Friday 21st September 2018

BCfm’s weekly Politics Show 

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:
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Second hour: Investigative reports: from Arnhem, Holland, Tony Gosling reports on the 74th anniversary of the battle of Arnhem where he’s doing a seminar ‘The Traitors of Arnhem?’ on Saturday about the deals being done between the Allies and the Nazis, sabotage of the battle, the trail of the Nazi loot at the end of the war, origins of the Bilderberg conferences ten years later, the creation of the E.U and Euro currency and funding of international organised crime today. Testimony 101st Airborne officer and sniper, Brian Christopher Boyenger, was in charge of Latvian and Georgian sniper squads inside Hotel Ukraine who killed nearly fifty Berkut police and civilians at Maidan protests on 20th February 2014. Documentary with English subtitles The Hidden Truth About Ukraine – Part 1; The Hidden Truth About Ukraine – Part 2 – Most historians talk about the battle as an ‘epic failure’, celebrating the courage of the paratroopers ‘against all odds’. But what few mention was that those odds were loaded less by the Nazis, than by elements within the Allied High command. The question is, why? A mystery which is one of the reasons thousands come to commemorate events year after year. Operation Market Garden took place shortly after the notorious ‘Red House Meeting, in Strasbourg’ where Nazi industrialists finalised deals they were cutting with the Allied establishment for them and their industries to survive and benefit once war was over. The Battles of Arnhem and Nijmegen are an historian’s ‘goldmine’ because, even 74 years after the battle, evidence is still emerging about what went wrong and right back in September 1944. Tony will present some of the latest evidence of the foreknowledge German Field Marshal Model had of the drops, which enabled him to place ‘reserve’ SS battle groups near Arnhem well beforehand. He will look at the link between the battle and Prince Bernhard’s historic ‘Bilderberg meetings’ which began ten years after the end of the war in Oosterbeek, the same pocket where the British paratroopers were isolated. Also evidence which emerged last year of Nazi nuclear tests which prove Germans had enriched uranium, an important bargaining chip as the war drew to a close. Some in the Allied high command were clearly paying more attention to feathering their own nests after the war than any kind of ‘race to Berlin’. Tony will look at evidence of ‘secret deals’ between Hitler’s treasurer Martin Bormann, who some say died outside the Führerbunker at the end of the war, and Churchill’s private secretary and ‘man of mystery’ Major Desmond Morton, for around a billion dollars of Nazi loot. Tony will also air recordings of exclusive interviews with some of the soldiers who were in Nijmegen and Arnhem, which point not to flaws in Montgomery’s plan, but incompetence at the top of the British Army verging on treachery. The result has been a modern world where the far right is again on the rise in Europe, in Ukraine too, where Cold War hatred of Moscow is being rekindled, and where Hitler’s Swiss banking financiers are again working against the interests of ordinary Europeans.
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Friday 14th 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: with Labour Councillor for Easton Afzal Shah and Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset police Andy Marsh. Councillor trying to report crime arrested as he ‘looked like’ suspect: A British Asian councillor has described his humiliation at being arrested and held in the back of a patrol car after being wrongly identified as a suspect when he went to his local police station to report a crime. Afzal Shah said he did not believe white colleagues on Avon and Somerset’s police and crime panel, on which he sits, would have been treated in the same way and accused some officers of institutional bias. Shah, whose role on the panel includes trying to make the West Country force more representative of the people it serves, claimed such mistakes undermined public confidence in the police. “I felt humiliated sitting in the back of a police car outside a police station,” he told the Guardian. “I’d done nothing wrong. I went in to report an offence and I was treated like that. There were people walking past looking, wondering what I was doing in the back of the car. People know me in that area very well.” The force has insisted its officers acted in good faith, but Shah, who represents an inner-city ward in Bristol, disagreed. “I do not believe the officers acted in good faith,” he said. “It falls far short of the expectations we have of our police officers. One of [Sir Robert] Peel’s principles is to serve by consent. The police is the public and the public is the police. This kind of behaviour causes people to lose confidence in the police. Knife crime increasing: Avon and Somerset police are dealing with knife offences every day on average. A third of those involved in knife crime are under 24. Knife crime convictions in Avon and Somerset are at their highest level in six years. Knife and offensive weapon offences led to 500 cautions or sentences in Avon and Somerset in 2017/18, the highest number in a year since 538 were recorded in 2011/12. Figures revealed under the Freedom of Information Act show that between January 1, 2018 and March 31 the same year – the most recent statistics available – police recorded 102 offences including knives or bladed instruments in just 92 days. They include 33 assaults that resulted in injury, 25 assaults with intent, one attempted murder, 36 robberies and seven threats to kill. The statistics show that the youngest victim of knife crime was less than 12-years-old, and that 68 men and 27 women found themselves on the wrong end of a blade in those three months, with six cases where the gender was not recorded by police. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown criticised police and The City a decade after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers and the £700 billion bailouts of bankrupt banks: Mr Brown said that the trade war US president Donald Trump has launched against China would be a major obstacle to any international co-operation in a future crisis. He said: “Trump’s protectionism is the biggest barrier to building international cooperation.” The former PM admitted that Labour should have been tougher on the City in the boom years leading up to the 2008 near meltdown. He said: “Yes, we did not know what was going on in some of the institutions, some of it illegal, and which was being covered up.” He added: “The penalties for wrong-doing have not been increased sufficiently. “The fear that bankers will be imprisoned for bad behaviour is not there. There has not been a strong enough message sent out that government won’t rescue institutions that haven’t put their houses in order.” The £166 trillion timebomb: Former Bank governor King warns debt will trigger the next financial