The CIA Plot to Kidnap or Kill Julian Assange in London is a Story that is Being Mistakenly Ignored
The CIA Plot to Kidnap or Kill Julian Assange in London is a Story that is Being Mistakenly Ignored https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/05/the-cia-plot-to-kidnap-or-kill-julian-assange-in-london-is-a-story-that-is-being-mistakenly-ignored/?fbclid=IwAR3t BY PATRICK COCKBURN 5 October 21, Three years ago, on 2 October 2018, a team of Saudi officials murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The purpose of the killing was to silence Khashoggi and to frighten critics of the Saudi regime by showing that it would pursue and punish them as though they were agents of a foreign power.
It was revealed this week that a year before the Khashoggi killing in 2017, the CIA had plotted to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who had taken refuge five years earlier in the Ecuador embassy in London. A senior US counter-intelligence official said that plans for the forcible rendition of Assange to the US were discussed “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration. The informant was one of more than 30 US officials – eight of whom confirmed details of the abduction proposal – quoted in a 7,500-word investigation by Yahoo News into the CIA campaign against Assange.
The plan was to “break into the embassy, drag [Assange] out and bring him to where we want”, recalled a former intelligence official. Another informant said that he was briefed about a meeting in the spring of 2017 at which President Trump had asked if the CIA could assassinate Assange and provide “options” about how this could be done. Trump has denied that he did so.
The Trump-appointed head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, said publicly that he would target Assange and WikiLeaks as the equivalent of “a hostile intelligence service”. Apologists for the CIA say that freedom of the press was not under threat because Assange and the WikiLeaks activists were not real journalists. Top intelligence officials intended to decide themselves who is and who is not a journalist, and lobbied the White House to redefine other high-profile journalists as “information brokers”, who were to be targeted as if they were agents of a foreign power.
Among those against whom the CIA reportedly wanted to take action were Glenn Greenwald, a founder of the Intercept magazine and a former Guardian columnist, and Laura Poitras, a documentary film-maker. The arguments for doing so were similar to those employed by the Chinese government for suppressing dissent in Hong Kong, which has been much criticised in the West. Imprisoning journalists as spies has always been the norm in authoritarian countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, while denouncing the free press as unpatriotic is a more recent hallmark of nationalist populist governments that have taken power all over the world.
It is possible to give only a brief precis of the extraordinary story exposed by Yahoo News, but the journalists who wrote it – Zach Dorfman, Sean D Naylor and Michael Isikoff – ought to scoop every journalistic prize. Their disclosures should be of particular interest in Britain because it was in the streets of central London that the CIA was planning an extra-judicial assault on an embassy, the abduction of a foreign national, and his secret rendition to the US, with the alternative option of killing him. These were not the crackpot ideas of low-level intelligence officials, but were reportedly operations that Pompeo and the agency fully intended to carry out.
This riveting and important story based on multiple sources might be expected to attract extensive coverage and widespread editorial comment in the British media, not to mention in parliament. Many newspapers have dutifully carried summaries of the investigation, but there has been no furor. Striking gaps in the coverage include the BBC, which only reported it, so far as I can see, as part of its Somali service. Channel 4, normally so swift to defend freedom of expression, apparently did not mention the story at all.
In the event, the embassy attack never took place, despite the advanced planning. “There was a discussion with the Brits about turning the other cheek or looking the other way when a team of guys went inside and did a rendition,” said a former senior US counter-intelligence official, who added that the British had refused to allow the operation to take place.
But the British government did carry out its own less melodramatic, but more effective measure against Assange, removing him from the embassy on 11 April 2019 after a new Ecuador government had revoked his asylum. He remains in Belmarsh top security prison two-and-a-half years later while the US appeals a judicial decision not to extradite him to the US on the grounds that he would be a suicide risk.
If he were to be extradited, he would face 175 years in prison. It is important, however, to understand, that only five of these would be under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, while the other 170 potential years are under the Espionage Act of 1917, passed during the height of the patriotic war fever as the US entered the First World War.
Only a single minor charge against Assange relates to the WikiLeaks disclosure in 2010 of a trove of US diplomatic cables and army reports relating to the Iraq and Afghan wars. The other 17 charges are to do with labeling normal journalistic investigation as the equivalent of spying.
Pompeo’s determination to conflate journalistic inquiry with espionage has particular relevance in Britain, because the home secretary, Priti Patel, wants to do much the same thing. She proposes updating the Official Secrets Act so that journalists, whistle-blowers and leakers could face sentences of up to 14 years in prison. A consultative paper issued in May titled Legislation to Counter State Threats (Hostile State Activity) redefines espionage as “the covert process of obtaining sensitive confidential information that is not normally publicly available”.
