Expansion of UK Investigatory Law to Force Tech Companies Into ‘Surveillance State’
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 03.01.2024
King Charles III announced No.10’s decision to expand the powers of the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act last year, adding that threats to national security are currently “changing rapidly due to new technology.”
The UK government’s drive to update the country’s controversial Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) is prompting “a fresh outcry” among both industry execs and privacy campaigners, a US news outlet has reported.
According to the outlet, Downing Street’s actions to expand what is known as one of Europe’s toughest surveillance laws could hobble efforts to protect user privacy.
In a letter to Home Secretary James Cleverly, industry body TechUK warned that the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill threatens technological innovation, undermines the sovereignty of other nations and leads to far-reaching consequences if it causes a domino effect overseas.
TechUK insisted that combined with pre-existing powers, the IPA changes would “grant a de- facto power to indefinitely veto companies from making changes to their products and services offered in the UK.”
“We stress the critical need for adequate time to thoroughly discuss these changes, highlighting that rigorous scrutiny is essential given the international precedent they will set and their very serious impacts,” the letter reads.
The document points out that TechUK is concerned that the the proposed changes are presented by the Home Office as minor adjustments and as such are being downplayed.
Director of thecampaign group Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, argued that with CCTV footage or social media posts people may not have an expectation of privacy, but that “data taken together and processed in a certain way, can be incredibly intrusive.”
“What we’re seeing across these different bills is a continual edging further towards […] turning private tech companies into arms of a surveillance state,” Carlo said.
A No.10 spokesperson in turn underscored that the government has always been clear that it supports technological innovation as well as private and secure communications technologies, including end-to-end encryption. “But this cannot come at a cost to public safety, and it is critical that decisions are taken by those with democratic accountability,” the spokesperson warned.
On June 5, the Home Office opened consultations to discuss “possible outcomes for revised IPA notices…intended to improve the effectiveness of the current regimes” amid new challenges to national security.
The Home Office in particular wants companies offering messaging services, including Apple behind FaceTime and iMessage, and Meta behind WhatsApp, to seek government approval around these messaging tools’ security features.
The 2016 IPA, commonly known as the “snoopers’ charter”, contains a spate of provisions, such as requiring broadband internet service providers and mobile operators to log internet connection records (ICRs) for up to 12 months.
Russia thwarts Ukrainian attack on border area
RT | January 3, 2024
Russia’s Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, has come under fresh attack after Kiev’s forces launched a barrage of a dozen missiles, the Russian Defense Ministry has announced, adding that its air defenses had shot down all incoming projectiles.
The ministry wrote on its Telegram channel on Wednesday that “another attempt to carry out a terrorist attack by the Kiev regime on facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation, using multiple launch rocket system ‘Olkha’ missiles and ‘Tochka-U’ tactical ballistic missiles, was thwarted this morning.”
According to the statement, the shelling involved six rockets of each type.
Local residents reported seeing explosions in the skies early on Wednesday morning.
The Ukrainian military also shelled the region on Tuesday evening, using the same type of rockets, the defense ministry said, adding that all incoming missiles had been intercepted.
Earlier in the day, Kiev’s forces launched 17 ‘Olkha’ missiles toward Belgorod Region in three separate attacks. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel that one civilian had died and two were injured as a result of falling debris as the missiles were shot down.
The Russian Defense Ministry estimated that its air defenses brought down a total of 32 Ukrainian drones over Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk and Moscow regions on Monday night and Tuesday morning.
On Saturday, the city of Belgorod came under attack, with a massive Ukrainian barrage killing 25 people and wounding more than 100 others.
Kiev described the strike as retaliation for a previous Russian attack on major Ukrainian cities, including Kiev.
According to an anonymous Russian security source, Saturday’s shelling was personally ordered by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Moscow has also claimed that the UK and the US also bear responsibility for the death of Russian civilians in Belgorod.
Ukraine and Russia have since engaged in daily tit-for-tat bombardments.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday that its missile strikes had obliterated a number of military industry facilities, repair shops, and ammunition warehouses in the neighboring country. Ukrainian authorities claimed that most of the projectiles ended up hitting civilian infrastructure and apartment blocks, killing multiple civilians.
