via Missed Link:- US Cables – EMBASSY ATHENS – WikiLeaks missing/hidden links

Those are some of the missing greek cables from Wikileaks.Certainly those few and past ones do not satisfy nobody. What happened with the submarines german deal,what happened with Siemens and ex Minister Tsoxatzopoulos,What has happened with the Aegean and which are the surprises we haven’t seen yet.Wikileakes  reveals nothing more than what a common tabloid has already. Sorry guys,I used to be a supporter

The Syrian files were released including a helluva of greek corporate names, but where the hell is the proof? Where is the Alcatel Cables?  the Syrian Assad communication cables with the Italo- Greek communication Services? THIS  CONSTITUTES A CRIME AGAINST NATIONS,MAINLY SYRIA AND THEN ITALY AND GREECE

Whoever decided to hide those cables he should be considered an accessory to PEACE crimes

Greece Cables

– US Cables – EMBASSY ATHENS – WikiLeaks –

Arms Procurement Plan 2006-2010 approved – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/08/06ATHENS2031.html

• “On July 25, the GoG announced plans to spend an estimated EUR 27 billion for arms procurement over the next decade”

• “The government’s handling of defense procurement, Papoutsis said, increases costs, “mortgages” the future of the welfare state”

• “and pushes up the overall defense budget instead of economizing with the view of offering more funds for education, health care, and social security”

______________________________________________________________________________

Students Protest proposed University Reforms, Shut down Athens Center – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/06/06ATHENS1507.html

• “Many who oppose the amendments have focused on what they call the “commercialization” of the public university education or “surrender of public universities to private interests.””

• Comment [US]: “We have long pushed for the GoG to recognize degrees from private institutions, which would, among other things, benefit private U.S. higher learning institutions already here”

Government caves to Student Protests, postpones proposed University Reforms – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/06/06ATHENS1556.html

• “In the face of continuing, mass student protests and demonstrations, Education Minister Yiannakou announced on June 13 that she would postpone submitting the draft bill on education reforms during the summer parliament recess as originally planned”

• Comment [US]: “The government’s postponement in the face of student protests is disappointing to us: a number of U.S.-based private, non-profit universities operating here would benefit from these reforms”

_________________________________________

Southern Corridor Energy Conference examines European Energy Security – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/08/06ATHENS2078.html

• “Gazprom’s growing stranglehold on European energy supplies, particularly in the area of natural gas, has the potential to reduce these countries’ diplomatic freedom of movement in support of U.S. diplomatic goals”

• “Improving these countries’ energy security and diversity of supply options can therefore improve U.S. national security”

• “One key element of this overall strategy is maximizing the opportunity provided by the new Turkey-Greece-Italy natural gas interconnector, currently under construction, to bring Caspian gas to Europe”

The U.S. Strategy:

• “All agreed that it is imperative to promote energy diversification strategies that encompass the development of additional energy sources and suppliers to provide vulnerable SE and SCE countries with alternatives to Gazprom”

• “To confront Gazprom domination, there must be a concerted effort to diversify and develop multiple gas pipelines from the Caspian to Europe”

“Turkey’s Role — as Transit Country or as Reseller — Must Be Clarified”

• “During the conference it became clear that the key problem vis-a-vis Turkey is its aspirations to become an energy reseller, extracting (it hopes) greater profits from gas trade than it would as a simple gas transit country”

“The Russian Strategy: Gazprom”

• “Firstly, what kind of a company is Gazprom? According to conference participants, Gazprom,s risk-averse business model seeks to consolidate all aspects of gas production, transportation, and delivery into a vertically integrated operation”

• “Moreover, Gazprom’s predatory behavior towards potential competitors seeks to expand its reach horizontally. The result is the creation of a “super” monopoly”

• “Once the deal is struck, however, Gazprom has been utilizing its market power to extract concessions from the customer, whether in new pricing agreements, increased preferential access to transit capacity, or frequently, in majority or strong minority control of local gas companies”

______________________________________________________________________________

Putin and Purvanov in Athens: the long Road to Burgas-Alexandroupolis – Cablegate – 2006: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2006/09/06ATHENS2324.html

• “The Burgas-Alexandroupolis Project: “The B-A project was originally conceived in 1994 as a project to relieve tanker traffic through the congested Bosporus strait”

• The 285-kilometer cross-border pipeline is designed to carry Russian oil from the Bulgarian port of Burgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis in northern Greece”

• “The project has an estimated investment cost of 750-800 million US dollars with an annual capacity of 35 million tonnes of oil”

Greek PM in Moscow: Rhetoric (Apparently) Unmatched by Deeds – Cablegate – 2007: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/12/07ATHENS2375.html

• “During a December 17-18 visit to Moscow, Greek PM Karamanlis signed with Russian President Putin and Bulgarian President Parvanov an agreement establishing a company to construct the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline through Bulgaria and Greece”

• “We have told the Greeks the U.S. has no problem with better Greek-Russian ties. At the same time, we continue to ask how Greece can reconcile its support for the Turkey-Greece-Italy gas inter-connector with the competing South Stream project — a question to which we have yet to receive an adequate reply”

_________________________________________

P.M. Karamanlis Trip to Russia: Energy – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/04/08ATHENS598.html

• “The IGA, he said, includes provisions that: an international holding company (Societe Anonyme) will be established for the portion of South Stream that passes through Greek territory, jointly and equally owned by Gazprom and the Greek Pipeline Transmission Operator (DESFA)”

Energy: Greeks see Baku ready to Cooperate, Ankara standing in the Way – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/03/08ATHENS438.html

• “Minister of Development Folias told the Ambassador he had found a spirit of “excellent cooperation” in Baku during his March 17 trip there”

• “He noted that “The Azeris are as keen to work with us as we are with them. Moreover, they have a huge supply of gas.””

