Yes, Iran Has Actually Closed The Strait Of Hormuz Again

 

 

After a news pantomime last night and earlier today (Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz ... Oh no they haven't ... Oh yes they have,) it has finally been confirmed that Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz once again over Israel's air strikes on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, which Iran describes as“violations” of the peace deal agreed with the USA, Tehran’s military has said. Technically Hezbollah is not part of Trump's war and the conflict between the terrorit organisation's forces in Lebanon and the Israelis is a separate issue.

The Iranian military command ‌stated the closure was the “first ‌step” in response to what it described as breaches of the ceasefire agreement, warning that further measures would ‌be taken if “aggression” continued, Iran's state media reported.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned vessels not to venture into  the shipping lanes through the strait, saying their security would be at risk.

The US military immediately denied that Iran had control of the strait. A spokesman for Central Command said: “Traffic continues to move through the strait, and US forces are monitoring the situation ‌to ensure this remains the case.”

The reports emerged as JD Vance, the US vice-president, told Fox ​News that ‌he was confident ​the ceasefire agreed in Washington’s 14-point deal ⁠with ⁠Tehran would hold. He claimed there was no evidence that the strait was shut. That may well be true but it is equally true that there is no evidence it is open. What captain is going to risk his ship and the lives of himself and his crew trying to find out.

Independent reports reveal Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed 16 people this morning, with the country claiming it was responding to attacks by Hezbollah.But these strikes are nothing to do with Trump or America.

Israel is not the USA. Israel is a sovereign state, whether Iran recognises its right to exist or not. (Spoiler, it doesn't.) Israel is not a signatory. to the Islamabad Memorandum. Hezbollah is not the government of Lebanon and neither are its commanders the IRGC.

Israel is not leaving the buffer zone south of the Litani river and is not allowing Hezbollah to rearm and return to the border to carry out another Hamas style, or worse, October 7th.Hezbollah is a proscribed terrorist group and is widely recognised as an  Iranian asset.

The Lebanese army are too weak to control the 90,000 strong Iranian proxy militia, Hezbollah.

UNIFIL (The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) set up in 2006 has not succeeded disarming Hezbollah and not keeping them north of the Lebanon / Israel  border.Thus it is wholly disingenuous of Iran to use the Israel - Hezbollah conflict as an excuse for closing Hormuz again, and suggests the government of Iran had no intention of honouring the peace deal. No surprise there.

So much for treaties not worth the paper they are written on. So much for useless UN bodies which are actually in favour of the erasure of Israel.

UPDATE - Sunday 21 June, 22:00

Though White House and Pentagon sources have continued throughout today that contrary to Iran's claims The Strait of Hormuz remains open for business as usual, Windward on X has this:

 Hours after the IRGC's closure announcement, AIS traffic through the Strait of Hormuz suggested business as usual. But overnight, the picture shifted: zero AIS transits were recorded through the strait, and only two non-Iranian commercial vessels were AIS-visible this morning. Hesitation is back in an already unpredictable corridor. 

 So as another round of talks, this time in Switzerland, breaks up it looks as though the war is still on

 

 

 

FROM THE ARCHIVE: 

 

 

Just How Close Are We To World War Three
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Labour leader Corbyn rejects bombing Syria, blames BRITAIN and the US for the rise of ISIS: because it will spark more ‘mayhem’
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More Than ISIS, Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency
The story emerging in Iraq is of another American foreign policy fuck up, a total misreading of the situation by the world's most parochial global power. By December 2013, Sunni leaders had become tired of the jihadi group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) actions in their areas and publicly supported the Iraq government’s military campaign against the group’s bases. Unfortunately the ISIS rebels were armed with US military technology and Obama was calling for the resignation of the government in Baghdad, prompting Russia and Iran to support them ...

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Syrian president Bashar Assad could be allowed a free pass to flee his country if it would end the bloodshed, David Cameron said today. The Prime Minister said he would do ‘anything to get that man [Assad] out of the country’ but refused to offer Assad a safe haven in Britain. Mr Cameron is on the second day of ...

