RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/julian-assange-arrest-quick-thoughts/

Here are a few things we know, and a few to think about, with respect to the arrest of Julian Assange by British police in London.

Assange wore out his welcome with Ecuador, which hosted him for seven years.

The Brits have a comparatively minor charge against him: essentially bail jumping in 2012, when he failed to appear as directed to a court in Westminster. That was during the time when he was trying to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. Those charges have been dropped, although Swedish authorities could revive them. The fact that the underlying charges are no longer in effect is not a defense to jumping bail. Still, it makes the offense appear more minor.

Consequently, the driving force of today’s arrest seems to be an American effort to have Assange extradited. The Washington Post is now reporting that, in 2017, the Justice Department charged Assange in a sealed indictment with conspiring to publish classified U.S. documents — specifically, conspiring in 2010 with then-Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, among others.

The Metropolitan police in London have acknowledged that Assange’s arrest is based, in part, on U.S. extradition request. Even our British ally will not extradite people to the United States unless charges have been filed.

Last year, in a court in the U.S. district court in Alexandria, the Justice Department accidentally filed an application to seal a criminal complaint. It was not Assange’s case, but the prosecutor obviously cut and pasted from a similar motion that had been filed in a case involving Assange, and had failed to take out Assange’s name.

It is customary to file an arrest complaint under seal if the person charged is not in custody. An arrest warrant is issued, and the complaint is unsealed when the person is arrested and is presented in court. The sealing, obviously, is done to discourage flight and the destruction of evidence — though it would not have much effect in the case of Assange, who was already in flight and well aware that the U.S. Justice Department was trying to make a case on him.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8839586/julian-assange-wink-thumbs-up-arrest-embassy/
“NARCISSIST” Julian Assange faces a year in British jail after his dramatic arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy ended seven years in hiding today.

The bearded WikiLeaks founder has spent 2,487 days holed up in the embassy to avoid Swedish sex claims and US authorities, who want him over an alleged conspiracy with whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Julian Assange winked and gave a thumbs up from the police van as he arrived at court following the dramatic arrest this morning.

The 47-year-old was blasted a “narcissist who can’t get beyond his own self interest” as he was found guilty this afternoon of skipping bail in 2012 – relating to his time at the embassy.He now faces a battle against extradition to America where he was today charged in his absence with “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the US”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14053/iran-winning-yemen

“The Yemeni revolution will not be confined to Yemen alone. It will extend, following its success, into Saudi territories.” — Iranian Lawmaker Ali Reza Zakani, trusted adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“If the Shia rebels gain control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, Iran can attain a foothold in this sensitive region giving access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, a cause of concern not only for its sworn rivals Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states, but also for Israel and European countries along the Mediterranean.” — IDF Lt.-Col. (Ret.) Michael Segall.

“Hard-line elements [in Iran] appear to see the continuation of the conflict [in Yemen] as a relatively low-cost and low-risk means of sustaining political, economic, and military pressure on the Saudis. Saudi Arabia’s intervention has reportedly cost between $5 billion and $6 billion a month, while Iran’s expenditures in Yemen probably total only millions a year.” — Gerald M. Feierstein, Middle East Institute.

“The Houthis’ intransigence confirms their loyalty to Iran’s negotiating tactics. These usually begin with implicit approval of negotiating solutions, followed by complete retraction in order to force the international community to make more concessions and impose a fait accompli on the Yemeni government….” — Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yemany.

A ceasefire deal aimed at ending Yemen’s civil war is collapsing amid disputes between the warring parties over how to implement the agreement. A resumption of hostilities would, according to aid groups, accelerate Yemen’s descent into famine and threaten as many as 15 million people — more than half the population — with starvation.

Yemen’s four-year conflict is generally viewed as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia, which backs the internationally-recognized Yemeni government, and Iran, which backs tribal-based Shiite rebels, known as Houthis.