Why North Korea's Kim Jong Un Executed His Uncle

Defector: Jang Song Thaek wrecked North Korea's economy

By Elizabeth Shim

In this 2013 photo, a South Korean man watches TV news showing North Korean politician Jang Song Thaek

 as he appears before a military tribunal. A defector in the South says North Korea’s internal politics

and economy are misunderstood. File Photo by Jeon Heon-kyun/EPA

SEOUL, UPI -- North Korea's economy is structured so differently from the South's that its capitalist economy would be "unimaginable" to most North Koreans, according to a defector who once claimed membership in the Korean Workers' Party.

The former North Korean citizen, identified only by his surname Kim, served in the North Korean air force before he resettled in the South. He said important features of Pyongyang's planned economy are gravely misunderstood in the South, as are incidents like the execution of Kim Jong Un's uncle-in-law Jang Song Thaek.

"South Korean analysts who study North Korea are bad, because they blame the command economy for the Great Famine," the former North Korean pilot recently said.

The defector said drastic actions from powerful members of the North Korean regime, including Jang, were responsible for the shutdown of North Korean industry when millions starved.

"In South Korea, capital sits at the top of the hierarchy," Kim said. "In North Korea, people are at the center. In South Korea, without capital, you can't do anything. In North Korea, people work for each other."

When North Korea publicly disclosed the execution of Kim Jong Un's uncle-in-law in 2013, the news sent shockwaves around the world.

But according to defector Kim, Jang was a "bad person" who enriched himself during North Korea's notorious 1994-98 Great Famine, when idle machines in factories were torn apart and sold.

Jang was responsible for selling North Korean coal to China, even though the energy source was needed domestically. Coal mining productivity had plunged to one-fifth of pre-famine levels, but Jang exported the resource to China, Kim said.

North Koreans may also have been surprised, but not shocked, when Jang was sentenced to death by his nephew.

Jang, who secretly controlled the levers of power in the North for decades, ordered the rounding up of citizens with spinal disorders that cause dwarfism, Kim said.

The victims were sent to concentration camps because Jang believed their presence in society was "bad for socialism."

The men and women were "secretly kidnapped," around the time of the 1976 Korean axe murder incident at the border. Families would find them unexpectedly missing when they returned home. North Korea at the time reeled from the shock of the Jang-led mission to round up the disabled, Kim said.

A 'people-centered' economy

Just as the South's capitalist economy could leave many North Koreans scratching their heads, North Korea's economy may also baffle outsiders.

Profits are the least of economic priorities in North Korea, the defector said, where a pair of shoes that costs 60 cents to produce would be supplied to the population at 3 cents.

"In North Korea that would be jackpot pricing. In a capitalist economy that would be going for broke," Kim said.

The notion of an economy that benefits people also means Kim Jong Un is not the kind of dictator outsiders have assumed him to be.

The North Korean leader's field guidance visits are neither the product of an executive decision nor autocratic whimsy.

"Chairman Kim conducts field guidance according to Party direction," the defector told UPI. "Kim receives [institutional] permission, and then he has a duty to conduct field guidance."

Looking to the future

While South Koreans more familiar with profit-driven economic development learn about North Korea, experts on inter-Korea connectivity are preparing for the future.

Min Kyung-tae, a North Korea specialist at Seoul-based Yeosijae, Future Consensus Institute, told UPI the South Korean government ought to look beyond the manufacturing model of economic development in the long term.

Seoul shut down Kaesong, a jointly operated factory park in North Korea in February 2016, after a former South Korean administration claimed Kaesong proceeds were being used to fund North Korea's weapons programs.

"For the future we need projects involving advanced technology, next-generation industries of the Fourth Industrial Revolution," Min said, referring to the phase of development when robotics, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars enter mainstream society.

Min said North Korea is an ideal place to plan entire cities around emerging technological breakthroughs, because it is relatively undeveloped. The idea is one of several themes he raises in his book about the potential for a Fourth Industrial Revolution in North Korea.

"In North Korea, a new city could be built for self-driving taxis," Min said. "In South Korea if the government designates a city a self-driving taxi zone, drivers would go on strike."

Kim said the Fourth Industrial Revolution, if introduced in North Korea, would not have the same significance it would have in the South, the world's most wired country.

Artificial intelligence and other innovations will not be valued for their disruptive value to society, but rather, how they improve the lives of North Koreans, he said.

"If North and South are to cooperate, they must know each other well," Kim said.

Turkey Wants to Join BRICS Because it's Disappointed in NATO and EU – Analysts

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan

at the BRICS summit on July 27, 2018 © Gianluigi Guercia / Reuters

By floating the idea of Turkey joining BRICS, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to diversify Ankara's foreign policy, with its EU membership bid long stalled and relations with the US on the rocks, analysts told RT.

The Turkish President has suggested that the leaders of the five-member BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) should add "T" to the acronym. Erdogan was invited to the group's latest forum and told Hurriyet Daily News on its sidelines that current members welcomed the idea of Turkey's accession.

Evgeniy Bakhrevskiy, deputy director of the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, explained that this apparent pivot by Erdogan is rooted in Turkey's mounting frustration with the West.

Erdogan "believes there is a need to diversify Turkey's foreign policy, because he is seriously disappointed with western structures, with the EU; he has rather strained relations with the US," Bakhrevskiy noted.

Stevan Gajic, researcher at the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade, argued that it hasn’t been geopolitical considerations, but "something very personal" that has prompted Erdogan to strive for new allegiances.

