Young people in UK abandon TV news 'almost entirely'

The Guardian via sott.net

 Young people in Britain have almost entirely abandoned television news broadcasts, according to Ofcom, while half of the country now gets its news from social media.

While the average person aged 65 and over watches 33 minutes of TV news a day, this falls to just two minutes among people aged 16-24, according the media regulator's annual news consumption report.

The decline has been driven by audiences moving away from traditional live broadcast channels, where they might watch a popular drama and leave the channel on during the evening news bulletin, towards watching catchup content from streaming services.

The shift could have major implications for British politics, given services such as Netflix do not provide any news. Political parties have traditionally considered the BBC's 10pm news bulletin to be their most important outlet for getting their message across to large swaths of the public, which in turn can shape policies being proposed and how they are presented. TV news is still the main way that the British public learn about current affairs, however, in part because older viewers have remained loyal to traditional services.

Ofcom's research also suggests that people are increasingly willing to wade into online arguments about news. "There is evidence that UK adults are consuming news more actively via social media. For example, those who access news shared by news organisations, trending news or news stories from friends and family or other people they follow via Facebook or Twitter are more likely to make comments on the new posts they see compared to the previous year."
Comment: With Big Tech censorship going into hyperdrive social media users will end up consuming the same fakenews they were fed by the mainstream TV channels if they're not careful: Facebook Teams up With Mainstream Media to Directly Censor News Websites

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UK special forces injured in ‘top secret’ Yemen campaign

Middle Eastern Monitor

At least five British Special Forces commandos have been wounded in gun battles as part of a top-secret UK military campaign in Yemen. The troops are all said to be members of the Special Boat Service (SBS), the Royal Navy’s equivalent of the British Army’s SAS, which recruits mainly from the Royal Marines. The SBS specialises in “mounting clandestine operations against targets at sea, in rivers or harbours and against occupied coastlines”, says the Armed Forces website.

As the UK Government welcomes the Saudi Crown Prince’s first official visit to London, Save the Children has unveiled a life-size statue of a child outside Parliament. The bronze-like statue is a reminder of the dangers that Yemeni children face every day and the risks of British-made bombs fuelling the violence [Save The Children]

The men, who are understood to be now recovering in the UK, were injured during a “top-secret” military campaign, according to the Mail on Sunday. They were treated for leg and arm wounds following battles in the Saada area of northern Yemen, where up to 30 British troops are based.

The Mail on Sunday also revealed how RAF engineers sent to Saudi Arabia to repair the kingdom’s fleet of military aircrafts narrowly escaped death last week. Iranian-backed rebels are reported to have launched a “suicide drone” strike on the King Khalid airbase, where they are maintaining Tornado jets used to bomb civilian areas in Yemen.

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Israel, UK and Brexit

Gilad Atzmon 

Introduction by GA: The following is a translation of the last segment of an article in Ynet  yesterday on Brexit. The article explains that: the Jewish State has located itself as post Brexit Britain’s gateway to the world: “Once out of the EU, Britain will have to sign separate trade agreements with each state, and Israel will be the first.” And that: “Israel has become Britain’s strategic ally.” And, of course, “the British government totally disregard the boycott campaign against Israel. On a political level, they boycotted the boycott.”

A few years ago we learned that back in 1982 Oded Yinon devised an Israeli ‘plan for the Middle East.’ The following Ynet’s segment provides us with a glimpse into the current ‘Israel’s plan for Britain.’

If you have been puzzled by the insane institutional campaign against Corbyn  (BOD, Jewish Chronicle, CAA, etc.) the Ynet article raises the possibility that the campaign has not actually been about ‘antisemitism.’ It is more likely about shekles: Corbyn in Number Ten could easily interfere with ‘Israel’s plans for Britain.’ The Ynet article may also help Brits to understand the bipartisan forces that operate intensively to push Britain to break away from the EU. For some reason some of the staunch Israel supporters within the Government and in the Parliament are also pushing hard for Brexit. Ask yourself, do they do it for Britain, Brits and British national interests or are they, once again, serving the interests of that dark and oppressive foreign state.   

The Brexit Hurricane

 https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5456081,00.html

 “…It turns out that on some fronts the British began to prepare in advance. When it decided to withdraw from the European Union, Britain was even more enthusiastic about reaching agreements to sign bilateral trade agreements, this time not through the EU, but with countries around the world. The Brits saw the signing of these trade agreements as evidence of Britain's steadfastness. Time and time again, British leaders, headed by Teresa May, said that "Britain can maximise its business and commercial potential beyond the EU as well." Israel was one of the first stations in that campaign. Once out of the EU, Britain will have to sign such agreements with each state, and Israel will be the first.
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Record Number Of Children Identifying As Transgender In UK

Zero Hedge

Kids as young as ten are switching gender by deed poll as record numbers of UK youngsters identify as transgender.

The Sun reports that the UK's Deed Poll ­Service has seen a sharp rise in the number of parents forking out £35 to change their child’s title from Miss to Master, or Master to Miss, in the past five years.

A quite shocking stat is that the service says one child under the age of 16 makes the change every day, often with a new first name. Louise Bowers, a senior deed poll officer, said:

“We used to issue a couple every couple of months — but now it’s seven to ten a week.
“The majority are teenagers, 14 or 15, but they go down to aged ten.”

