Good afternoon. It's Wednesday the 21st of August 2024, just after 1:00. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson, joining me in the studio today with Charles Mallett. Welcome to the program, Charles. Thank you, Mike. And from Damascus, Vanessa Bailey, he's joining us as well. Now we're going to get kicked off today, Charles, with yacht sinkings and other coincidences. Yes, we are. Good afternoon all.
Yes, this is the news that within very close proximity to each other two Co defendants of a case that's just been to trial in America have respectively been killed and gone missing. On the left, we see the BBC reporting the death of Stephen Chamberlain, formerly of Autonomy and then invoke Capital and associated with Dark Trace, which we're going to come on to
talk about. Hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday. And then on Monday, the yacht belonging to Mike Lynch was reportedly overturned in harbour off Sicily. Also on board, Jonathan Bloomer of Morgan Stanley and their solicitor Christopher Morvillo. Now, of course, at first sight this does seem like a coincidence beyond credibility, but what it does do is to shine a spotlight on not just the court case that had closed, but also the other activities that they respectively had been
involved with. So if we go back to the court case itself, which concerned the suggestion that there had been there had been a fraudulent inflation of the price of Autonomy, which was founded by Lynch. And indeed Chamberlain worked there at the company with him. It was sold to Hewlett Packard. And the fraud allegation has just been quashed in effect by a federal court in San Francisco.
So the the sort of celebration aboard the the yacht named Bayesian, which of course is worth mentioning because it refers to a statistical branch of mathematics predicting future outcomes on past events in effect. But, but, but this is giving us a further look at what they did with the proceeds of the sale of autonomy to Hewlett Packard, which was to put the money into a company called Invoke Capital with which they were able to set up other businesses.
And I should just draw your attention to what it says on the the front page of their website, which is that Invoke exists to realise the commercial possibilities of Britain's extraordinary science and deep technology base. So commercial possibilities are the critical part of this entire story. It would seem so. With funding from Invoke Capital, a cybersecurity company called Dark Trace was set up in 2013.
The headline there from the Dark Trace website, Invoke Capital makes first investment in fundamental cybersecurity technology. Now it wasn't terribly long after, at least this is the first sort of report of it on the Dark Trace website, that the UK government signed a multimillion dollar contract with Dark Trace. Now interestingly, the UK government is quite quiet about this. Very difficult to find any reference to Dark Trace specifically on the government
website. But nonetheless, it's going back a tiny bit to 2016. There was a, a, an award, a Queen's Award given to Dark Trace for what's described as an enterprise, their enterprise immune system. So just to get into the nuts and bolts of what Dark Trace actually does, or at least says that it's capable of and it concerns what's called pattern of life.
So it concerns artificial intelligence, so it says it's powered by AI algorithms and the enterprise immune system works by learning the pattern of life of each user and device across the entire digital infrastructure using this evolving understanding of normal dark trace spots, emerging threats and autonomously responds to in progress attacks before they do damage. But of course we have to consider the type of threat and the type of damage.
Are we talking about threats to government and population or corporate interests? And this is the the line that we need to to understand better. They go on to say that it's powered by machine learning and mathematics and it was developed by specialists from the University of Cambridge and intelligence from former MI 5 and GCHQ experts. Dark Traces Self learning technology is able to monitor network activity and tech threats as they develop, which helps companies get ahead of the threats.
Now of course, with a capability like that, it's no great surprise that they go on to say that some of the world's largest corporations rely on Dark Traces self Learning technology in sectors including energy and utilities, financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and
transportation. So of course, with all of this in mind, first of all, Dark Trace seems to be suggesting that they can predict outcomes based on their monitoring and surveillance of people and the way that they use devices in
particular. Now, should we be concerned therefore that this is an arrangement that government have gone into specifically because of course Invoke Capital, which has funded Dark Trace and indeed has involved Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain has of course declared that them their chief concern here are the commercial possibilities for the
organization. Now the other connection that I want to draw your attention to is that Dark Trace describes Crowdstrike as being a Dark Trace technology partner. And of course Crowdstrike was responsible, shall we say, for an enormous IT outage recently due to an update, or at least say the story goes, an update that in fact brought several technologies to a standstill. But they say that they stop
breaches. They power, productivity, technology, intelligence and expertise come together in our industry leading Crowdstrike Falcon platform to deliver security that works. And then we look at the government website, of course, the government in effect selling Crowdstrike products there. We can see that it's £120 for a virtual machine on what they're calling their Falcon platform.
So the crowd strike of course, partnered with Dark Trace, which is funded by an organization that specifically is set up to further commercial interests or commercial possibilities. And now we look at who's actually involved with Dark Trace, of course, part from Lynch himself and Chamberlain who had come from autonomy and invoke capital.
But we see first of all, in terms of sort of profile, Jonathan Evans and we look at his background, former Director general of MI 5, where he spent 33 years focusing on internal and domestic counterterrorism and cyber threats. And this is very much a pattern, one might say. We've also got the ex CIA official, Alan Wade, who is described as being the chief information officer of the CIA, who's joined the board of advisors.
