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UK GOVERNMENT BLOCKS MP QUESTIONS ABOUT GAZA-RELATED ACTIVITY AT ITS CYPRUS BASE

BY MATT KENNARD AND MARK CURTIS | DECLASSIFIED UK | NOVEMBER 20, 2023

The British government has blocked MPs asking any questions about activity at RAF Akrotiri, its vast air base on Cyprus, Declassified can reveal.

Blocking all parliamentary questions from MPs is a highly unusual move.

Government departments routinely refuse to answer specific questions about military operations for reasons of “national security”, but blocking all questions by elected parliamentarians goes far beyond the usual level of Whitehall secrecy.

It comes after Declassified revealed the RAF has made over 30 military transport flights to Tel Aviv since Israel began bombing Gaza. The Ministry of Defence refused to provide us any detail of the cargo or personnel on the flights.

Just this morning an A400M Atlas military transport aircraft operated by the RAF landed in Tel Aviv from Akrotiri. The aircraft can carry 116 soldiers, a Chinook helicopter or a payload of 37 tonnes.

RAF Akrotiri sits 180 miles from Tel Aviv with a flight time of 40 minutes.

Declassified has also reported that the US is moving arms to Israel using RAF Akrotiri, which has become an international military hub supporting Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. Half of US planes flying from British Cyprus are said to be carrying weapons for Israel.

Kenny MacAskill, Alba MP for East Lothian, told Declassified he put down a number of parliamentary questions concerning what military support the UK is providing to Israel and the role of RAF Akrotiri in the supply of military equipment.

“Your question has been queried because it is subject to a block by Government,” he was told in an email. “The Department [Ministry of Defence] has stated that it will not comment on operational matters at this base.”

MacAskill, a former Scottish justice secretary, told Declassified: “This is totally unacceptable in a democracy. Genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza and we have a right to know what our Government is doing about it.”

MacAskill said he had never experienced such a ‘block’ on asking parliamentary questions before.

He added: “The failure to call for an immediate ceasefire is bad enough but any complicity raises issues of participating in war crimes. We need openness and transparency by our government. This is not in our name.”

Secrecy

The UK military-run Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee – better known as the ‘D-Notice’ committee – has also sent out an ‘advisory’ to all British media to suppress reporting on UK special forces’ activity related to Gaza. The SAS was previously reported to have deployed a force to Cyprus.

No British mainstream media outlets have reported on Declassified’s recent findings about RAF Akrotiri and Gaza despite the President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides having to defend his government from accusations of complicity in Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

In answer to questions about the use of RAF Akrotiri by Cypriot journalists over the weekend, Christodoulides said: “There is no such information, our country cannot be used as a base for war operations”.

However, RAF Akrotiri has long been the staging post for British bombing campaigns across the Middle East. Declassified also recently revealed that 129 US airmen are also permanently deployed at the base.

The censorship of information requests from MPs makes it all but certain that RAF Akrotiri is being used for covert military purposes that the government does not want the public to know about.

It is likely the UK is sending material military aid to Israel during its bombing of Gaza, which has now killed over 12,000 Palestinians, although it previously told Declassified it was not providing “lethal aid”.

November 22, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Palestine activists shutting down arms factories that aid Gaza genocide

Press TV – November 21, 2023

A group of pro-Palestine activists on Monday blocked the driveway entrances to Lockheed Martin subsidiary ForwardEdgeASIC in the western US state of Minnesota for aiding the genocide in Gaza.

The demonstrators held banners that read “No money for weapons” and “Divest from Lockheed.”

Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC), an advocacy group that organizes street protests against US aid to the Israeli regime, in a post on X on Monday described the action as a “victory.”

“VICTORY!! Production was stopped ALL DAY at ForwardEdge ASIC, Lockheed’s subsidiary in St. Paul that makes microelectronics for weapons systems,” the tweet stated.

“Activists with the Free Palestine Coalition blocked entrances & faced down police for almost 8 hours! Building got decorated too!”

Andrew Josefchak, a member of the Minnesota AWC, was quoted as saying that they want Lockheed out of their city as it aids the genocide of civilians in Gaza.

“The reason why I’m here today specifically is because Lockheed’s bombs and jets are being used to massacre civilians,” he stated, noting that Lockheed provides weapons used by Israel to bomb Gaza.

As a mark of protest against the Israeli regime’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has assumed alarming proportions, activists in Western countries have also upped the ante.

In recent weeks, pro-Palestine advocacy groups have intensified their campaign against corporations and industries that aid the occupying regime’s war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged territory.

On Sunday, the Minnesota AWC organized a rally on the bridge over the Mississippi River that saw the participation of thousands of protesters, who marched to Minnesota Governor Walz’s Eastcliff house.

“There is blood on the hands of not only these companies, but also Governor Tim Walz and his SBI for continuing to invest in these companies, and yet when we cry out for Israeli bombs to stop for good, when we demand an end to the brutal, unjustified occupation, we’re called anti-Semites,” Skyler Dorr, a worker at the University of Minnesota, was quoted as saying by Fightback News.

“We don’t want to teach our kids that genocide is okay, and we don’t want teachers fired for speaking out against Israel,” Drake Myers, a member of the Minnesota AWC, stated.

According to reports, the aerospace and weapons industry has seen a significant jump in profits after Israel launched its murderous attacks on Gaza on October 7.

As President Joe Biden’s $14 billion military aid for the Tel Aviv regime awaits congressional green light, companies such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing are likely to have a big boost in profits.

It has enraged pro-Palestine activists in the US and other Western countries who have been organizing peaceful demonstrations and forcing the closure of factories belonging to these corporations.