The true reason the scoop about the CIA’s plot to kidnap or kill Assange has been largely ignored or downplayed is rather that he is unfairly shunned as a pariah by all political persuasions: left, right and centre.
To give but two examples, the US government has gone on claiming that the disclosures by WikiLeaks in 2010 put the lives of US agents in danger. Yet the US Army admitted in a court hearing in 2013 that a team of 120 counter-intelligence officers had failed to find a single person in Iraq and Afghanistan who had died because of the disclosures by WikiLeaks. As regards the rape allegations in Sweden, many feel that these alone should deny Assange any claim to be a martyr in the cause of press freedom. Yet the Swedish prosecutor only carried out a “preliminary investigation” and no charges were brought.
Assange is a classic victim of “cancel culture”, so demonised that he can no longer get a hearing, even when a government plots to kidnap or murder him.
In reality, Khashoggi and Assange were pursued relentlessly by the state because they fulfilled the primary duty of journalists: finding out important information that the government would like to keep secret and disclosing it to the public.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of War in the Age of Trump (Verso).
Chris Busby on the truth about black rain, radiation and cancer
the major cause of cancer in the low and medium dose groups (0-100mSv) in the Hiroshima lifespan study was not the immediate radiation from the detonation, the external gamma radiation and neutrons, but was in fact exposure to Uranium 234 particles from the bomb itself which rained out over the city in the black rain. Torrential black rain fell over the city and surrounding areas from 30 minutes to several hours after the atomic explosion.
Hiroshima Black Rain and the Test Veterans, https://www.labrats.international/post/hiroshima-black-rain-and-the-test-veterans Chris Busby, 13th Sept 2021
The absolute key study of the effects of radiation on cancer risk is the Lifespan Study (LSS) of the survivors of the Hiroshima bomb. It provides the evidence used by the Secretary of State for Defence (the MoD) to refuse pensions in all the UK Test Vet cases. Groups were assembled in 1952 some 7 years after the bomb and divided into high, medium and low doses on the basis of their distance from Ground Zero, with a No Dose group consisting of those who were outside the City and came in later. They were thrown out in 1973 as using them as a control gave too many cancers. This study continues today and the risks of different cancers after exposures are obtained from the excess risk of any type of cancer in each dose group. The risk factors for cancer which are currently the basis for all laws relating to exposure are based on this study. You have to get a Dose of about 1000mSv to get a 40% excess risk of cancer on the basis of the LSS results. Naturally, since no Test veteran got anywhere near this dose, all the pension applications (and appeals) are refused.
But on Sept 9th a scientific report I wrote was published in the peer-reviewed Journal Cancer Investigations. My paper The Hiroshima A-Bomb black rain and the lifespan study—a resolution of the Enigma shows that the LSS was dishonestly manipulated and that its results are totally unsafe. It spells the end of the radiation risk model and the beginning of justice for the test veterans. How?
What it shows, is that the major cause of cancer in the low and medium dose groups (0-100mSv) in the Hiroshima lifespan study was not the immediate radiation from the detonation, the external gamma radiation and neutrons, but was in fact exposure to Uranium 234 particles from the bomb itself which rained out over the city in the black rain. Torrential black rain fell over the city and surrounding areas from 30 minutes to several hours after the atomic explosion. Doses from the inhalation and ingestion of the Uranium particles in the black rain were very low. Since the Christmas Island vets were also exposed to rainout after the bombs, they are in the same category of victims as the Hiroshima low dose LSS victims (<5mSv). The Japanese government lost a court case in July on this issue, one which it will not appeal. Those living in the black rain areas who developed cancer will get compensation and attention in the same way as those who received an external dose from the detonation, even though the black rain victims’ dose was zero. The separation of external radiation from internal in terms of risk also shows that the types of cancers believed in the model to result from radiation must also be reassessed.
Of course, the MoD knew all this. It is the biggest secret of all, since it supports everything nuclear: bombs, energy, naval propulsion, Depleted Uranium, winnable nuclear war and raises the issue of enormous amounts of compensation. It had to be kept out. In 2013, during the run-up to the big test veteran appeal in the Royal Courts of Justice, I obtained from the late Major Alan Batchelor in Australia an official British document which was submitted to the Australian National Commission test vet hearings. It listed the quantity of Uranium isotopes in the Enriched Uranium used by the British in their bombs. I also had obtained a copy (when I was advising Rosenblatts in 2009 in the Foskett case) of a memo from 1953 on the dangers of Uranium 234 at the test sites. But these documents were suddenly made subject to the Official Secrets Act.
