There are only a couple of weeks before the UK court rules on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to the US. Now a leaked audio recording has been made public that undermines the US prosecution's key accusation that WikiLeaks put lives at risk.

It could provide further grounds for the court to dismiss the extradition request.

The video and audio evidence

In March 2020, The Canary reported on claims that Guardian journalists had played a pivotal role in ensuring that an unredacted version of classified US cables could be published, contrary to the wishes of WikiLeaks. That's because, in February 2011, David Leigh and Luke Harding published the complete passphrase to the unredacted US cables in the book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy. The Guardian denied that the book had "compromised security in any way".

In that article, The Canary also highlighted a video from 2011 (featured in the 2017 film Risk). The video showed WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison and Assange in a phone call to the US State Department, warning that the unredacted version of the cables was about to be published:

President Trump on Saturday downplayed the impact of a sprawling hack on a litany of government agencies while questioning officials' conclusion that Russia was behind the attack.

Trump used his first public comments on the cyber intrusion to dismiss the severity of the hack while asserting that the media was playing it up to hurt him. He also questioned who perpetrated it, despite officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that Russia was to blame for the attack.

The president's comments, issued in a pair of tweets, directly contradicted government officials and outside experts who said the attack that hit the departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State and Treasury, among others, was one of the broadest cyberattacks in recent memory.

Welcome to the year-end wrap up! You know, the annual end-of-year stock-taking editorial I write before we all go off to enjoy our Christmas and ring in the New Year?

Now, if this were any other year, I'd make some light-hearted joke about all of this. You know, "Oh, nothing much happened this year, there's really nothing to write about." Or: "It's like the opening of A Tale of Two Cities except without the 'best of times' bit."

But this is not any other year. This is 2020. So I'm resorting to quoting Queen Elizardbeast. Remember what she said about 1992?

"In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis."

Queeny was whining about all the scandals and "tragedies" that befell her poor family that year, of course, like her childrens' philandering being exposed to the world and Her Majesty herself being pelted with eggs by angry Germans and her multi-million pound castle catching fire.

I'll cue the world's smallest violin as you wipe the tears from your eyes.

But here we are nearly 30 years later and this is our "annus horribilis." As we gather here electronically, millions of people have had their lives thrown into chaos by a scamdemic long in the making. Families have been torn apart. Mom-and-pop business owners have had their life's work taken away from them. The poorest of the poor have been thrown into even further grinding poverty. Suicides and deaths of despair are on the rise as we enter the biosecurity paradigm and prepare for a new normal of social distancing and mask wearing and lockdowns and misery. And all of this in the name of a disease that even the lying public health officials acknowledge as being harmless to almost the entirety of the population.

This is what a real annus horribilis looks like. So you'll forgive me if I don't feel particularly jokey this year.

Yes, 2020 is just about over and, barring the opening of the portal to Hades or whatever is supposed to happen during the coming Grand Conjunction, we've made it through to the other side. But what lies there? What event are we living through, and where do we go from here?

To answer that, let's step back for a bit.

McCarthy says Swalwell should 'not be on Intel' Committee

The FBI on Friday briefed GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Speaker Pelosi on Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell's relationship with Chinse spy Fang Fang.

McCarthy emerged from the briefing Friday afternoon and told reporters at the Capitol that Swalwell 'should not be on intel' committee.

"I just think there are definitely 200 other Democrats that I know could fill that place," McCarthy said.

Tech entrepreneur-turned-political-candidate Andrew Yang has suggested the use of digital vaccination certificates to speed the reopening of society - a suggestion his followers swatted down with copious Nazi references.

Yang asked his followers if there was a way for "someone to easily show that they have been vaccinated - like a bar code they can download to their phone" on Twitter on Friday, reasoning that it was "tough to have mass gatherings like concerts or ballgames" without such intrusive technology.


Several such apps are already in the works, including the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored CommonPass, which several international airline bodies have championed as key to resuming 'normal' travel. Individual countries have also considered adopting "health passports" for residents who receive a Covid-19 vaccine.

