EU Launches ‘Legal Proceedings’ Over UK ‘Intermarket’ Bill As Brexit Talks Enter Final Round Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 06:39
Political theater has long been a defining feature of the negotiations between the UK and EU, whether over the initial withdrawal treaty that created a year-long transition period allowing the two sides time to negotiate a comprehensive UK-EU trade agreement. Given that political considerations will always be paramount for both London and Brussels, the two sides must pull off a difficult balancing act if an agreement is to be reached: They must both appear to be taking a hard line, and each side must be able to sell the narrative that they extracted concessions from the other.
This is why the talks under former PM Theresa May were often so infuriating, with neither side giving an inch until the British people in effect approved Brexit for a second time when they sent the Tories back to the Commons with a reinvigorated majority, under the leadership of PM Boris Johnson.
Well, the political brinksmanship between the two belligerents entered a new phase on Thursday when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen initiated legal action against the UK over the Intermarket Bill, just as Brussels promised.
To express its objections to the Intermarket Bill, the EU is sending a “letter of formal notice” to London notifying BoJo’s government that it’s on the verge of violating an international treaty, and that Brussels would activate the dispute-resolution mechanism outlined in the withdrawal agreement. Von der Leyen offered a terse statement on the matter Thursday morning. Here’s the transcript:
Good morning,
As you know, we had invited our British friends to remove the problematic parts of their draft Internal Market Bill by the end of September.
This draft Bill is – by its very nature – a breach of the obligation of good faith
laid down in the Withdrawal Agreement (Article 5).
Moreover, if adopted as is, it will be in full contradiction to the Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland.
The deadline lapsed yesterday.
The problematic provisions have not been removed.
Therefore, this morning, the Commission has decided to send a letter of formal notice to the UK government.
This is the first step in an infringement procedure.
The letter invites the UK government to send its observations within a month.
The Commission will continue to work hard towards a full and timely implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement.
We stand by our commitments.
And here’s the video.
EU Commission has begun legal action against the UK over the Internal Market Bill, President Ursula von der Leyen confirms
Of course, the dispute resolution mechanism is a slow process, and with trade talks entering their ninth and final round this week, it’s clear BoJo is hoping to run out the clock to try and exert maximum pressure on the EU as his government seeks concessions on fisheries, and other matters. The government in London responded to the letter, saying it would respond in “due course”.
Tellingly, the spat over the Intermarket bill, which passed its final reading with zero ‘no’ votes from Tory MPs (even as former PM May denounced the measure as a violation of international law that undermined international trust in the UK) has not stopped negotiations, which are set to conclude on Friday. A crucial UK-EU summit is scheduled for mid-October, during which a trade deal is hoped to be finalized.
Oh no, an infringement procedure, now THAT is definitely going to change things and make the Gove-Cummings gov’t shake in their boots MUAHAHAHA
And what is that I hear about the EU stopping their trade negotiations with us? Oh, yeah, crickets. https://t.co/9DwVleGOS5
But if we’ve learned anything from the last three years of talks, it’s that the “final” summit is never really the end, as talks will inevitably burn down to the wire.
Bloomberg explains how the dispute-resolution mechanisms in the withdrawal treaty are supposed to work: The UK has agreed that for treaty obligations breached before the end of the transition period, it is still subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice for another four years. But the UK could simply ignore any adverse rulings or financial penalties, though that would be a clear treaty violation. Additionally, the Withdrawal Agreement provides for a five-member arbitration panel to rule on matters of non-compliance, and if the UK refuses to pay up, Brussels can unilaterally suspend the withdrawal agreement, setting the “hard Brexit” in motion.
Here’s a more comprehensive explanation from a professor of EU law:
Commission: letter of formal notice sent to UK re the internal market bill and the withdrawal agreement. Invites the UK to reply within a month.
The Commission is using the infringement procedure, which applies if Member States allegedly breach EU law. It applies to UK too for now, due to Art 131 of the withdrawal agreement, which gives CJEU its usual jurisdiction during the transition period, including over the agreement
Starting the infringement process doesn’t establish by itself that UK has broken the law. It contains several pre-litigation phases. After the one month expires, the next phase is a reasoned opinion to the UK. Usually two months to reply to that, but the Commission can shorten.
After that deadline expires, Commission can go to CJEU and ask for a ruling on the point. The legal position is assessed as of the deadline to reply to the reasoned opinion. Commission can ask for interim measures – ie an order for UK to not pass/suspend parts of the law.
The Commission can also ask the CJEU to fast track its case, so to decide in a few months rather than the usual 12-18 months. Art 86 of the withdrawal agreement says that the case will not ‘time out’ due to the end of the transition period.
*IF* the Court rules in the Commission’s favour it’s binding on the UK at international level. But the bill, if passed, purports to block any impact of CJEU rulings at domestic level. Someone might try to litigate in UK courts on that.
