An Israeli-Hungarian mercenary ran a covert surveillance operation against a British activist and think-tanker. The operation was funded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). One member of the surveillance team even suspected the operation was part of a lead-up to an assassination attempt.

ITV News reported on 19 August that US-based mercenary Abraham Golan had organised a UAE-funded close surveillance operation against Anas Altikriti. Altikriti is a former Stop the War Coalition vice president and hostage negotiator. He is also a founder member of the Cordoba Foundation thinktank.

The surveillance took place in 2016. Golan has a long history with the UAE:

A former French Foreign Legion soldier, Golan had been hired by the United Arab Emirates, which paid his company, Spear Operations Group, millions of dollars to assemble a covert unit of Western military veterans for operations on the front line.

ITV presented Altikriti in 2026 with a dossier:

containing a sustained, granular intelligence operation tracking his every move: photographs of his home and car, and WhatsApp communications between members of a surveillance team detailing his daily life – from his commute and school runs to visits to a local mosque where he was scheduled to lecture.

The police had also warned Altikriti about a potential threat to his life in 2016. ITV’s new report shows how Golan had formed a team to observe his every move.

UAE — Close target surveillance

ITV found that secret Emirati reports filed weeks after Golan’s London trip to organise the operation:

show that Golan was being paid by the UAE throughout his London operation, which included a month of planning and at least several days on the ground.

And:

The records also lay bare the financial incentives behind his contract with the Emiratis: a six-figure retainer for his work that year, plus huge bonuses: just a few weeks before his arrival in London, he received a one-million-dollar payout for an operation against a previous target in Yemen.

The Cordoba Foundation was one of three UK activist groups the UAE proscribed in 2014. The authoritarian state claims it has links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Altikriti’s father was a prominent member of the Brotherhood in Iraq.

Altikriti told ITV:

I have good relations, because my father is my father. I understand the ideology, I studied the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood; I believe the Muslim Brotherhood to be a valid ideology for people who are seeking to free themselves from the clutches of oppression.

However, I’m a Brit, I grew up in Britain. In my life I have never done anything wrong whatsoever.

A private security operative known as Victor told ITV how he felt the surveillance operation seemed more and more like the precursor to an assassination. He ultimately refused to continue working with Golan:

I became increasingly worried about what this operation entailed.

At a subsequent meeting:

Golan’s [other] associate asked: ‘What would happen if Anas Altikriti was…’” – he fell silent and drew a finger across his throat. “That suggested to me that the operation was ultimately about – or could become about – physically eliminating Anas Altikriti,” Victor said.

Golan, the UAE and the UK government offered little to no response to ITV’s questions.

Altikriti is alive and well today. Yet the UAE operation speaks to the reach and power of the US, UK and Israeli-allied Gulf state. Its bottomless wealth and powerful connections make it a potentially deadly opponent to critics, even if they are based inside countries like the UK.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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The British Press Photographers’ Association (BPPA) has sharply condemned Shabana Mahmood’s Home Office for lying to refugees in its information pack for asylum seekers.

Home Office pandering to racists

The latest lie comes amid wider condemnation for Mahmood for implying in the pack that asylum seekers are more likely to rape or sexually harass. This has played into, and inflamed, UK white supremacist prejudices that are already a blight on this country.

But the BPPA has spotted another: the Home Office is telling refugees that they cannot take photos in public places without permission. This, as the BPPA points out, is an outright lie: under UK law, anyone can take pictures of anything in, or visible from, a public space — no permission needed:

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The UK has a proud tradition of street photography that has been able to flourish because of that freedom, like the late Martin Parr — who almost certainly never asked permission in his life before taking his famous, candid photos.

Is there nothing in the UK that the Labour right isn’t eager to ruin to pander to ethnosupremacists?

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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Gillian Anderson has admitted that the increased prevalence of intimacy co-ordinators on TV and film sets is something she has complicated feelings about.

In recent years, the Emmy winner has appeared in numerous projects that have made use of intimacy co-ordinators – industry professionals employed to help actors and directors more comfortable while shooting sex scenes or on-screen nudity – perhaps most notably the Netflix series Sex Education.

While promoting her new movie Teenage Sex And Death In Camp Miasma, which contains graphic scenes of both sex and violence, Gillian told The Times that she has mixed feelings about these behind-the-scenes roles.

“It depends on the co-ordinator,” she explained, with the outlet suggesting she is “not a particular fan” of them.

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She continued: “I did a Netflix show where one wanted a Zoom because I was tucking my son’s shirt into his trousers.”

“Did I want to meet with him so that we could talk it through, that kind of stuff,” she recalled with an apparent eye roll.

