Tag: united kingdom

WWII British submarine, missing for 81 years with 64 crew members, discovered off Greek coast

A British World War II submarine, HMS Trooper, which vanished during a secret mission in 1943, has been discovered off the coast of Greece, solving an 81-year mystery.

The submarine, lost with all 64 crew members, including Australian volunteer Lt. John Stuart Ryder, was found at a depth of 830 feet (252 meters) in the Ikarian Sea between Ikaria and Kos islands. The wreck, discovered by the Greek deep-sea research company Planet Blue, is broken into three sections—the bow, middle, and stern—indicating a violent sinking caused by a German mine.

HMS Trooper was on a secret mission to patrol between Donoussa islet and Ikaria after British intelligence warned of a potential German landing on the island of Leros. It failed to return to the port of Beirut on October 17, 1943, and was declared lost, with the crew presumed dead. Subsequent searches, beginning in 2000, spanned 14 missions, none of which yielded results until the recent discovery by Kostas Thoctarides and his team from Planet Blue.

Thoctarides, speaking to Live Science and Greek news agency ANA-MPA, explained that his team located the wreck on October 3, 2024, after using shipboard sonar to create a detailed map of the seafloor, followed by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to inspect the wreckage. Thoctarides noted the wreck had been missed in earlier searches because previous expeditions focused too far east. He also emphasized the challenging nature of the Ikarian Sea, known for its harsh weather conditions, strong winds, and powerful underwater currents.

Keep reading

UK Police Raid Home, Seize Devices Of Another Journalist For Reporting On Gaza Genocide

British counterterrorism police on Thursday raided the home and seized several electronic devices belonging to The Electronic Intifada’s associate editor Asa Winstanley.

Approximately 10 officers arrived at Winstanley’s North London home before 6 am and served the journalist with warrants and other papers authorizing them to search his house and vehicle for devices and documents.

A letter addressed to Winstanley from the “Counter Terrorism Command” of the Metropolitan Police Service indicates that the authorities are “aware of your profession” as a journalist but that “notwithstanding, police are investigating possible offenses” under sections 1 and 2 of the Terrorism Act (2006). These provisions set out the purported offense of “encouragement of terrorism.”

An officer conducting Thursday’s raid informed Winstanley that the investigation was connected with the journalist’s social media posts. Attempts to reach the Metropolitan Police Service for comment for this story have been unsuccessful.

Although his devices were seized, Winstanley was not arrested and has not been charged with any offense.

Winstanley is active on several social media platforms, and has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter/X, where he frequently shares articles, other peoples’ opinions and his own comments on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, British government support for these crimes, and the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.

The vaguely worded provisions relating to “encouragement of terrorism” would clearly violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, however the United Kingdom lacks similar constitutional protections for freedom of expression.

The draconian legislation “curtails a range of freedoms,” according to University of Edinburgh law professor Andrew Cornford, including “the freedoms to discuss controversial topics openly, and to share moral, political and religious opinions.”

Human Rights Watch has called on the British government to repeal the repressive provisions of the Terrorism Act (2006), noting that “the definition of the encouragement of terrorism offense is overly broad, raising serious concerns about undue infringement on free speech.”

In August, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service issued a warning to the British public to “think before you post” and threatening that it would prosecute anyone it deemed guilty of what it calls “online violence.”

Keep reading

“This Is Illegal”: British Labour Party Sending Staff To Campaign For Kamala In Swing States

The Head of Operations of the leftist British Labour Party, which is now in government after 14 years of being the opposition, declared in a LinkedIn post that she is organising a party of 100 staff members to be sent to swing states in the US to campaign for Kamala Harris, prompting charges of election interference.

Sofia Patel proudly announced her plan, advertising that she has 10 spots left with free accommodation for any rabid British TDS sufferers who want to stick their nose into the US election.

Patel has since deleted the post as it became apparent exactly what was going on here.

X owner Elon Musk chimed in to note that the Patel’s proposed plan is simply illegal.

Keep reading

British Man Convicted of Criminal Charges for Praying Silently Near Abortion Clinic

In Britain, it can be a crime to think the wrong thoughts in the wrong place. It sounds absurd—not to mention Orwellian—but a handful of people have been arrested or charged in the country simply for praying silently near abortion clinics. 

This month, a British man was convicted of criminal charges for praying silently near an abortion clinic. The man, Adam Smith-Connor did not attempt to harass, intimidate, or interact in any way with those entering the clinic. Instead, he wordlessly prayed with his head bowed slightly. He wasn’t even on clinic property—he was outside the sightline of the clinic itself, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a religious freedom group.