meltdown – Lord Mervyn King was governor of the Bank of England as crisis hit – He warns it is essential to tackle global debt pile which stands at £166 trillion – King says private sector debt to GDP is now higher than before crash – By JAMES BURTON FOR THE DAILY MAIL 7 February 2018 A worldwide debt binge could trigger the next financial crisis and tip Britain back into recession, former Bank of England governor Lord King has warned. Households, companies and governments have borrowed ever-greater amounts of money since the Great Recession, egged on by central bankers who cut interest rates to record lows. As many as 1,950 youngsters under the age of 16 were groomed by drug kingpins and held by officers over the last 12 months for dealing crack cocaine and heroin say our Freedom of Information responses from 33 of the 44 police forces in England and Wales. In Liverpool, police said, among 86 children arrested last year for dealing drugs, two were 12 and five were 13. In London ­ where 486 child drug dealers were arrested ­ there were 16 times when boys and girls aged 13 were nabbed. And the statistics showed around one in 12 of those arrested were girls. Government admits role in Birmingham prison failure. Prisons minister takes share of blame for poor state of G4S-run jail being taken over by MoJ. The government bears a share of the blame for the state of HMP Birmingham, the prisons minister Rory Stewart has said, after the Ministry of Justice was forced to undertake an emergency takeover of the G4S-run jail. A report by the chief inspector of prisons, published overnight, found drug abuse and violence was rife, prisoners lived in squalid conditions and staff were afraid, sometimes locking themselves away from inmates. Prison staff in England and Wales have taken part in widespread protests over “unprecedented violence” in jails. Staff complained about safety within prisons, saying they had been attacked by gangs of inmates, been spat at and had urine thrown at them while on duty. The union said there were protests outside “a majority” of jails, which ended after six hours when the government agreed to talks on Monday. Prisons Minister Rory Stewart said the action was illegal. When it announced the suspension of the protest, the Prison Officers’ Association said the prison service had withdrawn the threat of court action against the union. General Secretary Steve Gillan said he was “confident a deal is a deal”, adding that he hoped “for meaningful, constructive dialogue” next week. The protests caused delays in courts because prisoners were unable to be transferred for hearings.
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Second hour: Investigative reports: Home front: Russian ‘spies’ Petrov and Boshirov say they work in fitness industry. The main event of September 13 in Russia is the interview, which Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov gave to RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan. The British authorities accused these two men of involvement in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury and referred to them as officers of the Russian military intelligence, GRU. First off, the two men acknowledged in the interview that those were their real names. “From the very beginning, we wanted to come to London and have fun there, it was not a business trip. Our friends have long recommended we should go to visit this wonderful town of Salisbury. We went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldn’t do it, because traffic in England was paralysed on March 2 and 3,” Petrov said. In Salisbury, they also wanted to see the town’s cathedral, which is famous for its spire. Petrov and Boshirov acknowledged that they could have passed by Sergei Skripal’s home, although they did not know where it was located. The two men also said that they did not bring any poisonous substances or Nina Ricci perfumes with them. “Isn’t it silly for two normal lads to bring women’s perfume along? When you go through customs control, they check all your belongings. If we had had something, they would have had questions as to why a man would have women’s perfume in his luggage,” Boshirov said. Boshirov and Petrov responded negatively to the question of their work for the Russian military intelligence, which is commonly referred to GRU, although its official name was changed several years ago. The men said that they work in the industry of fitness and sports nutrition. They confirmed that they had been to Switzerland several times as well, but mostly for tourism. The men said that their lived changed completely after their photos and videos were published in world media. “We can’t go out, we are scared, we are scared for our lives, for our loved ones, for those people who know us,” said Ruslan Boshirov. It is worthy of note that Petrov and Boshirov gave an interview to RT the day after President Putin appealed to them to come out to media representatives. also -> When I see a howling mob rushing to judgement and making at least some claims which are utterly unfounded, and when I see that mob fueled and egged on by information from the security services propagated by exactly the same mainstream media journalists who propagandised the lies about Iraqi WMD, I see it as my job to stand in the way of the mob and to ask cool questions. If that makes them hate me, then I must be having some impact. So I ask this question again – and nobody so far has attempted to give me an answer. At what time did the Skripals touch their doorknob? Boshirov and Petrov arrived in Salisbury at 11.48 and could not have painted the doorknob before noon. The Skripals had left their house at 09.15, with their mobile phones switched off so they could not be geo-located. Their car was caught on CCTV on three cameras heading out of Salisbury to the North East. At 13.15 it was again caught on camera heading back in to the town centre from the North West. How had the Skripals managed to get back to their home, and touch the door handle, in the hour between noon and 1pm, without being caught on any of the CCTV cameras that caught them going out and caught the Russian visitors so extensively? After this remarkably invisible journey, what time did they touch the door handle? I am not going to begin to accept the guilt of Boshirov and Petrov until somebody answers that question. Kiev coup, February 2014 Maidan massacre: REVEALED: The price of Ukraine’s ‘dignity’ – $5,000 – An Italian documentary reveals three Georgians who say they were the snipers on Kiev’s Maidan in 2014. The interviews with three snipers of Georgian nationality, conducted by the Italian journalist Gian Micalessin and aired as a breathtaking documentary on Milan-based Canale 5 (Matrix program) last week, still have not paved its way to the international mainstream media. That is hardly surprising taking into account the bombshell evidence against the real perpetrators and organizers of the 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev, generally known as the “revolution of dignity“. The documentary features Alexander