big political events in the past.

This is different though, isn't it Basil? It's got a global scope to this story, which makes it very different. Your your final thoughts briefly. I mean, the UK government were equally intransigent when it came to the H bloc hunger strikers in the 1980s. And Bobby Sands, of course, famously died. That sparked rioting. You can claim that his death did ultimately lead to the process that bore fruit in the Good Friday Agreement.

And, you know, obviously the situation in Northern Ireland is vastly better than it was during the Troubles in terms of changing the government. But Mike's perfectly right. They're not, they're not going to change their position at all. But in terms of changing public opinion and mood towards the government on this issue, that's another matter. It's a shame if somebody has to be martyred.

I mean, really there should be a conversation between the hunger strikers, representatives and lawyers and the government. I'm sure that if the government agreed that they would abide by the result of the judicial review, the other demands, immediate bail and a fair trial, well, they're perfectly reasonable. They've already been held for 13 months, which is far longer than the government's own recommendations for detention prior to a trial. Mike, what Basil said I think is crucial.

He said if, if the government or if they could convince the government that took state that they would abide by the results of the judicial review, would that not apply some additional pressure on the judiciary for that judicial review? But that's normal, isn't it, because this is a political process at the end of the day. What are your thoughts briefly? I mean, I do, I agree completely. I don't really have anything else to add to that.

I mean, I really think that that that could be a potential yeah solution. And it would show good faith on the part of the government to at least take some kind of a principled position, even if it's. I don't believe this government understands the word principle so. Even if it's saying they're going to respect due process, right? I mean, I don't know. We're not left with many options

here. And that's that's the sad part now on on on the back end of this, this story here at the Canary judicial review launched against the NHS adoption of the IHRA anti-Semitism definition. And this is from the Canary Mike. And they're saying the right to protest group has instructed lawyers to begin judicial review proceedings against NHS England for adopting the unfit.

They say International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism that suppresses freedom of speech of Israel. Now, this isn't just about policing NHS staff, Mike. As we've reported previously, they're talking about applying this to NHS patients. Basil Valentine, have you been following this story and is this how deep it goes? Yes, it's Imran Khan and partners that have launched this on behalf of a right to protest group. Very much welcomed.

It's yet to be discovered whether or not they are granted A judicial review. Lawyers have said that they're going to petition for one. It's a different matter whether they get one, of course. I I think they should, because the key thing about the IHRA definition is it's only ever supposed to be a working definition. It was never supposed to be set in stone.

Even it's author would say that. So given Israel's actions over the last two years, widely perceived by all sorts of international organisations to be genocide, therefore some of the examples in the IHRA definition, such as singling out Israel for criticism, surely that needs to be updated if the country, any country has been committing what is the ultimate

crime. So you know, the government are trying to impose it in a monolithic way and a way that I mean excludes even patients being admitted to hospital with a 3 coloured watermelon type in or badge or something that would be beyond the pale apparent. I mean, absolutely extraordinary stuff as well, of course, as the attacks on staff, you know, Rehana Ali, Rami Alidwan, Dr. Krisles as well, who've been hauled up before the GMC for opposing genocide, so.

We're going to continue this, we're going to continue this in the extra time because we're we're just going to we're running on on it interest of time, but that's extraordinary issue and we're going to we're going to expand on that with Basil during the extra. Yeah, OK. So thank you. Thank you for that, Basil. Now, OK, we should go back to the United States at this point. And of course, the shooting of an armed, an unarmed white U.S.

citizen by an ICE officer in Minneapolis has shocked many, many people. Now, I'm going to suggest that it was the result of placing mass paramilitaries on the streets. And I find it really shocking that anyone finds that the pretence of mass paramilitaries acceptable, actually. But it's Trump's response that I want to focus on here. In order to to do that, we've got to actually, unfortunately watch what happened. So let's look at the at the event itself. No, no. Shame, shame.

