Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 15th of January 2025, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host Mike Robinson and joining me today we have Charles Mallett and Vanessa Bailey. Welcome to the programme, Charles. Thank you very much, Mike. Vanessa, we're going to start today with foot and mouth disease. And well, the government has announced what they describe as measures to prevent the spread
of foot and mouth disease. And this is because a case has been confirmed in Germany. So here we have a tweet from the British Frozen Food Federation saying important information. Defra have issued important information for traders following the detection of foot and mouth disease in Germany. Essential information, actions and FAQs can be found found on
their website. Well, this is because Germany reported foot and mouth disease to the World Organisation for Animal Health cases were identified it was five days ago they made this report cases were identified in water Buffalo in Brandenburg and they say that three of heard of 14 are dead as a result, this is the first report of foot and mouth disease in Germany since 1988 and the first cases in the European Union since 2011. The German, The German National
Reference Laboratory for Foot and Mouth Disease. Has you got this characterised? The cause of the virus as serotype O? They haven't identified it, they've characterised it. This is a cartoon. Is it? Are we saying Codoni coming back in a new guise? It's hard. To say. Yes, and but they do say that the exact origin and incursion route is currently unknown. Now we're going to look at a map in a second and that that point
is, is really important. So keep that in mind for for a second or Two's time the local authorities in Germany have taken control and protection measures including restrictions on susceptible animal movements and in Brandenburg and Berlin and get this A1 kilometre cull around the effect infected premises. So we have the return of the slaughtered on suspicion policy which was so effective in destroying a large swathe of British farming in 2001.
So they're also suspending expert export health certificates and the closure of zoos as well, while further tests are being carried out by the German National Reference Laboratory. So the import of cattle, pigs and sheep from Germany is now banned into the UK to protect farmers and their livelihoods because we've got to protect everybody. And the UK Chief Veterinary Officer is also urging livestock keepers to remain vigilant to the clinical signs of foot and mouth disease following this
case. There are no cases in the UK at the moment. And in fact, if we look at the, if we look at the map here, this is the World Organisation for Animal Health, their official FMD status map. And you can see that apparently there is a suspension of foot and mouth free status in parts of Central Asia there. But I'm not clear how that how this virus is jumped to Germany. It has just appeared spontaneously out of nowhere.
How does that work, Charles? This is something that I don't think can ever be made clear, but it's just yet another example of confirmation bias in that if you look for a particular thing and you use certain methods, IE tests to confirm your prejudice or your bias, then you will find exactly what it is you're looking for. And this seems to be, yes, another example of it. So I think we'd all put our money on this appearing here soon. So there are no cases in the UK currently, as we said.
And foot and mouth disease, we should note, poses no risk to human or food safety. But apparently it's highly contagious viral disease of cattle, sheep, pigs and other cloven hoofed animals. And this is the important thing. So if we look at foot and mouth disease here, it they claim is a viral infection. Cattle in 2001 were slaughtered on suspicion in huge numbers in the UK, but no similar measure was taken against wild cloven hoof animals such as deer.
And so if you believe the the viral the virus narrative, then the deer were mixing with with domesticated animals such as cows and so on. And well, apparently that wasn't a problem. How did that work? Well, again, I mean you, once you've convicted your story, you just put fits in and substitute them as appropriate. Similar with Badgers and TB, or of course deer and TB. These creatures that are magically able to carry such and such an illness without being susceptible in any way to it.
So we've put that back up again. We've farms. Farms were subject to lockdown at that time. That has happened in Germany again, and the public were required to walk through disinfectant. Now again, if you are in agreement with the idea that the viruses exist, then you will know that the official story is that disinfectant has no effect whatsoever on viruses. So but the public were required to walk through disinfectant in certain public places like ports and airports and other public
areas. And this was a bit of conditioning that we then saw massively amplified during the the COVID thing. And we must not forget that the source of the slaughtered on suspicion policy was this man. Remind me of his name. Well, it's not. So what's the name? Is it? It's it's the, it's the piece of calculating equipment he has. But Neil Ferguson's. Yes, Neil Ferguson and his calculator. And so he was responsible for
that at that time. And of course he was responsible for lockdown policy and the claims of mass deaths in the UK during COVID as well. So just to finish off, if you haven't seen the documentary that we produced many, many years ago now on the foot and mouth disaster in the UK and the way that the farming community was massively damaged by it because, for example, some farmers would get compensation, others wouldn't and so on. This is breaking up communities
and whatnot. It was it was an incredible operation at the time. It destroyed huge numbers of animals unnecessarily. The policy continues with bird flu and now we're we're possibly going to see this again. It is incredible. It is absolutely incredible. In fact, I mentioned on the BBC News this morning in reference to the number of animals that were killed on suspicion, which was 6,000,000, which is a vast number. It really is. And yet we seem to learn
nothing. And of course, as discussed recently about bird flu, we seem to be rolling out exactly the same practises over and over again. We're sticking with farming. We are now Last week I spoke about the Oxford, the two conferences happening in Oxford, the Oxford Farming Conference and the Oxford Real Farming Conference, the first of which Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, spoke at. And no great surprise in, in
what he said. He talked about food and environmental sustainability without really explaining how the two things can be conducted side by side in the manner that has been suggested by governments all over the world.