Hundreds of pro-Palestine activists staged a protest at one of the entrances to US Air Force Plant 44 in Arizona on November 2, which Raytheon, a major US military contractor, operates.

“The bombs and the rockets and all those weapons of mass destruction are made in the US, so everybody needs to be held accountable who participates in this genocide, either directly or indirectly,” Abdulaziz, who attended the demonstration, was quoted as saying by Prism Reports.

Five days later, on November 8, half a dozen activists were arrested after they held a die-in protest outside the arms company’s offices in Arlington, Virginia. The protestors, however, remained unfazed.

On November 13, protesters stormed a Raytheon factory in California’s El Segundo, blocking its gates.

Similar demonstrations have been held against other military contractors as well, such as Boeing, which is one of the biggest arms importers to the Israeli regime.

A report in Bloomberg last month, citing unnamed US officials, said the company has accelerated the delivery of around 1,800 kits “that convert unguided bombs into precision munitions.”

On November 6, pro-Palestine demonstrators blocked the entrances to a Boeing factory in Missouri.

It was followed by another protest on November 9 outside the headquarters of Northrop Grumman in San Diego.

Northrop Grumman, according to the Mapping Project, sells “extensive amounts of weapons and military technologies to Israel, as well as the US military and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).”

“Northrop Grumman is deeply complicit in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland and theft of Palestinian resources,” it states.

Pro-Palestine activists have also been targeting Elbit Systems, in both the US and the UK, in recent weeks. The largest weapons supplier to Israel has seen a staggering rise in its stocks since October 7.

On October 31, more than two weeks after Israel launched its genocidal attacks on Gaza, Palestine Action US “completely halted” a factory of Elbit Systems in Boston.

Hundreds of demonstrators chanted “Elbit Systems has got to go” and “You’re defending genocide of children”, calling for the closure of the arms factory.

According to its website, the American subsidiary of the arms company has operational facilities in the US states of Texas, New Hampshire, Alabama, Virginia and Florida.

Before the crackdown on the Boston plant, pro-Palestine activists also forced the closure of Elbit Systems’ Cambridge facility, “to prevent Elbit employees from going to work.”

“The weapons Israel is deploying to surveil, maim, and mass murder Palestinians are supplied by a company that operates right here in our city,” said the statement issued by the community members.

“Elbit weapons are being used to murder Palestinians right now. We will not let Elbit continue business as usual! Weapons companies don’t belong in our neighbourhoods!”

Palestine Action UK has also intensified its actions against Elbit Systems factories in England since October 7, with their activists even climbing the roof of the factory in the city of Lichfield.

“Palestine Action activists occupy the roof of the Israeli weapons factory Elbit Systems in the town of Shenstone, England, in protest of its production of equipment used in Israel’s murder of innocent Palestinians,” Palestine Action UK said in a statement on October 31.

Since July 2022, when pro-Palestine activists stormed the headquarters of Elbit Systems in London, the group has frequently targeted the company factories in different cities across the UK.

The group has permanently shut down at least two Elbit plants in less than two years, including its London headquarters and a Ferranti factory in Oldham, according to Counterfire.

In recent weeks, they have blockaded the entrance of the company’s Bristol plant, shutting down its operations. They have also closed the company’s factory in Kent.

Declassified UK recently revealed that the British government has approved at least £472m in arms sales to the Israeli regime in the past eight years, ignoring the genocide in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, eight Palestine Action activists, including the group’s co-founders, face trial at London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court for their protests against Elbit Systems

In Canada, pro-Palestine activists on Monday blocked a Canadian National Railway line in downtown Winnipeg, calling for an immediate halt to Tel Aviv’s unchecked aggression on Gaza.

The protesters, who carried Palestinian flags and signs that read “ceasefire now” and “Palestine will never die”, forced at least two trains to halt.

CN partners with Israel’s largest shipping company Integrated Shipping Services (ZIM). A protester was quoted as saying by CBC that CN is “very vital” for Israel to access the North American market.

November 21, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Western embassies receive ‘suspicious’ arms deliveries in Lebanon: Al-Akhbar Report

The Cradle | November 20, 2023

Lebanon has been witnessing a “suspicious security movement,” Al-Akhbar reported on 18 November, as several Western military planes carrying weapons have arrived at Beirut International Airport since the outbreak of the Gaza-Israel war last month. 

According to the Lebanese daily, some of these planes have also landed at a decommissioned airstrip in the Hamat military base. 

The deliveries reportedly come in the wake of “requests sent by foreign countries to Lebanon to allow the entry of weapons and ammunition, under the pretext of enhancing the security of its embassies and evacuating its nationals and diplomats.”

Aircraft recently landed in Lebanon include US, British, French, and Canadian planes. The report adds that some of these planes came from Israel. 

Sources told the newspaper that Lebanon recently rejected a French request to “agree on the entry of a ship carrying about 500 soldiers and approximately 50 vehicles.”

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry also received a request to grant two permits for a Canadian plane and a Belgian plane to arrive at Beirut airport, which was rejected. 

However, Al-Akhbar’s sources say that “the Canadian plane had already landed at Beirut Airport and was found to be carrying various types of weapons (including silencers and detonators).”

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati listed these western requests on the agenda of the last cabinet meeting. However, nothing was decided on. 

Western and Arab states reportedly sent requests to Lebanese security services expressing “fear that their employees or nationals would be exposed to attacks against the backdrop of what is happening in Gaza.” 

Western embassies have not answered any questions about these shipments, the report says, adding that diplomats have referred all questions to military attaches “who coordinate all steps with the Lebanese army and security forces.” 

In a statement last week, the Lebanese army command claimed these movements aligned with the routine transport of military aid. 

