Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Silas Vitalia]

Well, that's why I said - surreal -

I thought the scuttlebut was that the embassy was threatened with this in some failed strong-arm tactic.

[Louella Dougans]

the radio news stated the Ecuadorian president and Assange are "good friends", since the president appeared on Assange's Russia Today tv show or something. Assange's mother was invited to Ecuador for an "official visit", meeting top officials and such.
The Ecuadorian president is keen to say "look at us, being pro-democracy" to silence some of their more vocal opponents. The Ecuador foreign minister who said they're granting asylum is a political appointment. The Ecuador career diplomats are not happy with this situation.

Assange is being used by the Ecuadorian president as a political football. The rights and wrongs of whatever Assange is tangled up in don't matter.

[Jev North]

Well, an embassy being threatened with revocation of its status over this sort of thing is surreal enough, to be honest.. people didn't even pull that sort of stuff at the height of the Cold War, let alone over what is ostensibly a minor criminal case.

[Seriphyn]

I thought this was about the UK extraditing him to Sweden to face simple questioning about sexual offenses?

[/facetious]

[orange]

What kind of music does Assange dislike most?  How about the Ecuadorian ambassador?  Operation Nifty Package

[Silas Vitalia]

Well, an embassy being threatened with revocation of its status over this sort of thing is surreal enough, to be honest.. people didn't even pull that sort of stuff at the height of the Cold War, let alone over what is ostensibly a minor criminal case.

USSR had about 1,000 ICBM's pointed at everyone. Ecuador doesn't have anyone punching for them.

[Seriphyn]

A comment left on the BBC article...

The most important fact is that these so-called "charges" were dropped by the Swedish authorities for lack of cause during their investigation to the girl's stories. Normally, for any one of us, that would be that. But SOMEONE pressured Sweden into re-opening the charges...anyone want to guess who? And anyone want to guess why the Swedes will not guarantee his extradition to the US?

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

God help the people of London if Assange's musical tastes are "Everything but Country and Rap".

Then again, Buck 65 is a pretty cool amalgamation of both of those.  Hm.

[Seriphyn]

Oh, important to check this out IMO.

Some gems...

- Spying on the UN secretary-general and other UN officials
- U.S. Ambassador to France recommending that "we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU"
- Calling European human rights standards "an irritant", and that their champion, the Council of Europe, "is an organisation with an inferiority complex and, simultaneously, an overambitious agenda"

UK doesn't escape either. Apparently involved in training some Bangladeshi "government death squad", in turn responsible for many extrajudicial killings.

Meanwhile, GOP/Fox folk call him a "traitor" (he's not even American?) and he should be assassinated, or tried for treason. In the UK at least, to break any law regarding classified information requires you to actually sign a document that states you will be prosecuted if you do.

Yeah, this is such a circus right now.

[Casiella]

Well, they're not wrong about the European Council.

[Lyn Farel]

Well, they're not wrong about the European Council.

...

[Ciarente]

A comment left on the BBC article...

The most important fact is that these so-called "charges" were dropped by the Swedish authorities for lack of cause during their investigation to the girl's stories. Normally, for any one of us, that would be that. But SOMEONE pressured Sweden into re-opening the charges...anyone want to guess who? And anyone want to guess why the Swedes will not guarantee his extradition to the US?

That 'someone' was the attorney retained by the two women after the prosecutor closed part, but not all, of the investigation into the allegations.

[Jev North]

One thing I don't get (actual honest question) is why, if the goal of the whole circus is indeed for Assange to be extradited to the US, this can't be done from Britain.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

Mostly because he hasn't DONE anything in GB other than to violate the house arrest order they put on him so that he could be brought back to Sweden.  To send him straight to the US from GB would be to say "YOU!  You commited a crime in neither my country or the country we are sending you to, but we are sending you there anyways... for... reasons?"

[Jev North]

But if he's to be extradited to the U.S. at all, at some point he'll have to be charged with something concrete in the U.S. - and I don't see a down side to the Shady American Puppet Masters to doing so now. Then simply demanding his extradition from Britain, go straight to some kind of silly treason charge, do not pass GO, and to hell with risking a messy trial and/or extradition procedure in Sweden.