UK Government Caught Hiding COVID Shot–Death Data “To Prevent Distress or Anger”
By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | FOCAL POINTS | November 15, 2025
Today, The Telegraph revealed that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has refused to publish anonymized data that would likely show strong evidence of a link between COVID-19 “vaccines” and mass deaths.
According to the report, UKHSA justified the secrecy by claiming that releasing the figures could cause “distress or anger” among bereaved families if a connection were discovered.
Even more concerning: The same dataset — mapping vaccination dates to dates of death — was provided to pharmaceutical companies but NOT released to the public. UKHSA also claimed that publishing the numbers could “lead to misinformation” or impact vaccine uptake.
For two years, the campaign group UsForThem fought to obtain the anonymised dataset through FOI requests. UKHSA refused every time. Ultimately, the Information Commissioner sided with the agency, allowing the data to remain hidden indefinitely.
MPs and peers had already sounded the alarm last year, urging the government to release the data “immediately,” noting that it had been quietly shared with vaccine manufacturers.
Intentionally withholding critical vaccine-safety data carries serious legal consequences, including but not limited to Misconduct in Public Office, Corporate Manslaughter or Gross Negligence Manslaughter, breaches of statutory duties under public-health and disclosure laws, and potential Fraud by omission or abuse of position.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
Support our mission: mcculloughfnd.org
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UK Government Wins 2-Year Battle to Withhold Data Linking COVID Vaccines to Excess Deaths
The intel scandal behind Prince Andrew’s twisted Epstein exploits
By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · November 16, 2025
In an interview with The Grayzone, author Andrew Lownie details shocking findings of his research into Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Describing Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy,” Epstein used the prince for intel, which he passed to foreign spy agencies. Lownie says further revelations threaten to “bury” the Royal Family.
Prince Andrew’s decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was “earlier, longer, and far more intimate than anyone has previously admitted,” historian Andrew Lownie told The Grayzone. Their friendship was so depraved that even Epstein, the self-proclaimed “king of kink,” was shocked by the Prince’s sexual appetites, according to Lownie’s new book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.
Based on years of research in BBC archives, interviews, and leaked emails, Lownie’s investigation provides a chilling portrait of a man shielded by royal privilege, addicted to sex from childhood, and ultimately undone by his alliance with the world’s most notorious pedophile. The historian reveals that Epstein not only supplied Andrew with a steady stream of underage girls, but also gathered intelligence from the prince, and dutifully passed it along to Mossad and other spy agencies.
“The Prince was a useful idiot who gave Epstein respectability and access to political leaders and business opportunities,” Lownie explained to The Grayzone. “Meanwhile, Epstein offered Andrew an opportunity to join the super rich and enjoy a lifestyle to which he had long aspired, an endless supply of women, a chance to make lots of money, and someone who would bankroll his lavish lifestyle as well as settle Sarah Ferguson’s debts.”
Lownie revealed that Epstein was able to gather a steady flow of sensitive intelligence from Andrew, including potential blackmail material which he could hawk to foreign governments. Epstein’s one-time ‘mentor,’ the serial fraudster Steven Hoffenberg echoed this account, claiming Epstein referred to Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy.” While the British royal unwittingly spied on Epstein’s behalf, he simultaneously compromised himself, making him into a perfect tool.
For much of his life, Andrew enjoyed an astonishing level of protection and indulgence from his mother, Queen Elizabeth. A former worker interviewed by an Australian outlet divulged that royal staffers were terrified by the prince’s impunity, and largely avoided standing up to his compulsive bullying because “Her Majesty almost always backed him and he fully exploited that.”
Lownie told The Grayzone Andrew’s explosive tantrums at Buckingham Palace, which reduced some targets to tears, were a “virtually daily” occurrence.
A source close to Andrew revealed to Lownie that the prince began exhibiting unusual sexual tendencies when he was only eight years old. The problem only worsened when Andrew lost his virginity at age 11 after a friend’s father hired two escorts for the boys. Andrew reportedly informed the source that by the time he was 13, he had already slept with over half a dozen girls, leading the source to conclude that the prince had been “a victim of sexual abuse at a very young age.”
Thanks to Andrew and Epstein, the cycle of abuse allegedly continued with a number of young girls — most notably, Virginia Giuffre. When her allegations against the Prince became public in 2015, a BBC team secretly travelled across the US, reviewing police files, while interviewing the pair’s victims at length. Along the way, they unearthed emails between Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell discussing Giuffre.
The emails offer no indication either were unaware of Giuffre, or any sense her allegations were bogus. Lownie says the BBC team’s lead investigator told him, “instead Andrew and Maxwell worked together to build a dossier about Virginia [Giuffre] to leak to the media.” In other words, the pair colluded to smear one of their victims in the court of public opinion, before legal action could be initiated. When a suit was finally initiated on her behalf, Andrew paid out handsomely rather than face scrutiny.
Lownie believes full disclosure of Andrew’s involvement with Epstein could permanently sink the House of Windsor. A former Buckingham Palace staffer told him, “they’d never be able to bounce back from it,” as the resultant scandal “would bury them for good.” Lownie’s source cautioned, “if the unconditional truth is ever released, the British public would try to impeach the Royal Family — after all, many of Andrew’s wrongdoings were done on the British taxpayer’s tab.”
Andrew’s sexual depravity shocks even Epstein
Canadian journalist Ian Halperin was the only reporter to interview Epstein at length before the financier’s death. He provided Lownie with exclusive access to his records. They show Epstein was surprisingly candid about his predilection for underage girls, to the extent of openly arguing pedophilia should be decriminalized. Along the way, the pedophile offered a number of explosive revelations about Andrew, who he described as his “closest friend in the world.”
In one email, Epstein insisted he and Andrew were “very similar,” as they were “both serial sex addicts” who’d even “shared the same women.” Andrew was “the only person I have met who is more obsessed with pussy than me,” he attested. Based on “reports” Epstein received from their mutual sexual conquests, Andrew was “the most perverted animal in the bedroom,” he wrote. Epstein expressed awe at the degeneracy of Andrew, who he said possessed “the dirtiest mind I’ve ever seen,” concluding: “He likes to engage in stuff that’s even kinky to me – and I’m the king of kink!”
Lownie also provides evidence that the depraved duo crossed paths far earlier than is claimed by Andrew. According to a statement by the prince after Epstein’s death, he insisted they met in 1999 and subsequently saw each other “probably no more than only once or twice a year.” In reality, Andrew’s private secretary places the start of their friendship in “the early 1990s,” Lownie explained. Flight logs from Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the Lolita Express, reveal that Andrew’s occasional partner, Sarah Ferguson, travelled on the aircraft with her children as early as April 1998.
