#AssangeC #Assange #Extradition - Case Facts For Journalists To Report

#AssangeC #Assange #Extradition

Case facts - issues - evidence - rescources for journalists to catch up on.

http://n0.gd/H17V86

 #WikiLeaks

#JohnPilger #Assange: The Dirty War On Wikileaks

By John Pilger

 

 

 

War by media, says current military doctrine, is as important as the battlefield. This is because the real enemy is the public at home, whose manipulation and deception is essential for starting an unpopular colonial war.

Like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, attacks on Iran and Syria require a steady drip-effect on readers' and viewers' consciousness. This is the essence of a propaganda that rarely speaks its name.

To the chagrin of many in authority and the media, WikiLeaks has torn down the facade behind which rapacious Western power and journalism collude. This was an enduring taboo; the BBC could claim impartiality and expect people to believe it.

Today, war by media is increasingly understood by the public, as is the trial by media of WikiLeaks' founder and editor Julian Assange.

Assange will soon know if the supreme court in London is to allow his appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual misconduct, most of which were dismissed by a senior prosecutor in Stockholm.

On bail for 16 months, tagged and effectively under house arrest, he has been charged with nothing.

His "crime" has been an epic form of investigative journalism: revealing to millions of people the lies and machinations of their politicians and officials and the barbarism of criminal war conducted in their name.

For this, as United States historian William Blum points out, "dozens of members of the American media and public officials have called for [his] execution or assassination".
If he is passed from Sweden to the US, an orange jumpsuit, shackles and a fabricated indictment await him. And there go all who dare challenge rogue America.

In Britain, Assange's trial by media has been a campaign of character assassination, often cowardly and inhuman, reeking of jealousy of the courageous outsider. Books of perfidious hearsay have been published, movie deals struck and media careers launched or resuscitated on the assumption that he is too poor to sue.

In Sweden, this trial by media has become, according to one observer there, "a full-on mobbing campaign with the victim denied a voice"....read more

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50332#comment-44633

#JohnPilger #WikiLeaks #Assange - How Money Power Works Down Under

By John Pilger

 

 

 

 

Last October, Qantas locked-out its entire workforce in a bid to crush unions and use cheaper "offshore" labour.

 

One of my first jobs as a junior reporter was to meet flights bringing famous people to Australia.

Growing up in a country far from everywhere (except, as my father would say, "where you come from"), I was led to believe that Australia's honour was at risk unless a well-known person from Over There said something flattering about us, preferably the moment they arrived at Sydney airport.

There was a designated list of attributes they could comment on. These were: the weather, the beaches, the harbour, the harbour bridge, the happy people, the beer. When an exhausted Elizabeth Taylor stepped off her piston-engined flight from California and faced the mandatory barrage of questions, she replied: "Where am I, for Christ's sake?"

This was understandable but ill-advised. Readers of the Australian press were warned that Taylor and her accompanying husband Mike Todd, the Hollywood producer, were problem people who did not appreciate their good fortune in being among us.

Todd's "dwarf-like and grizzled" appearance and the size of the bags under his wife's eyes became the subjects of particular tabloid scorn. Their stay was brief.

It was the first scheduled jet flight that drew us closer to the rest of humanity. This momentous occasion gave me my first front page story in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, which declared solemnly: "A new era in civil aviation has dawned..."

The inaugural aircraft was a Boeing 707 of the national airline Qantas, an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services.

Founded in the outback town of Winton, Queensland in 1920, Qantas is today the world's oldest continuously operating airline and, along with the great cricketer Don Bradman and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, occupies a place in the nation's affections. ...read more

#JohnPilger:

 http://t.co/uiJzSKC5 

 #WikiLeaks

#Assange

 #Qantas

#Assange #Extradition A Farce Claims Swedish Professor And Local MSM Coverage Biased,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYuJyqYO20A&feature=relmfu

Video/Documentary: #BBC - #Wikileaks, The Secret Life Of A Superpower

 http://n0.gd/GMO8Wi

#Anonymous

#Syria #Wikileaks :INSIGHT - military intervention in Syria, post withdrawal status of forces

QUOTE

 

A few points I wanted to highlight from meetings today --

I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic
studies group - guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain
to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they're operating in. It
was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level,
including one French and one British representative who are liaising with
the US currently out of DC.

