(the earlier despicable news)
Today: ‘Ecuadorian president arrives in Britain as Julian Assange’s fate hangs in the balance’, James Cogan, wsws.org june 21
“Ahead of Moreno’s visit to London, his national secretary of political management, Paul Granda, asserted on July 19 that “there is no specific meeting planned on Assange.” The same day, acting Ecuadorian foreign minister, Andres Teran, claimed that Moreno’s government is “not in talks with the United States” over the WikiLeaks editor.
These statements have no credibility. All evidence points to the opposite conclusion: A conspiracy is well advanced, involving the US, British, Ecuadorian and Australian governments, to have Assange hauled before a show trial in the US.
The American intelligence agencies are determined to prosecute Assange as a “spy.” The campaign to arrest him was escalated to a “priority” in April 2017, after WikiLeaks began publishing the “Vault 7” leaks that revealed how the CIA had developed malware to hack phones, PCs, servers, smart televisions and vehicle computer systems in every part of the world.
Underscoring Moreno’s complicity in the persecution of Assange, his aides announced he has no intention of visiting the embassy whilst in London to even check on the well-being of a persecuted journalist his government is nominally providing political asylum.
Yesterday, Margarita Simonyan, the editor of Russia Today, tweeted: “My sources say that Assange will be handed over to UK authorities in the coming weeks or even days…”
Whether Simonyan’s sources are credible is unknown. But the fact that Moreno will speak with leading figures in the Conservative government of Prime Minister Theresa May over the coming days is not.”
Wikileaks had retweeted this; dunno how much good it can do, or what they hve in mind, but:
below the video:
‘International media are reporting that WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief may imminently be handed by Ecuador to UK authorities. (Ref: https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/07/… over-of-julian-assange-to-the-uk-may-be-imminent/) If such an event occurs, it presents an immediate threat to Assange’s human rights, asylum rights, liberty and to press freedoms. It would also be in direct contravention to the rulings of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Inter-American Court of human rights, both of which have found in his favour. The #Unity4J movement in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is holding an emergency public meeting to unveil a plan for mass non-violent action to demand freedom for the journalist and publisher. High profile supporters of Julian Assange will be in attendance and unveil the new strategy’
boatloads of links, related solidarity movements, legal defense fund , etc.
Myownself, I liked this idea:
It’s altogether strange,but the parent Tweet seems to be missing, and the link to news.com.au went to a ‘doesn’t not exist’ page. But Cogan seems to have addressed the title of the piece here:
“The immense danger Assange faces was underscored yesterday by comments made during a media conference held by UK Foreign Affairs Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who is in Britain at the same time as Moreno.
Hunt gloated: “Serious charges have been laid against him [Assange] and we want him to face justice for those charges but we are a country of due process. At any time he wants to, he is free to walk out on to the streets of Knightsbridge and the British police will have a warm welcome for him.”
Bishop exuded the utter contempt of successive Australian governments for the rights of an Australian citizen and journalist being persecuted by the US. She indifferently responded to Hunt’s threats, effectively washing her government’s hands of Assange’s fate. She told the media: “We understand there are still matters where Mr Assange is subject to British legal proceedings so therefore that would be a matter of British law enforcement authorities and agencies.”
In fact, the only “charges” that Assange faces in Britain arise from breaching bail when he sought asylum, a necessary step to avoid a sinister warrant to extradite him to Sweden to answer “questions” relating to dubious allegations of sexual assault. He rightly feared being extradited from Sweden to the US.”
Stefania Maurizi has a great compendium of, and paean to WikiLeaks publications at consortiumnews.com: Inside WikiLeaks: Working with the Publisher that Changed the World’, July 19, 2018
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Greenwald’s piece:
The Intercept, July 21
Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the President’s trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities.
Moreno’s itinerary also notably includes a trip to Madrid, where he will meet with Spanish officials still seething over Assange’s denunciation of human rights abuses perpetrated by Spain’s central government against protesters marching for Catalonia independence. Almost three months ago, Ecuador blocked Assange from accessing the internet, and Assange has not been able to communicate with the outside world ever since. The primary factor in Ecuador’s decision to silence him was Spanish anger over Assange’s tweets about Catalonia.
greyson, thank you for reading at the intercept…so we didn’t have to. ;-)
you know that ‘reason’ does ring a bell. spain makes sense for sucking up. yeah, he claimed that he shut down julian’s communications since ‘he’d broken the agreement’. what a creepy little neoliberal prick toady he is. remember too that he’d signed a military memo of understanding w amerika, too.
llight bulb: there was a Tweet on the wikileaks acct. in spanish, w/ some fancy bobby or other leaning over to salute moreno in his chair. and me, with my four years of so-useful french…ay yi yi.