Ukraine to decide how to use US missiles – ambassador
RT | January 2, 2024
The decision on how to use the American-supplied missiles for HIMARS launchers will be up to the Ukrainian military command, US Ambassador to Kiev Bridget Brink said on Tuesday, according to the Ukrainian outlet Strana.
The US has sent Ukraine around 30 high-mobility artillery rocket systems since mid-2022. The projectiles Washington officially supplied to Kiev have a range of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles). Ukraine has repeatedly demanded longer-range missiles.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces command will “independently decide on the range of strikes delivered” using the HIMARS projectiles the US plans to deliver “in the near future,” Strana reported Brink as saying on Tuesday afternoon.
Brink made the identical announcement in June 2022. It was reiterated by the Pentagon in February 2023, when the US announced it would send Ukraine Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) munitions.
According to a Washington Post article at the time, Ukraine carries out HIMARS launches using “specific coordinates provided by US military personnel,” but chooses the targets itself. The US provides coordinates and targeting information “solely in an advisory role,” an anonymous American official insisted.
Russia has said that this is a distinction without a difference, and repeatedly warned that US and British officials involved in Ukrainian attacks on civilians will be brought to justice.
In October, Kiev boasted about using longer-ranged ATACMS missiles “secretly” supplied by the US. As it turned out, the White House sent over a small number of the rockets armed with the controversial cluster munitions.
On Saturday, Ukrainian long-range rocket artillery struck the main town square of Belgorod city with cluster bombs, killing 25 civilians – including children – and injuring 100 more. Czech-supplied weapons were reportedly used in the attack. Russia has retaliated by targeting Ukrainian command posts, weapons warehouses and military factories in a wave of missile and drone strikes.
Speaker on BBC Verify Correspondent’s Six Month Sabbatical Course Has Called for Jailing Climate Contrarians
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JANUARY 1, 2024
Further and better particulars have emerged about the green billionaire-funded course run by the Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN), which has to date attracted over 400 participants from around the world. It recently signed up Marco Silva, the climate ‘disinformation’ specialist employed by BBC Verify. To “hit closer to home”, course participants are told to pick a fruit such as a mango and discuss why it wasn’t as tasty as the year before due to the impact of climate change. Noted climate hysteric Saffron O’Neill has been a past speaker and she is on record as speculating on the need for “fines and imprisonment” for expressing scepticism about “well supported” science. There is something very disturbing about a climate activist from a State-reliant broadcaster attending a course funded by narrative-driven billionaires with a speaker who has suggested that sceptical climate scientists and writers be locked up in prison.
As the Daily Sceptic disclosed, the OCJN six-month course is run by the Reuters Institute, which is funded by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Direct funding for the course, which started last year, has been provided by the Laudes Foundation and the European Climate Fund, the latter heavily supported by Extinction Rebellion funder Sir Christopher Hohn. Immersion in the correct political narrative surrounding climate collapse, the so-called ‘settled’ science, and the need for extreme Net Zero measures, whatever the cost, is the order of the day. It would appear that the aim of the OCJN is to insert constant fearmongering messages into media stories, as global elites press ahead with a collectivist Net Zero political agenda.
In a recently published essay, two OCJN organisers give chapter and verse as to how this is being directed on the course. It is designed to allow climate journalists to “move beyond their siloed past” into a strategic position within newsrooms “combining expertise with collaboration”. The “pick your mango” strategy is designed to make climate change “less abstract” and delegates are told to pick a “beloved fruit or activity that everyone in your country or region seems to care about, and seems to capture attention when impacted by climate change”.
“Less abstract” is one way of summing up this pseudoscientific hogwash. ‘Infantile’ might be better. None of it is based on a scintilla of scientific proof. Much the same can be said for a presentation by Dr. Friederike Otto who uses computer models to claim her green billionaire-funded World Weather Attribution (WWA) team can attribute individual bad weather events to human-caused climate change. Following Otto’s presentation, attendees are reported to have shown a “massive jump in self-confidence” when attributing individual weather to the long-term climate change.
