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Part One – Local and National News Review
Marvin Rees has declared he is being paid by Ameresco on his first declaration of interests at the House of Lords. The last mayor of Bristol has been forced to add to his interests, the directorship of his company, Three and Two Ltd, which he describes as a “personal services company for the member’s consultancy work and public speaking”. The clients of Three and Two Ltd are as follows: Ameresco, Inc. (energy) who were given a £12 billion contract by Rees’s administration, in a consortium with Vattenfall for City Leap. Cambridge Management Consulting, which is the company where ex-Deputy Mayor Craig Cheney is a partner; Empire Fighting Chance, to which Rees gave land worth £1.35m for free for 999 years, and didn’t declare it in his register of interests, and Mayors Migration Council, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Overseas Development Institute. While mayor of Bristol, Rees had the power to decide on £12 billion contracts but was not forced to disclose his interests in any meaningful way. As a peer in the House of Lords, he has also had to declare he is a landlord of two residential properties in Bristol. As mayor, he did not declare it. In fact, the monitoring officer tried to get a dispensation for declarations of being a landlord for all members. He failed to do so but the landlords still avoided declaring (another story for a different day). Empire Fighting Chance In October 2022, I wrote about how the Rees Labour administration gave away council land for 999 years, at no cost, to a club the mayor was associated with. I pursued this for two years and made a complaint to the auditors. A weak recommendation came through to audit in 2024. Now, however, outside the weak scrutiny of local government, Rees has had to declare a pecuniary interest in at least two companies that benefited from his decision-making while in power. The City Leap involvement is worth much more than the land for EFC. In 2021, the Labour administration — headed by Rees — signed a 20 year deal worth an estimated £12 billion then. The £12-billion-City-Leap questions the administration are ignoring
We’re reliably informed private equity interests are now making enquiries about this opportunity to make a fast buck as monopoly providers of heat to customers in Bristol. Rumours suggest Vattenfall got cold feet when plans for the government to regulate the wild west heat network sector to protect consumers started to emerge. This could result in making a tidy return on any investment tricky. City Leap? It’s a city loss. The ascension of the Reverend Rees to the House of Lords will not leave him short of cash and having to rely on just the £361 per day in attendance allowance with travel expenses and subsidised restaurant facilities. His recently published register of interests to Parliament reveals he also has some other income streams. Including US multinational Ameresco, Inc, who have paid fees to the Reverend’s ‘personal services company’, Three and Two Ltd. Ameresco was awarded a £1bn contract by Bristol City Council in 2021 on the Reverend’s watch after winning the tender to run his ‘Billion pound City Leap’ net zero nonsense. Nothing to see here! Ameresco, City LEAP, Expenses, House of Lords, Marvin Rees, Net Zero, Personal services company, Retainer, Three and Two Ltd LORD FOR SALE Marvin-Rees tinfoil For sale. Heady days at the Soho Agency – ‘a leading literary, theatrical and talent agency based in the heart of Soho, London’. Joining an exciting roster of b-list celebrity TV talent including Dick Strawbridge, Sarah Beeny and Ben Fogle is none other than our old mucker the Reverend Lord Rees of Beacon Overspend. The recently enobled ex-mayor and, er ‘keen snowboarder’, is for hire as an author and an expert. Expert in what Soho Agency ain’t saying.
Dan Norris, who is both Weca’s metro mayor and the MP for North East Somerset and Hanham, was also questioned on suspicion of child abduction and misconduct in a public office on 4 April and has been released on conditional bail. Weca’s chief executive told staff in an email seen by the BBC that Mr Norris’ building access has been deactivated, and his access to the IT system has been removed. Mr Norris’ term as mayor comes to an end in three weeks when elections are held on 1 May. The BBC has contacted Mr Norris for comment. He is not standing as a candidate after rules preventing MPs holding second jobs were introduced. Stephen Peacock, Weca’s chief executive, said Mr Norris has been informed he should not enter the building, in the Redcliffe area of in Bristol, or attend any meetings on behalf of the authority. Mr Peacock also said mayor’s access to Parliament has been revoked. Mr Norris has not been suspended as mayor because “there is no provision” under Weca’s constitution for this action. Avon and Somerset Police previously said “most of the offences are alleged to have occurred in the 2000s but we are also investigating an alleged offence of rape from the 2020s”. The Labour party immediately suspended Mr Norris following his arrest A statement from the leaders of Bristol City Council, South Gloucestershire Council, and Bath & North East Somerset Council – which all sit on Weca – said: “At our respective councils, we have taken steps to ensure that any staff who may have been affected have access to the appropriate support.” The statement added they “look forward to working with the new mayor after 1 May”. The Labour Party said it “immediately suspended” Mr Norris after being made aware of his arrest. The suspension means Mr Norris has also had the party whip suspended, meaning he is not able to sit as a Labour MP in the Commons.
