Friday 3rd July 2020

At six – discussing the big stories in Bristol, Britain and around the world
After seven – straight talking and investigative reports

Listen live online each week 17:00 to 19:00 BST, 10:00-12:00 EST, 09:00-11:00 PST. Repeats 2100 & 0900 BST daily https://www.internet-radio.com/station/prsc/

BCfm’s weekly Politics Show presented by Tony Gosling with Irish Republican Labour activist Martin Summers continues online after being ‘rested due to the pandemic’ on 24 March 2020 by BCfm managing editor Pat Hart. The Internet only BCfm Politics Show is now available 17:00-19:00 live Drivetime Fridays.

We are ready to go live on BCfm’s FM server remotely. Initially we were told ‘In the light of government and Ofcom guidance’ his team have decided not to broadcast discussion or political shows that ‘might put the FM licence at risk, and don’t want the burden of dealing with potential Ofcom complaints. Now we’ve been told a wider ‘reorganisation’ is underway and if we’re lucky this show may be allowed to return to FM in November 2020.

February 2019 Ofcom complaint result: UKLFI exposed as creation of Israeli foreign ministry – Bristol Post article: BCfm cleared after being reported to Ofcom for anti-semitic conspiracy theories

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First hour News Review: Mayor steals public dockside land to sell it off to his speculator chums – The Great Bordeaux Quay Robbery: with former Bristol mayor George Ferguson – Lockdown eases further on Saturday – will it work?

Known Crooked Outsourcing firms Serco and Deloitte get private Covid contracts – Serco boss defends its work on setting up NHS test-and-trace system – Rupert Soames says criticism largely motivated by ideology amid calls for £45.8m contract to be cancelled – The boss of the outsourcing firm Serco has defended its “extraordinary” work in setting up the NHS coronavirus test-and-trace system, amid calls for the £45.8m contract to be cancelled. Critics of Serco’s involvement have pointed to its mixed record on public works, the use of subcontractors and a blunder last month in which it inadvertently revealed the email addresses of contract tracers recruited to assist in the UK government’s “test, track and trace” strategy. Rupert Soames, the company’s chief executive, acknowledged the scheme was not perfect but said criticism was largely motivated by ideological opposition to private companies running state services… Labour slams ministers over Deloitte virus testing deal – Pressure increases on government over amount of data given to health and local authorities – The opposition Labour party has attacked ministers for awarding one of the key coronavirus testing contracts without obliging the private provider to share the results of tests with public health bodies in England. The revelation about the deal with consultancy Deloitte, which set up the system that conducts the vast majority of tests in England, has added to the criticism of the government’s approach after it ordered the city of Leicester into lockdown. Leicester’s mayor said he only knew a few days before the lockdown was ordered on Monday how bad the situation was in his city as the government had only just begun sharing national data from dozens of drive-through testing sites and home kits provided by the Deloitte system… “We are paying hundreds of thousands of pounds if not millions to a private company to help with testing for coronavirus, and it appears no one commissioning that service thought to make sure they share the results with health authorities and councils when they find a positive case so they could do something with that data,” Ms Creasy told the FT…

Bristol City Council faces ‘catastrophic’ £82million blackhole due to coronavirus – “It is urgent for government to engage in conversations with local authorities”  Coronavirus could leave Bristol City Council with a “catastrophic” £82million blackhole that would threaten frontline services, civic chiefs have warned. Head of paid service Mike Jackson said the authority’s vital income, such as from parking charges, council tax and business rates, will be severely damaged by the pandemic and that – without a bailout from Whitehall – the council would be forced to tear up its budget and plunder its reserves to stay afloat. He told the council’s overview and scrutiny management board: “We really need to make sure the Government understands the impact on our income streams. “The Government does understand the additional costs associated with responding to the crisis but I really don’t think they have grasped that for some authorities the loss of income streams is significantly greater than the direct cost associated with responding to the crisis… 

EXCLUSIVE: Selling Our City Off To Speculators In Secret – Mayor’s secret planning deal with private speculator for public land – Interview with former Bristol Mayor, George Ferguson: place making and a good balance of mixed uses; Bristol Arena project; Mayor Marvin’s cult-like regime and secrecy over proposed development on Bordeaux Quay in Bristol Harbour; Western Harbour development group, ‘pliable friends of former Merchant Venturers master John Savage and mayor Marvin Rees’ appointed to oversee development; Mayoral system problems; more secrecy over Temple Island development. PMQs local government and procurement fraud. Intu shopping centres gone bust.  