In 2013 after Rosenblatts had pulled out, Hogan Lovells removed all my 4 years of evidence and reports, 12 documents, and also removed me from the case without consulting any of the veterans they represented. In 2014 Judge Charles in the Upper Tier ruled that I could not act as an expert witness (I was biased) and anything I had written or argued previously had to be ignored. I neatly reverted from expert to representative and argued in 2016 before Judge Blake in the RCJ that the exposure of interest at Christmas Island was to Uranium from the material of the bomb. We flew in Professor Shoji Sawada all the way from Japan to make the same point. But Blake either ignored him or pretended to. In Blake’s final judgement he wrote:
14. . .it is submitted that prolonged exposure to radiation by inhalation or ingestion of radioactive particles deposited on the land or in the sea off CI is a real possibility. . .
15. In the appeals relating to Messrs Battersby and Smith Dr Busby, on their behalf, advances a more radical submission that the guidance issued by the International Commission on Radiological Protection in the UK and EU is flawed and underestimates the risk to health from internal exposure to radiation, and in particular radiation from Uranium.
What the new paper shows, is that we were exactly right and Blakes judgement exactly wrong; he listened to the experts brought in by the MoD, who did not (or they say they were told by MoD lawyer Adam Heppinstall) not to address our experts or their evidence; to keep the evidence out. The Scots Upper Tier has now reversed the Charles decision on my expertise, Judge DJ May QC calling it “Unlawful”. The British Tribunals, however, ignore the Scottish UT decision and persist in keeping my evidence out.
The Lifespan Study was dishonestly manipulated to provide support for the continued radioactive contamination of the environment by atmospheric bomb testing. The evidence is that this stitch-up has resulted in the biggest public health scandal in human history. The internal radiation effects on the children born at the peak period, 1959-63 caused genetic damage, infant deaths and the cancer epidemic which began in 1980. The effect is also in the children and grandchildren as new data clearly show. My study of the BNTVA also found a 10-fold congenital malformation rate in the children and 9-fold in the grandchildren. The Black Rain paper proves that the risk model that permitted this is wildly wrong. For those who are interested, read the paper: it is easy to understand. Then get angry and do something.
Meanwhile, I do what I can: I have two test vet cases ongoing: Trevor Butler and Christopher Donne, and also a Nuclear submarine sailor in Scotland who died from lymphoma. Here I am up against twisty Adam Heppinstall once more. He has begun, in true style, by removing all our evidence from the Bundle.
Minerals Council pushes for the nuclear industry, despite its failing record compared to renewables
Historic alliance reignites old debate over Australian nuclear energy, SMH , By Nick O’Malley, September 16, 2021 The head of the Minerals Council of Australia says the development of a nuclear submarine fleet provides the nation a great opportunity to build a domestic nuclear power capacity.
The council, which counts uranium miners among its members, has long supported the pro-nuclear case in a decades-old debate over the potential of a domestic nuclear energy industry for Australia, which the submarine announcement may reignite…….
Energy economist Bruce Mountain said he expected the submarine announcement would reignite the decades old debate over nuclear power in some quarters, but such a fleet would not change the Australian circumstances.
Wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of energy and nuclear remains by far the most expensive, he said.“Every single piece of key tech [in the mooted submarine program] would be imported, it is not the same as having an indigenous nuclear power industry,” he said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability, and it would continue to meet all nuclear non-proliferation obligations……..
According to the World Nuclear Status Report, an analysis of the global industry published annually by the Paris-based energy analyst Mycle Schneider, the world’s fleet of nuclear reactors provides about 10 per cent of electricity, but is ageing and shrinking…….
