Tag: united kingdom

The UK Aims To Entrench Its Influence In Estonia In Order To Lead The Arctic-Baltic Front

The possible deployment of nuclear-capable F-35As there, which could be equipped with US air-to-ground nukes since the UK no longer has its own, would give London a leading role in managing the joint Arctic-Baltic front against Russia that’s expected to remain even after the Ukrainian Conflict ends…

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Postimees newspaper after last month’s NATO Summit that his country is interested in hosting nuclear-capable F-35As from its allies, with the outlet suggesting that the UK could deploy some of the 12 that it plans to purchase after they’re transferred. The UK’s other announcement that it’ll join NATO’s dual-capable nuclear aircraft mission raises the chance that these jets could be equipped with US nukes since the UK no longer has its own air-to-ground ones.

The Wall Street Journal explained how “U.K. Shifts Nuclear Doctrine With Purchase of U.S. Jets”, which could lead to it obtaining the aforesaid nukes from the US, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared that Estonia’s readiness to host nuclear-capable jets from any NATO country poses an “immediate danger” to Russia. All this follows Russia’s Foreign Spy Service warning in mid-June that the Brits and Ukrainians are cooking up two false flag provocations in the Baltic to rope Trump into the war.

Seeing as how it was assessed in late April that “Estonia Might Become Europe’s Next Trouble Spot”, it’s therefore likely that they’ll let the UK deploy nuclear-capable F-35As at Tapa Army Base, where it already has some troops as part of its largest overseas deployment. Putting everything together, it can therefore be concluded that the UK is actively expanding its sphere of influence in the Baltic on anti-Russian pretexts and via associated means, with Estonia playing a leading role by hosting its regional forces.

The Baltic front of the New Cold War is connected to the Arctic one due to Finland joining the alliance in 2023 and Russia responding by building up its forces along their border to deter NATO-emanating threats from there. This joint front, which is expected to remain tense even after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, will also see the construction of the “EU Defense Line” that’ll stretch along Finland’s, the Baltic States’, and Poland’s eastern borders with Russia and Belarus as a 21st-century Iron Curtain.

It’s within this context that Trump reportedly plans to pull some US troops out of Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), perhaps in exchange for Russia reducing its own presence in Belarus (possibly including its tactical nukes), as part of their plans to build a new European security architecture. Be that as it may, the “EU Defense Line” – which includes new border fortifications and the deployment of extra-regional countries’ forces like the UK’s and Germany’s – ensures that the EU-Russian security dilemma will persist.

Keep reading

Top police chiefs say smell of cannabis is a ‘sign of crime’ that can make even them feel ‘unsafe’… and frontline officers should ‘do something about it’

Britain’s top police chiefs today urge their officers to crack down on cannabis.

The country’s longest-serving chief constable admits the smell of the drug is a ‘sign of crime and disorder’ which makes even him ‘feel unsafe’.

Sir Andy Marsh, who leads the College of Policing, said frontline officers should ‘do something about it’.

He is backed by Greater Manchester Police Chief Sir Stephen Watson and Merseyside Chief Constable Serena Kennedy.

In a joint intervention following recent calls for decriminalisation, they tell future police leaders they must listen to their communities and be prepared to take a tougher line.

Launching a new leadership programme for policing, they acknowledged forces were in a ‘foot race for public confidence’ and officers can no longer ignore what has traditionally been perceived as the ‘little stuff’. 

Sir Andy, who is the officer in charge of police standards, said: ‘In my community, my kids are too frightened to use the bus stop because it always stinks of cannabis.’

He told the Mail ‘policing is about creating an environment that people feel safe in’ and said: ‘I’m speaking from personal experience and people I talk to, if I walk through a town, city, or even village centre and I smell cannabis, it does actually have an impact on how safe I feel.

‘One definition of what police should be doing is – [if] something [is] happening which does not feel right, someone ought to do something about it.’

He added: ‘For me, the smell of cannabis around communities, it feels like a sign of crime and disorder.’

The call for action comes after figures on Sunday revealed that three in four people caught with the drug last year were let off with an informal warning or community resolution.

In the year to September 2024, 68,513 people were found in possession of cannabis, but only 17,000 were charged, according to data released under Freedom of Information laws.

Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has called for the decriminalisation of possession when it involves small amounts of the drug. 

