Washington, D.C., May 10, 2021 The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Biden administration to make public why the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump secretly subpoenaed journalists phone records, and to commit to respecting journalist and source relationships.

The Justice Department secretly obtained call records from April 15, 2017, to July 31, 2017, for the phone numbers of currentWashington Postreporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller and formerPostreporter Adam Entous,The Postreported on May 7. The reporters were separately notified on May 3 in letters that did not specify when the material was obtained, according to the report.

Public interest journalism cannot work if the U.S. government is willing to disregard journalists right to source protection, said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. The Biden administration must provide more information about why theWashington Postreporters call records were subpoenaed, and commit to upholding protections in place at the Justice Department to prevent this form of government overreach in the future.

An unnamed Justice Department spokespersontoldThe Postthat the departments decision to subpoena the records was made in 2020, when William Barr was attorney general. According toThe Post, the material included records for Nakashimas work, cell, and home phones, Entous cell phone, and Millers work and cell phones.

Quoted inThe Post, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said,The targets of these investigations are not the news media recipients but rather those with access to the national defense information who provided it to the media and thus failed to protect it as lawfully required.

The Justice Department did not immediately return CPJs request for comment submitted through its online media portal.

In arecent white paperto the Biden administration, CPJ called on the president to back guidelines that protect confidential sources, and to refrain from using the Espionage Act to prosecute journalists or whistleblowers.

The Trump administration indicted at least eight government employees and contractors for leaking classified information to journalists, and also charged WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange with obtaining and publishing secret government materials,CPJ reported.

In 2017 the Justice Department, then under Jeff Sessions, said that it planned to relax U.S. government guidelines to make it easier for investigators to subpoena journalists and their records, CPJdocumented at the time.

The Obama administration prosecuted 10 government employees and contractors for leaking classified information, including eight under the Espionage Act, asCPJ reported.

The threePostreporters had written articles about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election using classified intelligence intercepts, the paper reported. The letters to the reporters did not state the purpose of the subpoena, according toThe Post. The phone records included information about who made calls to and from the specified numbers, as well as the length of calls, though not what was said during the conversations,The Postreported.

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CPJ calls on Biden administration to commit to source protection in wake of Washington Post subpoena revelations - CPJ Press Freedom Online

By Swedish Iraq Solidarity Association

The following is an appeal by the Swedish Iraq Solidarity Association on occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, May 3.

Eighteen years have passed since Iraq was invaded and occupied in 2003 by the United States, supported mainly by Britain. The coverage by Western media not least the Swedish media of developments in the country has been extremely deficient and often directly misleading.

Stockholm, Sweden, May 3. Credit: Sigyn Meder

The Australian journalist Julian Assange, who through WikiLeaks revealed to the world the war crimes of the invading forces, is being held without trial in a British high-security prison under poor sanitation and in total isolation, which equals mental torture. His case is not only a mockery of the rule of law but also an attack on international press freedom, intended as a warning to the media worldwide. Whoever reveals war crimes will be severely punished; whoever commits them goes free.

Iraq, which before the invasion was a rich and successful country with a high standard of living for the population, has been destroyed by the invasion. Over one and a half million people have been killed, even more injured or displaced from their homes or subjected to arbitrary violence and abuse.

Large cities such as Mosul and Fallujah have been repeatedly subjected to terror bombing and mass destruction. The countrys infrastructure, including the water and electricity supply and sewage treatment plants, has been smashed to pieces. Extensive corruption prevents reconstruction. Politically, the United States has imposed on Iraq a sectarian system to divide its people.

Destruction of Iraq environment

The weapons used by the United States have caused lasting damage to the environment and to its people. Depleted uranium, white phosphorus and other chemical toxins were used in its warfare.

Many children are still [being] born severely malformed due to radioactivity and other environmental degradation. President Joe Biden recently made a big deal out of the fact that the United States is now joining the Paris Agreement. He made no mention of the [U.S.] American war machines deliberate environmental destruction and poisoning, not only in Iraq.

Officially, the U.S. role today is said to be to fight terrorism, although terrorism was a direct creation of the U.S. war, as even President Barack Obama noted. In reality the role of the United States includes massive bombings of civilians, drone strikes on Iraqi territory, such as the one that resulted in the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020, and the deployment of special forces, contract staff and intelligence agents.

There is strong pressure for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Major demonstrations call for national independence. On Oct. 1, 2019, a series of extensive demonstrations began, the so-called October Uprising. More than 700 protesters have been killed and thousands injured. No one has been held responsible for these abuses. Media reporting has been almost nonexistent.

