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Big Brother Unchained: UK Government to Abolish Biometrics and Surveillance Safeguards As It Embraces Facial Recognition

November 1, 2023

Big Brother Unchained: UK Government to Abolish Biometrics and Surveillance Safeguards As It Embraces Facial Recognition

“The lack of attention being paid to [public safeguards] at such a crucial time is shocking, and destruction of the surveillance camera code that we’ve all been using successfully for over a decade is tantamount to vandalism.”

The United Kingdom is at the leading edge of many of the digital authoritarian trends sweeping ostensibly democratic nations. In one of the many dark ironies of our age, it is the government of George Orwell’s native Britain that is seeking to massively escalate its deployment of live facial recognition (LFR) technologies, despite the concerns raised about its potential impact. In late September, 180 rights groups and tech experts called on governments around the world to halt their use of facial recognition surveillance.

On the other side of the English channel, the EU Parliament has voted for a blanket ban on the use of LFR in public spaces, as too have some US cities. By contrast, the UK government is escalating its deployment of the controversial surveillance technology.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the son-in-law of Indian tech billionaire N R Narayana Murthy, is determined to transform the UK into a world leader in AI governance. Said governance apparently involves gutting many of the limited safeguards protecting the public from the potential downsides and dangers of AI, of which there are many. This, of course, is no accident; if there was any time the British public needed those safeguards, it would be right now, as the government unleashes facial recognition technologies across the urban landscape.

As we reported in early August, live facial recognition (LFR) surveillance, where people’s faces are biometrically scanned by cameras in real-time and checked against a database, is being used by an increasing number of UK retailers amid a sharp upsurge in shoplifting — with the blessing, of course, of the UK government…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Ukraine Was Always the UK’s War First

October 5, 2023

Ukraine Was Always the UK’s War First

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
— Verbal Kent, the Usual Suspects

For more than a year we’ve been regaled with headline after headline about how the War in Ukraine is a US war. It’s easy to think that, certainly. We’re the ones who started the process here, at least on the face of it.

Victoria Nuland and her cookies on The Maidan. John McCain and his money and support of Right Sector. Seymour Hersh’s expose on the Nordstream 2 bombing. The seemingly endless billions of materiel from Congress. Even this weekend’s continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown hinged on Ukraine.

The US has the political, economic, and military prowess and rightly should be first considered to be driving this bus towards war. And there are no shortage of commentators in the space helping that narrative along. And none of what I’m implying or about to say absolves these people from their actions which have led us to the current state.

Hundreds of thousands of people are dead because of what should have been a fully avoidable war had someone been in charge on the West’s side that wanted peace.

But the West didn’t want peace. It froze the conflict in 2014 with the Minsk Agreements because Vladimir Putin believed German Chancellor Angela Merkel was honorable. He traded liberating the Donbass fully for building Nordstream 2 hoping that the pipeline would finally tie Germany and Russia together in a that bond couldn’t be broken.

This was Putin’s greatest mistake. And he’s still paying for it to this day.

In 2014 Ukraine was in no shape after the rout at Gorlovka to oppose a Russian-backed Donetsk and Lugansk forces to secure both Oblasts which included the important city of Mariupol…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

New energy bill could see Brits jailed for failing to comply with ‘cultish’ Net Zero regulations

September 8, 2023

New energy bill could see Brits jailed for failing to comply with ‘cultish’ Net Zero regulations

The proposed Energy Bill has been criticized as an attack on freedom and home ownership

U.K. businesses and homeowners could be jailed for up to a year or fined £15,000 for non-compliance with new energy efficiency regulations proposed by the Conservative government, which have been described by critics as a “massive expansion of the state and its power over our lives.”

The Energy Bill, which returned to parliament for its third reading this week, outlines several new requirements homeowners must adhere to in relation to Net Zero, the government’s commitment to being carbon neutral by 2050.

For the first time, individuals face criminal charges for failing to comply with measures designed to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.

One such draconian regulation states that household appliances such as fridges, washing machines, and heat pumps must be fitted with smart functions that can be controlled by “any persons carrying out load control,” namely the National Grid, which oversees the majority of electricity transmission and distribution in Britain.

The vast majority of households in the country will not currently comply with the new measures outlined in the bill, meaning homeowners will be compelled to pay out significant sums to transform properties and make them “energy-efficient” or potentially face criminal charges for so-called “non-compliance.”

The bill has angered a number of backbench Conservative MPs who have threatened to rebel against the legislation, with some claiming it is the latest installment in the government’s “cult-like” obsession with Net Zero.

“We cannot impoverish our country to meet some, well, I’d like to call it in some cases almost cultish policy until we can afford it. Until it works, that’s when I think we should adopt all these policies,” said Richard Drax, the Conservative MP for South Dorset.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

From Covert to Overt: UK Government and Businesses Seek to Unleash Facial Recognition Technologies Across Urban Landscape

August 6, 2023

From Covert to Overt: UK Government and Businesses Seek to Unleash Facial Recognition Technologies Across Urban Landscape

The Home Office is encouraging police forces across the country to make use of live facial recognition technologies for routine law enforcement. Retailers are also embracing the technology to monitor their customers.

It increasingly seems that the UK decoupled from the European Union, its rules and regulations, only for its government to take the country in a progressively more authoritarian direction. This is, of course, a generalised trend among ostensibly “liberal democracies” just about everywhere, including EU Member States, as they increasingly adopt the trappings and tactics of more authoritarian regimes, such as restricting free speech, cancelling people and weakening the rule of law. But the UK is most definitely at the leading edge of this trend. A case in point is the Home Office’s naked enthusiasm for biometric surveillance and control technologies.

This week, for example, The Guardian revealed that the Minister for Policing Chris Philip and other senior figures of the Home Office had held a closed-door meeting with Simon Gordon, the founder of Facewatch, a leading facial recognition retail security company, in March. The main outcome of the meeting was that the government would lobby the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the benefits of using live facial recognition (LFR) technologies in retail settings. LFR involves hooking up facial recognition cameras to databases containing photos of people. Images from the cameras can then be screened against those photos to see if they match.

The lobbying effort was apparently successful. Just weeks after reaching out to the ICO, the ICO sent a letter to Facewatch affirming that the company “has a legitimate purpose for using people’s information for the detection and prevention of crime” and that its services broadly comply with UK Data Protection laws, which the Sunak government and UK intelligence agencies are trying to gut. ..

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Rise Of Totalitarianism: Banks Denying Services Based On Political Views

July 24, 2023

The Rise Of Totalitarianism: Banks Denying Services Based On Political Views

*Then British Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage speaks during a visit at Dover harbour, in Dover, Britain, on Aug. 12, 2020. (Matthew Childs/Reuters)*

When the Berlin Wall fell, I naively supposed that freedom was now secure, that never again would the spectre of totalitarianism return to Europe. I failed to take into account what I should have known, that the thirst for power is at least as great as that for freedom. Freedom and power are forever locked into a kind of Manichaean struggle, as are good and evil, and the thirst for power is perfectly capable of making an instrument of supposed good causes.

History doesn’t repeat itself, at least not in precisely the same way. The new totalitarianism doesn’t resort to thugs in the street and the midnight knock on the door. It’s somewhat more subtle than that, but nonetheless ruthless and dangerous for all its subtlety.

In Britain, a well-known politician, Nigel Farage, has had his bank account closed by a bank called Coutts that specializes in rich clients. It’s owned by the much larger National Westminster Bank, whose largest single shareholder by far, since the banking crisis of 2008, is the British government.

Mr. Farage is a well-known figure, the scourge of the Euro-federalists, and probably more responsible than any other single person for the referendum vote in 2016 for Britain to leave the European Union. Like most public figures with both strong opinions and a strong personality, Mr. Farage is both widely admired and widely detested. If you ask someone about him, he’s unlikely to answer, “On the one hand, on the other …”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

UK Looks To Boost Energy Security With Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

July 20, 2023

UK Looks To Boost Energy Security With Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

The UK has launched a competition for small modular reactor technology and created a new nuclear body.
The focus on small nuclear reactors is part of the country’s efforts to produce more zero-emission energy domestically.
As well as backing SMRs, the UK remains committed to traditional nuclear projects including Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C.

The UK launched on Tuesday a competition for small modular reactor (SMR) technology and created a new nuclear body, Great British Nuclear, in a bid to provide more zero-emission energy from locally-developed sources.

Great British Nuclear (GBN) is expected to drive the rapid expansion of new nuclear power plants in the UK, to boost UK energy security, reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports, create more affordable power, and grow the economy.

The nuclear industry is estimated to generate around $7.9 billion (£6 billion) for the UK economy, the government says.