The distinguished science writer Roger Pielke Jnr. is scathing about weather attribution calling it a new “cottage industry”, adding that the need to feed the climate beast leads to a knock-on effect of creating incentives for researchers to produce studies with links to climate – “no matter how tenuous or trivial”. At the BBC, weather attribution has always been very popular. Writing in a WWA guide for journalists, the former BBC Today editor Sarah Sands says attribution studies have given us “significant insight into the horseman of the climate apocalypse”. Former OCJN attendee, Ben Rich, the BBC’s lead weather presenter, has used the “science” of climate attribution “to help explain to audiences when and how scientists can link extreme weather to climate change”.
None of this ludicrous propaganda can be questioned since the science is deemed to be ‘settled’. Geography lecturer Dr. Saffron O’Neill has taken climate hysteria to a new level with a demand that journalists should not use photos of people enjoying themselves on beaches during summer heat waves. She recently told theGuardian that such images “can hold the same power” as photos of the tanks in Tiananmen Square and smoke billowing from the Twin Towers. After a session with O’Neill, audience members said that “news outlets and photo agencies can and should think ahead of time about how they photograph the risks of hot weather”. And of course if anyone disagrees with O’Neill and her version of the “well supported” science, it is time for fines and prison. The last suggestion was published in Carbon Brief, the activist blog financed by the European Climate Fund. As it happens, Carbon Brief is represented on the OCJN Advisory Board through its editor Leo Hickman.
The OCJN is far from the only billionaire foundation-funded operation trying to spread climate alarm and hysteria throughout the general population. Climate Central targets local media with ready-to-publish stories about significant landmarks disappearing beneath rising sea levels. It recently gulled the Mirror into running a notably silly story about much of London disappearing beneath the waves within 80 years. Covering Climate Now (CC Now) is an off-shoot of the Columbia Journalism Review and is backed by the Guardian. It claims to feed over 500 media operations with pre-written climate stories. Both these operations rely on heavy financial support from a small cluster of green billionaire funds.
The links between these operations spreads far and wide. One of the partners of CC Now is Reuters, the news agency connected to the OCJN through its Reuters Institute. Not everyone is happy with Reuters’ connections to operations such as CC Now that make no secret of a desire to promote a hard-line Net Zero narrative and suppress opposition to it. Neil Winton worked for 32 years at the agency covering science in his time. Politicians and lobbyists are in the process of dismantling our way of life, he notes. If we are going to give up our civilisation, at the very least we ought to have an open debate. “Journalists need to stand up and be counted. The trouble is this requires bravery and energy, and an urge to question conventional wisdom,” he said.
And, he might have added, avoiding the naughty step of Dr. Saffron O’Neill.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Are EV Fires Stories Being Covered Up?
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 1, 2024
On Boxing Day, we passed this house on our way up to the common where we take the dogs. We go there most days, so were shocked to see this fire damage (photos taken today). On Boxing Day, there was a totally burnt out car on the drive, and also a gas van outside, presumably checking the mains were safe. The last time we went past was, I believe, Saturday, so the fire must have happened between then and Tuesday.
We could not identify the burnt out car at the time, as we did not stop. But there is often a Tesla parked on the driveway.
The fire obviously has all the classic trappings of an EV fire. Note how the right side of the house is hardly affected. The garage door must have been subjected to extreme heat, because it is hopelessly buckled out of shape.
This is not why I am making this post however.
For some reason, there seems to be no record or news at all of this locally. The South Yorkshire Fire Service keep a daily log of all incidents they have been called to, even down to wheelie bin fires. Yet they have no record at all of this fire. I have requested any information they have, but they have so far not responded.
The local newspaper, the Sheffield Star, also appears to have ignored the story, and there is no trace of the news on Google.
Is there some policy afoot to cover up stories of EV fires? It seems far fetched, but I can think of no other explanation.
Putin names Russia’s real enemies
Ukraine itself is not an enemy, the Western elites backing it are, the Russian president has said
RT | January 1, 2024
Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West, which has been using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He made the remarks at a military hospital in Moscow where he was meeting Russian servicemen wounded during the Ukraine military operation.
Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself.
“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.
The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained.
“Those who only yesterday were talking about the need to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia are now looking for words on how to quickly end the conflict.”
“We want to end the conflict too, and as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight forever, but we are not going to give up our positions either,” Putin said.
The battlefield situation is now changing despite all the aid Kiev has been receiving from the West, the president observed. Russia has been effectively outproducing the whole West militarily, he suggested, with the country’s output destined to grow even further.
