Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange hold placards outside Westminster magistrates court in London on December 19. Agence France-Presse/Tolga Aakmen

Melzer, along with a medical team, attended to Assange on May 9 in Belmarsh, finding a man with all the symptoms that are typical of persons having been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time, writes Binoy Kampmark

ON NOVEMBER 27 this year, UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, delivered an address to the German Bundestag outlining his approach to understanding the mental health of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. These comprised two parts, the initial stage covering his diplomatic asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy, the second dealing with his formal detention in the United Kingdom at the hands of the UK legal and judicial system. The conclusion was a recapitulation of previous findings: that Assange has been subjected to a prolonged, state-sponsored effort in torture, nothing less than a targeting of his being.

Melzers address is an expansive portrait of incremental inter-state torment that led to Assanges confinement in a highly controlled environment within the Ecuadorean embassy for more than six years. There was the eventually justified fear that he would be sought by the United States in extradition proceedings. The Swedish authorities threw in their muddled lot between 2010 and 2019, attempting to nab Assange for rape claims despite not being able to produce enough evidence for an indictment, and which now, after almost a decade, has been silently closed for the third time based on precisely that recognition.

Then came the British contribution, consisting of encouragement to the Swedes by the Crown Prosecution Service that the investigation should not be closed, inspiring them not to get cold feet. (The cold feet eventually came.) The Ecuadorean contribution completed the four-piece set, with the coming to power of a pro-Washington Lenn Moreno. Embassy personnel in London were encouraged to make conditions less pleasant; surveillance operations were conducted on Assanges guests and meetings.

Melzer, along with a medical team, attended to Assange on May 9, 2019 in Belmarsh, finding a man with all the symptoms that are typical of persons having been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. There was little doubt, in Melzers mind, that symptoms already measurable physically, neurologically and cognitively, had been shown.

These calls went unheeded. Melzer, in early November, accused the UK authorities of showing outright contempt for Assanges rights and integrity. Despite warnings issued by the rapporteur, the UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and redress required under international law. Melzers prognosis was bleak. Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Assanges continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life.

This point has been restated by Dr Stephen Frost, a chief figure of the dedicated outfit calling itself Doctors for Assange. We repeat that it is impossible to assess adequately let alone treat Assange in Belmarsh prison and that he must as a matter of urgency be moved to a university teaching hospital. When will the UK government listen to us?

The medical degrading of Assange has assumed ever greater importance, suggesting unwavering state complicity. On November 22, over 65 notable medical doctors sent the UK home secretary a note based on Melzers November 1 findings and Assanges state at the October 21 case management hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court. It is our opinion that Assange requires urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health. Any medical treatment indicated should be administered in a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital (tertiary care).

In a second open letter to the UK lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice dated December 4, the Doctors for Assange collective warned that the UKs refusal to take the required measures to protect Assanges rights, health and dignity appears [to] be reckless at best and deliberate at worst and, in both cases, unlawfully and unnecessarily exposes Assange to potentially irreversible risks.

The same grounds were reiterated in a December 16 letter to Australian foreign minister Marise Payne, with a curt reminder that she had an undeniable legal obligation to protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental rights, stemming from US efforts to extradite Assange for journalism and publishing that exposed US war crimes. In the event that Payne took no action on the matter, people would want to know what you [] did to prevent his death.

In the addendum to the open letter, further to reiterating the precarious state of Assanges health and medical status as a torture victim, the doctors elaborate on the circular cruelty facing the publisher. An individual deemed a victim of psychological torture cannot be adequately medically treated while continuing to be held under the very conditions constituting psychological torture, as is currently the case for Julian Assange. Appropriate medical treatment was hardly possible through a prison hospital ward.

A lesson in understanding mental torture is also proffered. Contrary to popular misconception, the injuries caused by psychological torture are real and extremely serious. The term psychological torture is not a synonym for mere hardship, suffering or distress.

At Assanges case management hearing on December 19, restrictions on medical opinion were again implemented; psychiatrist Marco Chiesa and psychologist David Morgan were prevented from attending. Both had been signatories to the spray of open letters. According to Morgan, he had hoped to provide some observations about Julian Assanges health, psychologically, and with my colleagues, physically. Instead, it transpired that access was denied, according to psychologist Lissa Johnson, despite members of the public offering to give up seats for them.

Cold-shouldering expert opinion can be counted as one of the weapons of the state in punishing whistleblowers and publishers. The State has always made it a bureaucratic imperative to sift the undesirable evidence from the apologetic message. Accepting Assanges condition would be tantamount to admission on the part of UK authorities, urged on by the United States, that intolerable, potentially martyring treatment, has been meted out to a publisher.

DissidentVoice.org, December 20. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.

See the original post here:
Medical opinion, torture and Assange - newagebd.net

On November 27 this year, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, delivered an address to the German Bundestag outlining his approach to understanding the mental health of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. These comprised two parts, the initial stage covering his diplomatic asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy, the second dealing with his formal detention in the United Kingdom at the hands of the UK legal and judicial system. The conclusion was a recapitulation of previous findings: that Assange has been subjected to a prolonged, state-sponsored effort in torture, nothing less than a targeting of his being.

Melzers address is an expansive portrait of incremental inter-state torment that led to Assanges confinement in a highly controlled environment within the Ecuadorean embassy for more than six years. There was the eventually justified fear that he would be sought by the United States in extradition proceedings. The Swedish authorities threw in their muddled lot between 2010 and 2019, attempting to nab Assange for rape claims despite not being able to produce enough evidence for an indictment, and which now, after almost a decade, has been silently closed for the third time based on precisely that recognition.

Then came the British contribution, consisting of encouragement to the Swedes by the Crown Prosecution Service that the investigation should not be closed, inspiring them not to get cold feet. (The cold feet eventually came.) The Ecuadorean contribution completed the four-piece set, with the coming to power of a pro-Washington Lenn Moreno. Embassy personnel in London were encouraged to make conditions that less pleasant; surveillance operations were conducted on Assanges guests and meetings.