But recently judges have warned that cannabis is ‘not a benign drug’ after a series of horrific cases, including a samurai sword rampage in Hainault, east London, where a schoolboy was killed and four others seriously injured by a drug-crazed Brazilian who had a £100-a-day habit.

The head of Merseyside Police said of cannabis: ‘The public should absolutely expect us to take positive action around those things and hold us to account over it. 

‘We have to work with our communities, it’s no longer good enough to inflict priorities on them, we have to hear their voices and make them part of the problem-solving.’

Keep reading

Paedophile jailed for 25 years complains prison guards have lost his teddy bear

A convicted paedophile has complained from behind bars that prison guards have ‘lost’ his teddy bear.

Shane Medhurst was jailed for 25 years last June after being found guilty of 14 counts of child sex abuse.

Among the charges included two counts of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 13.

Medhurst, 58, was jailed at Reading Crown Court, and is currently serving his sentence at the 1,100-capacity HMP High Down jail in Surrey.

The jail has two dedicated wings sex offenders, with around 400 inmates convicted of sex offences.

Writing in the latest edition of prisoner publication Inside Time, Medhurst said he was really ‘into arts and crafts’ and had started making his own teddy bears.

One in particular, which he called Mr Bear – a bright yellow bear with a blue and white striped outfit and a hat – was his ‘favourite’ and had taken him three weeks to make.

He said other teddies that he made had been sent to family and friends, and had loaned Mr Bear to the library inside the prison – but three weeks later he’d vanished.

Keep reading

Police Arrest ‘Palestine Action’ Protesters Following Ban as Terrorist Group by British Government

Dozens of protesters supporting Palestine Action were arrested in London on Sunday as they demonstrated in defiance of the British government’s move to classify the group as a proscribed terrorist organisation.

Following failures to legally challenge the terrorist classification, which prohibits people in the UK from supporting the group in any regard, supporters of Palestine Action gathered in London’s Parliament Square outside the House of Commons.

Protesters were seen waving placards with the message: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”.

The demonstration prompted at least 20 arrests from the Metropolitan Police, which said in a statement per Sky News: “The group is now proscribed and expressing support for them is a criminal offence… Arrests are being made.”

Earlier this week, Members of Parliament backed the government’s call for a ban on the group by a margin of 385 votes in favour to just 26 against.

Thus, Palestine Action is now on the same legal level as other banned Islamist terror groups like al Qaeda, ISIS, and Hezbollah. Those found to be members or supporters of the group now face up to 14 years in prison. Even wearing t-shirts or other symbols of the group can be punishable with up to six months behind bars.

While the group attempted to launch legal challenges at the High Court and the Court of Appeals, they were ultimately shot down, paving the way for the ban to come into effect at midnight on Saturday.

Keep reading

Censored BBC Documentary Exposes Israel’s War On Gaza’s Doctors.

Recently, the documentary “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,” which was prevented from being aired on the British state-funded media outlet BBC, was acquired by the British channel “Channel 4” and the independent news outlet Zeteo for release.

Having seen the documentary, it is not surprising that it was censored – it is a horrific and deeply disturbing investigation into Israel’s systemic war on Gaza’s healthcare system, part of the wider genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In this article, I will summarize some of the most shocking and disturbing revelations from the film.

Israel’s War On Gaza’s Hospitals.

The film- narrated by journalist Ramita Navai– begins with Navai noting that “Every one of Gaza’s 36 main hospitals has been attacked, forced to evacuate or destroyed, and Israel has been killing the very people trying to keep the healthcare system alive, it’s doctors and medics, despite healthcare workers being protected under international law”.

The film focuses on investigating specific cases, the Israeli attacks at Al Shifa hospital, the Indonesian hospital, Al Adwa Hospital, Nasser Hospital and Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Starting with Al Shifa, the documentary notes that the order was given to evacuate the hospital in 2023.

Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the lead director at Al Shifa hospital, is interviewed in the documentary and recounts that “We ignored these messages as much as we could not forget that we work at Al Shifa hospital. Because it was the backbone of the entire health system in Gaza. By stopping al-Shifa from operating, you have disabled the whole health system in Gaza. As we did not abide by the messages, they started sending us rockets.”