Gajic believes that the foiled military coup attempt in 2016 and Syrian President Bashar Assad winning in Syria with Russia's help, are two main factors that made Erdogan’s outlook change.

It also comes at a moment when Turkey's long-standing dream of joining the EU is in limbo, with the accession process effectively frozen. Although the EU is Turkey's top trading partner, Turkey is still stuck in the bloc's "waiting room," a situation that in itself is an insult to Ankara, Bakhrevskiy pointed out.

Ankara's relations with Washington are also going through a rough patch, with "anti-American sentiment very strong in almost all layers of Turkish society," Bakhrevskiy said, because of America's support for Kurdish militias fighting Islamic State. Turkey views the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the People's Protection Units (PYD), as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), recognized as terrorists by Turkey.

By refusing to cut its support for the Kurdish-led forces, the US is seen by many in Turkey as "directly threatening" their country, Bakhrevskiy said. Erdogan doesn't hesitate to capitalize on the sentiment.

"Anti-Americanism is popular, he is a politician, he will do what people like."

At the same time, Turkey's relations with Russia, having hit their lowest point when Turkey downed a Russian attack jet above Syria in November 2015, have recovered swiftly and are gaining momentum. The speed of this rapprochement is evidence that "two parties really need each other," according to Bakhrevskiy.

"The main change from 2015 is that then Turkey and Russia were on the brink of war," Gajic noted. Russia expressed its support for Erdogan following the 2016 coup attempt, which the Turkish authorities blamed on the US-based exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen and his associates in Turkey. The two Turkish pilots accused of downing the Russian plane were later arrested in a post-coup crackdown.

Supposing the pilots were indeed part of Gulen's network, "that was actually a plot to make a conflict between Russia and Turkey," Gajic said.

Or, at least it is a convenient scapegoat!

While Turkey doesn't look likely to ditch NATO for good just yet, Bakhrevskiy points out that BRICS is "a very democratic bloc" which does not require any special "sacrifices" like leaving the EU or NATO in order to join.

Gajic, meanwhile, believes Ankara could leverage the threat of leaving NATO as a "big bargaining chip." Its potential departure would "deal a big blow" to an alliance already shaken by US President Donald Trump's constant demands that European members pay more for the bloc's costly maintenance.

This ambiguous position "is best for Turkey," Gajic believes, as both Russia and the US are eventually interested in winning Ankara over.

Sy Hersh and a Brief History of Deep State and American Covert Operations

Legendary journalist Seymour Hersh on novichok,

Russian links to Donald Trump and 9/11

I’m about to interview the 81-year-old doyen of investigative journalism Seymour Hersh. Sy Hersh – as he is affectionately known by those close to him – was once described by the Financial Times as “the last great American reporter”. Hersh has brought out his memoir Reporter covering the span of his career as one of the iconoclastic journalists of the 20th century – the man who exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and who later brought the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in the Iraq War to the attention of the world.

Hersh has recently been in London for a talk at the Centre for Investigative Journalism at Goldsmiths. It makes for a raucously entertaining two hours in which he holds court on everything from Vietnam and the war on terror to the Skripal novichok poisoning, Trump and the alleged Russian hacking of the election. Octogenarian Hersh is already back in Washington by the time we speak on the phone.

He has been ploughing his furrow since long before I was born. It is hard not to be in awe of the man. You could say that I am just a tad nervous. His street-wise Chicago demeanour means that he can be a tough interviewee. Luckily for me, Hersh is in a good mood – he is extremely jovial and spends most of the interview chuckling as he regales me with tales of his illustrious career.

During the 1970s, Hersh covered Watergate for The New York Times and revealed the clandestine bombing of Cambodia. And in what he describes as “the big one”, he also uncovered the CIA’s large-scale domestic wiretapping programme surveilling the anti-war movement and other dissident groups (in contravention of its charter not to spy on US citizens). He has consistently been a thorn in the side of the establishment.

Along with Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, Hersh is perhaps responsible for the glamorous image of the investigative reporter – shirt sleeves rolled up making calls for the latest scoop or meeting anonymous sources on deep background in undisclosed locations. The reality is undoubtedly far less glamorous and largely consists of hard graft. As Hersh relates in his memoir, he inherited his industrious work ethic from his father and never knew any other way of living.

The My Lai stories seared Hersh’s writing into history and brought home the brutality of the American war machine

The story of how Hersh came to write his memoir after swearing never to write about family matters is typically Hershian. He was working on a book on Bush vice president Dick Cheney when the backlash against whistleblowers meant that he could no longer protect his sources. As a result, he offered to sell his pied-à-terre in order to pay back the generous advance but Sonny Mehta – the editor-in-chief of Alfred Knopf – persuaded him to write an autobiographical account.

Reporter reads like the cross-pollination of Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March and All the President’s Men. Hersh grew up in the Chicago suburbs and was forced to take over the running of the family laundry business in his teens after his father died of lung cancer. He did not shine at school and was not destined for an intellectual life, seemingly stumbling into a career as a newspaper man.

Serendipity would have it that he answered the phone the morning after an all-night poker game in which he lost all of his money. The call was from City News. He happened to be staying at his old apartment that night having forgotten to inform his future employers that he had changed address. And so began inauspiciously one of the most remarkable careers in journalism. If it was not for Hersh’s penchant for all-night poker games, we may never have known about all manner of deep state malfeasance.

In fact, he struggled for many years to find secure employment. The My Lai stories changed everything. Hersh’s writing has been seared into history. From the mother of one of the soldiers telling him, “I sent them a good boy, and they made him a murderer.” Or one of the other soldiers, who begins his account by stating plainly, “It was a Nazi-type thing.”