• “Folias said Azerbaijani officials had told him that the country had gas for 100 – 200 years, and that it had extracted 28 bcm of gas this year alone”

TFGG01: Greece’s Business-as-Usual with Russia undermines strong NATO Statements – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/08/08ATHENS1216.html

• “Despite strong statements at NATO and the EU by FM Bakoyannis supporting Georgian territorial integrity and condemning Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, the GOG at the same time is moving ahead with several “business-as-usual” events with Russia, including a visit this week of a Russian defense industry team to discuss arms purchases, the impending Parliamentary ratification of the South Stream gas pipeline deal with Russia, and co-sponsorship with Russia of a major cultural event marking 180 years of Greek-Russian diplomatic relations”

• “Embassy will continue to press the GOG to delay or cancel these events to avoid undercutting NATO and EU positions”

_________________________________________

U.S./Greece Mil-to-Mil Cooperation: the Good, the Bad, and the Necessary – Cablegate – 2008: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/06/08ATHENS896.html

• “The Greeks currently tend to overstate both their contributions and their importance to the United States, and there is no need to accept the Greek hyperbole. But some of the facts of this cooperation speak for themselves”

• “The GOG has proven to be a very cooperative partner at Souda Bay, though it does not advertise this for domestic political reasons”

MOD Venizelos lays out Views before Parliament – Cablegate – 2009: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/10/09ATHENS1563.html

• “New Minister of Defense Evangelos Venizelos recently told Parliament that he will take an “extremely cautious” view towards NATO’s Strategic Concept, that he wants to avoid Aegean tensions but will resist flagrant Turkish violations of international law and threats of violence, and that he wants to reduce defense spending to average OSCE levels”

______________________________________________________________________________

der Standard: die Griechen müssen ehrlich zu sich sein: http://derstandard.at/1326503009320/Die-Griechen-muessen-ehrlich-zu-sich-sein

• “mangelnde Steuermoral, Beihilfenbetrug und grenzenlose Rüstungsausgaben freuen nur Waffenhersteller und Banken im Ausland”

Aufruf zum EU-Streik gegen die Ratingagenturen – Sepp Wall-Strasser: http://derstandard.at/1304552271368/Griechenland-Aufruf-zum-EU-Streik-gegen-die-Ratingagenturen

• “die Gründe für das Nichtfunktionieren liegen auf der Hand: Kein Land kann sich aus einer Krise “heraussparen””

• “die drakonischen Maßnahmen strafen die falschen, sie bringen die Realwirtschaft zum Absturz und lassen die eigentlichen Verursacher – die “Märkte” – ungeschoren davonkommen”

• “Retten könnte uns nur noch ein radikaler Politikwechsel innerhalb der EU – also gleichsam ein Streik gegen jene Kräfte, die derzeit drauf und dran sind, die Grundlagen der Gemeinschaft zu ruinieren”

• “klar ist, dass es darum geht, die vielzitierten “Märkte” – die geballte Macht der Finanzindustrie – in die Schranken zu weisen und die “Polis” – das Gemeinsame, die Demokratie – zu retten”

______________________________________________________________________________

Homer – Wikipedia EN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer

Big Pharma inside the WHO: confidential analysis of unreleased WHO Expert Working Group draft reports

WIKILEAKS

December 10, 2009

By Kaitlin Mara (Intellectual Property Watch)[1]

Confidential documents related to the World Health Organization Expert Working Group on innovative financing for research and development surfaced today, revealing the group’s thinking as well as pharmaceutical industry thinking about the WHO process. The documents immediately raised concern about possible undue access to the process by industry; the WHO told Intellectual Property Watch the industry group was not supposed to have the documents.

View this document on Scribd

The documents appear to have come from the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), and include draft reports on innovative financing mechanisms from the working group as well as an analysis by the IFPMA on the reports’ contents. They were released on Wikileaks, a website that anonymously publishes sensitive documents.

”IFPMA was not supposed to have working drafts of the expert working group in their possession and they were not given these documents,” said Precious Matsoso, director of Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI) at the WHO, under whose auspices the expert working group falls. “It was understood by the working group that its report is intended for the director general and” WHO members, she added.

Public health advocates reacted strongly to the leaked documents. “The IFPMA document confirms much of what had been feared,” that there is “a larger WHO strategy to protect the status quo, particularly as it relates to intellectual property issues,” said James Love, the director of Knowledge Ecology International, a non-profit group focussed on transparency in policymaking and which has been advocating for prize funds, a biomedical R&D treaty, and other initiatives to fund R&D.

An introductory letter included with the documents addressed to the Public Health Advocacy Committee at IFPMA says “the overall result [of the working group’s report] is in line with most of the industry positions on this matter,” but says that “there is still room for them to introduce new language” as the documents date from before the final working group meeting concluded on 2 December.

The Expert Working Group’s “comparative analysis of innovative financing proposals for health R&D,” available from Wikileaks here [pdf], divides aspects of drug development into six categories and then lists the ideas from “least likely” to “most likely” to work.

The six categories are: fundraising, research and development capacity building in developing countries, basic research and product discovery, product development, manufacturing and distribution, and efficiencies.

The leaked documents are all available from Wikileaks here.

Expert Analysis

View this document on Scribd

The draft reports available on Wikileaks do not contain final recommendations. These will be available only in the final report, expected to be released this week (IPW, WHO, 7 December 2009). Instead, it contains an analysis of all proposals made thus far, through two calls for advice from the public, and ranks them on efficacy and feasibility.

Within “fundraising,” proposals considered “least likely to work” include diverting existing resources to health, reducing tax evasion and havens, levying new charges on services or access rights. A proposal for a “Green IP” system (IPW, Inside Views, 27 June 2008) is currently “too hard to operationalise” but some elements could potentially be useful.

Most likely to work include new indirect taxes, for example on internet users; voluntary private contributions, new donor funds, and taxes on pharmaceutical profits. Taxing pharmaceutical profits is estimated to generate only USD 160 million versus, for example, a potential USD 2 billion from internet taxes.

On building research capacity, specific recommendations are not made, but the report says there is a lot of potential in this idea as innovative pharmaceutical development is often done in commercial ventures and, in developing countries, “commercial targets often have significant overlap with public health targets,” as local markets demand treatment for neglected diseases.

On basic research, prize systems and prize funds for completed drugs, as well as a “health impact fund,” are deemed least effective, as is the idea of a biomedical R&D treaty. “Endstage prizes” and the treaty were also seen as not particularly beneficial for product development. Prizes have been advocated as a solution to R&D financing problems by several health advocacy NGOs (IPW, Public Health, 12 February 2009).

Deemed more effective in incentivising research were funding for product development partnerships, grants to companies working on neglected diseases, and prizes for reaching “milestones” (such as those provided by Innocentive). Similar incentives were considered beneficial for product development.

Prizes were seen as possible incentives for manufacturing and distribution, though “likely only for diagnostics” as opposed to vaccines or medicines.

“Absolutely Fair Towards the Industry”

The draft report, the IFPMA said, is “absolutely fair” regarding industry concerns, using “real figures” on the cost of drug and vaccines developments and containing “many references to the importance of intellectual property … to achieve further innovation.”