However, Al-Akhbar’s sources say there are “suspicions regarding the aircraft entering and unloading their cargo, as it is not known to whom this equipment is going, and whether the destination is actually limited to the army.” 

“What is happening has put the current army commander, Joseph Aoun, under the microscope … and has put question marks about the extent of his cooperation with Westerners nations,” the sources added, highlighting a possible “attack on the principle of sovereignty” in Lebanon. 

Aoun has often been accused of having a very close relationship with the US embassy and Ambassador Dorothy Shea.

November 20, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

There Could Have Been Peace: How the U.S. Ensured a Long War in Ukraine

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | November 20, 2023

On February 27, just the third day of their war, Russia and Ukraine announced direct negotiations in Belarus. Having already said that he was prepared to abandon Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went into the negotiations “without preconditions.” That round of talks, having identified priority topics, led to a second round, again in Belarus.

But, though Ukraine was willing to discuss neutrality and “the end of this invasion,” the United States was not. On February 25, the same day Zelensky said he was “not afraid to talk to Russia” and that he was “not afraid to talk about neutral status,” State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked at a press conference, “What’s the U.S.—what’s your thinking about the efficacy of such a—of such talks?” Price responded, “Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy. Those are not the conditions for real diplomacy.” The United States said no, and the promising direct talks were not to be.

However, a few days later, Ukraine would attempt indirect, mediated talks. Zelensky would turn to then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet to mediate. In a February 2, 2023 interview, Bennet revealed that “Zelensky initiated the request to contact Putin.” Bennett said, “Zelensky called me and asked me to contact Putin.”

Bennet accepted the request and a flurry of shuttle diplomacy began, first with a series of back-and-forth phone calls between Bennett and Putin and Bennett and Zelensky. On March 5, 2022, Bennet flew to Moscow at Putin’s invitation. The next day, Bennet flew to Berlin for meetings with German chancellor Olaf Scholz. On the following day, March 7, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France held a videoconference that, according to some reports, discussed the talks. On March 10, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in Turkey. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was present at the meeting, described their meeting as “civil.”

Bennet says that “everything [he] did was fully coordinated with Biden, Macron, Johnson, with Scholz and, obviously, Zelensky.” According to Bennet, Putin told him that “we can reach a ceasefire.” In order to make that happen, Bennet says that Putin and Zelensky both made “huge concessions.” When Bennett asked Putin if he was going to kill Zelensky, Putin answered, “I won’t kill Zelensky.” Putin also “renounced” Russia’s demanded “disarmament of Ukraine.” He also reportedly promised that there would be no regime change in Kiev and that Ukraine would remain sovereign. Putin then passed the message to Zelensky through Bennet that if you “Tell me you’re not joining NATO, I won’t invade.” Bennett says that “Zelensky relinquished joining NATO.”

It is key that in both the direct and mediated negotiations in the first weeks of the war, Ukraine was willing to give up NATO membership for a negotiated settlement with Russia.

In return for abandoning their NATO ambitions, Putin and Zelensky agreed that Ukraine would receive a strong, independent military capable of defending itself analogous to “the Israeli model.”

Bennett reports that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire.” Sources “privy to details about the meeting” said that Zelensky deemed the proposal “difficult” but not “impossible” and that “the gaps between the sides are not great.” But, once again, it was not to be. Former UN Assistant Secretary-General in UN peace missions Michael von der Schulenburg says that “NATO had already decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations.” Bennett agrees that the West made the decision “to keep striking Putin.” When Bennet’s interviewer asks him if he means that the West blocked the diplomatic settlement, Bennet simply replies, “They blocked it.”

In March and early April of 2022, there would be one final attempt at negotiations before the negotiating table would be abandoned for the battlefield. This time it was to be Turkey that would play the lead role as mediator. A supporting role was to be played by former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder who, like Bennet before him, was asked by Kiev to play a role in the mediation.

This final round of talks was the most promising. Putin has confirmed, as had already been reported, that Russia and Ukraine had “reached an agreement in Istanbul.” But Putin also revealed for the first time that the tentative agreement had been initialed by both sides. “I don’t remember his name and may be mistaken, but I think Mr. Arakhamia headed Ukraine’s negotiating team in Istanbul. He even initialed this document.” Russia, too, signed the document: “during the talks in Istanbul, we initialed this document. We argued for a long time, butted heads there and so on, but the document was very thick and it was initialed by Medinsky on our side and by the head of their negotiating team.”

Putin’s account is backed by Lavrov who said at a press conference  that “we did hold talks in March and April 2022. We agreed on certain things; everything was already initialled.”

Putin went further than announcing the initialed document, on June 17, 2023, he dramatically held it up before a delegation of African leaders, showing it to the world for the first time. “We did not discuss with the Ukrainian side that this treaty would be classified, but we have never presented it, nor commented on it. This draft agreement was initialed by the head of the Kiev negotiation team. He put his signature there. Here it is.”

The draft agreement was the end product of a position paper presented by the Ukrainian delegation. The Istanbul Communiqué, dated March 29, 2022, agreed that Russia would withdraw to its prewar boundaries and Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership. Instead, Ukraine would receive security guarantees from a number of countries, possibly including Russia, China, the U.S., UK, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel. The final proposal of the communiqué proposes a possible meeting between Putin and Zelensky to sign the treaty.

On March 28, Putin reportedly went so far as to express a willingness to withdraw Russian troops from around Kiev. On March 29, the day the communiqué was initialled, the leaders of the U.S., UK, Germany, France and Italy spoke on the phone.