The Pentagon plans to stay

The Iraqi parliament has called on the United States to withdraw from the country, and talks have been held with the government on the withdrawal of U.S. military units. But the commander of the U.S. Central Command, Kenneth McKenzie, says: I do not see us completely withdrawing from Iraq in the future.

The U.S. military is clinging to Iraq, but with a less conspicuous role, mainly as advisers and for military training and exercise. Combat units are transferred to Kuwait, Jordan or other areas, from where they can intervene again when they deem it appropriate.

At the same time, the U.S.-led military alliance NATO is increasing its strength in Iraq from 400 troops to 4,000. Formally, that force is currently under Danish command (formerly Canadian, next year Italian), but ultimately control lies with the United States. In addition, the United States finances private companies, which provide mercenaries.

For the United States, Iraq is a base for attacks on Syria and the encirclement of Iran; [Iraq is] a pawn in the game for control of the oil-rich and strategically important Gulf region and ultimately in the pursuit of U.S. domination over the entire Eurasian continent.

Since 2015, the Swedish military has been participating in the U.S.-led coalition Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in Iraq, which lacks a mandate from the United Nations. Sweden has no national interests to defend in the region and contributes to violations of international law as the coalition carries out attacks in Syria. Sweden should not contribute to the occupying powers continued abuses against Iraq and its neighbors.

[Swedish] Foreign Minister Ann Linde and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have still not answered satisfactorily the questions about Swedens treatment of Julian Assange that Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, and editor Arne Ruth asked more than a year ago.

The Iraq Solidarity Association calls on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to answer these questions and act for the immediate release of Julian Assange. The war criminals should be punished, not those who exposed the crimes.

The Association calls on the media to break the silence about the illegal abuses against Julian Assange and to stop the smearing of him, which contributes to obscuring this judicial scandal. Defend freedom of the press in the world!

The Association demands an end to Swedens participation in the war and to all foreign interference in Iraq! The Iraqi people must be allowed to decide in their own country. USA out of Iraq!

Contact: [emailprotected]

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Defend the freedom of the press! Break the silence about Iraq! - Workers World

With India facing a severe COVID-19 crisis, Western media has descended upon the country like vultures, trying to photograph every possible funeral to showcase it in the West. From launching drones in the sky to photograph funerals, to selling those pictures for Rs. 23,000 to gain more clicks, the Western media is media shamelessly profiting off Indias misery. Sometimes, they just straight-up use an old fake picture to depict Indias COVID-19 victims. All of these stunts have earned some well-deserved contempt for the western media from Indians.

In this climate, an old video of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev talking to a BBC reporter has gone viral. In this interview dating back to November 2020, the BBC reporter tries to put Aliyev on the spot, asking him about media freedom in Azerbaijan. Instead of being defensive, Aliyev goes on the offensive and asks the reporter point blank, You think they do not have it? Why do you think that people in Azerbaijan do not have free media and opposition?

The BBC interviewer then tries to clap back at the Azerbaijani Prez, claiming that multiple independent sources in the country have told her that Azerbaijan has no press freedom. To this, Aliyev demands to be told about these independent sources. When the interviewer refuses to disclose the sources, Aliyev responds coldly, Oh, if you couldnt name that means you are just inventing the stories.

After a spate of accusations from the BBC interviewer about lack of press freedoms, a crackdown on NGOs, critics in jail, etc., Aliyev issues a strong denial and repudiation of the BBC, bringing up the imprisonment of Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange.

Absolutely fake, absolutely. We have free media, we have free internet. Now, due to martial law, we have some restrictions but before there have been no restrictions. The number of internet users in Azerbaijan is more than 80 percent. Can you imagine the restriction of media in a country where the internet is free, there is no censorship, and there is 80 percent of internet users? We have millions of people on Facebook. How can you say that we dont have free media? This is again, a biased approach. This is an attempt to create a perception in Western audiences about Azerbaijan. We have opposition, we have NGOs, we have free political activity, we have free media, we have freedom of speech. But if you raise this question, can I ask you also one? How do you assess what happened to Mr. Assange? Isnt it the reflection of free media in your country?, said Azerbaijan President Aliyev in the BBC interview.

Aliyev brings up the unjust imprisonment of Wikileaks Julian Assange, who is still in a British prison, after being dragged out of his Ecuadorian embassy asylum in London two years ago. The United States is seeking Julian Assanges extradition to try him for conspiring to hack into US military databases to acquire sensitive secret information,which was then published on the Wikileaks website. In other words, the USA wants to prosecute Julian Assange for doing journalism and publishing documents stolen by other people which reveal US war crimes in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Publishing stolen or leaked information is not a crime, its journalism.