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More specifically: He says everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society. Over time, the mass delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy, with everyone accepting it as the new norm rather than pretend, an effect Yurchak termed hypernormalisation. The definition of self-fulfilling prophecy can be viewed in the vein of Nick Land’s hyperstition: hyperstition (plural hyperstitions) A cultural belief (especially a work of fiction) that makes itself real; a cultural self-fulfilling prophecy where some cultural idea or hype truly brings about the thing it describes. In echoes of the USSR, the Adam Curtis documentary explains, our modern Western societies have slowly devolved into this state of what he calls hypernormalization—from the description: HyperNormalisation is a 2016 BBC documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis. It argues that following the global economic crises of the 1970s, governments, financiers and technological utopians gave up on trying to shape the complex “real world” and instead established a simpler “fake world” for the benefit of multi-national corporations that is kept stable by neoliberal governments. For those interested, the documentary can be watched here in full. At nearly three hours long, it does at times strike ominously thought provoking tones, but is quite discursively overlong, particularly in its turgid Middle East subplot which drowns out the main arguments. But getting back to the core theme: that the post-war order ‘ran out of steam’ and resigned to merely the upkeep of a kind of ‘Potemkin society’, the illusion of which is kept ‘stabilized by neoliberal governments.’ The documentary’s opening heavily centers on Kissinger as a central role player and wire puller of the initial thrust to mold society in the globalists’ utopian image. This excerpt should ring familiar for people used to seeing its echoes repeated today by figures like Klaus Schwab, who was in fact Kissinger’s protégé: Listen to what he’s saying, these dislocations will allow us—the globalists—to, for the first time in history, create a ‘truly global society’. Note how, as per the standard globalist praxis, it takes ‘dislocations’—in other words, major social disruptions—for them to wrest control and remake the world in their vision. Does that remind you of anything else? Recall Schwab’s own ‘Great Reset’ plan, which followed the precise outline: shock society with unprecedented disruptions like the Covid-hoax scare, then “reset” the world into their utopian vision of borderless nations, ablated cultures, and centralized control.
Land, a key figure in the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) at the University of Warwick in the 1990s, abandoned academia to become a theorist of dissolution: of democracy, of humanism, and of Western moral frameworks themselves. Where Yarvin is pragmatic, Land is apocalyptic; where Yarvin imagines a state-company governed like a start-up, Land envisions the definitive collapse of liberal civilization under the weight of its own velocity. And yet, the two converge. Both see the Enlightenment not as the gateway to reason and rights, but as the beginning of a destructive illusion: the idea that the average human being is capable of self-government. Both reject universalism, equality, and progress as toxic myths. Both celebrate elites: technocratic for Yarvin, cybernetic for Land. Still, important differences remain. Yarvin is an engineer-turned-philosopher, an institutional hacker who wants to rewrite the code of government. Land is a post-human thinker, fascinated by AI, entropy, and deregulated markets as forces that obliterate all order. For Yarvin, the remedy is digital monarchy; for Land, it is liberatory catastrophe. One wants to replace democracy with authority, the other to accelerate it into oblivion. The paradox is that both end up converging on the same vision of the future: a world without participation, without popular sovereignty, without shared morality. A world where power no longer answers to consent but to speed, efficiency, and control. This is the dark heart of the Dark Enlightenment: not a mere reaction to liberalism, but its cold, calculated negation. In the comparison between Yarvin and Land, we glimpse a new grammar of post-democratic power: technocratic, authoritarian, post-human. It is not a return to the past, but a leap into the void—rationalized, theorized, and designed. And for that reason, all the more dangerous.
Notebook LM – an AI conversation analysis of article about Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land – ‘democracy needs an upgrade’. or abolishing!
A second name that crops up in connection to Trumpworld’s philosophy is that of Nick Land, an Englishman and former academic. Together, the pair have come to be recognised as the twin eminences of a predominantly online movement known as neoreaction or the Dark Enlightenment. Seeing references to Land transports me back to the early 1990s, when I spent a year studying for a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Warwick. He was then a charismatic young lecturer, not yet the dark magus of anti-democratic neoreaction that he is today. In those days, Land described himself as a “delirial engineer” — a follower of marginal thinkers such as the French writer Georges Bataille, who sought to liberate the forces of unconscious desire that the rationalism of the Enlightenment was meant to hold in check. His work was also a celebration of capitalism, or rather of the fearsome power of the market to dissolve settled ways of life. Accelerating capitalism could usher in a new set of social relations, he believed, or hasten the “singularity” in which the biological and technological merge. As the Nineties wore on his behaviour became increasingly erratic. He started living in his office on campus. He eventually left his academic post in 1998 and moved to China. I didn’t hear of him again until 2011, when a small independent publisher put out a collection of his essays called Fanged Noumena. The years spent overseas had left their mark. What once looked like a tactical embrace of the market had turned into veneration of a “globally ascendant Sino-capitalism”. In a breathless paean to the “turbo-charged Shanghai economy” he rhapsodised about a “perfect complicity between radical innovation and profound conservatism”. Over the next few years his theories gained traction among the US-based far-right. During the first Trump administration, as journalists started to cite Land in their attempts to understand the “alt-right”, I tracked him down. In an email exchange he told me that China and east Asian statelets like Hong Kong or Singapore came closest to what he regarded as a model of “competent government”. He has also praised their lack of “social terror”, which he attributes to ethnically homogenous populations. Land, like Yarvin, believes the ideal state should function like a business. According to this theory, which Yarvin calls “neocameralism”, a properly constituted state is one that has been cured of democracy. Its guiding principle is “no voice, free exit”: the residents or clients (not citizens) of such a state have no rights, but do have the ability to take their custom elsewhere. One of the touchstones for Land and others on what is sometimes called the “techno-commercial” wing of neoreaction is an article written in 2009 by the Silicon Valley billionaire and now prominent Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel (who also happens to have been an investor in Yarvin’s start-up, Urbit). “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” Thiel wrote.