‘Lenin Moreno will be in Europe for seven days. Solve the Assange issue and reposition the image of Ecuador are priority’
The first destination will be British territory, but it will not be an official view. On July 24, Moreno plans to give a talk at an event of the alliance of People with Disabilities in London.”
for julian, for all of us, this talking poetry by john trudell, AIM chairman for a couple years, occupied alcatraz and wounded knee. his family was burned alive for his troubles, but oh, would that truth-teller have loved you. let this serve as our lullaby tonight. winging love, prayers, and strongest wishes for you life…and for your safety.
‘it could have been different…but it wasn’t, cuz we weren’t…’ ‘we’re caught between living a lie…or not living at all…’
more fascinating developments: ‘Interesting Tweet From Anonymous Scandinavia’; Does this mean that the Wikileaks’ deadman’s switch is real and being readied to be released?, snoopydawg, c99%
also, and caitlin johnstone is a supremely dedicated defender of assange, but how ironic,
given this most recent (afaik) hit on assange by lord greenwald: ‘The Great WikiLeaks Train Robbery: Pinkerton Police Greenwald and Klein in Close Pursuit’, October 24, 2016, café babylon
too many quotable quotes in a verrrrry long ‘interview’ (scriptedpas de deux), and even my rebuttal to them is far too long. but this tweet said it all to me:
““Both the Washington Post and The Intercept stated that they had censored the name of the victim country at the request of the US government. Such censorship strips a nation of its right to self-determination on a matter which affects its whole population. An ongoing crime of mass espionage is being committed against the victim state and its population. By denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimisation, this act of censorship denies each individual in that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere.
We know from previous reporting that the National Security Agency’s mass interception system is a key component in the United States’ drone targeting program. The US drone targeting program has killed thousands of people and hundreds of women and children in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia in violation of international law. The censorship of a victim state’s identity directly assists the killing of innocent people.”
WikiLeaks’ Twitter Chats Exposed as 11,000 Private Messages Posted Online
Newsweek, By Jason Murdock, July 30
More than 11,000 messages from a Twitter group used by WikiLeaks have been posted online in full, exposing private chats between 2015 and 2017.
The cabal—populated with around 10 close supporters—was a “low security” group created to share news stories, distribute disclosures, collate freedom of information requests, discuss politics and, in WikiLeaks’ own words, push “advance notice of hostile Twitter PR.”
The messages, released in full for the first time on Sunday, have been referenced by U.S. media outlets in the past. In February, The Intercept first reported some key excerpts, including one snippet showing criticism of Hillary Clinton and support for the GOP. “[Clinton’s] a bright, well connected, sadistic sociopath,” the WikiLeaks account said in November 2015.
The cache was published by national security researcher Emma Best, who broke out some key points in blog posts last week, including alleged anti-Semitic remarks. Best—who has clashed with WikiLeaks in the past—said the information was needed to provide “context” to news reports. The release was redacted in parts to protect the privacy of some named individuals.
zounds, greyson; if that ain’t a hellish pile of iron-clad innuendo. chat rooms denizens are…wikileaks agents? i love how referencing the same hits at the daily beast and ‘the intercept’ allow for some patina of fake leftiness or something.
i followed some of the subtweets of this around (click it to see them, as you likely know), and this emma best is a real piece of work.
meanwhile, it’s all over but the transporting, i think, goddam moreno and may: mike head at wsws.org:
“In an interview Monday with the Spanish daily El País, during an official visit in Madrid, Moreno said Assange would have to accept that, as soon as he steps outside the embassy, he will be jailed for supposedly skipping bail when he was granted asylum in 2012.
According to a translation of another part of the interview by the London-based, Murdoch-owned Times, Moreno told El País: “Mr Assange has been in this situation for more than five years and we have to find a way out … that defends his rights, mainly his right to life, and at the same time can give Ecuador the possibility of not having what undoubtedly represents a problem for our country.”
By “right to life,” Moreno evidently means just a US promise not to execute Assange. Seemingly, Moreno has no qualms about Assange being thrown into solitary confinement, possibly for life, which would be an effective political death penalty.
Moreover, any assurance against execution would be worthless given the brutal record of US imperialism. When Mike Pompeo, now the US secretary of state, was CIA director last year, he directly accused WikiLeaks of being a “hostile intelligence service.” Under the US Espionage Act such activity can be subject to the death penalty.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/31/assa-j31.html