The massacre prompted global outrage when Hersh published his scoop in November 1969 and increased domestic opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War

The descriptions of babies being tossed up in the air and bayoneted or of soldiers arriving for their first tour to find a military jeep speeding by with human ears sewn to its dashboard are bone-chilling. The My Lai story brought home the brutality, depravity and monstrosity of the American war machine fuelling the anti-war movement.

Yet even with a Pulitzer Prize in hand, he still could not land his dream job at The New York Times. His cantankerous tendencies may not have helped, having hung up twice on executive editor Abe Rosenthal.

Hersh is honest enough to admit that today he might not have made it. He worked during the heyday of American journalism – when he was paid handsomely for exposes and when media outlets had the financial muscle to fund serious writing. When he covered the Paris Peace Accords for The Times, he was put up at the world famous five-star deluxe Hotel de Crillon.

The day after 9/11 we should have gone to Russia.

We did the one thing that George Kennan warned

us never to do – to expand NATO too far

It is not long before we discuss contemporaneous events including the alleged Russian hacking of the US presidential election. Hersh has vociferously strong opinions on the subject and smells a rat. He states that there is “a great deal of animosity towards Russia. All of that stuff about Russia hacking the election appears to be preposterous.” He has been researching the subject but is not ready to go public… yet.

Hersh quips that the last time he heard the US defence establishment have high confidence, it was regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He points out that the NSA only has moderate confidence in Russian hacking. It is a point that has been made before; there has been no national intelligence estimate in which all 17 US intelligence agencies would have to sign off. “When the intel community wants to say something they say it… High confidence effectively means that they don’t know.”

Hersh is also on the record as stating that the official version of the Skripal poisoning does not stand up to scrutiny. He tells me: “The story of novichok poisoning has not held up very well. He [Skripal] was most likely talking to British intelligence services about Russian organised crime.” The unfortunate turn of events with the contamination of other victims is suggestive, according to Hersh, of organised crime elements rather than state-sponsored actions – though this flies in the face of the UK government's position.

Hersh says the Russian hacking of the Trump election ‘appears to be preposterous’ ... but he’s not ready to go public about it yet (Reuters)

Hersh modestly points out that these are just his opinions. Opinions or not, he is scathing on Obama – “a trimmer … articulate [but] … far from a radical … a middleman”. During his Goldsmiths talk, he remarks that liberal critics underestimate Trump at their peril.

The FBI catches bank robbers - the CIA robs banks

He ends the Goldsmiths talk with an anecdote about having lunch with his sources in the wake of 9/11. He vents his anger at the agencies for not sharing information. One of his CIA sources fires back: “Sy you still don’t get it after all these years – the FBI catches bank robbers, the CIA robs banks.” It is a delicious, if cryptic aphorism.

I ask about how the war in Syria has been a divisive issue for the left. Hersh wrote a series of controversial long reads for the London Review of Books insinuating that the Assad government might not have been responsible for the chemical weapons attacks. He had been writing for decades at The New Yorker, which turned down these pieces leading to a falling out.

The New Yorker turns down pieces that don't toe Deep State line

In “The Red Line and the Rat Line”, Hersh argued that both sides had access to chemical weapons. He even went one better and postulated that the rebels or even the Erdogan Turkish government may have carried out a false flag attack to twist Obama’s arm into escalating US involvement as this would have crossed his self-imposed red line.

The journalist says the official story of the novichok poisoning ‘has not held up very well’ and says it is more likely Russian organised crime rather than state-sponsored action (PA)

Hersh also highlighted that a “rat line” of arms had been set up between Libya and Syria by the CIA with the involvement of MI6 using front companies. This was designed to supply the Syrian rebels including jihadi groups in their efforts to oust Assad – startling revelation considering that the US is prosecuting a war on terror and intending to neutralise Islamic State.

Hersh deals with criticisms of the Assad regime one by one. He brusquely tells me: “If Assad loses he will be hanging from a lamp-post” with his wife and children alongside him. He elaborates that, “Heinous things happen in war”, recounting the Allies’ firebombing of Japanese and German cities as well as the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War. His point is that all sides commit war crimes.

In fact, he tells me that the US has also deployed barrel bombs. One could obviously add much more to this catalogue including the use of Agent Orange and other chemicals in Vietnam as well as the use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium in Iraq. “Where is the moral equivalence?” Hersh asks. All of which reminds me of gung-ho US General Curtis LeMay’s infamous statement that if he had lost the Second World War, he would have been tried for war crimes.

Hersh tells me that this is “as close to a just war” because Assad is fighting to prevent an Islamist takeover and the imposition of Sharia law. Critics will rebut that this is a reductively simplistic analysis of the situation with moderate forces on the ground. And surely there is no doubt that the Baathist Assad regime is a brutal dictatorship? Hersh casually drops into the conversation that he met Assad five or six times before the war – a reminder of the astonishing life that he has led meeting the good, the bad and the ugly.

We move on to talk about the covert funding and arming of Islamists going back to the Mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. This was overseen by western intelligence agencies as well as the Saudis and Pakistanis. Hersh recounts how Jimmy Carter’s fiercely anti-communist national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski planned to lure the Russians into their own Vietnam – a quagmire that would catalyse the downfall of the Soviet Union.

During the Goldsmiths event, Hersh vaguely alludes to a funding programme that he has come across but does not divulge further. Most well informed people are aware of the origins of this story. Very few realise that this has been a wide-scale secretive programme, which extended into the former Soviet states as well as across the Middle East and Africa up until the present day. It has been designed to facilitate geopolitical aims presumably on the basis that the ends justify the means. I mention 1950s British intelligence documents with the stated aim of neutralising Arab socialism and nationalism. “Imperialism is imperialism,” Hersh retorts.