In 1993, techno-feminist Sadie Plant set up a research unit in the philosophy department at Warwick University called the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU). It wasn’t a ‘real’ academic centre — it didn’t have a large grant or any institutional status, it was just a piece of paper on a door. But the name drew people into its vortex. The dominant influence in the CCRU became a 30-year-old mid-career researcher called Nick Land — a fan of continental critical theorists like Deleuze, Guattari and George Bataille. Land and the CCRU mixed together cyberpunk, science-fiction, cryptocurrency, drugs and post-humanism, drained it through the mesh of continental theory, and created Accelerationism. Guardian journalist Andy Beckett has a good definition: Accelerationists argue that technology, particularly computer technology, and capitalism, particularly the most aggressive, global variety, should be massively sped up and intensified — either because this is the best way forward for humanity, or because there is no alternative. Accelerationists favour automation. They favour the further merging of the digital and the human. They often favour the deregulation of business, and drastically scaled-back government. They believe that people should stop deluding themselves that economic and technological progress can be controlled. They often believe that social and political upheaval has a value in itself. Accelerationalism began life as the British cousin of the Californian philosophy of Extropianism, which also began in the early 1990s (as I wrote here). There’s a similar anarcho-libertarianism, hyper-capitalism, worship of new technology and expectation of a sudden leap beyond the human. But this wasn’t California, it was Coventry — and Accelerationism was much darker and more nihilistic than Californian transhumanism. After all, Land’s first book was called ‘Thirst for Annihilation’. Land has said: ‘I have no interest in human liberation, or liberation of the human species. I’m interested in liberation of the means of production’.
“Young blood” transfusions, cryonic preservation, and “apocalypse insurance” are a few of the ways billionaires and Silicon Valley tech moguls are investing in their futures. Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel is one of the major public supporters of research to extend the human lifespan. “There are all these people who say that death is natural, it’s just part of life, and I think that nothing can be further from the truth,” Thiel said back in 2012. They say money can’t buy happiness, but perhaps it can buy immortality — or at least, a longer lifespan than most people. That seems to be the thinking, at least, of the ultra-wealthy Americans spending thousands on “young blood” transfusions, preserving their bodies through cryonics, and colonizing space in case Earth becomes uninhabitable. Read more: A controversial startup that charges $8,000 to fill your veins with young blood and halted operations after an FDA warning now says it’s back up and running Commercial finance experts ABC Finance investigated various ways the wealthy are investing in trying to extend their lifespans as much as possible. Here are five ways the rich are investing in trying to live forever. 1. The ultra-wealthy are paying thousands for “young blood” transfusions meant to slow down the aging process. A controversial startup called Ambrosia charges thousands to fill your veins with the blood of young people, which is meant to slow aging by rejuvenating the body’s organs, as Business Insider’s Erin Brodwin previously reported. Another company, The Young Blood Institute, was charging $285,000 for trials of young blood transfusion, STAT reported in 2018. Alkahest also studies the link between aging and young blood, but instead of opening up centers for young blood transfusions, the company aims to develop drugs for age-related diseases, inspired by their work with plasma. Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel has expressed interest in the procedure, as well as other medical research on extending the human lifespan.
Okay, now on to yesterday’s barely democratic local elections and by-election… Massive Reform UK victory and Labour/Tory ‘uniparty’ collapse. esterday’s Runcorn by-election and local elections – Runcorn won by Reform by 6 votes. Graphic of results. Reform gains control of a string of councils in England and secures their second mayor after winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey says they are now “the party of middle England” as the party secures control of three councils Keir Starmer says Labour’s by-election loss is “disappointing”, while Nigel Farage says today “marks the end of two-party politics” Labour narrowly holds three mayoral races in North Tyneside, the West of England, and Doncaster – but loses control of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty to the Conservatives These are really bad results for the Labour party, writes the BBC’s chief political correspondent in seven key takeaways Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she’s “determined to win back” trust, as her party loses more than 600 councillors Reform wins big, as Labour and Conservatives suffer losses It’s been a dizzying day of electoral coverage as results poured in from 23 councils, six mayoral contests and one by-election across England. The elections marked a big test for the Labour government as the first vote to take place since the general election in July 2024. In the end, it was difficult night for both Labour and the Conservatives as Reform made sweeping wins, and the Liberal Democrats secured gains. Reform leader Nigel Farage said his party had replaced the Tories as “the main opposition party in government” after Reform gained control of 10 councils, won two mayoral contest and gained their fifth MP in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by the narrowest of margins. Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the results as “disappointing” as his party clung on to the North Tyneside, West of England and Doncaster mayoral races, by very tight margins, and lost more than 180 councillors. It was also a difficult day for the Conservatives, who lost more than 670 councillors and won just one mayoral election in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough as Tory leader Kemi Badenoch pledged to “win back” the public’s trust. However, the Liberal Democrats were left in a celebratory mood – with leader Ed Davey declaring the Lib Dems as “the new party of Middle England” – after taking control of three councils and dozens of seats.
Truss made the announcement at a cryptocurrency event in Bedford at the weekend, where a hall of attendees had paid between £250 and £1,000 to watch her speak. Britain’s shortest-serving PM has been courting the far-right in Britain, and expressing her support for US president Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s drastic cuts to spending and government departments. Trump also notoriously started his own social media platform Truth Social in 2022, after he was banned from Facebook and then-Twitter for his alleged involvement in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building. During the event, Truss said ‘the establishment and the elites’ had ‘cut her off at the knees’ when she became Prime Minister because they resisted radical change. “That has made me think that it’s not enough just to get into number 10,” she said, according to the London Economic, who first reported the story. She added: “What I’m now thinking is we need a media network to be able to communicate to people, to be able to have a grassroots movement that is actually really demanding change of our leaders.” Truss expressed her concerns about how different issues were “suppressed or promoted” by mainstream media, comparing the Netflix drama Adolescence, which highlights online misogyny and incel culture, to the grooming gangs scandal. “Recently, we have seen the promotion of the documentary – or not the documentary – the show Adolescence. I haven’t watched it, but we have seen the promotion of that and the asking questions of that, and we have seen the whole issue of the grooming gangs suppressed,” she said. She then compared Britain to communist Russia, saying: “This is the kind of thing that we used to see going on in the Soviet Union and it’s now happening to us and it is absolutely shocking that that is the case in modern Britain.” “I do think this needs to be actively fought and what I am doing is establishing a new free speech network, which will be uncensored and uncancellable, to actually talk about the issues people don’t want to talk about.While Truss hasn’t confirmed any details about the social media network, she did say it would be ready for the summer and that more news would follow ‘fairly soon’.