As far as streamlining the current R&D system, which the report calls “unwieldy,” removing data exclusivity was seen as less effective compared to harmonising medicine regulatory systems and “pre-competitive platforms” for R&D.

The IFPMA analysis raised two major concerns.

The first relates to proposed taxes on the pharmaceutical industry, which the IFPMA document says “places the burden of the R&D … exclusively on industry and reinforces the negative image of pharmaceutical profits.”

“Operationalising this proposal may lead to companies increasing prices to compensate which would be counterproductive,” it adds. Further, it is not certain to be acceptable by all partners “as the tax should be imposed on the whole pharmaceutical sector, generic included.”

The second area of concern is drug-purchasing mechanism UNITAID’s proposed patent pool, and in particular its structure for royalty payments to IP owners. These payments would be determined based on the “therapeutic benefits and the affordability of royalities in particular countries,” the analysis says, adding that this “does not follow past or current patent pool structures” and emphasising that voluntary participation should be an “essential prerequisite.”

A UNITAID board meeting on 14-15 December will review an expert study on the patent pool, which the UNITAID board agreed in principle to establish in July 2008. In May 2009, the board instructed the organisation’s secretariat to prepare an implementation plan. An expert team analysed a range of issues and its report, completed in November, clearly recommends the implementation of the pool, sources told Intellectual Property Watch.

The IFPMA analysis also called for vigilance regarding the potential use of open source systems.

NGOs: Documents “A Step Backwards”

View this document on Scribd

Love said the expert working group process was “a step backwards” and “evidence of a deeper problem in WHO regarding the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, and its philanthropic supporter, the Microsoft founder’s Gates Foundation.”

”This is a very disturbing set of documents,” said Sarah Rimmington, from nongovernmental organization Essential Action’s Access to Medicines Project. She added that the report “embraces the status quo and rejects the feasibility of almost every single important proposal aimed at truly solving these complicated problems.”

Kaitlin Mara may be reached at kmara@ip-watch.ch.

As published in Intellectual Property Watch. Thanks to Kaitlin Mara and IP Watch for covering this material. Copyright remains with the aforementioned.

Secret gag on UK Times preventing publication of Minton report into toxic waste dumping

 

WIKILEAKS:This document, as sent confidentially to the editor of the UK Times newspaper, contains variation on an existing secret High Court gag-order, a so-called “super-injunction”, blocking the UK press from disclosing the existence or contents of the “Minton Report” into toxic waste dumping by Trafigura, appearing on WikiLeaks. The order was first obtained against the Guardian on the 11th of September, 2009 and was updated several times, including on the 18th of September 2009.

The secret injunction caused a scandal in the UK on 12-13 October 2009, when lawyers for Trafigura, Carter-Ruck, told the Guardian that it prevented the Guardian reporting a parliamentary question by Paul Farrelly MP mentioning the Minton report. This contravened the longstanding assumption that the reporting of Parliament should not be hindered in any way.

Following parliamentary condemnation, Carter-Ruck agreed to amend the order so it would not apply to the Parliamentary record, but would, in all other ways, continue to gag the press.

This updated variation was then faxed to UK newspaper The Times on 16, October 2009.

The injuction, in all other respects, remains in effect at the time of posting this.

View this document on Scribd

Allow me to add my thankyou’s to Julian Assange and the Wikileaks Team for giving us the chance to find out what is really going on behind our backs

 

26 June 2012 WikiLeaks Setting Another Trap for Journalists, NGOs

2012-00414 WikiLeaks Partner for Global Intelligence Files June 26, 2012 (copy below) via Google Search

 

Cryptome rejects this proprietary publishing manipulation. Again, WikiLeaks is inducing participation in a crime covered with pseudo-journalistic exculpation. Again excluding open public access in favor of contractual marketing of stolen material and aiding its profitable commercialization.

It’s a trap, don’t do it, don’t encourage others to take the bait.

Don’t send anything to me you don’t want published. This note will be published .

_____

At 06:24 PM 6/26/2012, you wrote:

Please Do Not Post, still working on getting us access.

Below if the terms and conditions that WL is sending to everyone.

_Terms and Conditions for access to the Global Intelligence Files

These Terms and Conditions are an agreement between you as an individual (not your organisation) and WikiLeaks with respect to use of the Global Intelligence Files.

1. WikiLeaks will provide access to the data known as Project Rock Guitar through WikiLeaks’ search database. You will use the search database as per instructions on the site and will not use robots on the system.

2. The decision what to publish in news articles and papers will remain at your discretion. You will credit WikiLeaks in the following manner: “investigative partnership organised by WikiLeaks” and refer to the data as having been “obtained by WikiLeaks”.

3. You will refer clearly on your website to the document(s) provided by WikiLeaks that were used in preparation of these news articles or papers and link from your publication to the data on WikiLeaks’ website.

4. You will treat any alleged and/or suspected WikiLeaks sources for the Global Intelligence Files as confidential sources of your own, with all the ethical and legal protections such sources are entitled to. You, in accordance with journalistic and professional ethics, will not speculate as to their identities. In relation to WikiLeaks’ provision of confidential information to you, you will treat WikiLeaks as a confidential journalistic source. Although you will publicly describe the information has having been “obtained by WikiLeaks” you will not, for the protection of WikiLeaks, you and the WikiLeaks sources, say that the information was “given” to you by WikiLeaks.

5. When publishing any story or material based on the Global Intelligence Files you understand that in relation to exclusivity you must inform WikiLeaks of the identification number of the data informing your publication and will submit this number to WikiLeaks’ release platform before the story is to first appear in any of your publishing mediums, so that WikiLeaks can publish the original data at the same time. You will also provide a URL link to where the story or material will appear on your site. Instructions for this release system are on the GI Files site and must be read and followed once you have access to the site. You understand that the release system provided by WikiLeaks must be treated in a reputable manner: there is to be no playing of the system to schedule large quantities of data in advance to reserve them, or using robots on the system. Scheduling must reflect true intentions to publish at the date and time you list on the release system.

6. You will treat each of the documents made available to you by WikiLeaks as confidential unless and until a story based on their content is published. You will exercise care in ensuring that the materials will not be vulnerable to hacking or other efforts to discover their content.