We've landed in a world where diplomacy, sanctions, even war can be decided by mere claims, and evidence is optional. Yet those proudly displaying the badge of 'public trust' are the worst of the serial, politically-driven liars.

The Communist Party of China has been covertly sending arms to extremist Antifa militants in the United States in preparation for the civil war which is expected to take place after Joe Biden declares himself President for Life and institutes a Marxist dictatorship. The weapons shipments include rocket launchers, directed energy weapons, nunchucks and ninja throwing stars.

Unfortunately I cannot provide evidence for this shocking revelation as doing so would compromise my sources and methods, but trust me it's definitely true and must be acted upon immediately. I recommend President Trump declare martial law without a moment's hesitation and begin planning a military response to these Chinese aggressions.

In June, elites at important international institutions such as the World Economic Forum and the United Nations launched a far-reaching campaign to "reset" the global economy.

The plan involves dramatically increasing the power of government through expansive new social programs like the Green New Deal and using vast regulatory schemes and government programs to coerce corporations into supporting left-wing causes.

The two justifications for the proposal, which has been aptly named by its supporters the "Great Reset," are the COVID-19 pandemic (the short-term justification) and the so-called "climate crisis" caused by global warming (the long-term justification).

According to the Great Reset's supporters, the plan would fundamentally transform much of society. As World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab wrote back in June, "the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a 'Great Reset' of capitalism."

The Associated Press reported earlier this week that President Trump has been asking about a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden and another special counsel to look into the Democrat voter fraud.

Attorney Sidney Powell reportedly met with Trump in Oval Office Friday evening where the President discussed naming Powell as special counsel to investigate massive Democrat voter fraud that took place in the 2020 election.

General Flynn also joined Sidney Powell on Friday and deploying the military was reportedly raised in the meeting but nixed.

According to the New York Times, Sidney Powell was at the Oval Office and Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani joined the conversation by phone where her potential position as special counsel was discussed.

Most of his advisers opposed the idea, two of the people briefed on the discussion said, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, who in recent days sought to have the Department of Homeland Security join the campaign's efforts to overturn Mr. Trump's loss in the election.

Mr. Giuliani joined the discussion by phone, while Ms. Powell was at the White House for a meeting that became raucous at times, according to one of the people briefed on what took place. Other administration officials drifted in and out of the meeting, two of the people briefed said, and the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, pushed back on the ideas being proposed.

Ms. Powell accused other Trump advisers of being quitters, according to the people briefed.

It was unclear if Mr. Trump will move ahead with such a plan.

Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor, has filed many lawsuits in several battleground states where the corrupt Democrat machine used illegal ballots to steal the election for Joe Biden.

The Defense Department has failed to keep track of surveillance systems, controls for laser-guided bombs, night-vision devices and other equipment provided to the Afghan government, a U.S. government watchdog agency said Thursday.

The goods transferred to the Afghan government are "some of the most sensitive of all defense articles" and were supposed to be fully inventoried by the U.S. every year, to ensure they were being used for their intended purpose and were not transferred to a third party without U.S. government consent, the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan said.

But only 40% of the sensitive articles given to the Afghans were inventoried between May 2019 and April 2020, it said, and about 5% of items that were supposed to have been tracked since October 2016 have never been inventoried at all.

US President-elect Joe Biden's advisers are preparing to negotiate with Nicolas Maduro's regime in Venezuela in an effort to end the Western Hemisphere's worst economic and humanitarian crisis, according to three people familiar with the matter.The Biden administration intends to push for free and fair elections, offering sanctions relief in return, said the people, who requested anonymity because the new team is forming. In a departure from the Trump administration, which insisted it would only negotiate the terms of Maduro's surrender, Biden's advisers aren't setting that as a precondition and are open to direct talks.

The president-elect's team will review existing sanctions to determine where to expand restrictions with the help of international allies and what measures might get lifted if Maduro moves toward the democratic objective, the people said. Maduro's foreign backers, including Russia, China and Iran, are expected to play a role, as will Cuba, which is keen to improve relations with the US.