Revazishvili, Koba Nergadze and Zalogi Kvaratskhelia, Georgian military officers who were recruited to carry out a “special mission” in Kiev by Mamuka Mamulashvili, a close aid of Mikhail Saakashvili’s former defense minister Bacho Akhalaia. They claim that on Jan 15, 2014 they landed in Kiev equipped with fake documents and were transfered to Maidan. Having received 1000 USD each one and being promised to be paid 5000 USD after the “job is done”, they were tasked to prepare sniper positions inside the buildings of Hotel Ukraine and Conservatory, dominant over the Maidan Square. Syria front: Terrorists Preparing to Use Chemical Weapons Against Children in Syria – MoD – According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the White Helmets, together with terrorists, have chosen 22 families with children, as well as orphans kidnapped from refugee camps to participate in their staged filming. “Terrorists from a group calling itself Tanzim Ḥurras ad-Din* [The Guardians of Religion Organization] are engaged in the direct preparation of sites for the detonation of containers loaded with poisonous substances during the shooting of a video about ‘chemical attacks’,” the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation reported. As the center reported, the terrorists are preparing to actually use chlorine-based poison substances against the participants of the shooting, in order to then blame the Syrian army for the chemical attack. According to the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation, the terrorists have selected 22 children with parents from Aleppo to participate in the staged attack. “22 children with their parents from… Aleppo province were selected by militants for the participation in the staged chemical attack. Another group, of orphans abducted from refugee camps, intended for the shooting of the lethal scenes, is now held in… the Iqab prison, controlled by the Nusra Front terrorists,” the center said. As the center noted, a number of Middle Eastern news sources and one US broadcaster have shot nine scenes of the staged chemical attack. “According to the irrefutable information of the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation, nine scenes of the alleged use of ‘chemical weapons’ by the Syrian troops against the civilians  were filmed on September 9 in the settlement of Jisr al-Shughur in the province of Idlib by the crews of a number of Middle Eastern channels and the regional affiliate of a US television news channel,” the center said. The White Helmets and Nusra Front terrorists have approved videos of two scenes, which will be transferred to the United Nations and the OPCW; the rest will be distributed in the social networks, the center revealed. “Following the filming in the evening of September 11, at a joint meeting of representatives of the White Helmets and the militants of the Nusra Front terrorist group, only two videos out of nine were approved for transfer to the United Nations and the OPCW following the order. The remaining videos, due to their poor quality, have been suggested for use in social networks,” the center said. As the Russian military unveiled, the White Helmets, a non-governmental organization, has been preparing for the filming of a staged chemical weapons attack with the participation of children in Syria’s Khan Sheikhoun on a daily basis since September 9. “The White Helmets activists have been preparing for the filming of a staged ‘chemical attack’ with the participation of up to 30 civilians, including about a dozen kids aged between 8 and 12, in the settlement of Khan Sheikhoun… on a daily basis since September 9,” the statement said. The Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation went on to say that it had registered signs of the preparation of other false flag chemical attacks taking place in one more town in Syria’s Idlib province. “According to the information received by the Reconciliation Center, provided by Idlib residents, signs of intensified preparation far staging false flag chemical attacks were recorded in the village of Kafir-Zait. Poison substances for use in provocations were delivered to the settlements of Kafr Nabudah and Qalaat al-Madiq,” the statement said. The statement was made a day after the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation reported that the mentioned staged footage had begun. As Syrian human rights activist and public figure Ammar Jamal had confirmed to Sputnik, a group of 30 representatives of the White Helmets had arrived to Idlib to organize a provocation. According to human rights activists, the White Helmets arrived on Tuesday morning with tanks containing an unknown gas. As the Russian military explained, the terrorists and militants plan to blame the fake attack on Syrian government forces. The situation is quite tense due to a recent Wall Street Journal report, which said that the US Defense Department might be considering the idea of striking Russian or Iranian military forces supporting the Syrian government if the latter launched an assault on Idlib province. The report added that the United States would specifically decide whether or not to strike Russian air defense installations. The air assault that took place on April 14 happened under similar circumstances; the United States, the United Kingdom and France launched over 100 missiles at multiple targets in Syria in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma that reportedly took place on April 7. The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons and said that the Jaish al-Islam terror group had staged the attack in order to summon a foreign intervention in the country. Nuclear expert witness Dr Chris Busby arrested as ‘bomb maker’ after winning cases against the Ministry of Defence. In 2015 and 2016 scientific papers published by members of the ECRR began to put extreme pressure on radiation risk model which is the basis for nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and the use of Depleted Uranium weapons. Furious British nuclear expert, 73, who appears on Russian state TV claims ‘irritating’ police arrested him on suspicion of making a bomb after he criticised the Government over radiation risks. Dr Chris Busby’s home in the sleepy Devon town of Bideford was raided by police. The scientist, 73, was in custody for 19 hours but released with no further action. Chemical weapons expert who appears on Russian TV said he’s irritated by the way police treated him during his arrest. Former research scientist Dr Chris Busby – an outspoken critic of the British Government’s handlings of the Salisbury poisoning – was held after officers reported feeling unwell during a raid on his property on Wednesday morning. Police had initially targeted the address in the sleepy seaside town of Bideford, Devon, over concerns for a woman’s welfare. The 73-year-old was arrested under the Explosives Act and spent 19 hours in custody.  Following his release Dr Busby told the BBC he believed that was down to ‘psychological problems associated with their knowledge of the Skripal poisoning’.