But what he did demonstrate was that the masterstroke played by the Chancellor when the Budget was released the end of October, in that the fuss, understandable fuss, about agricultural property relief and inheritance tax on agricultural land has proved to be an enormous distraction and therefore has put farmers in mind that this is the central existential threat posed. When in fact the situation is not exactly that straightforward.
It is rather more that there are many government policies at the heart of the existential threat rather than the spectre of inheritance tax around which solutions can be worked. But of course the result is that Reid and indeed the government are only really bashed and protested against on the APR
side of things. Now he talked about diversification and just to pop a slide up on screen to illustrate what he meant, if you haven't guessed, of course more renewable energy and indeed that really seems to be the only form of diversification, certainly nothing to do with producing food in a different format. And he boasted of £5 billion
investment in farming. Of course, that's dwarf by the commitment to, for example, Ukraine, which puts in perspective the government's disdain for the production of food and indeed the management of farming in this country. Now this really should be seen as a part of an attack on small and medium scale farmers, but as I say, not necessarily by the APR side of things, rather more by regulatory policy.
For example, the Rare Breed Survival Trust talking about the decline of small abattoirs and therefore making it not viable, not a viable proposition for those occupying the smaller space. Or indeed with breeds that have it's unique characteristics and therefore cannot be dealt with by larger scale abattoirs because of course they're not set up to deal with them. So it's pushing smaller farmers
out of business. Of course the result of the consumer is fake meat or indeed meat that's been produced in subpar conditions, which going back to Mike's segment on foot and mouth would explain certainly why such symptoms might be displayed. The other thing to bring out is of course the work of what's called BOFFIN. I apologise because I can't remember what the acronym actually stands for, but this is concerning.
Gene editing. Now the, the, the primary legislation has gone through on this, but in the spring of this year, 2025, we're going to be seeing secondary legislation coming out specifically with regard to England and how gene editing in England is going to go ahead of course posing the question of what happens to the devolved administrations.
And indeed with the mood music being for close relations with Europe, how this is dealt with there, because in the European Union at the moment gene editing is not something that can be considered. So that was what came out of, or at least the, the, the main points to come out of the Oxford
farming conferences. And the other thing that's on the immediate horizon, which is causing a lot of concern for reasons that are about to become clear is the Climate and Nature Bill. Now I've pulled up the page from the government website and highlighted this particular bit of text because it says there are no publications for this bill yet. This can often happen in an early stage of a bill when it's not been fully drafted. So two points to make that First of all, the second reading will
be on Friday the 24th. Friday, typically a day where the attendance in the House Commons is very low, meaning that to push something through or at least slip it on the radar is made much easier. But secondly, to point out that why on earth with government not have the data comprised by the bill itself when 0 Hour, as dealt with previously by Mike on UK Column News, does have a copy of the bill. So you can go to that website to look at the PDF version of what
is contained. And the main point to make is that the language used is suitably vague to make it sound like there is of course a climate emergency. We must respond. And indeed the the various actions to be taken are not so specific as to be measured or to be have the possibility of being measured very accurately. So that the idea of whether or not it's succeeding is not something that's that's necessarily dealt with by it.
But of course, it rests on the premise that an increase of 1.5°C would be in the world's temperature. However, on Earth that actually measures would be catastrophic, something that of course is completely unsubstantiated because nobody knows and yet that is what we work our way
towards. I think it's also worth pointing out that one of the sponsors of this Private Members Bill is the Labour MP Alex Sobel, and there was some controversy in recent times about his meeting with Population Matters, something that he aimed to clarify. But just to have an understanding of who these people are. They promote positive, practical, ethical solutions, encouraging smaller families, inspiring people to reduce excessive consumption and helping us all to live within
our planet natural limits. We support human rights, women's empowerment and global justice. So really what they mean is they are interested in anything that is suggestive of a decrease in population and I think it's therefore very significant to think that somebody putting forward a bill of this nature is involved or has been involved in meetings with an organisation considering an outcome of a reduced population.
Now as to the contents of the bill itself, there are certain things that they would like the Secretary of State to be bound to do. Hitting various targets. Of course, offsetting is one of the critical words that's often used in any language pertaining to net zero. Which means, effectively, if you have enough money here, you may do what you please in order that somebody somewhere else may not
do that very thing. They talk about such nebulous concepts as UK emissions to be no more than proportionate to their share of the global carbon budget. Well, I'm not sure quite who's going to be measuring that or indeed how it will be calculated, but somebody has tried to put a figure on it, perhaps with the assistance of, you know, Ferguson's calculator. Who knows? There's also a pledge to end fossil fuels in all their forms, whether it be through the recovery or the use of fossil
fuels. So I suppose 1 hope as it were, may be that there is industry push back in the form of lobbying versus this particular point. Although of course, if money can be made out of it by those companies that are currently engaged in the production and resourcing of fossil fuels, then of course that could be dead in the water As a point of opposition. It has a certain amount of woke or progressive credentials.