“Despite the fact that from time immemorial [the West] has had such a goal – to deal with Russia, it looks like we will deal with them first,” Putin stated.
“You probably see it on the battlefield that they are gradually ‘deflating’. When a shell flies, it is probably difficult to tell whether they are ‘deflated’ or not, but in general you probably know: the situation on the battlefield is changing. And this is happening despite the fact that the entire so-called civilized West is fighting against us,” he told the servicemen.
According to Russia’s latest estimates, over 380,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded during the conflict. Ukraine has also sustained heavy materiel losses, with an estimated 14,000 tanks and other armored vehicles destroyed. Nearly 160,000 of the troop losses were during Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, launched in early June last year, Moscow says.
Western War Machine is in Panic Mode
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 01.01.2024
The sheer inability of the collective West to force Russia into submission in Ukraine plus the fast-changing global opinion about the West in the context of the latter’s support for Israel’s brutal war on the Gazans has put the so-called ‘liberal-democratic’ world into a panic mode. The White House has already said that it will run out of money to fund Ukraine into 2024 unless the US Congress gives approval for more funding. This has led the Western war machine – primarily led by the US – to anticipate a possible defeat. “There is no guarantee of success with us, but they are certain to fail without us”, a senior US military official told CNN recently. Without the military support, US officials now estimate, Ukraine would fall by the summer of 2024. But, in Western calculations, Ukraine’s fall does not just mean Russia’s victory; it also implies a possible collapse of NATO and the eventual downfall of the Western-dominated global political, economic, and security order.
A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal said,
“Even more important, Russia’s success in Ukraine would increase a threat to NATO’s Eastern flank—in particular the Baltic states and Poland. Outside of Europe it would embolden Moscow’s allies Iran and North Korea and provide a template for China for the military solution of the Taiwan dispute. In all those cases, the U.S. and NATO troops could find themselves in the midst of a military conflict of the sort that Ukraine fights today without direct involvement of NATO”.
Such prospects are causing severe problems. Germany, for instance, is considering shelving voluntary force and making a return to conscription. “I believe that a nation that needs to become more resilient in times like these will have a higher level of awareness if it is mixed through with soldiers,” said Jan Christian Kaack, the chief of the German Navy. This is in addition to the fact that the German army is too small to defend itself against any threat; hence, the renewed emphasis on conscription.
But Germany is not an exceptional case. In fact, it mirrors developments in the rest of Europe. The UK, otherwise known to possess one of the best fighting forces in the world, is running into some problems of a fundamental nature. The Sky News reported earlier in the year that, a senior US general “privately told Defence Secretary Ben Wallace the British Army is no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force”. It was further reported that the “The armed forces would run out of ammunition in a few days if called upon to fight” and that “The UK lacks the ability to defend its skies against the level of missile and drone strikes that Ukraine is enduring”.
On top of it is the fact that the Russian military position in Ukraine remains strong, making it a lot harder for the West to provide enough funding. The Biden administration is facing its own challenges vis-à-vis more funding for Ukraine. As far as Europe is concerned, a recent report showed that pledges for funding made in August 2023 fell by almost 90 percent compared to the same period last year.
This is war fatigue that is being compounded by a well-sustained Russian resolve to achieve its objectives. For the West, Vladimir Putin remains “stubborn”. As Putin recently reiterated, “There will be peace when we achieve our goals… Now let’s return to these goals – they have not changed. I would like to remind you how we formulated them: denazification, demilitarisation, and a neutral status for Ukraine.”
Speaking from a position of strength – and keeping in mind the war fatigue in the West – Putin further said that Russian forces are “improving their position almost along the entire line of contact. Almost all of them are engaged in active combat. And the position of our troops is improving along [the entire line of contact.]”. This being the case, Putin conveyed no ideas of making a compromise with the West over Ukraine. Speaking from the Russian perspective, it would make no sense to offer negotiations and, thus, turn Russian tactical victories into unsustainable settlements.