As a result, Smith-Connor was questioned by police and later charged with violating a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO), a broad censorship order enabled by the 2014 Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act. Under this law, local authorities can obtain special status for some public places, allowing them to ban a huge range of conduct. In the name of limiting “anti-social behavior,” British towns have obtained PSPOs to ban the homeless from sleeping outside or to ban swearing.

Several cities have used this law to place “buffer zones” around local abortion clinics. The PSPO in Smith-Connor’s case not only banned “intimidating or harassing” those working at or seeking services from the clinic but also barred individuals from engaging in “prayer,” “[sprinkling] holy water on the ground,” and “[crossing] themselves.”

Smith-Connor violated this order in November 2022. He was convicted, and sentenced earlier this month to a “conditional discharge”—similar to probation—and ordered to pay approximately $11,709 in prosecution fees, according to the ADF.

The court’s reasoning betrayed the absurdly censorious nature of the local law. “In its decision, the court reasoned that his prayer amounted to ‘disapproval of abortion’ because at one point his head was seen slightly bowed and his hands were clasped,” according to the ADF.

Keep reading

There are an estimated 745,000 illegals in the U.K. – more than any other country in Europe

The United Kingdom has more illegal immigrants than any other European country, with as many as 745,000 people living within British borders without permission.

This is according to a study by academics from the University of Oxford, who found that more than one in 100 people in the U.K. are living in the country illegally – more than double the 300,000 people believed to be living in France illegally and even more than the approximately 700,000 undocumented migrants residing in Germany.

Senior Researcher on Nationhood Guy Dampier of the London-based think tank the Legatum Institute noted that since Britain is an island nation, it should be harder to get there than anywhere else in the continent. Instead, it has achieved the title of “illegal migration capital of Europe” because of, according to Dampier, the country’s  “permissive job market and the failure of the authorities to guard our borders.”

Keep reading

Open AI Wants to Build Data Centres That Would Consume More Electricity Per Year Than the Whole of the U.K.

Over the past few months, the newswires have been hot with stories about the large-scale data centres that will be required to meet the needs of the forthcoming revolution in Artificial Intelligence (AI). How much electricity will these new data centres consume and what does that mean for the electricity demand forecasts underpinning the plans for Net Zero?

Recent Date Centre Announcements

To give a flavour of the scale of data centre developments that are coming, it is helpful to look at recent announcements from large tech companies. Back in March, it was announced that Amazon had bought a 960MW data centre that is powered by an adjacent nuclear power station. In April, Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Meta that owns Facebook and Instagram said energy requirements may hold back the build out of AI data centres. He also talked about building data centres that would consume 1GW of power.

Last month, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison announced that Oracle was designing a data centre that would consume more than 1GW that would be powered by three small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Then Microsoft also got in on the act when it announced it had done a deal with U.S. utility Constellation to restart the 835MW Three Mile Island (TMI) Unit 1 nuclear power plant to power its data centres. Anxious not to be left out, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google said they too were working on 1GW data centres and saw money being invested in SMRs.

Finally, Sam Altman of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT has trumped them all by pitching the idea of 5GW data centres to the White House. Altman has been heard talking of building five to seven of these leviathans.

Bloomberg, usually a driver of the Net Zero band wagon, has reluctantly admitted that there’s not enough clean energy – nuclear or otherwise – to satisfy AI’s voracious appetite and gas will have to fill the gap. America’s national security and energy security is eclipsing climate concerns.

This admission is important because it acknowledges that such important infrastructure cannot rely upon the vicissitudes of the weather. These data centres need a source of electricity that is reliable and always available. It would be absurd to think that a ChatGPT user will want to receive a message saying their request cannot be processed because it is not windy enough.

Keep reading

Howling mad! Fury as school allows pupil suffering from ‘species dysphoria’ to identify as a WOLF

A British schoolchild has been officially allowed to identify as a wolf, the Mail can reveal.

The secondary-school pupil is said to suffer from ‘species dysphoria’, which is when someone claims their body belongs to a different species.

Teachers are said to be supporting the youngster.

Growing numbers of schoolchildren are said to be taking on the personalities of creatures including foxes, dragons, birds, snakes, sharks and even dinosaurs.

However, clinical neuropsychologist Dr Tommy MacKay insisted last night: ‘There is no such condition in science as ‘species dysphoria’. It’s not surprising that we are seeing this in an age when many people want to identify as something other than they are.