As Ramita Navai notes, “On November 3rd (2023) , an Israeli strike hit a convoy of ambulances exiting the (Al Shifa) hospital. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 15 people were killed, and at least 60 were injured.”

Keep reading

Bird brains! Moment man is surrounded by police and arrested after feeding pigeons in town centre

This is the shocking moment a man was surrounded by police officers for feeding pigeons.

The incredible footage includes the man, wearing a beanie, being handcuffed and being pushed against a police car door as three officers surround him. 

A large bag of birdseed can be seen next to him on the kerbside.

The nicked bird feeder can be heard saying to officers ‘I feed birds that’s my religion’ whilst shoppers watch on.

Footage later shows the distressed man hunched over and being led into the back of the police van where the door is shut and an officer can be heard saying he is ‘under arrest’.

The incident happened in Ellesmere Port town centre, in Cheshire, on Friday last week.

Tony Gath who witnessed the incident said he was ‘disturbed’ by what he had seen.

Tony said: ‘It was disgusting behaviour, all they had to do was educate the man on where he can and can’t feed the birds, then send him on his way.

‘I’m disturbed that they felt that level of intimidation and power was acceptable at all, not just in public.’

According to Wirral Council’s official website there are ‘no laws’ that the council can effectively use to stop people feeding wild birds.

But Environmental Health may be able to ‘take action in significant and excessive cases’ where rotten food waste is accumulating or the bird feeding can be shown to be the cause of an infestation of rats or mice.

Cheshire Police said the council had previously reported to the police that feeding of the birds in the area was causing an ‘increase in vermin’.

They also said officers only arrested the man who was feeding birds after be became ‘verbally and physically aggressive’ towards an officer.

A spokesperson for the force said: ‘At around 2.15pm on Friday 27th June, officers on patrol in Ellesmere Port town centre spoke to a man who was feeding birds in the area.

‘The council had previously reported to police that the feeding of the birds was causing an increase in vermin in the area and that they needed the details of the male to speak to him.

‘An officer attempted to engage with the man, but he became verbally and physically aggressive towards the officer.

‘He was then arrested for a public order offence – the man subsequently calmed down and was de-arrested.’

Keep reading

Professor Warns UK Gov’t Is Preparing For Civil War, Using Russian Invasion Threat As Cover

A prominent academic in London has warned that the UK government is actively preparing for the break out of a civil war, but is using the “logically absurd” cover of a Russian invasion to put contingencies in place.

Pointing to remarks made in the 2025 National Security Strategy paper last month, Professor David Betz of King’s College London has suggested that the British government is using the phantom threat of a foreign attack in order to harden critical national infrastructure against sabotage.

“For the first time in many years, we have to actively prepare for the possibility of the UK homeland coming under direct threat,” the Whitehall paper noted, adding that “critical national infrastructure – including undersea cables, energy pipelines, transportation and logistics hubs” are a major target.

During a discussion with Professor Lewis Halsey, Professor Betz, a modern war expert recently stated “there is growing apprehension about the security of Britain, the security of its infrastructure specifically, and about the potential for active conflict at home in a very direct manner, effecting people in a very direct manner.”

“But that’s not external in origin, that’s internal, and that has to do with the way our society is now configured, it is highly fractured,” Betz continued, adding “Low trust, highly fractured, and highly politically factionalised which is leading us increasingly inevitably into civil conflict.”

Betz further outlined how the Russian threat is being amplified as a cover story.

“The fact of the matter is there is a great distance between us and Russia… we are not militarily threatened in a direct way on the ground by any obvious external enemy, even Russia,” Betz outlined.

“Which isn’t to say there aren’t things which Russia could do to attack the UK should they wish to, but one of those is not occupying the village green with Russian soldiers, that simply, frankly, is a rather bizarre assertion,” he contended.

“What they’re concerned about is domestic conflict, and they perfectly understand this, but that’s completely politically toxic for them to say so publicly, hence the convenience of saying ‘we need to develop… a citizen’s militia for the protection of critical infrastructure’,” Betz further noted.

“To say that we’re doing this against the potential of Russian attack, which is frankly a logically absurd proposition, but it is convenient as a pretext,” he emphasised.

Keep reading

British committed ‘genocide’ against Aboriginal Australians – inquiry

British colonisers committed “genocide” against the Aboriginal people in the Australian state of Victoria after arriving in the area in the early 1830s, a commission investigating injustices against the indigenous population has said.