Clearly, Russia has no intention of withdrawing from its victories, which is why there is a panic, especially in Europe. If Russia continues to win and the US funding stalls, Europe will be left to fend for itself. Germany’s defence minister minced no words to express this fear last Saturday when he said that the US “was losing interest in European affairs and that security tensions in the Pacific would likely leave the European Union having to fend for itself”, adding that “One can assume that the USA will be more involved in the Pacific region in the next decade than it is today – regardless of who becomes the next president,” he said. His conclusion is: “This means that we Europeans must increase our commitment to ensure security on our continent.”
In a nutshell, for the US, if the war in Ukraine was to unify the West, it is beginning to have an exactly opposite effect. There lies a very strong reason for the US to reconsider its strategy. This reconsideration can go in two directions. First, the US can withdraw from its obsession with expanding NATO to include Ukraine. Second, the US can make one last push and make Ukraine fight for as long as it can, hoping that this might break Russia. The Biden administration favours the second option, which is why it is pushing for the US$61 billion aid package. But will a Republican victory allow this to happen? A Republican victory could not only end support for Ukraine but also leave Europe in a total lurch. Tough times ahead.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
Iran Deploys Cruise Missile-Armed Warship in Red Sea Amid US-Houthi Standoff
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 01.01.2024
The Alborz, an Iranian Navy Alvand-class frigate armed with long-range anti-ship missiles and anti-submarine warfare equipment, entered the Red Sea after passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Iranian media reported on Monday.
Pointing to the nation’s record of operations in regional waters since the late 2000s fighting piracy and securing international shipping lanes, Iranian media indicated that the warship’s deployment to Red Sea now comes amid an “increase of tensions” in the wake of the Gaza crisis, Houthi operations against Israeli-owned and -bound commercial cargoes, and US attacks against the Yemeni militia.
Commissioned in 1971 and named after the Alborz mountain range, the Alborz is classified as a destroyer by Iran, but classed a frigate by many foreign military observers. The 1,100 ton, 94.5 meter long vessel has a 9,000 km range, a complement of over 125 officers and crew, and is fitted with Noor anti-ship sea-skimming turbojet-powered cruise missiles, which have a range of up to 220 km and can accelerate to up to Mach 1.4 in their terminal stage.
The warship underwent major capital repairs and the installation of new equipment in 2018, and was equipped with indigenously-developed combat systems in 2020, including new close-in air defense weapons, as well as electronic warfare and target detection and tracking systems.
The Alborz took part in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988. In 2021, the ship successfully fought off a pirate attack against an Iranian oil tanker in the Indian Ocean. The warship has also taken part in joint exercises with Russian and Chinese warships in recent years.
The vessel’s deployment in the Red Sea comes amid the continued deterioration of the security situation in the region, with the US military drawing first blood in its campaign against Yemen’s Houthi militants (who are attempting to close the body of water to Israeli-owned or affiliated commercial shipping) on Sunday, destroying three Houthi boats and killing ten fighters. The Houthis warned of “repercussions,” signaling the possibility of direct attacks against the warships of the US and its allies.
Earlier, UK media reported that British and US naval forces were planning “direct action” against the Houthis after issuing the militia with a “verbal final warning” about its Red Sea anti-shipping campaign.
Washington and its allies have repeatedly accused Iran of supporting the Houthis militarily. Tehran and Sanaa have each separately dismissed these claims, with Iranian officials insisting that their assistance for the Yemeni militia have been limited to moral support as part of the loose regional ‘Axis of Resistance’ anti-US, anti-Israeli coalition, and the Houthis saying their decision to launch operations against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians were taken independently.
What We Have Learned
By Craig Murray | December 24, 2023
We have learnt this year that there is no crime so startling, so obvious and so visible to the whole world that the United States and Israel are not willing to commit it brazenly and openly. The massacre of 20,000 people includes the killing of babies and infants, the deliberate shooting of pregnant women and toddlers, the murder of old ladies in church and the execution of prisoners stripped naked.
This is all justified as “Israel’s right of self-defence”.
We have also seen the increasing rise of fascism as western governments crack down on their publics in order to curtail political resistance to the genocide. Tony Greenstein, Mick Napier and I have all been harassed under the Terrorism Act. I have left the country because I fear I am officially “under investigation” under the Terrorism Act and I fear I shall be arrested and placed in jail for two years awaiting trial. Numerous people have been arrested for expressing their horror at the massacre through placards, words or even songs that the police judge “offensive”. Police action is often prompted by instruction from self-appointed Zionist vigilante organisations.
