Tag: united kingdom

Boy who survived 18 days in flooded Thai cave five years ago and died in Britain aged 17 after winning football academy scholarship had been found unconscious on the floor of his UK dormitory

The mystery of Thai cave rescue survivor Duangphet Promthep’s death deepened last night after it emerged he was found unconscious on the floor of his dormitory in the UK.

The 17-year-old nicknamed ‘Dom’, former captain of the Wild Boars football team, rescued in 2018 from the flooded Tham Luang cave system in northern Thailand by British divers, was reported to have suffered a ‘head injury’.

At the time of his death, Dom was studying at Brooke House College in Market Harborough, Leicestershire. 

Kiatisuk Senamuang, former Thai national football team coach and chairman of the Zico Foundation which sponsored the gifted young footballer, described himself as ‘shocked and stunned’ at the news of the young man’s sudden death.

He said Promthep was found laid down unconscious on the ground in his room in the academy’s dormitory and was immediately taken to hospital.

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Ad Network Owned by Microsoft Is Using Foreign Disinformation ‘Experts’ to Blacklist Conservative Media Companies

The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a foreign think tank headquartered in the United Kingdom, released an assessment of American online media designed to blacklist conservative media outlets and choke off their advertising revenue. The information is kept on what GDI calls its “Dynamic Exclusion List.”

Ad networks — including most prominently Xandr — which is owned by Microsoft — are now using this list to refuse to allow advertising on conservative media websites.

Microsoft has yet to respond to a request for comment regarding Xandr’s use of the Dynamic Exclusion List, which is censoring conservative outlets. 

GDI in December released its report that detailed the alleged “disinformation risk” for the American online media market in partnership with the Global Disinformation Lab (GDIL), a think tank at the University of Texas at Austin that generates policy recommendations and solutions to combat disinformation.  

The GDI report on the American online media landscape reviewed 69 news outlets, and listed ten outlets it found are the most at risk of spreading disinformation, and ten outlets that are the least likely to spread disinformation. GDI rated conservative sites as having the highest risk for spreading disinformation and liberal websites as the most trusted.

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“We Want To Be On The Right Side Of History”: Ubisoft Partners With Police to Jail Gamers For Their In-Game Speech

Ubisoft, the company behind the Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six franchises, has not only partnered with the Anti-Defamation League to fight “hate” in gaming but is also now working with British police to jail gamers for their speech.

British state media is reporting on the news as a great new innovation.

From BBC, “Toxic gaming tackled by Ubisoft’s unique police alert system”:

Rape jokes, racism, bullying – if you’ve picked up a controller, or scrolled a mouse, to dabble in some online gaming then you’ve likely come across plenty.

The gaming industry, like others where people interact online, has been trying to figure out how to get to grips with behaviour like this for years.

Ubisoft, makers of major franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six, has now signed a first-of-its-kind deal with police to try and tackle the issue for its players.

The hope is for this agreement to start a conversation within the industry and see others follow suit.

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Pedophile pop star Gary Glitter released from jail after serving half his sentence

Disgraced British pop star and convicted pedophile Gary Glitter was released from prison Friday after serving just half of his 16-year sentence.

Glitter, born Paul Francis Gadd, was set free from Dorset’s HMP The Verne prison in England, PA News reports.

The “Do You Wanna Touch Me” singer was caged in 2015 after he sexually abused three young girls, all under the age of 13, at the height of his fame in the 1970s.

The 79-year-old’s third victim was under the age of 10. He snuck into her bed and tried to rape her back in 1975.

Glitter reached global stardom in the 1970s and 80s — but his success was short-lived after he was caught downloading 4,000 child pornography images in 1999, landing him in jail for just 4 months.

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Revealed: U.S Secret Military Deployment on British Cyprus

The US Air Force has had a base on British territory on Cyprus for nearly half a century, but its size is kept secret from the public on both sides of the Atlantic. Declassified now reveals the increasing US military presence on the Mediterranean island.

  • US Air Force is expanding its deployment on RAF’s Cyprus base to 129 airmen
  • New 147-room installation is being built by US military across 1.5 acres of British base to house its personnel at cost of $27m
  • US spy force, 1st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, is permanently deployed at the British base 
  • UK Ministry of Defence refuses to disclose number of US military personnel on the British territory—or if American bombing missions are flown from it
  • Pentagon claims it only has one airman on Cyprus—and ignores Declassified’s request for clarification
  • Top secret GCHQ document notes: “Cyprus hosts a wide range of UK and US intelligence facilities”
  • Cypriot working on the UK base area tells Declassified: “There is a big US presence, I don’t know how that works or why”

The US military is planning to deploy at least 129 airmen to British territory on Cyprus by next year, Declassified can reveal.

The number of US troops on the UK’s so-called Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs), which comprise 3% of Cyprus’s landmass, has long been secret.

“We do not propose to release the numbers of US personnel participating in current or future operational activities [on British Cyprus]”, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently told parliament.

The US Department of Defense (DoD), meanwhile, claims it only has 14 personnel deployed in Cyprus, including nine Marines and just one airman. The department did not respond to Declassified’s request for more information and comment.

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Former UK Defense Minister Says NATO May Need To Send Ground Forces To Ukraine

The “domino theory” was once used to great effect in order to manipulate the American public into supporting the Vietnam War, but will the same narrative work to get the west to support World War III with Russia? 

