Friday 7th September 2018

BCfm’s weekly Politics Show presented by Tony Gosling

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

Listen live http://www.bcfmradio.com/player or http://stream.bcfmradio.com:7017/live.mp3

BCfm audio files usually available 1hr, Radio4All 3-4hrs, after TX
Any probs mp3s should be on alternative links below by then

First hour: news review: Opinion: Why Bristol has been short-changed by the arena decision. The chair of Bristol Hoteliers Association explains why Bristol has been ‘short changed‘ – Bristol Arena: ‘Contempt for democracy’ and ‘balance sheet decision’ – reaction to plans to scrap city venue – The decision is both loved and loathed – News that Bristol’s long awaited arena will not be built in the city centre has provoked mixed reactions. From hailing Bristol Mayor, Marvin Rees’ bravery to claims of an abuse of democratic process – feelings about the decision are running high. The Labour Mayor officially passed plans to scrap the arena project on Temple Island at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, September 4. Instead the council will push forward with asset managers Legal & General to develop a conference centre, hotel, housing, offices and shops on the land. The news has been welcomed and criticised in equal measure. Conservative group leader, Mark Weston, has voiced his concern at Mr Rees’ decision. “We believe that the Mayor has made the wrong decision for the city – The Arena Island is the best site for the arena,” Mr Weston said. “The Mayor even agreed with this on Monday night. Then 24 hours later in a feat of intellectual gymnastics his cabinet decided to kill off the whole idea. “They are taking a gamble with the city’s desire to have an arena. I am afraid that Bristol has once again been let down by Labour.”

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Second hour: Investigative reports: Skripals – The Mystery Deepens, by Craig Murray – The time that “Boshirov and Petrov” were allegedly in Salisbury carrying out the attack is all entirely within the period the Skripals were universally reported to have left their home with their mobile phones switched off. A key hole in the British government’s account of the Salisbury poisonings has been plugged – the lack of any actual suspects. And it has been plugged in a way that appears broadly convincing – these two men do appear to have traveled to Salisbury at the right time to have been involved. But what has not been established is the men’s identity and that they are agents of the Russian state, or just what they did in Salisbury. If they are Russian agents, they are remarkably amateur assassins. Meanwhile the new evidence throws the previously reported timelines into confusion – and demolishes the theories put out by “experts” as to why the Novichok dose was not fatal. This BBC report gives a very useful timeline summary of events. At 09.15 on Sunday 4 March the Skripals’ car was seen on CCTV driving through three different locations in Salisbury. Both Skripals had switched off their mobile phones and they remained off for over four hours, which has baffled geo-location. There is no CCTV footage that indicates the Skripals returning to their home. It has therefore always been assumed that they last touched the door handle around 9am. But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals’ doorknob before noon at the earliest. But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras. Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught frequently on CCTV on arriving. The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital. So even if the Skripals made an “invisible” trip home before being seen on Devizes Road, that means the very latest they could have touched the doorknob is 13.15. The longest possible gap between the novichok being placed on the doorknob and the Skripals touching it would have been one hour and 15 minutes. Do you recall all those “experts” leaping in to tell us that the “ten times deadlier than VX” nerve agent was not fatal because it had degraded overnight on the doorknob? Well that cannot be true. The time between application and contact was between a minute and (at most) just over an hour on this new timeline. Israel Armed, Funded 12 Different Syrian Rebel Groups: Rebels assumed Israel would save them during southern offensive. New reports on Israel’s arming and funding of Syrian rebel groups reveals that no less than 12 rebel factions, all in southern Syria, were on the receiving end of Israeli aid. This included weapons, ammunition, money, and even some armored vehicles. The story about arming Syrian rebels actually broke Wednesday with the Jerusalem Post, though Israeli military censors shut this down quickly. Once the foreign-based Foreign Policy came out with its own version Thursday, Israeli media were quick to follow, suggesting the censors gave up on trying to keep this secret.