Thus, President Aliyev was successfully able to expose the BBCs hypocrisy of questioning media freedoms about another country, when it is funded by taxpayers money from Great Britain, the country currently imprisoning Julian Assange. According to United Nations Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer, Julian Assange has been a victim of injustice, torture, and political persecution at the hand of the British and American governments. Therefore, the West has no moral right to criticize not just Azerbaijan, but any other country, whilst they allow and support the obvious persecution of a journalist like Assange.

In order to accuse me saying that Armenians will not have free media here, lets talk about Assange. How many years, sorry, how many years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy, and for what? And where is he now? For the journalistic activity, you kept that person hostage actually killing him morally and physically. You did it, not us. And now he is in prison. So you have no moral right to talk about free media when you do these things, said President Aliyev, raising the important issue of Assanges captivity.

This interview from November 2020 has resurfaced because of the obvious contempt towards western, mainstream media which is on the rise. The COVID-19 pandemic also revealed the western mediasunhealthy fetishof linking Indias COVID-19 outbreak with funeral pyres. Several media organizations, be it Washington Post or Reuters, posted pictures of funeral pyres from various places in India to highlight the severity of the pandemic. One of the Washington Post journalists even described a cremation grounds vertical shot as stunning.

Where there are deaths, there are obviously going to be funeral pyres. When the pandemic took its devastating toll on the US, Italy, and other western countries, there were hardly any media organizations that symbolized the outbreak with the images of burial grounds.

This indignity of linking the COVID-19 outbreak with funeral pyres is reserved only for Indians, and it smacks of the Wests envy of India, which was remarkably successful in staving off the initial COVID-19 outbreak when the developed and richer countries of the world were finding it incredibly difficult to control it.

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Exposing the bias of Western media: Old video of Azerbaijan President goes viral. Heres what he said - OpIndia

Ten years ago today, I was working with WikiLeaks asa media partner working with theWashington Post, McClatchy Newspapers, theDaily Telegraph,Der Spiegel,Le Monde,El Pais,Aftonbladet,La RepubblicaandLEspresso on the release of The Guantnamo Files, classified military documents from Guantnamo that were the last of the major leaks of classified US government documents by Chelsea Manning, following the releases in 2010 of the Collateral Murder video, theAfghanandIraq war logs, and theCablegatereleases.

All the journalists and publishers involved are at liberty to continue their work and even Chelsea Manning, given a 35-year sentence after a trial in 2013, was freed after President Obamacommuted her sentencejust before leaving office and yet Julian Assange remains imprisoned in HMP Belmarsh, a maximum-security prison in south east London, even though, in January, Judge Vanessa Baraitser, the British judge presiding over hearings regarding his proposed extradition to the US,prevented his extraditionon the basis that, given the state of his mental health, and the oppressive brutality of US supermax prisons, the US would be unable to prevent him committing suicide if he were to be extradited.

That ought to have been the end of the story, but instead of being freed to be reunited with his partner Stella Moris, and his two young sons, Judge Baraitserrefused to grant him bail, and the US refused to drop their extradition request, announcing that they would appeal, and continuing to do so despite Joe Biden being inaugurated as president. This is a black mark against Biden, whose administration should have concluded, as the Obama administration did (when he was Vice President), that it was impossible to prosecute Assange without fatally undermining press freedom. As Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundationstated in April 2019, Despite Barack Obamas extremely disappointing record on press freedom, his justice department ultimately ended up making the right call when they decided that it was too dangerous to prosecute WikiLeaks without putting news organizations such as theNew York Timesand theGuardianat risk.

All of the documents leaked by Chelsea Manning and released by Wikileaks in 2010 and 2011 were a revelation. The Collateral Murder video, with its footage of the crew of a US Apache helicopter killing eleven unarmed civilians in Iraq in July 2007, including two people working for Reuters, provided clear evidence of war crimes, as did the Afghan and Iraq war logs, as the journalist Patrick Cockburnexplained in a statementhe made during Assanges extradition hearings last September, and asnumerousother sourceshave confirmed. The diplomatic cables were also full ofastonishing revelationsabout the conduct of US foreign policy, while The Guantnamo Files, as I explained at the time of their release, provide the anatomy of a colossal crime perpetrated by the US government on 779 prisoners who, for the most part, are not and never have been the terrorists the government would like us to believe they are.