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The aim of Britain's foreign policy

Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire Network

Thierry Meyssan pursues his study of national foreign policies. After having analysed the policy of France, he now turns to that of the United Kingdom. While the former is considered to be the « private domain » of the President of the Republic, and as such, escapes the democratic debate, the latter, even more so, is elaborated by an elite gathered around the monarch, outside of any form of popular control. Thus the elected Prime Minister can do no more than implement the choice of the hereditary Crown. Faced with the failure of the US project for a unipolar world, London is attempting to restore its erstwhile imperial power.

On 13 November last, Theresa May seized the opportunity offered by the Prime Minister's annual speech at Lord Mayor's Banquet to give an overview of the new British strategy after the Brexit [1]. The United Kingdom intends to re-establish its Empire (Global Britain) by promoting international free exchange with the help of China [2] and ejecting Russia from international instances with the help of its military allies - the United States, France, Germany, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Retrospectively, all the elements we can see today were mentioned in this speech, even if we didn't immediately understand it at the time.

Let's take a step back. In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the Munich Security Conference. He noted that the unipolar world proposed by NATO was by essence anti-democratic, and he called upon the European states to dissociate themselves from this US fantasy [3]. Without responding to this essential comment about the absence of democracy in international relations, NATO denounced Russia's desire to weaken the cohesion of the Alliance in order to threaten it more easily.

However, a British expert, Chris Donnelly, has since refined this rhetoric. In order to weaken the West, Russia is allegedly attempting to delegitimise its economic and social system, the foundation for its military power. That would be the hidden motive behind Russian criticism, particularly in the media. Let's note that Donnelly does not respond any more than did NATO to the essential remark by Vladimir Putin, although why bother debating democracy with an individual who is suspected, a priori, of authoritarianism?

I believe that Donnelly is correct in his analysis, and that Russia is correct in its objective. Indeed, the United Kingdom and Russia are two diametrically opposite cultures.

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The 'Russian Threat' and the Politics of Mass Distraction

Sputnik

With mounting problems at home, the UK Establishment is stepping up its campaign to divert our attention on to non-existent dangers from abroad. The so-called 'Russian threat,' is not only good for the arms industry, and defense budgets, but for politicians who have no answers to the very real threats the British public face in their daily lives.

A knife crime epidemic. A significant rise in the murder rate. The NHS at breaking point. A 60% rise in homelessness since 2010/11 and a sharp rise in child and pensioner poverty. A hideously expensive and unreliable public transport system that is not fit for purpose.

Just a few of the very pressing problems facing Britain in early 2018. But rather than focus on solving them, those in power would rather we obsess about non-existent threats from Russia. 'Army Chief warns of Russian threat' was the headline on the BBC’s website first thing on Monday morning. However, the article's title was later changed to 'Army chief to call for investment to keep up with Russia.'

How very convenient that the ‘evil Russkies’ are there once again to take our minds of the latest horrific knife attacks- in which two men were stabbed in a shopping mall in Luton in Bedfordshire.  Knife crime used to be a rare event in the UK, but in 2017 there were 80 fatal stabbings in London alone. The reality is that  Britain is becoming an increasingly dangerous country in which to live. Crime figures released in October showed an underlying 8% increase in the murder rate, with a 13% rise in all police-recorded offenses from June 2016-June 2017.

Yet rather than get to grips with this crime wave, by putting more police officers on the beat, and introducing tougher sentences, the elite prefer to scare us about Russia. 

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Britain’s Tax Office, HMRC sold 6oo state owned buildings to offshore property company

 

Graham Vanbergen 
True Publica

There are a number of interesting facts and figures emanating from the various offshore leaks of recent times. One of them involves Britain’s tax office HMRC, where there is a history of double dealing when it comes to tax haven transparency.

Last February HSBC’s Swiss banking arm got caught ‘red-handed’ assisting wealthy customers concealing millions of dollars of assets and then literally and quite unbelievably found to be handing out bricks of untraceable currency to them. HSBC was, at the same time providing these clients the facilities and information needed to circumvent domestic tax authorities, according to a huge cache of leaked secret bank account files.

The leak clearly demonstrated that HSBC was providing account facilities to international criminals, corrupt businessmen and other high-risk individuals from all over the world, Britain included.

The leaked HSBC files, which covered the period 2005-2007, amounted, at the time, to the biggest banking leak in history, shining a very bright light on about 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn (£78bn) of assets, an average of £2.6 million per account. After the files had been thoroughly checked out, the number of accounts held escalated to 130,000 individuals and organisations.

The revelations amplified calls for government’s  the world over to take action and crackdown on offshore illegal tax havens. Politicians got on the bandwagon in an attempt to demonstrate they were on the side of law abiding citizens. HMRC recently issued a statement straight after the Panama papers scandal “HMRC is committed to exposing and acting on financial wrongdoing and we relentlessly pursue tax evaders to ensure that they pay every penny of taxes and fines they owe“.

The hypocrisy of politicians across Europe and America and HMRC in Britain demonstrates the level of lawlessness both are prepared to accept in every day life.

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UK could be prosecuted for war crimes over missiles sold to Saudi Arabia that were used to kill civilians in Yemen

The Independent

Britain is at risk of being prosecuted for war crimes because of growing evidence that missiles sold to Saudi Arabia have been used against civilian targets in Yemen’s brutal civil war, Foreign Office lawyers and diplomats have warned.

Advisers to Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, have stepped up legal warnings that the sale of specialist missiles to the Saudis, deployed throughout nine months of almost daily bombing raids in west Yemen against Houthi rebels, may breach international humanitarian law.

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