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Friday 31st August 2018

BCfm’s weekly Politics Show presented by Tony Gosling

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

Listen live http://www.bcfmradio.com/player or http://stream.bcfmradio.com:7017/live.mp3

BCfm audio files usually available 1hr, Radio4All 3-4hrs, after TX
Any probs mp3s should be on alternative links below by then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVUF_zsogDY

First hour: news review: with Bristol North West Labour MP Darren Jones. Examining use of algorithms in the criminal justice system. Police should not keep suspects locked up because a computer program has told them they are likely to be offenders, a human rights group has told MPs. Algorithms that predict whether someone is a criminal based on past behaviour, gender and where they live could be “discriminatory”, Liberty said. The human rights group was giving evidence to the Commons science and technology committee. The MPs are investigating the growing use of algorithms in decision making. They are concerned businesses and public bodies are relying on computer programs to make life-changing decisions – despite the potential scope for errors and misunderstandings. Durham Police have already launched a system which uses algorithms to help decide whether to keep a suspect in custody. The Harm Assessment Risk Tool (HART) uses historical data on offending to classify suspects as low, medium or high risk of offending. The tool uses information such as offending history, the type of crime a suspect has been accused of, their postcode and gender. It’s not just Russia. China, North Korea, and Iran could interfere in 2018 elections, too. National Security Adviser John Bolton said four countries — including Russia — may try to interfere in November’s elections. National Security Adviser John Bolton is warning that Russia is working to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections. That may not surprise you, but this might: He’s warning that three other countries are doing it, too. In a Sunday interview on ABC’s This Week, Bolton said the Trump administration is worried that China, North Korea, and Iran have stepped up their efforts to meddle ahead of the November vote. “I can say definitively that it’s a sufficient national security concern about Chinese meddling, Iranian meddling, and North Korean meddling that we’re taking steps to try and prevent it,” Bolton told anchor Martha Raddatz. “So all four of those countries, really.” MI5 agents can commit crime in UK, government reveals. Secret order on authorised criminality by spies made public after legal battle by rights groups. MI5 agents are allowed to carry out criminal activity in the UK, the government has acknowledged for the first time. The prime minister was on Thursday forced to publish the text of a direction to the Investigatory Powers. Commissioner’s Office, the spying watchdog, on governing “security service participation in criminality”. It instructs the IPCO to oversee the participation of MI5 agents in criminal activity, which was previously conducted by the now-defunct office of the Intelligence Services Commissioner, under a secret order referred to as the “third direction”. However, guidance about when British spies can commit crimes, and how far they can go, remains confidential. The commissioner, Lord Justice Sir Adrian Fulford, said: “I welcome the government’s decision to make public my oversight of this sensitive area of work.” The order was published after a legal battle by the human rights groups Reprieve and Privacy International. Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve, said: “After a seven-month legal battle the prime minister has finally been forced to publish her secret order but we are a long way from having transparency. “The public and parliament are still being denied the guidance that says when British spies can commit criminal offences and how far they can go. “Authorised criminality is the most intrusive power a state can wield. Theresa May must publish this guidance without delay.” GOSCC nerve centre based in Wiltshire’s leafy lanes at Corsham: It is hard to believe that the central communications hub for the entire British Army sits unassumingly on the outskirts of the quiet Wiltshire market town of Corsham. Yet while we have been watching events in Libya unfold on our TV screens over the last few months, it was a very different kind of screen watching on view at the new MoD Corsham base. The centre, at Westwells Road, in Neston, is home to GOSCC – the Global Operations Security Control Centre – a top secret centre which houses up to 600 specialists working behind the scenes to make huge military operations such as those in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq a reality. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to describe GOSCC as something akin to the control rooms seen see in James Bond or disaster movies. The ‘wow’ factor hits you as you enter the huge circular room, which has rows of operations desks facing a series of giant screens displaying highly sensitive data on the whereabouts of satellites and personnel on the ground. Some of the screens were blacked out for our arrival. There is an eerie stillness about the room, and Royal Navy Captain Chris Parsons, who heads the operation, said: “It is always calm in here. You waste as much energy panicking as you do when you are thinking so we do the latter. “At pinnacle moments in operations you might see some worried faces walking across the room, but generally we stay very calm.” GOSCC is a 24/7, 365 days per year operation and its works affects the daily lives of 300,000 personnel scattered across the world. As well as military, RAF and Navy personnel, specialists from companies such as BT, Atlas and Paradigm monitor telephone lines and satellite activity in space, and a special crack team work on cyber threats. As his isolation intensifies, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange faces possible threat of eviction, extradition. LONDON — For Julian Assange, the world’s most famous whistleblower, freedom could be dangerous. As his residency at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London enters its seventh year, the self-styled cyber revolutionary – WikiLeaks’ founder and controversial publisher of some of the world’s most closely guarded official secrets – is facing a pair of converging crises that have left his allies fearing for his wellbeing and his safety. Inside the embassy, he is living an increasingly secluded existence, having been stripped of his phones, computers and visitor privileges after running afoul of the very government that gave him asylum. Outside the embassy, he is embroiled in the global political scandal surrounding Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, with