Hotel with more than 150 rooms planned for Bristol’s Bordeaux Quay and Millennium Square – The land is owned by Bristol City Council, with London-based property company Bell Hammer set to be the developer of the proposed scheme. AHMM says the Waterfront Place site is the only one in the area which remains empty since the site regeneration, listing Watershed, Bordeaux Quay, WeTheCurious, Bristol Lab and Arnolfini as the buildings retained from the industrial era that have been reinvented. It adds the development, planned where there is a “void in the townscape,” would “unify and bind together the collection of substantial buildings around the Meeting of the Waters: Bordeaux Quay, Narrow Quay+ Arnolfini, M-Shed, Wapping Wharf and LLoyds”. For these reasons, it says, the scheme can “rightfully provide a central building of Bristol, not just as part of the dockside at a location to where ships from around the world have travelled, but to express the contemporary strength of the place, combining work and leisure, in this location at the heart of the modern city”. A development agreement has been signed and the applicant is currently in pre-application discussions with the council.

December 2011 – former Merchant Venturer master John Savage’s 2011 vision book for the West of England ‘City Region’. 2050: High in Hope – Since its conception, The West of England Initiative has recognised the need for a long term plan for the Bristol City region. In 2011, The Initiative published 2050: High in Hope – A Business Vision for the West of England City-Region. – Inspired by the influential 1909 Plan of Chicago, which provided the city with a direction of development, 2050: High in Hope is a visual and written interpretation of a business vision for the West of England city-region. It is a strategic master plan. 

September 2019 – Mr Rees said the council’s plans to build houses in a redesigned Cumberland Basin was driven by the city’s housing crisis and climate emergency. “We do have to take advantage of city centre locations because that reduces car dependency,” he said. – Council chiefs also want to take the opportunity to free up land in the area, which they have rechristened Western Harbour, for up to 2,500 new homes for Bristol, as the city faces a huge housing and homelessness crisis. The initial feasibility studies came up with 10 possible options, but they were shortlisted down to three by the Mayor’s Office, and then shared with the public in an early engagement exercise. This is not the same as a consultation process, which is a formalised procedure seeking the public’s views on a specific proposal in advance of a formal decision by the mayor or cabinet. 

Boris Johnson’s ‘Build Build Build’ speech – how is this different from FDR’s New Deal? – Boris Johnson’s £5BILLION promise: PM puts forward radical ‘new deal’ for COVID recovery – BORIS JOHNSON has promised a £5billion “new deal” to kick start economic recovery and get Britain back to work after the coronavirus crisis. In a major speech, the Prime Minister has set out plans for an “infrastructure revolution” to modernise hospitals, schools, roads, prisons, the courts, high streets and town centres. And he urged the country to pull together to “build, build, build” its way out of the economic downturn caused by weeks of lockdown. “If we deliver this plan together, then we will together build our way back to health. We will not just bounce back, we will bounce forward – stronger and better and more united than ever before,” the Prime Minister said. Mr Johnson travelled to Dudley, in the West Midlands, to make his keynote speech on the UK’s future, deep in the so-called “Blue Wall” territory captured from Labour at last year’s general election…

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Second hour International News Followed By Investigative reports:

Ghislane Maxwell arrested: Were Epstein and her agents working for Israeli Mossad secret service?  – Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israeli Intel – Ghislaine Maxwell played ‘critical role’ in helping Jeffrey Epstein groom underage victims, US investigators say – Ghislaine Maxwell is an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison as he awaited trial over sex trafficking charges – Mafia entrapment? Mint Press..Witney Webb – Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal – The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations. – While Part I and Part II of this series, “The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail,” have focused on the widespread nature of sexual blackmail operations in recent American history and their ties to the heights of American political power and the U.S. intelligence community, one key aspect of Epstein’s own sex-trafficking and blackmail operation that warrants examination is Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and his ties to the “informal” pro-Israel philanthropist faction known as “the Mega Group.” The Mega Group’s role in the Epstein case has garnered some attention, as Epstein’s main financial patron for decades, billionaire Leslie Wexner, was a co-founder of the group that unites several well-known businessmen with a penchant for pro-Israel and ethno-philanthropy (i.e., philanthropy benefiting a single ethnic or ethno-religious group). However, as this report will show, another uniting factor among Mega Group members is deep ties to organized crime, specifically the organised crime network discussed in Part I of this series, which was largely led by notorious American mobster Meyer Lansky…