Will Egypt Seize Libya For Its Oil

If the conflict in Syria, currently showing signs of spreading to Turkey, Iraq and Kurdistan were to escalate into a regional war, a proxy for east and west to butt heads without sustaining too much domestic damage, is Egypt likely to take advantage of the distraction and

EXPLORE:
[Daily Stirrer] ... [ Our Page on on Substack ]... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ] ... [ Blog Bulletin ]

EU Parliament Votes For Toughest Ever Changes To Law OnIllegal Immigrant Treatment

Picture: Financial Times

 

Members of the European Parliament voted on Wednesday this week in favour of toughening migration rules in the EU. The result delighted the conservative and nationalist bloc but infuriated the left thus has highlighting a major rift between right-wing and left-wing MEPs.

The vote is a counterpoint to the European Migration Pact which came into force recently and angered the political right by imposing on EU member states a duty to accept quotas of illegal immigrants.  

The new rules on deporting people who have no legal right to be in EU nations, which include speeding up the deportation of bogus asylum seekers, boat people, visa overstayers, fake students, and anyone else who entered Europe illegally whose claims for sanctuary have been rejected, were originally proposed by the European Commission last year amid growing public discontent with an influx of illegal migrants posing as refugees and asylum seekers. The issue has dominated the bloc’s political landscape since 2015 when roughly a million undocumented immigrants entered the EU.

By 2025, the EU migrant population had reached a record 64.2 million, including around 46.7 million people born outside the bloc, according to a recent Berlin-based study using Eurostat and UN data.

Against this backdrop, right-wing parties advocating tougher policies on migration have been steadily gaining ground in multiple member states, including Germany. The mainstream Christian-Democrats and centre-right have had to co-opt some of the rhetoric they had previously denounced.

Among the new measures included in new EU  is a clause allowing controversial return hubs outside the bloc and home searches. These are the main points that aroused leftist anger, as  conservatives who had previously been 'on message' voted with so called far-right groups to pass the legislation. 

The vote confirmed the emergence of a right-leaning majority in Parliament on migration issues. The centre-right European People's Party (EPP) once again aligned with the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the far-right Patriots for Europe (PfE) and Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN).Several MEPs from the liberal Renew Europe group also back the bill.

The EPP continues to rule out formal cooperation with parties it considers too extreme, including the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and France's National Rally and Vox in Spain. EPP leader Manfred Weber has repeatedly rejected the prospect of formal alliances with such forces 

But the EPP sees their votes as crucial for tougher migration legislation, creating an alternative majority to the traditional centrist coalition of the EPP, Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Renew Europe.

Socialists and left-wing MEPs largely opposed the legislation, arguing that it could undermine migrants' fundamental rights.

European Commission Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner and Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen said in a statement issued shortly after the vote: “Our citizens expect us to manage migration effectively. When people with no right to stay remain in the EU, the credibility of our entire migration policy is undermined … and [this] diminishes Europe’s ability to attract and retain talent and skills.”

With anti-immigrant sentiment boosting far-right parties across Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden, Europe’s center right — led by the European People’s Party (EPP) — is scrambling to prove to voters that the political mainstream still has migration under control​.

The Commission’s initiative derives from a striking statistic: In 2023 over 480,000 people were ordered to leave the EU — but only one in five actually did so​.

While the official goal of the plan is to enforce existing migration rules, the primary aim is political: Holding off the far right.

“Migration … is often exploited by populists for political gain,” Virkkunen said.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: 

Just How Close Are We To World War Three
Have you read or heard in your news supplier of choice of the recent massive troop movements in Israel, the massive build up of British, French and American warships around the approaches to the Persian gulf or just how badly the situations in Egypt and Libya have deteriorated since ...

Irony Overload: Iran Warns Obama Not To Cross Red Lines
the United States concluded an agreement with Iran which lifted US and International sanctions in return for Islamic Shi'ite Republic agreeing to limit their nuclear ability. At a high level, the US would lead the way in lifting oil and financial sanctions imposed due to Iran’s nuclear programs; in return Iran would reduce their stockpile of enriched uranium,

How Hillary Clinton Planned The Syrian Holocaust We bring you evidence that the destruction of Syria was planned by the USA and Israel long before the US engineered 'spontaneous uprising'known as The Arab Spring ...