questions about his role in that drama being raised by friends and foes alike. In more ways than one, the very walls protecting Assange also appear to be closing in. “Life goes on outside the embassy,” journalist Vaughan Smith, one of Assange’s staunchest supporters and perhaps the last friend to visit him, told ABC News. “But life doesn’t go on inside.” Veteran Labour MP Frank Field has quit the party’s group in Parliament, saying the leadership is becoming “a force for anti-Semitism in British politics”. The Birkenhead MP also blamed a “culture of intolerance, nastiness and intimidation” in local parties. A month ago he lost a confidence vote in his constituency party, after siding with the government in Brexit votes. Jeremy Corbyn has apologised for hurt caused by anti-Semitism in the party and pledged to stamp it out. A Labour Party spokesman said: “Jeremy Corbyn thanks Frank Field for his service to the Labour Party.” But a Labour source claimed “Frank has been looking for an excuse to resign for some time.” Darren runs regular pub and picnic events and has to dive off for one now. Alex Salmond resigns from SNP after sexual misconduct claims. Former leader of Scottish National party quits to fight allegations that he denies. Banks are preparing for house prices to fall by a third after Brexit – House prices falling by a third, interest rates soaring by more than 4% and the economy going into recession – it’s the prediction from the Bank of England on what will happen in the event of a no deal Brexit. BOE boss Mark Carney made the dire warning today that there is an ‘uncomfortably high’ risk that Britain will leave the European Union without a deal and it could have devastating consequences. After his comments, the pound sterling plunged to an 11-day low against the dollar. The Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney said a no deal Brexit is ‘highly undesirable’ (Picture: EPA) Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Carney said that the event of no deal was ‘highly undesirable’ and that Britain and the EU should do everything possible to avoid it. ‘I think the possibility of a no deal is uncomfortably high at this moment,’ he said. Man, 21, charged with murders of ex-girlfriend and her mum in Solihull ‘Our job is to look at what could go wrong and what we could do to make sure that the bank is in a robust position so it lessens the impact of a no deal Brexit. ‘We have made sure that banks have the capital, the liquidity that they need and we have the contingency plans in place if there were to be a no deal Brexit.’
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Second hour: Investigative reports: 21 year old Hong Kong democracy party founder Joshua Wong. Israel Threatens to Use Nuclear Weapons to ‘Wipe Out’ its Enemies. Standing next to a secretive Israeli atomic reactor earlier in the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to “wipe out” his enemies. In a speech that many will see as the Jewish state breaking its long silence over the possession of nuclear weapons, the Likud leader warned that it has the means to destroy its enemies.  At Dimona reactor, Netanyahu warns Israel’s foes they risk ruin. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a visit to a secretive Israeli atomic reactor on Wednesday to warn the country’s enemies that it has the means to destroy them, in what appeared to be a veiled… He said on Wednesday during a ceremony to rename the complex, near the desert town of Dimona: “Those who threaten to wipe us out put themselves in a similar danger, and in any event will not achieve their goal.” The site has long been suspected to be the location where Israel has been developing nuclear weapons. The ceremony was postponed several times as not to draw attention to Israel’s nuclear capabilities amid the struggle against Iran’s nuclear program. Iran hit back by describing Netanyahu as a “warmonger”.  The threat of “atomic annihilation” against the Islamic Republic was denounced as “beyond shameless in the gall”. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his official Twitter account: “Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, is threatened with atomic annihilation by a warmonger standing next to an actual nuclear weapons factory.” Pro-democracy political party Demosisto to shift focus away from seeking Hong Kong Legislative Council seats as it supports social movements. Group co-founded by Occupy movement leader Joshua Wong and disqualified lawmaker Nathan Law cites deprivation of its members’ ‘political rights’. Hong Kong’s youngest political party co-founded by student activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung has declared it will shift its focus from contesting elections to backing social movements, claiming officials have blocked its path to the city’s councils. The “declaration of transition” was issued on Friday at the party’s second anniversary dinner, attended by Wong, a leader of the pro-democracy Occupy movement of 2014,and Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a disqualified lawmaker who co-founded and recently led the organisation. “We considered Demosito a political party when we founded it, with participation in electoral politics an important direction,” the statement read. “After our members were being repeatedly deprived of their political rights, the road to election has clearly been suspended.” Law was elected to the Legislative Council two years ago, but was disqualified last year by the court over his improper oath-taking in October 2016. Demosisto put forward a candidate, its standing committee member Agnes Chow Ting, to try to retake Law’s seat in a special by-election. However, officials banned Chow from running on the grounds that Demosisto’s call for self-determination was “unconstitutional”. Law stepped down last week from his post as party chairman, while vice-chairwoman Tiffany Yuen Ka-wai quit the party – a move seen as a tactic to avoid the risk of being banned from standing in the district council elections next year. The new chairman, Ivan Lam Long-yin, said on Tuesday the party would not commit resources to waging election campaigns. We will adjust our focus towards civil society and devote our energy to policy advocacy. Conceding a difficult road ahead while claiming suppression by the government, Demosisto said it would continue to stand in the frontline of the city’s democracy movements. “In the future, we will adjust our focus towards civil society and devote our energy to policy advocacy,” the party said in its statement. “We will strive to connect with more Hongkongers in the coming battles and democracy movements.” It added that party members needed to prepare for what it called a key point of contention: a national security law.
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Friday 24th August 2018