Publication of the files, which had originally been intended to be sometime in May 2011, had suddenly been brought forward because WikiLeaks had heard that theGuardianand theNew York Times, previous media partners of WikiLeaks, who had fallen out with Assange, and who had obtained the files by other means, were planning to publish them, and so, over the course of several hours on the evening of April 24, 2011, I wrote an introduction to the files that accompanied the launch of their publication.

With hindsight, that article,WikiLeaks Reveals Secret Guantnamo Files, Exposes Detention Policy as a Construct of Lies, was one of the most significant articles Ive ever written, as it summed up why the files covering 759 of the 779 men held by the US military since the prison opened on January 11, 2002 were so important, most significantly because they provided the names of those who made false or dubious allegations against their fellow prisoners, revealing the extent to which unreliable witnesses were relied upon by the US to justify holding men at Guantnamo who were either innocent, and were seized by mistake, or were simply foot soldiers, with no command responsibility whatsoever.

The files also revealed threat assessments, which were fundamentally exaggerated. Because no one in the US military or the intelligence services wanted to admit to mistakes having been made, prisoners who posed no risk whatsoever were described as low risk, and, by extension, low risk prisoners were labeled medium risk, while medium risk prisoners and the handful of prisoners who could perhaps genuinely be described as high risk were all lumped together as high risk.

The files also provided risk assessments based on prisoners behavior since their arrival at Guantnamo, establishing that many men were held (and some still are) not because of anything they did before they were seized, but because of their resistance to their brutal and unjust treatment in Guantnamo. Also included were health assessments, establishing that even the US authorities acknowledged that, as theGuardiandescribed it, [a]lmost 100 Guantnamo prisoners were classified as having psychiatric illnesses including severe depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Unfortunately, within a week of the release of The Guantnamo Files, the Obama administration decided that it was imperative tokill Osama bin Ladenin a Wild West raid on the compound where he had been living in Pakistan, a move whose timing was, to put it mildly, suspicious, especially as, immediately afterwards, dark forces within the US started promotingthe completely untrue notionthat it was torture in the CIAs black site program and the existence of Guantnamo that had led to the US locating bin Laden.

Following the release of The Guantnamo Files, I spent the rest of 2011 largely engaged in a detailed analysis of the files, writing422 prisoner profiles in 34 articles, in which I dissected the information in those prisoners files, demonstrating why, in most cases, it was so fundamentally unreliable. It was a process similar to what I had done in 2006, when I had been the only person to conduct a detailed analysis of 8,000 pages of documents released by the Pentagon after losing a Freedom of Information lawsuit, for my bookThe Guantnamo Files and much of my subsequent work and I remain very proud of my analysis of the files released by WikiLeaks, and am only disappointed that, through a combination of exhaustion and a lack of funding, I was unable to complete my analysis.

I hope, however, that what I completed helps not only to expose the colossal injustice of Guantnamo, but also more than justifies the leak of the documents, for which, shamefully, Julian Assange is still being persecuted.

See the article here:

A Call To Free Julian Assange On The 10th Anniversary Of WikiLeaks' Release Of The Guantnamo Files OpEd - Eurasia Review

The hearts of political leaders in the United States and its imperialist allies are bleeding for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Jailed on February 2 this year, after returning from Germany where he received treatment for an alleged poisoning by the Russian state, Navalny has since gone on hunger strike.

The outrage over Navalnys imprisonment and resulting health crisis is an object lesson in imperialist cynicism and intrigue. Those most passionately invoking his democratic rights are the architects of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assanges continuing and vastly more severe persecution.

There is nothing remotely comparable between the two men, and the differences are not in Navalnys favour.

Assange is a heroic journalist who played a leading role in the exposure of some of the worst imperialist crimes of the 21st century, from covered-up details of the brutal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan to US torture camps and extraordinary renditions.

Navalny is a right-wing, nationalist politician, who has referred to migrants from the Caucasus as cockroaches that should be killed. He represents a wing of the Russian oligarchy opposed to President Vladimir Putin and in favour of opening Russia up more widely to Western imperialism.

It is this difference which underpins their night and day treatment.

The WikiLeaks founders work was a spur to global antiwar sentiment and contributed to popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. He is being made an example of as retribution for the damage he inflicted to imperialist interests. The same interests mandate support for Navalny, who offers himself up as a tool for realising their designs on Russia.

The contrasting treatment tears apart claims by the likes of US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to be supporting Navalny on human rights grounds while pursuing Assange on supposedly legal ones.

