Puppet Masters
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser agreed on Thursday to add a three-week session in May in addition to the five-day hearing already set for Feb. 24.
The judge said she was "unlikely to look favorably" on any further requests for delays in the long-awaited confrontation between Assange and U.S. officials.
Assange is being held at Belmarsh Prison in east London while he waits for the hearing. The U.S. has charged him with espionage related to WikiLeaks' hacking of hundreds of thousands of confidential government documents.
President Andrzej Duda has refused the invitation to the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem on Thursday, in protest over Russian President Vladimir Putin being invited to speak at the event while he was not. Instead, Duda will preside over the memorial ceremony in Auschwitz on Monday - to which his government deliberately did not invite Putin.
International Holocaust Memorial Day is marked on January 27 because on that date in 1945 the Red Army troops liberated the notorious Nazi death camp at what is now called Oswiecim. Yet the current Polish government has refused to give the Soviet Union any credit for liberating Auschwitz - or Poland, for that matter - insisting instead that their country was a purely innocent victim of Nazis and Soviets in equal measure.
The FBI quashed a planned feature that would have allowed Apple users to encrypt their iCloud storage, claiming that it would cut the agency off from its best source of evidence against iPhone-using suspects, according to sources who spoke to Reuters on Wednesday. Apple reportedly went along with the agency, hoping to avoid being made an example of in the media or used as the test case for a draconian new anti-encryption law, and the program was put to bed two years ago - yet the crusading surveillance state has returned in the wake of the Pensacola naval air base shooting to demand still greater incursions on user privacy.
Proposed by Vladimir Putin in his annual state-of-the-nation address, the changes seek to give more powers to parliament, which will be able to pick the prime minister. The premier's cabinet picks, currently not requiring a nod from MPs, would require parliamentary confirmation and could not be rejected by the president.
They would also limit the president's overall tenure to only two terms; the individual will also be required to have lived 25 consecutive years in Russia, up from the current 10, and to have never obtained foreign citizenship or a residence permit. There will also be stricter background requirements for top officials and MPs.
The Democratic presidential hopeful released a scathing statement in defense of her suit against Clinton, noting that the former secretary of state's attempt to smear her as "the favorite of the Russians" would have far-reaching consequences if left unchallenged.
"If Hillary Clinton and her allies can successfully destroy my reputation - even though I'm a war veteran and a sitting member of Congress - then they can do it to anybody," Gabbard wrote.

The Pentagon building in Washington, D.C. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.
The latest estimate is up from $30.7 trillion in 2018 and $29 trillion in 2017, the first year adjustments were tracked in a concerted way, according to Pentagon figures and a lawmaker who's pursued the accounting morass.
The figure dwarfs the $738 billion of defense-related funding in the latest U.S. budget, a spending plan that includes the most expensive weapons systems in the world including the F-35 jet as well as new aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines.
Comment: One wonders just where this unfathomable sum of money is going? Because everything that we see the Pentagon produce reflects a department that's rotten to its core:
- Tough luck, Aussies! Pentagon won't compensate Australia for faulty Boeing fighter jet that went aflame on takeoff
- "Astonishing fraud": Pentagon stashes billions, spends it later to avoid accountability
- Last-ditch attempt to stop Nord Stream 2: US Senate passes $740 BILLION Pentagon budget that includes Russian pipeline sanctions
"We will witness the end of the US forces' presence in Iraq in the current year," Ali al-Qanemi, a senior member of the Iraqi parliament's security and defense committee, told the Arabic-language Baghdad al-Youm news website on Tuesday.
He added that the parliament's decision to expel the US forces is binding on the government, adding that Baghdad is adopting the necessary measures to this end. Al-Qanem said after the parliament's decision and given the conditions in Iraq, the US forces have no reason to continue their presence in the Arab country.
Comment: In addition to Trump's ridiculous claims that Iraq owes them, the Pentagon claims that since its army there is a 'force for good' they have NO plans to leave...

Smoke rises as demonstrators gather during a protest against the newly formed government in Beirut, Lebanon
After months of uncertainty, President Michel Aoun - a Maronite Christian - offered the post of prime minister to Hassan Diab, a Sunni Muslim. Diab's coalition received the support of Hezbollah, a Shia political and military movement influential in southern Lebanon. The fresh cabinet consists of 20 ministers.
Protesters continued to throng the streets of Beirut into Wednesday night, however, raging at corruption, unemployment, national debt spiraling out of control, and inadequate public services, as well as the web of sectarian alliances that traditionally dominates Lebanese politics.

French President Emmanuel Macron asks the Israeli police to leave the 12th-century Church of Saint Anne in the old city of Jerusalem on January 22, 2020.
Footage shared on social media captured the altercation, which took place during Macron's visit to the Crusader-era church on Wednesday. Though situated in the Old City of Jerusalem, the church belongs to the French government, and Israeli officers had apparently tried to enter the premises ahead of Macron.
"Everybody knows the rules!" Macron shouted, speaking English. "I don't like what you did in front of me. Go out!"
"Please respect the rules as they were for centuries," he continued. "They will not change with me."
Comment: This is how the Israeli police treat a visiting President, and we know that the way they treat the local Palestinians and Christians is much, much worse:
- Christian churches under attack in West Bank, prompt response demanded of Palestinian Authority
- Christians under continuous, violent attacks from Jewish groups in Jerusalem
- Palestinians reel from violent harassment during Jewish celebration in Hebron
- Malaysia to open embassy to Palestine, PM denounces "brutal" Israeli regime
On January 20, a quiet, unassuming expert laid bare the OPCW suppression of evidence that would demonstrate the illegitimacy of the bombing of Syria in April 2018 by the UK, US, and France. Ian Henderson is a former OPCW inspection team leader and an engineering and ballistics specialist. Henderson said he visited Douma with the first OPCW inspection team shortly after the alleged chemical attack on April 7, 2018. In an address to the UN Security Council Arria-Formula Meeting, Henderson presented his misgivings and spoke of the OPCW management information lockdown.
Henderson's analysis of the events, in particular the "chlorine cylinder dropped by Syrian air-force helicopters" narrative was inexplicably suppressed by the OPCW and omitted from the final report which fraudulently maintained the "likely" verdict that chlorine had been used.
Henderson's report had supported the conclusion that there had been no chemical attack. A number of other OPCW colleagues have also come forward with similar claims that their expert opinions were censored by the OPCW who appear to have been tasked with retrospectively justifying the US allied criminal aggression against Syria. A bombing campaign that resulted in the destruction of a laboratory complex and cancer research center, located in Barzeh on the outskirts of Damascus.
It is worth noting that had this been a "chemical weapons" factory as claimed by Western intelligence, the potential for civilian deaths would have been horrific in the event of "chemicals" being released into the atmosphere close to Damascus residents.
Comment: See also:
- Worst lie since fake claim sparked Iraq war? OPCW report behind Syria bombings was altered, whistleblower tells UNSC
- Newsweek gags journalist who commented on MSM silence of OPCW Douma scandal
- Senior OPCW official ordered deletion of 'all traces' of dissenting report on 'Douma chemical attack' - WikiLeaks' new leak












Comment: See also: Three protected state witnesses accuse Spanish ex-marine of illegally spying on Julian Assange