7. WikiLeaks journalists, employees, consultants and infrastructure are the subject of State and private intelligence activity and politicised financial blockades. To protect its continued ability to publish effectively, various WikiLeaks methods, people and locations need to be kept confidential. Unless otherwise stated, these include, but are not limited to: identifying details of all WikiLeaks personnel, security methods, communication systems or methods, locations, strategic plans, information on threats against WikiLeaks, the number of WikiLeaks personnel, the number of WikiLeaks personnel in different areas, usernames, passwords, transportation and financial arrangements including financial transportation methods.

8. Trading, selling, sharing or giving away your account is prohibited, as is trading and selling invites or offering them in public.

9. You understand that any breach of these Terms and Conditions or mismanagement of the search database or release platform will result in your access being withdrawn, along with the access of the anyone that invited you and anyone you invite. You are responsible for your own account and for the people you invite.

By ticking this box you agree to abide by all of the above Terms and Conditions

Your login and password will be sent by mail.

GIFiles Signup Instructions
Becoming a WikiLeaks Partner for the Global Intelligence Files

You have been invited to enter a secret world.

By joining the global WikiLeaks partnership on the Global Intelligence Files (the GI Files) — you will have access to more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large organisations, including the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Being part of this international team will allow you to search the emails using the sophisticated search engine designed by WikiLeaks to enable you to research and publish articles and papers using this data.

The purpose of this system is to maximise global impact of the GI Files by restricting supply to those who are most likely to research and publish on them.

We are allowing journalists, academics and human rights organisations to search and publish the GI Files. To enter into this partnership you will need to be given a unique code by one of our existing partners. Users who demonstrate research and publishing ability will be considered as partners for new WikiLeaks publications.

Once you have this code please follow the instructions below to enter the partnership and gain access to the GI Files. These instructions are designed to be idiot-proof. They explain every step of this process, but don’t be scared – for most people this will be quick.

1. Download Tor, a tool for encrypted anonymous web-browsing. Without this you will not be able to access our Terms and Conditions, or the GI Files database.

Tor Instructions:
– To get Tor please go to the following URL to download the “Tor Browser Bundle:” https://www.torproject.org/projects…
– Choose the correct version depending on whether you use Windows, Mac or Linux and download it in the language you want.
– Click on the correct version to download it and then save it – we suggest to your Desktop.
– Once you have saved it you can find the “Tor Browser Bundle” application in the place you saved it.
– You will need to double-click on the Start Tor browser application to run Tor.
– You will need Tor running to access the site to agree to our Terms and Conditions, and then to later access the GI Files site.

2. Start Tor and go to the following site (it will only work using Tor). Wait up to 30 seconds for the site to load for the first time: http://7f4lihm464gdcwfc.onion/invit…

3. Enter your unique invite code to get access to the GI Files partner Terms and Conditions.

4. Enter your name, organisation name, email address and phone number. The email address you give cannot be a personal email address; it must be a work email account.

5. Read all parts of the Terms and Conditions and make sure you understand them. If you have any questions, please email: signup@wikileaks.org

6. Once you understand your responsibilities under the Terms and Conditions tick the check box to confirm your agreement.

7. Within 15 minutes you will receive an email to the email address you supplied giving you login details to the GI Files website.

8. Login to the site at the following URL: http://7f4lihm464gdcwfc.onion/ giving your username and password as supplied in the email. This URL can only be accessed when using Tor.

9. Once you are logged into the site you will see your user page, the search interface and publishing interface. At the top of the page are tabs that explain how these work. On your user page you will have five invite codes for you to give to others so that they can also gain access to the GI Files.

10. If you wish to invite someone to the GI Files then give them a unique invite code, along with the URL to this page of instructions – each person you invite must be a journalist, NGO worker or academic from a different organisation (for complete understanding of who you can invite please see the invite rules below).

11. If you violate any of the Terms and Conditions you risk having your login terminated, along with that of the person that invited you and the people that you invited. If any of the contacts you invited violate the terms of the Terms and Conditions, they risk having their login terminated, your login terminated and the logins of the people they invited terminated.

Invite Rules:

Each invite code must be given to a person who:
A. is a real person
B. is either a journalist, Professor or Associate Professor at a University or an employee of a human rights organisation
C. is from a different organisation to you and your other invitees
D. is using an email that is not a personal email
E. is using an email that is from a different domain to your email address and that of the other people you invite
F. is going to use the GI Files search and release site for research, the results of which will be communicated to the public.

For any issues or questions related to this signup process, please email: signup@wikileaks.org

28 June 2012 Ecuador Has Two Forms of Political Asylum

 

http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Regimen-interpretacionesopuestas-asilo-politico_0_726527614.html

 

El Comercio (Quito)

The scheme has conflicting interpretations of political asylum

Thursday 28/06/2012

Rafael Correa’s government has different ways of interpreting the figure of the asylum. It is based on who requests it. The first is a critical, when an Ecuadorian citizen seeking asylum in a third country, feeling persecuted politically for his regime. Since last February, six people have applied for such protection, considering that his integrity was at risk against the Correa administration.

The journalist Emilio Palacio and Carlos Perez, director of The Universe, were the first to call for such protection to United States and Panama. They did it on the grounds that Correa lobbied on trial for insulting them, where they received an adverse ruling. By then, the various government spokesmen chose to dismiss both applications. The processing of the Palace is branded as “ridiculous”, while in the case of Perez said that there was no need to issue a pass so he could go from the Embassy of Panama to the airport.

“Government action was shameful and blatant disregard of the conditions of asylum.” That is the criterion of Joffre Campaign, solicitor of The Universe, who notes that in this chapter, the Executive showed “contempt” for the institution of asylum policy.

A similar stance taken by the Government in May. This month, four suppliers of the contracts between the state and firms linked to Fabricio Correa asked for political asylum in Britain, Costa Rica, Chile and Panama. On that occasion, the government not only dismissed the suppliers, but the Foreign Office displayed a diplomatic offensive to block their applications. From the office of Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño contact was made with the various foreign ministries of the countries involved. In these dialogues the Ecuadorian diplomacy explained that suppliers were tried by a criminal offense. The government accuses them of lying, because in its report noted that Correa allegedly did know of his brother’s contracts with the state.

“At that time the Government did not think our human rights, as it says in the case of Julian Assange”. With those words, the seer Paul Chambers questioned the opposite view that the President has asked for asylum against the Director of Wikileaks, a refugee from the previous week at the Embassy in London. In fact, in the case of Assange, the Government has evidenced its second way to interpret the institution of asylum.