‘Now we have a council which appears to accept at face value that a child identifies as a wolf, rather than being told to snap out of it and get to grips with themselves, which would be the common-sense approach.’

Confirmation of the first-known case in Scotland in which a school has recognised that a pupil identifies as an animal was revealed in official documents.

The Mail knows the name of the council involved but has decided not to disclose it to protect the identity of the child concerned.

Keep reading

Banking on Betrayal: UK Government’s New Plan for Mass Bank Spying

Civil rights advocates may be saying, “stop bank spying” – but authoritarian-presenting governments are sure to be thinking, “who better to spy on you with?”

Banks not only have fine-grained information about their clients’ financial situation, but also their behavior and habits – and as recent incidents, for example in Canada, but also the UK in different circumstances show, they are not above using their power to debank and therefore censor people. On behalf of governments.

This time in the UK, the Labor cabinet looks set to bring back a legislative plan that would give financial institutions new mass surveillance powers. Now as before, the premise, activists say, is combating welfare fraud.

But the result would be mass bank spying – and “a severe intrusion into the nation’s privacy,” as Big Brother Watch put it.

In a letter to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall, the privacy group and a number of like-minded allies informed the official that they oppose the Fraud, Error and Debt Bill, and refer to it as work to usher in mass financial surveillance powers in the UK.

This time via banks, with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as the government actor.

Keep reading

UK psychological warfare unit collaborated with Israeli army

Britain secretly advised the Israeli military on psychological warfare techniques, Declassified has found.

Leaked documents reveal how the British army’s 77th brigade discussed strategy and tactics with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

The 77th brigade uses psychological operations and social media to help fight wars “in the information age”.

It specialises in “non-lethal forms of psychological warfare” such as cyber-attacks, propaganda activities, and counter-insurgency operations online.

Israel’s own information operations have involved using fabricated videos and fake social media accounts to defend the bombing of Gaza.

Two exchanges with the IDF took place at the 77th brigade’s barracks in Hermitage, Berkshire, between 2018-19.

Leaked documents about the encounters originate from a hack of the IDF by a group called “Anonymous for Justice”. The dataset was subsequently published by Distributed Denial of Secrets.

Although some of the documents reference “secret” matters, there is strong public interest in reporting on their contents.

Keep reading

Don’t Let the ‘Infaux Thugs’ Close Down Debate

Today’s censors wield cudgels with the word ‘information.’ Content they don’t like they call ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’ The justification is fake. The protection is faux protection. Pretending to protect people from bad information by means of censorship may be called infaux thuggery.

The cudgels are hidden, of course, but it is not hard to see through the pretence and discern the underlying message: knuckle under or we will hurt you.

The UK’s Online Safety Act exemplifies infaux thuggery, as does Brazil’s recent action against X (formerly Twitter). The Australian government is dominated by another gang of infaux thugs. The UK, sadly, not only practices infaux thuggery at home, it tutors the world in infaux thuggery.

The same goes for where I live, the United States. Kamala Harris threatens: ‘If you act as a megaphone for misinformation… we are going to hold you accountable.’ Hillary Clinton calls for criminalization of speech not to her liking. Harris’ running mate Tim Walz threatens: ‘There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation and hate speech.’

Thankfully, that’s not true, at least in the US. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. responded, the US Constitution ‘is exactly what prevents the government from stifling dissent by labeling something “hate speech” or “misinformation.”’ Alarmingly, former Secretary of State John Kerry recently lamented that the First Amendment ‘stands as a major block to…hammer it [“disinformation”] out of existence,’ and implied that that ‘is part of what this race, this election is all about.’

Of course, malicious actors, including enemy states, may spread lies to sow discord – especially online. So too can those who are simply ill-informed. Yet in the absence of censorship, big lies will be torn to shreds. In this battle, the infaux thugs are on the wrong side.

The infaux thugs use ‘information’ to confuse matters. The content they suppress is more aptly termed narratives, interpretations, opinions or judgments. Those terms are more capacious, befitting frank and open debate and controversy.

In their hostility to open debate, the infaux thugs are mounting an attack on modern civilisation. They evoke our crude instincts from pre-modern life, instincts for a small, simple society, in which the leader’s narrative must be believed by all and enforced upon the members of the band. If you don’t share the leader’s narrative, you are a miscreant. You are to be corrected, expelled or destroyed. At the very least, you are to shut up.

Keep reading