But, again, it was not to be. On April 5, The Washington Post reported that the West would “respect Kyiv’s decisions in any settlement to end the war with Russia, but with larger issues of global security at stake, there are limits to how many compromises some in NATO will support to win the peace.” The Post then spelled it out: “Even a Ukrainian vow not to join NATO—a concession that Zelensky has floated publicly—could be a concern to some neighbors. That leads to an awkward reality: For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

On April 9, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev to rein in Zelensky, insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with” and that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, “the West was not.”

And that is just what happened. “We actually did this,” Putin told war correspondents at the Kremlin, “but they simply threw it away later and that’s it.” Talking to the African delegation, Putin said, “After we pulled our troops away from Kiev—as we had promised to do—the Kiev authorities… tossed [their commitments] into the dustbin of history. They abandoned everything.” But Putin did not primarily blame Ukraine. He implicitly blamed the United States, saying that when Ukraine’s interests “are not in sync” with U.S. interests, “ultimately it is about the United States’s interests. We know that they hold the key to solving issues.”

Lavrov says the same. In a September 28, 2023 interview, Lavrov said that “in April 2022… Ukraine proposed ceasing hostilities and settling the crisis based on providing reciprocal, reliable security guarantees.” He then clearly said, “But this proposal was recalled at the insistence of Washington and London.”

But it is not just Russia who says this: two well placed Turkish sources say the same. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says that, because of the talks, “Turkey did not think that the Russia-Ukraine war would continue much longer.” But, he said, “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue.” “Following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting,” he explained, “it was the impression that… there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker.”

And Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s ruling party, told CNN TURK, “We know that our President is talking to the leaders of both countries. In certain matters, progress was made, reaching the final point, then suddenly we see that the war is accelerating…Someone is trying not to end the war. The United States sees the prolongation of the war as its interest… There are those who want this war to continue… Putin-Zelensky was going to sign, but someone didn’t want to.”

Schröder agrees. Describing the negotiations, he says that Ukraine “does not want NATO membership,” would accept “compromise” security guarantees, said that they would “reintroduce Russian in Donbass,” and “were ready to talk about Crimea.”

“But in the end nothing happened,” Schröder said. “My impression: Nothing could happen because everything else was decided in Washington.” Like the Russian and the Turkish sources, Schröder reports that “the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed.”

Schröder adds one more significant detail. It is often reported that the massacre in Bucha played a pivotal souring role in the negotiations, contributing to their termination. Schröder challenges that account: “Nothing was known about Butscha during the talks with Umjerov on March 7th and 13th. I think the Americans didn’t want the compromise between Ukraine and Russia. The Americans believe they can keep the Russians down.”

In all three sets of negotiations, Ukraine renounced their aspirations to join NATO, and in all three, peace was possible but for the U.S. blocking it. Both the Bennet talks and the Istanbul talks were Ukrainian initiatives that put forward Ukrainian solutions. The United States was not supporting Ukraine at the negotiating table: they were overturning the table in order to use Ukrainian bodies to pursue American goals.

November 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

UK government keeps secret files on critics – Observer

RT | November 18, 2023

At least 15 British government departments have been engaged in a deliberate social media and internet profiling campaign against public experts in various fields to ensure that none of its critics are allowed to speak at the cabinet-sponsored events, the Observer reported on Saturday, citing a trove of data it had seen.

The government officials in each department had specific guidelines regulating what exactly they should look for and requesting them to compile and keep “secret files” on the speakers deemed to be critical of the cabinet, the paper said.

The profiling usually involved checking a person’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts as well as doing a Google search on such individuals using specific keywords like “criticism of the government or prime minister.” The officials were then advised to look through up to 10 pages of the search results or a period of between three and five years, the report said.

The UK Education Department – one of those engaged in the profiling campaign, according to the Observer – outright denied resorting to such practices in a response to the freedom of information request filed by the Privacy International group last year. The group was investigating social media monitoring by the government at that time.

“Making a concerted effort to search for negative information in this way is directed surveillance,” the Privacy International legal director, Caroline Wilson Palow, told the Observer.

The data on the practice were shared with the paper by a law firm, Leigh Day, that is currently pursuing legal action against the government on behalf of at least two persons affected by such practices.

“This is likely to have impacted large numbers of individuals, many of whom won’t know civil servants hold secret files on them. Such practices are extremely dangerous,” Tessa Gregory, partner at Leigh Day, told the Observer. The lawyer maintained that such hidden checks are in violation of data protection laws and potentially of equality and human rights laws as well.

One of those who hired Leigh Day was Dan Kaszeta, a chemical weapons expert and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), one of the UK’s leading security think tanks. “The full extent of this is shocking and probably not fully known. I was lucky enough to be given clearcut, obvious evidence,” he told the paper, adding that he was also aware of 12 other experts who had found out that the government had been blacklisting them.

According to Kaszeta, he received a public apology from the government in July and was informed in August that the 15 departments in question had withdrawn those guidelines pending a Cabinet Office review.

A spokesman for the Cabinet Office told the Observer that the government was “reviewing the guidance and have temporarily withdrawn it to prevent any misinterpretation of the rules.”

November 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

FYI Archbishop Justin Welby, Jesus Would Not Approve

On the profound betrayal of Humanity by the leader of the Anglican Church

A Better Way to Health with Dr Tess Lawrie | November 18, 2023

One of the most troubling occurrences during Covid-19 was the collusion of formal religion with the supranational military-industrial-banking complex to induce our compliance with unlawful, unscientific and downright harmful Covid-19 policies.

Not only was religion used as a tool to manipulate people to comply with political decrees, it was also used to propagate fear.