Another Obama Sponsored Genocide - not Alawi or Christians In Syria but Yazidi in Iraq.
While the west has been distracted by events in Gaza and Ukraine, and the neo - fascist 'left' have suddenly discovered the joys of anti Russianism and anti Semitism, the FUKUS axis sponsored genocidists of ISIS have discovered another inoffensive minority to exterminate now that the Syriac Christians have fled.

More Than ISIS, Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency
The story emerging in Iraq is of another American foreign policy fuck up, a total misreading of the situation by the world's most parochial global power. By December 2013, Sunni leaders had become tired of the jihadi group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) actions in their areas and publicly supported the Iraq government’s military campaign against the group’s bases. Unfortunately the ISIS rebels were armed with US military technology and Obama was calling for the resignation of the government in Baghdad, prompting Russia and Iran to support them ...

Over 4000 Civilians Have Died In Forgotten War. As attention has focused on Syria ans then on the efforts of the Obama administration, in its dying months, to avenge the defeat of the anointed successor Hillary Clinton and discredit the election victor and President - elect Donald Trump, and simultaneously demonize Russia and President Putin Will Egypt Seize Libya For Its Oil

If the conflict in Syria, currently showing signs of spreading to Turkey, Iraq and Kurdistan were to escalate into a regional war, a proxy for east and west to butt heads without sustaining too much domestic damage, is Egypt likely to take advantage of the distraction and

Irony Overload: Iran Warns Obama Not To Cross Red Lines
the United States concluded an agreement with Iran which lifted US and International sanctions in return for Islamic Shi'ite Republic agreeing to limit their nuclear ability. At a high level, the US would lead the way in lifting oil and financial sanctions imposed due to Iran’s nuclear programs; in return Iran would reduce their stockpile of enriched uranium,

"West's War In Syria Is Part Of A Global war Waged By The USA And Its Dupes Allies Against Russia"
Arthur Foxake brings us a brilliant analysis of the geopolitical picture from the black Sea and Middle East, but ahead of the embed window we get a few of Arthur's own thoughts on the situation

Another Obama Sponsored Genocide - not Alawi or Christians In Syria but Yazidi in Iraq.
While the west has been distracted by events in Gaza and Ukraine, and the neo - fascist 'left' have suddenly discovered the joys of anti Russianism and anti Semitism, the FUKUS axis sponsored genocidists of ISIS have discovered another inoffensive minority to exterminate now that the Syriac Christians have fled.

More Than ISIS, Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency
The story emerging in Iraq is of another American foreign policy fuck up, a total misreading of the situation by the world's most parochial global power. By December 2013, Sunni leaders had become tired of the jihadi group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) actions in their areas and publicly supported the Iraq government’s military campaign against the group’s bases. Unfortunately the ISIS rebels were armed with US military technology and Obama was calling for the resignation of the government in Baghdad, prompting Russia and Iran to support them ...

Poison Gas Used In Syria Sparks Calls For Western Military Invasion
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Syria's Dirty War Looks Set To Get Dirtier
'From unobtrusive, anonymous offices scattered around the middle east, in Qatar, Jordan, Turkey and Croatia, CIA officers have acted as brokers and overseers of a programme of massive arms shipment to Syria's rebels. The western powers operation to support those trying to overthrow the Assad regime is officially denied and ...

Islamic Cleric Announces Fatwah Allowing The Legal Rape Of Syrian Women By Anti Assad Rebels

An Islamic cleric has pronounced a fatwa that permits US-backed FSA rebels to rape non-Sunni women in Syria as part of a "sexual jihad" that has so far involved girls as young as 14 being transported to remote areas of the country to service the needs of ...