The colonization of Victoria, Australia’s second smallest state, located in the southeast of the country, took place between 1834 and 1851.

During that period, its indigenous population suffered “near-complete physical destruction,” falling from around 60,000 to 15,000, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Yoorrook Justice Commission.

The crimes by the British in Victoria included “mass killings, disease, sexual violence, exclusion, linguicide [the death of languages], cultural erasure, environmental degradation, child removal, absorption and assimilation,” it said.

“This was genocide,” the commission ruled after holding more than two months of public hearings and listening to accounts by over 1,300 Aboriginals.

Keep reading

Britain’s Long History of Spying on Iran

As bombs fell on Iran last month, the U.K. government claimed it had “not participated” in the military action led by Israel and the U.S. 

But British spy agencies have a long history of meddling in Iran, with everything from covert influence operations, to secretly selling chemical weapons materials to the regime.

In one case, the U.K. spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) even created a network of fake Twitter accounts to secretly monitor Iranian opposition activists – the very people working to remove supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power.

Coup

British spies have targeted Iran for decades, driven by commercial profit and regional control.

In 1951, when the country’s secular prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq, nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later known as BP), the British ambassador wrote: “It is so important to prevent the Persians from destroying their main source of revenue … by trying to run it themselves.”

Two years later, the U.K. and U.S. secretly backed a coup to oust Mosaddeq and centralise power under a repressive “pro-Western” regime. 

Declassified files have since revealed the central role played by MI6, which recruited agents and bribed members of Iran’s Parliament. In doing so, one former spy claimed they spent “well over a million and a half pounds”. 

The U.K. and U.S. then supported Iran’s dictator, the shah, for the next 25 years. 

By 1979, the Iranian Revolution saw the establishment of the Islamic Republic led by another dictator, Ayatollah Khomeini. But this did not stop British spies from collaborating with the regime when it was in their interests.

For instance, in 1983, British intelligence provided Khomeini with a list of Iranians allegedly working for the Soviet Union. The intelligence was used to round up over 1,000 communists, as many as 200 of whom were executed. Meanwhile Iran’s communist party, the Tudeh, was banned and forced underground. 

Secret relations were again exploited in the early 1990s, when MI6 helped supply Iran with materials to make chemical weapons — despite its own ban on such sales. 

Britain’s aim was supposedly to use the deals as a way to insert operatives into the Iranian government and gather intelligence about its weapons programmes.

Keep reading

Spying on Iran: How MI6 infiltrated the IAEA

Leaked confidential files indicate the International Atomic Energy Agency was infiltrated by a veteran British spy who has claimed credit for sanctions on Iran. The documents lend weight to the Islamic Republic’s accusation that the nuclear watchdog secretly colluded with its enemies.

A notorious British MI6 agent infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on London’s behalf, according to leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone. The agent, Nicholas Langman, is a veteran intelligence operative who claims credit for helping engineer the West’s economic war on Iran.

Langman’s identity first surfaced in journalistic accounts of his role in deflecting accusations that British intelligence played a role in the death of Princess Diana. He was later accused by Greek authorities of overseeing the abduction and torture of Pakistani migrants in Athens.

In both cases, UK authorities issued censorship orders forbidding the press from publishing his name. But Greek media, which was under no such obligation, confirmed that Langman was one of the MI6 assets withdrawn from Britain’s embassy in Athens.

The Grayzone discovered the résumé of the journeyman British operative in a trove of leaked papers detailing the activities of Torchlight, a prolific British intelligence cutout. The bio of the longtime MI6 officer reveals he “led large, inter-agency teams to identify and defeat the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons technology, including by innovative technical means and sanctions.” 

In particular, the MI6 agent says he “worked to prevent WMD proliferation through… support for the [IAEA] and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] and through high level international partnerships.”

Langman’s CV credits him with playing a major role in organizing the sanctions regime on Iran by “[building] highly effective and mutually supportive relations across government and with senior US, European, Middle and Far Eastern colleagues for strategy” between 2010 and 2012. He boasts in his bio that this achievement “enabled [the] major diplomatic success of [the] Iranian nuclear and sanctions agreement.” 

Keep reading