I think to highlight three, it specifically says that it is to have a positive impact on those experiencing deprivation, the youth and those with protected characteristics. Now, quite why they should form a more significant part of the population than any other is, is a mystery and it's not qualified
by the bill. Also, significantly with regard to sortition, the topic that's been covered by Ben Rubin in particular on UK column News, there is to be the establishment of what's called an independent expert body to represent the UKA Climate and Nature Assembly. Now again, it's not specified how those people will be selected or indeed exactly what their remit will be, but they will wield a significant amount of power, as will the Climate Change Committee and the Joint
Nature Conservation Committee. Now we'll just have a quick look at a video of the previous chair of the Climate Change Committee trying to answer what I thought was a very straightforward question. What I would ask is, is how do you explain the proposition that approximately 3% of overall emissions of carbon dioxide, which are anthropogenic, can affect the climate in such a way that 97% of biogenic emissions seem not to be able to? Well, it's very fact.
First of all, I don't say that. That's what almost every scientist in the world, every single major scientific institution says. That's the first thing. He's subsequently moved on but clearly had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. And the current incumbent, Piers Forster has so far refused my 3 Requests for Interview with UK column, so we'll see how that goes.
Now, if you're interested in doing what you can to stop this bill from proceeding, there's going to be an open Zoom call this evening, a link to which will be in the show notes. And really, I just wrap up by saying that, of course, the point of this piece of legislation is that it's suitably vague to be passed at this stage, IE the primary stage where it would form an act of Parliament upon which secondary
legislation can be built. And that's where the detail would be. And that's exactly where the land use and indeed land ownership, among many other things, comes under significant threat. Like, I don't know if we've got time for any further sort of comment from you on where you think this is going to go. We'll, we'll talk about that an extra. Absolutely. OK, let's move on to international affairs and welcome Vanessa to the programme. Vanessa, what has David Lammy
been up to then? Well, the usual rank hypocrisy on his tour of the Middle East in increasingly I'll fitting suits I have to note in all of his photographs. So first of all, he welcomes Iraq's Prime Minister to discuss guess what, fighting Daesh or ISIS as we know them in Syria and Iraq. So UK increasing again its involvement and intervention in West Asia, particularly in Syria and Iraq as they always have done of course.
And of course we have to remember the UK is funding the ISIS holding camps in the northeast of Syria. And then he bangs on about climate and sustainable energy with the foreign minister. I don't need to add anything to
that. Then basically you have him meeting the head of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen or Mahmoud Abbas, and he talks of course about the two state solution in the wake of the so called ceasefire between Israel and Gaza and talks about an empowered Palestinian Authority with a very ageing Mahmoud Abbas in charge. And of course recently there are multiple reports on this, but this is just one from the cradle, Mahmoud Abbas's big gamble to crush West Bank resistance.
And of course there have been attacks by the PA, the Palestinian Authority on resistance factions and on civilians, particularly in the West Bank. Then Lammy goes on to meet with members of the Zionist regime and the families of the hostages with strong UK links, bearing in mind the UK was providing so called intelligence and surveillance to try and find the UK linked hostages in Gaza.
The government is using every diplomatic leaver and leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to bring Emily and her fellow hostages home. However, of course what Lammy doesn't mention are the thousands of Palestinian hostages or prisoners that have been taken over 10,000 both before 7th of October and after 7th of October.
And this is just a very short 32nd clip from a longer Euromed monitor clip showing basically the Zionist forces arrest of medical staff from the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip and the arrest of Doctor Hussam Abu Safiyah, who according to the investigation and the report, has been taken to stated Taman, which is the prison that is notorious for the rape of interned Palestinian civilians who are accused of being part of Hamas. And it goes into great detail
about the treatment of Doctor Hassam by the Zionist forces. This is not at all addressed by. And is not functioning at the moment. So let's see. Is it going to, is it going to come back? Yes. Are you back, Vanessa? No, no, she's not. OK. Well, we'll have to. We'll have to move on from that then. And yeah, definitely not working. Are you back, Vanessa? Hello. No. OK, she's going to try and reconnect. OK, well, we'll come back on to that again in a second.
Let's move on to to this because are you back for NASA? No. Yes, yes, I think so. Yeah, OK. Let's have, let's have a go then. So we were talking about. Am I back? Yes. No, this is, this isn't going to work. I'm sorry about that. Try, try reconnecting again if
you can. And look, what we'll do is we'll play the David Miller video because David Miller, who is someone who was presenting at the recent UK column event in October, was successful in his employment tribunal against Bristol University over their discrimination of him and his position on Zionism. He won his tribunal case, but he has issued an update this week. So let's have a listen to this.
Hello, I'm David Miller, I regret to inform you that my landmark legal case against Bristol University is being appealed. My case established the anti Zionist beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010. We achieved a landmark legal victory. The tribunal ruled decisively in my favour, confirming that Bristol University discriminated against me because of my anti Zionist beliefs. They affirm that my belief is profound and cohesive and worthy of respect in a democratic
society. This verdict sets a vital precedent. No longer can employers harass, discipline or dismiss workers simply for voicing opposition to the racist, colonial and genocidal ideology of Zionism. However, our struggle is not over. Bristol University has decided to appeal the tribunals ruling against them and they are determined to overturn this vital precedent. So David does need support.