Melzer, along with a medical team, attended to Assange on May 9, 2019 in Belmarsh, finding a man with all the symptoms that are typical of persons having been exposed to psychological torture for a prolonged period of time. There was little doubt, in Melzers mind, that symptoms already measurable physically, neurologically and cognitively, had been shown.

These calls went unheeded. Melzer, in early November, accused the UK authorities of showing outright contempt for Mr Assanges rights and integrity. Despite warnings issued by the rapporteur, the UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and redress required under international law. Melzers prognosis was bleak. Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr Assanges continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life.

This point has been restated by Dr. Stephen Frost, a chief figure of the dedicated outfit calling itself Doctors for Assange. We repeat that it is impossible to assess adequately let alone treat Mr Assange in Belmarsh prison and that he must as a matter of urgency be moved to a university teaching hospital. When will the UK government listen to us?

The medical degrading of Assange has assumed ever greater importance, suggesting unwavering state complicity. On November 22, over 65 notable medical doctors sent the UK Home Secretary a note based on Melzers November 1 findings and Assanges state at the October 21 case management hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court. It is our opinion that Mr Assange requires urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health. Any medical treatment indicated should be administered in a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital (tertiary care).

In a second open letter to the UK Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice dated December 4, the Doctors for Assange collective warned that the UKs refusal to take the required measures to protect Mr Assanges rights, health and dignity appears [to] be reckless at best and deliberate at worst and, in both cases, unlawfully and unnecessarily exposes Mr Assange to potentially irreversible risks.

The same grounds were reiterated in a December 16 letter to Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, with a curt reminder that she had an undeniable legal obligation to protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental rights, stemming from US efforts to extradite Mr Assange for journalism and publishing that exposed US war crimes. In the event that Payne took no action on the matter, people would want to know what you [] did to prevent his death.

In the addendum to the open letter, further to reiterating the precarious state of Assanges health and medical status as a torture victim, the doctors elaborate on the circular cruelty facing the publisher. An individual deemed a victim of psychological torture cannot be adequately medically treated while continuing to be held under the very conditions constituting psychological torture, as is currently the case for Julian Assange. Appropriate medical treatment was hardly possible through a prison hospital ward.

A lesson in understanding mental torture is also proffered. Contrary to popular misconception, the injuries caused by psychological torture are real and extremely serious. The term psychological torture is not a synonym for mere hardship, suffering or distress.

At Assanges case management hearing on December 19, restrictions on medical opinion were again implemented; psychiatrist Marco Chiesa and psychologist David Morgan were prevented from attending. Both had been signatories to the spray of open letters. According to Morgan, he had hoped to provide some observations about Julian Assanges health, psychologically, and with my colleagues, physically. Instead, it transpired that access was denied, according to psychologist Lissa Johnson, despite members of the public offering to give up seats for them.

Cold-shouldering expert opinion can be counted as one of the weapons of the state in punishing whistleblowers and publishers. The State has always made it a bureaucratic imperative to sift the undesirable evidence from the apologetic message. Accepting Assanges condition would be tantamount to admission on the part of UK authorities, urged on by the United States, that intolerable, potentially martyring treatment, has been meted out to a publisher.

Go here to read the rest:
Medical Opinion, Torture and Julian Assange - CounterPunch

news, world

Mounting evidence to stretch Assange trial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition trial could blow out to a month as more witnesses come forward and evidence mounts to more than 40,000 pages. -- Johnson unveils 'radical' Queen's Speech British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has unveiled what he is calling a radical government agenda, setting his sights on a quick Brexit, future trade deals and transforming Britain to repay voters' trust. -- Top Republican slams 'toxic' impeachment The top Republican in the US Senate has called on his fellow senators to correct what he called the "toxic" impeachment of President Donald Trump, sending the strongest signal yet that lawmakers will not remove him from office. -- French transport staff to strike over Xmas Strikes that have crippled France's transport system will continue over the Christmas holidays after talks with the government failed to break the deadlock over a pension overhaul, -- Russian security agent dead, five injured An unidentified gunman opened fire outside the headquarters of Russia's top security agency in Moscow, killing one officer and wounding five other people. -- China urges US, N.Korea to resume talks China has urged the US and North Korea to resume dialogue and work to resolve disagreements as soon as possible amid renewed tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. -- Judge condemned for grisly Musharraf order Pakistan's government will seek to remove a judge who demanded former ruler Pervez Musharraf's body be publicly hanged for three days if he should die before being arrested. -- Hezbollah-backed Diab named Lebanon PM Lebanon's newly named prime minister says he will quickly form a government to pull the country out of economic crisis, after he was designated with backing from Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies. -- Australian Associated Press

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/178d819d-92d6-4cf7-8f14-0e8988f5d9b3.jpg/r0_74_800_526_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

December 20 2019 - 7:22AM

Mounting evidence to stretch Assange trial

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition trial could blow out to a month as more witnesses come forward and evidence mounts to more than 40,000 pages.

Johnson unveils 'radical' Queen's Speech

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has unveiled what he is calling a radical government agenda, setting his sights on a quick Brexit, future trade deals and transforming Britain to repay voters' trust.

Top Republican slams 'toxic' impeachment

The top Republican in the US Senate has called on his fellow senators to correct what he called the "toxic" impeachment of President Donald Trump, sending the strongest signal yet that lawmakers will not remove him from office.

French transport staff to strike over Xmas

Strikes that have crippled France's transport system will continue over the Christmas holidays after talks with the government failed to break the deadlock over a pension overhaul,

Russian security agent dead, five injured

An unidentified gunman opened fire outside the headquarters of Russia's top security agency in Moscow, killing one officer and wounding five other people.