Over 4000 Civilians Have Died In Forgotten War. As attention has focused on Syria ans then on the efforts of the Obama administration, in its dying months, to avenge the defeat of the anointed successor Hillary Clinton and discredit the election victor and President - elect Donald Trump, and simultaneously demonize Russia and President Putin

EXPLORE:
[Daily Stirrer] ... [ Our Page on on Substack ]... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ] ... [ Blog Bulletin ]

 

How America's Democrats Are Throwing Away A Winnable Election For The Sake Of Socialism

As campaigning starts to heat up for the USA's into the midterm elections due in November  an uncomfortable truth facing the Democratic Party, which ought to be favourites to win and thus regain control of Congress, making Donald Trump a lame-duck president for the final two years of his term, an influential Left-wing movement is gaining momentum and increasingly appears capable of pulling the national Democratic Party further toward a socialist agenda, displacing the  old liberal establishment entirely. 

Last week, two Democratic Socialist of America members achieved successes in primaries, thus being selected to replace long serving Democrat representatives. These victories, and others, underscore the left movement’s growing ability to outcompete the party mainstream. In Maine, Graham Platner, who has described himself as a DSA member in online forums, clinched the nomination for the US Senate, besting the party’s preferred candidate, Gov. Janet Mills. On the other coast, Nithya Raman, the first DSA member elected to the Los Angeles City Council, advanced to a mayoral runoff against the establishment-backed incumbent, Karen Bass. 

This swing to the left among America's liberals mirrors Europe's swing to the right in the wake of neo - liberalism's and Social Democracy's failures in Europe. In short political establishments on both side of the pond have lost sight of the people whose votes they rely on.

Both Trump's MAGA movement and the surging DSA movement share a common them. People are angry at the government and the neoliberal globalist establishment that has run it since the 90’s (or even WWII if you prefer). The anger towards the elites and the inequality that came out of the globalization era is very, very real. To the people, the social contract of the New Deal and post-war liberalism has failed. So long as nothing is done to restrain the multinational corporations and the billionaires, it continues to get worse, bringing even more radical, more disruptive, ideas to the surface. Eventually, the people will get what they want, one way or another.

There are basically two valid forms that change can take, one from the right and the other the left. The first is what has happened in both Trump terms, a strident nationalism that boils down to America first, a restoration of national sovereignty at the expense of international cooperation and dispensing with any notion of a world order. America’s government works for the American people, not for some ideal of global cooperation, not for international corporations or wannabe world governments like the Davos Gang. America first is the ideal in a nutshell.

The second form, though, is radical redistribution of wealth, a direct rejection of classical liberalism. Let the global economy take whatever form, but target the wealth of individuals directly through new forms of taxation and new policies. Break up large corporations. Restore competition. Extend unionisation to new classes of workers and pass new labour laws. It’s basically European style socialism with a fresh coat of paint and a set of explicitly named targets to shoot at (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc.).

This is a political reckoning that was guaranteed by the mistakes made during the neoliberal, unipolar era and even before. At this point the neoliberal establishment is, politically speaking, a dead man walking. The only thing keeping them in power is inertia and incumbency. Establishment Republicans have been dropping like flies in primaries due to anti-elite sentiment. Now the same thing is happening to Democrats. The end result will be either nationalistic competition on a global scale that forces companies and billionaires to ‘pick a side’ and care about where their physical assets, productive capacity, employees, etc. actually are located, OR an unapologetic redistribution scheme with some minimum pretence of socialism but is, in practice, simply keeping people fed, housed, and entertained so they won’t actually rebel against the overclass, basically a bread and games Roman Empire 2.0. The reckoning is at hand and it’s too late to save the old world order which has been a zombie for decades.

But the DSA is overplaying its hand. America might be angry and fed up with the old ruling duopoly but there is little evidence that American voters are ready for full on, authoritarian socialism. 

 FROM THE ARCHIVE: 

 

De - Dollarisation: China, Brazil Make Deal To Ditch US Dollar For Bilateral Trades
China and Brazil this week concluded a deal to conduct trade between their nations in their own in their own currencies, ditching the established reserve currency for global trade, US dollar as an intermediary, the Brazilian announced said on Wednesday. This is Beijing’s latest strike against the almighty greenback in its currency war aimed at shifting the balance of geopolitical and economic power from west to east.

NATO Rhetoric About Russian Threat is 'Absurd'
The reasons being given for the latest NATO military buildup in Eastern Europe, the idea that the Russian 'Russian threat' to Eastern Europe grows every day is "simply absurd," according to former US diplomat and Senate policy advisor Jim Jatras. Effectively, Jatras says, the buildup is an attempt by the US to keep Germany and France on board with Washington's world domination agenda and ...

The Demise Of Dollar Hegemony: Russia Breaks Wall Streets's Oil-Price Monopoly
Significant moves in the global chess game have just rendered the huffing and puffing of warmonger Obama meaningless and will break Wall Street's monopoly in controlling oil markets. The move is part of Vladimir Putin's long-term strategy of decoupling Russia’s economy and especially its very significant export of oil, from the US dollar, in effect ...

Naked Bankers Go For Gold
... That gold sale in 2013 was a naked short. The seller had no gold to sell. COMEX reported having gold only equal to about half of the short sale in its vaults, and not all of that was available for delivery (quite a lot of it belonged to the german government) In effect the naked shorting of gold could only work because really the right hand was selling to the left hand.

The Demise Of Dollar Hegemony: Russia Breaks Wall Streets's Oil-Price Monopoly In a move that went almost completely unreported in mainstream media, Russia has recently opened a market for the trading of physical and 'paper' oil (futures) in Moscow in Roubles. This is the most blatant challenge yet to the domination of the US dollar in world trade.

WMD in Mayfair
Recalling yesterday's Machiavelli Blog which commented on events surrounding the unfortunate death of the alleged former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, it seems the murder investigation has now found evidence of many caches (well OK, traces) of radio active toxins in various fashionable establishments in London's West End frequented by former Russian intelligence agents.

China launches global yuan payment system
China’s Central Bank has started a global payment system which provides cross-border transactions in yuan. The China International Payment System (CIPS) intends to internationalize the yuan and challenge the US dollar's dominance.

NATO Rhetoric About Russian Threat is 'Absurd'
The reasons being given for the latest NATO military buildup in Eastern Europe, the idea that the Russian 'Russian threat' to Eastern Europe grows every day is "simply absurd," according to former US diplomat and Senate policy advisor Jim Jatras. Effectively, Jatras says, the buildup is an attempt by the US to keep Germany and France on board with Washington's world domination agenda and ...

The Demise Of Dollar Hegemony: Russia Breaks Wall Streets's Oil-Price Monopoly
Significant moves in the global chess game have just rendered the huffing and puffing of warmonger Obama meaningless and will break Wall Street's monopoly in controlling oil markets. The move is part of Vladimir Putin's long-term strategy of decoupling Russia’s economy and especially its very significant export of oil, from the US dollar, in effect ...

Naked Bankers Go For Gold
... That gold sale in 2013 was a naked short. The seller had no gold to sell. COMEX reported having gold only equal to about half of the short sale in its vaults, and not all of that was available for delivery (quite a lot of it belonged to the german government) In effect the naked shorting of gold could only work because really the right hand was selling to the left hand.

The Demise Of Dollar Hegemony: Russia Breaks Wall Streets's Oil-Price Monopoly In a move that went almost completely unreported in mainstream media, Russia has recently opened a market for the trading of physical and 'paper' oil (futures) in Moscow in Roubles. This is the most blatant challenge yet to the domination of the US dollar in world trade.

WMD in Mayfair
Recalling yesterday's Machiavelli Blog which commented on events surrounding the unfortunate death of the alleged former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, it seems the murder investigation has now found evidence of many caches (well OK, traces) of radio active toxins in various fashionable establishments in London's West End frequented by former Russian intelligence agents.

China launches global yuan payment system
China’s Central Bank has started a global payment system which provides cross-border transactions in yuan. The China International Payment System (CIPS) intends to internationalize the yuan and challenge the US dollar's dominance.

Refugee Crisis Or Existential Battle With USA for Europe
It has been clear for some years now that the USA, backed by its main NATO and EU military allies the UK and France (the FUKUS axis has been trying to provoke Russian into firing the shot that will be heard around the world and recognised as the startiung signal for World War Three.
Nothing is ever as it seems to be however, and views from middle east and far eastern journals suggest the USA is also working at destabilizing EU nations in order to force their support in its wars.