The speed at which church doors were shut whilst big business continued its trading was anathema to most people. When places of worship did open, people had the fear of (science) God put into them by the corporate media, politicians and their trusted religious leaders alike. Sanitising rituals were demanded upon entry, social distancing within churches was enforced with tape and stickers, and various religious practices were modified or curtailed.

One of several images shared on social media of priests using toy guns to interact with people such as, in this instance, to conduct baptism rituals

Even singing in church was deemed dangerous. As such, it had to be done through face masks or was prohibited entirely. People not complying with these religio-political directives were often vilified, prevented from attending services and risked being cast out of their congregation. Fear of the latter kept many reluctantly acquiescent. Even my elderly parents regularly remarked how ridiculous, uncomfortable and de-humanising it was; how it was hard to breathe, let alone sing, through the mask – and how going to church just wasn’t the same.

Why was joy, love, compassion and trust so readily sent packing when Covid came along?

Why was the joy and community of regular Christian services systematically undermined? Why did religious leaders urge us to transfer our trust in ourselves and our spiritual relationships to conflicted scientists and politicians? Why were we encouraged to fear, instead of love and feel compassion for one another? And why was our faith abruptly deemed insufficient by religious leaders who fell quickly in step with directives from the New World Order planners?

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, may well know the answer to these questions. Welby has been the leader of the worldwide body of Anglican Christian churches since 2013. On the Anglican Communion website it states that, in the UK, ‘He is regarded as the nation’s senior Christian and spiritual voice,’ and is the ecclesiastical lead over 13,000 parishes. In addition, church leaders and millions of Christians across 165 countries are likely to be guided by his leadership.

Given his reach and responsibility, Archbishop Welby in my opinion may be responsible for the most profound betrayal of Humanity in two thousand years.

Mail Online article from 22 December 2021

When, in December 2021, the UK’s Daily Mail ran an article quoting Welby as suggesting that Jesus would get the [Covid-19] vaccine, I could barely believe it. At the time, there were well over two million reports of associated adverse Covid-19 vaccine reactions, including thousands of deaths, reported to the World Health Organisation’s Vigiaccess database; on the UK’s Yellow Card scheme, there were about 400,000 individual reports with around 2,000 fatalities.

The World Council for Health (WCH), which had been established in September 2021 to provide trustworthy guidance in the face of the harmful official Covid policies, had already commenced it’s ‘Cease and Desist Campaign’ to urgently raise awareness of these very concerning vaccine safety data and to advise vaccinators and others to stop vaccinating and promoting these novel injections. WCH had also published the Covid-19 vaccine spike protein detoxification guide.

The video accompanying the Daily Mail article on the 22nd December 2021 chilled me to the bone.

Urging people to get Covid-19 vaccinated, Welby emphasises in the Daily Mail video:

“It’s not about me and my rights. Now, obviously there are some people who for health reasons can’t go vaccinating – [that’s a] different question. But it’s not about me and my rights to choose, it’s about how I love my neighbour. To love one another as Jesus said: Get vaccinated. Get boosted.”

This announcement by the Archbishop, a figure of worldwide Christian authority, leveraging Jesus’ goodwill and our love for him against us to convince us to take Covid-19 injections should be a matter of great concern for all.

The Jesus I know would never have said that we should take as many vaccines as the military-industrial-banking complex tells us to.

He would never have promoted unsafe medical interventions that harm men, women, and children whilst lining the pockets of the rich; neither would he advocate for the derogation of individual sovereignty to state or supranational entities.

This is the antithesis of what Jesus stood for. Jesus healed with his hands and our faith. He stood for truth, justice, freedom and peace. Jesus was fighting the same corrupt system that exploits us today and targets our children from the shadows.

I’m not going to start unpicking all that I feel is so very evil about what Welby said. The way Welby used Jesus’ words to promote the agenda of the military-industrial-banking complex, which seemingly will stop at nothing to materialise its 2030 Great Reset agenda, is disgusting and disgraceful in my opinion. However, it is not up to me to forgive or to judge the Archbishop. Ultimately, Welby will have his Judgement Day, as will we all, and I’m very glad not to be in his shoes.

A Better World is on the Way

The Roman Empire that crucified Jesus is finally crumbling as its latter-day representatives reveal themselves to be, indeed, wearing the Emperors’ clothes. Thankfully, two thousand years later, all that has been hidden from us is being revealed. Evil will no longer be facilitated or tolerated in the world we are creating afresh together. It will no longer lurk in the shadows when we are done shining our lights on it.

A Better World for us, our children, and all creatures on this beautiful planet is being born. All that is required is that, in remembering who we are as human beings – courageous, firm and loving, following Jesus’ very human example – we take care of one another, draw on our collective power, breathe and push.

November 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Britain implicated in murder of Gaza doctor sponsored by its Foreign Office

BY KIT KLARENBERG · THE GRAYZONE · NOVEMBER 14, 2023

The UK government refused to condemn Israel’s targeted murder of Dr. Maisara Alrayyes, a Palestinian alumnus of the British Foreign Office’s prestigious Chevening scholarship. Meanwhile, London has instructed media outlets to keep silent about its direct involvement in the Gaza slaughter.

Since the beginning of Israel’s military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, the British government has remained unflappably silent on the carnage inflicted on Palestinian civilians with one notable exception.

On November 8th, the Foreign Office announced the death of Dr. Maisara Alrayyes, a Palestinian alumnus of its prestigious Chevening scholarship scheme, under which “outstanding emerging leaders from all over the world” can pursue all-expenses-paid master’s degrees at prestigious British universities.

The Foreign Office refused to state the cause of Alrayyes’ death, provoking a wave of condemnation.