China urges US, N.Korea to resume talks

China has urged the US and North Korea to resume dialogue and work to resolve disagreements as soon as possible amid renewed tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.

Judge condemned for grisly Musharraf order

Pakistan's government will seek to remove a judge who demanded former ruler Pervez Musharraf's body be publicly hanged for three days if he should die before being arrested.

Hezbollah-backed Diab named Lebanon PM

Lebanon's newly named prime minister says he will quickly form a government to pull the country out of economic crisis, after he was designated with backing from Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies.

Australian Associated Press

See original here:
News from around the world - The Canberra Times

President Donald Trump exits a press conference on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2019 in New York City. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday that the House will launch a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

January: Polar vortex brings extreme cold temperatures

February: Creative visionary Karl Lagerfeld dies at age 85

Lady Gaga wins Best Original Song for Shallow at 91st Academy Awards

April: Scientists capture the first image of the black hole

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris catches ablaze

Wikileaks Julian Assange is arrested by Scotland Yard

Kim Jon Un shakes hands with Vladimir Putin

May: Cyril Ramaphosa is elected President of South Africa

Taiwan becomes the first nation in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage

Theresa May announces her resignation

Formula 1 race car driver, Niki Laude, dies at 70

Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, son of Prince Harry, Duke ofSussex, and Meghan, Duchess ofSussex is born

June: Anti-government protesters march in Hong Kong

July: Boris Johnson becomes UK Prime Minister after being elected Tory leader

USA wins FIFA Womens World Cup Trophy

The climate crisis continues as the Sahara heat wave sends temperatures to record levels

August: 50 years ago, the iconic Abbey Road photograph was made

September: President Donald Trumps wall is used as a platform for protest art

October: At 22, Simone Biles is the most decorated artistic gymnast of all time, men and women combined

November: The South African Springboks win the Rugby World Cup in Japan

December: Zozibini Tunzi is crowned Miss Universe 2019

December: TIME and Daily Mavericks Our Burning Planet name climate activist Greta Thunberg as Person of the Year

December: South African-directed documentary, Influence, is selected to compete at Sundance Film Festival in 2020

December: Disney Plus releases Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda forces his way through the internet

President Donald J Trump becomes the third president of the United States to be impeached

Please note you must be a Maverick Insider to comment. Sign up here or if you are already an Insider.

Go here to see the original:
2019: The Year in Pictures - Daily Maverick

2019 was a weird year.

You know who had a weird year? Volodomyr Zelensky. When this Ukrainian standup comic got elected president of his country, I bet he probably thought, "Okay, this is pretty weird." I also bet he had absolutely zero idea how weird 2019 was going to get as he and his entire former Soviet nation got sucked into the vortex of impeachment proceedings in Washington, D.C., where he would play a role in the fate of another entertainer in high public office.

The thing is, the weird isn't just radiating out from circles of power across the globe. It's everywhere. I mean, even the animals are getting involved. Example: our No. 1 story of the year was about a group of snakes at the New England Aquarium that managed to produce baby snakes... without the involvement of any male snakes.

Supernatural? No. There's a scientific explanation for it. Weird? Absolutely.

It also led to the following A+ tweet, which I truly wish I'd written myself:

The snakes weren't the only critters doing it for themselves. Consider, for example, Miguel Wattson, the electric eel who decided to switch careers and get into the booming field of home electronics. Here he is lighting up a Christmas tree all by himself. Does this count as green power?

Yaks in Western Mass. decided they'd had it and rushed a couple of hikers. Really, that velcro noise IS annoying, who can blame them.

That said, it was also a year of inter-species peace and harmony, at least when it comes to yoga classes. You can get cat yoga, baby goat yoga, and just in time for the holidays, reindeer yoga.

None of this cross-species namaste did anything for Julian Assange's cat, though. Despite his natty attire, Assange's feline ended up getting evicted from his home in the Ecuadorian embassy after complaints that Assange was a lousy roommate that didn't clean up after himself.

Crime was also weird in 2019. Consider, for example, the daring hijack theft of... gold? Bitcoin? Pharmaceuticals? Pricey electronics? Nope, thieves in Miami boosted $2 million worth of Spanx-like silhouette smoothing undergarments and got away with it. A bank robber from East Boston could have benefited from a consult with his Miami colleagues: they might have told him that an MBTA bus was probably a bad choice of getaway vehicle. Actually, anybody in Boston could tell you that the MBTA is a bad getaway vehicle, except perhaps for Gov. Charlie Baker, who has only ridden the T once.

The weirdness of everything in 2019 can just get exhausting. The mental effort involved in the ongoing "Onion article? Actual news?" calculus just seems to get harder all the time. Like, why did Irish vandals steal only a mummy's head? It's enough to make you just want to stop for a snack, which is what a fugitive wanted for murder did at the Ben and Jerry's in Harvard Square. He got arrested. No word on his favorite flavor.

As 2019 wore on, we did see some encouraging signs that we might be pulling back from the gravitational pull of Planet Weird. For instance, some cities floated the idea of changing the date of Halloween trick-or-treating, but many, like Worcester, Mass., came to their senses and left it where it belongs: on October 31. Residents of Fall River, Mass., re-elected Mayor Jasiel Correia even though he was under indictment for fraud charges, but then refrained from doubling down when new charges were added to the pile. They now have a new mayor-elect, who isn't actually under indictment for anything at all.

The pendulum of balance appeared to be swinging back on other fronts, as well. The Supreme Court decided not to hear a case on whether it's okay to have laws against sleeping in public, or a car, pulling the country back from the weird idea that we can solve the problem of homelessness by simply moving homeless people around. Notre Dame burned, but efforts began to restore its glory. Boston struggled through the spectacle of Straight Pride, but the city ended the year announcing that a former middle school would become the city's first elder housing specifically for LGBTQ people. When the development's new residents emerge from the building into the streets of Hyde Park, they can complain about the death of the double cup at Dunks, just normal residents doing their normal thing on a normal day in their neighborhood in America.