We'll have a link in the show notes for anybody that would like to help him out with his legal expenses. He needs to raise a reasonable amount of money, but I think this is a worthwhile effort. Vanessa, let's try one again. Once again, normal. No, it's no problem. Just before we come back onto the the report on the Middle East on Lammy, what are your thoughts on on David's case? Right. Yeah, well, I'm really sorry. What I would say whilst we wait for Vanessa.
The other thing Mike mentioned that David spoke at UK column on vacation on the 19th of October. I would encourage you to listen to what David said on that day if you haven't already done so. Again, a link to that in in the show notes because he spoke very, very well and it is a completely extraordinary situation by background. So it really does merit another listening, even if you have already.
Right. I really regret to say the connection to Vanessa has completely broken down and we're not going to be able to to continue with that at the moment. So we'll see what happens later in the programme if if that clears itself up. In the meantime, if you'd like to support the UK column and we do need your ongoing support. Thank you to everybody that does contribute to us financially, but we do need that to continue. If you go to support.ukcolumn.org, there are
options to help us out there. You can make a donation or join as a member. And if you do join as a member, you get access to members only content and a small reduction in the cost in the UK column shop as well. But if you would also like to support us by getting some something from Clyde to carl.com, that would be very helpful as well. And we get a small percentage of every sale there, although it doesn't cost you any more to do that. Not everybody can afford to help
us out in that way. That's OK. If you can't, please do at least share the material that you see on the UK column website and see if you can share that as far and wide as possible and get us around the various limitations of, of censorship and so on. OK, look, let's let's move on. Oh, a quick advertisement here for Sandy Adams and Roger Meacock that's going out at 1:00 PM tomorrow. And that'll be on the live stream.
That's Debbie speaking to Sandy and Roger and Roger about what happened historically and globally to affect the situation that farmers currently find themselves in. This is Part 1 of a series yesterday. Tell us about this. Well. This appetised last week, but coming up this Saturday near Exeter there is going to be a meeting concerning food and farming. So if that's something that interests you and certainly you do not need to be involved in
farming. It's more to do with how to source your food from all the right places, ensuring that you get what you want at the right price and indeed satisfy those who are producing it for your benefit. And that the details will be in the show notes for that meeting this Saturday. And sorry, the blank slide there was supposed to be the interview with Mike Eden.
It was yes, absolutely, Doctor Mike Eden who gave a fantastic interview, something that he described as being one of his best, that went out yesterday and is now on the website. It was a very, very calm and rational logical explanation of Mike's belief as to the wilful failure of the design of the COVID vaccine. Therefore, with an intent to cause harm and also so he sets out his argument for debunking the narrative concerning contagion in the form of illness
by virus delivery. So I would really encourage you to listen to it if you haven't done so already. But also what I would say is that it would be a very good one to share with other people because the way in which Mike sets it out is so very clear. And of course, it's prefixed by his very impressive credentials in the Pharmaceutical industry. So I really would get into that and share it far and wide
please. OK, now let's move on then to AI. And the British government has well on Monday announced that they are throwing the full weight of Whitehall behind AI by agreeing what, let's say describe it to take forward all 50 recommendations set out by Matt Clifford in his Game changing AI Opportunity Communities Action Plan. Now Matt Clifford is described as a British entrepreneur and in the spring of 2023 he helped design the Frontier AI Task Force, which later became known
as the UKAI Safety Institute. Let's just have a look at Matt Clifford and what he had to say about this. We're entering a new era of AI. This tech has the potential to improve everyone's lives across our country and to grow the economy. But to do this, we need to invest in the UKF infrastructure and skills. So here are 5 recommendations for my AI Opportunities Action Plan. First, we're creating new AI
growth zones. These will speed up the construction of AI data centres, huge warehouses full of computers that power services like AI and data processing. This will help create new jobs and rejuvenate communities. And we'll set up an AI Energy Council to make sure that we power these zones in a clean and sustainable way. Second, we'll increase the government's compute capacity 20 fold this decade using new UK owned supercomputers.
With our own ability to churn through huge amounts of data, we can drive forward research in our public services like the NHS. Third, we'll support our AI sector by hiring more UK based AI companies to do government work. We'll make data sets publicly available and work with industry leaders to drive adoption. 4th, we must train the U KS workforce in AI for future jobs, so we'll help employers up skill their staff and support universities to increase the number of AI graduates.
And 5th, we'll pilot new ways to improve public services with AI, whether that's making it quicker to access healthcare or cutting admin for teachers. This is all while we continue our leading work to develop AI safely. This plan means AI will be put to work at the heart of the government's missions and that work starts today to rebuild the country, kick start economic growth and improve lives for everyone. Impressed. Well, I'm impressed by his suggestion that it that it
eliminates admin for teachers. Presumably he means teaching, Yes, but no. I mean, it's a pretty AI looking at the graphics, if you were able to view that on screen. It's amazing to be promoting something that is supposed to be absolutely at the front of the cutting edge and to do it with graphics that look like they were concocted in the 1970s. So I would say that's a mixed message there.