Last year Mr Schneider told the Herald and The Age that though nuclear energy was emission-free, money spent on nuclear power was a drain on clean energy development as it misdirected funds that might have been spent on faster and cheaper clean energy projects. https://www.smh.com.au/national/historic-alliance-reignites-old-debate-over-australian-nuclear-energy-20210916-p58sc8.html
Repurposed Melbourne tip to host $180m solar and big battery project — RenewEconomy
A former landfill site in Melbourne’s south-east to host a solar farm and big battery, after the project won planning clearance from VCAT. The post Repurposed Melbourne tip to host $180m solar and big battery project appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Repurposed Melbourne tip to host $180m solar and big battery project — RenewEconomy
Gina Rinehart peddles climate denial to students in bizarre video rant — RenewEconomy
Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, uses message to school students to peddle long-discredited claims that global warming is not real. The post Gina Rinehart peddles climate denial to students in bizarre video rant appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Gina Rinehart peddles climate denial to students in bizarre video rant — RenewEconomy
Australian renewables surge to 35.4 pct market share in September — RenewEconomy
Renewables set new record share of 35.4 per cent in September, easily beating the previous benchmark as the energy transition continues apace. The post Australian renewables surge to 35.4 pct market share in September appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Australian renewables surge to 35.4 pct market share in September — RenewEconomy
Rooftop solar PV smashes generation record on main grid — RenewEconomy
Rooftop solar sets new record output on Australia’s electricity grid, easily beating the previous record as household installations continue to surge. The post Rooftop solar PV smashes generation record on main grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Rooftop solar PV smashes generation record on main grid — RenewEconomy
Kean to retain energy for time being, as solar farm critic elected Nationals boss — RenewEconomy
Matt Kean will manage Treasury alongside his existing portfolios, for the time being, but a ministerial shake-up is still in the works. The post Kean to retain energy for time being, as solar farm critic elected Nationals boss appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Kean to retain energy for time being, as solar farm critic elected Nationals boss — RenewEconomy
Australian researchers unlock key to lower cost and longer lasting solar cells — RenewEconomy
Researchers at the University of Queensland say nanomaterials could be key to lower cost and easy to manufacture next generation perovskite solar cells. The post Australian researchers unlock key to lower cost and longer lasting solar cells appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Australian researchers unlock key to lower cost and longer lasting solar cells — RenewEconomy
Russia’s perilous job in raising sunken nuclear submarines
In both cases, experts fear that a nuclear chain reaction could occur should water leak into the submarines’ reactor compartments. Russian scientists have kept a close eye on the K-159, launching regular expeditions to monitor for potential radiation leaks. According to their data, should the submarine depressurize, radionuclides could spread over hundreds of kilometers, heavily impacting the local fishing industry.
Yet the subs represent just a fraction of the radiation hazards that the Soviet Navy dumped at sea. Between 1959 and 1992, the Soviets carried out 80 missions to sink radioactive debris in Arctic water. In total, some 18,000 objects considered to be radioactive waste were plunged to Arctic depths. Aside from the K-159 and the K-27, the Soviet Navy scuttled reactor compartments, solid radioactive waste, a number of irradiated vessels, as well as old metal structures and radioactive equipment.
Rosatom official puts deadline on raising old nuclear submarines https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2021-10-rosatom-official-puts-deadline-on-raising-old-nuclear-submarines
An official with Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, has announced a deadline for raising two Soviet-era nuclear submarines that have been lying for decades at the bottom of seas in the Arctic over fears their reactors could contaminate fertile international fishing grounds. October 6, 2021 by Charles Digges
An official with Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, has announced a deadline for raising two Soviet-era nuclear submarines that have been lying for decades at the bottom of seas in the Arctic over fears their reactors could contaminate fertile international fishing grounds.
As indicated in the strategy for the development of the Arctic, 2030, not earlier,” Anatoly Grigoriev, head of Rosatom’s international technical assistance project, told Interfax late last month.
The announcement confirms what unnamed officials had earlier told Russian state media more than a year ago. Since then, Bellona has urged Russia, during its two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council, to pursue retrieving the submarines to avoid the contamination risk their reactors, and the spent nuclear fuel they contain, pose to the ocean environment.
Grigoriev’s remarks concerned the K-27 and K-159, both of which went down still loaded with their uranium fuel. Both submarines, say experts, are in a precarious state. But the submarines sank under different circumstances.
Continue reading5 reasons why Morrison government needs a net-zero target, not just a flimsy plan — RenewEconomy
If the Morrison government does want to show it takes climate policy seriously, it must set a credible 2030 target. The post 5 reasons why Morrison government needs a net-zero target, not just a flimsy plan appeared first on RenewEconomy.
