Assange has a new passport

Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 02/27/2019 - 6:14pm

I must say that this is an unexpected twist. I'm not sure what it means.

Fugitive Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been issued with a new Australian passport after lengthy negotiations over whether he was subject to an arrest warrant for a "serious foreign offence".
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official confirmed in a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday that Mr Assange's 2018 application for a new passport had been accepted. Consular and Crisis Management Division first assistant secretary Andrew Todd said, "Mr Assange does have an Australian passport".
...
Swedish prosecutors announced in 2017 that they had closed the rape investigation.

The new passport makes it possible for Mr Assange to return to Australia. He has been without a passport after his previous one expired several years ago.

Could this just be 'dark farce'?

DFAT’s chief legal officer James Larsen claimed to have no knowledge of any US proceedings against Assange (untutored, mute and ill-informed is Larsen, on this subject); that being so, there was nothing to discuss. “We are not aware, on the Australian government’s side, of any legal proceedings initiated within, or by, the United States, concerning Assange.” Larsen had no “record before me of what our engagement with the United States is specifically concerning Mr. Assange.”
...
A potential stumbling block for Assange in getting a passport was section 13 of the Australian Passports Act 2005. Facing a “serious foreign offence” within that section’s meaning would have scotched the application....
There is an element of dark farce to this. To show that he was eligible to receive a passport, he had to show that he did not face a serious foreign offence. But pieced evidence revealed thus far demonstrates that a US prosecution assisted by a range of security agencies has busied themselves with making sure he does face such an offence. Thankfully, WikiLeaks has not been able, in their quest for a totally transparent record, to find any relevant corroborating indictment, a point that seemed to seep through the Senate estimates hearings. In such cases, ignorance can remain, if not blissful, then useful.

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Submitted by CB on Wed, 02/27/2019 - 7:02pm

Australia is controlled by the US 'Deep State'

The CIA has it's tentacles deep within the government of Australia. Australia will simply turn Assange over to the US.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT3yrNd_PDY]

The forgotten coup - how America and Britain crushed the government of their 'ally', Australia
...
Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country's resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm". In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent's vast natural wealth.
...
On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier.

Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis".

On 11 November - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Wed, 02/27/2019 - 7:38pm

This is my fear

@CB It is a trick! Julian will not fall for it.

The CIA has it's tentacles deep within the government of Australia. Australia will simply turn Assange over to the US. [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT3yrNd_PDY] The forgotten coup - how America and Britain crushed the government of their 'ally', Australia ... Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing. Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country's resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm". In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent's vast natural wealth. ... On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier. Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis". On 11 November - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by on the cusp on Wed, 02/27/2019 - 7:41pm

I vaguely remember that.

@CB Glad you triggered that memory.
I do not see Australia caring more about a citizen than the customary benefits of being a US buddy.

The CIA has it's tentacles deep within the government of Australia. Australia will simply turn Assange over to the US. [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT3yrNd_PDY] The forgotten coup - how America and Britain crushed the government of their 'ally', Australia ... Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing. Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country's resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm". In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent's vast natural wealth. ... On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier. Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis". On 11 November - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 8:36am

I'm concerned about this too

@CB

but surely Assange and those working with him understand those risks, probably better than I do--and they applied for an Australian passport.

Maybe with an Australian passport, he could go to another country, preferably not one of the Five Eyes. I'm still scared for him, though.

The CIA has it's tentacles deep within the government of Australia. Australia will simply turn Assange over to the US. [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT3yrNd_PDY] The forgotten coup - how America and Britain crushed the government of their 'ally', Australia ... Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing. Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country's resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm". In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent's vast natural wealth. ... On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley, the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier. Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis". On 11 November - the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia - he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Lookout on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 7:03am

Could he use his new passport....

to go to another country that might provide sanctuary, like Russia?

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 8:38am

How horribly ironic.

@Lookout

Russia is now the country providing haven for dissidents.

It's lucky it is ironic, though; I remember somebody saying, back in 2013, that Putin gave Snowden asylum because he just found it too delicious not to.

Every time he does something like that, he reveals the United States to be a fraud.

—

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by earthling1 on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 5:39pm

Whistleblowers welcome here!

Come blow your whistle in the Russian democracy!
Join our Capitalist society, today!
..........................V. Putin

—

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Submitted by dkmich on Fri, 03/01/2019 - 9:41am

It is something Assange lobbied for.

Please help my son, Australian journalist Julian Assange, before its too late!

*8 yrs detained WITHOUT charge!
* 6 yrs denied basic health needs/proper medical care. Now sick/in pain!

Sign/share widely:
PETITION to AUSTRALIAN GOVT to ACT to #BringJulianHome

Thank you https://t.co/vFnZ8WPdkL

— Mrs. Christine Assange (@AssangeMrs) March 1, 2019

—

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon