International
Keir Stasi? UK government wants to prosecute ‘non-crime hate speech’
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
According to reports, the United Kingdom’s Home Secretary is seeking to reinstate the prosecution of ‘non-crime hate speech,’ overturning a 2021 court ruling which described the measure as a move towards a police state in Britain.
In the United Kingdom’s escalating war on the freedom of expression, the U.K. Home Secretary is seeking to reinstate the prosecution of “non-crime hate speech,” overturning a 2021 court ruling which described the measure as a move towards a police state in Britain.
According to an August 28 report in the U.K. Times, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper “faces a legal battle” to reinstate measures to interrogate, monitor, and even prosecute members of the public for a range of “non-criminal” remarks.
The measures were struck down in a case brought in 2021 by Harry Miller, the founder of U.K. policing campaign group Fair Cop. They are being reintroduced to “combat antisemitism and Islamophobia,” according to the U.K. Home Secretary.
Miller was visited at work by U.K. police to question him over an “anti-trans” joke he made on X (formerly Twitter). When Miller, a former policeman himself, brought a case against this “non-criminal hate speech,” the judge ruled that the effect of the police turning up at Mr. Miller’s place of work “because of his political opinions must not be underestimated.”
Mr. Justice Julian Knowles continued: “To do so would be to undervalue a cardinal democratic freedom. In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.”
The measures advanced by the U.K. Home Secretary seek to make this “Orwellian society” a reality.
Recent changes to the U.K.’s Prevent strategy, a government operation to counter violent extremism, have seen “anti-abortion groups” bracketed with terrorists, and the inclusion of “anti-establishment sentiment” of any kind as adjacent to terrorism.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced the redefinition of “terrorism” to include “anti-establishment rhetoric,” “anti-LGBTQI+ sentiment,” “anti-abortion activism,” and any speech online or offline which it deems to be “extreme” – as a report from LifeSiteNews below shows.
READ: UK’s draconian ‘online safety’ laws are turning traditional values into criminal ‘hate speech’
The U.K.’s Terrorism Act has been used in recent weeks to arrest and interrogate three U.K. critics of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Richard Medhurst, the son of British diplomats, was arrested and questioned for almost 24 hours on his return to the U.K. earlier this month.
In recent days, Sarah Wilkinson was arrested in her home under the Terrorism Act – for documenting Israel’s genocide. Richard Barnard, co-founder of Palestinian Action, has also been charged under the Terrorism Act following his arrest for doing the same.
As Kim Dotcom, himself the ongoing target of Deep State legal persecution, has remarked, this is not an issue of left or right. When the government is wrong, anyone who points this out is a target.
“Truth-tellers everywhere are under attack. As the propaganda media crumbles and people look for honest information elsewhere the deep state is abusing anti-terrorism and spy laws to intimidate and silence independent journalists,” he said.
In the U.K., this means journalists like Medhurst, and his fellow British journalist Kit Klarenberg, whose interrogation at Luton Airport in May 2023 was the first in a new wave of repression which designates truth telling as “terrorism” – and even treason.
Klarenberg’s interrogation saw him treated as a traitor in the pay of a foreign power. His investigations have shown how the CIA and MI6 created ISIS, how the Ukraine war is being directed and escalated towards Armageddon by the British state, and crucially how U.S. and U.K. foreign policy is dictated by the Zionist lobby. His investigations exposing state-level crimes have seen him labeled a “dangerous” individual by Deep State asset Facebook, a term usually reserved for violent terrorists.
In a report from February, he showed how the new U.K. National Security Act could see journalists like him face life imprisonment. Two years ago, he revealed “the journalist-run, intelligence-linked operation that warped British pandemic policy” – exposing the U.K. government’s partnership with media to manufacture consent to COVID-19 “vaccines” and lockdowns.
For naming actual foreign influence in the West, and the industry of death which is partnered with it, independent voices are being silenced as traitors and terrorists. Yet it is Klarenberg who revealed “British spies [are] constructing a secret terror army in Ukraine” – in 2022.
Western proxy war ‘playing with fire’: Russian foreign minister
Klarenberg’s reporting on the U.K.-backed Kursk offensive by Ukraine shows how far the British liberal-global state will go in gambling the lives of millions to preserve its own waning influence.
To prevent a U.S. “drawdown” from European war commitments, he says, the British state has propelled the Ukrainians into an escalation which risks full-scale nuclear war.
According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, this policy is akin to “a child playing with matches.” In a warning to the West over the rising danger of nuclear war, Lavrov was reported by Reuters on August 27 as saying, “We are now confirming once again that playing with fire – and they are like small children playing with matches – is a very dangerous thing for grown-up uncles and aunts who are entrusted with nuclear weapons in one or another Western country.”