As of today, companies can register their interest with GBN to participate in a competition to secure funding support to develop their SMR technology, which could result in billions of pounds of public and private sector investment in small modular reactor projects in the UK.

SMRs are considered to be the future of nuclear power technology because they are smaller than conventional reactors and can be manufactured in factories, making nuclear power stations cheaper and faster to build.

In the UK, Rolls-Royce has been developing SMR technology, which, the company says, can deliver cost-competitive and scalable net-zero power for multiple applications – from grid and industrial electricity production to hydrogen and synthetic fuel manufacturing.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Labor Leader’s Oil Plans Spark Outrage In Scotland

June 1, 2023

Labor Leader’s Oil Plans Spark Outrage In Scotland

Labour leader Starmer said that his party would end oil and gas investment in the UK North Sea.
Scottish politicians called the plan a ‘job destroyer’.
Energy security could be at risk if the UK actually bans new upstream investment in the North Sea.

In January this year, at the Davos summit, the leader of Britain’s Labour party, Keir Starmer, said that if Labour won the next elections, they would put an end to investments in oil and gas in the North Sea.

This month, Starmer reiterated the promise—or threat, as Scotland saw it. The official announcement that a future Labour government will not approve any new oil and gas licenses for the North Sea is due to be made next month.

“What we’ve said about oil and gas is that there does need to be a transition,” Starmer said back in January, as quoted by Reuters.

“Obviously it will play its part during that transition but not new investment, not new fields up in the North Sea, because we need to go towards net zero, we need to ensure that renewable energy is where we go next.”

This month, a high-ranking labour official and shadow work and pensions secretary told Sky News that the move to wind and solar would create jobs and bring energy bills down—something that new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea will not do, according to Labour.

Yet Scotland begs to differ. Right after Starmer said Labour would ban new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond dubbed Starmer the “North Sea job destroyer” and accused Labour of trying to sabotage Scotland’s energy security.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Nord Stream Terror Attack: The Plot Thickens

February 16, 2023

Nord Stream Terror Attack: The Plot Thickens

What’s left for all of us is to swim in a swamp crammed with derelict patsies, dodgy cover stories and intel debris.

Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report on how the United States government blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea last September continues to generate rippling geopolitical waves all across the spectrum.

Except, of course, in the parallel bubble of U.S. mainstream media, which has totally ignored it, or in a few select cases, decided to shoot the messenger, dismissing Hersh as a “discredited” journalist, a “blogger”, and a “conspiracy theorist”.

I have offered an initial approach, focused on the plentiful merits of a seemingly thorough report, but also noting some serious inconsistencies.

Old school Moscow-based foreign correspondent John Helmer has gone even further; and what he uncovered may be as incandescent as Sy Hersh’s own narrative.

The heart of the matter in Hersh’s report concerns attribution of responsibility for a de facto industrial terror attack. Surprisingly, no CIA; that falls straight on the toxic planning trio of Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland – neoliberal-cons part of the “Biden” combo. And the final green light comes from the Ultimate Decider: the senile, teleprompt-reading President himself. The Norwegians feature as minor helpers.

That poses the first serious problem: nowhere in his narrative Hersh refers to MI6, the Poles (government, Navy), the Danes, and even the German government.

There’s a mention that on January 2022, “after some wobbling”, Chancellor Scholz “was now firmly on the American team”. Well, by now the plan had been under discussion, according to Hersh’s source, for at least a few months. That also means that Scholz remained “on the American team” all the way to the terror attack, on September 2022.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Companies in UK Are Hitting the Wall at Fastest Rate Since Global Financial Crisis

February 4, 2023

Companies in UK Are Hitting the Wall at Fastest Rate Since Global Financial Crisis

As the price of everything, including debt, continues to soar, life is getting harder and harder for the UK’s heavily indebted businesses.

Business insolvencies in the UK surged by 57% in 2022, to 22,109, according to the latest data from the Insolvency Service, a UK government agency that deals with bankruptcies and companies in liquidation. It is the highest number of insolvencies registered annually since 2009, at the height of the Global Financial Crisis.

Last year “was the year the insolvency dam burst,” said Christina Fitzgerald, the president of R3, the insolvency and restructuring trade body. Insolvencies peaked in the fourth quarter, underscoring the compounding pressures on companies grappling with surging costs and rapidly slowing economic activity.