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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

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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Friday 17th 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 Labour councillor for Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston Jo Sergeant and Christine Townsend from the Counter Colston group Bristol libraries  – cuts generally;  John Kay, former head of Institute of Fiscal Studies, explaining steel and miners strikes were deliberately provoked by the Thatcher government, 1980s privatisation was a financial disaster but the main purpose was curtailing public sector trade unions;  Academy schools – have they worked? – difference between Academies and local authority schools; Colin Skellett, Merchant Venturer, in charge of Bristol Arena going to Filton, and in charge of Merchant Venturer schools; cuts to SEND (Special Education Needs and Disability); Children’s Charter announced by Mayor Rees; Why an Arena at Temple Island would be bad for Bristol – according to Marvin Rees 3rd Bristol Arena option? Could there be a third Bristol Arena location under consideration?  Somerset County Council next to go bankrupt: Somerset County Council responds over audit concerns at meeting – Liz Leyshon, LibDem member of Somerset County Council Audit Committee, discusses Council investments; Government £100m plan to eradicate rough sleeping;  Unemployment in the UK is now so low it’s in danger of exposing the lie used to create the numbers by Jim Edwards – Government statistics put unemployment in Britain at just 4.5% – a low not seen since the 1970s – But the real rate of unemployment is four times that;  Turns out the wreath Jeremy laid was ‘next to’ a wreath previously laid by others to the Munich terrorists – Anyone who can’t see this is a smear campaign needs their eyes testing –  PLO victims of Israeli air attack in 1985;  Tommy Robinson – a psychological war operation? TOMMY ROBINSON’S Release Proves It Was All a Bullshit Psy-Op For Dummies.
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Second hour: Investigative reports: Turkey – why an important country? Geographical; second biggest country in NATO; attempted coup in 2016.  A US trade war with Turkey over a little known pastor? Don’t believe a word of it. In Syria’s Golan, Russia seeks handover to UN peacekeepers. Apart from ‘a few problems with the Islamic State,’ Russian officer says ‘stability’ has returned to the buffer zone on the Israel border, but refuses to discuss Iranian presence – Russia seeking handover to UN peace keepers in Golan Heights. Israel’s ‘homeland security’ minister, Gilad Erdan, discusses terrorism by Palestinians: Israeli minister Gilad Erdan says Iran should ‘disappear’ from the world – The 2015 incident at the Al Aqsa mosque: Clashes as Israeli soldiers storm Al-Aqsa compound. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemns “attack” on Al-Aqsa following clashes at one of Islam’s holiest sites. 14 Sept 2015. Clashes have erupted after a number of Israeli soldiers entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, police and witnesses said.  The Israeli security personnel used tear gas and stun grenades, as they entered the compound to arrest what they called Palestinian “stone throwers”. Omar Kiswani, the manager of Al-Aqsa Mosque, told Al Jazeera that 80 “Jewish settlers” protected by the Israeli police, attacked the mosque when confronted by Palestinian volunteer guards. A statement issued by the Israeli police said that “masked protesters who were inside the mosque threw stones and fireworks at police”.  World Jewish Congress president fears impact of Israeli government’s ‘destructive actions’ .  Corbyn – Jewish wonder if Israel has lost it’s way*.  BBC managers bow to pressure from the Israeli government and change Gaza headline.  Israeli minister says Iran should ‘disappear’ from world.  Top Syrian scientist killed by Israel  NYT*.  The Israel lobby is leading a witch hunt against Corbyn – It has to stop.  China UN report – de Islamify.  Foreign Correspondants Club. Hong Kong pro-independence leader Andy Chan defies Beijing to speak at Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Amid heavy police presence, protesters set up camp outside premises as Andy Chan Ho-tin vowed not to bow to pressure and amend his script.  China biggest military exercises near Hong Kong: China makes its opposition to freedom clear: Hong Kong military garrison mounts its ‘biggest’ anti-terror drill. Haj pilgrimage tracking devices. Cruise missiles in Taiwan: Taiwan Positions Land-Attack Cruise Missile Toward Mainland China. Satellite imagery published by Kanwa Defense Review shows that Taiwan has positioned a land-attack cruise missile toward mainland China that is capable of targeting several cities along the country’s southeast coast.  China makes disrespect of President Xi or national anthem a crime. Church leader seven years in jail for building Christian school: “Chinese leaders have always been suspicious of the political challenge or threat that Christianity poses to the Communist regime,” said Xi Lian, a scholar of Christianity in China at Duke University. “Under Xi, this fear of Western infiltration has intensified and gained a prominence that we haven’t seen for a long time.” Some Christians have lost their jobs, been evicted from their homes, or even jailed for their faith. In March, a prominent Chinese house church leader was sentenced to seven years in prison after he built Christian schools in Myanmar. Jailed Chinese pastor’s US family seeks mercy. One million Muslim Uighurs are being held in China’s secret ‘reeducation camps’ says UN panel. Hat to monitor your mood that might get you sacked: China Is Going to Outrageous Lengths to Surveil Its Own Citizens. New tech—including drones disguised as birds—can be a nightmare for Muslims in particular. China’s new drone designed to look like a pigeon or dove.