They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I
got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level
of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what's the
strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a
couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams
(presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground
focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force
intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn't much of a Free Syrian
Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are
being done out of 'prudence.' The way it was put to me was, 'look at this
way - the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the
best it's been since 2001.' They have been told to prepare contingencies
and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is
all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.

I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working
toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air camapign to give a
Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from
that idea, saying that the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla
attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite
forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn't be a need for air
cover, and they wouldn't expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in
columns anyway.

They emphasized how the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a
piece of cake. Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much
denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey
are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that
they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not
an easy one.

The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would
fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how
much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would
be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to
base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with
Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn't use
Cyprus as their main air force base. Air Force Intel guy seems pretty
convinced that the Turks won't participate (he seemed pretty pissed at
them.)

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military
intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve. It
isn't clear cut for them geographically like in Libya, and you can't just
create an NFZ over Homs, Hama region. This would entail a countrywide SEAD
campaign lasting the duration of the war. They dont believe air
intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a
massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would
have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very
public stage. Theyre also questiioning the skills of the Syrian forces
that are operating the country's air defenses currently and how
signfiicant the Iranian presence is there. Air Force Intel guy is most
obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria's ballistic missile
capabilities and chem weapons. With Israel rgiht there and the regime
facing an existential crisis, he sees that as a major complication to any
military intervention.

The post 2011 SOFA with Iraq is still being negotiated. These guys were
hoping that during Biden's visit that he would announce a deal with
Maliki, but no such luck. They are gambling ont he idea that the Iraqis
remember the iran-iraq war and that maliki is not going to want to face
the threat of Iranian jets entering Iraqi air space. THey say that most
US fighter jets are already out of Iraq and transferred to Kuwait. They
explained that's the beauty of the air force, the base in Kuwait is just a
hop, skip and jump away from their bases in Europe, ie. very easy to
rapidly build up when they need to. They don't seem concerned about the
US ability to restructure its forces to send a message to Iran. They gave
the example of the USS Enterprise that was supposed to be out of
commission already and got extended another couple years to send to the
gulf. WHen the US withdraws, we'll have at least 2 carriers in the gulf
out of centcom and one carrier in the Med out of EuCom. I asked if the
build-up in Kuwait and the carrier deployments are going to be enough to
send a message to Iran that the US isn't going anywhere. They responded
that Iran will get the message if they read the Centcom Web Site. STarting
Jan. 1 expect them to be publishing all over the place where the US is
building up.

Another concern they have about an operation in Syria is whether Iran
could impede operations out of Balad air force base in Iraq.

The French representative was of hte opinion that Syria won't be a
libya-type situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not
in an election year. The UK rep also emphasized UK reluctance but said
that the renegotiation of the EU treaty undermines the UK role and that UK
would be looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent ( i dont
really think a syria campaign is the way to do that.) UK guy mentioned as
an aside that the air force base commander at Cyprus got switched out from
a maintenance guy to a guy that flew Raptors, ie someone that understands
what it means to start dropping bombs. He joked that it was probably a
coincidence.

Prior to that, I had a meeting with an incoming Kuwaiti diplomat (will be
coded as KU301.) His father was high up in the regime, always by the
CP's/PM's side. The diplo himself still seems to be getting his feet wet
in DC (the new team just arrived less than 2 weeks ago,) but he made
pretty clear that Kuwait was opening the door to allowing US to build up
forces as needed. THey already have a significant presence there, and a
lot of them will be on 90-day rotations. He also said that the SOFA that
the US signs with Baghdad at the last minute will be worded in such a way
that even allowing one trainer in the country can be construed to mean
what the US wants in terms of keeping forces in Iraq. Overall, I didnt get
the impression from him that Kuwait is freaked out about the US leaving.
Everyhting is just getting rearranged. The Kuwaitis used to be much
better at managing their relations with Iran, but ever since that spy ring
story came out a year ago, it's been bad. He doesn't think Iran has
significant covert capabililiteis in the GCC states, though they are
trying. Iranian activity is mostly propaganda focused. He said that while
KSA and Bahrain they can deal with it as needed and black out the media,
Kuwait is a lot more open and thus provides Iran with more oppotunity to
shape perceptions (he used to work in inforamtion unit in Kuwait.) He says
there is a sig number of kuwaitis that listen to Iranian media like Al
Alam especially.