If the UK ignores the Court’s ruling the usual process is to go back to the CJEU and ask it to impose fines. But it’s not clear if the withdrawal agreement allows for this route post-transition period. Instead Commission could use arbitration under the withdrawal agreement.
If an arbitration ruling goes against the UK, and is ignored by the end of the period to comply with it, then fines or suspension of part of the agreement (not the citizens’ rights part) could result.
But ultimately this may be political theatre on the EU side, to match the UK. There are lots of ‘off ramps’ in an infringement proceeding – most of these cases are settled before they ever reach the CJEU. Possible for case to be dropped if the bill is amended as part of a deal.
There might also be a political impact, ie no trade talks (but note the EU has not left the talks) or no ratification, or no unilateral measures such as on data protection or financial equivalence.
nb if Brexit bros say this must go to an international court – Art 168 of the withdrawal agreement says that the dispute settlement rules in the agreement are exclusive, ie no other process can be used.
As traders brace for the flurry of Brexit headlines, the pound sunk Thursday morning, falling 0.7% against the dollar and pushing the greenback higher to the chagrin of US equity bulls.
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We may be coming out of the first pandemic lockdown and business does, broadly, appear to be picking up; however, some sections of manufacturing, including U.K. car manufacturing, are still suffering badly.
U.K. car industry, supply chain face challenges
An article in the Financial Times starkly outlines the continued pain the U.K. car industry is experiencing and, by extension its extended supply chain.
U.K. car manufacturing fell 44% last month compared with a year earlier. Domestic orders and exports remain severely depressed. Last month’s performance marked the sector’s second-worst since car plants restarted after lockdown.
The Financial Times went on to advise that just 51,039 cars rolled off British production lines. The total fell from 92,153 in August 2019. Meanwhile, August output for U.K. buyers fell 58% to just 7,795 vehicles. The number of cars made for export fell 41% to 73,443 cars.
To be fair, several plants working during summer 2019 boosted August 2019 performance. Summer output followed a three-week closedown in the spring to prepare for the expected Brexit in 2019, which in the end did not transpire.
So, looking at the first half of each year gives a fairer comparison. Yet, even in that view, the decline remains dramatic.
Between January and August, the U.K. produced 40.2% fewer cars than in the same months a year earlier. The period included several weeks of complete stoppages during the first lockdown in March and April.
Year-to-date production is now down by 348,821 units worth more than £9.5 billion to U.K. carmakers, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Furthermore, projections suggest U.K. car manufacturers are now on track to produce just below 885,000 cars this year – down 34% on 2019.
Job losses in the sector
The SMMT reported at least 13,500 jobs have been cut across the U.K. automotive sector this year. The body warned up to one in six positions may be at risk in the future.
Manufacturers are hoping the government’s latest job retention scheme will help employers keep skilled workers. Skilled workers will be needed if, or when, demand comes back, but many of them are currently facing redundancy.
Rising coronavirus cases, tightening restrictions, and Brexit
Yet with virus cases increasing in the U.K. and containment measures ramping up, the SMMT is if anything more pessimistic now than it was in the early summer.
The SMMT says business restrictions look set to make the industry’s attempts to restart even more challenging, with the prospect of Britain’s exit from the European Union also now just 100 days away.
The industry is not in a good state to handle the country’s imminent exit from Europe on Jan. 1. In addition, the automotive industry has been at the forefront of demanding a free trade deal between the U.K. and the E.U., saying last week that “no deal” would cost the pan-European automotive industry some £100 billion in lost trade over the next five years.
Europe, though, is proving very unwilling to retain the open-door, free-trade environment for electric vehicles – which it sees as the future – as it currently does for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
The future of U.K.-E.U. auto trade
The Financial Times recently reported E.U. diplomats said the European Commission is wary of agreeing to U.K. car manufacturers being allowed to source a large number of components from other countries while still exporting electric vehicles tariff-free to the E.U.
Four out of five cars made in the U.K. are exported. Of those exports, more than half goes to the E.U. British car plants owned by Nissan, Toyota and PSA are all reliant on European sales for more than half of their business.
Last year, Nissan sold more than 30,000 U.K.-built Leaf electric cars to Europe. Toyota exported close to 120,000 hybrid models across the channel. Europe is keen to keep the U.K. as a market for components and finished vehicles but not so keen on allowing these plants to sell into the E.U. tariff-free after Brexit.
Coming on top of already challenging times this year, some foreign owners of U.K. car plants may begin to wonder whether continuing to invest in the U.K. is as desirable as it once was.
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The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and WDRB News looked at 231 warrants issued by King County judges since January 2019 and found that the judge’s signature was illegible on 72 percent of them, making it impossible to know who signed them. Jefferson Circuit Court Chief Judge Angela McCormick Bisig said she doesn’t believe the readability of judge’s signatures is a problem. “I don’t see anything hidden or lacking in transparency,” she said. “I don’t believe a judge is going to sign a search warrant and no one will know that it’s them.” When presented with several signatures from warrants, Bisig could not identify which judges they belonged to.