Now, this has been written about in the past by the classified UK in an article back from 2020 saying how how Britain's profiteering spy masters ignored the country's biggest threats like coronavirus and endangered the public. Now, they're not actually suggesting that coronavirus was the country's biggest threat. The point they're making is the government was talking about it as though it was the biggest threat and yet they weren't dealing with it in the in the
same way they were other things. So the key phrase from the declassified article is is revolving dawn. They they go on to say that the revolving door between government and industry is meant to be regulated for conflicts of interest by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. However, the E classified can find no evidence that an intelligence chief has ever had
an Acoba application rejected. This allows them to lobby their old agencies on behalf of their private interests after they leave office. So we'll just have a look at the detail of that. Specifically, we've talked about Evans, Jonathan Evans. So the letter that concerned his appointment back from 2013 said that it was approved on a a dual condition that he should not draw on privileged information available to him from his time in Crown Service.
They felt it was especially pertinent in this case given the sensitive nature of his job and also the need to avoid the perception that Dark Trace was gaining an unfair advantage due to it. And then also from 2 years from his last day of service, he should not not become personally involved in lobbying the UK government on behalf of his new employer. And they go and say it's parent
company or it's clients. So these, the accidents that have befallen these two men have, well, either by design or not, brought into the public domain now, an awful lot of information. There's still going to need to be picked through in some considerable detail to see exactly, first of all, what has happened to them, how it did happen. I mean, it does seem
coincidence. Absolutely. As I said at this at the outset, beyond credibility, there will be all sorts of wild speculations one shouldn't doubt, But really to examine the relationship between government and corporation and where those relationships overlap in terms of a united desire to pursue civilian populations by means of monitoring and surveillance in order to protect behaviour and therefore control it. So there's an awful lot more that's going to come out of this story, one imagines.
Indeed. And Vanessa, once again, it highlights the very tight links between cybersecurity companies and intelligence agencies. We've been highlighting connections to Unit 8200 with so many of these, but it's it's not just Israeli intelligence as Western, other Western intelligence agencies as well. Yeah, absolutely. And as I say, that's a very important aspect of what we're talking about to keep an eye on for the future.
But today I wanted, because there's a lot of conversations going on about the threat of nuclear escalation between Russia and NATO. But in my view, everyone's rather ignoring the very real threat of Israel's Samson Option and its nuclear capability, which has been kept very under wraps, as many people describe it, sort of basement nuclear capability. So this is from the Strategic Vision Institute, deconstructing Israel's Samsung option and what
it means. So the Samsung option can be employed in a case conventional deterrence fails. The CIA believed as early as 1976 the Israelis had stockpiled 10 to 20 nuclear weapons. By 2002, it was estimated that the stockpile number had increased to more than 75. In 2006, George W Bush's Defence Secretary Robert Gates admitted in a Senate hearing that Israel has nuclear weapons, and two
years later, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter also said that the number of Israeli nuclear warheads is more than 150. That number is is now considered to be much higher. Those testimonies by senior U.S. officials established the fact that Israel does possess nuclear weapon capability. So what does this actually mean? This is an article at the at progressive.com. Israeli nuclear ambiguity. It's lack of official
confirmation or denial. It's also not a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty and it's the only country in the region or any state in the region that does possess nuclear weapons. But that secrecy persists to this day. Nevertheless, as of 2021, researchers estimate that the country possesses 90 nuclear warheads. These figures do change, according to the reports, capable of being delivered by aircraft, land based ballistic missiles and sea based cruise
missiles. Israel is reserving these weapons for the Samsung option, an all out assault on the civilian population centres of its opponent, but also of its friends if under threat. So let's have a look at the next
part of that article. It stands in contrast the Samsung option to doctrines embraced by other nuclear powers, such as the Mutually Assured Destruction MAD developed during the Cold War. MAD posits that nuclear powers like the US and Soviet Union or now Russia could deter each other from ever using nuclear weapons through the threat of retaliatory strikes. That would ensure mutual destruction. However, Israel doesn't adhere to this policy as it does in its defence policy.
Generally it believes in pre emptive strikes. And so if we look at what that also entails, I mean in in the 80s Mordecai Vanunu for his was given the Right Livelihood award for his courage and self sacrifice in revealing the extent of Israel's nuclear weapons. He was imprisoned for 18 years by Israel for treason. 11 of those years were spent in solitary confinement. And even though he was released in 2004, he basically is not allowed to talk to foreign journalists and his movements
are restricted. So this is the recent image in Israeli media of the Damona nuclear power facility that has been targeted in the recent escalation. And if we look at what it says in the Jerusalem Post, this was in June of this year, Israel is upgrading its plutonium for its reactor at the nuclear research facility in Damona. And basically, so basically this is effectively admitting that that Israel has nuclear warheads. But the IAEA, sorry, I always got that one mixed up.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has not to date been able to inspect those facilities. Now what I want to point to because in in a sense with the NATO Russian conflict, we're dealing with, particularly from the Russian side, a degree of rationale. This is an article in the cradle saying Israel isn't crazy crazy, it's just mad MAD. And that doesn't mean mutually assured destruction. It means literally mad. So let's have a look at what
they mean. Basically what Israel is doing is presenting itself as an over like a rabid dog in its war policy. So I'm just going to read down the middle column first. People are more likely to attack you if they see you as weak or vulnerable. Second, they cannot know for sure that you're weak. They depend on the signs that you give out through your behaviour, both present and past. Hit them where you sense they may be vulnerable and make it
hurt. Well, we're definitely seeing that in Israel's genocidal policy. You are not acting out emotionally. That is a sign of weakness. You're simply hinting that you are a little irrational and that your next move could be almost anything. So just relate this back to the Samsung option. This reputation can be for any number of things, being difficult, stubborn, violent, ruthlessly efficient. You must build your reputation carefully, allowing no inconsistencies.
