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from the how-much-has-he-paid-for-room&board? dept.
Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been using a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the President's trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities.
Moreno's itinerary also notably includes a trip to Madrid, where he will meet with Spanish officials still seething over Assange's denunciation of human rights abuses perpetrated by Spain's central government against protesters marching for Catalonia independence. Almost three months ago, Ecuador blocked Assange from accessing the internet, and Assange has not been able to communicate with the outside world ever since. The primary factor in Ecuador's decision to silence him was Spanish anger over Assange's tweets about Catalonia. A source close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the President's office, unauthorized to speak publicly, has confirmed to the Intercept that Moreno is close to finalizing, if he has not already finalized, an agreement to hand over Assange to the UK within the next several weeks. The withdrawal of asylum and physical ejection of Assange could come as early as this week. On Friday, RT reported that Ecuador was preparing to enter into such an agreement.
[...] The central oddity of Assange's case – that he has been effectively imprisoned for eight years despite never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime – is virtually certain to be prolonged once Ecuador hands him over to the U.K. Even under the best-case scenario, it appears highly likely that Assange will continue to be imprisoned by British authorities. The only known criminal proceeding Assange currently faces is a pending 2012 arrest warrant for "failure to surrender" – basically a minor bail violation that arose when he obtained asylum from Ecuador rather than complying with bail conditions by returning to court for a hearing on his attempt to resist extradition to Sweden. That offense carries a prison term of three months and a fine, though it is possible that the time Assange has already spent in prison in the UK could be counted against that sentence. In 2010, Assange was imprisoned in Wandsworth Prison, kept in isolation, for 10 days until he was released on bail; he was then under house arrest for 550 days at the home of a supporter.
Assange's lawyer, Jen Robinson, told the Intercept that he would argue that all of that prison time already served should count toward (and thus completely fulfill) any prison term imposed on the "failure to surrender" charge, though British prosecutors would almost certainly contest that claim. Assange would also argue that he had a reasonable, valid basis for seeking asylum rather than submitting to UK authorities: namely, well-grounded fear that he would be extradited to the U.S. for prosecution for the act of publishing documents.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @10:25AM (9 children)
It’s amazing how nothing is secret today when you talk about the Internet. In a speech behind closed doors, Crooked Hillary said "terrorism is not a big threat to our nation." Terrorism is a big, big threat. In another closed door speech, she wanted to have open borders and open trade with everybody.
I have never been so ashamed of this country as I have with what’s going on with Hillary Clinton. I have never seen anything like it. You have never seen anything like it. 33,000 EMAILS -- she deletes them. Incredible!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday July 23 2018, @11:12AM (4 children)
Terrorism is a big, big threat
Agree, but only because of the reaction people have to a minor crime.
Actual threats - heart disease, cancer, even things like suicide are big killers. Bigger threats are things like civil unrest caused by say mass famine, which is unlikely but far more devestating on its own than say a nuke going off in San Francisco
Terrorism is down there with "murdered by toddler" in its likelihood and severity.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday July 23 2018, @03:36PM (3 children)
I'm surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest premature killers and maimers of Americans: car crashes. Osama bin Laden and his ilk could only have dreamed of killing as many Americans as drunk drivers do.
Here's another menace that kills and injures far more Americans than terrorists: ladders. A few hundred people each year climb up a ladder (e.g. to clean out rain gutters) and fall to their deaths.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:47AM (1 child)
Perhaps you've hit on a new strategy for the terrorists.
Sounds like all they need to do in the West is:
(a) run free courses on how to avoid breath tests; and
(b) open a chain of hardware stores selling barely-standards-compliant ladders at below cost.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:20PM
They don't need to: What do you think the Home Depot and Lowe's sell?
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday July 24 2018, @08:44AM
I went for the two biggest ones (which are an order of magnitude higher than the rest), then picked suicide as an interesting one. Suicide kills more people in the U.S. (43k) than driving (37k) or terrorism (0.2k)
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday July 23 2018, @01:51PM
The US alphabet soup will have to go after this guy, Assange has been a thorn in their side since the Bush admin and even lost them the election of their next swamp monster by popsting those documents.
But this could also be played differently. If Assange does come here and face trial, will the average person believe Assange when he says his source was Seth and Beau or will they believe the intelligence agencies that it was Russia?
Republicans should drop their hatred of Assange and bring him before congress. It won't happen because the Republicans are stupid, but they could use him as a weapon against the Muller investigation
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday July 23 2018, @02:50PM (2 children)
I'd be very interested to hear what happened behind closed doors when you met with President Vladimir Putin in your recent trip to the Kremlin. Surely in the age of the Internet, this private meeting should become public knowledge?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @04:06PM
We talked a lot about how there was NO COLLUSION. So important to get that out of the way. And President Putin agrees there was NO COLLUSION AT ALL. And he made an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer. Beautiful!
And we talked about how we both love Israel. How we want Israel to be very safe. We’ve worked with Israel long and hard for many years, many decades. I think, never has anyone, any country been closer than we are. President Putin also is helping Israel. And we both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu, and they would like to do certain things with respect to Syria having to do with the safety of Israel. So in that respect, we absolutely would like to work in order to help Israel, and Israel will be working with us. So both countries would work jointly.
And I think that when you look at all of the progress that’s been made in certain sections with the eradication of ISIS, we’re about 98%, 99% there. And other things that have taken place that we’ve done, and that, frankly, Russia has helped us with in certain respects. But I think that working with Israel is a great thing, and creating safety for Israel is something that both President Putin and I would like to see very much.
One little thing I might add to that is the helping of people. Helping of people. Because you have such horrible, if you see -- and I’ve seen reports and I’ve seen pictures, I’ve seen just about everything. And if we can do something to help the people of Syria get back into some form of shelter. And on a humanitarian basis. And that’s what the word was, really, a humanitarian basis. I think that both of us would be very interested in doing that, and we are.
And we've moved very quickly, very strongly on that. Russia, maybe you heard, they sent their air force. President Putin sent his air force to the Yarmouk Basin. Which is by Israel, by the Golan Heights of Israel. He's going after the terrorists, the ISIS guys there. Very successful with that. And we're working on getting those refugees back to Syria. I told General Votel, you work with Russia. And get those folks back where they belong.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @04:25PM
By the way, I haven't been to the Kremlin since the 80s. Our summit last week was in Helsinki, Finland. Very neutral!!!