Farewell, 2019. It's been weird.

Read this article:
2019 Kept It Weird - wgbh.org

More than 100 medical doctors co-signed a letter released Tuesday urging the Australian government to prevent jailed WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange from dying in a U.K. prison.

Addressed to Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne, the letter is the latest in a series sent by a growing number of doctors concerned about Mr. Assange remaining held at Belmarsh Prison in London pending efforts by the Department of Justice to have him extradited him to the U.S.

Mr. Assange, a 48-year-old Australian native, has been jailed at Belmarsh since April after spending the previous several years confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He is wanted in the U.S. for charges related to soliciting and publishing classified material through his WikiLeaks website, and he faces decades behind bars if extradited and found guilty.

More than 60 doctors wrote the British government last month asking that Mr. Assange be transferred out of Belmarsh to a teaching hospital to receive medical treatment. Dozens more signed on to a follow-up letter sent several weeks later, and the latest plea to Ms. Payne has swelled to include the names of 104 practicing and retired medical professionals from a number of countries.

As Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, you have an undeniable legal obligation to protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental human rights, stemming from US efforts to extradite Mr. Assange for journalism and publishing that exposed U.S. war crimes, the doctors wrote in the latest letter.

Mr. Assange requires assessment and treatment in an environment that, unlike Belmarsh prison, does not further [destabilize] his complex and precarious physical and mental state of health, the doctors continued, adding that Australia should negotiate his release from behind bars and allow him to be hospitalized in his home country.

The doctors cite Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, who has repeatedly raised concerns about Mr. Assanges well-being since visiting him in May and has attested that that Aussie has displayed all symptoms typical of prolonged exposure to psychological torture and should be released.

Unless the U.K. urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr. Assanges continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life, Mr. Melzer said last month.

These are extraordinary and unprecedented statements by the worlds foremost authority on torture, the doctors told Ms. Payne. Should Mr. Assange die in a British prison, people will want to know what you, Minister, did to prevent his death.

Spokespeople for Ms. Payne did not immediately return messages requesting comment.

A spokesperson for the British government told The Washington Times earlier this month that it is unfounded and wholly false to say that Mr. Assange has been subjected to torture while jailed in the U.K.

Mr. Assange has been charged by the Justice Department with conspiracy to commit computer hacking and multiple violations of the U.S. Espionage Act related to running WikiLeaks. He has argued that he acted as a journalist.

Extradition proceedings are currently scheduled to start in February 2020.

Read the original post:
Julian Assange case: More than 100 doctors ask Australia to intervene on his behalf - Washington Times

Forbes reporters and our extended network of expert contributors produced more than 500,000 stories in the 2010s, inspiring and informing at scale so that we leave the decade as one of the largest and most trusted news sources in the world. Among all that journalism, several hundred pieces legitimately moved markets and dominated news cycles. And among those, a few dozen already stand out as classics.

Curating the best of the best wasnt easythere were a solid 50 stories on the short list. While I have the familiarity that comes with having a direct hand in almost all of them, I consulted several colleagues for balance, feedback and perspective. In the end, every story below shared two traits: impact (several created change and won awards, and they averaged 850,000 online readers) and sweeping storytellingcreating a future road map for historians of the 2010s.

Without further ado, in chronological order:

By Andy Greenberg | November 2010

Until Greenberg got him to sit for a Forbes cover story in 2010, Julian Assange was not on the mainstream radar. He would spend most of the decade a wanted man, holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The forces he unleashed with WikiLeaks set in motion the kind of disruption and destabilization that previous generations of anarchists could only have dreamed of. Mission accomplished.

By Steven Bertoni | September 2011

The first time I met Sean Parker, he thanked me. Why? Bertonis profile is far from a valentine, revealing the polymath in all his warts and quirks. But before that, the world knew him only as depicted by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, a portrayal that even Mark Zuckerberg admitted did factual injustice to Parker. This is the first story I edited upon my return to Forbes and proved to be the prototype for dozens of definitive profiles of the decades great innovators (enough to merit a book).

By Victoria Barret | March 2012

Among all the entitled Silicon Valley bros, Barret found an Iranian immigrant who got into the tech game by selling rugs to tech honchos and wound up with a $50 million fortune. If someone has suggested this as a plot for HBOs Silicon Valley, it would have been rejected as too farcical.

By Richard Behar | June 2012

Its hard enough to do a story on an American oil company and its partners in the Russian mob, who were running roughshod over an entire region. Its another thing to get the central character on the phone (Alexey Veiman, mob nickname: The One Who Wears Glasses) to chat. Behar is a great reporter, and this story, a finalist for the Loeb Awards (the Pulitzers of business journalism), made a difference: within a day of our story publishing, Veiman was fired. In less than a year, Hess had sold off its Russian business entirely.

"That list is how he wants the world to judge his success or his stature," said one of the prince's former lieutenants. "It's a very big thing for him."

By Kerry A. Dolan | March 2013

Dolan, who leads our Wealth Team, noticed a curious pattern: The stock price of Prince Alwaleeds Kingdom Holdings always seemed to spike right before Forbes calculated its annual Billionaires list. By proving that wasnt a coincidence and unraveling an all-time case of narcissism, Dolan won the Overseas Press Club Award for best international business reporting in a magazine.

By Kerry A. Dolan and Rafael Marques de Morais | August 2013

When Forbes confirmed Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the longtime Angolan president, as Africas first woman billionaire, her homeland took it as a point of pride, disseminating the news as a point of national pride. In reality, Dos Santos represents a blueprint for how to loot a country, which Dolan and local reporter Marques de Moraiswho has been jailed while trying to get the truth out about Angolareveal in painstaking detail. This story won the Gerald Loeb Award for foreign reporting.

By Andy Greenberg | August 2013

Bitcoin, the Dark Web and drug sales. In the middle of the decade, it was entirely plausible to create a sophisticated drug-dealing exchange, helmed by someone known to no one (in terms of actual identity) and at the same time known to all (with a wink to Princess Bride fans) as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Incredibly, Greenberg got the Silk Road mastermind (two months later identified as Ross Ulbricht and now facing a double life sentence) to share his story, at the same time demonstrating the emerging power of the anonymous Web.

By Steven Bertoni and Caleb Melby | September 2013

Its not the most urgent story we ran this decade. But this profile of Stewart Stewie Rah Rah Rahr is surely our most entertaining and one of the most telling, a cautionary tale of what happens when someone comes into unlimited money, with little moral compass to go with it. Its a party that turns into a train wreckcomplete with guns, sex tapes and a cameo from Donald Trump.

"There are very few people in the world who get to build a business like this," Evan Spiege said in 2014. "I think trading that for some short-term gain isn't very interesting."

By J.J. Colao | January 2014

That a 23-year-old turns down a $3 billion offer is pretty much the perfect story for the 2010s. Even better: Snapchats Evan Spiegel has proven right so far, with a public company worth $21.8 billion. This piece defines a decade ruled by young entrepreneurs, But maturity issues still crop up. After this story came out, Spiegel took to Twitter to deny a key, cocky detail, sharing an exchanged email that seemed to back him up. But then Colao produced an audiotape confirming Spiegels smack talk, and the second half of the email, which Spiegel had clipped, undermined his denial.

By Parmy Olson | February 2014

After Jan Koum, a Ukrainian immigrant who came to America with his mother, agreed to sell WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion, he took the contract to the welfare office where he once collected food stamps, signed it on the doorand WhatsAppd the picture to Forbes. Koum almost never talks publicly. Olson spent 18 months getting him to share his story with our readers. Its arguably the greatest rags-to-riches saga in American history, told with verve and color within hours of the deals announcement.

Donald Trump in his Trump Organization headquarters in Manhattan.

By Randall Lane | September 2015

While the rest of the world has spent four years learning about Donald Trumps tenuous relationship with the truth, Forbes has experienced this for decades. The president, more than any American tycoon, has held a multi-decade obsession with his place on The Forbes 400. Spending nearly two hours with him in 2015 as he geared up for his quixotic, historic run for the White House (watch for the appearance by the pope) allowed me to unspool an untold history of exaggerations, charms and lies that emerges as a prescient prism.

By Matt Drange and Ryan Mac | June 2016

Who was behind the mysterious money funding the wrestler Hulk Hogans legal trench warfare against the soon-to-be-defunct gossip site Gawker, and why? Mac and Drange scored one of the big business scoops of the decade by revealing that it was none other than Peter Thiel, whod made billions through PayPal, Facebook and Palantirand harbored a fatal vendetta. A real-life whodunnit.

By Matthew Herper and Michela Tindera | October 2016

John Kapoor built a $2.1 billion fortune from the opioid fentanyl, which was hailed by markets and some doctors as a wonder drug. Thats before Herper and Tindera exposed how Kapoor pushed the legal and ethical limits to get the drug into the systems of people who didnt need it. Three years later, he was convicted of racketeering.

"It's hard to overstate and hard to summarize Jared's role in the campaign," said billionaire Peter Thiel, the only significant Silicon Valley figure to publicly back Trump. "If Trump was the CEO, Jared was effectively the chief operating officer."

By Steven Bertoni | November 2016

After Donald Trump shocked the world on Election Day, there was a land grab for credit. Over the next few days, Jared Kushner sat down with Forbes and discussed his role in the Trump campaign for the first time, revealing the secret data operation run with Brad Parscale that proved the difference-maker. Its a story that been cited constantly over the past four yearsthe Cambridge Analytica profiling, the gaming of Facebook and Russias efforts to influence the election all started with Kushners revelations regarding his war room.

By Dan Alexander | June 2017

In a masterpiece of reporting, Alexander systemically demonstrates how Eric Trump, at the direction of his father, the future president, shifted money that was supposed to go to help kids with cancer to the Trump Organization. Following this story, New Yorks attorney general announced an investigation, and Alexanders work won a Deadline Club award for best business feature.

By Dan Alexander | November 2017

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has outlasted pretty much every cabinet secretary in the Trump Administrationdespite (or maybe because?) Forbes caught him in an outright lie. Follow-up stories also showed a disturbing pattern of deceit, conflicts of interest and alleged theft.

"Social media is an amazing platform," Jenner said. "I have such easy access to my fans and my customers."

By Natalie Robehmed | July 2018

After this story came out, the world spent the better part of a week arguing over what it means to be self-made. We were even trolled by Dictionary.com. As easy as it is to mock the greater Kardashian plan, Kylies path to becoming the youngest ever self-made billionaire (as confirmed eight months later) perfectly illustrates how fame and followers can now be directly monetized at scale.

By Angel Au-Yeung | July 2019

Bumblehas changed the way people date and mate by empowering women to make the first move and give them a safer environment. How ironic then that Au-Yeung uncovered a pattern of tax avoidanceand misogynyat the headquarters ofBumbles corporate engine, overseen byBumbles majority owner, Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev. An instant classic amid the #MeToo Movement, and like all the best stories, it produced results: Four months after Au-Yeungs story, Andreev sold his stake in Bumble to Blackstone.

The incredible American sagas of Sara Blakely and Shahid Khan. Early deep dives into Instagrams Kevin Systrom, Spotifys Daniel Ek, Oculus Palmer Luckey and Minecrafts Markus Persson. The culture issues at Papa Johns. The rise of the liberal arts degree in techand the fall of Aubrey McClendon. The emergence of the sharing economy, as seen through Airbnb, and the emergence of big data as Big Brother, via Palantir.

And so many moreenough to excite me about the stories to be told by Forbes in the 2020s.

Continued here:
The 18 Greatest Forbes Stories Of The Decade - Forbes

Terrence Malicks A Hidden Life: An Austrian farmers lonely defiance of the Nazis By Fred Mazelis 24 December 2019

Terrence Malicks latest film, the tenth in the course of his lengthy career, is in some ways a return in theme and style to earlier work. Like The Thin Red Line (1998), A Hidden Life deals with the horrors of militarism and war.

The new film also utilizes a more accessible narrative style than recent Malick efforts, as it tells the story of Franz Jgersttter (1907-1943), an Austrian farmer who refused military service because he would not take the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. After a brief trial, Jgersttter was executed in Berlin, less than two years before the defeat and collapse of Hitlers Third Reich.

A Hidden Life was inspired by a volume of Jgersttters letters and writings from prison, edited by his biographer Erna Putz.

This is promising subject matter for film treatment, and there are moments in which the impact of the Nazi dictatorship on ordinary people, as well as the aptness of this episode from the Second World War in todays political climate, find dramatic expression. It must be said, however, that these are outweighed by the kind of mystical-religious outlook that has infused most of Malicks films, which substitute metaphysical abstraction and supra-historical morality for a concrete examination of social reality. A Hidden Life, factually accurate as far as it goes, simply ignores crucial issues raised by the Franz Jgersttter story.

While it proceeds with the sort of spectacular and at times almost dreamlike cinematography for which Malick is well known, A Hidden Life also has occasionally semi-documentary elements. It opens with black-and-white newsreel footage of Hitler, then juxtaposes the images of dictatorship with the idyllic mountain village of St. Radegund, where Jgersttter (August Diehl) and his wife Franziska (Valerie Pachner) live a seemingly perfect life. Three young daughters join the family in quick succession, and the household also includes Jgersttters widowed mother and Franziskas sister. The year is 1939. Austria has been annexed by Hitler the year before, and war has begun with the Nazi invasion of Poland.

It does not take long before the Jgersttters serene existence is brutally disrupted. The devoutly Catholic Austrian peasant is increasingly disturbed by the changes that have overtaken his neighbors and the village as a whole. The mayor has become a militant Nazi, inveighing against foreigners and other imagined threats. Jgersttter begins to make his feelings known and refuses to return the Nazi salute. Villagers react with fury, and the family is shunned. Neighbors spit at Jgersttter and his wife when they pass.

After a period of military training, Jgersttter returns home to a joyful reunion, but the family remains ostracized and threatened. The story then reaches a climax, after Jgersttter is called up for military service and immediately arrested when he refuses to take the formal oath to the Fuhrer.

Much of what follows is taken up with the drawn-out process leading to Jgersttters death. His correspondence with Franziska, read in voice-over, relates part of the story. Before his arrest, he is seen receiving counsel from such figures as his local pastor and later the Catholic bishop in the region. His mother and sister-in-law are anxious and angry over the consequences the family will face owing to Jgersttters stubborn refusal to take the oath.

Everyone, with the exception of his wife, urges him to compromise, to give in, in the face of certain death for him and ruin for his family. Jgersttter is unmoved. After his arrest, and later transport to Tegel prison in Berlin, he also rejects similar advice from his appointed defense counsel. The end comes with the guillotine, on August 9, 1943.

As with other Malick films, A Hidden Life is characterized at times by the minimal use of dialogue. Much of it passes quickly, in brief and interrupted conversations, almost as if the viewer is eavesdropping on the hidden life. The cast of the film is almost entirely German. Jgersttter and his wife, and occasionally other characters where necessary, speak in English that is very lightly accented, while the background conversation in the village, and the interactions with villagers and later with Nazi officials, occur in German. The unusual combination works, for the most part. The imagery and technique are also impressive, as with other films by Malick.

The strongest element of A Hidden Life is its depiction of a man who refuses to go along with the descent into fascist barbarism. It must be said, in a very limited but nonetheless significant way, that the persecution of Jgersttter calls to mind the vicious treatment to which Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning have been subjected because of their exposure of imperialist war crimes.

There are also some scenes, including a few interactions with fellow inmates in the Tegel prison yard, that evoke the kind of antiwar feeling effectively depicted in The Thin Red Line. On the other side, the outbursts of nationalism and chauvinism, while left quite general in the film, recall the contemporary eruption of fascistic rhetoric and policies, not just in the Trump presidency but also in various countries around the world.

This is very limited, however. For the most part, A Hidden Liferemains on the amorphous, metaphysical plane that has dominated most of Malicks recent films. Unlike Assange and Manning, Jgersttter has nothing to say about the concrete political situation. A major theme, left unstated but nonetheless present, is a fear of modernity, of urban life. Rural life is depicted as paradise on earth. Some of the early scenes are absurdly exaggerated. Jgersttter and his wife inhabit a romantic world of their own. Their family is a perfect one. Franziska is called on for little more than saintly behavior, and Jgersttter is Christlike in his sacrifice. This is no doubt intentional on the filmmakers part, contrasting the idyllic hamlet with the spiritual pollution of the city, from which the Nazis have emerged to destroy the peaceful existence of St. Radegund.

The other side of the Christian goodness of the Jgersttters is the generally sheep-like obedience of their neighbors. Good and evil are abstractly presented, and evil is victorious. The view of the masses of the population is a pessimistic one, seeing them as always susceptible to ignorance and demagogy.

You cant change the world, Jgersttter is told. What difference would it make? if he goes to his death, asks another who urges him to surrender. We all have blood on our hands, a third declares. But Franz is mute. His silence is all the testimony required. He does not say we dont all share responsibility, or that we can change the world. All he can do is offer himself up as a martyr.