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The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and WDRB News looked at 231 warrants issued by King County judges since January 2019 and found that the judge’s signature was illegible on 72 percent of them, making it impossible to know who signed them. Jefferson Circuit Court Chief Judge Angela McCormick Bisig said she doesn’t believe the readability of judge’s signatures is a problem. “I don’t see anything hidden or lacking in transparency,” she said. “I don’t believe a judge is going to sign a search warrant and no one will know that it’s them.” When presented with several signatures from warrants, Bisig could not identify which judges they belonged to.
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Prison Official Tells Hearing Assange To End Up At Notorious Extreme Isolation ADX Supermax Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 04:15
During WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing this week in London, a former warden at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York testified on behalf of the defense that it’s almost certain that should the US gain custody of Assange, he’ll be transferred to the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
Describing that during his pre-trial detention in the US he would be put in isolation under ‘Special Administrative Measures’ (SAMS) as it is a national security case, the prison official Maureen Baird underscored that the “only place” he could go is the notorious Supermax facility, which is also known as ADX.
ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado
The testimony took up the continuing defense theme of Assange’s deteriorating health inside the high secure and coronavirus prone Belmarsh Prison.
When asked under what scenario Assange might end up in a less extreme prison and isolation environment, Baird described Assange would have to be “almost dying”.
“From my experience of close to three decades of working in federal prisons, I would agree that long-term isolation can have serious negative effects on an inmate’s mental health,” Baird said.
The Supermax, ultra high secure prison has been dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”
ADX Supermax, via Federal Bureau of Prisons
Currently the ADX facility holds some of America’s most notorious criminals, traitors, and terrorists. For example, one of the 9/11 terror masterminds – Zacarias Moussaoui is being held, and other famous terrorists like the “Shoe Bomber,” along with Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Also serving out a life sentence there is former FBI agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States, Robert Hanssen, whose life was chronicled in the Hollywood film Breach.
By all accounts ADX is set up for extreme, 24/7 isolation of inmates.
Via The Washington Times
Last week a psychiatrist also testified to Assange’s depressed and suicidal state, given the extreme pressures and conditions, likely to be amplified if the US succeeds in extraditing him.
The psychiatrist, Professor Michael Kopelman, had warned that, “The risk of suicide arises out of clinical factors…but it is the imminence of extradition and or an actual extradition that would trigger the attempt, in my opinion.”
Outdoor recreation cages at ADX:
If Assange is transferred and faces a US court, he’s up against at least 175 years in prison for exposing US war crimes, but which Washington sees as espionage and leaking of state secrets.
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It’s the hidden epidemic which no one wants to talk about…
As a result of the COVID-19 shutdown ordered by governments, adolescents and children are being physically abused in record numbers, with incidences involving children in England and Wales at their highest levels since 2014, according to a recent report by the NSPCC.
Even the prestigious Lancet medical journal is finally admitting that the government’s own lockdown measures have driven increases in mortality resulting – due to movement restrictions imposed during the supposed ‘pandemic.’
As a result of the government’s panic-driven policies and obsession with the ‘R number’, reports of depression, suicides, and child abuse have also skyrocketed in the UK.
The situation has gotten so bad now that even mainstream media outlets like the BBC – are being forced to report on the scale of the social degradation caused by the government’s ill-advised lockdown policies.
A significant drop in the number of child sexual abuse cases reported to police during lockdown masks the true extent of what’s happened to vulnerable children, police chiefs say.
National Police Chiefs Council data shows reports in England and Wales fell by 25% between April and August, compared with the same period in 2019.
But officers told BBC Newsnight this does not represent the true picture.
And senior officers are warning child protection referrals will now rise.
Chief Constable Simon Bailey said he suspected the 25% fall was “a false and misleading picture” of what children may have experienced during those months.
“Those children that would have been exposed to those adverse experiences during lockdown, it is only going to emerge when they spend time within the safe environment of a school, in contact with their teachers, who are very, very good and adept at identifying those signs – the indicators that something is not right within that child’s life,” he said.
Supt Chris Truscott, of South Wales Police, agreed there were limited opportunities during lockdown for vulnerable children to disclose harmful behaviour, which would start to come to light only now schools were back.
He too expected an increase in referrals officers would have had no way of identifying during lockdown.
“If they were vulnerable before the pandemic, then the likelihood is that vulnerability will have increased over that period of time,” Supt Truscott said…
UK Paramedic Team Tests Jet Pack For Rescues Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 02:45
A British jet suit company is revolutionizing how rescuers respond to emergencies in steep, rocky terrain regions. Instead of paramedics scaling the side of a hill, or mountain, on foot, which could take a while, and in an emergency, every minute counts, a “flying” medic could take just a few minutes, reported BBC News.
Gravity Industries, the company behind the flying suit powered by several miniature jet engines, published a video Tuesday of a recent test of its suit in action in Britain’s mountainous northern lake district.