Hersh was working on a book on Bush vice president Dick Cheney when the backlash against whistleblowers meant that he could no longer protect his sources (Getty)

In another article, “Military to Military”, Hersh disclosed top secret high-level communications between the military powers engaged in the Syrian theatre. When the US joint chiefs of staff bypassed Obama in order to pass on important intelligence in the fight against Islamic State, an Assad friend responded that they should bring him the head of Bandar to demonstrate good faith. Prince Bandar bin Sultan was the former Saudi ambassador to the US and the director general of the Saudi intelligence agency GID. According to reports in The Wall Street Journal, he acted as the lynchpin in arming the jihadis fighting Assad. Bandar remains close to the Bush clan. Unsurprisingly, the Americans declined the offer. 

I enquire about the role of Bandar in various deep events including acting as the go-between in the CIA arming of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the BAE Al Yamamah arms deal notorious for massive bribes and kickbacks as well as Iran Contra. He even pops up in multiple instances in the 9/11 report, including in relation to payments from his wife Princess Haifa’s bank account being wired to a contact of two of the hijackers. Hersh does not dwell on this but believes that the Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman may well turn out to be worse than Bandar.

Sensing that Hersh may still be preoccupied with the Bush era having abandoned his Cheney book, I ask about an article he wrote in 2007 in The New Yorker entitled “The Redirection”. He tells me it is “amazing how many times that story has been reprinted”. I ask about his argument that US policy was designed to neutralise the Shia sphere extending from Iran to Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and hence redraw the Sykes-Picot boundaries for the 21st century.

The guy was living in a cave. He really didn’t know much English.

He was pretty bright and he had a lot of hatred for the US.

We respond by attacking the Taliban. Eighteen years later…

How’s it going guys?

He goes on to say that Bush and Cheney “had it in for Iran”, although he denies the idea that Iran was heavily involved in Iraq: “They were providing intel, collecting intel … The US did many cross-border hunts to kill ops [with] much more aggression than Iran”.

He believes that the Trump administration has no memory of this approach. I’m sure though that the military-industrial complex has a longer memory. Hersh was at a meeting in Jordan at some point in the last decade, where he was informed that, “you guys have no idea what you are starting” referring to the bloody sectarianism that was about to be unleashed in Iraq.

I press him on the RAND and Stratfor reports including one authored by Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz in which they envisage deliberate ethno-sectarian partitioning of Iraq. Hersh ruefully states that: “The day after 9/11 we should have gone to Russia. We did the one thing that George Kennan warned us never to do – to expand NATO too far.”

‘I don’t necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11,’ says Hersh (Getty)

We end up ruminating about 9/11, perhaps because it is another narrative ripe for deconstruction by sceptics. Polling shows that a significant proportion of the American public believes there is more to the truth. These doubts have been reinforced by the declassification of the suppressed 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report last year undermining the version that a group of terrorists acting independently managed to pull off the attacks. The implication is that they may well have been state-sponsored with the Saudis potentially involved. 

Hersh tells me: “I don’t necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. We really don’t have an ending to the story. I’ve known people in the [intelligence] community. We don’t know anything empirical about who did what”. He continues: “The guy was living in a cave. He really didn’t know much English. He was pretty bright and he had a lot of hatred for the US. We respond by attacking the Taliban. Eighteen years later… How’s it going guys?”

The concept of perpetual war is not exactly unintentional

The concept of perpetual war is not exactly unintentional. The Truman doctrine hinged on this. His successor Eisenhower coined the term “military-industrial complex”. In 2015, giant defence contractor Lockheed Martin’s CEO stated that the more instability in Asia Pacific and the Middle East the better for their profit margins. In other words, war is good for business.

In his ‘JFK’ biography Hersh writes that he agrees with the official story that Oswald was the lone assassin and it wasn’t a CIA conspiracy (Getty)

We also cover his recent work on the purported mythology surrounding Bin Laden’s death in his previous book The Killing of Osama Bin Laden. Hersh tells me: “He escaped into Tora Bora. My guess is the Pakistani intelligence service picked him up pretty early. It was likely that he was in Abbottabad [the military garrison town where he was eventually killed] for 5-6 years according to ISI [Pakistani intelligence] defectors.” At the same time, he states that the Americans did not know. “Nobody knows … Someone walked in and told us,” he says, referring to the Pakistani defector who picked up most of the bounty worth £25m.

Hersh has taken a lot of flak over recent years regarding his articles on Syria and Bin Laden. He has been accused of being an apologist for Assad and the Russians, though he maintains he is seeking out the truth.

This is what happens these days. Anyone interested in the truth is flagged as unAmerican or duped by Syrian or Russian propaganda. 

Critics have also argued that Hersh is a conspiracy theorist, though notably in his John F Kennedy biography The Dark Side of Camelot, he writes that Oswald was the probable lone assassin. Several years ago, I grilled Hersh on this and he responded that he simply could not find anything more on Oswald whilst researching the book. It seems that this position is adopted by others on the left too such as Noam Chomsky, who views JFK as a liberal war hawk rather than a threat to the establishment.

A war-hawk? JFK? He who refused to back the Bay of Pigs invasion? He who would have pulled American troops out of Viet Nam very early had he not been murdered? That's just stupid!