But no, not impressed. Yes. Well, look, he talked about the first ever AI growth zones being set up and these are areas across the country where the planning process will be subverted for the rapid build out of data centres and to give them better and they're going to give them better access to the energy grid and also to draw in
cash. The first of these is going to be in Cullum in Oxfordshire. A new digital centre of government is going to be set up within the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. This is going to revolutionise how AI is used in the public sector, they claim. And they also claim that this is going to improve citizens lives and make government more efficient. We can believe that if we like.
They also plan to set up a new team to keep us, I presume they mean them at the forefront of emerging technology. And this team is going to be, is going to what they describe as use the heft of the state to make the UK the best place for business and so on. Now look, what they're doing is they're guaranteeing corporations access to energy to run these data centres. And my first question is, are they removing that guarantee from the rest of us?
And is that why we're seeing advertising everywhere at the moment from the National Grid warning us to prepare for blackouts and as suspected possibly is? So, uh, you know what, what Matt Clifford was doing there was describing the fusion doctrine. He's describing a world where everyone's job is is dependent and reliant on government. There's no better way to control the population after all.
And he's also describing a world ripe for the post office horizon IT scandal to be, you know, a a fraction of what we're going to see in the future instead of being one of the biggest criminal conspiracies of our age. So I don't really know where this is going. But if you we already know what it's like to deal with these human faceless corporations that don't have any human contact with us anymore. You can't even emailed
corporations in many cases. And increasingly we're going to be dealing with directly with AI, uh, itself. And you know, all these billions that this government is now announcing is being spent on AI when they aren't even fixing the potholes in the roads. Is this where money should be going? Answer the question. And, and This is why, why is Starmer doing this?
And it's because, in my opinion, that's because the intention is to increase the level of farming of us that goes on our data, our lives, health and social care is going to lead the way on this. And this is a massive data exercise. And of course, the, the data bill, which is coming is a very big part of enabling it at all. There's plenty of opportunity for us to, to, to get involved in, in pushing back against it. And, and hopefully we will, I think finesse is back.
What we'll do is we'll do Charles's EV segment now and then we'll come on to doing going back to Lammy and, and also the rest that Vanessa has for us. So thanks for sticking with it. Vanessa. It's, it's, it's, it's glad, I'm glad to see you back there. So do the EV segment and OK, on to that. Will do. Now today with great sort of fanfare, we've been told that sales of electronic vehicles have gone up 25% across the world.
Of course, significant detail for anybody living in this country is that in Europe that is represented by a decline of 3%. So in fact the traffic is not going in the direction that they would wish in this part of the world, which I should think should be taken as an encouraging sign. The market has of course been saturated and indeed take up so far has largely been as a result of absurd incentives that are met of course by the taxpayer.
But the graph for Africa produced by Statista shows the current levels up to the black line representative on the graph and to the right of which are projected sales. But I've put a great big red arrow towards the year of 2020, which was one of course, of terrific acceleration in their terms after the political, economic and social pandemic,
but not of course, a health one. And talking about Africa, a good place to concentrate is Ethiopia, which has introduced legislation to prohibit the import of vehicles that are not battery powered, which of course is going to very much change the landscape, not least in a country that is not very well known for its stability of supply of electricity. But this is BYD. I've reported on them from Hong Kong, Chinese manufacturer, primarily of batteries.
Now interestingly, this coincides with the relaunch or indeed a new launch of the Ethiopian stock market. And one might think how coincidental and or you know, where will that go? But of course, the detail I'd like to pull out of it is that on the stock market's new website, they refer to a digital Academy. And we just have a quick look behind that and see that that's done with the support of FSD Ethiopia, which is financial sector, sorry, financial sector deepening Africa, specifically
the Ethiopia division. And who is that funded by? None other than the United Kingdom, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Swiss Ray Foundation and the International Finance Corporation. So we move from foreign influence, one might say, to consider foreign interference, and this takes us to the Horn of Africa somewhere.
I've reported on a fair amount in the past, the place where the United Kingdom is determined to be able to play both sides in saying that they are behind the sovereignty of Somalia, whilst also supporting the development of the port of Berbera in Somaliland, granting Ethiopia access to coasts that are
otherwise denied. Now. This follows Mike's segment because what you see on screen now, and if you can't see it, it's a photograph generated generated by artificial intelligence of what a Tesla Gigafactory would look like in Berbera, Somaliland according to Grok. If you haven't heard of Grok, well done. It's the Google, sorry, not Google Twitter X version of an artificial intelligence thing that you can ask questions of and it will give you answers of
some description. But nonetheless, it's created this, this fictional image now to illustrate the the dangers, one might say, of AI and the ludicrous directions that it can go in the further to this, there's now been a video produced of what Berbra might look like if such a development was to go ahead. And of course, I should reiterate at this point that this is based on absolutely nothing. Tesla have not said they're
going to do this. This is purely somebody asking an AI tool what would happen if such and such a thing were to take place. But this is the AI video of it. Berbera Port in Somaliland, located on the Gulf of Aden, is a vital gateway to Africa and a geostrategic hub on one of the world's busiest trade routes. For Tesla, this represents an unmatched opportunity to access Africa's booming markets and drive the continent's green revolution.