By 2000, the royal had become a fixture at elite Stateside social events hosted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the publishing heiress who met Andrew during the 1980s at Oxford University. As their friendship developed, Andrew and Ferguson often stayed at Epstein’s palatial New York and Florida homes.
These trips have largely been concealed from the public, which is perhaps understandable given the purpose of his visits.
“Whenever Andrew was in town, I’d be picking up young girls who were essentially prostitutes,” Epstein’s personal driver, Ivan Novikov, recalled to Lownie. “One time I drove him and two young girls around 18 to the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District. Both girls were doing lines of cocaine. Prince Andrew was making out with one of them.”
All the while, Epstein and Maxwell were insinuating themselves into the top echelons of the British aristocracy. According to one now-deleted British media report, Andrew invited Epstein and Maxwell to attend events at Windsor Castle and Sandringham in 2001, including Queen Elizabeth II’s 74th birthday that August. The article, which has since been scrubbed from London’s Evening Standard website, quoted a friend of Ferguson’s as saying Andrew’s lewdness was so undisguised that he “travels abroad with his own massage mattress.” According to the Evening Standard, the “very manipulative” Maxwell introduced Andrew to a “sex aid entrepreneur” at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
The same piece described Andrew traveling around Phuket, Thailand with Maxwell, frequenting “sex bars in the area’s red light district”, and visiting Los Angeles with his friend and “self-confessed drug dealer” Brett Livingstone-Strong. During this time, Andrew was apparently so infatuated with Epstein and his clique that he opted to stay at the pedophile’s Miami beach mansion rather than attend his daughter Eugenie’s 12th birthday party at Disneyland Paris, Lownie reveals.
Andrew’s fall from grace
In May 2007, Epstein began negotiating an unusually lenient plea deal with Florida authorities after local police uncovered a trove of evidence implicating the financier in a national sex trafficking conspiracy. Finally, English-language media began scrutinizing the potentially pedophilic implications of the financier’s bond with Prince Andrew for the first time. Another since-deleted Evening Standard report on their friendship noted Epstein’s Florida mansion was filled with pictures of nude girls, with two cameras found hidden in clocks.
The net significantly tightened in December 2014, when lawyers filed court papers in Florida alleging Andrew was one of several prominent figures who’d raped Virginia Giuffre at Epstein’s arrangement. The pair purportedly had sex in London, New York, and on Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James. In the latter case, Giuffre claimed to have been involved in a “disgusting” orgy with Andrew, Epstein, and multiple girls who “all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18.”
The filings also alleged Andrew had lobbied on Epstein’s behalf after his arrest, working to ensure he received a light sentence. Epstein repaid the favor by clearing Sarah Ferguson’s substantial debts. British media reacted with shock: “Prince Andrew may have been secretly filmed with underage girl he is alleged to have abused,” blared one mainstream headline. That day, a seemingly frantic Andrew emailed Maxwell: “Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts.”
Buckingham Palace issued a firm denial, stating “any suggestion of impropriety” by Andrew “with underage minors is categorically untrue,” and that he “emphatically denied the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts.” Until Epstein’s death, the British media seemingly accepted the royal line. But Andrew’s now-notorious November 2019 Newsnight interview revived public suspicions, and ignited a new wave of scrutiny.
Over the course of an hour-long grilling, the Prince offered a series of preposterous excuses for his friendship with Epstein, while failing to credibly explain his time with Giuffre. For example, he claimed her account of him sweating profusely while they danced together at a London night club couldn’t be true, as he was unable to sweat at all because he suffered a scientifically implausible “adrenaline overdose” during the Falklands war.
Next, Andrew attempted to justify a four-day December 2010 visit to Epstein in New York, during which paparazzi documented a young woman leaving his town house, and a friendly walk he enjoyed with the prince through Central Park. (The tweet below incorrectly dates the footage from 2011; it was filmed on December 6, 2010).
In his Newsnight interview, Andrew claimed he initiated the meeting to break off ties with the financier following his conviction for sex trafficking offenses. He insisted that he felt the need to end their connection in person, due to his “tendency to be too honourable,” but struggled to explain why this necessitated a four-night-long stay, replete with a dinner party in his personal honor.
The prince claimed he opted to stay at Epstein’s mansion as “it was… convenient” — apparently overlooking the British consulate and numerous upmarket hotels which could have provided an alternative to staying with a convicted sex offender.
Furor over Andrew’s performance erupted as soon as the interview was broadcast, with one royal observer dubbing it, “nuclear explosion level bad.” Yet the Prince was initially satisfied with his public self-immolation. The Guardian reported at the time that Andrew “was so pleased with how things had gone that he gave the Newsnight team a tour of the palace afterwards.”
Andrew’s British state protection crumbles
Days after the disastrous interview, Andrew’s ex-girlfriend disputed his account of the 2010 visit with Epstein, stating that the prince’s main purpose was to determine whether the financier had “any dirt on him.” The pair reportedly also discussed securing $200 million funding for mysterious energy company Aria Petroleum, prompting Epstein to inform close contacts at JP Morgan that the prince sought to represent the interests of a Chinese commercial entity.
From this point on, Andrew withdrew from public life. Under pressure from British Army apparatchiks, he was stripped of his military awards and decorations. Charities distanced themselves from the royal, while polls indicated a majority of Britons believed he should be extradited to the US to face questioning. In May 2020, Andrew permanently resigned all his public roles over his Epstein connections. In the meantime, pressure began building in the US for the Prince to speak to Giuffre’s lawyers and federal investigators.
In his Newsnight interview and subsequent official statements, Andrew claimed he was happy to assist with any investigation into Epstein’s abuse. But the American prosecutor who led investigations into the financier and his associates in New York, Geoffrey Berman, reported he was repeatedly stonewalled by Buckingham Palace. Contacting royal lawyers was difficult enough in the first place, he said, and he described their communications as having quickly devolved into an never-ending series of questions.
“What kind of an interview will it be? Are there any protections? Is there this? Is there that? And where do you want it to take place?” Berman recalled. “It was an endless email exchange, and it was clear we were getting the run-around. He was not going to sit down for an interview with us.” Finally, Berman asked the State Department to dispatch a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) request to British police, demanding an interview with the prince.
US prosecutors “almost always got what we asked when we put in an MLAT request,” Berman recalled. “But that was not what happened with Prince Andrew. We got absolutely nowhere. Were they protecting him? I assume someone was.”
Andrew’s state-level protections began to dissolve, however, after a December 2020 investigation by the Daily Mail into Giuffre’s claim that Andrew had sex with her when she was just 17. His alibis for the dates in question had been incinerated.