Instead of threatening your opponents openly, you take action that is indirect and designed to make them think. And I would also point out that in 2003, Ariel Sharon said that we possess several 100 atomic warheads and can launch them in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most EU capitals are targets for our Air Force. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I assure you that will happen before Israel goes under.
So this is coming back to this the the threat of the Samsung option that can even be directed at what would be considered friendly nations. And not forgetting that since October the 7th, it was the heritage minister who was suspended after calling for the new king of Gaza as being an
option. And more recently, the ambassador at the UN, Gilad Erdan, who's outgoing, in his final speech, said that the UN building should be wiped off the face of the earth, that it was a twisted and distorted institution, which I would agree with to some extent, but not for the same reasons as he does. And then finally, I thank 65% of Israeli Jews oppose criminal prosecution for soldiers suspected of raping Palestinian detainees.
So we're looking at a very unstable, deliberately irrational nation with the potential of pre emptive nuclear strikes. OK, thank you for that, Vanessa. Now let's come back to the UK and censorship, perhaps perhaps a bit more than that. Richard Medhurst put this tweet tweet out a couple of days ago talking about his arrest under the Terrorism Act because of his reporting. Now we have a little bit of video from this.
Let's have a look at what he had to say on Thursday as I landed in London Heathrow Airport, I was immediately escorted off the plane by 6 police officers who were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft. They arrested me. Not detained. They arrested me under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 and accused me of allegedly, quote, expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization. UN quote but wouldn't explain
what this meant. So I was taken to an adjacent room, patted down, my phone confiscated. I was not allowed to inform my family. Despite being calm and cooperative, I was handcuffed with something that placed my shoulders in an awkward position and and my wrists on top of, rather than next to each other. The handcuffs were extremely tight despite the police loosening them. They left marks on me for two days. They searched me again for the
second time within 10 minutes. I was told to sit on a bench, remove my shoes, remove my socks. I was told to turn my socks inside out and hold them up for the officers to inspect. They also made me hold up my feet so they could check them as well. The officers took me to an to a room with UV lights, which they told me is used to catch burglars who are sprayed with something as I've no idea why they did this since they just removed me off of a plane. My suitcase was then opened in
the lobby and ransacked. All of my journalistic equipment and devices were seized, including phones, SIM cards, wireless microphones, microphones, headphones, even my shoelaces. They later took my DNA as well my fingerprints, palm prints and photographed me. I was placed in solitary confinement in a cold cell that smelt like. Urine. Now there's quite a bit more in that video clip, so I do suggest everybody goes and watches the full clip.
But he was talking about being arrested, Charles, under section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Let's bring this on screen and just have a look at the government summary of this. Section 12 of TAAC 2000 makes it an offence. To invite support for a prescribed organization, express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a prescribed organization or to arrange or manage to in a sorry to or assist in arranging or managing a meeting in support of a
prescribed organization. Now, I guess in this case the the situation is the prescribed organization is Hamas. But I mean, what what were your thoughts based on the on the clip of how this was handled? Was was an arrest appropriate, for example? I mean, it's, it's very hard to say, but it's certainly what did happen to him. Having been arrested does highlight the ability with which police can run a sort of domino rally of events.
So if if their goal is to find certain bits of information or indeed articles, you know, he talked about having his journalistic equipment to kind of look through and whatnot, then the arrest is the unlocking device, then that that sets the chain in motion. So I think that's the critical
thing here. And like so much, this legislation that's been designed over the last sort of 50 years, it specifically enables this, this interpretation, which makes it almost impossible, you know, not to have the power of arrest in, in these sorts of situations. So I think that's the thing. It's just the, it's the way in which it's written up it, it makes it too easy for police to do that. Certainly you know, the way what he's describing of being in custody that I'm afraid is, is
standard. That's not related to terrorism. Okay. And of Vanessa, when similar happened to you, of course, you were held for not quite as long. Sorry if we just put the graphic on screen here, please, Stephanie. And we just look, because you were held under Section Schedule 7, which is kind of an addendum to the main act itself, which gives pretty unique powers to the British government to examine people without needing to arrest them first. So that's a different thing.
But what I really wanted to get your thoughts on were what you thought about the issue of having an opinion about a prescribed organization. Playing an opinion is that it's about who is prescribing them as a terrorist organization. But if as a journalist it's your job basically to talk about prescribed organisations in, in any particular conflict or, or
arena. And to a degree that's what Richard is doing as a journalist, it's what all of us do. So, you know, are we talking about the conflict here in the Middle East going to be accused of promoting a prescribed organization? Well, the BBC can come to Idlib and sit down for tea with a prescribed organization, Al Qaeda or with ISIS affiliates and get away with it Scott free. I'm sure they're not stopped as they come into Heathrow. Indeed.
