the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

The Ecuadorian diplomat who gave Julian Assange political asylum reports from the extradition hearing against the WikiLeaks journalist, and explains why it is “the most important case against the freedom of expression in an entire generation.”   by Fidel Narváez, (translated by Ben Norton)   Part 11 - Ecuador illegally gave the U.S. confidential materials about Assange, including documents about his legal defense   The renowned human rights lawyers Gareth Peirce, a member of Julian Assange’s legal team, submitted her own written testimony to the court, affirming that since April 8, 2019 — three days before the arrest of Assange in the embassy — the U.S. Department of Justice had ordered Ecuador to confiscate property and give “ evidence ” to a “ representative of the UK FBI, ” as journalist Kevin Gosztola documented. A document from April 9, 2019, marked “ highly confidential from the Deputy Director’s Office of International Affairs, ” contained instructions to give Assa...

When Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission announced it was investigating Labour’s treatment of its Jewish members, many of Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents claimed this as proof of his supposed antisemitism. But the inquiry is itself a political weapon — and as the Commission publishes its much-hyped, long-delayed report today, the attacks against the Left are only intensifying.   by Daniel Finn   Part 7 - Crisis Theory The fact that the JLM submission plays so loosely with the facts concerning matters of public record has obvious implications when it touches upon subjects where no such record exists. It beggars belief that the EHRC could have found sufficient basis for an investigation in this dossier, while brushing aside the MCB’s exhaustive inventory of Tory racism as an inadequate starting point. The double standards applied to the Labour and Conservative Parties by the Commission would be visible from space. Much like the BBC Panorama broadcast “Is Labour Antisemitic?...

Much will certainly change in the world of U.S. foreign policy when Joe Biden enters the White House. There will be a more measured tone, and less reliance upon Twitter to announce U.S. policy. Trump is brusque, as illustrated by the way he shoved aside Montenegro’s Prime Minister Dusko Markovic at the 2017 NATO meeting; Biden might not push and shove his way to the front of the group, but his silvery smile will camouflage as ruthless a set of aims. On foreign policy, Biden will appear to be different from Trump, but the broad outlines of their policy will be identical.   by Vijay Prashad  Part 3 - Primacy Remains the U.S. Goal The U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff wrote in the early years of the Cold War, “ To seek less than preponderant power would be to opt for defeat. Preponderant power must be the object of U.S. policy. ” This desire for primacy remains the explicit U.S. policy. Trump, in his four years as president, did not depart from this policy. Nor has Bi...

failed evolution Ο επικεφαλής του οικονομικού γραφείου του Μητσοτάκη, Αλέξης Πατέλης, προέβη σε μια δήλωση σχετικά με το πακέτο διάσωσης της Aegean, η οποία πέρασε στα "ψιλά", αλλά θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηριστεί έως και προκλητική. Σε σχετική ερώτηση για το αν προβλέπεται θέση του κράτους στο συμβούλιο της Aegean, δήλωσε ξεκάθαρα πως δεν θα έχει θέση.  Και όλα αυτά τη στιγμή που το κράτος θα βάλει τα διπλάσια λεφτά (120 εκατομμύρια), από αυτά που θα βάλουν οι μέτοχοι για να διασωθεί η εταιρία. Κατά τα άλλα, το κράτος θα λάβει σε αντάλλαγμα κάποιες προαιρέσεις μετοχών, " κάτι που σημαίνει ότι εάν τα πάει καλά η Aegean στο μέλλον και ανέβει η μετοχή της, αυτά θα μπορούσαν να διπλασιαστούν ή να τριπλασιαστουν σε αξία και το κρατος έτσι θα έχει συμμετοχή στην επιτυχία της εταιρείας ", όπως είπε.     Φυσικά, αν δεν τα πάει καλά, το κράτος θα κληθεί και πάλι να πληρώσει τα σπασμένα, παρόλο που δεν συμμετέχει στο Δ.Σ. της εταιρίας.  Έτσι αντιλαμβάνονται την "ελεύθερη αγ...

A glance at the Biden-Harris agency review teams should provide a rude awakening to anyone who believed a Biden administration could be “pushed to the left.”   by Kevin Gosztola  Part 3 - Agents of injustice They include Department of Justice review team member Marty Lederman. A Georgetown Law professor, Lederman was the deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel from 2009 to 2010. He helped draft the “drone memo” that outlined the supposed “legal basis” for executing Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al Qaeda affiliated terrorism suspect without charge or trial, despite the fact that Al-Awlaki was an American citizen. Joining Lederman is Barbara McQuade, an ex-MSNBC contributor and former US attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan, which has jurisdiction over Dearborn, Detroit, and Flint. During her time as the government’s top prosecutor in Flint, McQuade had the power to bring charges against Michigan officials responsible for contaminating...