President of the Andalusian regional government, Juan Manuel Moreno, confirmed that, according to the information provided by the regional cybersecurity centre, “everything points to a blackout of this magnitude only being due to a cyberattack”. However, he confirmed he had not received any communication from the Spanish government regarding the widespread power outage, saying that he reached this conclusion “solely based on our own data”. Mr Moreno also expressed concern about the duration of the blackout, saying: “We’ll see how long this will last because the generators only have a 24-hour capacity.” He indicated that hospitals are operating normally because they have power generators. But Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Centre says there is “no evidence has been identified to date that points to a cyberattack”, according to reports. Spanish Congress has cancelled all activity scheduled for Monday. Major cities including Madrid, Seville and Lisbon have been hit by the power outage, leaving residents without electricty and mobile signal. Parts of the Spanish capital’s underground have been evacuated and traffic lights are not working, according to local media. Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica says it is working with energy companies to restore power. An official said it could take between six and 10 hours for the issues to be fully resolved. The incident has sparked chaos across Europe, with flights and trains cancelled. Portuguese airline TAP Air has warned passengers not to head to airports until further notice. Backup generators have been activated across Spain’s airports, according to Aena, the public body that owns and operates the majority of airports in Spain. The issues have also impacted the Madrid Open tennis tournament, where play has been suspended. The EU Commission has confirmed it is in contact with national authorities in Spain and Portugal, as well as the bloc’s power grid body, ENTSO-e. Talks are being held between officials to understand the underlying cause of the outage and its impact. British Overseas Territory Gibraltar appears to be the only region on the Iberian Peninsula with electricity.
Spain’s abrupt decision to cancel a €6.6 million contract for the import of 15 million 9mm bullets from Israel has sent ripples through both domestic politics and international defense circles. What began as a procurement order for the Guardia Civil—a routine internal security supply—has evolved into a full-blown national controversy, drawing in coalition parties, legal advisors, foreign ministries, and strategic analysts. The contract, awarded to Valencia-based Guardian Homeland Security SA, was intended to deliver ammunition manufactured by Israel Military Industries or its parent company, Elbit Systems. Although the Spanish government had declared a suspension of all arms deals with Israel in October 2023, this particular contract remained active, having been approved through a negotiated procedure without public bidding. Its exposure sparked outrage among left-wing coalition members, particularly Sumar and Izquierda Unida (IU), who demanded its immediate cancellation. IU, in a triumphant statement, claimed it had “succeeded in forcing the rescission of this arms contract with Israel,” describing the decision as “a matter of coherence, dignity, and justice.” The party further demanded a comprehensive audit of all existing and future arms contracts with Israeli firms to ensure political consistency. Despite legal warnings from the State Attorney’s Office that unilateral cancellation could require Spain to pay the full contract value without receiving the goods, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez revoked the import license, effectively nullifying the deal. Sources inside the Interior Ministry confirmed that the minister initially resisted the cancellation, citing binding legal obligations—until Sánchez himself publicly overruled him. This is a government of usurpers clinging to power at any cost. They are willing to break a signed, published contract and force Spanish taxpayers to pay the penalty—just to preserve a fragile coalition built on anti-Western ideology. Critics from across the political spectrum warned that the consequences could extend far beyond this single shipment. Hermann Tertsch, Member of the European Parliament from the right-wing VOX party, accused the government of ideological sabotage. “This is a government of usurpers clinging to power at any cost,” he told The Media Line. “They are willing to break a signed, published contract and force Spanish taxpayers to pay the penalty—just to preserve a fragile coalition built on anti-Western ideology.” According to Tertsch, Spain has now “broadcast a message of legal insecurity to every defense partner,” and the result, he argued, will be “a profound erosion of Spain’s credibility on the international stage.” The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a formal condemnation, calling the cancellation a breach of international norms. The statement accused Spain of “standing on the wrong side of history—against the Jewish state defending itself from terrorist attacks on seven fronts.” It warned that Israel would reconsider its defense cooperation with Madrid moving forward. Yet amid the storm of diplomatic and political rhetoric, security experts are urging the public to consider the quieter—but more impactful consequences: those unfolding in armories, supply chains, and logistics departments.
Van dweller on Downs – house owners nearby say they’re bringing their house prices down. ITV West Country – vans on Downs.
Brian Eno – how the mega rich think.
Part Two – International news review, Accelerationist, Armageddonist reports and investigations
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Admiral Sir Tony Radakin declined to comment on whether the operations made him a participant in Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which is the subject of a genocide investigation by the UN’s top court. Radakin was questioned about the operations by Declassified for more than two minutes as he walked along London’s Victoria Embankment from the Ministry of Defence to parliamentary offices at Portcullis House. “I’m going to a public accounts committee hearing and I don’t really have time for this conversation”, the Admiral said, before refusing to engage further. Despite heading to parliament to discuss the military’s budget, he ignored questions about how much the RAF has spent on more than 500 spy flights over Gaza since December 2023. Two armed police officers who were escorting him then tried to block Declassified from speaking to Radakin but our questions continued. The Admiral looked progressively unsettled as he was asked “Do you have concerns about sharing intelligence with the prime minister of a country that’s wanted by the International Criminal Court?” Radakin, who met his IDF counterpart in Israel last year, was asked: “Are you a participant in Israel’s genocide, Admiral? Do you have blood on your hands?” Public interest Declassified decided to doorstep Radakin after months of getting few or no answers from the MoD press office or via freedom of information requests, and as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 50,000 people with the World Food Programme warning of starvation. Backbench MPs have also struggled to glean details from ministers – even on the cost of UK military activities – while chairs of parliament’s powerful defence and foreign affairs committees have simply failed to quiz officials on this issue. Government responses have been limited to claiming the surveillance flights are trying to help Israel find hostages held by Hamas.