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Friday 10th 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: Bristol Arena: In full: George Ferguson’s damning Bristol Arena letter – He doesn’t mince his words – In my interpretation of the Local Government Code of Conduct, this sorry sequence of events disqualifies the Mayor from being involved with the arena decision, both legally and morally. However it is clear that Mayor Marvin Rees has made up his mind and that his apparatchiks are now doing all they can to lobby and justify a decision that may favour the few, but is certainly against the will of the many. – Robbie Gillett @RobbieGillett Adblock Bristol co-founder, cycling enthusiast, climate justice organiser in the anti-fracking movement – Public objections to new digital advertising plans in Bristol are showing the council that people don’t want these intrusive, unwelcome screens in the city’s public spaces. But campaigners say that despite the decisive show of public opinion and a lack of understanding about the harmful impacts of this technology, we may still see new digital advertising screens in our city soon. The council received almost sixty objections against plans for a huge digital advertising screen on Stapleton Road in Easton. A new digital screen proposed opposite Temple Meads station has also proved a very unpopular idea with the public, and has been rejected by the council as it would be a distraction and safety risk at this busy junction, and it would dominate the view and detract from nearby listed buildings. Bristol mayor Marvin Rees’ annual council address in full – Bristol audit failings: BDO has revealed there are ten areas which still need to be completed in the report and these include “clarifications in respect of the exit package” of former chief executive Anna Klonowski. Ms Klonowski left her £160,000 role last September after just seven months to look after her sick parents. She was allegedly given a payment of £70,000 in lieu of serving her notice. Bristol Mayor, Marvin Rees, has constantly denied any wrongdoing and says the council was acting as a “caring employer” by allowing her to leave early. However, the controversial payment has dogged his term with opposition parties questioning if the payment was legally necessary or value for money. BDO carried out an earlier report which found Mr Rees had ignored financial good practice guidelines over the payment to Ms Klonowski. While the auditors found the Bristol Mayor had not acted illegally, it said the payment and sum should have been presented to the HR committee – a recommendation made as a result of the Bundred Review. It comes after former City Director – the equivalent of the chief executive role – Nicola Yates was given an alleged £200,000 pay off at the start of Mr Rees’ term in 2016. BDO said it is currently looking in to a “legal interpretation matter” associated with Ms Klonowski’s payment in lieu of notice agreement. The audit committee were also frustrated at delays with the completion of the heritage assets section of the audit. In the 2016/17 report the council’s heritage assets were valued at £100million, but this jumped to £201million in the 2017/18 balance sheet. Somerset audit failings: STAFF at Somerset County Council have been asked to take two days’ unpaid leave so the cash-strapped authority can save money The council is looking for new ways to generate savings after an official audit of its accounts warned it was in danger of “running out of money in two or three years” if no action was taken. As part of the effort to tackle what an auditor called “pervasive” over-spending, the council has proposed that staff take two days of compulsory unpaid leave over the Christmas break in both 2018 and 2019. The council believes that this proposal – which will go out to a trade union ballot in September – could save £1m over a two-year period. The proposal was detailed in a monthly briefing note which was circulated to all council staff. It outlines “a temporary change to terms and conditions for this year and the next.” The briefing says: “The proposal is that staff take two days’ unpaid leave during the Christmas week (Thursday, December 27 and Friday, December 28), with a third day (Monday, December 24) taken as annual leave, flexitime or working from home. Council eyeing more multi-million-pound investments as it confirms shopping centre deal. North Somerset Council has confirmed it has taken control over a shopping centre in Weston – but it is also looking for potential multi-million-pound investments elsewhere in the district. Tories launch probe into Boris Johnson over burka comments – According to the Evening Standard, the ex-Cabinet Minister’s comments will be looked at by an investigatory panel headed by a lawyer, with the mov. e set to be announced this afternoon. Mr Johnson has been under fire over a Telegraph article in which he said women who wear burqas looked like “post boxes” and “bank robbers.” – Israel running campaign against Jeremy Corbyn: An app operated as part of an Israeli government propaganda campaign issued a “mission” for social media users to make comments against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of anti-Semitism. This is the latest evidence of an Israeli campaign of psychological warfare against the UK’s main opposition party. The Act.IL app on Sunday falsely accused Corbyn of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany in a 2010 meeting which had been resurfaced by The Times last week. – Torrents of Online Tory Hate, Venom, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Xenophobia, Racism, Islamophobia and more… Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has yet to apologise for or distance himself from the vile abuse dished out online by his supporters. See our recent post featuring Matt Thomas’ stirling work listing Tory Criminals. And now, here is some equally disturbing content, expertly gathered by Chelley Ryan – Chelleryn99 on Twitter. It’s a relentless stream of venom, targeting prominent Labour politicians and some of their backers, much of it originating from supporters of aspiring Leader of Her Majesty’s Oppositon (one day), Jacob Rees-Mogg.  