At the same time, the films title and the final passage in George Eliots classic novel Middlemarch (1871-1872) from which it comes, and which appears on screen at its end, hint at the possibility of a broader and less pessimistic theme. The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs, Eliot wrote. In other words, this kind of life, though not widely known, has led to the growing good of the world. The key lies not in the relationship between the individual and God, but between the individual and the rest of humanity.

Eliot believed firmly in attempting to change the world. In the 1840s, she turned away from the evangelical religion of her youth and, as we noted on the WSWS in 2009, began to read everything, including French writerssuch as Rousseau, the utopian socialist Saint-Simon, and the scandalous novelist George Sandwho shocked even some of her new progressive friends. In March 1848, she [Eliot] welcomed the outbreak of the French Revolution and expressed contempt for the overthrown ruler, Louis-Philippe. She declined to sentimentalize over a pampered old man when the earth has its millions of unfed souls and bodies.

Eliot eventually translated into English a landmark work, German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbachs Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity), originally published in 1841. Several decades later, Frederick Engels observed that the work had placed materialism on the throne again Nothing exists outside nature and man, and the higher beings our religious fantasies have created are only the fantastic reflection of our own essence.

The realist, socially oriented ideals of Eliot and Middlemarch are not effectively dramatized by Malicks film. The reason lies in part in the directors choice of subject, a man who has little to do with the world and simply wants to be left alone. A very different look at the lives of civilians during the Third Reich has appeared in the past year, in the television drama Charit at War, available on Netflix. Set in Berlin between 1943 and 1945, the series does not provide an overall analysis of the period, but its characters are concretely engaged in the midst of the devastation of war. The resulting drama is connected to history in a way that A Hidden Life is not.

Writing about Tree of Life (2011), a weaker film, we noted on the WSWS that Malick had the obvious ability to capture individual images and suggest by intimate and intense visual means various ephemeral mental states, but that the truly innovative filmmaking of our time would need to join these elements to a far greater awareness of social processes and historical laws and to a far deeper immersion in life, not as a schema, but as it is actually lived.

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

Follow this link:
Terrence Malick's A Hidden Life: An Austrian farmer's lonely defiance of the Nazis - World Socialist Web Site

Julian Assanges fight against extradition to the US could last years, and his argument could hinge on reports he has been illegally spied upon and his sensitive information given to the CIA.

Meanwhile, more than 100 doctors from across the world have written to the Australian government, urging it to act and protect the life of its citizen, in a letter to be delivered to the foreign affairs minister on Tuesday, amid warnings Assanges health continues to deteriorate.

A judicial investigation by the Audiencia Nacional in Spain, the countrys national court, is acting on allegations that while Assange held asylum inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the Wikileaks founder was spied on, listened to and had his computer data scraped and that this information was sold to US intelligence agencies.

Speaking to the International Law Association in Sydney, Guy Goodwin-Gill, a professor of law at the University of New South Wales who has provided advice on asylum issues to the Assange legal team, said Assanges fight against extradition would be a long contest and that allegations he was being spied on would likely form part of legal arguments he could not receive a fair trial in the US.

Assange is currently being held in Londons Belmarsh prison, ahead of an extradition hearing that will begin in February. A US grand jury has indicted him on 18 charges 17 of which fall under the Espionage Act around conspiracy to receive, obtaining and disclosing classified diplomatic and military documents.

If convicted, Assange faces a prison term of up to 175 years.

Assanges European arrest warrant on allegations of sexual assault in Sweden has been cancelled, with prosecutors arguing there was little chance of a conviction being obtained.

But medical doctors have banded together to urge authorities to halt any extradition plans, as well as urgently release him for medical care outside of the prison.

That we, as doctors, feel ethically compelled to hold governments to account on medical grounds speaks volumes about the gravity of the medical, ethical and human rights travesties that are taking place, their letter, seen by the Guardian, states.

It is an extremely serious matter for an Australian citizens survival to be endangered by a foreign government obstructing his human right to health. It is an even more serious matter for that citizens own government to refuse to intervene, against historical precedent and numerous converging lines of medical advice.

A group of Australian MPs from across party lines have gathered to discuss what can be done for Assange, with hopes of meeting with him in Belmarsh ahead of his extradition hearing.

In allegations first reported by El Pais, a Spanish defence and private security company, Undercover Global SL, provided security for the Ecuadorian embassy, where Assange lived for seven years until April this year. According to a complaint lodged with the court by Assange, Undercover Global handed over audio and video of meetings Assange held with his lawyers and supporters inside the embassy to the CIA, breaching privacy laws and legal privilege.

Goodwin-Gill, the acting director of UNSWs Kaldor centre for international refugee law, told the International Law Association: UC Global set up a surveillance operation inside the Ecuadorian embassy: microphone, video cameras and eventually live-streaming, and it seems that everything was monitored, including lawyer-client meetings, and including the personal technical equipment of individuals who might be visiting Julian Assange at the embassy.

It appears documents videos and audio recordings have been supplied to the US authorities, probably the CIA, he said.

Included in sworn witness testimony provided to the Spanish court, Goodwin-Gill said, was evidence that a seven-hour meeting held between Assange and his legal team on Sunday 19 June 2016 was recorded. Goodwin-Gills name has been mentioned in testimony, alleging that the contents of his iPad, which had to be left outside the room during that meeting, were downloaded and the information passed to the US authorities.

Goodwin-Gill said the UK Extradition Act criticised often because it imposes unequal probable-cause standards for US and UK extraditions had a number of barriers to extradition that may be pursued by Assanges legal team.

The purported exception would see extradition refused if the court found that while the indictment purported to be made for an offence under the US Espionage Act, it was in fact made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing the individual concerned on account of race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or political opinions.

The prejudice exception, similarly, says extradition can be refused if the court concludes that Assange might be prejudiced at his trial or punished, detained or restricted in his personal liberty by reason of his race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or political opinions.

