Steve ( @[email protected] )
3.3K posts

Steve ( @[email protected] )
@g0lfp
🇬🇧 🏴 #GLO #Restore 37C1:98F4 Radio Ham #Lefthanded LIDS#005. CiXen. STEM advocate. AIM'ing for early retirement. Investor.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has just been nominated to the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination to shape policy on women's rights, human rights, disarmament and terrorism prevention. The British government, of course, did not object to Iran’s appointment — even though the Iranian regime has been massacring thousands and thousands of protestors this year. At least it shows satire is not dead. NEXT UP> Satan nominated to investigate sin.

🇭🇺🗳️ Vandaag een moderne versie van David tegen Goliath. @PM_ViktorOrban tegen Peter Magyar. Een premier die aan de kant van zijn volk staat en die tegen oorlog en open grenzen is. Aan de andere kant een opportunist die gesteund wordt door de ganse EU-propagandamachine, door figuren zoals George Soros en door buitenlandse financierders. Vandaag bepalen de Hongaren niet alleen de toekomst van Hongarije, maar ook die van de EU. Daarom verdient Fidesz meer dan ooit de steun van het @vlbelang en steun ik complexloos @PM_ViktorOrban. 💪🏻


Forty years ago I was sat in a pub, drinking and smoking. Then I had a meat madras in the Indian restaurant on Walmer seafront. Then I wandered off home. That's how it should be after a week at work. Didn't earn a fortune, but somehow there was enough money to have a good time.


This is a major scandal for Richard Tice, Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Reform aren’t on the side of working people: they’re just out for themselves.





The New York Times reported on April 10, citing US officials, that Iran has been unable to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz because it cannot locate all of the naval mines it laid in the waterway and lacks the capability to remove them. The IRGC used small boats to plant mines haphazardly during the early weeks of the war. Many locations were never recorded. Some mines have drifted from their original positions. Iran does not have a complete map of what it put in its own water. When Foreign Minister Araghchi said on April 8 that safe passage through Hormuz would be possible “with due consideration of technical limitations,” US officials now confirm he was not being diplomatic. He was being literal. The technical limitation is that Iran mined its own strait and lost track of where the mines are. Iran published a chart on April 9 through Tasnim and ISNA showing a large circle marked “danger zone” covering the standard shipping lanes, with two alternative IRGC-controlled routes around Larak Island. This is the chart of a country directing traffic around its own weapons because it cannot guarantee the weapons will not detonate under the traffic it is trying to collect tolls from. The toll system, the IRGC coordination, the escort protocol, the VHF passcode, all the infrastructure built to monetize the chokepoint exists because Iran cannot simply reopen the chokepoint. The tollbooth is not leverage. The tollbooth is a workaround for a self-inflicted minefield. Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of Lloyd’s List, described the situation during an April 10 webinar: “As of this morning, the Strait of Hormuz remains both open and closed, depending on your position, both geographically and geopolitically. It is, if you like, Schrödinger’s Strait.” Traffic on April 10 stood at 7 to 18 ships per day, with only 2 to 4 tankers, against a pre-war baseline of roughly 140 daily. Over 1,000 vessels are queued outside the strait, including 187 tankers carrying an estimated 172 million barrels of stalled crude. The backlog alone would take weeks to clear even if every mine vanished overnight. And the capacity to clear mines does not exist on either side. The US Navy decommissioned its last dedicated Avenger-class minesweepers before the war. It now relies on Littoral Combat Ship mine countermeasures modules that have never been tested at this scale. The Royal Navy withdrew its last mine countermeasures vessel, HMS Middleton, from the Gulf in early 2026 and transported it home on a heavy-lift ship because it could not make the voyage under its own power. The West dismantled its mine-clearing capability months before the war that required it. Trump demanded “complete, immediate, and safe opening” of the strait as the ceasefire condition. Vance is flying to Islamabad to negotiate terms that require a physical outcome neither side can deliver. Iran cannot find the mines. The US cannot sweep them. The UK sent its last minesweeper home on a cargo ship. And the ceasefire that was supposed to reopen 20 percent of the world’s oil supply is hostage to weapons that are drifting silently through a strait that nobody fully controls. The most honest phrase in the entire ceasefire was “technical limitations.” It just took the New York Times to decode what it meant. The mines are still there. The talks start tomorrow. And 20 percent of the world’s oil is waiting on a map that does not exist. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…



EXCLUSIVE Sir Keir Starmer has been forced to drop legislation which would cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a further deterioration of relations with Donald Trump The Times has been told that a bill underpinning the controversial deal will not be included in the King's Speech next month after the US president branded it an "act of great stupidity" and withdrew his support The government stands by the deal and will attempt to persuade Trump to change his mind but has acknowledged that it cannot proceed without his backing Ministers are "deeply frustrated" with Trump, who initially supported the deal after extensive discussions between intelligence agencies but changed his mind during a dispute with Nato over plans to seize Greenland The government believes that it puts the future of Diego Garcia, the UK-US base in the islands which has been used during the Iran war, at risk It is concerned that Mauritius will mount a legal challenge granting it access to the waters around Diego Garcia, making it harder for the base to host nuclear submarines and patrol surrounding waters The deal was highly contentious. It would have seen Britain hand over the islands to Mauritius before immediately entering into a 99-year lease for Diego Garcia. The government claimed it would cost £3.5billion, although the Tories disputed this and said it would cost £35billion his over its lifetime. thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar…



NOW - UK Defense secretary says 3 Russian submarines were in UK waters, "To President Putin I say, we see you, we see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences."



MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ is not a joke



Keir Starmer mocked by Vladimir Putin as Russian warship sails through Channel despite PM’s vow to seize vessels gbnews.com/politics/keir-…


Keir Starmer: “We just reached a ceasefire”. We? WE!?? No, they reached a ceasefire. You had nothing to do with it @Keir_Starmer











