Mike Robinson, Patrick Henningsen and Vanessa Beeley with today’s UK Column News.
Nursing strikes: The government has failed
00:21 Nursing strikes: Not just about pay—nurses know they're being made to endanger patients
Royal College of Nursing—NHS pay dispute: first nursing strike dates announced
04:10 Energy price cap changes announced by Ofgem: you'll still pay the rest, only deferred
Migration: The only way into Britain is illegal
05:31 ONS statistics: Estimated net migration of non-EU nationals in year to June 2022 was over half a million
06:03 Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her top civil servant Matthew Rycroft can’t answer a basic question by their overseeing Select Committee in Parliament: how would a teenage refugee apply legally for British asylum?
Mike Robinson comment: There is no migration policy; there's only deliberately absorbing illegals
10:13 The Three Stooges (heads of government of Austria, Hungary and Serbia) sign trilateral agreement to close their borders for transit from southeastern to northwestern Europe
11:52 BBC—Albanian migrants: Why are they coming to the UK and how many have arrived?
Vanessa Beeley comment: Albania is not at war; whence the exponential rise?
13:07 Population of Dolgellau in North Wales doubles from 500 to 1,000 with male migrants
Politics of Albanian migration: Blair and Campbell
15:26 Tony Blair ready to answer Albania's call
Guardian: Tony Blair advising Vučić regime in Serbia (2015)
Blair's old spin doctor heavily involved, as is spin doctor's nephew
PR Week: Alastair Campbell on rebranding Albania (2014)
Balkan Insight: Albanian Government's Secret British Adviser Revealed (2014)—James Naish
Consortium News: The bogus humanitarian war on Serbia (2016)
Blair officially wound up his operations in Albania in 2016
Balkan Insight: Tony Blair closes his collaboration with Albanian government—which was funded by Iran's mortal enemies, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia
Vanessa Beeley analysis: As soon as the transfer of MEK paramilitaries (opponents of the Iranian Government) to Albania was complete, Blair walked away from that role in Tirana
World Politics Review: Will the presence of Iran's MEK threaten Albania's already shaky stability? (2019)
18:09 There was an Albanian sniper squad doing nasty work in Syria
Calibre Obscura: The Albanian Sniper Squad in Syria and their Weapons (2018)
Xhemati Alban ("The Albanian Brotherhood"), the squad in question, originated from Kosovo and worked closely with local al-Qa'eda affiliate, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham
Emerging Europe: Albania and Iran's dissident MEK: A marriage made in the US
20:20 The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (webpage: institute.global) is "equipping leaders and making change"
Blair Institute: Protests and polling insights from the streets of Iran: How removal of the hijab became a symbol of regime change
Patrick Henningsen: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama also gave Cherie Blair the plum job of training the judiciary
Further background by Global Research going back 20 years:
The Hague tribunal—only the Serbs are prosecuted; KLA and Croatian war crimes ignored
Kosovo's mafia state and Camp Bondsteel—towards a permanent US military presence in Southeast Europe
Kosovo and systematic persecution by the KLA
The criminalization of the state—Independent Kosovo, a territory under US/NATO military rule
The War on Terrorism skipped the KLA (2001)
Robotic peacekeeping: Police deniability and lower budgets
22:35 Robot police now a reality with artificial intelligence
Mission Local: San Francisco Police Dept authorized to kill suspects using robots in draft policy
Legal framework for this: Law Enforcement use of Equipment Policy: Inventory acquired prior to January 2022, Police Department (City of San Francisco)
Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD
Section 5
Patrick Henningsen commentary: What is the endgame here? Deadly force by machine error is a legal category all of its own—where is the liability?
25:36 In 2016 Dallas shooting, police used a robot
Texas Tribune: Police use of robot to kill Dallas suspect unprecedented, experts say (2016)
Patrick Henningsen: A robot lobbed in a grenade to dispatch the cornered shooter before any investigation whatsoever had taken place
America's Lawyer: Police arming robots with shotguns
Policing Insight: Cops and robots: The "new normal" for UK police with an automated workforce
28:58 Guardian: "Robot soldiers could make up ¼ of British army by 2030s"—citing General Sir Nick Carter (2020)
29:33 UN General Assembly says this should be illegal nearly a decade ago
Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns (9 April 2013)—admission that there is no legal framework for robocops
Journal of Institutional Economics—Liability for robots I: legal challenges
Propose a new liability regime which blends negligence-based rules and strict manufacturer liability rules to create optimal incentives for robot torts [...] The social cost of machine error promises to be drastically lower than that of human negligence. We should therefore welcome the development of robot technology.
Patrick Henningsen: This robocopisation is clearly being driven by the lawyers
The journalists who nearly started World War III: Aloof groupthink at AP
32:05 Associated Press, top-level purveyor of fake news, left with egg on face
21st Century Wire: AP fires reporter responsible for fake story alleging Russian missiles hit Poland
Tweet by the fired journalist, James LaPorta, walked back his breathless reporting as soon as 16 November:
Poland's president says the missile blast that killed two near the Ukrainian border appears to be an 'unfortunate accident,' not an 'intentional attack.' Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested it was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one.
LinkedIn profile: LaPorta is a former "intelligence cell chief" in the US Marine Corps!