Former UK Defense Minister Sir Gerald Howarth seems to think so as he uses this exact claim to justify NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. 

It should be noted that a large percentage of the American populace and most of Europe have no interest whatsoever in engaging with Russia and possibly its allies in all out war, but the establishment appears intent on forcing the issue anyway.  The delivery of NATO tanks and the possibility of longer range missiles will no doubt trigger a wider response from Russia, which will then be used by NATO as a reason to escalate further. 

At the very least, Howarth does admit what many in the alternative media have been saying for some time – That Ukraine’s efforts have ground to a halt without further support from NATO troops.  The deliveries of money and weapons are nothing more than a stop-gap; wars are won by men. 

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EXPOSED: Shadowy Military Operation Spied on Covid Response Critics

A shadowy military operation was launched in Great Britain to conduct surveillance on Covid response critics and treat them as ‘enemies of the state.’

Military operatives in the U.K.’s ‘information warfare’ brigade were part of a “sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the official pandemic response,” the Daily Mail reported on Sunday.

The official documents exposing the domestic espionage operation were obtained by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. The documents were shared exclusively with the Daily Mail. They expose the inner workings of the Counter Disinformation Unit, which is based in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Rapid Response Unit in the Cabinet Office.

Influence operations were run out of the MoD’s 77th Brigade seeking to “non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours of adversaries,” according to the report.

 A whistleblower that contacted the Mail who claimed to work for the brigade said the unit had strayed far beyond its scope of targeting foreign powers. British citizens’ social media accounts were even scrutinised, which the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence, in public, has repeatedly denied doing.

The Mail reports that U.K. government justified its domestic surveillance and censorship activities as countering ‘disinformation’ and ‘harmful narratives… from purported experts.’

“The information was then used to orchestrate Government responses to criticisms of policies such as the stay-at-home order, when police were given power to issue fines and break up gatherings,” the Mail reported. “It also allowed Ministers to push social media platforms to remove posts and promote Government-approved lines.”

The Army whistleblower added: “It is quite obvious that our activities resulted in the monitoring of the UK population… monitoring the social media posts of ordinary, scared people. These posts did not contain information that was untrue or co-ordinated – it was simply fear.”

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London Police Recruiting Illiterate Officers Who Can Barely Write English to Meet Diversity Quotas

The Metropolitan Police in London is recruiting officers who are illiterate, can barely write English, and may have a criminal record in order to meet diversity quotas, it has been revealed.

Yes, really.

A 2014 promise to have 40% of the force be represented by ethnic minorities by 2023 has fallen well short, with just 17% of officers being from ‘diverse’ backgrounds.

Matt Parr, the head of the organization responsible for inspecting British police forces, told the Telegraph that London, “which will likely be a minority white city in the next decade or so, should not be policed by an overwhelmingly white police force.”

In addition to the optics of a largely white police force being wrong, Parr said it was also, “operationally wrong, because it means that the Met does not get insight into some of the communities it polices and that has caused problems in the past. So we completely support the drive to make the Met much more representative of the community it serves than it is at the moment.”

That drive has however led to officers being hired who struggle to even write up basic crime reports.

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“The Deep State Is Real”, UK’s Dominic Cummings Admits

“The deep state is real,” according to Dominic Cummings, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ex-chief advisor.

In an interview with the “Manifold” podcast last week, Cummings said the so-called deep state, a moniker for the unelected bureaucracy, wields far more power than the elected politicians.

But in his view, it’s often “very good, sensible, intelligent,” and experienced officials trying to “stop the idiots who are being elected doing terrible things.”

“A lot of the things that were best in COVID was the deep state thwarting [then-Health Secretary] Matt Hancock, the elected politician for the benefit of the country,” Cummings declared.

COVID-19 Lockdown

Cummings spoke of how Johnson and Hancock were pressured by officials into locking down the country in March 2020, after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.

“There was an official plan which was herd immunity,” Cummings said, adding that the plan came from the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care, which “kept thinking that … this was the only way of handling it.”

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Massive spike in excess deaths sparks calls for an ‘urgent investigation’: NHS crisis is blamed for nearly 3,000 more Brits than usual dying each week

MPs have called for an urgent investigation into Britain’s soaring death rates as thousands more people than usual are dying each week.

Some 17,381 deaths were registered in England and Wales in the seven days to January 13 – 2,837 above average for the time of year.

This is the highest number of excess deaths since 3,429 in the week to February 12, 2021, when the UK was experiencing its second wave of Covid-19 infections and vaccination had only just begun.

On that occasion, deaths involving coronavirus accounted for 37 per cent of all those registered, according to the Office for National Statistics.

But in the most recent week, Covid-19 accounted for just 5 per cent of the total – meaning other factors are likely to be driving the high level of mortality.

Health experts say this could include ambulance delays, long waits in A&E, unmet need during the pandemic and major backlogs for routine NHS care.

Excess deaths, sometimes known as extra deaths, are the number of deaths that are above the average for the same period in previous years.

This winter has seen a sharp spike in the figures, with deaths 21 per cent and 20 per cent above average in the last two weeks of December, followed by 14 per cent and 20 per cent in the first two weeks of January.

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