Teenage Sex And Death In Camp Miasma’s on-set intimacy co-ordinator Aryn Mott wrote on Instagram earlier this week: “The work of an intimacy co-ordinator often starts long before the cameras roll.

“On Camp Miasma, that meant research, conversations, rehearsals, choreography, consent work, and building enough trust for everyone involved, performers, director, camera, and crew, to step into something incredibly vulnerable.

“Jane Schoenbrun [the film’s director] described the process as one where we were all consenting to doing something ‘really vulnerable and scary’. And once everyone understood that shared desire, communicated clearly, and trusted the process… the scary became exciting. Then we closed the set. And all that preparation gave the work room to come to life.”

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They added: “Great art and good care don’t have to compete with each other.”

Gillian’s latest remarks echo similar comments made by former Game Of Thrones actor Lena Headey during a recent interview with HuffPost UK.

“Like anything, if they’re great at their job, it’s wonderful, and it adds value,” Lena said of intimacy co-ordinators last month. “I think you can have terrible ones who just make you feel more awkward.”

Others, including Sir Ian McKellen and Lena’s fellow Game Of Thrones alum Sean Bean, have previously ruffled feathers when they questioned whether the use of an intimacy co-ordinator “spoiled” the spontaneity between two actors while shooting love scenes.

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Toni Collette and Oscar winner Mikey Madison are among those who have turned down the chance to work with intimacy co-ordinators in recent projects, while Gwyneth Paltrow controversially claimed last year that she’d told one on the set of Marty Supreme: “Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on. I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back.”

“I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but… if someone is like, ’OK, and then he’s going to put his hand here’… I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that,” she added during an interview with Vanity Fair, prompting It’s A Sin creator Russell T Davies to brand her comments “disgraceful”.

Meanwhile, Jane Fonda, Kate Winslet and even Florence Pugh have all voiced that they wish there’d been intimacy co-ordinators on film sets when they were starting out in their careers.

Similarly, Dame Emma Thompson has become a staunch defender of intimacy co-ordinators in the last few years, insisting it was “absolutely essential” that young women starting out in their acting careers should have “someone there to protect them”.

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The far-right like to pass themselves off as noble people, waging heroic battles on behalf of “women and children” or against what they describe as the “evil” of Islam. Yet hideous animal torturer and racist Neil Pinkerton is just another example revealing the true face of this hateful movement.

Wildlife protection group Protect the Wild described Pinkerton as:

…notorious in Northern Ireland for his depraved animal cruelty.

They say he was:

…disgracefully allowed to keep a dog named Judy after using her for fox baiting, and subjecting the dog to the most horrific injuries.

The group rightly decry the courts’ leniency on Pinkerton, allowing him to escape punishment for his barbaric treatment of animals. However, Pinkerton is also enabled by the north of Ireland’s dire hunting laws. Sadists like him are permitted to pursue and kill wild animals with dogs, so long as “no unnecessary suffering” is inflicted, a standard the courts clearly fail to enforce. These are the kinds of people who flourish when bloodsports are legally allowed to continue.

Animal abuser graduated to far-right racist thug

Letting the dregs of humanity hone their cruelty against animals ultimately endangers people too, however. Pinkerton moved on to targeting migrants, and has been back in the spotlight for teaming up with loyalist bigots on trips to Scotland. He travelled to the country in late July, alongside notorious thugs Glen Kane and Mark Sinclair, aka ‘Freedom Dad’.

As pointed out by the Detail, Kane was:

…jailed for nine years for being part of a mob which killed a Cath­olic man dur­ing a sec­tarian riot in 1992.

Sinclair is an ex-Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) member and armed bank robber, who now operates as a hate-spreading social media influencer. They are further examples of the type of people ‘defending our women and children’. The Detail found that:

Almost half those arrested for race hate disorder in Belfast [August 2024] had previously been reported to the PSNI for domestic abuse

The pair attended the Unite the Clans hate-fest at Glasgow Green on July 25, organised by the Scottish racists. There, the bigoted mob backed ethnic cleansing with chants of “remigration”, engaged in Nazi salutes and hurled “bottles and pieces of wood at police officers“. The cops arrested 15 people for:

…assault, possession of offensive weapons and other public order offences.

The fascists were massively outnumbered by anti-racist counter-demonstrators. The hatemongers were only able to muster a paltry 500, despite months of planning, yet were met by over 4000 people of conscience standing on the right side of history.