Organizers with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said one of their vessels was attacked by an unidentified drone in the early hours of Friday morning, noting the ship was not far off the coast of Malta when it was hit. “At 00:23 Maltese time, the Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship, came under direct attack in international waters,” the group said in a press release. “Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull. [. . .] The drone strike appears to have deliberately targeted the ship’s generator, leaving the crew without power and placing the vessel at great risk of sinking.” An FFC spokesperson, Caoimhe Butterly, later told Reuters that the ship was struck en route to Malta, where it was scheduled to pick up other activists, among them climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and retired US Army Colonel Mary Ann Wright. The group said it had arranged the aid shipment “under a media black out to avoid any potential sabotage.” The FFC also shared footage which allegedly shows the aftermath of the strike, with smoke and flames seen on the ship. At one point in the brief video, an apparent explosion can be heard. In a second press release, the group later shared a photo of the damage sustained in the strike. Maltese authorities said they received an SOS call from a vessel in international waters soon after midnight local time, adding that a nearby tugboat assisted the ship, according to Reuters. Officials added that the crew of the Conscience declined to board the tugboat, and also confirmed to CNN that the fire on the ship had been extinguished. No casualties have been reported in the attack. The FFC press release added that “Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade [on Gaza] and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.” In a social media post early on Friday, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, said she “received a distressed call from the people of the Freedom Flotilla that is carrying essential food and medicine to the starving Gaza population.” “I call on concerned state authorities, including maritime authorities, to support the ship and its crew as needed. I trust the competent authorities will also ascertain the facts and intervene appropriately,” she added.
In response to the reports of major civilian casualties in the strikes, a Pentagon official said Monday that the US was “currently conducting our battle-damage assessment and inquiry into those claims,” but so far, there have been no further comments from the US military. A Yemen-based Ethiopian activist who spoke with survivors of the attack told Drop Site that the detention center was hit by three separate strikes in slow succession. Trevor Ball, a munitions expert and former US Army ordnance specialist, said the facility was likely targeted intentionally since GBU-39 bombs are precise weapons, and it was struck multiple times. US-made GBU-39 bombs have been used frequently by the Israeli military in attacks on Gaza, including in strikes on tents. Ball said the remnants of the GBU-39 at the migrant center appear to be the first evidence of the US using the bomb in Yemen. The same migrant facility was targeted by Saudi Arabia in 2022 in a strike that killed 91 civilians, according to the Yemen Data Project, which means the US should have been aware that attacking the detention center would have caused significant civilian casualties. Since the Trump administration launched its bombing campaign in Yemen on March 15, the US military has struck over 1,000 targets in the country. The Pentagon has shared virtually no details about the airstrikes, which have killed more than 200 civilians.
A Twitter account—operated by an individual whose bio says they are based in the Netherlands, using the handle @VleckieHond—apologized this week after the U.S. struck coordinates she erroneously suggested, in early April, were the location of an underground Houthi military position; it was not a military site. “Allright, time for me to go through the mud,” Vleckie posted. “Based on satellite imagery I’d marked this quarry as an underground base, and tweeted is out as such. I’m fairly certain Centcom doesn’t take their targeting data from Twitter, but this still is a very severe mistake.” Vleckie had highlighted the coordinates in a thread that claimed to have uncovered a Houthi base, and they had relied, in part, on a secondary account, @Galal_Alsalahi, whose bio suggests they are based in Houston. That account, which is hostile to the Houthis, claimed to have discovered a Houthi missile launcher at the coordinates. The strike that took place on April 28 reportedly killed eight civilians in their homes on the outskirts of the capital of Sana’a. Vleckie’s reading of satellite imagery, the account later said, was incomplete—they said they had privately marked the target as only “possible”—and they would strive to do better in the future, while posting a screenshot of a 500 Euro donation to charity that she had made as penance. “I should never have posted it,” they added. (A message seeking comment from the account went unanswered.) Reports from local Yemeni news outlets highlighted the devastating impact of the attack. Among the dead and wounded were children, some of whom were later evacuated to local hospitals. The U.S. military and CENTCOM have ultimate responsibility for verifying the information used to conduct airstrikes. The Pentagon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advanced data analytics programs from companies, like Palantir, that include open-source data scraped from social media as part of their information-gathering process to help the military with targeting and intelligence. Data analysts live by the credo “garbage in, garbage out,” which sophisticated intelligence collection is intended to overcome. To be sure, it may be a mere coincidence that the amateur sleuths identified the location before CENTCOM struck it, but the account used for the Sana’a strike is known to officials in the military, increasing the potential likelihood that it was relied on—at least, in part—for the tragic targeting. @VleckieHond has been publicly cited by reputable military-linked publications, including the influential Combating Terrorism Center at West Point Sentinel, which referred to the “ever-resourceful analyst @Vleckiehond,” in an April 2024 report citing her analysis on U.S. air operations against the Houthis. The report noted she had compiled her analysis based on her purchases of commercially available satellite imagery. The paper “Assessing the Houthi War Effort Since October 2023,” used the “ever-resourceful analyst” to back up its identification of Houthi military assets. The last sentence, with emphasis added, is sourced to Vleckie and Vleckie only: “Training and depot locations for the Houthi naval and coastal defenses forces at locations such as Hodeida’s Ras al-Khatib naval base and the Khor al-Jabana naval and coastal defense complex across the inner anchorage, both relatively visible locations. A second major headquarters area is the Ras Issa military zone and the adjacent Kamaran Island military zone, both large areas that are subject to closure to non-military personnel during security operations. These sites have been prepared for precision attacks through the creation of hundreds of identical weapons storage “igloos” (buried shipping containers).” In April, CENTCOM announced it had struck the Ras Issa fuel depot with devastating force, killing at least 80 civilians and plunging the country into a fuel shortage that will exacerbate a hunger crisis.