As for Hersh's position on Oswald, he either completely missed the point, or he just refuses to go there. In 1980, I had a writing instructor who had been an investigative reporter some years earlier. He spent about 3 years investigating the JFK assassination until one day he realized that all his leads ended up in dead-ends. I mean literally dead-end. So many people just suddenly dropped dead that my instructor dropped the investigation, packed his bags, and moved to Canada.

I have to say I’m perplexed to say the least that a man who has spent his entire career dealing with covert action and spies buys the official version report hook, line and sinker. In Reporter, he warmly relates his dealings with Hollywood director Oliver Stone in the late Eighties. However, when Stone begins to expand on his thesis that Kennedy was assassinated by a CIA conspiracy in what would eventually become his tour de force magnum opus JFK, Hersh is completely dismissive, telling Stone that the idea is preposterous – to which Stone replies that he always knew Hersh was a CIA agent and walks off.

Some things are just too awful to believe!

Hersh shows no signs of slowing down. He clearly has plenty of work in progress with the tantalising prospect of reporting on the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the US election. And who knows? Maybe that Cheney book will eventually see the light of day. It looks like there might still be a chapter or two to add to his memoir after all.

Is This the Beginning of No-Go Zones in Australia?

Australian police restrict a Canadian journalist from a Sydney street

where a Muslim mosque exists

I am not familiar with Southern's work. I don't know how far to the right she leans, but she definitely leans right.

Nevertheless, she asks good questions that need to be asked and she is horrified by the absurdity of political correctness that is the cause of cultural suicide in the west. That means she is closer to the truth than a lot of western politicians.

Britain and Ecuador Discuss Wikileaks Founder's Fate

Time's running out on the Whistle Blower-in-Chief

By Sommer Brokaw

British and Ecuadorean leaders are holding talks on the fate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange who may soon have to leave an embassy in Britain after staying there six years. File photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI | License Photo

UPI -- Officials in Britain and Ecuador are discussing the fate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in Ecuador's British embassy for six years.

Assange, 47, who has rarely seen daylight in the years he's been held in asylum, could face expulsion soon from the embassy, a source told The Times.

Government officials in both countries are pondering the eviction of Assange, who gained notoriety for publishing thousands of U.S.-classified documents on the website, WikiLeaks, from Ecuador's London embassy, where he has been in asylum since 2012 and gained citizenship late last year.

Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno told the BBC Friday that he was never "in favor" of Assange's activities, and that both countries were holding talks.

The British government has become more concerned about his welfare as Ecuador cut off his internet connection in March over concerns about his use of social media interfering with diplomatic relations and cut back extra security in May after spending $5 million on protection costs.

"It is our wish that this is brought to an end, and we would like to make the assurance that if he were to step out of the embassy, he would be treated humanely and properly," British Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan told parliament last month.

"The first priority would be to look after his health, which we think is deteriorating."

Ecuador granted political asylum to Assange in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over rape allegations. Assange faced a count of unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation, which expired in 2015 due to statutes of limitations under Swedish law, while the investigation for one remaining rape allegation, which had an expiration date of 2020, was dropped in May 2017.

Although the Swedish investigation has been dropped, Assange fears an arrest for bail breach in the sexual assault case would allow him to be extradited to the United States for publishing the classified documents on Wikileaks. 

The website grabbed worldwide attention in April 2010 when it released footage of U.S. soldiers fatally shooting at least 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq.

Perhaps Assange should have allowed himself to face American justice before Trump began loading the Supreme Court with right-wing cronies. He might have had a chance to be pardoned as a whistle-blower. I doubt that chance exists anymore.

I think Britain would demand assurances that he not face the death penalty for treason before handing him over to the US, but I seriously doubt that he would get a fair trial in America.

S. Africa Opposes US Push to Make UN Declaration on TB Friendlier to Big-Pharma

Big pharma's lobby, which is not the least interested in the health of anyone, works long and hard to corrupt the US government into affecting global policies that will enrich big pharma at the expense of everyone who is in need of pharmaceutical help. Any politician taking money from big pharma is complicit in the suffering and deaths of countless numbers of peoples.

A TB sufferer in Agartala, India. © Abhisek Saha/ZUMA Press / Global Look Press

The US pushed to delete a provision in a draft UN declaration on fighting tuberculosis, which encouraged poorer countries to make TB treatments more affordable while snubbing copyright holders, documents reviewed by RT confirm.

In September, the UN high-level Meeting on ending tuberculosis will meet in New York to pass a political declaration on fighting the disease. TB is the world's most deadly infection and kills over a million people each year, with an overwhelming majority of the deaths occurring in developing countries. 

The text of the declaration had been negotiated over the past few months and was understood to be settled, until South Africa made an eleventh-hour decision to break a so-called "silence procedure" last week, publishing the near-final draft in the hope of relaunching negotiations.

According to a Medic Without Borders (MSF) statement, South Africa, which is among the countries suffering most from TB, is unhappy that the American delegation pressured other negotiators to drop a provision, which encourages countries to use international trade rules that allow leeway in protecting intellectual property, if it is needed to address a public health crisis, like a TB epidemic. Such flexibility is allowed by the 1994 Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement, as explained in the Doha Declaration of 2001.

An earlier draft of the TB declaration provided by a source exclusively to RT contains such a clause, while the latest one published on South Africa's initiative does not. The old draft encouraged "the use to the full, of existing flexibilities under the TRIPS specifically geared to promoting access to and trade in medicines" and called on nations to "ensure that intellectual property rights provision in trade agreements do not undermine existing flexibilities."