In August 2021, Giuffre’s lawyers filed suit against Andrew in a US court for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” The action raised the prospect of Andrew giving sworn testimony proving his inability to sweat on the witness stand. Members of the Royal Family, including Ferguson and their daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, also faced the threat of grilling under oath. Rather than go to court, the House of Windsor settled for as much as $16.3 million.
Andrew Prince no more as scandals proliferate
For the first time, Buckingham Palace began to firmly distance itself from Andrew. As Lownie recorded, the media was informed that the Queen would no longer bankroll his legal fees. After a lifetime of protecting her son from the consequences of his excesses, fear of further damaging admissions may have motivated the monarch’s decision.
Those fears were well-founded, as Lownie revealed that Andrew emailed Epstein in February 2011, months after claiming to have cut off all contact with the financier following their four day 2010 ‘farewell’ summit in New York.
In that email, Andrew promised to “keep in close touch,” stating, “we are in this together and will have to rise above it,” and promising, “we’ll play some more soon!!!” That same year, Sarah Ferguson expressed her affinity and gratitude to Epstein in a separate covert email exchange. Sources suggested to Lownie that Epstein had supplied her with hundreds of thousands of dollars, far in excess of the £15,000 she claims to have received from the serial sex abuser.
In a 2011 interview, Ferguson said “having anything to do” with Epstein had been a “gigantic error of judgment” on her part. She added, “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children… what he did was wrong and… he was rightly jailed.” Shortly after though, she contacted Epstein claiming she “did not, absolutely not, say the ‘P word’ about you.” Ferguson apologised for letting him down, stating “you have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”
This October 30, as furor over Epstein’s activities engulfed the Trump administration, Buckingham Palace issued a shock declaration. Prince Andrew will be stripped of his titles, honors, and stately home, and now simply be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – in effect excommunicated from the British Royal Family for life. While no formal explanation for the unprecedented move was provided, it was clear they were determined to cleanse Epstein’s stain from their house.
“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the royal statement read. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
But Andrew’s erasure from the spotlight, termination of his assorted patronages and curtailment of public duties may have come too late. After years of alternating between silence over his sexual abuse or flatly denying the allegations, Buckingham Palace faces the threat of further disclosures. As Lownie makes clear in his newly released book, Entitled, new details of the prince’s perversions could discredit the royal family for good.
Red ribbons in London: A silent uprising bringing Palestinian hostages back into view
By Adnan Hmidan | MEMO | November 16, 2025
Walking through Westminster, in the quiet rush of central London, flashes of red caught my attention — ribbons tied to lampposts, railings, and street fixtures. They were not adverts or campaign posters, but dense, symbolic gestures: spontaneous in form, unmistakable in meaning. They returned to public sight faces that have long been hidden behind prison walls — Palestinian hostages abducted by the occupation from homes and hospitals, held without trial under a system that resembles nothing but the law of the jungle.
These ribbons seemed like individual efforts, small and uncoordinated, yet unified in what they were trying to say: that the Palestinian hostage file remains locked in darkness, despite being one of the most devastating human crises. Thousands have been torn from their lives with no charges, no legal process, no daylight.
Of the nearly 9,100 Palestinians currently detained, it is estimated that almost a third are effectively treated as hostages; abducted and denied even the bare minimum of legal rights or guarantees.
A language that must reclaim its meaning
For years, the word “prisoner” has been used broadly. But what the occupation practises is not detention — it is abduction. People are taken from their beds or hospital rooms and disappear for indefinite periods, without charges, court hearings, or the most basic procedural rights.
The figures alone reveal the scale of the crisis:
3,544 held under administrative detention without trial
400 children
53 women
16 doctors
117 Palestinian hostages killed in the past two years alone during the genocide in Gaza
These individuals cannot honestly be called “prisoners.” They are hostages in every legal and moral sense — seized outside any legitimate framework by a state whose own foundations rest on dispossession and violation.
Red… a colour that bears witness, not beauty
The choice of red is self-explanatory. It is the colour of spilled blood, of injustice endured, of wounds that never fully heal.
These ribbons may hang quietly across London, but the question they raise is anything but quiet:
How can thousands of people be abducted in this way, while the world remains unable — or unwilling — to see them?
No one is asked to lead a campaign or become an activist. What is needed is recognition, a wider awakening to a file packed with human lives, daily suffering, families searching, and children growing up in absence.
Stories hanging from lampposts… so memory does not fade
Seeing the ribbons brought back the painful stories that fill this file:
The child pulled from his bed because soldiers deemed him a “threat,”
The woman taken from her home in front of her children,
The doctor who vanished from an operating room and never returned,
Those subjected to torture and enforced disappearance,
And the testimonies of rape and sexual abuse recently documented by international organisations.
These stories need no embellishment; their truth is weight enough. They also echo Steve Biko’s famous line:
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
These red ribbons feel like a modest attempt to unsettle that weapon.
Catherine Connolly’s victory: Europe’s moral rebellion against the Israeli occupation
When execution becomes a celebration
It is difficult to grasp that the occupation’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated inside the Knesset after passing a law permitting the execution of Palestinian detainees.
More troubling still is how easily such a moment can pass as a routine political step — as though it were merely another debate rather than a descent into deeper, institutionalised brutality.
When a state legalises killing those it has abducted without trial, imprisonment ceases to resemble detention. It becomes just one point on a chain that runs from abduction to torture to death.
The rising number of Palestinians dying inside Israeli prisons is not an exaggeration — it is an expanding reality.
Preserving memory before preserving the body
Red ribbons do not claim to liberate anyone, nor do they replace political or legal work. But they accomplish something essential: they return faces to public view and stop stories from being buried in darkness.
The Palestinian hostage file needs wider adoption and genuine engagement. It is a file overflowing with pain and heavy with violations, yet among the least addressed internationally.
Ribbons cannot break iron bars.
But they can remind the world that behind every statistic is a human being waiting to be rescued from disappearance.
Justice begins when we choose to see.
And sometimes, the first step toward that justice is nothing more than a small red thread tied to a lamppost in a distant city.
Ukraine’s ‘Busification’ — forced conscription — is tip of the iceberg
Western media is largely ignoring that Kyiv has to rip young men off the streets amid recruitment shortages and desertions
By Ian Proud | Responsible Statecraft | November 4, 2025
“Busification” is a well-understood term in Ukraine and refers to the process in which young men are detained against their will, often involving a violent struggle, and bundled into a vehicle — often a minibus — for onward transit to an army recruitment center.