Africa, with over 1.3 billion people, is rapidly urbanising, and demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy is skyrocketing. Barbera offers Tesla a central base to deliver electric vehicles, solar power and battery storage to East Africa, the Horn of Africa and beyond, all while reducing costs and transit time. So that's completely fake. Utterly and completely fake.
But of course it it, it's now out there and it means that people will look at it and it will get shared on social media and before you know it, people will be convinced that Tesla is indeed setting up in the Horn of Africa. But of course that that is not outside the bones of
possibility. Because of course the Horn has enormous strategic importance, not just for the reasons I've mentioned just now, but also for its proximity to Djibouti and control of the the Red Sea ports there, but specifically because of the location of the Americans, Chinese and the Russians all in that part of the world. So this is not so outlandish. But the pro problem is it may
end up now driving a narrative. Now whilst we talk about EVs and batteries, just as an aside, I'm just going to pull out a headline from the Daily Mail effectively dismissing at at will the suggestion and that the enormous number of lithium batteries contained in the vicinity of Los Angeles, where the fires are being experienced, could have had anything to do with fire. As though in this particular instance, there's no way that a lithium battery would catch
fire. So it is perfectly astonishing how the narrative is is driven, pardon the pun, in this particular respect. Now to come back to reality. Of course, whilst that AI video is a nonsense, what's been happening in South Africa is most certainly not. And Bloomberg here reporting that Elon Musk has been meeting the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa. And the critical detail to come out of this?
Bearing in mind how we're all supposed to behave in accordance to one another and international law, he and Musk have been in contact to discuss ways for the government to change the rules to allow Starlink's high speed Internet to operate legally in South Africa. Now what does this have to do with EVs or with batteries or with Tesla, you might wonder?
But of course, the deal is first of all, in this age where diversity rules, the the specific rules that they are talking about changing in South Africa is to do with the ownership, the the law about ownership of the business being at least 30% black. And this is what Musk wants to change. In all likelihood it will. But in in delivering Starlink or indeed.
Foisting Starling upon South Africa, he's, he is effectively leveraging that against investment via Tesla to put up a, a Tesla plant in South Africa. And so that's effectively the way that this works. And although not in any way covert, this is, this is a very good example of how corporate deep state entities will manipulate the situation in whichever country they victimise or indeed the the entire world. Now, last year I showed how Starling has been enabling the right kind of war.
This was to do with the conflict in Russia and Ukraine and the SpaceX delivery of the Stalin communication platform. It not enabling Russia, China, Belarus, Afghanistan, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria or Iran from using its services. Now an update to that, because this year Venezuela and Cuba have now been permitted to use it. But of course, this is a double edged sword because it will of course be not just a control mechanism, but also a massive
data harvesting exercise. So the question is really, do you as a country want Starlink to be running your communications platforms? I think that's a question that should be asked, particularly in light of where they're going with this development in Southern Africa and quite possibly in the Horn of Africa. We shall see how correct AI may
be on that. The only thing I would add is also to just make reference to a comment made by Richard Dearlove, that former head of MI Six who has kicked up fast recently about Chinese involvement in renewable energy technology in the UK. And it seems remarkable that he can make such comment and ignore the Israeli control over defence communications and technological platforms in the UK, or indeed the delivery of space assets and communications platforms via
Elon Musk's many businesses. And completely ignore the Israeli involvement in just about every piece of consumer electronics as well in terms of Internet connectivity and so on. Well, Vanessa, it looks like the connection has been stable for a little bit now. So are you there? I am. I'm trying it on 4G now. I don't know what's happening with the Internet the last two days. Yeah, Well, well, that that, that is fine. So let's come back on to David Lammy. And he was speaking with the
what? The new Syrian foreign minister.
Well, yeah, the the foreign minister of the terrorist HTS group and just to to demonstrate and of course Lammy is not going to get hit with the Anti Terrorist Act Section 12 when he returns to the UK. Nor are any of the officials from Europe or from the UK particularly that have been visiting Syria and meeting with HTS still a prescribed terrorist group in the UK. And if we look at this was from the Charity Commission back in 2018 where actually they raised
the alarm that the humanitarian aid, particularly from the UK that was going through Northern Syria with on the border with Turkey at Babel, how are the fact that that crossing was run by HTS that was deemed a terrorist organisation in May 2017. And of course we know that the hypocrisy will continue and that HTS will effectively be normalised eventually. An article in Lamont very recently shows that Syria's HTS is a movement that allegedly has
de radicalised on the top. And then if we look at a post on X from From, am I still there? Sorry, yes, you are still there, Yes. Oh I'm sorry, a post from David Miller on X basically saying he's talking about that.