BCfm’s weekly Politics Show presented by Tony Gosling

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

Listen live http://www.bcfmradio.com/player or http://stream.bcfmradio.com:7017/live.mp3

BCfm audio files usually available 1hr, Radio4All 3-4hrs, after TX
Any probs mp3s should be on alternative links below by then

First hour: news review:  with Green councillor for Ashley Jude English – Average UK worker is earning £680 a year less than a decade ago as low-paid jobs drive rise in employment, think tank claims: The average British worker is earning nearly £680 a year less than they were a decade ago as low-paid jobs have replaced many of those lost in the recession, a think-tank claimed today. Unemployment in the UK might be at a 40-year low of 1.36million – but the report suggests those in work are earning £13 a week less on average than before the recession precipitated by the 2008 financial crisis. The Resolution Foundation observes that more than two million more people have found work since unemployment peaked in that slump – more than half of which are from the poorest third of households. – Property asking prices slump £7k in a month and expert says sellers now need to make more ‘substantial’ discounts to entice buyers. Asking prices fell by £7,218 between July and August to £301,973. But they are still higher than last year, having risen by 1.1%. Major drag came from ‘more subdued’ market in London and the South East. The housing market continues to show signs of a slowdown as asking prices dropped 2.3 per cent over the past month, according to new figures. The average listed home fell £7,218 between July and August to £301,973, dragged down by sharp declines in London, according to Rightmove. The property portal, which has 90 per cent of all estate agent listings on its website, played down the price fall saying it was ‘seasonal’, although it is steeper than the 0.9 per cent fall recorded this time last year. – Labour MP says second Brexit referendum may lead to social unrest. Barry Gardiner says politicians must honour the promise they made to voters in 2016. A second referendum on Brexit could lead to social unrest and embolden the extreme right, a member of Labour’s shadow cabinet has said. The shadow international trade secretary, Barry Gardiner, said that even though he thought Brexit would make the UK poorer in the short and medium term, it would be wrong to try to stop it by holding another referendum because that would appear undemocratic. His comments were immediately criticised by strongly pro-European LabourMPs who argued that dismissing a second referendum on these grounds was illogical. Gardiner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that, although he supported remain, it was important for politicians to honour the promise they made to voters in 2016 that how they voted in the referendum would decide this issue for good. Although Brexit would be damaging economically, there was “more to this than simple economics”, he said. “If you then say to people: ‘We did give you a vote here and we, the remainers, lost the vote, but because you were stupid enough to do what you wanted rather than what we wanted … we’ll give you another chance to get it right,’ that undermines the whole principle of democracy in this country.” He went on: “You never give as much succour to the extreme right as when you cut off the mechanism of democratic change. “If people want to be able to achieve change through democratic means, if they feel that that is being denied to them, they then turn to other, more socially disruptive ways of expressing their views, and that is the danger here.” – Members of the Satanic Temple used a statue of the occult deity Baphomet to protest a Ten Commandments monument in Little Rock, Arkansas. The 8.5-foot-tall statue, which depicts the winged half-goat, half-man, with two children at its side, was briefly installed in front of the State Capitol building on Thursday as a symbol of free speech and plurality of beliefs, organizers told NPR. It was also meant to protest the explicitly Christian values promoted by a Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds, in keeping with the Satanic Temple’s belief that religious displays should not be placed on public property. “We have as little interest in forcing our beliefs and symbols upon you as we do in having the beliefs of others forced upon us,” Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves said during a rally Thursday, NPR reports.