On the Kuwaiti political scene - the government is having a harder time
dealing with a more emboldened opposition, but the opposition is still
extremely divided, esp among the Islamists. The MPs now all have to go
back to their tribes to rally support for the elections to take place in
Feb. Oftentimes an MP in Kuwait city will find out that he has lost
support back home with the tribe, and so a lot of moeny is handed out.The
govt is hoping that witha clean slate they can quiet the opposition down.
A good way of managing the opposition he said is to refer cases to the
courts, where they can linger forever. good way for the govt to buy time.
He doesnt believe the Arab League will take significant action against
Syria - no one is interested in military intervention. they just say it to
threaten it.


http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/1671459_insight-military-intervention-in-syria-post-withdrawal.html

NEW #WikiLeaks + #BBC: The Secret Life of a Superpower: 9:00pm GMT March 21, 2012

WATCH LIVE LINK HERE

GUARANTEED 100% WORKING LIVE STREAMS TO WATCH

 

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more ‘highbrow’ programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC‘s other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television license, and is therefore commercial-free. It is a comparatively well funded public service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most current public service networks worldwide.

Watch

wikileaks

http://n0.gd/GIB6uZ

#Assange #Extradition :WLCentral: 2012-03-18 Worldwide Rallies after Assange SC Verdict

This is a list of all rallies scheduled after Julian Assange receives the verdict on his Supreme Court appeal against extradition to Sweden. These rallies are taking place regardless of the outcome.
This page will be updated as more rallies are planned. Please email any unlisted rallies, corrections, or further information to mcetera@mail.be
.


Australia:
Note: Supreme Court verdict likely to be handed down in the evening or overnight; rallies take place the following working day.
See Australian Friends of WikiLeaks Twitter (@AusFOWL) for information on all Australian rallies.

• Brisbane
  Where: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 295 Ann St.
  When: 12PM – 2PM and 4:30PM – 6PM
  Resources: Flyer 1, Flyer 2, Sticker
  Contact: goldie_adele@yahoo.com.au
• Canberra
  Where: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Sydney Avenue, Barton ACT
  When: 12PM – 2PM and 4:30PM – 6PM
  Contact: Twitter: @wirnpa
• Melbourne
  Where: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2 Lonsdale St.
  When: 12PM – 2PM and 4:30PM – 6PM
  Resources: Flyer, Flyer 2, Sticker
  Contact: ausfowl@gmail.com, Twitter: @AusFoWL, wacacontact@gmail.com
• Perth
  Where: Murray St. Mall, 650 Hay St.
  When: 5:30PM
  Contact: Facebook Event Page
• Sydney
  Where: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 123 Pitt St.
  When: 5PM
  Resources: Flyer, Flyer 2, Flyer 3, Sticker
• Townsville
  Where: Ewen Jones' Office, Nathan Business Centre, Aitkenvale
  When: 12PM – 2PM and 4:30PM – 6PM
  Contact: Facebook Event Page
• Further Resources:Stop the War Coalition Sydney: Rally for Assange
  WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance: Rally Action Alert
Germany:
• Frankfurt
  Where: Australian Consulate General, Neue Mainzer Strasse 52-58
  Resources: Flyer 1, Flyer 2, Factsheet, Demo Kit, Wordpress
  Contact: ffmfowl@tormail.net, Twitter: @FFMFoWL
United Kingdom:
• Edinburgh
  Where: Australian Consulate, Mitchell House, 5 Mitchell St.
  Contact: scofowl@gmail.com Twitter: ScoFoWL
• London
  Where: Australian High Commission, Australia House, Strand
  Contact: scofowl@gmail.com Twitter: ScoFoWL
United States: Note: Supreme Court verdict likely to be handed down in the early morning; rallies take place the same day.
• Washington DC
  Where: Embassy of Australia, 1601 Massachusetts Ave.
  When: 3PM
  Resources: Flyer
  Contact: usfowl@gmail.com, Twitter: @USFoWL

#Assange 

 #WikiLeaks http://wlcentral.org/node/2513

Julian #Assange speaks with WSWS.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/jass-m16.shtml

#Assange #Extradition:UK Supreme Court will not be making a decision today on the Assange extradition case. Of Course Not Cameron Is In The States !