Who was on the Lolita Express? Original article Flight Logs Put Clinton, Dershowitz on Pedophile Billionaire’s Sex Jet – Who exactly rode in Epstein’s private passenger jet? Well, former President Bill Clinton, for one, was a “Lolita Express” passenger, according to flight logs obtained by Fox News in 2016. Those records show that Clinton took at least 26 trips aboard the private vessel from 2001 to 2003, traveling with fellow passengers, who were identified with their initials or first names, including the name “Tatiana,” according to Fox News. Epstein also financed a private plane that took Clinton, the actor Kevin Spacey, and the comedian Chris Tucker to Africa to tour HIV/AIDS project sites, according to a 2002 New York magazine profile on Epstein that cited Page Six. A 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Epstein also said that the supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and the sports and entertainment agent Casey Wasserman, the grandson of the Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, were on that trip. Clinton’s spokesperson, Angel Ureña, told The Associated Press that the former president took four trips on Epstein’s plane between 2002 and 2003, with staff and Secret Service always onboard. He added that Clinton “knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York … He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.” Other former passengers include the lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who has defended Epstein in court; Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard president; the supermodel Naomi Campbell; and the scientist Steven Pinker, according to flight logs of the jet obtained by Gawker in 2015…

All aboard the ‘Lolita Express’: Flight logs reveal the many trips Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz took on paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet with anonymous women – Flight logs for Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane dubbed the ‘Lolita Express’ were published for the first time on Thursday – They show that former President Bill Clinton boarded the plane with women believed to have been involved in creating underage sex slave ring – Alleged victim Virginia Roberts says she was recruited as a slave when she was 15, and that she was forced to have sex with both Prince Andrew and Harvard law profession Alan Dershowitz – The latter, she says, molested her mid-flight on the private jet – When confronted with the flight information by Gawker, Dershowitz admitted that he had known Epstein since 1997 and rode on the banker’s jet to attend Limited Brands CEO Les Wexner’s 60th birthday. And the ride up to Wexner’s birthday wasn’t just a one off thing. The logs show Dershowitz continued to fly on Epstein’s plane including a October 1998 flight from Massachusetts to New Jersey and a 1999 trip from New Jersey to Martha’s Vineyard. A 2005 jaunt from Massachusetts to Montreal shows Dershowitz traveled with Epstein, a woman named ‘Tatianna’ and others. Despite telling Gawker that he has a ‘very clear, unequivocal recollection’ of never being on a plane with ‘young women’ he has a hard time explaining who the single-named females are who scatter the flight logs. He said he doesn’t know who ‘Hazel’ or ‘Claire’ were, and that ‘Tatianna’ may have been a twenty-something woman who was friends with Epstein’s girlfriend, but that he never flew with her. And he also finds it hard to explain why his wife doesn’t appear to join him on the flights, who he publicly said accompanies him nearly everywhere in statements issued in the wake of the lawsuit….

New constitution vote in Russia. China and US’s possible coming war, and the role Russia would play. – Putin orders constitution changes allowing him to rule until 2036 – The longtime president’s move comes after voters approved the controversial changes during a week-long plebiscite. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered amendments that would allow him to remain in power until 2036 to be put into the Russian Constitution after voters approved the changes during a week-long plebiscite. According to a copy of the decree released by the Russian government on Friday, the amendments will come into force on Saturday. “The amendments come into force. They come into force, without overstating it, at the people’s will,” Putin said after he signed a decree to have the constitution revised. “We made this important decisions together, as a country,” the Russian president said during a video-conference with legislators who worked on drafting the amendments. The changes allow Putin to run for two more six-year terms after his current one expires in 2024, but also outlaw same-sex marriages, mention the “belief in God as a core value” and emphasise the primacy of Russian law over international ‘norms’…

Coronavirus Covid-19 denying priest – The Russian Orthodox Church has defrocked a coronavirus-denying monk who has defied Kremlin lockdown orders and taken control of a monastery with armed guards. A church panel in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg ruled to defrock Father Sergiy, who has attracted nationwide attention by urging believers to disobey church leadership and defy church closures during the pandemic. The monk did not show up at the session and dismissed the verdict. In a video posted by one of his supporters, he urged his backers to come to defend the Sredneuralsk women’s monastery where he has been staying since last month.  The church banned the monk from ministry in May, but he has continued preaching and last month took charge of the monastery outside Yekaterinburg that he had founded years ago. Scores of volunteers, including battle-hardened veterans of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, helped enforce his rules, while the prioress and several nuns have left. Father Sergiy has declared the coronavirus pandemic non-existent and denounced electronic passes introduced in Moscow and some other regions to stem the outbreak as “Satan’s electronic camp”… 