In this regard, the President said he will discuss in detail the grounds on which requested protection Assange Ecuador. In addition, he anticipated that the decision whether to grant asylum to journalist who has four demands for sexual offenses in Sweden, is a sovereign decision of Ecuador.

Luis Saavedra, director of the Regional Foundation of Human Rights Advisory, explains that political asylum is a right that people have, to be persecuted in their countries. And while indicating that it is normal that governments seek to stop asylum claims, objected that Ecuador use a tone “angry” and “arrogant” to do when he is accused of persecution, as in the case of suppliers. From the diplomatic notes that it is wrong that the government has different interpretations of political asylum, depending on who you ask.

Ambassador Luis Narvaez stresses that since the state must have a course of action be in line with “the legal and human depth of the topic” in any situation.

 

Wikileaks:The Assange Case

Re: Julian Assange arrest
Email-ID 370352
Date 2010-12-07 13:27:46
From burton@stratfor.com
To william@himalayaconsulting.biz
Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

———————————————————————-

From: “William “Bill” O’Chee”
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 21:57:49 +1000
To:
Subject: Re: Julian Assange arrest
Sadly he didn’t have a car accident on the way there.
William Oa**Chee
aa**aa”*aa>>*
Partner
Himalaya Consulting
Australia: +61 422 688886
China mob: +86 1365 1001069
On 07/12/2010, at 9:52 PM, burton@stratfor.com wrote:

Thx

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

———————————————————————-

From: “William “Bill” O’Chee”
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 21:23:40 +1000
To:
Subject: Julian Assange arrest
Dear Fred,
In Jen’s absence, I thought I should send you this:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/wikileaks-founder-arrested-in-london-20101207-18ogq.html
Hooray!
Best regards,
William Oa**Chee
aa**aa”*aa>>*
Partner
Himalaya Consulting
Australia: +61 422 688886
China mob: +86 1365 1001069

Re: Assange
Email-ID 397988
Date 2010-12-28 18:00:09
From JKaufman@randomhouse.com
To gfriedman@stratfor.com
Funny…and probably good advice. It’s not Doubleday, specifically – it’s
the Knopf side, but hopefully they do well.

Happy holidays!
Jason

From: George Friedman [mailto:gfriedman@stratfor.com]
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2010 05:44 PM
To: Kaufman, Jason
Subject: Assange

You guys are publishing him? Get it out fast. This guys shelf life may
not be all you hope. He is always one step away from a crazed moment, like
comparing himself to Martin Luther King and saying that 50 percent of the
people in the world believe that. The deck is not completely full.

I’d say get to market in two months. Enjoy.
—

George Friedman

Founder and CEO

Stratfor

700 Lavaca Street

Suite 900

Austin, Texas 78701

Phone 512-744-4319

Fax 512-744-4334

Email-ID 373862
Date 2010-12-17 15:32:59
From burton@stratfor.com
To tactical@stratfor.com
just told SkyNews concerns for US extradition

More and more likely

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Wikileaks show obvious connection between Syria and Greece

Selex is associated to the Bank of Russia and the Raytheon CO,Intracom was famous for a series of financial scandals in Greece.

 

WikiLeaks, known for its releases of the “Collateral Murder” video, the Afghan & Iraq War Logs and the US State Embassy cables, began a release of the Syria Files. The files, according to the media organization, consist of over two million emails from “Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012.”

Editor-in-chief Julian Assange said of the release, “The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria’s opponents. It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it.”

One of the first stories to come out of the release being reported by L’Espresso out of Italy is that the Italian giant Finmeccanica aided President Bashar Assad’s regime in the past months. The Finmeccanica-owned Selex Communications company sent systems that included TETRA and also technology for helicopters.

A Greek company known as Intracom was allegedly involved as well. They sent an order of 500 mobile radio devices from Selex to the Syrian police to use in Muadamia days after the uprising began in May 2011.

It is known that helicopters have been used to attack or gun down people in Syria. Additionally, shipments of communications technology may have been signed off on by Italy in a contract agreed upon before the uprising in Syria.

TETRA is an abbreviation for “Terrestrial Trunked Radio.” It is a European standard of digital communications. According to the Finnish multinational communications company Nokia:

TETRA was developed to meet the needs of the most demanding professional radio users who need fast one-to-one and one-to-many radio communication using voice and data in their daily work. Users are typicallypublic safety and security organisations like police, fire and rescue forces, ambulance services, frontierguards and other professional cellular users like transportation companies, courier services, energy utilities,airports and so on.

Publico, based in Spain, notes this is not the first instance of Finmeccanica providing a TETRA system to a regime that used the technology for repressive purposes. In 2007, according to Publico, Finmeccanica sold $8.2. million worth of radio equipment to the Iranian Interior Ministry for the police forces of Isfahan and Mashhad. This caused a dispute in the summer of 2006 with US diplomats, and ahead of the proposed sale, Simone Bemporad, Finmeccanica Senior Vice President for Media Relations and International Affairs, and Camillo Pirozzi, Head of Public Affairs in Finmeccanica’s Institutional Relations Department, met to” inform the US government of Finmeccanica’s interest in bidding on a contract to provide communications equipment to two city police forces in Iran. The Finmeccanica representatives said they requested the urgent meeting to preclude any misunderstanding with the USG — given the sensitivities of dealing with Iran at this time — and to ensure their business interests in the United States are not adversely affected by possible Finmeccanica investment in Iran.” (The incident was revealed in 2011 when US State Embassy cables were released.)

The data comes from ”680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture.” The emails cover the time period of August 2006 to March 2012. They show what has been happening with Syria as 6,000-15,000 people have been killed in Syria in the past 18 months. And the organization claims they show not only how the Syrian government and economy has been operating but also how the West and Western companies “say one thing and do another.”

The organization gave a short press conference at the Frontline Club in London this morning. Sarah Harrison presented the release to the press. She announced the media partners that have joined with WikiLeaks to release the emails: Al Akhbar English (Lebanon), Al Masry Al Youm (Egypt), ARD (Germany), Associated Press, L’Espresso (Italy), Owni (France) and Publico.es (Spain). (Some of the partners were partners for the release of US diplomatic cables.)

One partner’s editor-in-chief, Al-Akhbar’s Ibrahim al-Amin finds the release to be critical because it is “important to determine the facts of what is transpiring on the ground in Syria.” That is why the media organization intends to collaborate on the release throughout the coming weeks.

Assange was not present at the press conference, as he remains in the Ecuadorean embassy in London while he waits for Ecuador to decide if they will grant him political asylum.