Gravity teamed up with a local paramedic team, Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS), to conduct a simulation emergency where a young girl had fallen from the hillside and sustained a leg injury. The flying medic could scale the side of the hill at 32 mph, arriving at the incident scene in just under 90 seconds; traveling on foot would have taken at least 30 minutes or more.
WATCH: U.K.-based company, Gravity Industries, has been working with paramedics in the rural Lake District to test their jet suit’s capabilities in emergency situations. pic.twitter.com/AvOHsUgr5C
Andy Mawson, director of operations at GNAAS, said the test of the flying suit via a first responder was “awesome” to see.
Mawson said: “There are dozens of patients every month within the complex but relatively small geographical footprint of the Lakes.”
“We could see the need. What we didn’t know for sure is how this would work in practice. Well, we’ve seen it now, and it is, quite honestly, awesome,” he said.
Mawson said the simulation is a game-changer for first responders to deliver timely critical care services.
“The biggest advantage is its speed,” he said. “If the idea takes off, the flying paramedic will be armed with a medical kit.”
Mawson said the speed of the rescue “could mean the difference between life and death.”
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Following the Julian Assange case as it has progressed through its various stages, from the original Swedish allegations right up to and including the extradition hearing which is currently underway in the Central Criminal Court in London, has been a troubling and very strange experience.
The U.S. government has failed to present a coherent case.
Conscious that the British authorities should in theory refuse to extradite Assange if the case against him were shown to be politically motivated and/or related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist, the U.S. government has struggled to present a case against Assange which is not too obviously politically motivated or related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist.
This explains the strange succession of one original and two superseding indictments.
The U.S. government’s first indictment was based on what was a supposedly simple allegation of computer interference, supposedly coordinated in some sort of conspiracy between Assange and Chelsea Manning.
This was obviously done in an attempt to dispel the idea that the request for Assange’s extradition was politically motivated or was related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist.
However lawyers in the United States had no difficulty pointing out the “inchoate facts” of the alleged conspiracy between Assange and Manning, whilst both lawyers and journalists in the United States and elsewhere pointed out that the facts in the indictment in fact bore all the hallmarks of action by a journalist to protect a source.
The result was that the U.S. government replaced its indictment with a first superseding indictment, which this time was founded largely on the 1917 Espionage Act, and was therefore closer to the real reasons why the case against Assange was being brought.
However, that made the case look altogether too obviously politically motivated, so it has in turn been replaced by a second superseding indictment, presented to the court and the defence team virtually on the eve of the trial, which has sought to veer back towards strictly criminal allegations, this time of involvement in computer hacking.
More Problems for Another Indictment
The allegations in the second superseding indictment have however faced major difficulties, in that they do not seem to concern the United States and may not even be actual crimes. Also they rely heavily on the evidence of a known fraudster, whose “evidence” is inherently unreliable.
The U.S. government has failed to make clear whether the additional allegations in the second superseding indictment are intended to constitute a separate standalone case. Initially they appeared to deny that they did; then they hinted that they might do; now however they seem to be acting as if they don’t.
As if that were not confusing enough, the U.S. government and its British lawyers have floated confusing and contradictory theories about whether or not the British authorities can extradite Assange even if the case against him is politically motivated, and even if it is related to his journalistic activities.
Initially they seemed to be arguing that — contrary to all British precedent and the actual text of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Britain — Britain can in fact extradite Assange to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge, because the enabling Act which the British Parliament passed, which made the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Britain a part of British law, is silent on whether or not individuals can be extradited to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge.
This argument of course came close to conceding that the case against Assange is politically motivated after all.
Central Criminal Court in London, commonly known as Old Bailey, 2004. (Nevilley, Wikimedia Commons)
This threadbare argument, at least for the moment, seems to have been abandoned. At least nothing has been heard of it throughout the current hearing. Instead the U.S. government and its British lawyers have argued, in the face of the incredulity of a string of expert and factual witnesses, that the case is not politically motivated after all.
The same inconsistencies have beset the U.S. government’s arguments as to whether or not Assange is being charged under the Espionage Act for activities related to his work as a journalist.
Initially the U.S. government’s position was that he was not. This was based on some theory — never satisfactorily explained or articulated — that Assange in some way is not a journalist, even though he is charged with doing things that journalists do.
Faced by a barrage of expert witnesses who pointed out that the charges brought against Assange under the Espionage Act do in fact relate to work journalists do, the U.S. government midway through the hearing reversed course.
Now it says that the charges against Assange not only do relate to his work as a journalist, but that they can be brought against any journalist who does the things Assange is being charged with having done. The U.S. government has even argued that The New York Times would have been successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing the Pentagon Papers, because that was an action essentially identical to the ones for which Assange is being charged.
The implications for journalists of this astonishing reversal are truly shocking. It is staggering that in the media it has attracted no attention.