Until recently, Ukraine’s army recruiters picked easy targets. Yet, on October 26, the British Sun newspaper’s defense editor, Jerome Starkey, wrote a harrowing report about a recent trip to the front line in Ukraine, during which he claimed his Ukrainian colleague was “forcibly press-ganged into his country’s armed services.”
This case was striking for two reasons; first, that the forced mobilization of troops is rarely reported by Western mainstream media outlets. And second, that unlike most forced conscriptions, this event took place following the alleged commandeering of the Western journalists’ vehicle by three armed men, who insisted they drive to a recruitment center.
There, Starkey reported, “I saw at least [a] dozen glum men — mostly in their 40s and 50s — clutching sheafs of papers. They were called in and out of side rooms for rubber-stamp medicals to prove they were fit to fight.”
The process has drawn criticism after high-profile incidents where men have died even before they donned military uniforms. On October 23, Ukrainian Roman Sopin died from heavy blunt trauma to the head after he had been forcibly recruited. Ukrainian authorities claim that he fell, but his family is taking legal action. In August, a conscripted man, 36, died suddenly at a recruitment center in Rivne, although the authorities claim he died of natural causes. In June, 45-year-old Ukrainian-Hungarian Jozsef Sebestyen died after he was beaten with iron bars following his forced conscription; the Ukrainian military denies this version of events. In August, a conscript died from injuries sustained after he jumped out of a moving vehicle that was transporting him to the recruitment center.
Look online and you’ll find a trove of thousands of incidents, with most of them filmed this year alone. You can find videos of a recruitment officer chasing a man and shooting at him, a man being choked to death on the street with a recruiter’s knee on his neck. Many include family members or friends fighting desperately to prevent their loved one being taken against his will.
If videos of this nature, on this systemic scale, were shared in the United States or the United Kingdom, I believe that members of the public would express serious concerns. Yet the Western media remains largely silent, and I find it difficult to understand why.
In November 2024, Ukraine’s defense minister Rustem Umerov claimed that he would put an end to busification. It is true that Ukraine has been taking steps to modernize its army recruitment and make enlistment more appealing to men under the age of 25. Yet, there is little evidence that those efforts are having the desired effect. And after a year, busification only appears to be getting worse, yet remains widely ignored by the Western press.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War often reports on Russian force mobilization efforts but not on the dark and desperate aspects that lead to busification. You won’t find reports on this in the New York Times, as it conflicts with the narrative that with support from the West, Ukraine can turn the war around. It leans in instead on stories like Ukraine’s points for drone-kills game or the designer who cut the all-black suit that Zelensky now wears. Meanwhile, the Washington Post is softly banging the drum to recruit 18-year-old Ukrainians, despite this being a toxic political issue in Ukraine.
This is because busification is the tip of the iceberg. If the Ukrainians are finding it difficult to encourage young men to join the army voluntarily, then it is proving even harder to make them stay without deserting.
In January 2025, it was reported that around 1,700 troops of the Anna of Kyiv 155th mechanized brigade, trained in France and equipped with French self-propelled howitzers, had gone AWOL — 50 of them while still in France. In June 2024, a Ukrainian deserter was shot dead by a border guard while trying to cross into Moldova.
In the first half of 2025, over 110,000 desertion cases were reported in Ukraine. In 2024, Ukrainian prosecutors initiated over 89,000 proceedings related to desertion and unauthorized abandonment of units, a figure three-and-a-half times greater than in 2023. More than 20% of Ukraine’s one million-strong army have jumped the fence in the past four years, and the numbers are rising all the time.
Desertions appear in part driven by ever-greater shortages of infantry troops at the front line, which means soldiers rarely get rest and recuperation breaks. A lack of sufficient equipment is often blamed. And of course, the widespread and rising desertion rates from Ukraine’s armed forces only seem to provoke more violent recruitment practices and then civilian protests. On October 30 in Odessa, a group of demonstrators against a man’s forced detention overturned the recruitment minibus.
The growth of busification and rising desertions also track with a growth in support among ordinary Ukrainians for the war to end. Support for a negotiated end to the war has risen from 27% in 2023 to 69% in 2025. Likewise, support for Ukraine to “keep fighting until it wins the war” — a wholly deluded proposition — has dropped from 63% to 24% over the same period, according to Gallup poll results.
President Zelensky often claims that Ukraine’s military predicament is linked to a lack of guns, not a lack of people. Hoping to secure Western support to fight on for another 2-3 years, he’s quiet on whether he will have the troops or the political support to do so. For now, the message seems to be, “Don’t mention the press-gangs, in-detention killings, deserters and waning public support: just give me more money.”
The Pokrovsk lesson is that British media are lying through their teeth
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 11, 2025
While western commentators ease their audience into a new reality – the eastern strategic town of Pokrovsk is about to fall into Russian hands – it’s interesting to see how they carefully backpedal and twist every morsel of information. It’s as though all of the information that was prepared and delivered to them is so out of touch with reality, that all is left now is to downplay the imminent Russian victory as hollow and meaningless.
It’s certainly true that a victory for Russian forces now in Pokrovsk is less strategic than it was a few months ago, but to write it off as insignificant is just one more lie that western media and commentators are guilty of delivering.
The analysis and reporting about Pokrovsk has to be deciphered, but when British journalists like Sam Kiley, who are there on the ground, talk about the victory cry from pro-Russian media as being “premature” it’s worth noting that nearly all such journalists have crossed the line of journalism for the preferred role of commentator. Kiley’s piece in the Independent is so peppered with the conditional tense that it has little or no credibility. And like all British hacks, he is cleverly removing the sweet taste of victory out of Putin’s mouth by going into the zone of spouting irrefutable so called “facts” which are naturally impossible to disprove. The main one, which gives you an indication that he also believes Pokrovsk is close to falling, is that he mentions that the gains the Russians made came through so many dead soldiers. This ol’ chestnut is repeated over and over again as British readers like to believe it’s true. Is it true? Has Russia lost a disproportionate number of soldiers on the battlefield? We will never know, so how in God’s name does Kiley?
Irrefutable claims, written as fact, are part and parcel of British reporting on the Ukraine war. Kiley might be comforted by the sensationally bad Times Radio which takes this dark art to a new level. Philip Ingram’s podcast with his friend former British Army Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a shining example of what one ex-spook and one former colonel in the British army can do with MOD disinformation. Their podcast is so bad and bigoted, it leaves you wondering whether to laugh or cry as they both start off with the absurd argument that most of the reporting from Pokrovsk is Russian social media channels which exaggerate the scale of Russian gains and so, according to the hapless Bretton-Gordon, shouldn’t be taken seriously – before he blathers that if Russia were to take the town, it would take four years for them to do it.