As I said, the so called ceasefire between Gaza and Israel, the argument that of course this is purely to make Trump look good, to give Netanyahu the reason that Trump forced him to make the ceasefire and of course to enable normalisation with the Gulf states, in particular Saudi Arabia. And David draws attention to the fact that it's not just the Saudis that will Zionize. Syria has already finished. Lebanon and Iraq are on the chopping block and Jordan and Egypt are expected to see
territory also. That's before we get to the Zionisation deals that will really forced onto Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and others. This is not a ceasefire, it's way of opening up new theatres now that Gaza has been destroyed. And of course we've been talking about the Zionisation also of Europe, UK and the US for some
time. OK, well thank you for that Vanessa, but let's move on then to the issue of sort of neo colonialisation because obviously people that have been left behind in Syria are suffering badly. Yeah. I mean, this is this is something that I, I want to highlight because we were talking about the fact, Mike, that, you know, we, we deal with the incoming threats and then once we've dealt with one particular incoming track, we kind of breathe a sigh of relief
and we relax. And I think what happened in Syria demonstrates the length of time that the ruling elite are prepared to wait for their plans to, to come into effect. And therefore any pushback can't be relaxed. It has to be maintained. So this is a headline. Turkey is angered by possible French presence on the Syrian border, which of course will be in the North East where they in supporting the Kurdish separatists for some time.
And then basically Turkey had strongly rejected a proposal to deploy French troops along the Syrian border to establish a so called secure zone. And, and what they basically say is like France, France is a small country. It can't act without the United States. Turkey is feeling very empowered at the moment, both towards Russia and towards the EU and even I would say towards Israel and the US. This of course partitioning plan goes back to John Kerry and it goes back way before that.
But let's look at 2016. John Kerry talked about the partition of Syria, which could be part of Plan B if peace talks fail. In 2018, Turkey was already warning France that they could become a target for supporting the Kurdish separatists inside Syria.
And then when we look at the fact that Turkey is now pushing for the elimination of the Kurdish LED US allied Syria democratic forces, what he's basically saying is I own I'm entitled to northern Syria and nobody is going to get in and partition that area of the country. He's talking about not partitioning all of Syria, but what he's what they're talking about is protecting interests in in the interests of the neo Ottoman jet.
What we have some are continued persecutions, particularly of Christians and Alawites, but also Muslims that object side serious. Yeah, right. I am very sorry, but clearly this is problematic today. So we're we're just going to have to move on, I'm afraid. OK, let's move on then to what are we looking at? Family courts. Family courts, yes.
This funnily enough, follows a segment that Brian was dealing with on Monday's News and concerned an article written back in 20 Eighteenth Guardian about kidnap of children by the state, written by a journalist called Louise Tickle. Now we we go on several years and find that she is currently in the Court of Appeal and this is concerning the anonymisation of judges in family court hearings.
So she is in the Civil division of Court of Appeal there, there'll be a link in the show notes and it certainly is a very interesting one to watch specifically on the sort of technical basis of it. But it but really her her appeal is in her capacity as a journalist and is based on release of information by a family court. But the withholding of the judge, now by that you mean the judge's identity? Sorry, the the absolutely the
the. Identity of the judge The specific case is that of Sara Sharif who was murdered by her parents following decisions taken by a family court.
So whilst this could be seen as sort of pushing an agenda, suggesting that the failure of the state to protect the children, a child by taking it away from its parents, is there this, this, it really is about a wider issue and, and, and this is now going through it. But it, it, it also deals with the not just the, the judgement that was made to anonymise the particular judge, but also the faulty logic that was set out in
order to make that decision. But of course, what it paves the way for is further anonymisation and therefore judges being able to act in such a way that they may not have considered previously because they know that they would be anonymous.
And also yet again to mention AI, it's already been suggested by by various judges they'd use AI in summing up is is this indeed opening the door for further use of AI in the family court, which obviously, as covered many, many times by UK column, are a place of dire outcomes for families on a very, very unfortunately regular basis.
Now, this also illustrates the way in which the Human Rights Act is wielded and the supposed balance between Article 8 and Article 10. Article 8 being the right to a private and family life and Article 10 being freedom of expression. In this case journalism and journalistic freedom of expression.
And of course it falls to a judge to decide in which well camp effectively the the favour is to swing, which is effectively a bizarre and arbitrary mechanism for deciding the fate of children in the first instance. But also the public interest part of this, which of course is going to be obscured far further if this does go ahead, but as yet inconclusive because it's in session. So I will aim to get back next week on, on exactly where this
is where this is going. I I have been in touch with Louise Tickle to try to set up a telephone call with her to work
out what she makes of this. Now the only other thing to draw your attention to first of all the the the note from the Surrey County Court going back last year to the judgement that she is appealing, but also to point out that this appeal is being sponsored by Tortoise Media. Now Tortoise Media has been covered an awful lot by UK column in recent times and of course with the combining of Tortoise, the Guardian Media Group and the Scott Trust, this does perhaps suggest a direction
of travel for Tortoise. Yes, Now. Vanessa was kind enough to send an article by Craig Murray to me yesterday, and I just want to highlight this. Maybe we'll get some comment on it in a second. The headline is how the establishment functions, the real dark web. And so in this article, Craig Murray is pointing out that, for example, Keir Starmer appointed this lady whose name escapes me. So I do apologise.
Alison Levitt to basically investigate Starmer's role in the prosecution or non prosecution of Jimmy Savile. Now she is married to Lord Carlisle and the point that he is that Craig Murray is making is that Lord Carlisle is very good friends or was very good friends with two absolute paedophiles in Cyril Smith and Lord Janner. Now he is not making any allegations against Lord Carlisle at all. But as we'll see, you'll, you'll see the point that he's making in a second.