On this evidence, the Rees-Mogg stable appears to be a very dirty backwater and a hotbed of unaddressed cultural backwardness. Some of this hatred is directed at immigrants and refugees, or anyone they seem to regard as worthy of their attention and in the firing line for their bile – One of the UK’s biggest department stores collapsed — but was almost immediately rescued by a billionaire sports tycoon. The 169-year-old UK department store House of Fraser fell into administration on Friday after failing to secure a rescue deal. Sports Direct, the sports retailer run by billionaire Mike Ashley, bought the chain almost immediately for a reported £90 million. Accountants EY had been appointed to find a buyer for a House of Fraser, which employs 17,500 people across the UK. UK must adopt Norway-style trade deal or face a CALAMITOUS Brexit, Yanis Varoufakis warns: BRITAIN has been urged to secure an interim Norway-style trade deal with the European Union in a bid to ward off a ‘hard Brexit.’  EU blinked first! European leaders plan Brexit COMPROMISE deal – but will UK accept? – EUROPEAN leaders are considering offering the UK a Brexit deal which would end free movement and give Britain access to the single market for goods, but it may not be acceptable to Brexiteers. – Will the City of London become like a wasteland? Mark Carney ‘in EU interest to do a deal’ but no deal Brexit looming: Mark Carney: Chances of no-deal Brexit ‘uncomfortably high’. The pound dropped in the wake of the BoE chief’s comments. The possibility that Britain could leave the European Union without a deal in March 2019 is “uncomfortably high,” according to Bank of England chief Mark Carney, who stressed the financial system was “ready” to withstand the potential shock. “We have put the banks through the wringer well in advance,” Carney told the BBC’s Today program on Friday, referring to stress tests that he said would ensure the banks “are there to lend to the economy” and “advance instead of retreat.” National Crime Agency (NCA) prosecute low-hanging fruit traveller smugglers but leave international Mafia alone. People-smuggling gang who plotted to transport Albanian migrants across English Channel using jetskis facing jail. ‘Incompetent’ group charged £6,000 for route to Britain but lack of sailing experience led to repeated failures
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Second hour: Investigative reports: An explosive diplomatic spat this week shows how fragile the Saudi Arabian crown prince’s narrative may be. On Monday, Riyadh announced it would suspend trade with Canada and ordered the expulsion of the Canadian ambassador. It also withdrew its own envoy in Ottawa. The reason for the dramatic move? Last week, Canada complained about the arrests of a number of Saudi civil-society figures, including Samar Badawi, the sister of jailed blogger Raif Badawi. (His wife and three children now live in Quebec and became Canadian citizens last year.) Tweets from Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, and the Foreign Ministry itself championed human rights and the rights of female activists recently rounded up. – Britain is up to its neck in Yemen: it is the major supplier of the bombs dropped on Yemen, and of the jets used to drop them; it provides diplomatic cover to the Saudis (such as repeatedly blocking an independent investigation into Saudi war crimes); it supports the starvation blockade of the country; it provides training and logistical assistance to the Saudi armed forces; and it has 125 soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia, including six officers based in the Saudi command and control HQ “assisting with target selection”. Indeed, Britain may well have officers embedded in the Saudi army itself, given 2015’s “take out the trash day” admission that Britain has 177 military personnel embedded within the armed forces of several other, undisclosed, countries. Yet ministers continue to mislead parliament in claiming Britain is “not a party” to the war in Yemen. As Mark Curtis, a historian and analyst of UK foreign policy and international development, has noted. – Saudi Arabia-Canada spat: Here’s everything to know about the feud – Saudi Arabia crucified a man in Mecca while aggressively calling out Canada over human rights – Red Cross condemns ‘reprehensible’ Yemen attacks that killed 55 civilians – Yemeni government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition have been conducting an offensive to capture Hodeida from the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.  – Yemen: Dozens of civilians killed in school bus attack Red Cross says many children under 15 dead and wounded after air raid blamed on Saudi-UAE coalition hits bus in Saada. AP Investigation: US allies, al-Qaida battle rebels in Yemen – US Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital: A Travesty of History: Donald Trump was elected on the wave of a populist backlash. Like his predecessor, Barack Obama, he promised to roll back the USA’s global intervention, which does, after all, have more in common with Wilsonian Democratic internationalism than traditional Republican—Robert Taft—“America First” non-intervention. Indeed, Trump’s slogan of “America First” got the oligarchic and liberal cabals very nervous, recalling the non-interventionist movement in the USA prior to the Pearl Harbor. Like Obama’s promises, Trump’s were short-lived. Trump’s supposedly “America First” victory was quickly discarded, as the USA retained its position as the standard-bearer of a messianic mission to impose a global “American millennia,” and overtly “American millennialists” replaced the first rung of Trump appointees in quick succession. With Jared Kushner, an arch-Zionist, not only as the President’s son-in-law but as a nepotistic-type key adviser, “America First” was not going to be an easy choice, especially when Zionists and pro-Zionist so-called “neocons” have bamboozled many into thinking that the destinies of the USA and Israel are synonymous, and the two are joined at the hip. Hence, the Israel First lobbies attained a long-held and primary Zionist dream, to have the USA recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The reaction from Palestinians was of course, predictable, and this is not intended as a critical implication. Why should they, and indeed all Muslims, not be outraged? What should also be asked is: why are Christians also not outraged? The latter can be answered by the generations-old undermining of traditional Christian theology in the conjoining of two normally antithetical words “Judaeo” and “Christian.” – ‘Largest military entity yet’ against elected Assad government in Syria has just been formed by West, as ‘moderates’ merge with ‘extremist’ rebels – The devastating effects of crystal meth: Methamphetamine has been used worldwide for decades, devastating the communities where it is found. – Among these militant groups was a body called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, known for its links to Al Qaeda. Indeed, in 1996 Britain had secretly supported the LIFG in a bid to assassinate Gaddafi. So the impression is that groups connected to Al Qaeda were effectively Britain’s ‘boots on the ground’ in the war against Gaddafi. Crucially, Ramadan Abedi, father of the Manchester bomber, was a member of this same Libyan international fighting group. Salman Abedi may have fought with them, too. Many people will find it frankly incredible that Britain was linked to fighters who had vowed to wage war and destruction against the West. Yet this is something that has happened in a number of foreign conflicts. – Why has the Turkish lira slumped to a record low? What’s driving it down? And what does it mean for Turkey and others? – Why is President Trump impassioned about the case of an American Christian pastor being held “hostage” in Turkey? Plus, a dire warning from an award-winning novelist who fears Turkey is sliding into fascism.  All this, and much more, from CBN News correspondents Jennifer Wishon, Gary Lane, Ben Kennedy, John Waage and George Thomas as they discuss the plight of Pastor Andrew Brunson and future of US-Turkey relations. Turkey’s president claims the CIA and Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, are planning a rescue mission of American pastor Andrew Brunson. Turkey’s president Recep Erdogan reportedly told A-Haber TV, a channel owned by Erdogan’s son-in-law, that members of the CIA and Mossad are staying in houses and apartments near Mr. Brunson’s home. – Caracas requests arrest of politician accused of involvement in apparent attack against President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela has requested Interpol to arrest an opposition politician who is currently in neighbouring Colombia and accused of involvement in an apparent attack against President Nicolas Maduro. “We are seeking code red for Mr Julio Borges,” Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said on Friday, referring to the former speaker of the National Assembly. The request for an Interpol red notice – calling for police in another country to locate and provisionally arrest a suspect wanted in another – follows what Venezuelan officials said was a drone assassination attempt on Maduro. A drone loaded with explosives on Saturday detonated near a military event where Maduro was giving a speech. The president escaped unharmed but seven people were wounded. – Ehud Barak slams justice minister Ayelet Shaked as ‘proto-fascist’ for threat to Supreme Court: Former prime minister insists justices must overrule nation-state law, says Netanyahu has ‘no morals’ and has ‘skewed Zionism’ Former prime minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday slammed Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, saying her “threats” against Israel’s top court were like those of a “proto-fascist” state. Barak, in an interview with Army Radio, criticized Shaked for warning Sunday of an “earthquake” if the High Court of Justice were to overturn the controversial nation-state law, which is accused by some critics of discriminating against Israel’s non-Jewish minorities. “Threats like that are only heard in proto-fascist regimes,” Barak said. – Shaked to Corbyn: Labour needs zero tolerance on anti-Semitism. In comments by most senior Israeli official so far, justice minister urges UK opposition chief to expel those making anti-Jewish remarks. – A Nazi Travels to Palestine: Baron von Mildenstein and the S.S. support of Zionism in Germany from 1934-1936. Jacob Boas | Published in History Today Volume 30 Issue 1 January 1980 – In the spring of 1933 four people gathered on a platform of Berlin’s railway station ready to board a train for Trieste, where they were to take a ship bounds for Palestine. What made this group unusual was the fact that it was composed of two couples, one Jewish, the other Nazi, only two months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of the German Reich and his first legislation against