He then goes on to conclude that not much is happening on the ground and that things are “opaque”. Ingram then chimes in to tone down the significance of the town, when it falls, but claims that the Ukrainians have had a success there, given what they both agree are causalities on the Russian side of a 1000 losses a day. Yet both of these numpties are reading from MOD/Mi6 data which only underlines the point that disinformation even for ex-soldiers having a go at podcasts is alive and well. While it is disturbing that Bretton-Gordon is so reliant on such data it is also off putting that he can’t even pronounce the name of the town itself correctly. Where does Times Radio find such amateurs?
For American media, even those who support Biden, the defeat of Pokrovsk is nigh and the narrative they offer contradicts the two podcasters outright. Perhaps if Times Radio Laurel and Hardy act were to actually do the legwork and interview people who are on the ground, even if it’s only the Ukrainians, their banta might have a slither of credibility about it and not leave the viewer cringing at how awful it is.
“The situation is difficult, with all types of fighting going on, firefights in urban areas, and shelling with all types of weapons,” one battalion commander told CNN, speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“We are almost surrounded, but we are used to it,” he said. Another soldier, who also asked for his name to be withheld for safety reasons, told CNN the Russian military continues to press forward with large numbers of men.
“The intensity of their movements is so great that (Ukrainian) drone operators simply cannot keep up with the pace. The Russians often move in groups of three, counting on the fact that two will be destroyed, but one will still reach the city and gain a foothold there. About a hundred such groups can pass through in a day,” a soldier from the Ukrainian Peaky Blinders drone unit told CNN.
And so, the reporting on the British side lacks all credibility. And like all bad journalists, or pseudo journalists, the Times Radio also like to practice the deft art of omission. How did it simply pass these two that there are plenty of Ukrainian soldiers who will tell them that their MI6 taking points are BS and that it’s a shitstorm in Pokrovsk with Ukrainian losses also high? Would that not have scored them the propaganda points they crave?
In the UK, the reporting about Ukraine is so biased and manipulated by MI6/MOD disinfo that it is practically a Hollywood movie which the press is asking a gullible public to believe. Could this possibly be responsible for broad support for the war? Is a disinformation campaign actually driving the political dynamic, just as it did so many times before, not dissimilar to how many people in 2003 were happy that Tony Blair sent troops to Iraq, based on similar reports?
Ukrainian-British plot to steal MiG-31 thwarted – FSB
RT | November 11, 2025
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has said it foiled an elaborate Ukrainian-British plot to steal a MiG-31 fighter jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile.
According to the FSB, although Ukrainian agents unsuccessfully tried to persuade the pilots to defect, their actual goal was for the aircraft to be shot down in Romanian airspace, provoking an international incident with NATO. The agency said the operation was organized by Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR) in coordination with the UK’s MI6.
A MiG-31 pilot said he was contacted last year by a man introducing himself as Sergey Lugovsky, a researcher for the open-source investigative group Bellingcat, which has received funding from several Western governments. The pilot said Lugovsky initially sought consultations, later offering money for defection.
After the pilot declined, a Ukrainian agent using the name Aleksandr approached the aircraft’s navigator, offering $3 million and a foreign passport in exchange for directing the plane to fly over an air base near Constanta, Romania.
Kiev has previously offered money and assistance to defectors. In 2023, Russian Mi-8 pilot Maksim Kuzminov defected to Ukraine, landing his helicopter behind the front lines with the HUR’s help. Two of the other crew members, unaware of his plan, were killed upon landing. Kuzminov was assassinated a year later in Spain, where he was living under a new identity and with a Ukrainian passport.
In 2022, the FSB accused former Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian-born journalist, of taking part in a failed Ukrainian attempt to recruit Russian military pilots. Grozev said he was embedded with Ukrainian intelligence officers as a documentary filmmaker and claimed that his text messages were forged.
How Cyprus became first European partner in ‘Israel’s’ gas theft crime
Al Mayadeen | November 9, 2025
British energy company Energean, which operates natural gas reservoirs of Karish, Tanin, and Katlan in the occupied Palestinian territories in favor of “Israel”, is preparing to build a $400 million pipeline to transport natural gas from an offshore rig in disputed Palestinian waters to Cyprus.
According to media reports, the project requires only governmental approval, with Cypriot energy company Cyfield having already endorsed the initiative. If finalized, Cyprus would become the first European nation to import gas from Israeli-occupied maritime territory, raising questions about the project’s legality and its breach of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and international law.
Critics argue that the pipeline reinforces “Israel’s” control over resources in occupied waters while providing financial and strategic benefits to both “Israel” and its corporate partners.
“Our proposal offers a practical and efficient solution to reduce Cyprus’s energy isolation by providing direct access to natural gas from a neighbouring source, thereby enhancing regional energy cooperation and supporting the transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy,” said Energean CEO Mathias Rigas.
Not first case of complicity
This isn’t the first example of Britain and Cyprus working together in support of Israeli operations. During the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the UK has reportedly used territory it still controls in Cyprus to launch surveillance missions that aid “Israel” in gathering intelligence over the Strip.
RAF Akrotiri has served as the main base for these flights, and in some periods over the past two years, Britain has conducted more such missions than “Israel” itself. This level of coordination goes beyond mere complicity; it reflects direct involvement.
DropSite News even cited senior British military sources confirming that Israeli F-35 jets are capable of receiving “technical assistance” at the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus.
‘Israel’-Cyprus energy axis: Pipeline plans, historical controversies
“Israel’s” betrothal with Cyprus is not a recent development. Zionist thinkers, including Theodore Herzl, historically regarded the island as a potential site for settlement and strategic influence. Ancient Hebrew communities were cited as historical precedents justifying a long-term presence beyond Palestine.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Jewish Colonization Association established settlements in Cyprus for Jews fleeing Russia. While small, these colonies set a precedent for expansionist ambitions, often disregarding local populations’ rights.
While Cyprus historically aligned with Palestinian solidarity, hosting refugees and resisting Israeli encroachment, relations with “Israel” have warmed over the past 15 years, driven by energy and strategic interests. Critics argue that modern Israeli projects on the island, including property acquisitions and intelligence operations, reflect a continuation of expansionist policies that undermine Palestinian rights and international law.
Cyprus ‘is no longer ours’
This recent sharp rise in Israeli real estate acquisitions across Cyprus has sparked growing concern over national sovereignty and affordability, with political debate intensifying after a recent congress by AKEL, Cyprus’ second-largest party, where criticism of the purchases was quickly met with accusations of antisemitism, a familiar Israeli tactic to silence legitimate scrutiny.
In July 2025, Party leader Stefanos Stefanou warned of what he called a growing “national security threat,” citing Israeli land purchases near sensitive sites and highlighting a coordinated effort, led by the buyers, to establish closed communities, Zionist schools, and influence over key economic sectors.
“If we don’t take effective action now, one day we’ll find that this country is no longer ours,” he stressed, urging government intervention.
Stefanou rejected claims of xenophobia following his reference to historical parallels with how Israelis settled the land of Palestine after occupying its territories. This instantly drew backlash, with critics waving the antisemitic card, again, though supporters argue his comments reflected concerns over sovereignty, not ethnicity, and were aimed at highlighting patterns of unregulated land acquisition.
Media reports further suggest Israeli property investments in Cyprus, often in high-end “gated communities” and Mossad safehouse operations, raise ethical and legal questions.
Viral clips of ‘promised land’ dissected
At the time, one viral clip shows a man impersonating an ultra-Orthodox Jew, declaring in Hebrew: “God promised us Cyprus after Israel,” while saying that Israelis are buying up property “non-stop”. Another shows him replying to a question about “stealing homes” with the line: “If we don’t steal them, someone else will,” as Hava Nagila plays in the background. A third video features the same character in a prayer shawl, stating, “Cyprus was promised to us 3,500 years ago; finally, I’m home.”
The statements in the viral Cyprus videos mirror patterns seen in occupied Palestine, where some settlers justify taking land and homes through historical or religious claims, often framing settlement expansion as a competitive or preemptive act, and invoking biblical or ancestral narratives to legitimize their presence on Palestinian territory.
Moreover, these posts tap into a growing online grievance that Israeli investors are driving up real estate prices and displacing locals, with one widely shared claim asserting, “Cypriots can’t afford homes for themselves or their children anymore. The Israelis are buying everything.”
Official statistics count about 2,500 Israelis in Cyprus, though many enter using European passports, making true figures difficult to track. Some estimates suggest the number could be as high as 15,000, with many purchasing property reportedly for investment purposes rather than residence, as per Israeli media.
Strategic, defense cooperation
“Israel” and Cyprus have significantly deepened their strategic and military cooperation, often in close alignment with Greece. This trilateral partnership has included joint military exercises, intelligence-sharing, and advanced interoperability programs, positioning Cyprus as a key player in regional security coordination. Notably, Cyprus has hosted multiple training sessions centered on maritime security, urban warfare, and “counter-terrorism”, frequently involving Israeli occupation forces.
Media reports have pointed to specific acquisitions by the Cypriot military, including Israeli-made air-defense systems and Tavor assault rifles, further signaling an expanding defense relationship.
The trilateral partnership, reinforced by US engagement, underscores “Israel’s” intent to consolidate influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, creating a corridor of strategic depth extending from Cyprus to its Mediterranean borders.
Energy projects, economic ties
Offshore gas discoveries have made energy cooperation a central feature of “Israel”–Cyprus relations. These resources are seemingly recognized as strategically important for regional security and international markets.
Last week, Israeli Energy and Infrastructure Minister Eli Cohen emphasized the strategic importance of such projects. “Selling gas to Cyprus will strengthen Israel’s diplomatic standing in the region and among European countries, contribute to greater stability and prosperity in our area, and generate billions of shekels in revenue for the state. I intend to continue advancing the expansion of Israeli gas export targets,” he said.
The Energean pipeline, which would link the Karish gas field to Cyprus, sits within contested maritime territory, once a subject of disputes between “Israel” and Lebanon. However, an agreement brokered by the United States in 2022 resolved the dispute, with “Israel” gaining rights to Karish and Lebanon’s rights to the nearby Qana field being recognized.
Accepting the state’s deal, especially after long declining to directly participate in any negotiations between Lebanon and “Israel” regarding the maritime border demarcation issue, Hezbollah, protecting Lebanon’s oil rights and expecting foul play from “Israel”, announced that it would target energy fields if Lebanon was prevented from extracting gas. It expressed readiness to intervene the minute “Israel” violated the agreement.
Gas theft from disputed fields ongoing
Natural gas began flowing from the Karish North field on February 22, 2024, roughly sixty miles off the northern coast of occupied Palestine, to the Energean Power, a massive floating production and storage vessel (FPSO) operated by Energean. The gas is processed onboard before being piped ashore near Haifa, while gas liquids, essentially oil, are stored for export to international markets. This operation allows “Israel” to exploit resources from disputed maritime areas, further consolidating control over offshore energy fields at Lebanon’s expense.
The Karish and Karish North fields, though smaller than the Leviathan and Tamar fields, are being used strategically to secure “Israel’s” energy supply, including during the genocide in Gaza when production from Tamar stalled.
Corporate involvement, controversy
Critics argue that companies such as Energean and British BP p.l.c. play a role in sustaining “Israel’s” occupation. Energean has partnered with “Israel” since 2012 on projects including the Tanin Field and Karish facility. BP has expanded exploration in Palestinian maritime zones, which critics say are illegally exploited.
In July 2025, Francesca Albanese described such corporate involvement as part of the “economy of genocide,” insisting that there were firms and people “that have profited from the violence, the killing, the maiming, the destruction in Gaza and other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory”.
“One people enriched, one people erased,” she said.
“Clearly, for some, genocide is profitable,” Albanese declared.
Regional geopolitics
“Israel’s” energy and strategic projects have broader regional implications. Agreements to supply gas to Egypt and Cyprus not only generate revenue but also consolidate “Israel’s” influence in neighboring countries with weak economies.
Palestinian authorities and rights groups maintain that Israeli energy projects in disputed waters violate Gaza’s maritime zones, underscoring the intersection of strategic, economic, and human rights concerns. The Eastern Mediterranean is a seemingly complex legal and political landscape, but specific legal challenges to projects such as the Energean pipeline remain largely documented by NGOs and media outlets.
Looking ahead
The “Israel”–Cyprus axis is set to deepen, encompassing defense, energy, and economic cooperation.
For Palestinians and Lebanese, these developments are more than geopolitical maneuvering; they reflect the ongoing dispossession and resource exploitation inherent in “Israel’s” occupation.
The Energean pipeline, along with the corporate and governmental actors enabling it, exemplifies the broader challenges to Palestinian and Lebanese sovereignty in the Eastern Mediterranean.
West planning major sabotage at Zaporozhye nuclear plant – Moscow
RT | November 6, 2025
The West is urging Kiev to commit a major act of sabotage at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant that would lead to casualties among Ukrainian and EU citizens, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed, adding that Moscow is set to be blamed for the incident.
One of the proposals allegedly put forward by Kiev’s foreign backers as the “most effective,” is to commit a “major act of sabotage” that will result in significant civilian casualties, the SVR said.
The West is said to be considering orchestrating an accident at the Zaporozhye NPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power facility, that would lead to a meltdown of the reactor core. The SVR stated that British NGO Chatham House has already calculated the consequences of such an accident and determined that residents of Kiev-controlled territories and EU countries near the Ukrainian western border would be in the area of radioactive particle dispersion.
According to the SVR, the British think tank has noted that “the most challenging aspect of implementing such a plot is determining how to attribute responsibility for the catastrophe to Russia.”
Chatham House is allegedly already preparing arguments for all possible developments of the situation in advance so as to make sure the Western public “unequivocally takes Kiev’s side” in determining who is responsible for the accident, the intelligence service added.
It also noted that the plan is set to be “similar” to the tragedy of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing 298 people on board. The incident occurred as Kiev’s troops were attempting to retake the then self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukraine and its Western backers widely blamed the incident on Russia while Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations, insisting the plane was brought down by a missile only used by Kiev’s forces.
“The collective West is once again ready to deceive and even to kill Ukrainians and citizens of the Western countries in order to attribute the crimes of the Kiev regime to Russia and to justify its Russophobic policy and efforts to incite the war,” the SVR concluded.
The enigma of Tusk and Nord Stream as original sin
By Lorenzo Maria Pacini | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 3, 2025
Do you remember Nord Stream 2? The story was discussed by the media for months and, after various accusations and assumptions, it ended with the bitter truth: an operation devised by Western powers, coordinating Kiev and London, to sabotage the energy channel and accuse Russia, thus discrediting it. Investigations were then launched, implicating several players, including Germany and Poland.
Now the story is back in the spotlight.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has clearly stated his position on the Nord Stream 2 sabotage, arguing that it is not “in Poland’s interest” to hand over to Germany the Ukrainian citizen detained in Warsaw and accused of participating in the explosion of the gas pipeline. But, above all, he reiterated that the real problem with Nord Stream 2 “is not that it was destroyed, but that it was built.” Excuse me? The prime minister must have had a little too much to drink before making his statements.
With these words, Tusk defined the Warsaw government’s position on the 2022 attack, attributed to men linked to Kiev, against the pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe, particularly to Germany.
Although the operation had serious economic consequences for Berlin—with a sharp rise in gas prices and repercussions for the entire German economy—the Polish head of government was clear in his assessment of the events that took place in the Baltic Sea after the start of the SMO.
Just a few hours earlier, commenting on the extradition request for the citizen known to the press as Volodymyr Z. (Yes, that is his real name, which only makes the whole thing even more ridiculous), who is suspected of having participated in the attack and is currently detained in Poland, Tusk had stated: “It is certainly not in Poland’s interest to accuse or hand over this citizen to another country,” although the final decision will still be up to the judiciary.
Historically, Poland has always opposed the construction of gas pipelines from Russia, considering them instruments that have made Europe overly dependent on Moscow’s energy. “Russia, thanks to funding from some European states and German and Anglo-Dutch companies, has been able to build Nord Stream 2 against the vital interests not only of our countries but of the whole of Europe. There can be no ambiguity on this point,” Tusk stressed, with a critical reference to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in the past had accused Poland and the Baltic countries of bearing some of the responsibility for the war between Russia and Ukraine.
As for the Ukrainian suspected of sabotage, who was arrested in Poland at the end of September, a Polish court ruled on Monday that he must remain in custody for another 40 days while Germany’s extradition request based on a European arrest warrant is examined. According to German prosecutors, the man is a diver involved in a group of people suspected of chartering a yacht and placing explosives in gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm. The charges against him relate to conspiracy to carry out an attack with explosives and the crime of “unconstitutional sabotage.”
Political stability issues
The reason behind Tusk’s statements may be more profound. Germany’s leadership position in the EU is weakening, and the absence of cheap Russian gas is contributing significantly to this process. Poland can now more actively promote its own interests and impose its own vision of problem solving on Berlin, including the situation regarding the sabotage of Nord Stream.
Germany’s economic strength has long been based on cheap Russian/Soviet energy resources (mainly natural gas). Berlin’s refusal to purchase Russian gas has already led to a significant economic and industrial decline. This benefits Warsaw, as well as other major European powers, particularly the UK and France, in their efforts to curb German influence in the region. In essence, Warsaw is carrying out the will of its “senior European partners,” primarily London.
By defending the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines and refusing to extradite Ukrainian citizens suspected of taking part in the attack to Germany, the Warsaw government seems to be legitimizing further sabotage operations, even on European territory, against infrastructure linked to Russia or to EU and NATO countries that have not yet cut off energy supplies from Moscow.
Donald Tusk’s statement is emblematic in this sense: “The problem with Nord Stream 2 is not that it was blown up, but that it was built.” Radosław Sikorski, too, had posted a message on X (“Thank you, United States”) after the explosion of the gas pipelines in September 2022, only to delete it later. More recently, he even publicly called on Ukrainians to destroy the Druzhba oil pipeline.
During a heated exchange with the Hungarian government, Sikorski also stated that Warsaw “cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court” would not order the arrest of Vladimir Putin if he were to fly over Poland to attend a meeting in Budapest. The ironic response from Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó was not long in coming: “Perhaps the same independent court that, on the orders of Prime Minister Tusk, refused to extradite the terrorist who blew up Nord Stream?” Sikorski’s reply was peremptory: he said he was “proud of the Polish court that ruled that sabotaging an invader is not a crime.” This statement is cause for concern, as the “invader” in question is Russia in Ukraine, not Poland or Hungary. If this legal principle were to be applied universally, Warsaw would end up justifying international chaos.
If the logic of the “Tusk-Sikorski Doctrine” were followed, any country accusing another of invasion could feel justified in striking its interests anywhere.
From this perspective, this doctrine would theoretically make actions against Israel, the United States, or other NATO members, all accused at various times of conducting invasions or occupations, “justifiable.” Poland itself, in fact, participated in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside its Western allies.
Still according to this logic, would it even be permissible to sabotage the gas pipeline connecting Norway to Poland, which was inaugurated — curiously — on the same day that Nord Stream was destroyed, September 22, 2022? And, by analogy, should Islamist attacks against the United States, France, and the United Kingdom be considered “legitimate acts” in response to their military campaigns in the Arab world?
It should also be remembered that both Joe Biden and Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland had already announced the destruction of Nord Stream, which many observers interpreted as a possible indication of plans for sabotage that were never officially clarified.