EU and US talk of war with Russia
The European People’s Party (EPP) is the largest political group in the European Parliament, and they are unerringly supportive of America's efforts to start a war with Russia. “The time of talk and persuasion with Russia is over," MEP and Vice-President of the EPP told a meeting on Tuesday, 21 April, “Now it’s time for a tough policy, and concentration on defence and security ...”

The Mediterranean Boat People Crisis - How Does Europe Deal With The Mediterranean Migrant Crisis
The numbers of migrants trying to cross from the Libya on the coast of north Africa to one of the EU's southern nations is increasing. Europe's impoverished southern nations can't cope. And in the better off nations of northern Europe immigration is a toxic issue which is fuelling the rise of anti EU parties from France to Finnland in the north and Hungary in the east. What can be done?

This Is Why The US Just Lost Its Superpower Status According To Larry Summers
As more and more countries flock to join the Chinese led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank after Britain, France Australia, India and other traditional US allies defied Washington to associate themselves with China's initiative, conservative economic pundit Larry Summers once a contender for the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve delivered a sharp rebuke ...

The True Debt Disaster America Faces - Only A Fraction Of Government Debt Is Known To The Public
Politicians and the media talk about the $17 trillion debt the US Government owes to creditors. They are lying, the $17 trillion is a fraction of what america owes. The real figure is $200 trillon. And Obama's loonytoons economics are driving that up at an accelerating rate.

U.S. versus Russia War: Top Russian Politics Scolar Stephen Cohen Tells The Truth
We have been blogging for four years about the US drive for war, provocation of Russia in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere made it obvious. But I'm just a news junkie with a strong sense of curiosity and have wondered why the US seems set on this course. Good to see experts like Stephen Cohen, a prominent expert on, Russia are coming onside.

Does It matter If The Dollar Is Replaced?
"Without delving too deeply into Austrian economic and capital theory, just let me point out that money printing disrupts the structure of production by fraudulently changing the “price discovery process” of capitalism. Capital is allocated to projects that will never be profitably completed. Bubbles get created and collapse and businesses are suddenly damaged en mass, thus, destroying wealth. (Zero Hedge)"

What the BRICS plus Germany are really up to in the Currency Wars?
The move led by Russia and China to dump the Petrodollar has escalated into a currency war, not the kind of war we assciate Obama with but give him time. Some wars as in Ukraine, by proxy are not going so well. Others, like the one against Islamic State aka ISIS aka ISIL in the middle east are going worse. Disintegration of The American Economic Empire is manifesting itself in moves by wannabe global players towards creating a multipolar world ...

EXPLORE:
[ Currency Wars ] ... [Daily Stirrer] ... [ Our Page on on Substack ]... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ] ... [ Blog Bulletin ]

UK's Labour Government Goes The Whole Orwell, Launches Plan To Take Control Of Your Smartphone

 Boggart Blog  has been warning about this since our first incarnation in 2005. Socialism always leads to fascism, as economist Josef Schumpeter warned back in the 1930s and twenty - one years ago it was clear to us Boggart Bloggers,  an IT consultant, an accountant and an aerospace engineer, that the government of the day, led by Tony Blair at the time, was intent on using internet technologies as a tool for social engineering and the destruction of individual liberty.

At the time the technology existed for tracking and electronic surveillance of our every action and movement via online technology, but it was not as advanced and did not have the ubiquity of the smartphone. To put a tracker device in the pockets of 90% of the population and set up the networks and data centres to gather, collate and store the data would have been prohibitively costly.

But not any more ...

In the article from which we reproduce an extract below the author discusses the UK government's plans, in collaboration with Silicon Valley black hat actors Google and Apple to introduce mandatory client side scanning on smartphones, giving tech companies and government agencies powers to read and record every message or internet session users are involved in. They justify this exercise in trampling on constitutional rights and liberties by claiming it is to protect children from accessing harmful material

It is no coincidence that simultaneously the Socialist government is working with tech firms on plans to make what they call 'misinformation and disinformation' (i.e. anything the government does not want you to see, hear or read,) posted online invisible to user. All levels of government deny this is a blatant attack on free speech of course.