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Israeli protesters lift national flags and placards as they rally outside the Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem on February 13, 2023, against controversial legal reforms being touted by the country’s hard-right government. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images) Many Israelis protest asking for a ceasefire in Gaza, to bring back the hostages. Around 250 ex-Mossad agents sign letter backing reservists dismissed for opposing Gaza war Over 250 former Mossad employees signed a letter, criticising the dismissal of nearly 1,000 Israel Air Force reservists who called for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and the return of all captives , according to Haaretz. “We believe that the continuation of the fighting endangers the lives of the hostages and the lives of our soldiers,” the letter read. “Every possibility must be exhausted to reach an agreement that will end the suffering … We join the call for all Israeli citizens to demand the return of hostages now and an end to the fighting.” Three former Mossad chiefs, including Danny Yatom, Efraim Halevy, and Tamir Pardo, as well as a former deputy chief and dozens of other former senior officials are among the signatories of the letter. Israeli reservists speak out against Gaza war as pressure on Netanyahu grows Police were forced to back down from a proposed ban on displaying images of children killed in Gaza at a Tel Aviv protest last month Israel’s war in Gaza grinds on, but opposition is growing. In recent weeks, thousands of Israeli reservists – from all branches of the military – have signed letters demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government stop the fighting and concentrate instead on reaching a deal to bring back the remaining 59 hostages being held by Hamas. Eighteen months ago, few Israelis doubted the war’s logic: to defeat Hamas and return the hostages. For many, the January ceasefire and subsequent return of more than 30 hostages raised hopes that the war might soon end. But after Israel broke the ceasefire and returned to war in mid-March, those hopes were dashed. “We came to the conclusion that Israel is going to a very bad place,” Danny Yatom, a former head of the spy agency Mossad told me. “We understand that what mainly bothers Netanyahu is his own interests. And in the list of priorities, his interests and the interests of having the government stable are the first ones, and not the hostages.” Many of those signing recent letters are, like Yatom, long time critics of the prime minister. Some were involved in the anti-government protests that preceded the outbreak of war on 7 October 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel. But Yatom says that’s not why he decided to speak out. “I signed my name and I am participating in the demonstrations not because of any political reason, but because of a national reason,” he said. “I am highly concerned that my country is going to lose its way.”
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Trump touts ‘most successful’ first 100 days in presidential history during Michigan rally ‘We’ve just gotten started,’ Trump told supporters in Michigan President Donald Trump touted the first 100 days of his second term as the “most successful” of any administration in history during a Michigan rally with supporters Tuesday evening.Trump’s 100-day rally: Familiar grievances, an ebullient crowd and a difficult task ahead Crossing the symbolic barrier between the first 100 days of his presidency and the 1,361 that remain, Trump basked in adulation from a supportive crowd and declared that he had just completed the “the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country.” He waxed nostalgic about his last act with familiar grievances and hyperbolic claims, and seized the moment to set a course for the next one. Yet the events of the day only illustrated that for all the action he’s taken so far, difficult tasks remain ahead. Even before he arrived in Michigan, Trump had taken steps to pull back from the auto tariffs he’d put in place weeks earlier, heeding warnings from auto executives and analysts who said the duties could add thousands of dollars to the price of a new car. And he’d spent the morning fuming about a report Amazon might list tariff price hikes on its popular marketplace, issuing a warning to founder Jeff Bezos and declaring the move hostile (Amazon said after Trump’s call the plan was only an idea and wouldn’t be implemented). The president is presiding over an increasingly skeptical public. His 41% approval rating in CNN’s latest poll is the worst for any modern president at the 100-day mark. His 39% approval for his handling of the economy marks a career low. But surrounded by signs that declared this “THE GOLDEN AGE” at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, Trump – and his supporters – were ebullient. “We’ve just gotten started,” the president declared. “You haven’t even seen anything yet.” Over an hour-and-a-half, Trump delivered familiar riffs about “Sleepy Joe,” a nod to former President Joe Biden. He drew applause from the crowd as he chided former Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he called a “great candidate.” And he repeated the biggest mistruth of all about winning the 2020 election. “I miss you guys,” Trump said. “I’ve missed the campaign.”