I think the other brief point to make just following that is the absurdity of the date of the prescription. Hamas in this country was only prescribed in November 2021. So of course, had he said or done anything that encompassed expressing support for Hamas prior to that no one be able to touch him. And and the reason that date's significant is that in the United States, the the similar condition I think goes back to 1997 or 98.
So it it is like we see with all these things, it's the United Kingdom sort of pushing the edge of the envelope in order to be able to, in effect, capture people that it feels like wants to capture. I think the thing that concerns me most about this is who decides what the line is and, and you know, this line that gets drawn effects what people
say, what they're able to say. We're saying this this line being pushed ever further towards prescribing anybody from saying anything which is in any way critical of government policy. I think this is extremely dangerous. We'll talk about this much more in extra, I'm sure. Now, if you like what the UK column does, you'd like to support us, the place to go is support.ukcolumn.org £5 a month is what we're asking for a membership and your membership very much needed, very much
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We were very delighted to have Bob Moran visiting us yesterday at UK Column tars here and he will be at this event on the 19th as well. Many others. We'll we'll name more names. Very, very shortly. Now, the interview that Alex did with Calistrat, Marvin Tadore, if I've pronounced that name correctly, is now on the website. Please do watch this. We've got a very good response in the chat box yesterday. I think everybody enjoyed it. So do watch this.
And then tomorrow, an interview with Kevin Lister. Kevin raised safeguarding concerns in his capacity as a teacher at a College in Swindon, but these were concerns about a student of his that was wanting to be referred to by a different name and to be considered to be a boy rather than a girl. And Kevin's life has been systematically dismantled as a result of challenging the transgender agenda.
I really would encourage you to listen to this, especially if you're a parent or in any way involved with education. So that goes out at 1:00 PM tomorrow and join us for that. On Sunday, September the eighth, the International Centre for 911 Justice and UK column will be holding a symposium on entitled Aviation and Possibilities, deconstructing the official story of the 9/11 hijackings and air defence failures. Ted Walter Olivier, Karen Mason, Aidan Monaghan and Kevin Ryan
will be speaking. Pierce Robinson will be hosting and so that begins at 6:00 PM UK time, 1:00 PM Eastern Time and join us for that if you possibly can. September the eighth So Katie Joes and Hope Sussex Freedom Music Festival another reminder for that 23rd to the 26th of August. Get to that if you possibly can.
And finally. Yeah, taking control of your, your own food supply, such a critical part of life these days that the Attack on Food and Farmers Symposium, 6th and 7th of September, it's going to be hosted by Children's Health [email protected]/events and there are some very, very good and knowledgeable speakers. So I would advise that you tune in to that. Also, Brian and I will be speaking at the Heritage Party Conference on the 20th of September. Details on screen and in the
show notes. And then in November of this year in London, there's going to be a Died Suddenly art exhibition, which is to put the spotlight on the excess deaths that have not been sufficiently explained or given attention by the government. If you're able to help with that or you would like to know more about it, get in touch with Jake Fern at Jake H [email protected]. OK, so lots going on at the moment. I hope everybody will find
something in that lot. Now perhaps you'll find this interesting because of course we all clapped for the NHS. We now all need to clap for Ukraine. This is a new campaign being run through the Ministry of Defence and others for Ukrainian Independence Day. So I'm sorry, I'm going to impose this little piece of video on you. None. Slavo Green. Hello Slavo.
I appreciate it's lunchtime and that may have made you feel physically ill, but let's just, they have produced a whole document, a whole PDF document giving advice on how to how to take advantage of this whole thing. So they provide sample social media graphics, they provide sample social media posts for you, they provide a hashtag that we don't have to think, we just have to do.
And so just as with the NHS Charles, we need to be out there banging our pots for Ukraine. It's great stuff, isn't it? Yes, yes. OK, let's move quickly on to more serious things and we'll space. Yes, space, which we will focus on quite a bit today and have done over the last few months because of course, space is now becoming very much an integral part not only of defense, but also of the overlap between defense, corporate interests, weather modification, surveillance, and so many other
things besides. So we've got UK Space Command announcing that a satellite, the Taiki satellite, was sent into space as part of program Istari. Now, as with so many things in this age, the names are always rehashed. They're seldom anything to do with British culture. So it's just worth pointing out here that in Greek religion, Taiki is the goddess of chance with whom the Roman fortuner was later identified, a capricious dispenser of good and ill fortune. I thought that was a bit odd.