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Second hour: Investigative reports: Democrats are incredibly cautious about discussing Trump’s impeachment even after 2 of his top aides have been convicted. The possibility of President Donald Trump’s impeachment is center stage after his former longtime lawyer took a plea deal and his former campaign manager was convicted on several felony counts this week. One group avoiding the topic? Democrats. President Donald Trump’s former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to eight counts of federal felonies on Tuesday — including two in which he implicated his old boss as a co-conspirator. – Lithuania and Israel are “natural allies,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a joint news conference held Thursday in Vilnius with his Lithuanian counterpart, Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis. Netanyahu, the first Israeli prime minister to visit Lithuania, told reporters the two countries “share the values of freedom and democracy” and that both are “proud of our national identity.” He went on to point out that Lithuania “stresses in its constitution that sovereignty belongs to the Lithuanian people while maintaining an unflagging democracy for all. “You take great pride in your customs, in your language, your unique heritage and your historic capital,” Netanyahu said. “I have to tell you, Prime Minister, all that sounds very familiar to us,” he commented, with a clear reference to the recent Basic Law: Nation-State of the Jewish People passed by the Israeli Knesset. “Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said. “We too are proud of our history, our long history, our robust and pluralistic democracy which guarantees the rights of all our citizens. We are proud of our language, an ancient language, Hebrew revived after thousands of years, our traditions and our historic capital Jerusalem to which I invite you and your colleagues.” – Manfred Petritsch at German language Alles Schall und Rauch (ASR) blog: Was Genoa’s Morandi Bridge blown up by Deep State as threat to Eurosceptic Italian government?
– Peripheral CCTV released shows flashes
– Why zero Autostrada CCTV showing bridge made public?
– Eyewitness reports of ‘loud bang’ or ‘explosion’
– Bridge in good condition
– Genoa the home of Peppe Grillo and Five Star (M5S)
– Explosion at Turin Lega party HQ too
– Italy wants parallel currency to the Euro
– Senior government ministers imposed by ECB
– Politicians cannot now do what they promised voters
– Previous acts of state terrorism in Italy
– VIDEO: After roadway fell, double flash before tower collapse – Davide Di Giorgio
– VIDEO: two peripheral CCTV cameras both indicate apparent flashes – released Monday 20th August
Morandi bridge – another witness reports of a blast: After more and more of the Survivors of the bridge no fall in Genoa from the hospital, be discharged, come to her statements. In the previous article, I had reported: “a witness confirmed an Explosion at the bridge in Genoa”. On Friday, the professional told the footballer Davide Capello what he experienced. He drove over the bridge when he heard a blast and the street below him to drop out from under me. As a trained firefighter, he immediately understood the bridge would be on the verge of collapse. Capello was at the center of the Morandi bridge arrived, he told on Friday, as “all the world collapsed.” The 33-Year-old said: “I heard a loud noise, a Bang. I saw the pillar of the road ahead of me collapse. A car in front of me went down. The car disappeared in the darkness in front of my eyes.” Volkswagen Tiguan crashed face-first into the deep and to hit, the Airbags opened around him. He said he saw only gray. Capello then used the Touch-Screen phone in the car, to call in case of emergency, the centre of Savona, the help sent. Then he called his girlfriend and his father, a retired fireman, told him that he should get out now, out of fear that something Heavy might fall on him. Since neither the Windows nor the doors of the car moving, broke he strap his safety, and climbed through the hole in the rear of the car, because the rear window had blown away. Outside arrived, he said, “there was an unreal silence.” “I am using my own legs dropped, “said Capello, for a series-C-Club in Liguria plays. “I don’t know whether anyone else has managed. I was saved by a miracle.” “The car has protected me. But God has the car to his Job, “he said. Capello was sacked on Thursday from the hospital, two days after