Trouble with Witnesses
The U.S. government has shown the same lack of coherence in its response to the defence’s impressive lineup of expert witnesses.
The conventional way of responding to an expert is to call another expert to state a contrary view. On the critical issues of U.S. law, especially the protections provided to journalists by the First Amendment to the Constitution, as well as on the politics in the U.S. behind the Assange prosecution, the U.S. government has however done no such thing. Presumably it has found it difficult or impossible to find experts who can be relied upon credibly to state a contrary view.
Instead, armed only with affidavits from U.S. Justice Department officials, who are of course not impartial experts at all, but who are part of the U.S. government’s legal team, the U.S. government’s British lawyers have been left to argue that the defence’s experts are not really experts at all — an impossible argument to make convincingly in my opinion — and to debate with the experts points of U.S. politics and U.S. law — including difficult points of U.S. constitutional and case law — about which the experts are by definition far more knowledgeable than the British lawyers.
The result, inevitably, has been a series of humiliations, as the lawyers have been repeatedly caught out by the experts making basic errors of fact and interpretation about the points which they have sought to argue.
Unsurprisingly, the lawyers have attempted to make up for this by trying to intimidate and denigrate the experts, in a way that has only highlighted their own lack of expertise in the relevant areas by comparison with that of the experts.
Trevor Timm, a defence witness and press-freedom advocate, in 2014. (YouTube)
Given the collapse into incoherence of the U.S. government’s case, it is unsurprising that the U.S. government’s British lawyers are now reportedly trying to persuade the Judge against hearing closing arguments.
Given the constant shifts and reversals in the U.S. government’s position, preparing and presenting a closing argument to the court which would be internally consistent and credible must be fast becoming a nightmare. If closing arguments do take place, as I still expect, it will be interesting to see which of the many conflicting arguments and theories they have made the U.S. government’s lawyers finally run with.
On its face the U.S. government’s case ought to be close to collapse. There was even a point in the hearing where one of the U.S. government’s British lawyers apparently admitted to the judge that the reason for the second superseding indictment was that the first superseding indictment was “failing.”
If so, then given that the charges being prosecuted against Assange are still basically those set out in the first superseding indictment, the case against Assange ought to be dismissed, and the U.S. government’s request for his extradition ought to be refused.
The Underlying Truth
It remains to be seen whether that is what actually happens. However, that brings me to the single most important fact, and the underlying truth, about this extraordinary case.
It is very easy when following the intricacies of such a complex legal process to lose sight of what this case is really about.
Ultimately the U.S. government is not pursuing Julian Assange because he helped Chelsea Manning take certain steps with a computer to conceal her identity, or because he had some historic contacts with hackers, or because he became involved in some activities in Iceland, which caused him to fall foul of a fraudster (and FBI informant).
Nor is it because Assange received and published classified material. In the U.S. the receipt and publication by the news media of classified material has grown to almost industrial levels.
It is because Assange, to a greater extent than any other journalist since the end of the war in Vietnam, has exposed the darkest and most terrible secrets of the U.S. government.
Outside the court where his son endures what the judge now admits is a political trial, Julian #Assange‘s father, John Shipton, describes the human carnage caused by America and utters an unforgettable truth: “Julian didn’t do anything, they did.” https://t.co/O4AbPg4IRU
The case against Assange has its origin in the calamitous “War on Terror” launched by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
That “war” provided the cover for a series of violent military aggressions, primarily in the Middle East, by the U.S. and its closest allies, first and foremost Britain but also including other countries such as Saudi Arabia and France.
The result has been a series of wars in a succession of Middle East countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen— fought by the U.S. and its allies and proxies, which have caused the devastation of whole societies, and the death and dispersal of millions.
In the process the U.S. has become drawn increasingly into practices which it once condemned, or at least said it condemned. These include the “extrajudicial killing” (i.e. murder) of people — who have included children and U.S. citizens — by drone strikes, a practice which has now become routine; the kidnapping of individuals and their detention without trial in places like Guantanamo, a practice which despite unconvincing protestations that “extraordinary rendition” no longer happens almost certainly continues; and the practice of torture, at one time referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which almost certainly still continues, and indeed appears to have become normalized.
All of this activity straightforwardly violates international (and domestic U.S.) law, including war crimes law and human rights law, and does so moreover in fundamental ways.
It also requires, in order to implement the policies that result in these unlawful acts, in the creation of a vast and ultimately unaccountable national security apparatus of a sort that is ultimately incompatible with a democratic society. Inevitably its activities, which have become routinely unlawful, are becoming unlawful within the territory of the United States, as well as outside it.
This manifests itself in all sorts of ways, for example through the vast, indiscriminate and illegal bulk-surveillance program exposed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, and by the systemic FISA surveillance abuse exposed over the course of the Russiagate “scandal.”
The extent to which the very existence of the national security apparatus, required to implement various U.S. illegal activities and to achieve its foreign policy goals, has become incompatible with a democratic society, is shown by one of the most alarming of recent developments, both in Britain and in the United States.