But anyway, capricious dispenser, I just want to highlight this as the conflict in Ukraine has shown. So the government, administrative defence here and equipment and support just using whichever sort of sweet spot or
emergency that they can here. Of course, we've got the conflict in Ukraine, but they're talking about it being the first satellite to be launched under the Ministry of Defence's space based Estari program, which will deliver a constellation of satellites and sporting ground systems by 2031. So this is under the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance function. But what I really want to draw your attention to this slide is that the MOD are claiming to
have complete ownership of this. They are making out that this is entirely their project. But we should also be very mindful of the fact that they say it will contribute to other government tasks. And they don't list those. But look at what it is able to do to include natural disaster monitoring, development of mapping information, environmental monitoring and tracking. I've highlighted effectively it's an eye in the sky, low orbit, and it is specifically tasked with capturing daylight
imagery. We have a little sorry on back that. Yeah, Anyway, that was a very short video of it. Here we go. No, sorry, sorry. OK, never mind, It's gone. But it was part of the Defense Space strategy, which goes back to February 2022, which reported on very comprehensively by UK column at the time that it's part of a 1.4 billion investment. And again, there's going to be a
network of these satellites. But again, here we see the same terminology to support greater global surveillance and intelligence for military operations. But what sort of military operations? But the science inside gives us a bit more of an answer to that, which of course is where this does come from, from DSTL, the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, 2022. And this is the very opening phrase in that publication. We live in times of increasing volatility and uncertainty.
The threats we face today, both at home and abroad, are more complex and dynamic than ever before. So we're looking at surveillance, tracking, monitoring and military operations, and we're talking about threats at home. So I will leave you to draw your own conclusions, but I think that sends quite a clear message of where this is going. They also point out their science and technology capabilities, and it's just worth noting how many of those relate to human behaviours.
We've got AI and data science, communications and networks, cyber, Homeland Security and CT systems, counterterrorism, human and social sciences, information systems, operational research and sensing. So it does look very much like space. Here, a chapter within this publication is being used as yet another means of surveilling the population. But the critical part comes out here when I talk about the MOD claiming to have ownership.
They say that they will provide a test platform for sophisticated imaging and monitoring radio signals, including GPS. Well, think about GPS. In this day and age, everybody carries a GPS tracking device with them all the time, paving the way for a more collaborative and connected space communication system with our combat allies. Well, who exactly are they? Because of course, the bit that wasn't mentioned initially was that this was only put into low orbit by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
So in fact, is it owned by the Ministry of Defence or not? And well, let's just have a look at Mint Press news here. Speculating admittedly, but they say that Elon Musk stopped Ukraine from striking the Russian Navy by switching off Starlink. So when you think that the UK's defence, what's called the defence capability is in effect put into orbit by somebody who owns a company, company
privately. And then we see on the right, of course, Musk having a very friendly conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. It's it's perfectly reasonable to ask questions of the judgement of the government and the Ministry of Defence. So there we go. SpaceX valued at 210 billion. But as I say, it's at the moment a privately owned company. And now some slides that I've talked about in the past just to just to highlight this.
So SpaceX here broadcasting that they provide secure satellite comms networks for government entities. But of course a spin off of this or part of it is what they call Star Shield, which they say supports national security, but
who's national security? And again, Star Link, which is in effect part of the same stable is not possible to use in Russia, China, Belarus, Afghanistan, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria or Iran. So it just goes to show how any of these engagements have gone into, they're spoken about as though we own them. We absolutely don't.
They are. We are totally at the behest of corporations and in this case individuals like Elon Musk, which from a defence point of view seems an absolutely absurd position to enter into. So if that's space warfare in the UK, what's happening in the United States? Well, just recently they have held a conference here. It is Space and Mission Defence Symposium.
And well, I've just thought it was quite amusing that their titanium patron was Boeing, since Boeing not only doesn't seem to be able to manufacture aircraft that don't crash at the moment, but don't seem to be able to manufacture spacecraft that are capable of bringing anything back from the International Space Station because they're their capsule is currently stuck up there at the moment. But anyway, this symposium featured this gentleman.
This is General Stephen Whiting, who's head of space com in the United States. And they're told he was talking about their their latest list of requirements. The latest on the list or the top of the list at the moment is a request, a requirement for what they're describing as space fires. Now, this is pretty undefined at the moment. It has been used several times over the years by Space Command, but they haven't really defined it to enable them to establish space superiorities.
This is what he said. Missile defeat effects will significantly enhance our ability to defeat trans regional ballistic crews and hypersonics missile threats as well as air launched a ground launched direct ascent threats. But he said that these involve new and innovative approaches across all domains which evolve beyond point solutions and one
versus one missile interceptor. So to translate that a little bit, that seems to be suggesting, Charles, that they are looking perhaps at electromagnetic effects where they can affect multiple warheads or multiple weapon systems at a time, rather than attempting to shoot things down directly. Yeah. I. Think. I think that'd be exactly right. Which of course begs the question, if it can be done there, it can certainly be done elsewhere. But will it be?
Indeed, so if we bring him back on then he went on to say this dynamic space operations is based on the idea that in a future fight, some of our assets in space must be able to do what our terrestrial assets do all the time, manoeuvre and sustain themselves. Doing so will allow our space based capabilities to execute their mission until the objectives are met, not until they run out of the gas they
launched with. And so the question is, what is this power source going to be that there that is going to survive until the mission is complete? And the only thing that I can think of would be some kind of nuclear power source. Whether they're actually intending to use nuclear power in space remains to be seen. The the other question of whether they're actually talking about any kind of kinetic weaponry in space is also remains to be seen. At this point, they're still
denying that. But the use of the word fire in this is remains undefined. And we have to wait and see what where that actually goes. But clearly space both in the UK and in the United States being ramped up as a domain to be played with. And then just finally on this, the Army space vision supporting multi domain operations was published a couple of months ago.