The US has considerable sway in the fight against tuberculosis, being a top sponsor. During the debate over the draft declaration at the UN, the American representative argued that dropping the wording would have little practical effect on the effort to curb the disease, pointing out that "most existing treatment drugs for TB are off-patent and inexpensive, and that of the two newer drugs, one is donated and the other currently has limited use according to WHO guidelines," she said.

"It would seem to be a better use of global efforts to focus on improving systems, preventive measures and development of new tools, rather than be distracted, as we often are, into discussion of medicine access, intellectual property flexibilities or compulsory licensing," the representative argued.

The position was rejected by Els Torreele, executive director of MSF's Access Campaign, who called it part of an "aggressive push by several countries backed by big-pharma lobbies [which] would severely undercut needed guarantees to protect access to vital tools and medicines for people living with TB."

"This is not a new element. Those of us who have been advocating for affordable medicines globally for the past 20 years know that a number of countries are under very strong pressure of their pharmaceutical industry who are constantly asking for much more strong monopolies, longer monopolies, because this is much more profitable," explained MSF's Eis Torrelle in an interview with RT. She added that the US is one such country and they "are bullying other countries to accept this."

The conflict is one of several in which the US found itself alone, standing for corporate interests against other UN members. Earlier, the American delegation pressured others to strike out the wording supporting breastfeeding from a World Health Organization (WHO) declaration – a move that critics said only baby-formula producers benefited from – until Russia intervened.

Similar pressure campaigns by the US targeted a WHO attempt to limit the use of livestock antibiotics – important in industrial farming – and encourage taxation of sugary drinks to curb diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

‘Christian Democracy’ to Crush Multiculturalism in EU Vote Next Year – Hungary’s Orban

Islamization Backlash - EU

Illiberal “Christian democracy” will replace multiculturalism after the European Parliament vote in 2019, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has predicted, adding that the EU elite have failed the people and should step down.

The European Parliamentary elections in May 2019 will decide the fate of the European “elite” and they’re “visibly nervous” about it, Orban told a crowd of ethnic Hungarians in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad on Saturday.

It’s time for the current Western leadership of the EU to go, as it has failed to protect the bloc from immigration, he said.

“Their big goal is to transform Europe, to ship it into a post-Christian era and into an era when nations disappear – this process could be undermined in the European elections. And it is our elementary interest to stop this transformation,” the PM said.

The liberal values and multiculturalism promoted by Brussels will crumble in the face of what he called “Christian democracy.”

According to Orban, “Christian democracy is not liberal... It is illiberal, if you like.” This ideology rejects not only immigration and multiculturalism, but Communist values as well, he explained.

Next year’s vote will be “a big moment” that will see Europe “saying goodbye not simply to liberal democracy... but to the 1968 elite,” he said, referring to a wave of liberal protests in Europe and US that paved the way for the decline of conservative ideologies.

"There’s a general shift towards the right in the whole of Europe," the PM told his audience, adding that, in order for a shift to “illiberal democracy” to happen, the European elections must be focused on “one common theme – immigration."

The immigration issue has been the reason for ongoing strife between Orban and the EU, as Budapest leads a group of Eastern European nations resisting Brussel’s push to settle asylum seekers there using a quota system. Hungary famously erected a 110-mile long security fence on its border to prevent refugees from making it into the country at the peak of the European migrant crisis in 2015.

On Friday, the PM again slammed the European Commission, led by Jean Claude-Juncker, over its apparent impotence in solving the migrant issue, comparing it to a helpless frog that’s being cut up in a biology class. “We need a commission, after the European elections, which does not punish those countries that protect their borders like Hungary,” he said.

The Hungarian leader’s campaign against George Soros has also been making headlines; he blamed the US billionaire and open borders advocate of attempting to use immigration to undermine Europe and its Christian values. In June, Hungary passed the so-called ‘Stop Soros’ law, which criminalized assistance to illegal immigrants that had previously been provided by Soros-backed groups.

Despite accusations coming from the West of being authoritarian, his anti-immigrant stance has garnered Orban huge public support in his home country. He won his third term as Prime Minister in April, with his rightist Fidesz party holding a two-thirds majority in the parliament.

'Police Can No Longer Handle the Lawless Jungle After Dark in Amsterdam' - Ombudsman

The New Normal - Amsterdam after dark

FILE PHOTO: Aan overturned car in Amsterdam © Cris Toala Olivares / Reuters

As dark descends on Amsterdam, the Dutch tourist hotspot turns into an “urban jungle” where the police are powerless to handle crime, violence and drug trade, Arre Zuurmond, the city's ombudsman, warned.

"The city center becomes an urban jungle at night," Zuurmond told Dutch paper, Trouw. "Criminal money flourishes, there is no authority and the police can no longer handle the situation."

Drugs are being sold openly in the streets, pedestrian areas are used for car and bike races, there’s widespread theft and other offenses, the ombudsman said, using the world “mayhem” to describe what’s happening in the city.

Earlier, Zuurmond set up three CCTV cameras at the busy Leidseplein square ringed by bars and clubs, which is located in the south western part of the city center. The facts exposed as a result of his surveillance experiment turned out to be quite depressing.

"One night we counted 900 offences, mainly between the hours of 2:00am and 4:00am. The atmosphere is grim, and there is an air of lawlessness," the ombudsman told Trouw. "Scooters race through the pedestrian areas. There is a lot of shouting. Drugs are being bought. There is stealing,” he said, adding that police often do not even try to intervene.

"There is violence but no action. You can even pee on the van of a mobile [police] unit and the driver won't say anything,” Zuurmond said. He also described the situation at the square at night as “intolerable lack of authority.”