Assanges persecution began more than a decade ago when Sweden launched a politically manufactured sexual assault investigation to secure his extradition. This would have been a staging post to the United States. Assange was forced, in 2012, to claim political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was kept arbitrarily detained by British police for the best part of seven years.

Following his illegal seizure and arrest in April 2019, he has spent the past two years in Belmarsh maximum security prisonon the charge of skipping bail for 25 weekson remand while the US pursued an extradition request for over a year, and since then for close to four months while the US appeals a ruling against extradition on health grounds.

His politically motivated case is a litany of abuses of legal and democratic rights, carried out alongside a slander campaign involving the worlds media and pseudo-left groups, designed to blacken his name and psychologically destroy the WikiLeaks founder.

Were Assange to be sent to the US, he faces a sentence of 175 years on charges under the Espionage Act.

Every government in the world lined up behind this imperialist conspiracy to have Assange, denounced as a high-tech terrorist by Biden, face justice, in the words of Johnson. German Chancellor Angela Merkel summed up the stance of the European powers with the comment in 2019 that Assanges case is a matter which doesnt concern Germany and is in the hands of British justice. Australia, Assanges home country, washed their hands of him.

In contrast, when Navalny was arrested this year, also for violating parole, in connection with a 2014 embezzlement case, and sentenced to two years and eight months imprisonment, this gang of criminals miraculously discovered their democratic sensibilities.

Johnson praised the brave Navalny and said the Russian ruling fails to meet the most basic standards of justice. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan condemned the violation of human rights. Merkel declared the Navalny verdict far from any rule of law standards. French President Emmanuel Macron stated, respect for human rights such as democratic freedom are not negotiable.

Especially severe condemnations were made of the outrageous attack on his [Navalnys] life, referring to his alleged poisoning by the Russian state. Yet nothing was said when an investigation into Spanish security firm UC Global, which provided surveillance for the Ecuadorian embassy, revealed a CIA plot to either kidnap or poison Assange.

As Navalnys health has deteriorated due to his hunger strike, these officials have reiterated calls for his freedom, citing the danger to his life. Biden called Navalnys treatment totally unfair and totally inappropriate, while his administration warned of consequences if he were to die. Josep Borrell, the European Unions High Representative for foreign affairs demanded, Russian authorities must grant him immediate access to medical professionals he trusts. The UKs Foreign Office said the same in its statement: Mr Navalny must be given immediate access to independent medical care.

This is precisely the demand made by campaign group Doctors for Assange and United Nations special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer, but which was disparaged by the British government. Assange has been repeatedly denied bail despite the serious risk posed to his life by COVID-19 and by his own mental health.

UK Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against his extradition to the United States solely on the grounds that to do so would endanger his life and might lead to his suicide. The response of the Biden administration was to insist, as Trump had previously, We continue to seek his extradition.

The criminal agenda of the ruling class is echoed by their paid chorus in the media, who have been working overtime to fabricate progressive credentials for Navalny while leaving Assange to rot.

Since January this year, the Guardian, Britains leading nominally liberal paper, has published 78 articles and videos on Navalny. It published 16 on Assange, with just one since February. It only belatedly adopted a for-the-record opposition to Assanges extradition in a November 2019 editorial, after waging a decade-long smear campaign against him. It wrote another in December 2020 and then again in January this year. It has written three on Navalny this year alone.

Amnesty International refused to acknowledge Assange as a prisoner of conscience for years but was so quick to apply the label to Navalny that they were forced into an embarrassing retreat in acknowledgment of his record of hate speech a few months later. US Democratic Party Senator Bernie Sanders has maintained near total silence on Assange, issuing a single tweet opposing his indictment in May 2019 that succeeded in not mentioning the WikiLeaks founder by name. He tweeted this Monday: Make no mistake about what is happening here: activist Aleksei Navalny is being murdered in front of the world by Vladimir Putin for the crime of exposing Putins vast corruption. Navalnys doctors must be allowed to see him immediately.

Phrases like human rights and democratic freedom turn to ash in the mouths of Sanders, Biden, Johnson and their ilk. Their support for the politically filthy Navalny is a calculated provocation against the Russian state. They hope to use his fate as a pretext for a further escalation of military aggression against Moscow. Assange has had his democratic rights eviscerated with the consent of all the major powers to suppress opposition to this imperialist war drive.

The only real constituency for democratic rights in the world today is the international working class, which can only defend those rights through a combined struggle against the imperialist governments, their stooge Navalny and the Russian oligarchy represented by Putin. The demand for the immediate release and unconditional freedom of Julian Assange must be placed at the centre of that struggle.