“Supply-chain pressures, rising inflation and high energy prices have created a ‘trilemma’ of headwinds which many management teams will be experiencing simultaneously for the first time,” Samantha Keen, UK turnround and restructuring strategy partner at EY-Parthenon and president of the Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA), told the Financial Times. “This stress is now deepening and spreading to all sectors of the economy as falling confidence affects investment decisions, contract renewals and access to credit.”

Other headwinds include soaring interest rates, falling consumer demand, nationwide strikes, lingering Brexit-induced supply chain issues, an epidemic of quiet quitting and both chronic and acutely bad government.

Closest to the Edge

None of this, of course, should come as a surprise. Of all the large economies in Europe, the UK’s is arguably closest to the cliff edge. As newspaper headlines trumpeted this week, the UK economy this year will probably fare worse than Russia’s sanction-hit economy, according to the IMF’s latest forecasts. But then the same could be said of many other European economies, including Germany and Italy.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

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

February 1, 2023

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.

The former minister suggests that Ukraine is essentially too big to fail and that NATO cannot allow Russia to prevail in the region, otherwise they will be emboldened to strike other nearby nations. There is zero evidence to support this argument, but it is clear that NATO talking heads are desperate to drum up some kind of public fervor.

Are western citizens willing to fight and die for Ukraine? It’s highly unlikely.

UK Warned by Farmers That It Is Facing a Food Supply Crisis

December 8, 2022

UK Warned by Farmers That It Is Facing a Food Supply Crisis

Pigs are judged at the Dorset County Show, Dorchester, England, on Sept. 4, 2022. (Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)

In an emergency press conference, the National Farmers Union (NFU) said the government needed to step in to assist farmers who are under severe strain.

The British farming industry is facing major issues across almost all sectors, with the price of animal feed and nitrogen fertiliser, and fuel skyrocketing. The union warned that yields of crops will likely slump to record lows this year with farmers also considering reducing the size of their herds.

Under Threat

In the emergency press conference, NFU president Minette Batters said that “shoppers up and down the country have for decades had a guaranteed supply of high-quality affordable food produced to some of the highest animal welfare, environmental, and food safety standards in the world.”

“That food, produced with care by British farmers, is critical to our nation’s security and success. But British food is under threat,” she added.

“We have already seen the egg supply chain crippled under the pressure caused by these issues and I fear the country is sleepwalking into further food supply crises, with the future of British fruit and vegetable supplies in trouble. We need government and the wider supply chain to act now—tomorrow could well be too late.”

According to the NFU, since 2019 the price of wholesale gas has increased by 650 percent, with nitrogen fertiliser up by 240 percent and agricultural diesel up 73 percent. Furthermore, animal feed raw material has increased by 75 percent.

Nearly 1 in 10 NFU members who produce beef said they were considering reducing the size of their herd in the next 12 months.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

It Was Never About Ukraine

November 26, 2022

It Was Never About Ukraine

In his March 21 press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price told the gathered reporters that “President Zelenskyy has also made it very clear that he is open to a diplomatic solution that does not compromise the core principles at the heart of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.” A reporter asked Price, “What are you saying about your support for a negotiated settlement à la Zelenskyy, but on whose principles?” In what still may be the most remarkable statement of the war, Price responded, “this is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine.”

Price, who a month earlier had discouraged talks between Russia and Ukraine, rejected Kiev negotiating an end to the war with Ukraine’s interests addressed because US core interests had not been addressed. The war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

A month later, in April, when a settlement seemed to be within reach at the Istanbul talks, the US and UK again pressured Ukraine not to pursue their own goals and sign an agreement that could have ended the war. They again pressured Ukraine to continue to fight in pursuit of the larger goals of the US and its allies. Then British prime minister Boris Johnson scolded Zelensky that Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with.” He added that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, the West was not.”

Once again, the war was not about Ukraine’s interests: it was bigger than Ukraine.

At every opportunity, Biden and his highest ranking officials have insisted “that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how and when or if they negotiate with the Russians” and that the US won’t dictate terms: “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” But that has never been true…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

UK Food Inflation Hits Record High As Discretionary Income Evaporates Ahead Of Dark Winter

November 10, 2022

UK Food Inflation Hits Record High As Discretionary Income Evaporates Ahead Of Dark Winter

Brits have watched double-digit inflation wipe out any wage gains in one of the worst cost-of-living crises in a generation. Many have gone into debt, paying for things such as food, energy, and shelter. Others have been left with little or no discretionary income ahead of a very dark and cold winter.