Meanwhile, King’s College, where in 2019 Alrayyes studied Women and Children’s Health, issued a brief statement stating he and his family were “killed,” though it refused to name the perpetrator. The college noted that his work had been published “in a number of high-profile journals… and he was well respected and known among his colleagues for his dedication to improving healthcare for women and children in low-income and war-affected regions.”

Colleagues of Alrayyes subsequently revealed that he and his family had been murdered as a result of Israeli airstrikes after spending 30 hours trapped under rubble.

In the days leading up to their deaths, the physician texted his former classmates at King’s College, telling them:

“In the last few days, I’m starting to feel more terrified than ever. I imagine myself underneath the rubble, and I have a great fear of staying alive under the rubble.”

His worst nightmares were realized thanks in no small part to the British government sponsors of his Chevening Scholarship.

Britain’s Cleverly meets Alrayyes, signs off on Israel’s killing spree

The Chevening Scholarship is considered something of a crown jewel in Britain’s soft power arsenal, and a vital mechanism for promoting her interests abroad. Over 15 Chevening graduates have gone on to become heads of state, and London is keen to promote the success of alumni the world over. A leaked Foreign Office report on improving public perceptions of Britain in the former Yugoslavia found London was “favourably associated with education (universities, schools, the Chevening scholarship programme).”

A Chevening Journalism Scholarship was therefore made available in every country in the region, to “improve the perception of the UK with participants, who are influencers in the Western Balkans.”

As Alrayyes met his fiancee, also a Chevening scholar, while studying in Britain, London was particularly enamored with his example. In September, he was among a select group of graduates granted a meeting with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in Jerusalem.

These British leaders failed to provide Alrayyes with even the slightest measure of protection when the brutal bombardment of Gaza began this October. While sleeping in his home with his family, he became a target of the Israeli military. In death, he has become a public relations problem for the British Foreign Office that once sponsored him.

Cleverly has repeatedly dismissed calls for a ceasefire in Gaza while insisting Britain fervently supports Israel’s right to “defend” itself – a euphemism for backing Israel’s crushing assault. When grilled about Alrayyes’ murder by ITV, the Foreign Secretary half-heartedly mumbled:

“Every loss of life is heart-breaking. And there are people both Palestinian and Israeli who have lost their lives. That is why we are so focused on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.”

Britain implicated directly in the Gaza slaughter

In every way, Alrayyes’ horrific death is a nightmare for London, not least because the British government itself may be somehow implicated. Analysis by Declassified UK indicates that since October 7, 33 military transport flights have traveled to Tel Aviv from Britain’s vast airbase in Cyprus. The outlet could not find records of similar journeys before the attack on Gaza began. A Ministry of Defence spokesperson denied the planes were ferrying “lethal aid”, but supported “diplomatic engagement.”

This explanation is rendered all the more dubious given that in late October, the Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee wrote to the editors of major British news outlets to demand they not report on British special forces “deployed to sensitive areas of the Middle East.”

DSMA is a Ministry of Defence body that imposes a very British form of censorship on the press. It brings together representatives of the intelligence and security services, military veterans, high ranking government officials, press association chiefs, senior editors, and journalists. Together, they decide what issues related to national security can be reported on, and how. It creates a situation in which the overwhelming majority of British national security journalism is directly influenced by the state.

The Committee’s recent intervention was spurred by media reports of the SAS being stationed in Cyprus to assist with hostage rescue operations. This was almost certainly designed to explain the presence of British special forces in the region while concealing their involvement in the assault on Gaza, where Alrayyes was murdered.

‘Israel controls the Foreign Office’

The Foreign Office’s handling of Alrayyes’ death reportedly sparked outrage even among its own staff, who were already outraged at Whitehall’s refusal to acknowledge, let alone condemn, the spiraling civilian death toll in Gaza. Historically, the department was pro-Arab. Its conversion to the cause of Zionism is a relatively recent development, although sympathy for the Palestinians endures in certain quarters.

This is somewhat remarkable, given British politicians who dare speak up for the Palestinians are routinely targeted for reputational destruction by the Israel lobby. Both Labour and the Conservatives have highly influential “Friends of Israel” clusters within parliament, which operate in close, clandestine concert with Tel Aviv’s embassy in London.

In 2017, undercover Al Jazeera journalists caught Israeli embassy representative Shai Masot on tape in meetings with Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), discussing a “hit list” of parliamentarians to “take down” due to their support for Palestine. This included MP Crispin Blunt, a longtime critic of Israel, and Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan. Masot expressed a desire to “destroy” Duncan, to ensure he wouldn’t receive a top post within the department.

In response, Duncan telephoned Mark Regev, then-Israeli ambassador to Britain, who alleged Masot was a junior “local hire” with no formal diplomatic status. In reality, Masot was an Israeli Defense Forces veteran who had served as the embassy’s senior political officer since November 2014, acting as chief point of contact between the Israeli embassy and the Foreign Office.

Israel returns to kill Alrayyes’ family

On November 8, friends of Maisara Alrayyes learned that his two brothers were also murdered by the Israeli military as they dug through the rubble of his home to extract his dead body. They had survived the attack on their home two days prior, but became targets when they returned in an attempt to give their brother a proper burial.

Having whitewashed the murder of Alrayyes, the British Foreign Office has been silent about Israel’s targeted killing of Alrayyes’ family. Meanwhile, UK Rishi Sunak continues to reject calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza.

November 16, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Violent Pro-Israel Counter-Protesters Clash With Police At Palestine Solidarity March In London

RT | November 11, 2023

At least 300,000 people marched in the British capital on Saturday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. London Metropolitan Police reported at least 126 arrests amid clashes with counter protesters in which nice officers were injured.