From global Pandemic to global class struggle

2021 International May Day Online Rally

Saturday, May 1, 11AM US Eastern Time. Streamed at wsws.org/mayday.

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Navalny vs Assange, or the geopolitics of selective outrage - WSWS

A woman dances on a street in the Old Town of Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. ZHAO GE/XINHUA

If you have been paying any attention to Western media, including all forms of social media with United States or Western origins, you will have heard allegations about the horrific "genocide "and "ethnic cleansing" in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region of China.

Supposedly, "mass rapes" and "mass sterilization programs" are being carried out against Uygurs, who allegedly are being held in "concentration camps".

It has been stated by many that, rather than being factual, all the reporting is actually an attempt by the West to demonize China in order to turn the entire world against it.

Why? As political economist William Briggs wrote recently in the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations, "China's economic star is rising, and America's best days are behind it." And if the past few decades have shown us anything, it is that the US can be a very sore loser.

Just look at what happened to Libya. Many observers of Middle Eastern events believe the US bombing of Libya came about because the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafiwanted to move off the petrodollar and use gold for the oil trade instead.

So what is the truth about Xinjiang?

Many years ago in Xinjiang, I saw no obvious ethnic tensions. But that was a while ago.

Jerry Grey, a retired Australian living in Guangdong province, went on a bike tour through Xinjiang, thousands of kilometers away, in late 2019. He wrote that he had seen nothing of the prison camps or any of the other horrors reported (or magnified) by people who have never set foot in either Xinjiang or other parts of China.

What about the 1 million Uygurs "locked in concentration camps", as reported by the media? It turns out that this number comes from the World Uyghur Congress, which is based in Munich, Germany. Hilariously, in a video interview with a representative from this Congress that I watched, when asked where the figure 1 million came from, the representative answered, "The media". Astounding circularity.

And therein lies the rub. Quite clearly the Western mainstream media are responsible for a process of telling half-truths or outright lies in order to demonize China, with the final intention pointing to war.

As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said, "Every war in the last 50 years has been created by media lies". And that is the reason Assange sits in Belmarsh Prison near London, for creating a system to allow people to see the actual truthraw documentsof what is happening in our world.

How does this process of false narrative building happen? The basic modus operandi is to produce so-called news, often based on "leaks" from unnamed but supposedly reliable sources.

So, for instance, someone from the US intelligence community will tell a US media outlet that there are "mass rapes of Uygurs" in Xinjiang. The media then run with this and sell it as truth. They embellish and dramatize. Horrific details are included, with the goal being to get emotional reactions and raise the levels of fear and disgust.

Then the whole process is put on repeat, day after day with the same messages. In other words, they use the technology of brainwashing that is called "manufacturing consent".

Ultimately, when caught lying outright, the media will do some disingenuous retraction, of just one or two lines on page 10 so the retraction is never seen. By then it doesn't matter, because truth-telling people have been destroyed, and readers hardly make it to page 10 anyway.

It is fair to say that, through these very deliberate processes designed to distort, smear, defame and lie, in the minds of people who are absorbing the "news" uncritically, China increasingly comes to be perceived in a very negative way, and thus consent for war is manufactured.

Sadly, this process of demonization is not simply directed at China. It is being directed at truth itself.

As a case in point, certainly not the only case, the last year-and-a-half of global madness around COVID-19 has been created by the very same process of lies and deception perpetrated by the Western media, supported by mass de-platforming and smearing of knowledgeable people who are trying to communicate true facts about the situation.

In this way, the majority of people only get to hear the official narrative when it's too late.

A war against truth and the people of the world, manufactured by means of media lies, is taking place in front of our eyes. The demonization of China is simply part of that larger war.

The author is a psychologist, linguist, educator, entrepreneur and corporate adviser. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Link:

Beijing is among targets of Western media's lies - Chinadaily USA

Australian artist and documentary filmmaker, George Gittoes is an artist willing to create in the face of chaos and potential destruction. He has been travelling the world for 40 years visiting extreme situations war zones, natural disasters and places where violence and fanaticism feature as part of everyday life. He defies categorisation, as his life defies belief; see his autobiography Blood Mystic for corroboration. He uses painting, prints, visual diaries, field drawings, photography and filmmaking to present his work as an eyewitness account of social injustices and the difficult times in which we live.