This is the growing complicity of much of the media in concealing its illegal activities. Obviously without that complicity these activities would be impossible, as would the serial violations of international law, including war crimes law and human rights, which the United States and some of its allies now routinely engage in.
US post-war aggressive history of coups and invasions for geo-strategic & economic interests has been covered up by the establishment media, explained as ‘spreading democracy’, and Julian Assange, almost single-handedly, lifted that cover. Hence he is in the dock.
All this explains the extreme reaction to Julian Assange, and the determined attempts to destroy him, and to pulp his reputation.
Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks, have done those things which the U.S. government and its national security apparatus most fear, and have worked hardest to prevent, by exposing the terrible reality of much of what the U.S. government now routinely does, and is determined to conceal, and what much of the media is helping the U.S. government to conceal.
Thus in a series of astonishing revelations Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed in the so-called embassy cables the extraordinarily manipulative conduct of U.S. foreign policy; in the Vault 7 disclosures the instruments the CIA uses in order to — as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said, “lie” and “cheat” — and, most disturbingly, in collaboration with Chelsea Manning, the rampant war crimes and egregious human rights abuses carried out by the U.S. military during the illegal war and occupation of Iraq.
This is an extraordinary record for a journalist, and for an organization, WikiLeaks, which was only set up in 2006.
Not surprisingly, the result has been that the pursuit of Assange by the U.S. government has been relentless, whilst the media, much of which has been complicit in covering up its crimes, has preferred to look the other way.
Hence, the Surreal Quality
It is this underlying reality which gives the whole case currently unfolding in London’s Central Criminal Court its surreal quality.
That the true purpose of the U.S. government’s relentless pursuit of Assange is to prevent him from exposing more of its crimes, and to punish him for exposing those of its crimes which he did expose, if only so as to deter others from doing the same thing, is perfectly obvious to any unbiased and realistic observer. However, the hearing in London is being conducted as if this were not the case.
Thus, the extraordinary zigzags in the U.S. government’s rationale for bringing the case, as it cannot admit the true reason why the case has been actually brought.
Thus, also the U.S. government’s strenuous efforts throughout the hearing to prevent evidence being produced of its crimes which Assange exposed.
The U.S. government has strenuously opposed all attempts to introduce as evidence the appalling “Collateral Murder” video, which shows the deliberate murder of civilians in Iraq by members of the U.S. military. It has also strenuously opposed the introduction of evidence from a defence witness about his own torture. This despite the fact that in both cases the fact of the U.S. crimes is scarcely disputed, and has in fact been all but admitted.
The result is the paradoxical and bizarre situation whereby the U.S. authorities try to cobble together a case against Assange based on a confusing medley of discordant and conflicting claims and facts, whilst failing to prosecute or hold to account those who were responsible for the very serious crimes which he has exposed.
In fact, as the U.S. government’s case has unraveled, the argument has become increasingly confined to the discrete issue of whether — by exposing the U.S. government’s crimes —Assange “irresponsibly” put the safety of various U.S. government informants at risk.
As it happens the evidence is clearly that he did not. Over the course of the hearing the court has heard of Assange’s many and serious attempts to conceal the identities of these informants, and of the reckless and even possibly malicious actions of certain others, who actually exposed them.
The court has also been told of the absence of any evidence that any one of these informants has in fact been harmed by any disclosure by WikiLeaks or Assange. Moreover, an expert witness has argued convincingly that the disclosure by a journalist of the identities of such informants would not under U.S. law be a crime anyway.
In response the U.S. government’s lawyers have relied heavily, not on the evidence of any actual witness, but on passages in a book by two Guardian journalists who are known to be hostile to Assange, and who — by publishing a password — seem to have done more to compromise the identities of the informants than Assange ever did.
Neither of these journalists has been called to give evidence on oath about the contents of their book. Doing so would, of course, have exposed them to cross-examination by the defence about the truth of the book’s contents. Given the weight the U.S. government is apparently placing on the book, I find it astonishing that they were not called.
The surreal quality of the U.S. government’s treatment of this issue is shown by the fact that when an actual witness — the German journalist John Goetz — did in fact come forward and offer to give evidence on oath about a specific allegation in the book — refuting an allegation in the book that Assange supposedly made comments at a dinner, which Goetz attended, that showed a reckless disregard for the safety of the informants — the U.S. government’s lawyers strenuously objected, and were able to get the judge to exclude this evidence.
However, it is the staggering disproportion between the scale of the crimes Assange has exposed, and the crimes of which he is accused — if they are even crimes, and of which he anyway appears to be innocent — which for me stands out.
Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed rampant war crimes and human rights abuses over the course of illegal wars waged by the U.S. government and its allies. The death toll from these wars runs at the very least into the tens of thousands, and more plausibly into the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
By contrast over the course of the entire hearing no evidence whatsoever has been produced that as a result of any of Assange’s actions anyone has come to any actual physical harm.