The largely peaceful crowds were chanting “free Palestine”, “ceasefire now” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as they marched through the streets of London. The largest to date demonstration coincided with the annual Armistice Day commemorations.

Ahead of the pro-Palestinian march, a group of right-wing protesters, mainly consisting of football hooligans from across the UK, arrived in central London on a pretense of protecting monuments, but “were already intoxicated, aggressive and clearly looking for confrontation,” assistant commissioner Matt Twist said in a statement.

The violent crowd, chanting “you’re not English any more” hailed abuses at the officers, who were protecting the Cenotaph and preventing them from confronting the pro-Palestinian activists.

“Nine officers were injured during the day, two requiring hospital treatment with a fractured elbow and a suspected dislocated hip. Those officers were injured on Whitehall as they prevented a violent crowd getting to the Cenotaph while a remembrance service was taking place,” police said, adding that “the extreme violence from the right wing protestors towards the police today was extraordinary and deeply concerning.”

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) march, which the organizers themselves estimated to be at least 500,000 strong, “did not see the sort of physical violence carried out by the right wing,” according to police, although a fringe group of some 150 masked people was intercepted while firing fireworks. Several arrests were made “after some of the fireworks struck officers in the face,” police said.

The unrest follows the debate earlier this week whether the pro-Palenstian protest should be permitted on Armistice day, that is traditionally observed in the UK by a two-minute silence during the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th marking the end of WWI in 1918.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman was accused of fuelling the tensions by branding pro-Palestinian demonstrations as “hate marches,” while accusing the police of bias for letting the rally go ahead.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said that the clashes were “encouraged and emboldened” by senior politicians “like the Home Secretary” and were a “direct result” of her words.

The Prime Minister, Rich Sunak condemned the violence and hatred from both sides and called for the nations “to come together” to remember “those who fought and died for our freedom.”

November 11, 2023 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US sabotaged Ukraine peace plan – Orban

RT | November 10, 2023

US lobbying was instrumental in stopping Ukraine from signing a peace deal with Russia, shortly after the conlfict between the two countries  escalated last year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed on Friday.

Speaking with the national Radio Kossuth, Orban agreed with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that it was the US that scuttled the Istanbul peace talks in March 2022.

“What the former German chancellor said is a well-known fact in the world of diplomacy,” Orban said. “And we also know this from all kinds of reports and intelligence sources, that indeed in 2022 in Istanbul, where all kinds of covert negotiations took place, there was essentially an agreement, which – so says the diplomatic rumor – the Ukrainians did not sign on American instructions.”

The Ukrainians “were not allowed to” make peace, because they “first had to ask the Americans about everything,” Schroeder had told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung in an interview last month.

Speaking with Kossuth Radio on Friday, Orban pointed out that Europe tried to contain the Ukraine conflict starting with the Crimean crisis of 2014, through things such as the Minsk agreements.

“The Americans entered this game, and since then the direction is not isolation and localization, but expansion. More and more people are getting involved, more and more weapons are being delivered, more and more money is being spent, the Europeans are taking out more and more loans and sending them over to Ukraine, so I have to say that the conflict is becoming globalized,” the Hungarian prime minister said. “The Russian-Ukrainian war is destroying Europe. What we are doing now is unsustainable.”

Since the failure of the Turkish-hosted talks, bullets and bombs have done most of the talking between Moscow and Kiev. Ukraine has ruled out any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and insists on a set of demands that the Kremlin has dismissed as absurd.

The Kiev-based Ukrayinska Pravda reported in May 2022 that Boris Johnson, who was the British prime minister at the time, acted as a messenger for the West when he visited Kiev the month prior, “almost without warning.”

Johnson allegedly told President Vladimir Zelensky that there can be no negotiations with Putin and that even if Ukraine was ready to sign some kind of agreement with Russia, the West was not. Within two months of that visit, Johnson lost the premiership and later even his seat in the House of Commons, ostensibly over a scandal related to Covid-19 lockdowns. Last month he was hired by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) – a Washington-based think tank funded by the US government, NATO, and Western military contractors – on account of his “commitment to Ukraine’s victory.”

November 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Protesters shut down UK arms factory to ‘disrupt Israeli war machine’

Press TV – November 10, 2023

Hundreds of trade union members have blocked the entrance of Britain’s largest weapons maker, calling for an immediate end to arms supplies to Israel amid the regime’s brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Demonstrators gathered outside the gate of the BAE Systems site in Rochester, Kent, on Friday.

They were holding Palestinian flags and chanting slogans like “Stop Arming Israel,” “ceasefire now,” and “How many kids have you killed today?”

One organizer said more than 400 trade unionists were involved in the action at the site.

Union members were calling for “an end to the UK government’s complicity in war crimes being committed in Palestine”, which includes an end to arms sales to the occupying regime and support for an immediate ceasefire.

A teacher and member of the Nation Education Union, who took part in the protest said, “As a teacher, seeing 185 schools and other educational institutions in Gaza bombed is utterly heartbreaking.”

“We’re here today to disrupt the Israeli war machine and take a stand against our government’s complicity and we urge workers across the UK to take similar action in their workplaces and communities,” she added.

The factory, run by BAE Systems, claims it does not directly export equipment to Israel. Activists say the company – which includes the site being blockaded – “provides 15% of the components in the F-35 fighter jets that are currently being used in the bombardment of Gaza.”

The value of components supplied by BAE Systems to Israel could be worth more than £300m since 2016, according to campaigners.

Similar protests were also held outside Israeli-owned factories in Britain.

Two of Israel’s biggest weapons factories, Elbit and Rafael, both have operations in the United Kingdom.