We are also seeing, exactly as I predicted, a replay of the “War on Terror” state Islamophobic propaganda. Do you remember the famous “ricin plot” where the ricin found was the trace level to be found in every kitchen? The British government kept it Top Secret for two years that there was in fact no ricin. Or the non-existent Easter Bomb Plot where the “ingredient of improvised explosives” found turned out to be a bag of sugar?
In Germany they have a great deal of work to do to justify the world’s most extreme anti-Palestinian governmental racism, so they have invented a “Hamas terror plot” and arrested four young Muslims. No evidence at all has been produced to justify this.
Hamas has never, ever conducted any violent attack outside of Palestine and it has always been their policy not to do so – and it still is. The notion is ludicrous that at this time Hamas have decided to suddenly lose the propaganda war which they are winning worldwide, by attacking Germany.
Germany’s governments have form of course, not only for genocide, but also for enthusiastic creation of fake terrorism. The German government was heavily implicated both in false flag terrorist attacks in Tashkent, which I was able to investigate and report to the UK government in real time, and in the creation of a whole fake terrorist organisation, “The Islamic Jihad Union of Uzbekistan”, which was entirely the work of the CIA and the German security services. The aim at that time was to justify the German military airbase at Termez in Uzbekistan, operating into Afghanistan. People forget German participation on the losing side in the last Afghan war.
I have no doubt we are in for a period of more propaganda, fake terrorist plots, false flag actual terrorism and agent provocateur led terrorism. It is the only way the Establishment can hope to regain the propaganda narrative.
I have not quite got used yet to my new position as an itinerant terrorist, so I apologise that posting has been a bit scarce due to a lot of organisational bother and a general sense of discombobulation. This is being dashed off at Milan airport. I am very happy on a personal note to say that my family are joining me at an exotic venue for Christmas and New Year, so you may not hear much from me till mid-January as I owe my children a great deal of my attention.
I do wish you a safe and very happy festive season wherever you are, and hope you can be together with those you love. For all those living in fear and danger, particularly but not only those in Gaza, my thoughts along with those of millions around the world are with you now and always.
Shortly before the first Iraq War, between the invasion of Kuwait and the outbreak of real hostilities, I spent a minute in reply to one from John Major. I was working in a the Embargo Surveillance Centre, a Top Secret establishment operating from an underground NATO HQ in central London. We were among the recipients of a Christmas message from the Prime Minister which combined Christian wishes with a bellicose message. I replied in a formal minute with this verse from the carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear:
But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
Whomever the angels are to you, I hope you hear them sing.
Caracas says UK’s dispatch of warship violated the deal with Guyana over disputed Essequibo
RT | December 28, 2023
Britain’s decision to dispatch a warship to Guyana breaches the “spirit” of the agreement to resolve the Essequibo dispute peacefully and will be met with “defensive action,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, the UK announced it would send the offshore patrol vessel HMS Trent, currently deployed in the Caribbean, to visit the “regional ally and Commonwealth partner.”
Maduro called the move “practically a military threat from London” that violates the “spirit of dialogue, diplomacy and peace of the agreements” made with Guyana.
“I have ordered the activation of joint defensive action by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces in response to the UK provocation and threat to the peace and sovereignty of our country,” the Venezuelan president said in a televised speech.
Venezuela “reserves all actions, within the framework of the Constitution and International Law, to defend its maritime and territorial integrity,” the Foreign Ministry in Caracas said in a statement.
Following a national referendum at the beginning of December, Caracas laid claim on “Guayana Esequiba,” a mostly forested region rich in mineral resources that Venezuela has claimed for over a century. Guyana has protested, noting that the area amounts to two-thirds of its internationally recognized territory and asked the “international community” for help.
Brazil and several Caribbean countries offered to mediate the dispute, resulting in Maduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali signing the Declaration of Argyle on December 14, at a meeting in St. Vincent. Both sides pledged to refrain from escalation by “words or deeds,” and established a joint commission to discuss the dispute.
Four days later, Britain’s Undersecretary for the Americas David Rutley visited Georgetown and promised Guyana “unequivocal backing,” vowing to “ensure the territorial integrity of Guyana is upheld.”