Goodwin-Gill said European human rights law binding on the UK would also likely form part of Assanges argument to resist extradition. Article six of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees a fair trial, while article three protects an accused person from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

There, I think, is some potential for success, Goodwin-Gill said. Because I think it is not unlikely that if the European court, or indeed the British court, were to be persuaded that a sentence of 175 years was likely, that might well be considered against the background of European jurisprudence as cruel and inhuman.

Goodwin-Gill said Assanges contestating of the US extradition request could take years, decided first by the magistrates court, then the court of appeal, the UK supreme court and then, potentially, going before the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.

See the original post here:
Julian Assanges extradition fight could turn on reports he was spied on for CIA - The Guardian

by Thomas Scripps

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared via videolink at Westminster Magistrates Court in London yesterday for a brief administrative hearing. The half-hour proceedings confirm that the fundamental legal rights of the world-famous investigative journalist are being trampled in what amounts to an extraordinary rendition.

Assange last appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on October 21 and is being held on remand at Belmarsh maximum security prison, pending US extradition hearings due to begin next February. Assange has been charged under the US Espionage Act and faces a 175-year prison term for exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was in a visibly worse state than at his last court appearance, appearing fidgety, tired and downcast. Witnesses in the public gallery agreed his health seemed to have deteriorated further. Naomi Colvin from Bridges for Freedom later tweeted that Assange was, Visibly depressed, slumped shoulders. He had his arms crossed with hands inside his sleeves throughout.

The hearing began with the court clerk reading aloud Assanges name and date of birth and asking him to confirm these were correct. Next, the clerk asked Assange to confirm he was a Swedish national. Assange corrected him that he was an Australian citizen.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser began the hearing by referring to complaints by Assanges defence lawyer Gareth Peirce that her clients access to legal counsel is inadequate. Baraitser claimed she had no desire to stand in the way of any lawyer having proper access to their client. It is clearly in the interest of justice that they do so.

Her subsequent actions proved this to be a barefaced lie.

Baraitser stated, What I can do and say is to state in open court that it would be helpful to this extradition process that Mr. Assanges lawyers have access to their client. However, she then insisted, as she has done in the past, that she has no jurisdiction over the prison system and could exercise no influence over the decisions of Belmarsh prisons governor regarding visiting rights for Assanges lawyers.

Peirce countered with legal precedent. She noted that a judge presiding over the recent case of another defendant at Belmarsh had requested the governor provide the defendant a legal visit. As Peirce explained, facilities are available in Belmarshs healthcare wing for additional legal visits. The deficiency of what ought to be available was a result of the governors prioritising different uses of that space.

Baraitser was unmoved. She repeated that she had made a clear statement in open court that it would be helpful for Assange to have sufficient contact with his lawyers: At this stage thats all Im going to do.

Peirce moved on to the practical impossibilities of carrying out Assanges defence under these conditions. She explained the defence team had prepared a summary of issues which they intended to raise in future proceedings, including some 20-25 witnesses and extensive footnotes in reference to other evidence.

The deadline for the submission of evidence is December 18, and the next case management hearing scheduled for December 19. However, Peirce explained she has not yet been able to discuss the document or underlying evidence with Assange. The next available date for such a meeting at Belmarsh was December 18, with prison authorities giving him less than a day to review the details.

Astoundingly, Baraitser asked, Do you agree that it is perhaps less important that that information is gone through in detail with your client?

Peirce replied that the document was incredibly detailed essential and integral some of it is recently acquired evidence, some of it is subject to months of investigation not always in this country, of which [Assange] is unaware because of the blockage in visits.

Despite our best efforts, Mr. Assange has not been given what he must be given, and we are doing our utmost to cut through this.

Baraitser replied that she was hopeful that they could serve at least some of the evidence and conclude their discussions on December 18.

The videolink was ended without Assange being asked any further questions.

When Baraitser asked if it would be helpful to have Assange appear in court in person on December 19, Peirce responded that she would have to discuss that with her client since it was a difficult and claustrophobic journey from Belmarsh. Her response points to the degrading conditions endured by Assange. Prior to his last appearance at court, he was strip searched on arrival and held in a room described by prisoners as the hot box.

One day after the scheduled case management hearing on December 19, Assange will be interviewed as a witness to the surveillance of the Ecuadorian embassy by Spanish firm UC Global. A criminal case has been brought against its owner, David Morales, in Spain.

On behalf of the CIA, UC Global spied on conversations held by Assange with his associates, and on privileged discussions with his lawyers and doctors while he was a political asylee in the embassy. The phones, laptops and personal documents of lawyers and journalists were illegally accessed.

This represents a gross violation of the fundamental right to privileged communication with ones legal counsel and should already have seen the US extradition case thrown out of court.

There is a clear and direct precedent for doing so. When US President Richard Nixon used the Espionage Act to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for releasing the Pentagon Papers exposing criminal wrongdoing in the Vietnam War, the case collapsed after it was revealed the Nixon administration had overseen illegal spying on consultations between the whistleblower and his doctors.

Today, even these most elementary legal principles have been jettisoned by the ruling class. The Ellsberg case and its revelations about the war in Vietnam set the stage for what became known as the Vietnam syndrome, broad popular hostility to US military interventions. WikiLeaks achieved much the same with its exposure of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With their treatment of Assange, the ruling class hopes to establish the reverse precedent: an evisceration of democratic rights and the destruction of anti-war whistleblowers, journalists and publishers to pave the way for new and even more catastrophic conflicts.

Yesterdays half-hour proceedings took place just hours after the UK general election that delivered a Conservative government. The most right-wing government in modern British history is headed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose special relationship with the Trump administration saw him welcome the brutal expulsion of Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy on April 11, writing, Its only right that Julian Assange finally faces justice. Credit to @foreignoffice officials who have worked tirelessly to secure this outcome.

Originally published by WSWS.org

See original here:
Julian Assange denied access to lawyers and vital evidence in US extradition case - Pressenza, International Press Agency