So this is what he had to say. We now know that the police had a great deal of corroborative evidence for Beck's claim that Janner was abusing children in care homes. So this was one of the people who was making the the claims about Lord Janner. I do not claim that Carlyle knew this, I do not know, says Craig Murray. Carlyle states that Janner is his friend or was his friend.
They were both MPs, both QCs, both members of Friends of Israel, both patrons of UK Lawyers for Israel and of the Friends of Israel Education Foundation. Alex Carlisle and they, well, have had no idea Janet was a paedophile. After all, he shared a cramped parliamentary office for solo Smith for many years and apparently never realised Smith was prolific paedophile. Possibly Alex Carlisle is simply a particularly unobservant man,
says Greg Murray in the article. I've often noticed that ordinary people like you and I manage in general, to live our entire lives with no connection of friendship to paedophiles at all. Yet the powerful are always finding they're connected to Janner's, Epstein, Savile Smith's, Mountbatten's, et cetera, entirely by accident. It is of course, all nothing but accident, bad luck and coincidence. To wonder if it might be otherwise is to be a mad proto fascist conspiracy theorist.
Apparently there's much more in this article, and I do recommend that people go and look at it. But Vanessa, before we come back to finish your segment, what were your thoughts on this? Yeah, I mean it's. Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating. I think as you said, to look into the depth of the web that is being woven at the moment with all the various grooming games and paedophile places that are ongoing. Yes, yes.
Indeed. And in the meantime, we focus on one particular demographic and it's, as I've said before, it's right that anybody that's been involved in grooming gangs is absolutely prosecuted. Who would nobody would be suggesting otherwise. But we do have to recognise the reality of this country and and see see the situation for what it is. It's much broader than that one particular issue. OK, look, let's finish off by coming back to your segment then.
And I think we had got to this point the the issue of the the minor gallows, yes, yeah. And the issue of. Of the gallows being erected to further prosecute particularly the Alawites on the coast. And recently one of the leaders of the Alawites has actually called for French, excuse me,
French intervention. Now of course, this goes back to the history of Syria. The Alawite region which is known to be in the coastal areas, which became part of Syria as a byproduct of the notoriously secret 1916 Sykes Picot agreement between France and Britain.
It was placed under the French mandate after the end of World War One, and after defeating and evicting the British backed Syrian King Faisal in 1920, France in a divide and rule strategy partitioned Syrian territories into poor parts, one of which was Latakia, where most of the population was Alawite. And of course that gave France control over the Levant coastal region. And if we look at this is basically the French mandate map, you can see the Alawite
state in purple. You can see the Aleppo state in the north, which now of course is being contested by not only Turkey and France, but also the US and Israel, The state of Damascus, the, sorry, the Druze state in the South. They're very similar to what we're seeing attempted now in Syria. And of course, I mentioned last week, we're seeing the race again between France and Turkey to gain control of the coastal area. And the gas reserves off the coast of Syria are very
important. And again, people can freeze frame the next map and take a good look. But this is what the Ottoman Empire consisted of. And this is clearly what Erdogan is trying to head towards. The dark brown is the original Ottoman Empire, and the various colours of pink are the areas into which the Ottoman Empire expanded into. The white are basically the
Basel states. So again, we can see the direction of travel both for France, the EU, the US, Israel, Qatar, the Gulf States and Turkey by looking at these maps. And this was actually a map that has been produced by the Institute of the Study of War, which shows again, very clearly the current partitioning. The striping is the area that was called contested Syrian territory. The blue circle is the Altanov unlawful U.S. military base.
And then you have the various armed factions in yellow in the South and around Altanov, some of which of course were, let's say, brought together by Russia after the Dalar Agreement in 2018. And they formed the 5th Legion, which was the legion that actually invaded Damascus before HTS that most likely under the control of Israel and the US. You have there also in the brown and the coastal region, which includes, as we've mentioned, the Alawite state or the
proposed state. But all of that area currently is under the control of the near Ottoman forces, HTS and, and the Turkmen, who also have control the Turkmen, which are the formerly Free Syrian Army in the yellow areas in the north. And then also the Israeli USEU project in the purple, which is
the SDF. So unfortunately, as I said, we're heading towards what appears to be the increased persecution of minorities in Syria, which will lead to the calls for foreign intervention, which will lead to the partitioning project coming to fruition. So as I said, and I want to finish on that very quickly, we must never relax our resistance. We must never bring down our guard because while we are relaxing, they are planning and
preparing the next steps. And I think, you know, this is an incredibly important lesson that we need to take away from what happened in Syria. Thank you, Vanessa. And I think. That's something one of the things that I want to talk about a bit more in extra as well. Now look what we're going to do is because Vanessa's segments today were a bit broken up, we will get those added together. So when Kenny puts out the the extracts from that, no, don't
apologise, it's not your fault. So when Kenny puts out the extracts, we will we'll put those out as as proper segments, 2 separate segments as they were intended to be in the first place. But we've got to leave it there for today. I'm going to say thank you very much to everybody for joining us today. We'll be back if you're UK column member in a few minutes for some extra. Otherwise, we will see you on Friday and but don't forget the interview tomorrow at 1:00 PM.
See you then. Bye, bye, bye bye.