the collapse. He said he had no major injuries. Thus, there is another direct witness, the of them reported a “thud”the car belongs to, what could have come from an Explosion on the cob. He then looked like this in front of him collapsed. Other witnesses saw a Thunder and a blast have experienced. Italian media reports, witnesses the further away were also a very loud Thunder heard. The Genoa-based newspaper “Il Secolo XIX” quotes a father of a family, who was with his wife and child on the access road to the bridge, as it came to a collapse. “We have a very loud Thunder heard and seen how it all collapses.” Also the region of the bridge was listening to collapse. “At the beginning we thought it would be a clap of thunder, very close, we have an incredible roar heard,“ said one of the witnesses to the bridge no fall, the Agency Ansa. “We live about five kilometers away from the bridge, but we have a hell of a Crash is perceived. We have a very frightened and scared.” But, in my opinion, is the best witness to a demolition of pier Giorgio, the following is told: “I sat with my mother at half past twelve in the car or in our house, almost directly under the bridge, as the environment suddenly brightly lit up, and a blast was, “says the 23-Year-old at the beginning of the accident. “The Funny thing, however, came only after that. Because suddenly the car was shaking. It even jumped up slightly, I couldn’t believe it. ‘Oh fuck,’ I called, ‘an earthquake'”. Note, he said, first of all, the surroundings of the bridge lit up bright and at the same time, there was a Bang. Then the earth that his car shook shook. He describes quite accurately the Detonation of explosives at the foundations of the support. – Italy’s Proposed Parallel Currency Is The Biggest Threat To The Eurozone, by John Mauldin in Forbes magazine. Italy’s new government, an unexpected coalition between two populist parties, could blow up the fragile trust that keeps Europe together. And the leading parties may even be planning for it. The discussions between Lega Nord and Five Star included an idea called the “mini-BOT” that would effectively serve as a parallel currency. The BOT is Italy’s Treasury bill, and as in the U.S., it serves as a kind of cash equivalent in electronic trading. The mini-BOT would be a government debt instrument in paper form that pays zero interest and never matures. The government would use it to pay social benefits and accept it for tax payments. Private businesses would not be required to accept it, but they could. Italy’s Bargaining Chip: You see where this goes. Italy might be able to use mini-BOTs (or let’s be honest and call them the new lira) to finance deficit spending without breaking eurozone rules. This could ultimately debase the euro and blow apart the eurozone. Germany would have to leave. From there, you can draw your own map.  – 65 years on CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup. Declassified documents describe in detail how US – with British help – engineered coup against Mohammad Mosaddeq. The CIA has publicly admitted for the first time that it was behind the notorious 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, in documents that also show how the British government tried to block the release of information about its own involvement in his overthrow. On the 60th anniversary of an event often invoked by Iranians as evidence of western meddling, the US national security archive at George Washington University published a series of declassified CIA documents. “The military coup that overthrew Mosaddeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government,” reads a previously excised section of an internal CIA history titled The Battle for Iran. The documents, published on the archive’s website under freedom of information laws, describe in detail how the US – with British help – engineered the coup, codenamed TPAJAX by the CIA and Operation Boot by Britain’s MI6. Britain, and in particular Sir Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, regarded Mosaddeq as a serious threat to its strategic and economic interests after the Iranian leader nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, latterly known as BP. But the UK needed US support. The Eisenhower administration in Washington was easily persuaded. British documents show how senior officials in the 1970s tried to stop Washington from releasing documents that would be “very embarrassing” to the UK.
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