He has been recognised for his humanitarian and peace-making efforts, awarded an Order of Australia

Equal parts artist and warrior, Gittoes has been waging war on war with art, circus, photography and film having been, over the course of his life, shot, stabbed, bombed, beaten, tortured, drowned and jailed. He has worked with Andy Warhol, dined with Fidel Castro, plotted with Julian Assange, been feted by Nelson Mandela, blessed by Mother Theresa, sneezed on by the Dalai Lama. I feel privileged to have been able to spend much of my life creating beauty in the face of the destruction of war, he has said. I have been waging a personal war against war with art. Soldiers die for flags. For me it is art.

George Gittoes, The Scream, 2019, oil on canvas, 152.5 x 122.5cm, collection of the artis

He has been recognised for his humanitarian and peace-making efforts, awarded an Order of Australia (AM) and the prestigious 2015 Sydney Peace Prize. He has also won many prizes for his painting including twice being awarded the Blake Prize for Religious Art. His acclaimed documentaries includeBullets of the Poets(1986),Soundtrack to War(2004),Rampage(2006),Miscreants of Taliwood(2007),Love City Jalalabad(2013) andWhite Light(2019).

Gittoes was born in Rockdale, NSW in 1949. After working with Andy Warhol and the Black Panthers in New York, he founded the Yellow House in Sydney with Martin Sharp. Rev Rod Pattenden, curator ofGeorge Gittoes: on being there, has written that the inspiration for the Yellow House lay with the example of Vincent van Gogh and his hopes for a community of artists. Gittoes contribution to the Yellow House was an elaborately painted puppet theatre where he told stories using hand crafted puppets made from liquid polystyrene, fabric, metal and paint. For this, he drew on such material as Christian religious theatre, Sufi wisdom plays and contemporary theatre. The space was titled The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and its design reflected his early interest in Islamic art and, more importantly, a search for a way of working that formulated an overall approach to vision and interpretation.[i]

From there his work took on a more international scope as he travelled to places like Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Middle East as an unofficial war artist. His journeys in the 1990s took him to Iraq and Pakistan, and then to the founding of a second Yellow House in the city of Jalalabad in Afghanistan working with local artists and actors. These journeys found their most recent expression through his sojourn in 2018 in the suburbs of South Chicago, one of the worst centres for gun violence in the USA, where he made the documentary White Light.

Pattenden notes that, in many ways, the shape of the work Gittoes has completed in recent years has been a continuation of influences that came together in 1986 when filmingThe Bullets of the Poetson location in Nicaragua. The experience of being present in a situation of revolution and social conflict inspired a new return to drawing and painting with Gittoes being greatly affected by the Externalism strategies of a group of Sandinista women poets. The externalist poets believed in using real life events and physical experiences in their poetry, instead of the imagery of the Imagination as, for them, reality was more incredible than fantasy. lnspired by this poetry of reality, Gittoes began his first externalist drawings with charcoal, of soldiers at the frontline of the contra war.[ii]

In 1995 he won The Blake Prize for Religious Art with his work entitled The Preacher Kibeho Massacre Series, Rwanda which graphically portrays a Christian preacher, Bible in hand, giving words of comfort to those caught up in the fighting in East Africa in April 1995. Gittoes had been on hand as part of his role as war artist with the Australian Military in mostly peace keeping roles. On returning from Rwanda, Gittoes completed the work over one night as a summation of all the visual horror he had experienced in the midst of war commenting that, With The Preacher, he represents what I think religion should do, raise people up, make people feel human and spiritually alive and give them courage and faith. He has also said, this is what religion means to me, it is being aware of modem problems, and applying Christianity to the situation; it is the Bible being re-enacted in the present day.[iii]

Lil Mac, 2019 by George Gittoes

White Light takes us into a similar place as, with the support of Rev Jesse Jackson, the Roman Catholic priest Fr Michael Pfleger leads a demonstration that shuts down a stretch of the Dan Ryan Express Highway in Chicago to make the point that enough is enough when it comes to gun violence. In Englewood, statistics on gun violence are higher than any active armed conflict, leading locals to dub the area Chi-Raq. In this urban war zone, young people are the frequent targets, decimating families and fracturing the community. Installing himself within a local gang, Gittoes traces how racial segregation, high unemployment and ready access to firearms combine to contribute to a cycle of gun crime. Rather than surrender to violence, however, shooting survivors and community leaders, like Pfleger, aim to turn the tide through music and local collective action.

