On Monday the Met office issued an extreme heat warning for the very first time in its history as temperatures in the south west are predicted to reach as high as 33 degrees.
A strong smell of sun cream hovers outside Weston Super Mare town hall.
The sun is already bearing down heavily at 9:00 on Tuesday morning as around two dozen people gather, some wearing animal headdresses, others carrying banners and flags, several camera crews hovering expectedly around the edges.
For generations the UK state controlled BBC posed as a ‘benevolent unbiased uncle’ while promoting western neo colonialism and looting the planet. Now freed from EU regulations the UK converts it to an openly Fake News tabloid militarist propaganda tool and as an attack dog for its US masters.
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By Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg .
Shocking leaked files once again expose BBC as insidious UK foreign policy tool
A newly released raft of government papers has revealed the British Broadcasting Corporation’s extensive involvement in spreading pro-London, pro-EU, and pro-NATO messaging across the Balkans.
The Netherlands – In Amsterdam, where the occupation of empty buildings was made illegal in 2010, a new generation of squatters has been staging bolder and more daring actions, continuing the local tradition of defiantly ignoring the ban.
Part of a new generation of squatters that have been more engaged than in recent years is the Anarcha-Feminist Group (AFG). The Amsterdam-based group is a decidedly feminist cohort of only female and/or femme activists.
AFG’s squatting actions are always politically motivated, often symbolic, and their stated goal is to use squats for other activist organizing. Their actions are marked by banner-drops and bullhorn manifestos, solidarity with sex workers, statements against crooked real estate companies, and denunciations of the racist colonial history engraved in the very architecture of Amsterdam.
The US continues its imperial expansion with 2 new military bases, ‘armed to the teeth and bristling with mega missiles’, in its insane quest to take over Russia. By now the Pentagon has over 200 such bases in its vassal countries. And Russia? well, how many? Well, it does have one base in Syria and any day could expand and take over the USA
U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and officials from the Hungarian Defense Force met at the Kecskemét Air Base in Hungary on July 16 to sign an agreement allowing the U.S. assess to and use of two air bases in the country. The bases are the one the agreement was signed at and the Pápa Air Base.
Army Major General Charles Miller, EUCOM’s director of plans, policy, strategy and capabilities, was quoted by his command’s website as stating: “These agreements allow U.S. forces to access and utilize these air bases in cooperation with the Hungarian Defence Force.”
Indicating that securing the bases is not the final stage in bilateral military cooperation, he added, “This signing brings with it new opportunities for even greater collaboration and coordination with our Hungarian Allies.”
The agreement was reached under provisions of the 2019 Defense Cooperation Agreement between the U.S. and Hungary. Similar pacts have been signed with most former members of the long-defunct Warsaw Pact to provide air bases to the U.S. and NATO since 2004. A partial list of such bases will follow.
The American chargé d’dffaires in Budapest, Marc Dillard, affirmed: “This signing demonstrates that the Defense Cooperation Agreement continues to deepen our already robust collective defense cooperation as NATO Allies and helps us prepare for the 21st century security challenges we face together.”
After Hungary joined the military alliance in 1999 the Pápa Air Base was declared a NATO reserve base. It was designated a Main Operating Base and hosted three NATO Strategic Airlift Capability aircraft from 2007 onward.
In 2020 the NATO Support and Procurement Agency completed a project to modernise components of the base. It has hosted C-17 Globemaster III long-range cargo jets as the Heavy Airlift Wing facet of the 12-nation multinational Strategic Airlift Capability, the world’s first multinational strategic airlift operation.
Its partners at the time it achieved full operational capability in 2012 were NATO members Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and the U.S., as well as (now) NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partners Finland and Sweden. The base and the operation were used extensively for NATO’s war in Afghanistan.
First Boeing C-17 Globemaster III lands at the Pápa Air Base in 2009
With the acquisition of the two Hungarian bases the U.S, and NATO (they’re truly indistinguishable) have now moved into several air bases in former Warsaw Pact countries since the first round of post-Cold War NATO expansion in 1999.
They include:
Bulgaria: Bezmer Air Base and Graf Ignatievo Air Base
The air force component of NATO’s military buildup along what the military alliance terms its Eastern Flank – which is Russia’s western border – is constantly advancing. Someone in Moscow should be getting the message by now.
A dispute that illustrates Spain’s policy 0n Europe has led to a new dispute between the Catalan and Spanish governments, in the immediate vicinity of Llancà village.
The latest fire burned more than 450 hectares and was active for three days at Spain refused key help and Catalonia sizzled as the drought worsened..
The U.S. Shale Revolution Has Surrendered to Reality
The US fracking boom is the epitome of predator capitalism. Fired by ‘free money’ loans via World Dollar Hegemony and patriotic investment hyped from the Financial Industry, up to one trillion dollars have been ‘burned’. .
Added to this splurge are a dozen mega plants to convert the frack gas into LNG liquid for unlikely expensive export, and massive ‘cracker’ chemical complexes to make the Gulf coast the World Plastics Capital.
Thousands of companies drilled millions of fracking wells with the free money and patriotic ‘exemption’ from environmental restrictions.
Fracking wells dry up fast, often in a just few months and are abandoned with toxic tailing ponds and contaminated groundwater. The new millionaires declare bankrutpcy and start new companies.
The center of the anarchist nightlife of the Catalan capital played a fundamental role in the defeat of the coup in 1936.
After a hard night in Barcelona, the morning of July 19, 1936 gives way to freedom at the rhythm of a machine gun.
Specifically, the sound of the weapon resounds from the roof of the Chicago bar, on Paral·lel avenue in the Catalan capital. After several hours of fighting, a group of trade unionists led by the carpenter Antonio Ortiz has managed to take the position, with the aim of harassing the three machine guns of the coup troops located in the Brecha de San Pablo.
The Free 