And I just wanted to highlight one paragraph in this that they intend to interdict adversary space capabilities by delivering necessary fires and effects at echelon to protect friendly forces from observation and targeting by counter satellite communications, counter surveillance and reconnaissance and navigation warfare operations.
And again, to translate that a little bit, it's a bit unclear whether interdict means blow up, but certainly they certainly mean to disrupt the ability of so-called enemies from observing them or their so-called allies. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a brilliant word because in effect, yeah. Delay, destroy, disrupt. Yeah, any of those. OK, Vanessa, let's come back to you then and the Middle East and of course, we have so-called
ceasefire plan in the offing. Yes, something that is developing really into what I described recently on X as being a sadistic fast designed really to enable the continuation of the genocide. So this was the BBC News after the most recent so-called ceasefire negotiations in Doha and Qatar. Of course Hamas had refused to actually send anyone to negotiate because as they described it, it was a waste of time and Israel was continuously
putting a spanner in the works. So the BBC runs with the headline Israel accepts the bridging proposal for the ceasefire deal, says Anthony Blinken. And then let's have a look at a few other headlines going from basically May this year until this week. Blinken calls on Hamas to accept ceasefire agreement. They should take it. Blinken says Netanyahu reaffirmed commitment to Gaza ceasefire plan. Blinken says Israel agrees to AUS backed proposal for a
ceasefire. So is anyone noticing the pattern here that it's blinking that's constantly saying that Israel is accepting and this is Aylan Mizrahi on X? Did you notice this pattern where Blinken always announces on Netanyahu's behalf that Netanyahu agreed to the deal but Netanyahu never says so himself? Did you notice how this time around, as in previous fake negotiations, Netanyahu never goes on record to say that he agreed to any deal?
You know why this is? It's because Blinken is committed to Netanyahu's political standing among Jewish right wingers, and agreeing to any deal would make Netanyahu
look weak to them. So at the service of Netanyahu's image and the genocide, Blinken just Bluffs with offers specifically tailored to be unacceptable to Hamas and lies that Netanyahu accepted them, knowing full well that Netanyahu will never have to live up to any deal because blink and make sure that no deal will happen, while making sure the lie of Hamas inflexibility will become the official narrative. And of course, that's exactly what has happened.
And in the last few days, Hamas again has accused the US of buying time for Israel to continue its genocide. And if we just move on, so Netanyahu this time around again added new conditions to the ceasefire proposal. So again, he changed the actual proposal, remembering that Hamas had accepted the blink and broker deal back in July and before that in May. So let's have a look at why Hamas rejects Israel's new conditions in Doha, as it says
in the article. Basically, Netanyahu's new conditions put forward during talks in Doha and again Hamas were not present in Doha. Israel's new conditions include keeping troops inside Gaza along its border with Egypt, an
informed source said. That's now been confirmed while Hamas demands a complete ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Strip, a normal return of the displaced, and a prisoner exchange deal without restrictions because Netanyahu now has demanded veto rights for up to 100 of the prisoners to be exchanged. So in other words, Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged in return to the Israeli hostages. Netanyahu is demanding the right to veto up to 100 of those prisoners. So then just moving on.
So this is from Moeen Rabbani again on X. So he goes through it. You can freeze frame and read it yourself, but basically he says the same thing. the US presents an Israeli ceasefire, pushes it through the UN Security Council, and then contrary back in July to US and Israeli expectations,
Hamas accepts the initiative. Israel responds by rejecting adding new conditions to its own initiative designed to be rejected by Hamas. Under the guise of presenting a bridging proposal that would address the implementation of the original initiative. The US rewrites the initiative to incorporate the Israeli conditions presented after the UN Security Council endorsed and Hamas accepted the initiative.
Hamas predictably rejects the new US document on the grounds that it's a different initiative rather than a plan to implement the initiative it accepted. Amid March fanfare and lavish praise showered by Anthony Blinken, Netanyahu accepts the revised initiative and then adds more changes to the initiative. So I, I, I think you can freeze frame and read it for yourself, but it becomes very clear that this is nothing more than a
farce and a very sadistic one. And I just want to show Blinken, in part of his press conference, the area where he talks about the importance of the ceasefire. No. Is this With every passing day that there's not an agreement, two things can happen. One is of course, more hostages can perish and 2nd intervening events come along that may make things even more difficult, if if not impossible. And we've, we've experienced that throughout this process. So there's a the fierce urgency of now.
That's what I think we're all feeling. And we do see this is the best opportunity to finally get this over the finish line. We'll never give up on it, but the the challenge is the longer this goes on, the more again, hostages will will suffer and possibly perish and the more other things happen that could make things impossible. So that's why we're so intensely focused on getting this done and getting it done now. Quite extraordinary.