In April, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that imposed sanctions on companies, agencies or individuals in Syria or Iran that used digital technology to help the “two nations’ governments crush dissent.” A key criticism of the order at the time from human rights organizations was that, as the Wall Street Journal reported, “the move was likely to have little impact since it doesn’t target companies that make or sell the technologies at issue.”

“This seems to be a much more focused action and punitive action on Iran and Syria, versus a more comprehensive look at how do you prevent these kinds of technologies from falling into the hands of bad actors generally,” said Arvind Ganesan, business and human-rights director for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Ganesan suggested that the U.S. require companies to obtain licenses if they want to sell technology to a broader swath of countries that might use it to crack down on dissent.

Depending on how much duplicity or hypocrisy the Syria Files reveal, a debate among human rights organizations on how to regulate the sale of technology to governments so people’s civil liberties and rights are not violated may be rekindled in the US.

 

 

 

Wikileaks:Syria in talks with defaulted Athens- business as usual

RE: Radio issues
Email-ID 324897
Date 2011-12-20 09:55:20
From ppap@intracom.gr
To a.ezz@intracom.sy, g.nakkoul@intracom.sy, m.shoorbajee@intracom.sy, emos@intracom.sy, ttsa@intracom.gr, alroi@intracom.gr

Hello Ammar,

From technical point of view, better to get technical support directly from vendor (SELEX), since in Athens we do not have the required experience with Selex equipment. It would be our pleasure to add in our Greek team portfolio Tetra optimization
process. However for this we might need to be involved with this process from earlier stages, as well as to participate in this, during real network development in Syria. This has not been possible, for many reasons.

On the other hand we consider that RF planning / optimization team of Intracom is not limited to mother Greek Intracom. So we expect from you to represent this process in Tetra network of Syria, with direct communication with vendor. It shall be our
pleasure to get a copy of all your communication about this process (me and Alexandra). PMs of this project should advise us if there is any problem for direct communication with Selex.

BR
Panagiotis

===============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
From:Ammar Ezziddin [mailto:a.ezz@intracom.sy]
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 2:03 AM
To: ALEXANDRA ROIDI; Panagiotis Papadimitriou
Cc: ttsa@intracom.gr; emos@intracom.sy; g.nakkoul@intracom.sy; Mr. Mohamad Shoorbajee; Ammar Ezziddin
Subject: RE: Radio issues

Dears Panagiotis & Alexandr;
We should start drive test and optimization soon, and we need someone –who is involved with radio parameters of SELEX equipments- as reference to support us especially in the first steps.
Would you please take this role or you’ll guide and transfer me to someone else after arrange with management?

Thanks

Ammar Ezziddin
Intracom – Syria
Mobile: 00963 992111382
Email: a.ezz@intracom.sy

===============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
From:Ammar Ezziddin [mailto:a.ezz@intracom.sy]
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 4:27 PM
To: ‘Dongbo.Wang@selexelsag.com’; ‘sergio.galizia@selex-comms.com’
Cc: ‘Simone.Bonechi@selexelsag.com’; ‘ttsa@intracom.gr’; ‘ALEXANDRA ROIDI’; ‘Panagiotis Papadimitriou’; ’emos@intracom.sy’; ‘g.nakkoul@intracom.sy’; ‘Mr. Mohamad Shoorbajee’
Subject: Radio issues

Dears;
We urgently need support in the following service impacting two problems. They might be related to each other or not.
Let us know if your require us to do any test to help you to propose the solution.

1-
Qasioun is very high site (umbrella site) over Damascus city, and it is the serving cell in some parts of Damascus city (outdoor & indoor),
That causes a lot of Ping-Pong Handover & Reselection between Qasioun and many sites. To decrease this action without
Turn off Qasioun or apply any hardware modification I suggest this parameters modifications:
A)
– Increase value of RX_Lev_Access_Min ((from 4 //-105dBm// to 5 //-100dBm//))
TO MAKE THE TERMINAL WHICH CAMPING IN QASIOUN TO START CALCULATION TO RESELECT STARTING FROM -58dBm NOT FROM -63dBm;
That means the calculation of reselect is always applying.
((the condition isRSSI < Rx_Lev_Access_Min + Slow_TH + Fast_TH)) – Decrease value of Fast_Hy ((from 3 //6dBm// to 1 //2dBm//)) TO ACCELERATE MAKING QASIOUN IN RELENQUISHABLE CASE ((the condition is C2 > C1 + Fast_HY))
TO ACCELERATE HANDOVER PROCESS FROM QASIOUN ((the condition is C2 > Fast_TH + Fast_HY))

2-
When the terminal is camping on cell (A) in ideal mode with signal not less than -77dBm then it goes out of network (no channel) for some seconds then
The terminal camping in cell (B) although it is neighbor to cell (A); the question is:
IS THIS PROBLEM RELATED TO ANY RADIO ISSUE such as parameters to be changed in the switch or the base station?

Thanks
Ammar Ezziddin
Intracom – Syria
Mobile: 00963 992111382
Email: a.ezz@intracom.sy

RE: tetra project , payments release and 25% expansion LC Feeding

Email-ID	446304
Date	2011-05-23 13:25:16
From	n.fallouh@intracom.sy
To	m.shoorbajee@intracom.sy, n.fallouh@intracom.sy, mikon@intracom.gr, emos@intracom.sy, n.mouselli@intracom.sy, emos@intracom.gr

Dear Mr. Mohammad

Following our meeting with SWO-Finance Dept yesterday, I would like to summarize the main following points :

if !supportLists]>1.       endif]>PM told the customer that 153K.E (50% of 306K.E which is the services fees) was released in SP  within a previous  payment as the contract conditions, it was agreed that Intracom will send a letter to SWO requesting to
release the another 50% of this amount in Euro.
if !supportLists]>2.       endif]>APG of the equipment value will be completely released after completing the shipments (SWO referred to about 120K.E still not invoiced), we need to check out and work to release the APG asap.
if !supportLists]>3.       endif]>We agree to have another meeting with the customer to decide about the second point and agree about any further payments, we can claim now.
if !supportLists]>4.       endif]>The customer clarified the division of the 9M.E, which was fed to the LC for the 25% expansion of the project and confirmed his readiness to release these payments as the contract conditions and based on progress of this
project.