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Some who have called have said that I am a modern day Job. Judge Muir is also noted for his medieval sentences. I face a maximum sentence of 55 years in prison and a $300,000 fine for being innocent. Judge Muir has already told the press that he felt “invigorated” when we were found guilty and that he plans to imprison me as a “deterrent” to other public officials. But it wouldn’t be a deterrent [sic] because every public official who knows me knows that I am innocent. It wouldn’t be legitimate punishment because I’ve done nothing wrong. Since I’m a victim of political persecution, my prison would simply be an American Gulag. I ask those that believe in me to continue to extend friendship and prayer to my family, to work untiringly for the creation of a true justice system here in the United States, and to press on with the efforts to vindicate me, so that my family and their future families are not tainted by this injustice that has been perpetrated on me. We were confident that right and truth would prevail and I would be acquitted and we would devote the rest of our lives working to create a justice system here in the United States. The guilty verdict has strengthened that resolve. But as we’ve discussed our plans to expose the warts of our legal system[,] people have said, ‘Why bother? No one cares, you’ll look foolish, 60 Minutes, 20/20, the American Civil Liberties Union, Jack Anderson, and others have been publicising cases like yours for years and it doesn’t bother anyone.’ At this time, Dwyer stopped reading from his prepared remarks, with the gathered press still waiting on his expected resignation. There was still a significant portion of the prepared text remaining, which detailed what he was actually planning to do, and it read as follows (he did not read these comments to the crowd): I’ve repeatedly said that I’m not going to resign as State Treasurer. After many hours of thought and meditation I’ve made a decision that should not be an example to anyone because it is unique to my situation. Last May I told you that after the trial, I would give you the story of the decade. To those of you who are shallow, the events of this morning will be that story. But to those of you with depth and concern the real story will be what I hope and pray results from this morning—in the coming months and years[,] the development of a true justice system here in the United States. I am going to die in office in an effort to ‘ … see if the shame[-ful] facts, spread out in all their shame, will not burn through our civic shamelessness and set fire to American pride.’ Please tell my story on every radio and television station and in every newspaper and magazine in the U.S. Please leave immediately if you have a weak stomach or mind since I don’t want to cause physical or mental distress. Joanne, Rob, DeeDee – I love you! Thank you for making my life so happy. Good bye to you all on the count of 3. Please make sure that the sacrifice of my life is not in vain.’
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Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Asif has admitted Pakistan’s involvement in promoting terrorism, including funding and backing terrorist groups. In a viral video clip which shows the Pakistani Defence Minister in conversation with Sky News, Asif says, “We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about 3 decades and the West, including Britain.” “That was a mistake, and we suffered for that, and that is why you are saying this to me. If we had not joined the war against the Soviet Union and later on the war after 9/11, Pakistan’s track record was unimpeachable,” Khwaja Asif adds. Asif also said that there is a possibility of “all-out war” with India. Notably, his statement has come as ties between India and Pakistan have plummeted to a new low, with New Delhi accusing Pakistan of orchestrating the Pahalgam attacks. Pakistan’s track record in promoting terrorism It is to be noted that Pakistan sheltered UN-designated terrorist Osama bin Laden, whom the US eliminated by violating Pakistan’s airspace through a special operation in Abbottabad. India has been continously exposing Pakistan’s deep state actors who have been instrumental in destablising Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi has made attempts by reaching out to the global community to expose Pakistan’s usage of terrorism as a tool against India. India acts strongly The attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam is the latest instance when Pakistan’s collusion with terrorists is being claimed. India, in its sharp response, has taken important diplomatic steps aimed at Pakistan. Some of the measures include suspending the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) for Pakistani nationals, closing the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari, and halting the Indus Waters Treaty signed in 1960 in the wake of the Pahalgam attack. In his first public statement after the Pahalgam attacks, PM Modi conveyed India’s firm resolve to fight terrorism, as he said, “India will identify, track, and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth.”
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destroying homes of terrorist suspects – just like the Israelis have been doing and, like the Ukrainians with the assassination policy, following the Israeli MO exactly. Indian forces destroy homes of two Kashmir attack suspects in crackdown India launches giant manhunt for Pahalgam attack suspects, claiming they are members of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, listed as a terrorist group by the United Nations. Indian forces destroy homes of two Kashmir attack suspects in crackdownSoldiers in India-administered Kashmir on Friday blew up the family homes of Adil Hussain Thokar and Ashif Sheikh, two suspects wanted in connection with Tuesday’s massacre in Pahalgam that left 26 civilians dead. Indian security forces have launched a giant manhunt for the suspects. Police say they are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations. They have issued wanted posters with sketches of three men: Indian national Adil Hussain Thoker, as well as Pakistani citizens Ali Bhai and Hashim Musa. Indian forces are also searching for Indian citizen Ashif Sheikh. Members of the two Indian fugitives’ immediate families were detained for questioning after the attack, the officer and their relatives said. TRT Global – Pakistan and India troops exchange fire in Kashmir Relations plunge to their lowest level in years, with New Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in Muslim-majority India-administered Kashmir for a quarter of a century. Sheikh’s sister Yasmeena said soldiers cordoned off the area around the house, in Kashmir’s southern Tral area, overnight from Thursday to Friday. “One soldier climbed over the mud compound wall of our home, and climbed back after a while,” said Yasmeena, who gave only one name. “After some time, a big frightening blast brought the house down. Everything inside is destroyed,” she said, adding that no one was inside at the time. A police officer said soldiers also destroyed Thokar’s family home in the neighbouring Bijbehara area in the same manner early Friday. Police said they were part of a LeT faction called The Resistance Front (TRF). “Both have been active for three to four years, and are part of TRF which is an offshoot of LeT,” a police intelligence officer told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorised to speak to the media. “They are wanted militants involved in earlier attacks as well on security forces,” the officer added. Police have offered a two million rupees ($23,500) bounty for information leading to each man’s arrest.
How Panama Became the SKYNET for Orwellian Totalitarianism in the Americas The Enemy Within: A Story of the Take-Over of the US Military and the Birth of the Perpetual War Machine – Counterinsurgency How the CIA and US Special Forces Manufactured a Migrant Crisis and Orwellian Police State in Vietnam Before Going to the Americas Cynthia Chung is the President of the Rising Tide Foundation and author of the books “The Shaping of a World Religion” & “The Empire on Which the Black Sun Never Set,” consider supporting her work by making a donation and subscribing to her substack page Through A Glass Darkly. Also watch for free our RTF Docu-Series “Escaping Calypso’s Island: A Journey Out of Our Green Delusion” and our CP Docu-Series “The Hidden Hand Behind UFOs”.