High Court recognises Guaido as Venezuelan president not Maduro even though he didn’t stand in the 2018 election. Bank of England refusing to hand over gold to Venezuela  – UK court denies Venezuela’s Maduro access to gold in bank vault – The UK recognises Guaido as Venezuela’s president, a judge says in a case over gold bullion held at the Bank of England.  A judge in London has said the UK government had “unequivocally recognised” opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s president, in a battle over gold bullion held at the Bank of England. The case was brought by the Banco Central de Venezuela, asking to release $1bn in gold reserves to help fund the cash-strapped country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. The Bank of England said it was unable to act on instructions because it was “caught in the middle” of competing claims for the presidency after disputed elections in 2018. A BCV board appointed by the government of Nicolas Maduro wants the gold released while a rival ad hoc board appointed by Guaido asked for the release to be denied. Commercial Court judge Nigel Teare, sitting at the High Court of England and Wales, was asked to rule on who was authorised to make the demand – Guaido or Maduro. In his judgement, he said on Thursday: “Her Majesty’s Government does recognise Mr Guaido in the capacity of constitutional interim president of Venezuela and, it must follow, does not recognise Mr Maduro as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela.”…

SNP MP calls on Johnson to deliver justice for murdered police officer at PMQs – An SNP MP has urged Boris Johnson to “reopen the criminal inquiry into the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher”. The question from Allan Dorans – a former inspector in the Metropolitan Police – came just days after John Murray, the former police officer who cradled WPC Fletcher as she lay dying in 1984, launched a civil legal action in a bid to get justice for his slain colleague. Fletcher was gunned down by shots fired from the Libyan embassy. Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk – a senior member of the “revolutionary committee” that ran the embassy – was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder in 2015 but the case against him was controversially dropped in 2017 on the grounds of national security. Last week it was revealed that the UK Government had secretly barred him from Britain. He was reportedly “excluded” from the UK by the Home Office in January 2019. Raising the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions, Dorans, the MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, said: “On 17 April 1984, I was a serving police officer in the Metropolitan police, when WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed while on duty policing a demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in London…

Murder In St James’s – watch the full April 1996 two-part C4 Dispatches documentary HERE Investigation into the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot whilst on duty during a protest outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984. The two-part documentary suggests that she was killed, not by someone inside the Embassy as originally claimed, but by a gunman in an adjacent building used by the British security services. [2 x 40mins]

YVONNE FLETCHER MURDERED BY OUR SPOOKS In 1984, in London, Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan people’s Bureau. – On 24 June 1997, Tam Dalyell MP questioned Prime Minister Tony Blair about the death of Yvonne Fletcher. Dalyell made particular reference to a Channel 4 documentary about the murder: “With the agreement of Queenie Fletcher, her mother, I raised with the Home Office the three remarkable programmes that were made by Fulcrum, and their producer, Richard Bellfield, called Murder In St. James’s. “Television speculation is one thing, but this was rather more than that, because on film was George Styles, the senior ballistics officer in the British Army, who said that, as a ballistics expert, he believed that the WPC could not have been killed from the second floor of the Libyan embassy, as was suggested. “Also on film was my friend, Hugh Thomas, who talked about the angles at which bullets could enter bodies, and the position of those bodies. “Hugh Thomas was, for years, the consultant surgeon of the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast, and I suspect he knows more about bullets entering bodies than anybody else in Britain…

A decision was announced in May 2017 that for reasons of “national security” Yvonne Fletcher’s murder suspect, Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, would not be taken to court. Senior policing sources told The Telegraph that the case against Mabrouk was dropped after a decision taken at the “highest level”. The source added: “Number 10 was involved.

Interview with Amy and Tom, two Hong Kongers living in Bristol, who are campaigning to keep their freedoms in Hong Kong, and are appalled by the new National Security Law just brought in – they explain how the new law effects protesters and anyone defying the authoritarian rule of China: media in China and lack of freedom of speech; China supporters in Bristol spying on the protesters; is it safe for them to go back to Hong Kong? Huawei head held in Canada, precipitated China’s actions? 