Regards
Nadim Fallouh

From: E.nadimf [mailto:n.fallouh@intracorm.sy]
Sent: 13 نيسان, 2011 03:05 م
To: ‘mohammad shoorbajee’; ‘ILIAS MOSCHONAS’; ‘ilias moschonas’
Cc: ‘mikon@intracom.gr’; ‘Noureddine Al-Mouselli’; ‘n.fallouh@intracom.sy’
Subject: tetra project , payments release and 25% expansion LC Feeding

Dear Mr.Mohammad
Further to my discussions with you and Mr.Elias also my following with SWO about the LC feeding for 25% expansion and other main project’ payments, reference to the attached CoC MoM Page:
if !supportLists]>1.       endif]>The 9002525 Euro was fed to the LC for our benefit, standing for the 25% expansion works.
Please provide me the reason of misunderstanding, caused between UBAE Bank and Selex in order to work with the customer and CBS to clarify it.

if !supportLists]>2.       endif]>The released payments against equipment and services of the tetra project were “a little” different less or more from the contractual values (the difference till now is about 70K.E) in total .
For this, kindly be acknowledged that I request from the customer to review the released payments values, also we should agree on the reason of the discrepancies between the contract’ values and the released one, then we will meet the customer to match
and claim any difference, putting a time frame for the next payments as the current project progress.
Regards

E: Chopper Accessories

Email-ID	1976711
Date	2011-10-18 08:47:41
From	Simone.Bonechi@selexelsag.com
To	m.shoorbajee@intracom.sy, emos@intracom.gr, ttsa@intracom.gr

Dear Mohammad,

further our last exchange of information related to the chopper accessories, we updated you about the positive result of the research of an alternative vendor for some connetors included in the planned shipment. We still waiting for the information about
the estimated lead time to receive such items to our warehouse in order to evaluate to split the delivery into two different time.

Please inform SWO about that, and kepp in contact for news, which we expected in a couple of days.

Regards
Simone

[green]
Prima di stampare questa comunicazione consideratene, per favore, l’impatto ambientale
Please consider the environment before printing this email

“mohammad shoorbajee” To
11/10/2011 08:59 cc “‘ttsa'” , “‘Moschonas,
Ilias'”
Subject RE: Chopper Accessories

Simone;
Thanks for the clarification.

At this point do you prefer we explain the issue to SWO or wait for more and maybe final update from your side? They are getting worried each day.

Mohammad

From: Simone.Bonechi@selexelsag.com [mailto:Simone.Bonechi@selexelsag.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 11 October, 2011 9:35 AM
To: Shortbajee, Mohammad
Cc: ttsa; Moschonas, Ilias
Subject: Re: Chopper Accessories

Dera Mohammad,

As already said by phone, we have to manage an unexpected problem with some connectors, part of the goods under shipment, which are manufactured in USA.

As you know, due to USA imposition to not deliver any electronic components manufacturer by them, we  have to found an alternative solution.

We have two possibility at the present time:
1) Look for an alternative manufacturer (not USA), if any or
2) Remove these connectors from the delivery.

We are in charge to our purchasing dept to verify the first option, before choose the second one.

We will update you asap.

Simone Bonechi

Prima di stampare questa comunicazione consideratene, per favore, l’impatto ambientale
Please consider the environment before printing this email

===============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
From:”mohammad shoorbajee” [m.shoorbajee@intracom.sy]
Sent:10/11/2011 09:24 AM ZE3
To:Simone Bonechi
Cc:; “‘Ilias Moschonas'”
Subject:Chopper Accessories

Dear Simone;

The customer is becoming very suspicious of us for not sending the cable.  Do you recommend I say anything to them?

Mohammad

Nadim Fallouh

WIKILEAKS

 

Assange allegations deeply fishy with dangerous undertones

I’ve always said the allegations (not actually criminal charges) against Julian Assange seemed like a jack-up and a smear campaign. What do you think?:

2) The process by which Assange was accused, cleared, and then re-accused of these incidents beggars belief. Two women went to a Stockholm police station one Friday afternoon in August 2010, to either (and here accounts vary) report Assange for s-xual misconduct, or inquire as to how he could be forced to take an STI test. Only one woman, Sofia Wilen, gave a statement, saying that the morning after a s-xual encounter with Assange, he had initiated s-x while she was asleep, and without a condom; by her own testimony, she said that she then gave consent to continue the act.

3) While her statement was being given, police had already contacted a prosecutor to issue an investigation warrant for arrest. When Wilen was informed of this, she refused to sign her own evidence statement, saying that she had been pushed into making a complaint by people around her. The next day, the senior prosecutor for Stockholm rescinded the warrant, saying that there was nothing in the statement suggesting a crime had occurred.

4) By Monday, that decision had been appealed, with the two women now represented by Claes Borgstrom, a big wig in the Social Democratic party, and drafter of the 2005 s-x crimes laws under which Assange was being accused — laws that many had said were unworkable. The second complainant in the affair, Anna Ardin, now changed her story. She had been interviewed the day after Wilen had told of a rough but consensual s-xual encounter with Assange, but suggested he had torn a condom off during s-x.

5) In the weeks between the Stockholm prosecutor rejecting Wilen’s statement as evidence of a potential crime, and the appeal, Ardin’s story changed, and her account of rough consensual foreplay became an accusation that Assange had pinned her down with his body during s-x to prevent her applying a condom. This became the basis for a new accusation — s-xual coercion — which would have been sufficient as a felony, should the appeal prosecutor not reinstate Wilen’s r-pe accusation. In that week, tweets were deleted and blog posts changed to remove any suggestion that Ardin had thought Assange’s behaviour to her consensual.

6) The prosecutor to whom the appeal was made — Marianne Ny — was a former head of the “Crime Development Unit”, whose specific brief was to develop new applications of s-x crimes laws, in areas where they had not previously been applied. She had previously spoken of remand as a form of de facto justice for men accused of s-x crimes, whom the courts would otherwise let free.

7) The European arrest warrant, and the Interpol red notice under which Assange is being extradited, was issued with a speed and seriousness usually reserved for major violent criminals, rather than someone simply wanted for further questioning, without a charge being present.Source

Who Is Sofia Wilén?

Sofia Wilén is one of the Swedish women who has accused Julian Assange of rape, for which he was arrested. It has been suggested that Wilen is fairly impressionable and that she was convinced by Anna Ardin to press charges for rape.

Evidence is mounting that Sofia Wilén and her associate Anna Ardin pre-planned “revenge” on Julian Assange by setting him up for false rape allegations. The primary mastermind behind the setup is thought to be Ardin.