Oh my fucking God, what the fuck? What the fuck? You just fucking what the fuck did you do? OK, so for anybody that's just listening to this, what happened was that he literally shot through the driver's side window of the car at head height. The window was down. The window was down, absolutely, but I wanted to, I wanted to highlight Trump's response to this. So, so put this. If we put this on screen, this is what he said on True Social.

I've just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, MN. It is a horrible thing to watch, that much is true. The woman screaming was obviously a professional agitator. I, I just, I mean, I just, I don't even know where to start with this. A woman screaming was a professional agitator and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, wilfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to

have shot her in self defence. This is just an outright lie. The video shows very, very clearly that she did not run over anybody. Just put that back up again, please. And he then went on to say based on the attached clip, it's hard to believe he is alive. That's the ICE officer, but is now recovering in hospital. Now to be absolutely clear about this, if you're watching closely as as she was shot, the car continued to move off and then crashed into a a car further on down the street.

He walked calmly towards the car in towards the the road accident that that he had created. So there was no question of him being in hospital or requiring to go in hospital and putting Trump back on screen again. Then he said the situation is being studied in its entirety. But the reason these incidents are happening is because the radical left is threatening, assaulting and targeting our law enforcement officers and ICE

agents on a daily basis. And so first of all, we have what can only be considered an execution here because that was that was beyond incompetence. What happened was beyond incompetence. But now we have a president who simply lies blatantly on his true social account and then tries to turn this into something which is killing by law enforcement and inverted commas and turn it into something which is right, left immigration issue. And, and I just think that's that is pretty despicable.

It's so lowbrow. I mean, we're going to spare you JD Vance's comments, which were equally as reprehensible, but basically blaming the victim. So and basically an unarmed woman, a mother of 337 year old white American citizen. I just thought I'd throw that out there because if if she was, if she wasn't white, this would have a completely different political scope to it, a la George Floyd.

I'm just putting that out there. But she was She was shot at point blank range by a masked federal agent who's effectively A paramilitary. Donald Trump deployed 2000 of these masked troops into Minneapolis as a political show of force as he did in Los Angeles, which caused riots. So guess what's happening now this week there's big protests which will likely careen into riots. So again, it starts from a spark and becomes a brush fire.

So that's what it is. So they're blaming the victim, the mega media, the supporters of Trump. It's just so incredible. It's almost statistic, nihilistic, sadistic and just completely bereft of any morals. This is the state of. Part of America, I'm not going to say all Americans are this insensitive, but but generally it's I don't know. I never thought I would see the day, especially these are the conservatives that were crying after January 6th about the dash death of Ashley Babbitt.

Well, that was during a protest that, you know, got inside the Capitol building. And, you know, I didn't, I thought that was a very wrong unlawful assassination, if you will, of a protester, Ashley Babbitt. I was against it. But this is a totally different

situation. This is the federal government deploying armed people who are drawing their weapons on civilians in in a public setting where they have no jurisdiction to draw their weapons because they're not in the process of apprehending any illegal person in the case of this woman in the car. So I mean, it's just kind of unbelievable and it's a very dangerous precedent. So now the the person in question has been named, and this is by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

We'll bring this up here. His name is Jonathan Ross. This is the masked ICE agent. So he will probably be in hiding for a very long time and he may, very well may or may not be disciplined. And this is the thing the Trump administration, even if he was to, you know, be held accountable through a federal legal process, maybe if he was sentenced to on any federal charges, Mike, he would most likely be pardoned by Donald Trump.

I'm just guessing because Trump in advance are doubling down on this and again, blaming the the woman who's dead. I mean, this is if if you want to a recipe for mass protests and social unrest. Donald Trump has just whipped up a souffle here. They couldn't be engineering it, could they? Well, it's it will engineer itself, let's put it that way. But how did we get here? Let's take a look at this. So this is Trump's Gestapo is really what we're talking about here.

This is a very strange individual who is Donald Trump's White House deputy chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security. His name is Stephen Miller, and this is what Stephen Miller had to say. He set the groundwork for this when he publicly stated that he declared that ICE agents are legally protected from prosecution and local officials cannot arrest them. So they could kill somebody, according to Stephen Miller, and they have total immunity, total federal immunity.