@UKSupremeCourt

  #Assange

. http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/news/future-judgments.html

#wikileaks

Christine #Assange : Profiling A Mothers Courage...

By Megan Kinninment

 

March 11, 2012

 All mothers worry about their kids. It goes with the territory.

Are they eating enough? Are they doing well at school? Will they be sent to America and be imprisoned and tortured? Oh, wait.

That last fear doesn’t crop up for most mothers, does it? For the mother of Wikileaks editor-in-chief, Julian Assange however, the fear is real.



As a journalist, I am fascinated by Wikileaks and its enigmatic Australian founder but as a mother I wonder how I would cope if it were my child under the spotlight of both the world’s media and the Pentagon. Last week I interviewed Christine Assange, 61, the mother of the man whose name returns over 28million results in a Google search.

I discovered a woman under extraordinary pressure.

In the coming days Julian Assange will hear the outcome of a UK Supreme Court appeal against extradition to Sweden to face questioning over sexual assault allegations made in 2010.

Christine Assange fears that once her son lands in Swedish soil he will be extradited to the US to be imprisoned for his role in publishing leaked secret diplomatic cables exposing the US government’s actions in the Iraq war....read more

 http://thehoopla.com.au/christine-assange-mothers-courage/

#WikiLeaks #Assange : Video - Wins Walkley Award For Most Outstanding Contribution To Journalism Nov 2011

#WikiLeaks

#Assange

  #Journalism

 http://youtu.be/7QkXAX-d3ZA

#FreeAssange

 #extradition

#Assange #Wikileaks #McCanns :McCann cables spark more WikiLeaks worries

http://steelmagnolia-steelmagnolia.blogspot.com/2012/03/mccann-wikileaks.html

#Assange:Transcript of this morning's Assange interview on ABC

 http://mmcetera.blogspot.com/2012/03/transcript-julian-assange-on-abc-radio.html

#auspol

#Wikileaks Why did the New York Times suppress WikiLeaks details of US assassination squad task force 373?

SNIP

Task Force 373 is alternately described by the New York Times as “a secret commando unit”; as “an undisclosed ‘black’ unit of special forces” by the UK Guardian; and “an elite American unit…. which operates in Afghanistan outside of the ISAF mandate” by Spiegel Online.

These three news sources were partners with Wikileaks in the release of the documents, and had special access to the material prior to their public posting.

By all accounts, Task Force 373 seems to be a kidnapping and death squad, run by the Americans, but housed at a German base in Afghanistan. The very secret unit, unknown even to other ISAF forces, works off a “kill or capture” list known as JPEL, which stands for “Joint Prioritized Effects List.” From this bland name springs an operations force that, according to the UK Guardian, has “more than 2,000 senior figures from the Taliban and al-Qaida” on its seize or kill list.

Most of the world press has reported this same or similar figure, though Spiegel only says the figure is “large”:...read more

wikileaks 

 http://n0.gd/zRUMaD

#Wikileaks #Assange:Important transcript from seminar on WikiLeaks including ABUSIVE statements from US intel/NYTimes

wikileaks 

 http://n0.gd/wPyiSd

Geoffrey Robertson addresses seminar via Skype

Supreme Court #Assange extradition verdict to be handed down sometime after March 4th.

Release Our Man in Brisbane Bill O'Chee: Stratfor's prolific Australian source

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-29-14-our-man-in-brisbane-bill-o-chee-stratfor-s.html

#awikiLeaks

#Assange

Release ICANN responsible Veni Markovski was a Stratfor informant

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-29-11-icann-responsible-veni-markovski-was-a.html

#WikiLeaks

 #Assange

RELEASE: SARKO CANCELS SWEDEN TRIP OVER TURKEY

 http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-29-08-sarko-cancels-sweden-trip-over-turkey.html

 #Wikileaks

#Assange

Release : The #Falklands Files.

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-27-22-the-falklands-files.html

#CIA - Release WikiLeaks sheds light on 'the shadow Cia'

#Mexico Hippy Bombers - Documents Released...

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-27-12-mexico-hippy-bombers.html