Interestingly, the mainstream media has yet to pick up on the fact that Sofia Wilén and her friend Anna Ardin, two friends, seem to have conspired against Assange. Whether this scheme goes deeper than two individuals, to the level of government involvement is yet to be seen.

Evidence is emerging that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been setup on false rape charges by two radical feminists. The most significant evidence for this claim is the “coicidence” that both accusers are friends, and one of them posted about how she had been “thinking about some revenge.”

The first accuser is Anna Ardin, a well known radical from Sweden for her feminism views on how men achieve social dominance through sex. Last January, Ardin posted a blog entry titled ‘7 Steps to Legal Revenge by Anna Ardin’, which includedthe statement, I’ve been thinking about some revenge over the last few days….

The second rape accusation against Julian Assange came from a woman named Sofia Wilén, a friend for Anna Ardin. Wilén is the lesser known of the two.

Wilén and Ardin are now suspected of plotting a scheme to “get revenge” and falsely accuse Julian Assange of rape.Source

Assange: Sofia Wilen – The Silent Accuser.
at Huffington Post
“The second accuser, Sofia Wilen, 26, is Anna’ friend. Here is a video of an Assange press conference where one can see the girls together. Those present at the conference marveled at her groupie-li ke behavior. Though rock stars are used to girls dying to have sex with them, it is much less common in the harsh field of political journalism . Sofia worked hard to bed Assange, according to her own confession ; she was also the first to complain to police. She is little known and her motives are vague. Why might a young woman (who shares her life with American artist Seth Benson) pursue such a sordid political adventure?”

Source

Related articles

• Rundle: Assange makes his escape into a diplomatic storm (crikey.com.au)
• Assange’s great escape?, Murdoch’s big play: ConsMedia and Kohler Inc, why editorial charters don’t work, media spotlight on Athens, Gillard’s EU lecture (media.crikey.com.au)
• Noam Chomsky tells Julian Assange: Humanity ‘like lemmings going over the cliff’ (artemamat.wordpress.com)
• 2011-03-04 Jennifer Robinson: Brief to Canberra meeting of MPs re Julian Assange (insomniacanonymous.wordpress.com)
• Julian Assange: Ecuadorean ambassador flies home for talks on WikiLeaks founder – Telegraph.co.uk (telegraph.co.uk)

Julian Assange rejects police request to surrender for breaking bail terms

Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, has said that he will ignore a request by the police to give himself up because he fears that the US has secret plans to extradite him to Washington.

He said he had been advised that he was within his rights to ignore an extradition notice that was presented to him at the Ecuadorean embassy on Thursday.

During a telephone interview on BBC2′s Newsnight, he was asked if he intended to give himself up. “Our advice is that asylum law both domestically and internationally in the UK takes precedence to extradition law, so the answer is almost certainly not,” he said.

Assange has been asked to present himself to police on Friday to begin the process of extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape and indecency.

His refusal means that he will continue to take refuge in the embassy while the Ecuadorean government decides whether to accept his request for asylum. Even if they do so, Assange is likely to face a long stay at the embassy as he will be unable to leave without being arrested.

Assange said he had evidence that the US had secret plans to force him to face trial in America. “In the US, since at least the beginning of 2011, a US grand jury has been empanelled in Washington. It has been pulling in witnesses, forced testimony from those witnesses, subpoenaed records from Google, from Twitter,” he said.

He submitted recordings to the BBC of American politicians and talkshow hosts calling for his death as evidence of the prejudice against him.

When asked if he had anything to say to the women who have accused him of rape and indecency, he replied: “I am simply not charged. That’s all. That’s all that is important in this matter. What has been said to date is sufficient.”

Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy last week after British courts upheld Sweden’s right to request his extradition to answer the accusations made by two women he met while on a trip to Sweden. Both agreed to spend the night with him but later went to the police to complain about his behaviour. Assange left Sweden before he could be questioned by police.

Assange’s supporters see the extradition as a cover for a subsequent extradition to the US to face charges over the release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. A succession of British courts have found that Sweden has followed the correct procedure in issuing a European arrest warrant for Assange and ruled that Britain must comply with it.

Before the Newsnight interview, a police spokesman said: “The Metropolitan police have this morning, Thursday 28 June, served a surrender notice upon a 40-year-old man that requires him to attend a police station at a date and time of our choosing. This is standard practice in extradition cases and is the first step in the removal process.”

He said Assange remained in breach of his bail conditions. “Failing to surrender would be a further breach of conditions and he is liable to arrest.”

It is understood that Assange has been ordered to present himself at Belgravia police station at 11.30am on Friday.

This week, a letter signed by leading US figures in support of Assange’s application for political asylum in Ecuador was delivered to the embassy. Among its signatories were film-makers Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, actor Danny Glover, authors Naomi Wolf and Noam Chomsky, comedian Bill Maher, and Daniel Ellsberg, the former US military analyst turned whistleblower, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

Robert Naiman, policy director at the Just Foreign Policy campaign group, delivered the letter to the embassy on Monday, along with a petition signed by more than 4,000 Americans urging President Rafael Correa to approve Assange’s request for asylum.

The letter, which has been posted online, states that its signatories believe Assange has good reason to fear extradition from the UK to Sweden “as there is a strong likelihood that once in Sweden, he would be imprisoned, and then likely extradited to the United States”.

Adding that the US government “has made clear its hostility to WikiLeaks”, it says Assange could face the death penalty in the US if he was charged and found guilty under the Espionage Act.

“We also call on you to grant Mr Assange political asylum because the ‘crime’ that he has committed is that of practising journalism,” says the letter to Correa. “Because this is a clear case of an attack on press freedom and on the public’s right to know important truths about US foreign policy, and because the threat to his health and wellbeing is serious, we urge you to grant Mr Assange political asylum.”

Source

Related articles

• Julian Assange, Pursued for the Crime of Practicing Journalism (dissenter.firedoglake.com)
• Prominent Americans urge Ecuador to accept Julian Assange’s asylum request (guardian.co.uk)
• Everyone’s Assange (counterpunch.org)
• Julian Assange seeking asylum in Ecuadorian embassy in London (guardian.co.uk)
• Assange ‘being buoyed by support’ (bbc.co.uk)
• Steve Beckow – Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Seeks Asylum In Ecuador Embassy – 20 June 2012 (lucas2012infos.wordpress.com)
• Assange faces arrest for breaching bail conditions (abc.net.au)
• Julian Assange has ‘no idea’ if asylum bid will succeed (guardian.co.uk)