Through his work, Gittoes invites us to understand what it is like to be there, even daring to create, in some of the most dangerous places in the world. He wants the viewer to experience the conditions, situations and ethical dilemmas that he himself encounters in being there and invites us to examine our own cultural fears of what it is like to be over there, in places that only appear in our evening news in the context of global terrorism or violence.George Gittoes: on being theregives privileged access to his process through his personal visual diaries, field drawings, photography and film. Through these forms, we experience an amazing human journey that holds out the hopeful power of creativity in the face of prejudice and fear. This is a magnificent visual record of how Gittoes not only survives but creates in the face of forces that would seek to repress the human imagination.

Gittoes has learned that documenting frontline action is not enough; he wants to use art to bring about change. He wants, as Pattenden writes, to pull us into these narratives and for us to consider what matters most when we talk about what life means and the nature of survival and human thriving. As such, this exhibition is a magnificent visual record of an imagination that provides a hopeful resource for the difficult times in which we live.[iv]

George Gitteoes: On Being There | 24 April 27 June, Casula Powerhouse

[i] Rod Pattenden, Visceral Compassion: Images of War Artist George Gittoes in Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, 1998, p. 180.

[ii]Rod Pattenden, Visceral Compassion: Images of War Artist George Gittoes in Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, 1998, p. 181.

[iii]Rod Pattenden, Visceral Compassion: Images of War Artist George Gittoes in Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, 1998, p. 182-183.

[iv]Rod Pattenden, CatalogueGeorge Gittoes: on being there, Wollongong Art Gallery, 13 February 18 April 2021, p. 5.

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Punk icon, environmental activist and designer extraordinaire Vivienne Westwood celebrates her 80th birthday on April 8.

She emerged on the fashion scene in the 1970s, with her androgynous designs, slogan t-shirts, and irreverent attitude towards the establishment.

Since then, Westwood has continued to break boundaries. Shes responsible for some of fashions most famous designs including her take on the corset, the mini-crini a shortened version of the Victorian crinoline dress and Carrie Bradshaws bridal dress in the 2008 Sex And The City movie.

Westwood has also made a name for herself as an activist, staging public protests to raise awareness around causes close to her heart. As she turns 80, these are just some of her most exuberant fashion moments

Vivienne Westwood

When awarded an OBE in 1992, Westwood wore a perfectly tailored skirt suit with a grey matching hat. The outfit might have been demure, but she soon started twirling for photographers only to reveal she wasnt wearing any knickers underneath. She later told the Daily Mail: I met a man who worked with the Queen and he said she was rather amused by it.

Vivienne Westwood

Westwood returned to Buckingham Palace in 2006 to be made a dame, and was once again without underwear but she refrained from doing any twirling this time. She told the Daily Mail: Dont ask. Its the same answer. I dont wear them with dresses.

Vivienne Westwood at the opening of The Vivienne Westwood Exhibition at the V&A Museum

In 2004 the V&A Museum dedicated an exhibition to Westwoods designs, and she attended the opening in suitably provocative style: wearing a red coat dress that clashed with her vibrant orange hair, and two tiny silver devils horns atop her head.

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INDY/LIFE NewsletterBe inspired with the latest lifestyle trends every week

Vivienne Westwood British Fashion Awards

Westwood has won multiple gongs at the Fashion Awards including designer of the year twice and for the 2009 ceremony, she played around with proportions in a vibrant orange jacket with big shoulders and a sleek chiffon dress underneath with a revealing slit.

In 2018, Westwood collaborated with another giant of British fashion: Burberry. Westwood appeared in the campaign alongside Kate Moss, wearing the iconic Burberry check with her signature platform shoes and wild hair.

Vivienne Westwood

Westwood often brings an element of performance to her protests in December 2018 she protested fracking by dressing as an angel clutching a stone tablet, reframing the 12 Days of Christmas as the 12 days until climate collapse.

Vivienne Westwood at an anti-fracking demonstration

In 2014, she also shaved her signature orange hair to protest climate change.

In 2020 Westwood protested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assanges extradition hearing by wearing a bright yellow suit and climbing inside a cage. She told journalists she chose yellow because canaries could detect poisonous gases in mines. She said: If the canary died they all got out. Julian Assange is in a cage and he needs to get out. Dont extradite to America.

Im wearing yellow because he still hasnt had any sun. A canary is a beautiful thing and wants to fly.

While most of us have been languishing in sweatpants for the past year, Westwood has continued to dress up and her outfits have been documented on Instagram by her husband and design partner Andreas Kronthaler. Whether its a revealing sculptural outfit

or one of her classic corset designs, Westwood shows age is no boundary to having fun with fashion.

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Vivienne Westwood turns 80: Her most mind-blowing fashion moments - The Independent