Details of China’s new Hong Kong National Security laws, which were both made public for the first time and came into affect on Wednesday 01 July 2020. Crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces punishable by up to life in prison. – The activities of a new national security agency and its personnel in Hong Kong will not be under the jurisdiction of local government. – The central government in Beijing has an overarching responsibility for national security affairs in Hong Kong. – Anyone convicted of violating security legislation will not be allowed to stand in any Hong Kong elections. – Rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech, of the press, of publication, of assembly and demonstration, will be protected in accordance with the law. – Companies or groups that violate a national security law will be fined and could have operations suspended. – Damaging certain transportation vehicles and equipment will be considered an act of terrorism. – Authorities can surveil and wiretap persons suspected of endangering national security. – The law will apply to permanent and nonpermanent residents of Hong Kong. – The law says the management of foreign NGOs and news agencies in Hong Kong will be strengthened. – The leader of Hong Kong will appoint judges for national security cases – Property related to crimes under legislation could be frozen or confiscated – Mainland authorities will exercise jurisdiction in “complex” cases such as those involving a foreign country, or serious situations that pose a major or imminent threat to national security…

China forcing birth control on Uighur women to curb Muslim population, major report finds – One expert says the evidence uncovered shows the state is engaged in “genocide, full stop”. The Chinese government is forcing Uighur women and members of other minorities to take birth control as part of a campaign to curb its Muslim population, according to a major investigation. A report issued by the Associated Press said government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees and a former detention camp instructor indicated efforts to slash birth rates was far more widespread and systematic than previously known. The alleged programme has been conducted by the state even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children and was described by some experts as “demographic genocide”…

Zheng Yanxiong: China appoints hard-line Hong Kong security chief – To understand Zheng Yanxiong you need to know about a Guangdong village called Wukan. In 2011, disaffected locals forcibly expelled government officials from the area, accusing the officials of grabbing their land in a series of corrupt deals with developers. A blockade ensued and, as part of a negotiated settlement to defuse tensions, the locals were given the right to elect their own council. It became a grass roots democratic exemption in China. Five years later, the residents – angry that no money had been paid for the stolen land – started marching in the streets again. The situation escalated after their elected leader was taken away by the authorities on what are thought to have been trumped up charges. The empowered locals were in charge of their own affairs and they believed they could achieve justice. But when the Communist Party became fed up with this rebellion it was over to senior cadre Zheng Yanxiong and others to deal with it. Hundreds of riot police were ordered in to seize control, making mass arrests and crushing the “Wukan experiment”. Since then this Cantonese-speaking enforcer has moved up through the ranks with a reputation for doing whatever is necessary. Now he’s in charge of a new security agency in Hong Kong which operates without any legal restraints whatsoever, and which no other agencies can touch.

Interview with Edwin Black, author of ‘IBM and the Holocaust’, about algorithm ghettos and ‘Newgenics’: China’s Social Credit system; RFID, chipping and a cashless society. Award-winning author Edwin Black joins us to discuss “Newgenics” and the Chinese-style “Social Credit Score” system which he believes will ultimately come to every nation on earth and which has been greatly accelerated by Covid-19. He describes how a person within such a system will become relegated to the “Algorithm Ghetto” with a “Non-Entity” or “Zombie” status. He looks at what this means for the future and what, if anything, individuals or nations can do to mitigate such a dystopian scenario.

Show Notes – “Digital ghetto,” “cashless society” pose threats even beyond Orwell, journalist contends – One of the biggest threats facing the U.S. today is the “algorithm ghetto, the digital ghetto, the electronic ghetto,” Chicago journalist and Jewish historian Edwin Black told a group of Flint residents Friday while on a statewide tour as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 12. Alluding to recent studies suggesting that memories of the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews during World War II are fading, especially among American youth, Black said the “electronic ghetto” means that facts, history, even accounts of personal travails can be controlled, deleted with the click of a button. Black’s appearance, to a group of about 30 at the Knob Hill Bed and Breakfast, was part of a visit sponsored by the Flint Jewish Federation that also included a speech at Mott Middle College later in the day. He had spoken earlier at Grand Valley State University and at the Michigan State University Law School…