That's not exactly true. They, they are, they do, they do have a code and they would be held accountable under a federal due process on this. So he's, but he's basically saying we can invade the Gestapo can invade your community and you can't do anything about it. And this is really the key point, isn't it? Because we're seeing the United States, the UK behaving in the way that they're behaving with respect to Venezuela and the oil tigers.

They're behaving exactly the same way against their own population. It's attack on the rule of law internationally and it's attack and on the US Constitution as well. So to all ICE officers, says Miller, you have federal immunity in your, in the conduct of your duties. So that is a statement of intent. So if you were to take this to trial, I would take Stephen Millers.

If I was the, the, the, the, the prosecution, I would take Stephen Miller's comments there straight at the ICE agent here. So where does this lead us here? Well, this is the reality of it, Mike. ICE has offered $280 million to immigrant tracking bounty hunter firms. So some of these ICE agents, Mike, are mercenaries. OK. And some of these mercenaries, as has been reported, we're still tracking the details, but they're circulating on social media right now.

But there are people who are former, according to reports. ID EF soldiers as well who are, you know, for hire security bounty hunters not uncommon you would find such people from different militaries there. But this shows you this is the privatization of this process here. These aren't public servants. These are mercenaries here. So where does that lead us? Let's take a look. So inside ISIS tool to monitor phones in entire neighborhoods.

Absolutely. So this is the headline in Four O 4 Media, if we just put it back on screen there. So Four O 4 Media has obtained material that explains how tangles and weblock 2 surveillance systems, ICE recently purchased work weblock and track phones without a warrant and follow their owner's home or to their employer. So this is the the what Four O 4 Media is saying.

And they're saying that a social media and phone surveillance system that ICE bought access to is designed to monitor a city, neighborhood or block for mobile phones, track the movements of those devices and their owners over time and follow them from their places of work or home to other locations. According to material that describes how the system works obtained by four O 4 media Links to this will be in the show

notes. Of course, now they're saying that that this technology is owned by a company called Penlink. But the issue is that Penlink only obtained this technology a couple of years ago. They bought it via an organization called Spire Capital. So this is from Globes Spire Capital buys is really web intelligence firm Cobwebs.

So Cobwebs was an Israeli. Now, although it's not directly declared that it was linked to Unity 200 as such, it's saying that it was absolutely linked to or formed by IDF intelligence agency staff. So this is the type of technology that we're seeing deployed for these types of operations. No surprise there. Well, let's take a look at how deep this goes here.

And this is ICE and U.S. Department of Homeland Security's long standing operational technological ties with Israel. First of all, since the early 2000s, DHS has maintained A liaison presence inside Israel. That's the US Department of Homeland Security. They've even got their investigations offices inside Israel working with Shin Bet, Israelis, MOD on technology and data transfers. All of this stuff is pretty much open between these two countries here.

And so it goes. In 2022, DHS signed a bilateral security agreement. Biometric data sharing, cyber intelligence, border surveillance technology, all of this agreements between ICE, the DHS and the Israelis. So I mean, does that worry you? Well, this is make going to make you even a little more worried here. They've they've been Paragon solutions spy Ware, surveillance Ware, all of this stuff, location tracking, cell phone communication monitoring, data scraping, all has been Rd.

tested in the West Bank and Gaza and Elbit systems. Mike is this name that people are familiar with here. They've built a large portion of the US Mexican border surveillance infrastructure, radar towers, drones, remote sensors, all again, Rd. tested in Gaza, Rd. tested in the West Bank. Oh, and it doesn't end there. If only it did they their joint research program is called Bird. This is for new technologies right across the board.

And to hide this, these programs are being organized outside through nonprofits and universities. This is how they're laundering these joint ventures, Mike, because obviously there would be a lot of protests that people knew they should. Now, key programs include the Anti Defamation League's National Counterterrorism Seminar and and so on. You can see all the data here. We'll put the links to this, by the way, in our show notes. But here is a whistleblower who was in Gaza.