non-Aryans. Yet the two couples were travelling with the sanction of both the Nazi (National Socialist German Workers) Party and the Zionist Federation of Germany. They were engaged in a mission whose invisible fellow-traveller ws the fate of German Jewry. – Hebron shooting: Footage shows ‘settler kicking knife towards Palestinian man’s body’ after soldier killed him The footage was shown in the trial of Elor Azaria, who shot Abdel Fattah al-Sharif dead following an attack – Israel supplies rifles to Azov batallion: Rights Groups Demand Israel Stop Arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Human rights activists petition the court to cease Israeli arms exports to Ukraine since some of these weapons reach neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine’s security forces – Documentary about Israel’s Secret Weapon: If Americans Knew: Israel’s Internet Censorship War – An exposé on Israel’s detailed projects – some public, some covert – to influence what people see on the Internet, and what they don’t. From the article, “How Israel and its partisans work to censor the Internet” http://iakn.us/2Ixc6LC – Twitter, important: A recent update to the Facebook Platform Policies ended the ability to automatically post Tweets to your Facebook profile or page, but so called fix doesn’t do anything! – Facebook locks out cross-posting from Twitter: The integration between Twitter and Facebook that could allow automatic posting of tweets and retweets to Facebook ended on August 1, 2018. Twitter announced the changes to the cross-posting capabilities urging users to learn new ways of sharing their tweets to Facebook after the lockdown. The changes were attributed to a recent change in the Facebook policies. ‘We’ve learned that Tweets and Retweets will no longer automatically post to connected Facebook accounts due to a recent Facebook update.  ‘A recent update to the Facebook Platform Policies ended the ability to automatically post Tweets to your Facebook profile or page, so your Tweets will no longer show up there,’ Twitter announced early in August. After shutting down the functionality, Twitter users will instead have to copy the link to the tweet they desire to share on Facebook and then move to paste and share manually on the social platform. Initially, you could connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts so that all your Tweets and Retweets are automatically posted to your Facebook wall. This is the feature that will no longer work given previously posts from sister platforms, Facebook and Instagram, appeared as links on Twitter. It was also possible to make automatic updates on a Facebook page you manage straight from your Twitter handle but this has since been halted in the new policy updates made by Facebook.  –  Facebook, Apple, Spotify and YouTube have removed content from radio talk show host Alex Jones, who has called the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting a hoax. Google’s YouTube removed Jones’ InfoWars channel Monday after taking other action in previous months. The move followed similar decisions by Apple and Spotify, which removed Jones’ podcasts shortly before Facebook removed Jones’ fan page and the one for his radio show InfoWars on Monday. “When users violate these policies repeatedly, like our policies against hate speech and harassment or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts,” a YouTube representative told The Hill. YouTube previously banned livestream videos from Jones for three months that contained hate speech against Muslims and transgender people and another video that included an instance of child endangerment late last month. He was also flagged for a violation earlier this year for posting a video in which he claimed Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg was a “crisis actor.” – The Purge: Paul Joseph Watson – Alex Jones Exposed: website www.alexjonesexposed.info has disappeared – here’s a copy of what was on there about links to the CIA and the Israeli state – CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (C.I.A.) OPERATIVES IN ALEX JONES’ FAMILY: etc etc – Former Alex Jones employees and guests speak out about the big problems going on at Infowars. Featuring: Rob Jacobson, Kurt Nimmo, Anthony Gucciardi, Aaron and Melissa Dykes, Luke Rudkowski, Jason Bermas, David Icke, Wayne Madsen and Jack Blood – Matthew Williams’ YouTube channel: The Secret Vault. Matthew Williams exposes some of the UK’s military secrets around RAF Rudloe Manor which is an enormous secret communications hub in Wiltshire dominated by the United States: Rudloe Manor and Corsham sites involvement in UFO investigations discussed here in 2003. This was sourced from SD footage and had a severe flicker in the video projector screen so it has been de-flickered and noise cleaned so as not to induce epilepsy. Famed For It’s Underground Military Town – Its 15 Miles Of Underground Tunnels – Rudloe Manor Still Operate In Secret Even Today. Some Sites Serve As Military Command Posts And Were Funded Under Black Budgets. Millions Of Pounds Upkeep Is Still Spent, Each Year, On What The Military Says Are Disused Mines. However The Truth Is Far More Exciting Than That. –  Investigators released a report on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, saying the Boeing 777’s controls were likely deliberately manipulated to take it off course but they were not able to determine who was responsible. – Malaysian plane: 20 passengers worked for ELECTRONIC WARFARE and MILITARY RADAR firm
A US technology company which had 20 senior staff on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had just launched a new electronic warfare gadget for military radar systems in the days before the Boeing 777 went missing.
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