The governments of the UK, the United States and the European Union member states have been providing Israel with weapons and military assistance, since the regime launched its genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip on October 7.

Palestinian officials in the besieged Gaza Strip say the Israeli regime has dropped more than 32,000 tons of explosives on the territory in its ongoing war of aggression.

Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the besieged enclave has now killed and injured more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Fallout From Catastrophic Ukraine Depleted Uranium Explosion Reached England

Sputnik – 10.11.2023

In May 2023, a powerful blast rocked the city of Khmelnitsky located in Ukraine about 200km away from the border with Poland when a Russian strike wiped out a Ukrainian ammunition depot where British-supplied depleted uranium was stored.

Dr. Christopher Busby, a physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, has stepped forward to address the naysayers who tried to discredit his warnings about the potentially dangerous consequences of the depleted uranium munitions depot explosion.

On May 19th I wrote an article for Sputnik about the Khmelnitsky explosion. I had examined gamma radiation data from detectors to the North West of the attack site, which showed increases in radiation from points in Poland near the Ukraine border, and through Germany. I concluded that the belief that a warehouse containing Uranium weapons supplied by the UK had been hit and that the Uranium had exploded in a huge fireball, and that the particles produced by the explosion had drifted with the wind at the time across Europe.

The article produced considerable argument on the internet, with a large number of self-described fact-checkers and “experts” weighing it to say that my conclusions were nonsense. This is how the internet is controlled these days. It was written off as a “Russian Fake” (e.g. fakenews.pl)

The fact is, that although Uranium is a weak gamma emitter, through its daughter Thorium-234, there are other situations where the gamma signal will increase at detectors, principally the natural radioactive gas, radon, which can increase during rainfall and low pressure systems. A Polish lab claimed that the increased signal was from Radon, reporting the presence of the Radon daughter Bismuth 214, as if to write off the claim of a Uranium cloud passing across Poland. But, I pointed out that there were no low pressure systems at the time that would explain the sudden increase in gamma. This is where the matter was left.

Uranium in air is not measured in Europe as far as I know, and the only data that is obtainable is the Uranium in air data from the High Volume Air Samplers (HVAS) at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire. These were set up in the early 1990s following a public enquiry into a child leukemia cluster near the site. The law requires AWE to measure Uranium (and Plutonium and Tritium) at regular intervals at positions near the factory but also far from the weapons factory. I have used these data before to identify Depleted Uranium from the Iraq wars that drifted to England.

So, to follow up the Khmelnitsky argument, I have just obtained Uranium data from the AWE using a Freedom of Information request. They sent me the data in an Excel File, and I used the graphical function if Excel to plot the data they sent. Fig 1 plots the filter levels for three of the offsite locations. The results show that I was right. In the May15th -June 15th Offsite Filters operating at the time, there is a very clear signal for the month following the explosion. I have also obtained data for the onsite locations, and these also all show the same footprint increase.

It may interest those who believe that the media is controlled, that the same thing happens with the scientific peer-review literature. I sent my paper on the increases in Uranium in air from the Ukraine war to two journals which have published my papers before, papers about the effects of Uranium. The first, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health totally refused to consider it. I then sent it to Conflict and Health, which sent it to a reviewer, but refused to publish it. This is astonishing, given that I supplied the raw data to both journals. I put the paper up on a preprints site where it received attention.

The graph in Fig 1 shows that the Uranium in air in South East England went up by about 600ng/cubic metre from particles released by the Khmelnitsky explosion. What does this mean? The mean size of a Uranium particle is below 1 micron. An individual inhales about 24 cubic metre a day. So, if the particles were there for a month, or 30 days we can average the lung intake as 0.432mg. Doesn’t sound much, does it? But it converts into 200 million particles per person in the area, and of course in the track of the plume in the UK. Not good, given the effects we found in Fallujah.

My study of Fallujah, published in 2010, showed that there was a huge increase in cancer and congenital malformation in babies, and general horrifying signal of genetic damage in the population after the use of Uranium weapons there in the second 2003 Iraq war. We later identified excess Uranium in the mothers of the birth defect children using hair samples and mass spectrometry, tracking the increases back to the 2003 exposures by cutting the long hair samples into sections, a kind of historic ice core way of interrogating the past.

Clearly from our studies in Iraq, the genetic and cancer health effects of Uranium particles are significant. Indeed, they are arguably the main cause of the cancer in the Hiroshima victims who were exposed to Uranium particles in the “black rain”.

Levels in Poland, Germany, and everywhere else on its journey to England, will have been much higher. But there are no measurements available.

Fig 1. 4-weekly air filter results for Uranium, offsite samplers at Aldermaston, Tadley, and Reading. Khmelnitsky Ukraine explosion was on 14thMay 2023 (1805-1506) s Normal background is 200.

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Palestine 1920: The Other Side of the Palestinian Story

Al Jazeera World Documentary | February 2, 2022

“A land without a people, and a people without a land” is how the relationship between Palestine and the Jewish people was described by Christian writers in the 1800s. And the 20th-century history of the Middle East has largely been written through these eyes.

But this film from Al Jazeera Arabic looks at Palestine from a different angle. It hears from historians and witness accounts, and features archive documents that show Palestine as a thriving province of Greater Syria and the Ottoman Empire at the dawn of the 20th century.

The evidence suggests that its cities had a developing trade and commercial sector, growing infrastructure, and embryonic culture that would enable it to meet the challenges of the decades ahead. However, the political ramifications of the Balfour Declaration, San Remo Conference and British Mandate set in motion a series of events that profoundly affected this vibrant, fledgeling society and led to the events of 1948 and beyond.

This film is the other side of the Palestinian story.

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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