Research company Kantar published a new survey Tuesday that revealed startling food inflation numbers for October that soared at the fastest pace in 14 years.

Kantar said annual grocery prices rose to 14.7% last month, the fastest since the research firm began tracking prices.

Consumers are expected to pay an additional £682 in their annual grocery bill if they continue buying the same items.

The survey found that 27% of all households are “struggling financially,” double the amount from last November. Nine in ten respondents said food inflation is a top concern, while energy bills were second.

“So it’s clear just how much grocery inflation is hitting people’s wallets and adding to their domestic worries,” Kantar said.

Kantar revealed consumers are switching from name-brand items to cheap private-label store brands to save money:

Own label sales have jumped again by 10.3% over the latest four weeks, as shoppers adopt different strategies to manage their budgets. The branded goods market grew far slower at 0.4%.

In a separate study, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found a whopping 7 million families have given up on heating, showers, and toiletries this year due to the cost-of-living crisis squeezing discretionary income.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research, which publishes the Asda tracker, found that after paying taxes for housing, heating, and food, 20% of earners in the second lowest income have nothing left to spend, according to Bloomberg.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Russia Accuses British Navy Of Nord Stream “Terrorist Attack”

October 29, 2022

Russia Accuses British Navy Of Nord Stream “Terrorist Attack”

Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday issued a statement charging that the British Navy blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, in what marks the first formal and direct accusation leveled against the UK over the major incident which put Europe’s energy supplies in doubt.

“According to available information, representatives of this unit of the British Navy took part in the planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea on September 26 this year – blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines,” the ministry said, though without specifying any evidence.

The Kremlin earlier in a more broad accusation pointed the finger at NATO countries, including Britain, saying that NATO forces had conducted military exercises around the exact location the undersea explosions occurred. The accusation follows a Russian Foreign Ministry claim that NATO conducted a military exercise during the summer, close to the location where the undersea explosions occurred.

“In July, there were NATO drills with the use of deep-sea equipment in the area of the island of Bornholm,” a foreign ministry briefing said days after the Sept.26 blasts. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharovathe said the region “was crammed with NATO infrastructure” at the time of the sabotage attack.

In follow-up during his annexation of the four Ukrainian territories speech on Sept.30, President Putin mounted this attack on the West:

Putin claimed that the “Anglo-Saxons” in the West have turned from sanctions on Russia to “terror attacks,” sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in what he described as an attempt to “destroy the European energy infrastructure.”

He added that “those who profit from it have done it,” without naming a specific country.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

UK Grid Operator Offers Households Money To Stop Using Appliances Amid Energy Crisis

October 22, 2022

UK Grid Operator Offers Households Money To Stop Using Appliances Amid Energy Crisis

The National Grid warned Britons of winter power blackouts earlier this month if it can’t import enough natural gas and electricity from other parts of Europe. According to Daily Mail, the grid operator developed a new scheme to prevent the worst-case scenario of power outages by offering households equipped with smart meters to turn off appliances during peak demand times.

National Grid’s scheme pays households up to £20 per day if they don’t use energy-intensive appliances, such as electric ovens and stoves, washing machines, tumble dryers, televisions, microwaves, and even video game consoles, between 4 pm and 7 pm or 2 pm until 9 pm over the next five months.

They will be advised to use washing machines, tumble dryers, ovens, dishwashers and other appliances outside those periods so boffins can measure how much energy is saved on the grid when it is at its busiest. If the entire proposed £3 per kwh rebate if passed on to Britons by their supplier, over five months this could mean around £240 off their bills in total. –Daily Mail

The grid operator hopes the ‘demand flexibility service’ will save 2GW of electricity — equivalent to powering 1 million homes — during peak demand hours to thwart supply and demand imbalances that could result in power rationing.

“But the scheme relies on users having a controversial smart meter, a device which automatically transmits your energy usage to your provider,” Daily Mail said.

Remember in the US, over the summer, when households in Colorado could not control their own smart thermostats after the local power company digitally seized them to prevent people from increasing cooling demand during a heatwave. There are risks when using anything smart.

This winter could be reminiscent of power outages experienced in the 1970s across the UK if power generators cannot get enough NatGas to operate.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

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