The invitation of Sinclair and Kane is another example of how loyalists getting away with ethnic cleansing in the north of Ireland is inspiring racist groups elsewhere. Pinkerton wasn’t present at the riot, due to bail conditions banning him from attending anti-migrant events. These stem from alleged offences in September 2025. As reported by Inside the Courtroom NI:

Pinkerton faces three charges of common assault, two counts of using disorderly behaviour at Connswater Retail Park and at McDonald’s fast-food outlet, trying to damage a car, harassment, possessing Class B cannabis and inciting hatred.

Shameful prosecution delay leaves Pinkerton free to spread hate

Pinkerton was allegedly “threatening and racially abusive” towards a delivery driver. Police say the reprobate also said “get out of our fucking country you cunt”. Shamefully, courts may soon withdraw the charges against this sickening man, due to “significant delays in his phone being examined“.

It represents a disgraceful failure by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and Public Prosecution Service to prioritise investigation of violent, racist offenders. This is a police service that is happy to expend resources sending officers to London to arrest Palestine supporters holding up bits of paper, but allows violent pogroms to happen three years in a row in the north of Ireland.

The delay is apparently the result of Pinkerton not surrendering passcodes to his phones. Police have taken evidence from one phone so far, however, and one would think that data, combined with witness statements and CCTV footage would be more than enough to put this dangerous racist behind bars.

Yet due to this failure, authorities allow Pinkerton to travel and party freely, spreading the Six Counties’ unique brand of loyalist hate to other territories. Anti-racist group End Deportations Belfast (EDB) have been tracking the activities of the far-right in the Six Counties, and their connections to similar hatemongers in Scotland. They assisted with this report, and told the Canary:

Pinkerton’s presence in Glasgow alongside other notorious far-right individuals suggests an ongoing willingness to move in violent far-right circles. The vigilante gang that Pinkerton fronted relentlessly harassed and intimidated migrant and people of colour communities on Belfast streets last year.

They decried Pinkerton’s freedom to:

…travel freely and network with known other far-right agitators, some of whom have violent sectarian and paramilitary histories.

EDB described delays prosecuting Pinkerton as a:

…damning indictment of policing and justice in the north of Ireland, which continues to allow violent extremism to flourish.

Featured image via BelfastTelegraph

By Robert Freeman

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Hind Rajab’s mother Wesam Hamada has spoken out after Israel announced a closed, military investigation into the 2024 murder of her 5-year-old daughter by Israeli troops. And she says that the occupation’s ploy is not justice:

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Hind Rajab — ICC justice is the only justice

She is correct. The deliberate murder of little Hind, her six family members and two brave paramedics who tried to help cannot be whitewashed by Israel’s feeble mime of an investigation. Justice will not be served until the murderers — and all Israel’s war criminals — are on trial in the International Criminal Court.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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The first 20 deportees from the US have arrived in Liberia. The Trump administration plans to send 1,200 people in total. The plans echo the UK’s failed Rwanda deportation scheme. Associated Press reported on 20 August:

The deportees arrived at the Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia. The Liberia-U.S. agreement is among the largest third-country deportations driven by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

It comes a day after the UK’s Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake tried to re-hash the Rwanda scheme. The scheme, which was widely seen as abhorrent, was scrapped by the incoming Labour government in 2024.

AP reported:

The 1,200 deportees will include African nationals and also nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, according to Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah.

Liberian Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh said in a briefing on 18 August:

that the majority of the deportees had committed migration-related violations and offenses, and that they could seek asylum in the West African country if they wished.

Liberian president Joseph Boakai has prioritised good relations with the Trump administration recently.

Trump administration — Secret deals to take deportees

The US deportations are part of the Trump administration’s violent — and sometimes deadly — crackdown on migration.

AP said Trump had cut shadowy deals with a number of countries to take deportees:

Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that aren’t their own, advocates say, with about 10 of them in Africa.

One significant example is the deal the US President cut with El Salvador’s fascist president Nayib Bukele to deport immigrants to the country’s horrifying CECOT mega-prison.

According to AP:

Immigration lawyers have said the Trump administration uses deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum-seekers back to their home countries.

In many cases:

migrants are deported to countries they’ve never been to or where they face safety risks and are left with little choice other than to return to the home countries they were fleeing from.

Deportations aren’t just a Trumpian issue, however. A 2024 CNN report found Trump’s Democrat predecessor Joe Biden hit the highest level of deportations since 2014:

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 271,484 immigrants last fiscal year, marking the highest level of deportations since 2014, according to a newly released annual report.

That didn’t stop Trump claiming the Democrats were weak on immigration. In fact, he made aggressive deportations a cornerstone of his manifesto. ICE has enjoyed massive funding increases since Trump returned to power. The paramilitary force has clashed with locals – even killing some — in cities across the US.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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