The notorious Red Light district streets, which are “packed” with crowds of revelers in the evenings, also witness a high crime rate. Human trafficking has become a particular source of concern for the local authorities as it even prompted the municipality to launch a special project aimed at combating the issue as well as reducing the overall crime rate. However, all the efforts have been largely to no avail so far, the paper reports, citing the assessment made by the Amsterdam city court.

The problems deepen as they continue to spread across the city, Zuurmond warned. He particularly drew attention to the fact that some 2,000 illegal taxis are now roaming the streets at nights for fares. The city also has a flourishing black market with racketeers dealing with wads of cash. “Shadowy money is everywhere in the city center,” the ombudsman said.

The tense situation is partly a result of government policy, Zuurmond explained. “The government has deliberately stimulated tourism after the economic crisis, but [it] has forgotten to… take additional [security] measures.”

According to Dutch media, the problem that currently plagues the capital of the Netherlands might in fact be part of a larger issue. In the Netherlands, there are around 160,000 people who have been “irrevocably convicted” but have managed to avoid punishment, Trouw reports, citing data provided by the municipality of Amsterdam.

According to the ministry of justice, more than 12,000 out of the 160,000 have to serve a custodial sentence. About 10 percent of such convicts fleeing justice reportedly reside in Amsterdam, where they can actually apply for a new passport virtually without any background checks. As a result, hundreds of alleged “street criminals” just “disappear.”

Amsterdam welcomes 18 million tourists every year – more than the total population of the Netherlands. The city has recently been hit by a string of violent incidents. In late June, a motorcycle gang member was arrested after he allegedly fired an anti-tank missile at an office building which houses a magazine publisher in Amsterdam. Just days later, a van crashed into the head office of daily newspaper De Telegraaf in the Dutch capital, in what police believe was a deliberate attack. Neither incident resulted in casualties.

Last week, a Briton was shot in the head outside a café in Amsterdam by a fellow national in what police described as a gang feud. An international manhunt was launched after the incident. The shooting victim remains in the hospital in stable condition.

And no-one dare say the word 'migrants' in relation to the rocketing crime rates.

‘Hands off the Crucifix’: Pope Francis Adviser Slams League’s ‘Blasphemous’ Bill

Is liberal hypocrisy now emanating from the Vatican?

© Global Look Press/ Hauke-Christian Dittrich

An adviser of Pope Francis is campaigning against the mandatory introduction of crucifixes in all public areas across Italy, insisting an initiative put forward by Italy’s League party on Tuesday was tantamount to “blasphemy.”

Reverend Antonio Spadaro hit out at the bill, which was introduced for debate in the national parliament this week. He said during a press conference: “If you remove the (religious) symbolism from the crucifix … it becomes a parody.” 

The hundreds of stories I have posted on my other blog about thousands, if not tens of thousands of pedophile priests who have sexually assaulted hundreds of thousands of children, just in the past 50 years, leads me to believe that the crucifix on the walls of Catholic institutions may be far worse than just parody - it may truly be sinister and blasphemous.

Earlier in the day Spadaro, who is editor of the Jesuit magazine ‘Civilta Cattolica,’ bluntly told the League to keep its “hands off” the crucifix in a tweet that went viral.

“The cross is a sign of protest against sin, violence, injustice and death. It is NEVER a sign of identity. It screams of love to the enemy and unconditional welcome. It’s an embrace from God without defences,” Spadaro tweeted. He has been regularly posting tweets backing his stance since then.

It is 'never' a sign of identity? - I think it is always a sign of identity. How could it be otherwise? This is why crosses and crucifixes were made mandatory in German classrooms and courtrooms recently. I did not see the Catholic or Lutheran churches complain about that.

The tweet was a tacit dig at the anti-immigration policies of Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and his League party. In recent weeks several rescue boats arriving from the Mediterranean with hundreds of migrants on board have been denied permission to dock at Italian ports. 

While the right-wing League, which came third in this year’s national elections, rolls out its anti-immigration policies, Pope Francis continues to encourage countries to allow the entry of migrants. 

How many has he invited to live in the Vatican? Anybody?

The latest move comes after Salvini hit back at critics who on Thursday likened him to Satan in a Catholic magazine. The cover of the popular weekly publication boasted a picture of Salvini and read ‘Vade Retro Salvini’ – a play on the words uttered by Catholic exorcists ‘Step back Satan.’

The bill being proposed by the League would see any public body found in breach of the proposed legislation being fined up to €1,000.

Interestingly, the Church criticized the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) when, in 2009, it banned introducing crucifixes in classrooms, saying the ruling was “wrong and myopic.” Instead it backed two decrees dating back to 1920s fascist Italy that mandated the placement of the religious objects in public schools.

The obvious reversal of positions from decrying the ultra-liberal ECHR ruling, to taking to the extreme of calling a right-wing politician Satan, is astonishing in just 9 years. It can only be attributed to Pope Francis. 

One of the many ironic things about this story is that Salvini, among other things - like staving off bankruptcy, and trying to slow down rising crime rates, is actually protecting the Christian church - and in Italy that means the Catholic church, from an astonishing influx of Muslims. 

Another irony is that those Muslims who are fleeing Muslim countries because of war and poverty are bringing Islam with them to infect Christian Europe. They escape Africa in hopes of a better life, but they bring the cause of much of their misery with them. Not all of their misery, Christian Europe bears much blame in leaving many African nations impoverished and hopelessly corrupt.