Semafor (a platform promoting transparency in mainstream media): AP fired a reporter after a dangerous blunder. Slack messages reveal a chaotic process
Leaked internal messaging at Associated Press reveals the now infamous judgement call by Vanessa Gera of AP Poland:
I can't imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this
Patrick Henningsen analysis: The Slack messaging patently shows LaPorta to be the fall guy for seniors up to Ron Nixon, AP Vice-President
Only at the end of the thread did LaPorta and colleagues wonder idly whether this obliged NATO to go to war with Russia. Henningsen: "They realise their job is to grind an axe for Washington on any story that comes up ... the mainstream media unquestioningly rinse and repeat what AP, AFP and Reuters feed them"
Balkan Front: Kosovo steps back from the brink; NATO continues meddling in Serbia
43:40 Follow-up from Wednesday's news
Vanessa Beeley commentary: Unpopular Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is a Blair protégé and seems to have exaggerated the car registration dispute with Kosovo to alienate the Kosovo Serbs
Reuters: Kosovo and Serbia reach deal to end dangerous dispute over car plates—EU
European Western Balkans: Christopher Hill confirmed as the new US Ambassador to Serbia
Vanessa Beeley commentary: Hill is a long-time heavyweight of US régime change in the Balkans
Guardian: Tony Blair advising Vučić regime in Serbia (2015)
Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi, who unilaterally proclaimed Kosovar statehood in 2008, is also remarkably close to Blair
Vanessa Beeley commentary: Several big hitters, including late White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier and former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, were lurking around the Kosovo issue in the late 1990s and were accused of trafficking the organs of of Serb victims of Thaçi's Kosovo Liberation Army
Balkan Insight: Kosovo ex-president Thaçi pleads not guilty to war crimes (2020)
Balkan Insight: War crime case against Kosovo's Thaçi moves closer to trial (November 2022)—the defence wants to call Gen. Wesley Clark as a witness
EurActiv: Vučić has destroyed democracy in Serbia—by oppositionist former Belgrade mayor Dragan Djilas—clearing checks and balances out of the way in a very similar way to Blair's Albanian protégé, Edi Rama
Open Source Investigations—Serbia: spitting on the graves of NATO bombing victims—"Vučić's partnership with Blair is an insult to the memory of civilian victims of the 1999 war"
Kossev.info: Serbian MP claims Tony Blair played a major role in international officials accused of corruption receiving Serbian passports (2019)
Balkan Insight: Vučić surfs on wave of scandal that should drown him (2021)
NATO arms have been infiltrating the Balkans from Ukraine
54:05 InfoBRICS: NATO seeks to punish Belgrade's Ukraine War policy by arming Kosovo (April 2022)
VOI: Reminding of black market risks of Western arms for Ukraine, Russian diplomat Maria Zakharova says they are already in Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo (June 2022)
Scotland Today: Vučić voices concern over US providing Kosovo with arms (September 2022)
Vanessa Beeley commentary: An insincere "concern"
Al Mayadeen: NATO to send more KFOR troops to Kosovo (September 2022)
Supposedly breaking story on 1999 geopolitics—Al Mayadeen: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán discloses US and UK intentions to push Hungary to invade Serbia in 1999 during talks with Vučić
Vanessa Beeley commentary: Orbán already disclosed this in Rome in 2019; it is not breaking news and Hungary was in no position to invade Serbia in 1999, being not even a NATO member then
Latest Ukraine media scare: Novichok "could be used"
57:56 Daily Mail: Putin could use Novichok in mass casualty chemical weapons attacks in Ukraine if his troops continue to lose ground, US officials fear
Politico (apparently the Daily Mail's source): U.S. concerned Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine—with those ubiquitous anonymous Pentagon and spook quotes
Chronology now up on UK Column: The Day of the Skripal
Who stirs the Sahel?
59:37 Mali has had enough of foreign subversion
France 24: Mali junta bans activities of NGOs funded by France
Clip: "Many Malians are glad to see the back of France"
1:02:42 The British fund with the ironic name
UK Government—Conflict, Security and Stability Fund: programme summaries for Africa 2020 to 2021
Mike Robinson commentary: Remove the comma after "conflict" and it would be a more apt description of the fund's effect
Sahel: Stabilisation CSSF Programme (2019)
FCDO Spending: track it at UK Column and submit well-informed Freedom of Information requests
Tony Blair Institute for Global Change—Tony Blair: A new path forward for the Sahel
Vanessa Beeley commentary: Parliament has voiced disquiet at the lack of transparency in Britain's CSSF spending
US: Another mass shooting with a "known wolf"
1:05:17 Colorado Springs: Club Q shooting
Wisconsin Public Radio: The Club Q shooter may be charged with hate crimes. What that means in Colorado
Washington Post: Police probe LGBTQ club shooting suspect's ties to a 2021 bomb threat
Patrick Henningsen commentary: Let again, the perpetrator was well known to the FBI and hence not truly a "lone wolf" and the dropping of Colorado state bomb-cooking charges in 2021 suggests that law enforcement turned him
The Denver Post: The Club Q shooting suspect identifies as nonbinary. Will that affect potential hate crime charges?
Patrick Henningsen commentary: Did the perpetrator, Anderson Lee Aldrich, perhaps attend the club?
Clip: CNN talking heads, so married to the narrative, are in total denial at the announcement of the predicate "Mx. Aldrich"
AP News: Owner of gay club: Shooting comes amid a new "type of hate"—casting the shooting back at conservatives as a supposed example of what comes of disliking Drag Queen Story Hour
US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweets:
If you're a politician or media figure who sets up the LGBTQ community to be hated and feared ... don't you dare act surprised when this kind of violence follows
1:16:19 Strangely similar to Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Florida
21st Century Wire: Father of Orlando shooter is long-time CIA asset (2016)
Patrick Henningsen commentary: The Orlando shooter's father was being groomed as Hamid Karzai's successor as Afghan President
In the Orlando case, the shooter (Omar Mateen) turned out to have been a frequent visitor to the gay nightclub "for years"
Another parallel: timing around a US election
Babylon Bee gets the irony right: Journalists rush to scene of shooting to determine whether it's politically useful