 “The Oxford vaccine is… striking, since the point was to pay researchers, but not to rely on patent monopolies to generate large profits.” – Economist Dean Baker   by Alan Macleod   Part 2 - Good for people, bad for profits   Today’s good news will doubtless challenge corporate pharma’s profit margins (Moderna’s share price has more than quintupled since the beginning of the year), but it also challenges corporate pharma’s logic and justification for high drug prices in the first place. The pharmaceutical industry argues that research and development are extremely expensive, that market competition and profit breed innovation, and is the only way to ensure new drugs are developed. Yet examples like the Oxford and the four separate Cuban vaccines in development suggest that this logic is faulty, at best. “ This should really encourage some rethinking of biomedical research, as should the Moderna vaccine, ” Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic ...

“I expect the prevailing direction of U.S. foreign policy over these last decades to continue: more lawless bombing and killing multiple countries under the cover of “limited engagement,” – Biden Biographer Branko Marcetic  by Alan Macleod    Part 4 - Back in the game The recycling of old faces (many of them considerably richer than before) into the new administration suggests that there will be few breaks from the past on policy, and more in the way of continuation.    Biden himself has largely acknowledged this, tweeting, “ When I’m speaking to foreign leaders, I’m telling them: America is going to be back. We’re going to be back in the game. ” To many suffering under U.S. sanctions or hiding from U.S. bombs, these words will likely not comfort them. DeCamp suggested that there will be no great difference in policy between Trump and Biden administrations:                  ...

Jonathan Cook dissects the investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission into the U.K. Labour Party.  by Jonathan Cook Part 5 - Scouring Social Media But the report misleads not only in its evasion and ambiguity. It does so more overtly in its seemingly desperate effort to find examples of Labour Party “ agents ” who were responsible for the “ problem ” of anti-Semitism. It is worth pondering what it would have looked like had the commission admitted it was unable to find anyone to hold to account for anti-Semitism in Labour. That would have risked blowing a very large hole in the established media narrative indeed. So, there must have been a great deal of pressure on the commission to find some examples. But extraordinarily — after five years of relentless claims of “ institutional anti-Semitism ” in Labour, and of organisations like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism and the Jewish Labour Movement scouring through Labour members’ social media accounts — the commissi...

globinfo freexchange A former MSNBC whistleblower gave recently another first-hand confirmation about what many of us already knew: that the corporate media systematically exercise extreme forms of censorship on candidates outside the two-party system norm. As Ariana Pekary tweeted recently:                          On 4/25/19, I was told that we were never to pursue Andrew [Yang] for an interview on our show (along with several others). The list of candidates was dictated, but the reasons for allowing them or not were not explained.     Actually, I just reviewed my journal. On 4/25/19, I was told that we were never to pursue Andrew for an interview on our show (along with several others). The list of candidates was dictated, but the reasons for allowing them or not were not explained. — Ariana Pekary (@arianapekary) November 22, 2020   It would be int...

Consortium News   Daniel Ellsberg, Marjorie Cohn & Joe Lauria discuss the UK extradition hearing of Julian Assange, the 18 criminal offenses brought by the US and how his case impacts journalism and us, wherever we are.  

Sweden’s longtime refusal to impose a general lockdown has seen it portrayed as an alternative “model” for coping with the pandemic. Yet death rates in its care homes have been appalling — and as a scandal that broke last month highlighted, much of the blame lies with the breakup and privatization of the country’s once-mighty public services.   by Anton Ösgård   Part 5 - Popular Confidence?   So far, the strategy is widely appreciated by the public — the government led by the Social Democrats and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven boasts the highest approval ratings in years, rising from 35 to 65 percent during the crisis. And not only the government saw such a rise in confidence, but also public institutions such as the health care sector. It may seem odd that Swedes are celebrating a strategy that has cost more lives than the ones of its neighboring countries — and one may even think that such a hands-off approach is simply what Scandinavians prefer. But a comparison with oth...

The Ecuadorian diplomat who gave Julian Assange political asylum reports from the extradition hearing against the WikiLeaks journalist, and explains why it is “the most important case against the freedom of expression in an entire generation.”   by Fidel Narváez, (translated by Ben Norton)   Part 10 - Assange and his lawyers were illegally spied on by the U.S., which makes a fair trial impossible   The testimonies of two protected witnesses, former employees of the Spanish security firm UC Global, which spied on Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, were partially read in court. The witnesses confirmed that the company, following the instructions of the director David Morales, recorded conversations between Assange and his lawyers and gave the information to U.S. intelligence officials. Morales, a former Spanish military officer who called himself a “mercenary,” even discussed poisoning Assange or allowing him to be kidnapped. According to the witnesses, around 2016, ...

When Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission announced it was investigating Labour’s treatment of its Jewish members, many of Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents claimed this as proof of his supposed antisemitism. But the inquiry is itself a political weapon — and as the Commission publishes its much-hyped, long-delayed report today, the attacks against the Left are only intensifying.   by Daniel Finn   Part 6 - Reality Check In a classic example of the circular logic underpinning the false narrative of “Labour antisemitism,” the JLM even cited a failure to accept that narrative as evidence of an “antisemitism crisis” in the party: A YouGov survey of Party members found that while 68 per cent of respondents think antisemitism is a problem, 77 per cent believe that claims of antisemitism are being “ exaggerated ” or “ hyped up ” to damage Mr Corbyn and the Party. The JLM apparently considers it damning that the vast majority of Labour members could see what was staring them in th...

Much will certainly change in the world of U.S. foreign policy when Joe Biden enters the White House. There will be a more measured tone, and less reliance upon Twitter to announce U.S. policy. Trump is brusque, as illustrated by the way he shoved aside Montenegro’s Prime Minister Dusko Markovic at the 2017 NATO meeting; Biden might not push and shove his way to the front of the group, but his silvery smile will camouflage as ruthless a set of aims. On foreign policy, Biden will appear to be different from Trump, but the broad outlines of their policy will be identical.   by Vijay Prashad  Part 2 - Why Biden Is Not a Multilateralist The liberal media portrays Biden as a multilateralist—but the evidence for this speculation on the president-elect’s foreign policy is problematic, to say the least. Biden wants to rebuild the Western military alliance system that Trump has eroded. An indication of Biden’s enthusiasm was an early phone call to French President Emmanuel Macron, to s...

A glance at the Biden-Harris agency review teams should provide a rude awakening to anyone who believed a Biden administration could be “pushed to the left.”   by Kevin Gosztola  Part 2 - Regime change addicts and revolving doors A prime example of the interventionist-minded establishment-oriented figures filling the Biden-Harris Defense Department agency team is Lisa Sawyer. She served as director for NATO and European strategic affairs for the National Security Council from 2014 to 2015, and worked for Wall Street’s JPMorgan Chase as a foreign policy adviser. Sawyer was part of the Center for a New American Security’s “Task Force on the Future of US Coercive Economic Statecraft,” which essentially means she participated in meetings that focused on methods of economic warfare that could be used to destabilize countries that refused to bow to American empire. Sawyer believes the US government is not doing enough to deter Russian “aggression,” US troop levels in Europe should r...

 “The Oxford vaccine is… striking, since the point was to pay researchers, but not to rely on patent monopolies to generate large profits.” – Economist Dean Baker   by Alan Macleod   Part 1   The world is abuzz today after a team of medical researchers from Oxford University in the United Kingdom announced that advanced trials of their experimental coronavirus vaccine were a roaring success, with the vaccine possibly being rolled out before Christmas.   Testing was done on 24,000 volunteers in the U.K, Brazil, and South Africa, with an average effectiveness of over 70%. However, when the vaccine was administered as a half dose, then patients were later given a full one, effectiveness increased to 90%. Encouragingly, there were no serious side effects registered among any of the volunteers, none of whom had to go to the hospital as a result of being immunized. The U.K. government has already ordered 100 million doses. Professor Andrew Pollard, Director ...

“I expect the prevailing direction of U.S. foreign policy over these last decades to continue: more lawless bombing and killing multiple countries under the cover of “limited engagement,” – Biden Biographer Branko Marcetic  by Alan Macleod    Part 3 - Biden’s war room Many of the president-elect’s potential picks for foreign policy positions — including Susan Rice and Michele Flourney — have onlookers worried. “ With a Biden administration, we can expect a continuation of the Middle East wars and possible escalations in places like Syria. Biden could be better than Trump on Iran and Yemen, but judging by his potential cabinet picks, that should not be expected without significant pressure from antiwar activists and lobbyists in Washington, ” Dave DeCamp, assistant news editor of AntiWar.com told MintPress . “ His administration will likely be more successful than Trump at expanding the empire, with a more diplomatic and coherent approach at building alliances to face Ru...

Jonathan Cook dissects the investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission into the U.K. Labour Party.  by Jonathan Cook Part 4 - Flawed Approach The second conclusion, which I lacked the space to deal with properly in my Middle East Eye piece, relates more specifically to the commission’s own flawed approach in compiling the report rather than the media’s misrepresentation of the report. As I explained in my earlier piece, the commission itself is very much an establishment body. Even had it wanted to, it was never going to stick its neck out and rubbish the narrative presented by the establishment media. On procedural matters, such as how the party handled anti-Semitism complaints, the equalities commission kept the report as vague as possible, obfuscating who was responsible for those failings and who was supposed to benefit from Corbyn staff’s interference. Both issues had the potential to fatally undermine the established media narrative. Instead, the commission’s...