St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who has taken on the role of the mediator in the dispute, told the island radio on Thursday that he read the Venezuelan statement “very carefully,” describing it as “firm but… not particularly belligerent.”
Gonsalves said he has reached out to both Georgetown and Caracas, and received assurances from both of their “commitment to peace and continued dialogue.”
Maduro Orders ‘Defensive’ Military Drills After UK Deploys British Warship Off Guyana Coast
Sputnik – 28.12.2023
CARACAS – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered on Thursday the armed forces to launch “the activation of a joint defensive action” in response to the deployment of a British warship off the coast of Guyana.
“I have ordered the activation of a joint defensive action of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces” off the coast of Essequibo, he said in a state televised broadcast, but did not provide more information.
Earlier this month, the British media reported, citing a British defense ministry spokesman, that the United Kingdom would deploy a patrol ship off Guyana’s coast as a sign of support for the state in the territorial dispute over Essequibo. The head of Venezuela’s defense ministry, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, called it a provocation.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ivan Gil had previously called on his British counterpart David Cameron not to interfere in the affairs of Latin American and Caribbean countries, and to mind his own business.
“From Venezuela, we ask the infamous failure David Cameron, foreign minister of the former imperial power of the United Kingdom, to take his hands off our Latin America and the Caribbean and to take care of his own affairs, which are very complicated,” Gil wrote on social media.
Venezuela’s territorial dispute with Britain and Guyana, a former British colony, has been ongoing since the 19th century. The Bolivarian government stepped up its actions after Guyanese authorities began handing over fossil-rich areas of the disputed shelf to oil companies for development.
Caracas held a referendum on December 3 in which an absolute majority of participants supported the annexation of the territory west of the Essequibo River, and began legislative work to legally back its actions.
Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has since said that the country views Caracas’ actions as a threat to national security and intends to appeal to the UN Security Council as well as its international partners. During a recent news conference, Ali did not rule out that Guyana may go for a military base for its allies in the region, and on December 7, the US Army’s Southern Command carried out “flight operations” in the country.
The leaders of Venezuela and Guyana, following recent talks on the territorial dispute over Essequibo, pledged not to use force under any circumstances and to resolve it in accordance with the 1966 Geneva Agreement.
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Breast Cancer: Before You Consent
A new Unbekoming paperback
Lies are Unbekoming | September 18, 2026
Peter Gøtzsche reviewed every randomised mammography screening trial ever conducted for the Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane’s headline is that, assuming a 15% mortality reduction, one woman in 2000 avoids dying of breast cancer over ten years. Ten are overdiagnosed and treated. Two hundred experience false alarms.
But that headline assumes the reduction. When Gøtzsche looked only at the trials with adequate randomisation — the higher-quality ones — the reduction disappeared. No effect on breast cancer mortality. No effect on all-cause mortality.
This is the Cochrane finding, published in the establishment’s own database of systematic reviews.
No woman being asked to consent to a mammogram this week knows it.
That is why the new Unbekoming paperback exists. … continue
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- US-Denmark Agreement on Greenland Is ‘PR Stunt’ Ahead of Midterms
- Araghchi: Military intervention cannot create security; coercion cannot bring peace
- Fraud Squared
- Breast Cancer: Before You Consent
- If Americans Knew
- Inside Gaza’s death trap of collapsing, bombed-out buildings
- The everyday items Israel bans from Gaza every day
- Inside the siege, the ruined buildings of Gaza – Daily Update
- Debunking The Claim That Macklemore Has A “History Of Antisemitism”
- CPJ demands release of arrested Palestinian-US journalist near Bethlehem
- Robert Kraft: The Billionaire Friend of Netanyahu Pulling The Strings Behind the Macklemore/Ed Sheeran Blow Up
- Columbia Administered Fund Gives Big Money to Pro-Israel Groups
- Deportation Case of Palestinian Activist Salah Sarsour Tests First Amendment
- ‘We Will Not Forget’: Palestinians Mark 44 Years since Sabra and Shatila
- Why do we let Zionists decide what we can and can’t say?
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
- End-Of-August Arctic Sea Ice Extent Hasn’t Fallen In 20 Years, Official Data Show!
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