5 reasons why Morrison government needs a net-zero target, not just a flimsy plan — RenewEconomy
The Wretched Atom book release — Jacob Darwin Hamblin
I am pleased to announce that my book, The Wretched Atom, was published this summer by Oxford University Press. I will post review snippets and other relevant information on this site. Head over to Amazon, Goodreads, or the OUP site to see more about the book. Here is a description: A groundbreaking narrative of how […]
The Wretched Atom book release — Jacob Darwin Hamblin
Australia’s biggest zinc refinery will be 100 per cent renewable by 2025 — RenewEconomy
Queensland-based zinc refiner Sun Metals is on track to be 100% renewable powered by 2025 with mix of solar, wind and green hydrogen. The post Australia’s biggest zinc refinery will be 100 per cent renewable by 2025 appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Australia’s biggest zinc refinery will be 100 per cent renewable by 2025 — RenewEconomy
October 6 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “Jet Stream Changes Could Amplify Weather Extremes By 2060s” • Findings of research funded by the US National Science Foundation suggest that the position of the jet stream could migrate outside of the range of natural variability by as early as the year 2060 under unabated greenhouse gas emissions, with potentially […]
October 6 Energy News — geoharvey
Nuclear Radiation – Incompatible with Life
Eiichiro Ochiai – from Nuclear Issues in the 21st Century – Invisible Radiation Effects on Life,As argued in this whole book, the basic reason for “NO NPP on the Earth” is “Radiation is Not Compatible with Life”. What this means is that life cannot defend itself against the damaging effects of radiation. This has been true throughout the whole history of life on earth, though such effect by the naturally occurring radiation is minimal, and cannot be identified as such unless careful and systematic studies are conducted. This issue is discussed in chapter 11.
The radiation effects on human health have increased since the human started to add radioactive materials artificially to the environment. This is a fact, and needs to be recognized by the entire human race,
Very Small Quantity of Radioactive Nuclides can be Lethal
It was argued in section xxx why external exposure of such a small energy (10 Gy) is lethal. This energy is to raise the body temperature by only 0.0024 degrees. The following is an example of lethal internal radiation caused by a much smaller radiation exposure.
One of the Bandazhevsky investigations showed that the Cs-137 Bq value in the heart was 200 Bq/kg on average in those died from heart failure after Chernobyl accident [Fig. 8.x on original]. This radioactivity is caused by 6 x 10-11 g of Cs-137. If the body (heart) was exposed to this radiation activity for a year, the exposure dose would have been about 1 mGy/kg. In terms of ICRP and other such organizations’ estimate, this low level exposure should have no significant health effect. The fact is that it was lethal. This radiation source emitted 6.3 x 109 radioactive particles. Assuming 1 MeV per particle, the exposure would have destroyed about 1 x 1014 molecules in the heart cells. Some critically important molecules for heart activity could have been destroyed; hence heart failure and death.
This is to illustrate how small quantities of radionuclides can be lethal. If this argument is reasonable, even smaller quantities can be supposed to be able to cause serious diseases, including cancers.
he operation of NPP inevitably produces a large amount of radioactive material. Typically 3-4 kg of U-235 will be burned per day at a NPP, so that a NPP burns about 1 tons of U-235 per year. The basic problem is to dispose safely the radioactive nuclides.
The wastes we produce, whether biological or industrial, can be dealt with. The biological wastes can be thrown into “toilet”, after which they are processed chemically, biologically, otherwise and eventually returned in harmless forms back to the environment. They can be used as manure, as well. Or animals’ wastes are collected and dried, and then used as fuel without any harm to people in certain regions. These ways of dealing with the wastes are possible because they are chemicals. Of course the problems are not simply theoretical matters, and are big problems in reality, as exemplified by the “plastic wastes”.
NPP have no toilet for its radioactive wastes; the spent fuel rods are typically stored in cooling pools. The radioactive wastes produce both heat and radiation through decaying processes. When the fuel rods become sufficiently cool after certain period of time (years), they would be transferred into sturdy containers being cooled by air, and no further treatment. Well they are supposed to be deposited in deep caves where they would be left in forever. The basic problem with radionuclides is that we, chemical means, cannot change them to the non-radioactive. Therefore, they are left radioactive; some of them last million years (see Fig. 24.1). How safely they are stored in such places (deep cave, etc) is a good question. Geological activities may damage the containers or radioactivity may be enough to damage the containers for such a long period (may feel forever for human race).
1 This month
17 October, Free Public Talk on Nuclear Issues in South Australia
David Noonan will speak on public interest concerns over the new Roxby Downs Indenture Act 2026 on BHP copper-uranium mining and ore processing in SA, and on how AUKUS may face SA with a High-Level nuclear waste agenda.
Dr Jim Green will discuss international developments in the field of nuclear power including ‘small modular reactors’ and Generation 4 ‘advanced’ nuclear reactor concepts.
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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