There is absolutely no mention of the continuing genocide and slaughter of Palestinians in that statement. And in fact, since Blinken's visit, this is what always happens. Israel has actually escalated yet again, attacking Lebanon's Becca, which is in the northeast, nowhere near the southern areas which have been
targeted. They attack Becca, wounding five children under the age of eight and Kalang one, and multiple massacres since Blinken's visit in Gaza itself, including the wounding of 1 Palestinian journalist and the killing of another, taking the number of murdered journalists up to around 170 now. And a video I'm just going to show in Han Eunice of how the quadcopters are used to randomly fire on civilians. This is in a crowded refugee area, and this is happening on a on an
enormous hourly basis. Israeli jets hit another Gaza school, killing at least 2012. That number is now rising to around 20. And I just wanted to show these two maps side by side, which were produced by the UN Satellite Centre. And I think it was back in July. And on the left you can see the bombardment of residential areas of Gaza. I mean, virtually all of Gaza
has pretty much been destroyed. Now, of course, there is intensity in the north and in central Gaza and in the far South, which if you remember, was supposed to be the safe zone for people to flee to from to the north and on the right. That combines the damage to residential areas and the destruction of agricultural water reservoirs, everything that is necessary for the maintenance of life in Gaza.
So pretty sobering mapping there of the devastation in Gaza, which was not mentioned by Blinken and his rhetoric about a ceasefire. Okay, Vanessa, thank you for that. Now let's move on to defence pacts and in this case, orcas. There's been quite a bit of orcas news recently. If you remember what Orcas is, it's this defence pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. And well, maybe we get a clue a little bit later as to what this is really all about.
So anyway, the government very, very excited that they have set up a new, a new trade agreement. But they're saying that the United Kingdom, United States and Australia have stood shoulder to shoulder for decades to support the security and stability of the Indo Pacific region and beyond. And August is a demonstration of our collective commitment in the
in the region. So they announced a trade pact between them which is going to cover up to 500,000,000 lbs of UK defence exports, plus billions of dollars of trade between the three nations in total.
They're saying that this trade breakthrough comes via the publication of the UK's Orcas Nations Open General Licence, combined with a new exemption to the US International Traffic Arms Regulations for the UK and Australia and new national exemptions for the UK and US in Australia's export control framework. So it's all just about taking the brakes of arms controls and making sure that we can pass weapons between ourselves and so on.
Anyway, they went on to say today's actions will strengthen our three countries combined military capabilities, the pace of our collaboration and response to threat, and boost our collective industrial capacity, giving ourselves a military and strategic edge over our adversaries.
That's what they claim. Now of course, originally this was how it was all being presented, as a submarine deal so that Australia would get hold of nuclear parts submarines, not nuclear weapons on board, but nuclear parts submarines. By working together, the Orcas partnership is delivering a new fleet of submarines based on EU KS world leading design. Well, is that true? We'll see in a second.
But the other thing that they announced in the past couple of weeks was advanced military capability spanning artificial intelligence and autonomy. And it's the autonomy aspect of this that I think is particularly interesting. So we have a little bit of video here.
It's an excerpt from a longer video clip, but let's have a look at this great, which stands for resilient Autonomy and Artificial intelligence technologies are a series of AI tools and techniques as well as autonomy packages that are being brought together across all of the different nations. And it's all about our ability to to deploy autonomous systems, to deploy AI models, to test those models on these autonomous systems and work collaboratively together.
Under the ORCAS partnership at PCC Four, we have UKUS and Australian assets flying together to make common goals, supported by a core team on the ground working on AI models to detect targets. Push that back into army fires
chains. And. Support Army decision making. And Vanessa, very briefly, I mean that we've seen how Israel is using AI to allegedly target, sorry, to target alleged insurgents or whatever they call them in Gaza. This is a bad development I think as as we all try to catch up with that capability.
Yeah. I mean, it does make you wonder to what degree Unit 8200 is involved in this development, because yes, there are, there's Lavender and Gospel, There are systems that have been used to identify targets in Gaza and that have effectively led to the massacre of thousands on the basis that the AI is identifying them correctly. And of course, they're not. Indeed. And then we've got this undersea warfare and hypersonic capabilities is also being part of this August deal, this latest
deal. Interesting that they mentioned this just at the time that the Nord Stream Two pipeline questioning around that is in the headlines again. But the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating had this to say about what August really is. And I have to say, I find it hard to argue with his point here. You see, we're going to get orcas, but not the submarines. What we're going to get is what Kurt Campbell, the deputy Secretary of State, has said.
When I tie these guys up for 40 years, what orcas is about in the American mind is turning the suckers into Australia. We're locking of us, locking us up for 40 years with American bases all around. I mean what this? Report today tells you they're going to have American bases all around Australia, American bases, not Australian, but all around Australia. So Orcas is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia.
I mean, what's happened? I I say, I say this, the Albanese government with and their policy is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States. And I'd say hard to argue with that, Charles, really what he's saying. And I think the the parallel might be Israel, You know, if, if, if the United States is wanting to look towards China, which it clearly is and has been for for many times, it needs a base of operations.
