Saturday, 13 April 2019

Hillary Clinton: Assange must 'answer for what he has done' in wake of arrest

Hillary Clinton: Assange must 'answer for what he has done' in wake of arrestClinton says at New York event: ‘I think it is clear from the indictment that came out it’s not about punishing journalism’Hillary Clinton said the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose website published hacked emails from her 2016 presidential campaign, must “answer for what he has done” in the wake of his dramatic arrest on Thursday.Her comments came hours after Assange was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and taken into custody by London’s Metropolitan police and charged by the US with conspiring to hack into a secret Pentagon computer network.Assange is accused of working with Chelsea Manning, then a US army intelligence analyst, to break into the defense department network in March 2010 to obtain classified documents.The US confirmed it would seek the extradition of Assange from the UK, prompting immediate concerns over journalistic protections under the first amendment.“I think it is clear from the indictment that came out it’s not about punishing journalism,” Clinton said at an event in New York.Clinton said the issue was not one of press freedom, but “about assisting the hacking of a military computer to steal information from the United States government”.After 2,487 days in the embassy, the 47-year-old was arrested after Ecuador revoked his political asylum and invited police officers inside their Knightsbridge premises, where he has stayed since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations which Assange has always denied.Later on Thursday, he was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court and faces up to 12 months in a British prison.“Look, I’ll wait and see what happens with the charges and how it proceeds, but he skipped bail in the UK,” Clinton said. “The bottom line is he has to answer for what he has done, at least as it’s been charged.”Clinton also took a swipe at Donald Trump, stating of her former rival: “I do think it’s a little ironic that [Assange] may be the only foreigner that this administration would welcome to the United States.”Clinton has long pointed to Russian interference in the 2016 election as a major factor in her defeat to Trump, citing in particular the impact of hacked emails published on WikiLeaks at pivotal moments in the campaign.The website first leaked the contents of internal emails stolen from Democratic National Committee servers just ahead of the party’s convention in July. WikiLeaks then published thousands of hacked emails in October from Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, which were released just hours after the release of an Access Hollywood tape in which Trump had bragged about groping and kissing women without their consent.Despite hailing WikiLeaks as a “treasure trove” during the 2016 campaign, Trump feigned ignorance about the website and its activities in the wake of Assange’s arrest.“I know nothing about WikiLeaks,” the president told reporters at the White House. “It’s not my thing.”After WikiLeaks disseminated the hacked DNC emails in 2016, then candidate Trump infamously declared: “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.”Vice-President Mike Pence defended Trump in an interview with CNN on Friday, stating his prior comments were “in no way an endorsement of an organization that we now understand was involved in disseminating classified information by the United States of America”.“The justice department is now seeking extradition and we’re going to bring Julian Assange to justice,” Pence said, while adding Assange’s work with Manning was “one of the greatest compromises of classified information in American history”.Manning, a former US soldier, was convicted in 2013 of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks and sentenced to 35 years in prison for espionage and theft. She was released in 2017 after a seven-year stint in prison, but sent back to jail in March of this year after refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks.While the narrow charge against Assange of violating computer hacking laws was not widely in dispute, academics and advocacy groups were alarmed by the justice department’s accusatory tone toward journalistic activities that include protecting the anonymity of sources and sharing government information and records in the public interest.Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said his arrest “sets a dangerous precedent for all media organizations in Europe and around the world”.“It’s called conspiracy,” added WikiLeaks’s editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson.“It’s conspiracy to commit journalism.”




North Korea's Kim Jong Un says U.S. must change stance, gives deadline

North Korea's Kim Jong Un says U.S. must change stance, gives deadlineKim said that he will wait "until the end of this year" for the United States to decide, according to KCNA. "What is needed is for the U.S. to stop its current way of calculation, and come to us with a new calculation," Kim said in a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly on Friday, KCNA said. Trump and Kim have met twice, in Hanoi in February and Singapore in June, building good will but failing to agree on a deal to lift sanctions in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear and missile programs.




Holden Matthews: ‘Black metal music’ may have influenced ‘son of sheriff’ suspect in Louisiana church fires

Holden Matthews: ‘Black metal music’ may have influenced ‘son of sheriff’ suspect in Louisiana church firesA man who has been arrested following fires at three historically black churches in Louisiana is the son of a sheriff’s deputy who authorities believe may have been influenced by “black metal music”.Governor Jon Bel Edwards announced that 21-year-old Holden Matthews had been arrested in connection to those fires, which impacted three churches over a ten day period.“I don’t know what this young man’s motive, I don’t know what was in his heart … but it cannot be justified,” Mr Edwards said on Thursday during a press conference.State Fire Marshal Butch Browning said that Mr Matthews has been charged on three counts of arson on a religious building, with each individual count carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.Mr Browning was the official who said that black metal music may have been involved in Mr Matthew’s motive.“We can now confirm all three of these fires are intentionally set and all three of these fires are related,” Mr Browning said.Mr Matthews’ father works for the St Landry Parish Sheriff’s office, and Sheriff Bobby Guidroz said that his employee was shocked by the news about his son.“Holden’s father is an employee of mine,” Mr Guidroz said. “He was shocked and hurt as any father would be. He was in terrible shape.”




Nipsey Hussle: Private burial service will be held at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills

Nipsey Hussle: Private burial service will be held at Forest Lawn Hollywood HillsA private burial is planned Friday at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills for slain rapper Nipsey Hussle.




Boeing to meet with US airlines over 737 MAX

Boeing to meet with US airlines over 737 MAXThe US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Thursday it would meet with American commercial airlines that use the Boeing 737 MAX, which has been grounded worldwide since mid-March following two accidents that killed 346 people. The meeting, scheduled to take place on Friday in Washington, comes as Boeing faces intense scrutiny after 157 people died in an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash on March 10 -- the second deadly crash involving the aircraft in five months. Security representatives from American Airlines, Southwest and United will be at the meeting, as well as representatives from their pilot unions.




After Assange arrest, Trump says WikiLeaks is 'not my thing.' It was his thing in 2016.

After Assange arrest, Trump says WikiLeaks is 'not my thing.' It was his thing in 2016.“I know nothing about Wikileaks. It’s not my thing,” the president told reporters inside the Oval Office when asked if he still loves WikiLeaks.




SpaceX carries out first commercial launch

SpaceX carries out first commercial launchSpaceX carried out its first commercial launch on Thursday with its Falcon Heavy rocket easing a Saudi telecoms satellite into orbit. The bright white rocket rose with a roar and spewed thick gray smoke on the ground as it made its way up into clear blue skies over Cape Canaveral, Florida, trailing a long plume of orange fire. About 34 minutes after liftoff, the shiny silver satellite was successfully deployed.