‘Living In a Algorithm Ghetto’ Glen Beck – When your life belongs to the state…Save Baby Alfie Evans…UK court sets date for toddler’s life support to end…Pope Francis is willing to help, but he’s not allowed to? …Author Edwin Black joins Glenn in studio to discuss his new book ‘The War Against the Weak’…more than one lens of eugenics to look through?….undesirables vs. those intending to craft a superhuman race…it won’t be about our skin color; it will be about our corporate worth?…the algorithm ghetto?…the rewriting of history is under way…China moves to rate its citizens by 2020

The Edwin Black Show Episode 1: Nuremberg for COVID-19 – Is a Nuremberg-style tribunal needed to determine guilt and consequences if the COVID-19 pandemic indeed arose out of a deliberate Chinese government cover-up? Famed civil rights jurist Nathan Lewin, in Washington, DC, and Richard Heideman, international jurist specializing in terror cases and author of The Hague Odyssey: Israel’s Struggle for Security on the Front Lines of Terrorism and Her Battle for Justice at the United Nations, also in Washington, DC, joined Edwin to explore this issue…

Edwin Black https://edwinblack.com – The Edwin Black Show https://theedwinblackshow.com – Twitter https://www.twitter.com/EdwinBlackBook  Edwin Black is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling international investigative author of 200 award-winning editions in 20 languages in 190 countries, as well as scores of newspaper and magazine articles in the leading publications of the United States, Europe and Israel. With more than 1.6 million books in print, his work focuses on human rights, genocide and hate, corporate criminality and corruption, governmental misconduct, academic fraud, philanthropy abuse, oil addiction, alternative energy and historical investigation. Editors have submitted Black’s work thirteen times for Pulitzer Prize nomination, and in recent years he has been the recipient of a series of top editorial awards. He has also contributed to a number of anthologies worldwide…

5G, the new track of the arms race – While Canada has just authorized the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of one of Huawei’s leaders, to the United States, the U.S. Congressional Research Service exposes the military component of the G5. – A Congressional Research Service paper (see below) explains that this fifth-generation mobile data technology can have “many military applications. One such application is for “autonomous military vehicles,” that is, robotic air, land and naval vehicles capable of autonomously performing attack missions without even remote control. This requires the storage and processing of an enormous amount of data that cannot be carried out solely on board the autonomous vehicle. The 5G will allow this type of vehicle to use an external data storage and processing system, similar to the current Cloud for personal file storage. This system can make possible “new military operational concepts”, such as “swarming”, in which each vehicle automatically connects to the others to carry out the mission (e.g. an air attack on a city or a naval attack on a port). 5G will make the entire command and control system of the US armed forces more powerful on a global scale: currently – explains the document – it uses satellite communications but, because of the distance, the signal takes some time to arrive, causing delays in the execution of military operations. These delays will be virtually eliminated by 5G. It will play a decisive role in the use of hypersonic weapons, which, also equipped with nuclear warheads, travel at more than 10 times the speed of sound. 5G will also be extremely important for the secret services, making possible much more effective control and espionage systems than the current ones. “5G is vital to maintaining America’s military and economic advantages,” the Pentagon said.

Public trust in media plummets in UK with just 28% trusting most news – research – Trust in news in the UK is among the lowest in the world, according to the data.   Just 28% of people in the UK said they trust “most news most of the time”, according to a poll in January this year, down from 40% in January 2019. Trust in news in the UK is among the lowest in the world, according to data in The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Digital News Report 2020, which found that overall trust in the media continues to fall globally.

Covid-19 has prompted boom for TV news, dip in media trust worldwide and surge in misinformation – 2020 Digital News Report – “Consensus has already started to break down as normal activities resume and disagreements resurface about the best way to manage the recovery. Any ‘trust halo’ for the media may… be short-lived.” But as the coronavirus broke out, the report said overall levels of trust in the news globally (across 40 countries) were at the lowest point since it had begun to track the data, with 38% saying they trust news overall. In the UK alone this fell to 28%. The authors offered the explanation that “divided societies seem to trust the media less”, perhaps because news outlets “carry more views that people disagree with”. In the last five years Britain has faced the Brexit vote and what the report described as a “toxic political campaign” in December 2019 that returned Boris Johnson and the Conservatives to power. Splitting the UK sample of more than 2,000 adults by political leaning, only 15% of those on the left agreed with the statement: “I think you can
trust most news most of the time,” compared with 36% for the right….

Radio4All download pages
BCfm audio file – [right click to download]
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Complete 120 minute show – [right click to download]