Yet it is Assange who is in the dock, facing demands for his extradition to the United States, where a 175-year sentence may await him, whilst the persons responsible for the colossal crimes he has exposed, not only walk free, but are amongst those who are trying to jail him.
The point was made forcefully during the hearing by one of the defence’s most powerful witnesses, Daniel Ellsberg.
It was also made forcefully to Consortium News by one of its readers, who has correctly pointed out that the crimes which Assange exposed were clearly defined as war crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal, whose decisions are universally accepted as forming the bedrock of international war crimes law.
The Nuremberg Tribunal moreover made it clear that there is not only a positive duty to refuse to participate in such crimes, even when ordered to do so, but that no sanctions should ever been imposed for exposing such crimes when they occur.
Judges’ bench at international military tribunal at Nuremberg, 1946. (Wikimedia Commons)
In other words, it is Assange and his sources, first and foremost Chelsea Manning, who are the defenders of international law, including the Nuremberg Principles, and including in the case which is currently underway, whilst it is those who persecute them, including by bringing the current case against Assange, who are international law’s violators.
This is the single most important fact about this case, and it explains everything about it.
Assange and Manning have paid an enormous price for their defence of international law, and for the principles of basic human decency and humanity.
Manning was recently held in long spells of solitary detention, and has had her savings confiscated by the U.S. authorities, for no reason other than that she has refused to testify against Assange.
Assange has been subjected to what various UN agencies have characterized as long periods of arbitrary detention and psychological torture.
He continues to be denied bail, despite his known health problems, and is separated from his family.
He continues to have difficulties consulting privately with his lawyers, and has been exposed to the indignity — qualified in other cases by the European Court for Human Rights as a human rights violation — of being kept inside court rooms confined to a glass box or cage.
John Pilger has described vividly and in great detail, including to Consortium News, the inhuman conditions to which Assange is daily exposed to. That these amount to human rights violations ought not to require discussion or explanation.
International Conventions
That these human rights violations breach a host of international conventions to which Britain is a signatory, including against torture and arbitrary detention, in respect of the right to a fair trial, in respect of the right to privacy and dignity of the person, and of the right to a family life, also ought not to require discussion or explanation.
Recently there has been an outcry in Britain because legislation the British government is proposing, which would allow it to modify unilaterally the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement it agreed last year with the European Union, breaches international law.
Without in any way disputing the importance of this issue, which may have important consequences for peace in Ireland, I find the angry protestations of some British journalists and politicians, that Britain never violates international law, frankly unreal.
If they want examples of Britain violating international law they need look no further than the facts of Assange’s case. They might also benefit from looking at what has been said over the course of the ongoing hearing in the Central Criminal Court.
Despite all the difficulties, there is however no reason to give up hope.
London graffiti, March 2020. (duncan c, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
The extraordinary zigzags the U.S. government has been forced to make as it tries and fails to put a coherent and convincing case against Julian Assange together, show that the law, for all its many flaws, remains an important defence.
I am aware of the many criticisms which have been made of Vanessa Baraitser, the judge who is hearing Assange’s case. I don’t disagree with any of them.
However, I do get the impression that Baraitser’s patience has been sorely tried by the U.S. government’s repeated and dizzying changes of position. I also get the impression that she was particularly annoyed when the U.S. government, on the virtual eve of the hearing, presented to the court and the defence its second superseding indictment, which in effect made a nonsense of the first.
That may explain why the U.S. government’s British lawyers have largely conducted the case as if the second superseding indictment did not exist, basing their arguments mostly on what the first superseding indictment says, though perhaps unsurprisingly, and to the bafflement of the experts, they are now increasingly making arguments which have no basis in any indictment.
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Baraitser has rejected the U.S. government’s various attempts to exclude en masse the evidence of defence witnesses, even if she has imposed a 30-minute guillotine on their examination in chief (direct examination) by defence lawyers.
In summary, and in my opinion, there is still a chance, however small, that Baraitser will decide the case in Assange’s favour.
If she does not do so, then I would have thought, based on what has happened over the course of the hearing, that Assange will have good prospects on appeal.
More encouraging than what has been happening inside the court, where the outcome remains very much in doubt, and where the prospects must be considered problematic to say the least, is what has been happening outside.
My wife, who attended one of the hearings last week, saw placards held up by some of Assange’s supporters outside the court, which called on road users to honk their horns in support of Assange. To her delighted astonishment, despite the media blackout which surrounds the case, and despite the long campaign of character assassination to which Assange has been subjected, an extraordinarily high proportion of road users (more than a quarter) did so.
That reinforces my sense that the tide of opinion, at least in Britain, is shifting. The battle is far from over, and can still be won.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GmJzg4 Tyler Durden
Air Force Reveals Six-Gen Stealth Jet Has Been “Built And Flown” Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 01:00
The US Air Force has revealed a new stealth fighter prototype it says has already secretly built and flown, according to Defense News.