Obviously it's got the West Coast of the United States itself, but that's quite a distance away. Australia is a little bit closer. So what? What was the term that was used with respect to Israel, America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East? That seems to be what Australia is becoming. Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, it seems, I think he's, I think Keith is absolutely right. It seems very transparent. So obviously not naive of the Australian administration.
Now, I mean it can't be accidental, but no, I'm certain that would be the the reason for it. Yes, OK, now let's let's come back to the UK then and what's going on with respect to Greenbelt? Yes, quite well. Greenberg is sort of yet another of the many attacks on land and land use that we're seeing up and down the United Kingdom and have done for many years. But it's become more, more and more acute this year.
So we've got the many competing sort of aspects of food security of what they're calling, well, nature restoration schemes. Then of course the renewable thing. And here now updated on the 2nd of August, we've got proposed reform to the National Planning Policy framework, the NPPF and other changes to the planning system.
There's a lot within this, but what I want to point out is that it's this paragraph here that they want to remove from the footnote, which is the availability of agricultural land used for food production should be considered alongside other policies in this framework when deciding what sites are most appropriate for development. So they want to remove that now. The consultation itself is is open now and closes on the 24th of September, which you should
be mindful. Of course, you can go and view this and contribute yourself, but in effect, what they're wanting to do, or at least what they say, is that there's confusion within the existing framework and sort of additional documentation. So they say that they propose correcting that to require local planning authorities to undertake a review where an authority cannot meet its identified housing, commercial or other need without altering
Greenbelt boundaries. So straight away they've jumped the very obvious hurdle which is where exactly is the need for housing being demonstrated or indeed commercial property that there's no demonstration of that with which to meet to to meet its via means of a planning policy framework. So that's the first thing to point out.
But effectively they are compelling local authorities to undertake a review and it's very easy to see how that's then a step towards using Greenbelt. So we're calling this Greenbelt
release. We've proposed to insert a new paragraph in the NPPF which will make it clear that in instances where a local planning authority cannot demonstrate A5 year housing land supply or is delivering less than 75% against the delivery test, or where there is unmet commercial or other need, development on the Greenbelt will not be considered
inappropriate. When it's on sustainable grey belt land where golden rules for major development are satisfied and where development would not fundamentally undermine the function of the Greenbelt across the area of the planet as a whole. I think we describe that as word soup. What on earth do they mean by it? Well, in effect, as I say, what they're trying to do is push the authorities to Chuck the rule book out the window and just build on Greenbelt.
But instead the way they do it is they decide, well we'll come up with a new term called greybelt, which of course we've preferred to in the past. And they define this as such for the purposes, plan making and decision making. Greybelt is defined as land in the Greenbelt comprising previously developed land and any other parcels and or areas of Greenbelt land that make a limited contribution to the five
Greenbelt purposes. So of course they could still be making contribution, but just a limited one which may therefore makes them vulnerable. We'll just look at what the Greenbelt is supposed to do. 5 purposes.
To check the unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas, to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another, to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment, to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns, and to assist in urban regeneration by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.
I think it's safe to say that absolutely none of those purposes or objectives are being met, and the direction of travel via planning policy, via environmental policy, and via energy policy is in absolute contravention of the purposes of the Greenbelt, most readily shown by the Renewable Energy Planning Database Quarterly extract. I've turned this into a graph format to make it clear how these applications have gone up and up and up in the last few
years. Particularly we consider 2020 to be the sort of the year of acceleration and limited sort of output in that time. But we've gone up through 843 in 2021 / 1000, nearly 1500 and 2022 up to 1800 applications last year and here at August now 745, which of course are written
down. So it's it's very obvious to see that there's just an increasing push towards this relentless destruction of the countryside, apparently in the name of the environment, sustainability and all sorts of things that are totally disingenuous descriptions for what's actually going on. And Mike's going to talk now more about how that's being affected with energy.
Just a very brief comment because again, 10 Downing St. pushing this out on Twitter yesterday, telling us, reminding us that we need to find all out all about great British energy and how this is going to be great for us and what it can do for us. Well, I just thought it was funny that they were pushing this out when just the day before Cornwall Insight had been releasing their latest forecast for what the energy price cap was going to be for the final
three months of the year and expecting to see a nine percent increase compared to July. So this of course is is situation not improving as a result of an ever increasing building of of wind turbines and so on. Now the actual number will be published on the 27th of August. So we've got to wait until then to find out whether that forecast is anywhere correct. But you know this release of of planning restrictions. Isn't actually hasn't, it's been happening for quite a number of years now.
It's just accelerating, but it hasn't really resulted in the capability of reducing energy costs for anybody. So what is the benefit of it? It seems to be, as you pointed out, all about restricting the use of land for farming. Absolutely it is. Yeah. And indeed, critically, people deriving pleasure from being in it, which again is completely overlooked by all those that should be protecting it. Indeed. OK, well, we've got to leave it there for today.
So thank you very much to Charles and Vanessa and for you all for joining us. We will be back in a few minutes if you UK call a member for some extra. Otherwise enjoy the interview at 1:00 PM tomorrow, but we'll see you on Friday. See you then. Bye, bye, bye bye.