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They will see how Franklin Roosevelt’s unconstitutional alphabet agencies refined the domestic tyranny begun under Lincoln and then Wilson. FDR is given full credit here for establishing the “cancel culture” we’ve all come to know and love. He would fully embrace the “Woke” crowd, although to be fair, he was a genuine racist, like both Lincoln and Wilson. As you can see by the cover, a wide range of history is explored. My favorite Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, was the last prominent public figure I know of, to warn against the dangers of Judicial Review. This odious concept, which shattered the Separation of Powers in the early days of the Republic, has become so entrenched that virtually no one opposes it. Except me, I guess. For everyone else, it’s “let the courts decide!” That’s just not how a Republic, or for that matter a Democracy either, is supposed to work. This is especially important now, when our courts have become so transparently corrupt. Unlike Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR (and Teddy Roosevelt, too), Jefferson was not a racist. But that doesn’t stop the court historians from calling him one. You’ll never hear a court historian call FDR a racist. Find the truth here. Senator Joseph McCarthy has been consigned to history as one of the great villains, right up there with Benedict Arnold. The historical record tells us a different story. McCarthy was friends with Old Joe Kennedy, whom I consider to be the most unfairly treated figure in American history. He dated some of the Kennedy daughters, and was godfather to RFK’s oldest child. Well, he was at least, until in recent years when there has been an attempt to whitewash that. McCarthy was also good friends with James Forrestal, a harsh early critic of Israel, who was pushed out of a window at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1949. McCarthy would die at Bethesda himself eight years later under highly questionable circumstances. The man who is inaccurately associated with the House Un-American Activities Committee served in the Senate. He “blacklisted” no one. He was one of the first to question the Pearl Harbor psyop. McCarthy was actually an American hero.
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He was born in the Caribbean island of Trinidad in 1942 from parents whose ancestors had migrated as indentured labourer from India. He is a graduate of the Aleemiyah Institute in Karachi and has studied at sevaral instutions of higher learning including the University of Karachi,the University of the West Indies, Al Azhar University and the Graduate Institute of International Relations in Switzerland He worked for several years as a Foreign Service Officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago but gave up his job in 1985 to devote his life to the mission of Islam. He lived in New York for ten years during which time he served as the Director of Islamic Studies for the Joint Committee of Muslim Organizations of Greater New York. He lectured on Islam in several American and Canadian universities, colleges, churches, synagogues, prisons, community halls, etc. He also participated in many inter-faith dialogues with Christian and Jewish scholars while representing Islam in USA. He was the Imam, for sometime, at Masjid Dar al-Qur’an in Long Island, New York. He also led the weekly Juma’ah prayers and delivered the sermon at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan once a month for ten years continuously.
Tony’s paperback Traitors Of Arnhem , Siege Of Heaven ; Siege Of Heaven Reader – all available for donation, or to buy, via www.bilderberg.org NOT The BCfm Politics Show CANCELLED and attempts to intimidate us
July 2024 – Tony, Dave and Martin’s NOT The BCfm Politics show was CANCELLED/EVICTED in a no fault, no notice, no appeal, eviction by The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC) arts centre – An email from Chloe Slater and Keith Cowling explained that: ‘Transphobic’ leaflets had been left in the building by a recent guest (who denied it) making Transsexual users of the building feel ‘offended’ and ‘unsafe’. To quote: ‘Please let us know when you or Dave would like to come and retrieve your equipment and drop off your keys. Kind regards’ PRSC Directors (Keith Cowling, chair) PRSC / Stokes Croft China 17-35 Jamaica St Bristol BS2 8JP. Chloe Slater (formerly Jez and self-defined as ‘she’) also made it difficult for us to retrieve the last of our equipment by inferring we couldn’t be trusted, we were made to wait outside their building for over 30 minutes to return their mixing desk in December 2024. March 2020 – BCfm’s weekly Politics Show presented by Tony Gosling with Irish Republican Labour activist Martin Summers was forced off FM, now online only by station manager Pat Hart. He decided the show should be ‘rested, due to the pandemic’ on 24 March 2020 and then refused to communicate at all when we requested to do the show remotely. Bristol Community FM (BCfm) charity ‘CEO’ Patrick Hart is a longtime personal friend of Bristol’s all-powerful right-wing ‘Labour’ mayor Marvin Rees. Now on Internet only NOT The BCfm Politics Show is available 17:00-c. 21:00 live on Fridays. Pat Hart replaced us with an inane student show repeating MSM stories called The Bristol Agenda . If you’d like to share your views on his deliberate dumbing-down and pro-Covid jab mismanagement you can contact UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom or BCfm board chair and the ‘Don’ himself, here .
(from c. 11pm) This week’s full interview mp3s, bottom of page. SHOW STARTS 17:00 London time FOR c. 3½ HRS TO c. 20:30 – OUR LIVE STREAM to Listen live online. Alt. live streams RadioQUK.com, DJ Plug Radio OR Download Show After Transmission HERE. Repeats 11 & 5 AM & PM daily on our stream – All downloads: NOT THE BCFM POLITICS SHOW ANDROID APP which evil Google Play has banned [Aurora store] [APKpure] – [Apple App store] – Only 31% trust UK Press! – UK media oligopoly TONY’S BOOKS: Bilderberg.org – 2 PAPER–BACKS – TONY’S CHANNELS: Telegram – Bitchute – 911 forum – Radio4All – The Land Is Ours – VK – Twitter/X – Farcebook – Brighteon – Rumble – RT Live on Rumble – Goebbelsesque YouTube: The Wrong Story; Peter Borenius; Occult Geopolitics & cancelled Public Enquiry