Listen to what he has to say. Anthony Aguilera, former U.S. special forces and military person. The IDF trains American police officers and ICE officers in Israel. They train with US, ICE with US, Homeland Security, NYPD and that's what's called through SME program, subject matter exchange where our police etcetera trained with them. So these National Guard soldiers that will soon be in or are in Chicago have trained with and trained with Israel habitually for years.

So when you look at all of these pieces of who do we have operating on the streets of Portland, in the streets of New York and on in DC and who's going into Chicago, all components and elements that have trained hand in hand with the IDF or the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, Jean de Marie paramilitary police, that's absolutely amazing. That's not a coincidence. They do anti-Semitism training, not just physical training but brainwash training basically for

them too. When we entered Israel, they took us on the hospital tour, they took us to Kibbutz Bierity, they took us to the Nova Film Festival site, and they also took us to Stared Out, which is the overlook just outside of northern Gaza City and Bait Hanoon. It's on the Israeli. Side of the border that overlooks all of Gaza City. They've turned that into a spectacle. It's a picnic site.

You can go up there. There's vending machines, there's an area to park, there's an area where you can get your panoramic view with Gaza in the background. And if you time it just right, there might be a bomb that drops for your photo I. Mean. That's pretty cynical. It's pretty shocking, but you know, we've got the receipts for this and again, we'll drop the links in the show notes here. But just so people know, DHS increasing cooperation with Israel.

That's our source. Our source is the Department of Homeland Security. All the documents you'll be able to access through the links in your show notes here. This is another one of our sources, Deadly Exchange. This is a not-for-profit. These are Jewish Americans who run this organization who are against this use of cooperation between the IDF and the US law enforcement and ICE. So again, a Jewish American group, liberal group is coming out to oppose this here. And we track some of the

contracts, Mike, on this. It's very interesting with regarding ICE and Paragon here. And so they're using AI, Palantir's involved. And so this is coordinating all of these software to integrate social media monitoring always on surveillance pipelines. It never switches off. This is what these big data centers are being used for. And when you combine that with the digital ID, you can see where this is part of the police state, the high tech police

state. And here's Whitney Webb explaining the really uncomfortable connections here with Palantir. Go ahead and roll this. But Palantir, you know, also works extensively now in the private sector as well. They're a major AI engine for Wall Street banks, for example. And they have different programs that are sold to different entities. But ultimately, they are a massive contractor to essentially every U.S. intelligence agency.

And that includes DHS and ICE, which a lot of the reporting, critical reporting on Palantir focuses on their contracts with ICE specifically. But all of that is intended to also be used against people that are not illegal immigrants. It's a meant to be an entire dragnet of basically pre crime. And Palantir, in concordance with Poindexter's ambitions, has been a major piloter of pre crime technology in the United States. I think they began doing that in

New Orleans initially. They call it predictive policing is the term that that they use. But a lot of other companies have attempted to also get in on this. One of the most notorious being Pred Pol. That was a partnership, I believe with UCLA, an LAPD or something to that effect. And they're notoriously inaccurate. And they're almost always piloted in low income minority neighborhoods.

In essence, what happens because the accuracy rate is so low is that you're creating this pipeline of people basically being sent to prison or, you know, being caught up in crimes that are very petty. But I mean, you're just sending police to all these areas in a relatively, you know,

discriminatory way. And then in in some of these areas where Palantir ended up leaving another Peter Thiel backed entity called Carbine also has a predictive policing component, but has been sort of taking over 9911 emergency call systems throughout the United States, which is, you know, generally at the county level. But this is a company that that wasn't just found, you know, funded by Peter Thiel.

It was funded by Jeffrey Epstein and was led for a significant amount of time by Ehud Barack, the former Israeli Prime Minister as well and has sort of expanded outwards. So a lot of Poindexter's, the ambitions and unfortunately have been becoming true at a really rapid pace. So again, Whitney Webb, a great researcher on these topics here. So that leads us just on the Palantir issue.