So move over F-22 Raptor, or better yet, maybe its time for the Air Force to rethink its unreliable F-35 Lightning II program because there’s a new stealth jet that could potentially dominate the skies by 2030.
Air Force acquisition head Will Roper recently spoke with Defense News and said the jet, built under the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, could enter production “pretty fast.”
“We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before,” Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview ahead of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference in mid-September.
Roper said, “We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it.”
As the NGAD program is classified, not much is known about the secretive jet. Roper wouldn’t give additional details on the aircraft to Defense News or anyone at the event.
The disclosure of the Air Force’s sixth-generation prototype could be perfect timing for the Air Force to request more funds from Congress as a modernization wave is sweeping across the military, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget analyst with the American Enterprise Institute.
“If you can quickly get to something and show progress through product, it just changes the whole dynamic for the Hill,” she said. “[Roper has] got so many headwinds, it seems this would be a likely avenue to show conceptual success for his ideas.”
The announcement also follows years of troubling stories about just how “f**ked up” the F-35 program is. Readers may recall:
Nevertheless, there is hope for a new stealth jet, and it appears the Air Force is moving quickly on its futuristic projects. Recently, the Navy’s Rear Adm. Greg Harris recently told a virtual audience that the service is looking at F/A-XX or next-generation air dominance family systems.
Six generation stealth jets could become a reality at the end of this decade.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3ikhXW4 Tyler Durden
As the saying goes, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Nowhere is this truth more evident than in the recent behavior of the allegedly “reformed” Export-Import Bank of the United States.
Reauthorized by Congress in December 2019 with the promise that it would suddenly change its ways and focus its firepower on fighting China, this export credit agency quickly returned to its tired routine of propping up its old and favorite customers, including—very prominently—Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
Right under Congress’ nose, Ex-Im Bank approved $400 million in financing to this Mexican government-owned oil company. This use of taxpayer funds raises several questions, not the least of which is why our federal government would subsidize a foreign state-owned company in the first place. There’s no good answer.
Moreover, Pemex is in serious financial trouble. It could very well collapse, despite its privileged position in Mexico. A pandemic-induced drop in oil prices combined with years of mismanagement have left Pemex technically insolvent. It’s already the world’s most-indebted oil company and one of the largest issuers of debt in Latin America.
In April, both Moody’s and Fitch downgraded Pemex’s bond rating to junk status, and the deputy governor of Mexico’s central bank recently said that Pemex could become an “incurable cancer” if its government doesn’t address its deep-seated structural problems. Now, thanks to Ex-Im’s decision to extend financing to Pemex, if the company collapses, it will also be a problem for American taxpayers.
Pemex has been corrupt for years. In July 2020, its former chief executive was arrested in Spain (where he had been hiding to evade a Mexican arrest warrant) and extradited. He’s now a protected witness in an expansive bribery scandal involving three of Mexico’s former presidents, four former finance ministers, two presidential challengers, two state governors and a number of legislators.
Among other offenses, the bribes were allegedly paid to ensure passage of energy-sector reforms under the prior government, in order to open the sector to foreign investment. The Wall Street Journal also reported last October that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are conducting a broad investigation into corruption at Pemex.
Now Ex-Im is justifying its financing to Pemex with the go-to excuse that it “would help counter financing competition from foreign export credit agencies, including from China.” This claim is dubious. In the bill to reauthorize Ex-Im last December, Congress did include what it calls the Program on China and Transformational Exports. It specified 10 sectors for the program, such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy, water treatment and sanitation. However, the list doesn’t include oil and gas. Nearly a quarter of Ex-Im’s overall exposure is in that sector, so Ex-Im’s long-standing connections to the industry—rather than a desire to counter China—are probably why the bank continues to deepen ties with Pemex.
This brings us to another question: How can some members of Congress reconcile subsidizing so many foreign oil and gas companies in light of their stated concerns about climate-related issues? Pemex’s record on that front should particularly disturb those who so loudly proclaim their environmental interests.
Don’t be quick to blame this fiasco on President Donald Trump and his Republican political appointees alone, either. One of his political appointees to Ex-Im’s board of directors is a Democrat. And under President Barack Obama, Ex-Im happily extended the same favors to the foreign oil and gas company. In fact, Ex-Im data show that between 2007 and 2015, Pemex received over $7 billion in financing from the United States.
The overarching lesson from this mess is that Congress was unrealistic to expect Ex-Im to change its ways. The bank can assert that things will be different, or that it will now focus on fighting China, but at the end of the day, its relationship with Pemex stretches back more than 70 years—a fact about which the agency boasts in its press release.
As long as Ex-Im holds tight to its favored companies, nobody should expect major results in any so-called transformational sectors. Old dogs won’t learn new tricks. And as far as Congress’ reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, I’m reminded of another canine aphorism: “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”
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