700+ Migrants Storm Spanish Exclave of Ceuta, Some use Homemade ‘Flamethrowers’

African migrants in this still image from video climb the border from Morocco to Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta, Spain, July 26, 2018 / Reuters

Hundreds of migrants armed with sticks and homemade flamethrowers broke through the border fence in Ceuta, according to the Spanish Civil Guard. Over 100 migrants and 15 border agents were injured in the fight.

“Over 700 sub-Saharans” attempted to storm the border fence, the Civil Guard said in a statement, adding that “at least 602” of them managed to cross the barriers. Volunteers and the local branch of the Red Cross said that 132 migrants sustained injuries, while 11 had to be taken to a local hospital.

Some of them were cut with barbed wire while trying to climb the border fence, and others sustained broken bones. The scuffles also led to 15 border agents receiving injuries. Some agents were burnt as the migrants attacked them with homemade flamethrowers while trying to avoid arrest.

Migrants were also reportedly fighting off the border agents with sticks, quicklime and sprays containing fouls odor. The migrants appeared over the fence and "all of a sudden,", some of them were pelting police with "plastic containers full of excrements and quicklime... stones and sticks", the Civil Guard  said.

Wow! That should make Spain want to keep you as permanent citizens!

Spanish media cited police who say the recent incident is one of “the most violent and numerous entries” of asylum seekers in recent months. 

Ceuta is one of two Spanish territories in North Africa, along with Melilla. The city is a hub for African migrants trying to reach Europe. Over 19,000 people have landed on in Spain in 2018 so far, according to the data from the International Organization for Migration. 

Back in June, newly appointed Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska announced his desire to remove the fence. “I’m going to do everything possible to see that these razor wire fences at Ceuta and Melilla are removed,” he said.

video 1:56

Responding to the Thursday incident in Ceuta, the Guardia Civil's AEGC union called upon the Spanish authorities to clarify its “plan B” to maintain security if the wire was removed.

“We're one of the main entry points from the third world into Europe and none of those in charge at the interior ministry have wanted to see or resolve the problems this is causing,” it said.

According to the police union, migrants breaking through the fence “demonstrated that these problems are going to worsen if more Guardia Civil, and anti-riot and protection equipment, fail to arrive when the barbed wire is removed.” 

Asylum seekers have repeatedly tried to force their way into the Spanish exclave by storming a wired border fence. The attempted incursions often resulted in injures both among asylum seekers and police officers. In January 2017, crowds of migrants approached the 6-meter-high barbed wire border fence which police called a “well organized and violent” attempt. In February 2017, hundreds successfully crossed into Ceuta, kissing the ground and shouting “Viva Espana!”

It is hard to imagine how desperate these guys are to escape poverty and the insanity of Muslim revolutions in sub-Saharan Africa. If Europe had worked with those countries many decades ago, to build a sustainable economy, rather than exploiting them for selfish gain, we would almost certainly not see the astonishing exodus of young people from their native countries into Europe that we are seeing now.

Is it too late to address the matter? Maybe. With the desperate poverty comes extraordinary corruption, so it is not easy to invest in a country where money just disappears. And then there is the ever-increasing Islamic insanity...

‘No Judgement Day Until Muslims Slay the Jews’: Danish Imam Charged Over Anti-Semitic Speech

Islamization - preaching hatred in Copenhagen mosque

Muslim boy prays. © Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters

Danish prosecutors have charged Imam Mundhir Abdallah after outrage over a 2017 speech, in which he called on Muslims to kill Jews to fulfill their destiny. It is the first charge of its kind under new religious preaching laws.

The disturbing comments, which were filmed and distributed on the imam’s social media, prompted Danish prosecutors to issue charges for the first time under the new criminal code, introduced in January 2017.

“Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,” the imam said in a Facebook and YouTube video post in March.

Abdallah is accused of citing a religious narrative calling for Muslims to rise up against the Jews. Abdallah preaches in Norrebro, Copenhagen, at the Masjid Al-Faruq mosque, which has previously been linked to radical Islam.

According to a translation of Mundhir Abdallah’s 2017 speech, the imam quoted a Hadith (sacred text of the words and stories of the Prophet Mohammed) saying Judgement Day would not come “until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”

“The Jews will hide behind rocks and the trees,” he said. “But the rocks and the trees will say, ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,’” he said.

Sunna - custom and practice of Mohammed
The goal is to establish Sharia and Sunna globally

Public prosecutor Eva Ronne released a statement following the imam’s charge. “These are serious statements and I think it’s right for the court to now have an opportunity to assess the case,” she said. “It has always been illegal to accept killings of a certain group of people, but it's new for us to target hate preachers,” Ronne said.

While it is legal in Denmark to quote religious texts – such as the Koran or the Bible – inciting or welcoming killing is not. Under the hate speech law, those found guilty of such offences could be punished by up to three years in prison.

They should be eligible for deportation as well. Two or three years in jail is not going to improve their attitudes.

When the video of Mundhir Abdallah’s remarks surfaced on social media, he was condemned by Inger Stojberg, the Danish minister for immigration, integration and housing. “The following video is from the mosque at Heimdalsgade in Copenhagen on March 31 this year, and this calls for the killing of Jews,” she said on Facebook in 2017. “This is completely preposterous, undemocratic and awful. But it also shows why we need to lead a harsh and consistent policy.”

In response to the backlash, Mundhir Abdallah said in an interview of his own that he has “wide and warm support from people from everywhere. Even many in Denmark.”“They know that my words have been manipulated, and they know that the motivation for this campaign is to prevent Muslims from criticizing Israel and Western governments that support the occupation [of Palestine],” the imam said. (edited)