So knowing what we know now about Palantir and does this bother anybody here, They just landed the biggest ever UK defense deal, 240 million contract with the UKMOD. So they're really in bed with Palantir here. And we just go to the UK's government website. These are the details of a £1.5 billion cooperation deal here that's going to feature Palantir as one of the biggest central

players in this. And of course, we have a photo there that is John Healey smiles from ear to ear there with Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp being also a major Bilderberg member now, as we saw during the last Bilderberg meeting here. So I mean, people should start connecting the dots really quickly before it's too late. Absolutely. Now, if you like what the UK

column does, if you'd like to support us, please have a look at the website and on the front page there you'll see a link that takes you to a page that explains how you can't support us. We do need your ongoing financial support and we would like to say thank you once again to everybody that does support us. That way. If you can't support us financially, do share this program and everything else that we put out if you possibly can because that helps us beat the

censorship. Now tonight, the overwhelming majority of Jews support genocide, says Zachary Foster. That's on German Warfare at 7:00 PM. And on Sunday at 7:00 PM Abby Roberts is the guest for Jake Fern for the 1000 Words Podcast. And Abby will be having her portrait painted by Jake while they have an in depth discussion about a whole host of topics. Now let's move on to a gentleman

called Colonel Jacques Bode. Now a number of years ago, in fact three years ago this month, Jacques, we published an article by Jacques Bode on the UK column entitled Ukraine the Search for Peace. If you haven't read that article, please do. The link will be in the show notes. Why am I mentioning him?

Well, because he has now been sanctioned by the EU, because he's an outspoken critic of EU policy with respect to Ukraine and Russia Since the war began, a petition has been set up to raise awareness of the sanctions and to demand their removal.

So here it is. The text of the petition makes the point that Bode and others have been sanctioned not for criminal acts, but for engaging in lawful activities such as journalism, academic analysis, political commentary that are explicitly, they say, protected under European fundamental rights frameworks, including freedom of expression and freedom of thought. Increasingly, of course, that's being ignored by the EU, the UK, the United States.

Now the sanctions being applied are being applied in the context, in the following context.

They say that they lack judicial due process, that they have a punitive effect despite being officially framed as foreign policy measures, that they lead to severe personal and economic hardship tantamount to civil death, and that they're incompatible with values and legal principles enshrined in EU treaties to Charter fundamental rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. And they say that they call on the Council to immediately delist Mr. Bode and similar

affected citizens and to refrain from using foreign policy sanctions to regulate lawful internal speech or dissent. And this again, this is now the third time in this program that we've had to highlight that what these governments are doing on an international basis, they're applying on a domestic basis as well. And you know, this is the integrated operating concept that the British military claims to have got rid of in June this year.

The idea that the the front in this war that we're experiencing at the moment is as much at home as it is abroad. And it's absolutely clear that our that our own populations are under massive attack now, Patrick. You know, they're accusing Jump Boat of, of being a Russian disinformation agent when he's totally objective.

He doesn't use Russian sources. He doesn't appear on Russian media, yet he has still been sanctioned by the European Commission. And what's important, just to note here, Mike, is that he's done nothing illegal. He's done nothing illegal. This is an administrative measure designed to quote, change the behavior. I'm quoting the paraphrasing the E the EU Commission's own website to change the behavior of the individual. But it basically it's punishing them.

They can't. He can't even buy food. He can't even pay his rent without asking permission. No, you can't give him anything as a donation. That's a that would be a violation of sanctions. Some of the other people have been sanctioned. They've sanctioned their wife's bank accounts, their whole family. They can't come and help them. He can't travel. He can't fly over European airspace. So this is something that has been used against foreign targets. So this that that's what this tool is.

It's used against as Natalie Yam from Switzerland as well. She said they've been doing this to African politicians for years. And now they're using the same tools to target foreign targets against European citizens. Jacques Boud is a decorated intelligence officer with the Swiss government, has worked with NATO and the OSCE.

And that's why of course, because, because he is that that standing within the, within the establishment as it were, that's of course why they're targeting him and others of that type. And there's something else quickly, Mike, I know we got to move on, but this is coming from the French government. They hand walk this to the European Commission and Caliacalis and so forth. It's coming from France and

they've targeted. So France is worried about the French language political ecosystem that they're really panicking because they're losing control of Switzerland falls within that French language sort of area of information. They're really concerned about this. Why would that be? Shows you how important France is in Europe as as as A to either have on board or not have on board with this wider agenda to go to war with Russia for example. Absolutely.

Well, we'll, we'll stick with France knowledge just very, very

quickly because as Finnas and I were talking about yesterday on on the discussion that we had, Burkina Faso and Niger, who are both members of the Confederation of Sahel states have apparently stopped major destabilisation operations to overthrow their governments. Tuesday, Burkina Faso Security Minister Sana released a video message, as you can see on screen here on X what he exposing what he described as an attempt to destabilise the country.

He said that the operation was planned for the 3rd of January and that the intention was to assassinate President Triore and several military and civilian officials and to disable a drone base and follow up with the ground military intervention by

foreign forces. The coup was to be led by Paul Henri d'amiba, the former transitional president who was ousted by Triori on September the 30th, 2022 and who's now exiled in Togo. And he he said a significant portion of the funding came from Cote d'Ivoire, with latest contribution reportedly amounting to 70 million CFA francs. So the the sorry SANA said that authorities have been arrested, numerous civilians will be brought before the prosecutor of Burkina Faso, the full force of

the law will be applied. And then, of course, Niger on the 1st of January declared that the first advisor of the Embassy of Benin should be removed from the country as persona non grata. They ordered him to leave the country. But this is just part and parcel of a number of operations that are going on in the Sahel. So we've got Associated Press here talking about Mali, Burkina Faso, amnesia, calling for joint large scale operations against

extremists. There is there are insurgencies at work right across the Sahel at the moment of why would this be? Well, we got to go back to a couple of years ago when the wonderful yen Stoltenberg was in charge of NATO. And of course he was talking about the expansion of NATO towards China.

But he was saying this is not about NATO moving NATO into the South China Sea. It's about taking into account that China is coming closer to us in the Arctic, in Africa, investing heavily in infrastructure. The EU sees the Sahel region as being it's external neighborhood, it's southern neighborhood that's it's particularly interested. But so is the United Kingdom and Tony Blair Institute absolutely 100% active in that region.

So when we're seeing in Niger and Burkina Faso, in Nigeria, in the Horn of Africa, we're seeing these types of insurgencies taking place. It's again the same MO that we saw in Syria and other places. We fund the insurgency, we arm the insurgency, we're even prepared to kill the insurgency when it suits us to do so. But it's our effort to destabilize the region for our control interests.

And you notice the the words in here, Mike, the verbage, if you look close, it's about providing women and girls with the freedom they need to succeed and getting them on board with climate change in those countries, precisely so forth. And by the way, it's South America. Also, China is one of the sort of big reasons the United States is saying it's a big threat to their hemispheres. So there there is an agenda to evict China from Africa, from South America, from the Western Hemisphere.

But if from Europe, how's Europe going to pull that one off? Exports from China into Europe have reached record highs, Mike, this past year. So that's going to be tough for old Europe, isn't it? But this is part of the paradox. Of course, Europe still buying Russian oil as well. So you know, it is part of the paradox. We'll talk about that more in UK called News Extra, which will be on this live stream in a few minutes if you're if that. Basil Valentine will be joining us as well.

Joining us, absolutely. So if you are AUK column member, stick around for that. If you're not, well, maybe you'd like to join and then you can join us for extra as well. Thanks for joining us in any case today. Have a great weekend. Don't forget German warfare tonight, but we'll see you 1:00 PM as usual on Monday. See you then. Bye bye.