And we must not forget, though it is on hold at the moment due to a public opinion backlash, Reichsfuhrer Starmer's favourite sacred cow project, mandatory Digital ID is still part of his manifesto.

 

Authored by Stephen Green via PJMedia.com,

In George Orwell's 1984, Great Britain was just a province of Oceania named "Airstrip One" as a none-too-subtle nod to the U.K.'s role as host to the heavy bombers of U.S. Eighth Air Force during World War II.

Four decades past the real 1984, and there's still no Oceania. But Britain looks more and more like Airstrip One as Parliament considers a bill opening up everyone's smartphone to government supervision — and jail time for tech execs who don't submit.

You had to figure this was probably coming, right?

Right.

Reclaim the Net reports that "Ministers are reportedly drafting a law that would force Apple, Google, and the rest to make it impossible for a child to send, receive, view, or share a single nude image, with the executives who refuse facing up to five years in prison."

That might sound all well and good, but as usual, For the Children™ is little more than the government's justification for total surveillance.

"You cannot block every naked picture someone might stumble across without inspecting every picture, every message, every video call, every streamed film, on every device, all the time," Reclaim noted, with nudity serving as "the excuse and the unbroken view into your phone is the actual prize."

The industry term is "client-side scanning," which sounds much nicer than "a government mandated app that looks at everything on your phone all the time."

And even that sounds better than "Big Brother is Watching You," which is exactly what it is.

As already required by Britain's Online Safety Act, Apple and Google forcibly install age verification on every iPhone and Android device in the UK via app store updates.

No, it can't be uninstalled.

As I reported in January, what this means in practice is that London's Office of Communications ("Ofcom" in Newspeak) mandates on-device software able to read everybody's "private" messages in real-time and scan their images, too, before any personal encryption tools come into play. 

London pinky-swears that it'll only look for CSAM and terrorism-related materials, but as the Telegram's Zia Yusuf put it back then, "the slippery slope is obvious" and "mission creep is inevitable." 

Worth reading in full 

 

FROM THE ARCHIVE: 

 

 

EU AuthoritarianMigration Pact, Dubbed Europe's Suicide Pact, Comes Into Force Today But Threatens To Tear The Union Apart

Police officer escorts a group of migrants who illegally crossed the border from Poland into Germany, southeast of Berlin, Germany, on Oct. 11, 2023 Markus Schreiber/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved

 

Two years after being adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, the Pact on Migration and Asylum will come into force today. The Pact is presented as a major reform of how European Union member states manage migration, borders and asylum claims, but some critics claim it will  lead to further division among member states and hasten the break up of the European Union..

The Pact, which made nationalists furious when announced, is made up of a package of 10 laws and reforms that together create a more unified migration system. In 2024, Belgium voted in favour of all 10 laws in the Pact, together with most member states. Only Hungary and Poland voted against all 10 laws. 

The Pact will impose the same procedure for handling applications for asylum in every country, a fairer distribution of reception and responsibility and faster procedures to process asylum claims. “In practice, this means working faster for us – and more work,” says Paulien Blondeel, spokesperson from the Immigration Office, with a laugh. “I can’t deny it’s quite an undertaking. But if every country participates, then after that difficult start-up phase we will end up with an efficiently functioning European system.”

One has to wonder if Blondeen has ever considered a career in comedy.

Even  having been given two years for preparation, Belgium is still not ready to implement all 10 legislative acts, nor are any other EU countries. According to analysts, the stress test is whether in the coming weeks and months there will be trust among the member states that each is contributing to building the renewed system.

The Pact includes an agreed-upon list of countries that are considered safe to transfer migrants to and relies on the European Union Agency for Asylum, which collects information about the situation in migrants’ countries of origin. Eurodac, meanwhile, is the EU’s migration and database, which will be an instrumental agency in helping to determine the basis for granting or refusing protection to an asylum seeker.

A big issue in the EU’s immigration system for some member states has been a lack of autonomy in decision-making capacity for the processing of migrants and how long these processes can take.