Beyond speculation and paradoxes, the statements coming out of Warsaw appear highly dangerous, as they contribute to normalizing and even glorifying acts of terrorism, if carried out against Russian or pro-Russian targets, as well as sowing divisions among European countries themselves. Above all, they foreshadow disturbing scenarios in which new acts of sabotage could target strategic infrastructure in Europe, justified by the narrative of the ’war against the Russian invader’.
While Germany continues to support Ukraine militarily and financially, even at the cost of its own energy security, it is perhaps time to question the true nature of ’allies’ who, in the name of an ideological war, do not hesitate to compromise the interests of the entire continent.
It remains to be asked of Tusk, Sikorski, and their friends whether we can really continue to believe that refineries catch fire on their own and gas pipelines commit suicide at sea. All just “coincidences,” right?
Report: UK smears Iran to justify ban on Palestine Action
Press TV – November 4, 2025
A leading British “PR consultancy” working for the Israeli regime’s top arms producer has been found culpable of fabricating and planting a false media narrative linking Palestine Action to Iran, in what appears to be a coordinated effort to justify the group’s eventual proscription.
According to British news magazine Private Eye, a “trusted witness” said Georgia Pickering, head of the London-based PR firm CMS Strategic, which represents Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, boasted about planting a story in The Times alleging that the Islamic Republic was bankrolling the direct-action network.
The story appeared just days before the UK government moved to outlaw Palestine Action under its “terrorism” legislation in July.
The fabricated report, which claimed that the Home Office was probing Tehran’s alleged financial ties to the group, was later recycled by The Daily Mail and the GB News channel, amplifying suspicions and pressure against the movement.
However, when Private Eye reached out to the Home Office, officials said they did not recognize the claims, effectively disowning the narrative that had dominated headlines.
A spokesperson for Palestine Action dismissed the entire affair as “baseless” and “ridiculous”, while CMS Strategic publicly denied involvement in the article, despite Pickering’s private admission.
Further revelations highlighted that the smear campaign did not emerge in isolation.
Just two days before the story broke, the pro-Israeli lobby group We Believe in Israel claimed on social media that Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was the “darker puppeteer” behind Palestine Action, despite offering no proof beyond vague references to “similar slogans.”
In the months leading up to the group’s ban, the same lobby orchestrated a “multi-front” campaign pushing for Palestine Action’s proscription, issuing two reports whose language was later echoed almost verbatim by Yvette Cooper, the then–home secretary, in her official statement outlawing the movement.
For years, Palestine Action has led a relentless grassroots campaign against Elbit Systems, targeting its factories and offices for producing weapons used by the Israeli regime in its assaults on Palestinians, including its war of genocide on the Gaza Strip that began in October 2023.
The powerful who stand with Israel
Israel was able to carry out its live-streamed genocide in Gaza because powerful Western allies supplied it with diplomatic cover and weapons
By Vijay Prashad | people’s dispatch | October 28, 2025
On October 26, Caroline Willemen of Médecins Sans Frontières stated that Israel continues to use the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza as “means of pressure”. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza has not improved significantly,” she told the press, “as water and shelter shortages persist and hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in tents as winter approaches”. Israel’s armed forces have now annexed more than half of Gaza’s land and are dumping vast amounts of debris into that zone, turning it into a mountain of garbage. To move the rubble without experts and equipment is very dangerous, as about ten to twelve percent of the Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza have not exploded.
“Every Gazan person is now living in a horrific, unmapped minefield,” said Nick Orr of Humanity and Inclusion, a non-governmental organization at work in Palestine. “The UXO [Unexploded Ordnance] is everywhere. On the ground, in the rubble, under the ground, everywhere”. As Palestinians dig through the hills of concrete, they risk triggering a dormant bomb – creating more casualties of the Israeli genocide.
Over the past two years, Israel has dropped at least 200,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, a tonnage equivalent to thirteen atom bombs of the scale dropped on Hiroshima by the United States on August 6, 1945. This is unimaginable, particularly given the fact that Palestinians have no air defense systems, no air force, and no ability to defend themselves from high-altitude and drone bombing or to strike back in any comparable way. Genocides are, by their nature, asymmetrical. But to describe these past two years as asymmetrical is obscene: this was one-directional violence, the Goliath-like Israelis using their immense advantages against the David-like Palestinian resistance.
The opaqueness of official arms transfers means we have no precise idea how much of this tonnage came to Israel from its major suppliers during the war: the United States, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. However, we have enough evidence to know that most of the bombs came from the United States, with smaller supplies from the other countries. A new report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, entitled Gaza Genocide: a collective crime (October 20, 2025), makes it indisputably clear that the countries supplying Israel with military equipment, or assisting it in any way – including through diplomatic support – are utterly complicit in the genocide.
In other words, the obligation to abide by the UN Convention on Genocide is not discretionary; the duty to do what they can to stop the genocide is mandatory. The participation makes them wholly culpable. The report notes that the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza makes this “an internationally enabled crime”.
The level of complicity is extraordinary. Take the case of the United Kingdom, whose Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, is a human rights lawyer and indeed wrote the textbook on European human rights law (1999). On August 6, 2025, Matt Kennard told Palestine Deep Dive about how UK military aircraft left RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and escorted an unidentified plane over Gaza. Six days later, Iain Overton at UK Declassified revealed that amongst these planes was an RAF Shadow R1 surveillance plane flying alongside a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 owned by the Sierra Nevada Corporation (from the United States) with a call sign CROOK 11. What were these aircraft doing? Who had sanctioned them this work? Who is CROOK 11?
In December 2024, Starmer told troops at RAF Akrotiri: “There’s a lot of different work that goes on. I’m also aware that some, or quite a bit, of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time… We can’t necessarily tell the world what you’re doing here…because although we’re not saying it to the whole world for reasons that are obvious to you”. The obvious reason is that this is a genocide, and the UK is complicit, so they cannot talk about it.
The record for the United States is even more ghastly. One paragraph from the Special Rapporteur’s report is damning enough:
Since October 2023, the US has transferred 742 consignments of “arms and ammunition” (HS Code 93) and approved tens of billions in new sales. The Biden and Trump Administrations reduced transparency, accelerated transfers through repeated emergency approvals, facilitated Israeli access to US weapons stockpile held abroad, and authorized hundreds of sales just below the amount requiring congressional approval. The US has deployed military aircraft, special forces and surveillance drones to Israel, with US surveillance purportedly being used to target Hamas, including in the first raid on Al Shifa hospital.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed a warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Based on this recent UN report, the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, should be obliged to file warrants against Rishi Sunak, Starmer, Olaf Scholz, Friedrich Merz, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump – at a minimum. Anything less makes a mockery of the rules-based international system, namely the United Nations Charter.