Lavrov’s remarks come in response to U.K.-backed Ukrainian demands for U.S. authorization to mount long range missile strikes on Russia – including on Moscow itself – using weapons supplied by NATO.
Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter warned in July that “the world faces a greater threat of a nuclear conflict between the U.S. and Russia than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.”
Yet people who warn of the policies promoting Armageddon are accused of treason and arrested under terrorism laws. According to one former high level U.S. official, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, this chaos is allied to U.S. “imperial” war policies, which have led the U.S. international order into crisis.
The former chief of staff to the U.S. secretary of defense said in an interview given on August 29 that the U.S. empire was collapsing due to its commitment to so many “stupid wars.”
“I’m not against war. I’m against stupid war. I’m against endless war. I’m against imperial wars,” he told Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Critics of the “forever wars” in the U.S., U.K., and across the West are routinely smeared as “pro-Russian,” or even “antisemitic.”
GnasherJew are “a digital investigation team who operate under the radar, using OSINT to expose antisemites.”
You may know Sarah Wilkinson from her antisemitic pro Hamas Propaganda on social media.
It looks like after we reported her repeatedly to @TerrorismPolice finally she’s been arrested. 🥂
This is 👇🏼her son, like his mother he’s a Holocaust denier. pic.twitter.com/ydrFXriW8D
— GnasherJew®גנאשר (@GnasherJew) August 29, 2024
Zionists in the U.K. have been celebrating the result of their mass-reporting of independent voices against Israel’s genocide, labeling critics of Western-backed war crimes as “antisemitic violent thugs.”
Here’s one X post by “award winning journalist” David Collier:
Sarah Wilkinson from Palestine Action has been arrested.
What she is:
✅A Holocaust denier
✅An antisemitic conspiracy theorist
✅A terrorist supporter
✅A violent thugWhat she is not
❌A peace activist
❌A human rights activistGlad I could help.
— David Collier (@mishtal) August 29, 2024
In the U.S., figures such as John Bolton routinely decry the influence of hostile foreign powers such as Russia, China, and Iran, whilst ignoring the charge made by retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor and independent journalist Max Blumenthal that the “entire U.S. political establishment is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby,” and the “Zionist … occupation of the American mind.”
The moves by the U.K.’s liberal-globalist regime to categorize criticism of its policies as terrorism is an escalation in the war against Western civilization.
Telling the truth is treason and an act of terror. Disagreement is extremism. If you demand an alternative to the permanent state of emergency delivered by the liberal-global order, you can expect interrogation, arrest, and imprisonment in the birthplace of “liberal democracy.”
The legal persecution of the argument for life is a further indication of how regime change has changed our regime at home. It began with a promise of an earthly paradise, with the global export of the liberal system of elections and cheap consumer goods, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead of heaven, it has delivered hell on earth.
As the liberal-global project unravels, all it can do now is terrorize its own populations for telling the truth about the industry of death behind the mask of the “rules-based order.”
Keir Starmer’s first speech as prime minister said “my government will be a force for good.” Two months later, the forces he has unleashed may see him rightfully dubbed “Keir Stasi.”
Business
Global Affairs Canada Foreign Aid: An Update
Canadian Taxpayers are funding programs in foreign countries with little effect
Back in early November I reached out to Global Affairs Canada (GAC) for a response to questions I later posed in my What Happens When Ministries Go Rogue post. You might recall how GAC has contributed billions of dollars to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, only to badly miss their stated program objectives. Here, for the record, is my original email:
I’m doing research into GAC program spending and I’m having trouble tracking down information. For instance, your Project Browser tool tells me that, between 2008 and 2022, Canada committed $3.065 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The tool includes very specific outcomes (like a drop of at least 40 per cent in malaria mortality rates). Unfortunately, according to reliable public health data, none of the targets were even close to being achieved – especially in the years since 2015.
Similarly, Canada’s $125 million of funding to the World Food Programme between 2016 and 2021 to fight hunger in Africa roughly corresponded to a regional rise in malnutrition from 15 to 19.7 percent of the population since 2013.
I’ve been able to find no official documentation that GAC has ever conducted reviews of these programs (and others like it) or that you’ve reconsidered various funding choices in light of such failures. Is there data or information that I’m missing?
Just a few days ago, an official in the Business Intelligence Unit for Global Affairs Canada responded with a detailed email. He first directed me to some slightly dated but comprehensive assessments of the Global Fund, links to related audits and investigations, and a description of the program methodology.
The Audit is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
To their credit, the MOPAN 2022 Global Fund report identified five areas where important targets were missed, including the rollout of anti-corruption and fraud policies and building resilient and sustainable systems for health. That self-awareness inspires some confidence. And, in general, the assessments were comprehensive and serious.
What initially led me to suggest that GAC was running on autopilot and ignoring the real world impact of their spending was, in part, due to the minimalist structure of the GAC’s primary reporting system (their website). But it turns out that the one-dimensional objectives listed there did not fully reflect the actual program goals.
Nevertheless, none of the documents addressed my core questions:
- Why had the programs failed to meet at least some of their mortality targets?
- Why, after years of such shortfalls, did GAC continue to fully fund the programs?
The methodology document did focus a lot of attention on modelling counterfactuals. In other words, estimating how many people didn’t die due to their interventions. One issue with that is, by definition, counterfactuals are speculative. But the bigger problem is that, given at least some of the actual real-world results, they’re simply wrong.
As I originally wrote:
Our World in Data numbers give us a pretty good picture of how things played out in the real world. Tragically, Malaria killed 562,000 people in 2015 and 627,000 in 2020. That’s a jump of 11.6 percent as opposed to the 40 percent decline that was expected. According to the WHO, there were 1.6 million tuberculosis victims in 2015 against 1.2 million in 2023. That’s a 24.7 percent drop – impressive, but not quite the required 35 per cent.
I couldn’t quickly find the precise HIV data mentioned in the program expectations, but I did see that HIV deaths dropped by 26 percent between 2015 and 2021. So that’s a win.
I’m now inclined to acknowledge that the Global Fund is serious about regularly assessing their work. It wouldn’t be fair to characterize GAC operations as completely blind.
But at the same time, over the course of many years, the actual results haven’t come close to matching the programs objectives. Why has the federal government not shifted the significant funding involved to more effective operations?
The Audit is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
espionage
Chinese spies arrested in California
From The Center Square
PRC operatives arrested in Guam during historic missile test
People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operatives and spies continue to be arrested in the U.S. The latest include two Chinese spies in California and several arrested in Guam near a U.S. military installation on the same day as an historic live ballistic missile interception test.
In California, a 64-year-old man was arrested on several charges including allegedly acting as a PRC agent while working as a campaign manager for a southern California city council candidate elected in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The operative “allegedly discussed with Chinese government officials how the PRC could ‘influence’ local politicians in the United States, particularly on the issue of Taiwan” and was allegedly involved in operations “to combat ‘anti-China forces’ in the U.S., among other conspiracies.
He was also charged with conspiring with another PRC operative who was sentenced to prison last month for acting as an unregistered PRC agent and bribing an IRS agent. In that case, two PRC citizens living in Los Angeles were targeting members of the Shen Yun Performing Arts Center, a multi-agency investigation found.
In Guam, U.S. Customs officers arrested PRC citizens who illegally entered near a U.S. military installation, according to the Guam Customs & Quarantine Agency.
As part of their investigation, officers learned the PRC operatives were dropped off the coast of Guam by a vessel originating from Saipan, in the U.S. territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).
On Dec. 10, they apprehended and detained two PRC women. On Dec. 11, they apprehended four PRC men who were all transported by the same vessel originating from Saipan, authorities said.
One PRC male was apprehended in the Tanguisson Beach area; three PRC men were apprehended in the vicinity of a U.S. military installation.
They were apprehended as the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, working with U.S. Department of Defense partners, “successfully conducted a live intercept of a ballistic missile target, marking the first Ballistic Missile Defense event executed from Guam,” the MDA announced. The operation was conducted off the coast of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.
MDA Director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said the successful operation enabled them to “build upon and validate joint tracking architecture and integrated air and missile defense capabilities for Guam.”
The flight test was “a critical milestone in the defense of Guam and the region,” Commander, Joint Task Force-Micronesia Rear Adm. Greg Huffman said. “It confirmed our ability to detect, track, and engage a target missile in flight, increasing our readiness to defend against evolving adversary threats.”
“Within the context of homeland defense, a top priority for the Department of Defense, Guam is also a strategic location for sustaining and maintaining United States military presence, deterring adversaries, responding to crises, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” MDA said.
Recognizing the threat posed by the PRC, the Guam Customs & Quarantine Agency has apprehended 152 PRC individuals “who were determined to be in violation of Guam entry laws” since 2022.
It’s also involved in a multiagency border security task force targeting illegal entries, which includes the Guam Police Department, Guam Fire Department, Guam Attorney General, Guam Port Authority, Guam Department of Labor, Guam Homeland Security, Guam Department of Agriculture Conservation Division, Marianas Fusion Center, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Customs and Department of Public Safety, US Coast Guard, US Navy, US Customs and Border Protection, US Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, and Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The task force is asking its community to contact them with any information related to illegal entry and to remain “vigilant and keep watch for individuals suspected to have made illegal entry to the island or who may be involved in smuggling activities.”
Border security and immigration law violations in the CNMI have long been a concern expressed by members of Congress, including the explosion of illegal birth tourism on the islands, The Center Square reported.
The recent PRC operatives arrests come as the greatest number of Chinese nationals illegally entered the country in U.S. history under the Biden administration, more than 176,000, The Center Square first reported.
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