The new system is intended to speed up processes, especially in cases of rejection. However, as the reaction to Spain's recent granting of residency to 500,000 illegal immigrants showed, the public are not interested in the process, they want the flow of arrivals stopped.

Asylum-seekers considered a security risk or with lower chances of receiving refugee status - those coming from countries such as Sudan, Somalia, Algeria  and Pakistan whose nationals are declined protection in at least 80% of cases - will be processed faster.

There is “growing recognition” that, to curtail “the rise of hard-right parties”such as Germany's AfD, across the continent, “centrists must be able to show that they are responding to their citizens’ concerns about ­increasingly uncontrolled immigration”, said The Times’ in an editorial.

The ambition of the EU pact “is already running into reality”, said EuroNews. Member states are not signing up to anything like their share of asylum-seeker relocations, “with Hungary and Slovakia committing to none.”

Elsewhere Germany's Chancellor Merz celebrated the new rules, probably because it will relieve him of responsibility for managing German immigration policy, French opposition leader Marine Le Pen called for a referendum on immigration, and the EU's migration commissioner threatened  countries that have refused to support the pact like Hungary and Slovakia  with a "stick" if they do not comply.

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To lose one Defence Minister may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness!

 (Title paraphrased from an Oscar Wilde epigram.)

Early this morning today looked like being no worse than usual for Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Then came the news that a senior member of his government, Defence Secretary John Healey, had resigned. In a polite resignation letter Healey revealed that Starmer's recent talk of increasing defence spending and building up our depleted armed forces had just been the usual empty talk from an empty man. Tasked with producing a spending programme for rearmament the treasury, fifedom of Starmer's right hand woman Rachel Reeves, had been dodging the issue for over a year  

Healey's resignation letter accused the Prime Minister of failing to “meet the moment” over his long-delayed proposals to boost military spending and of rendering Britain incapable of defending itself. 

Well OK, at least Healey departed with some dignity, unlike the other recent resignation, Wes Streeting who flounced out like some wannabe diva, threatening to challenge Starmer for the Labour Party leadership before slamming the door behind him, high heels click - clacking on the pavement as he stomped off.

If that had been all the day would, by Starmer's standards, still not have been too bad. But Murphys law states that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. And they did.

Before even the ink had dried on the note Starmer penned to Healy thanking him for his service, the deputy Defence Minister Al Carns handed in his resignation. 

Former army officer Carns, who is being mentioned as a potential Labour leadership contender, accused the Prime Minister of “failing” the military by refusing to commit more money to the Defence Investment Plan (DIP).

He said: “We owe those who serve the UK the kit to do the job and the loyalty to stand by them when it’s done. We are failing on both.

“I’ve spent my whole time in government making the case that Britain and NATO must prepare to defend our borders. Number 10 will not listen, so I am resigning as Minister for the Armed Forces.”

Carn’s resignation letter is more damning than Healey’s because it doesn’t just criticise the problems of underfunding of our defence forces but actually addresses the fact that those who work and contribute tax are in essence being ripped off and the country is extremely vulnerable and the people see not future for themselves.

Do these people not understand we have no money to spend on trivia like defending the realm. The government has to prioritise important things like sucking up to the EU, Net Zero, paying China's ally Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands, funding and housing 'asylum seekers', subsidising electric car owners and donating money to 'pride' events.

Thanks to the misguided economic and social policy over the past 40 years we have lost our entrepreneurs and we have less less taxpayers who just complain !!

If we start spending money on nonsense like defence how are we going to fund the welfare bill for those who are better off not working and how on earth can take defence spending away from the couple of hundred thousand migrants (that we know about,) arriving each year . God help those poor fighting aged males who arrive in small, inflatable boats each week ( day) since Keir smashed the gangs.

Some people just don't get it !! 

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Over 4000 Civilians Have Died In Forgotten War. As attention has focused on Syria ans then on the efforts of the Obama administration, in its dying months, to avenge the defeat of the anointed successor Hillary Clinton and discredit the election victor and President - elect Donald Trump, and simultaneously demonize Russia and President Putin

EXPLORE:
[Daily Stirrer] ... [ Our Page on on Substack ]... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ] ... [ Blog Bulletin ]