JERUZALEM, May 14 -- As Apple rolled out an advertising campaign last month touting the impenetrability of the iPhone — “Privacy. That’s iPhone”, the commercials promised a secretive Israeli company called in its sales people to talk about an important update designed to thwart that very privacy. According to one person at the meeting, the executives from NSO Group made a bold claim: using just one simple missed call on WhatsApp, it had figured out a way to “drop its payload”, a piece of software called Pegasus that can penetrate the darkest secrets of any iPhone. Within minutes of the missed call, the phone starts revealing its encrypted content, mirrored on a computer screen halfway across the world. It then transmits back the most intimate details such as private messages or location, and even turns on the camera and microphone to live-stream meetings. The software itself is not new — it was the latest upgrade to a decade-old technology so powerful that the Israeli defence ministry regulates its sale. But the WhatsApp hack was an enticing new “attack vector”, the person says. “Great from a sales point.” It was an illustration of the sales pitch that NSO has made to governments around the world — and which have helped give a tiny and discreet company a market valuation of around $1bn. NSO’s few hundred engineers claim they have managed to manoeuvre around whatever obstacle Apple, the world’s most valuable company, has thrown in its way. Apple declined to comment for this article. At an investor presentation in London in April, the company bragged that the typical security patches from Apple do not address the “weaknesses exploited by Pegasus”, according to an unimpressed potential investor. Despite the annual software updates unveiled by companies such as Apple, NSO had a “proven record” of identifying new weaknesses, the company representative told attendees. NSO’s pitch has been a runaway success — allowing governments to buy off the shelf the sort of software that was once thought to be restricted to only the most sophisticated spy agencies, such as GCHQ in the UK and the National Security Agency in America. The sale of such powerful and controversial technologies also gives Israel an important diplomatic calling card. Through Pegasus, Israel has acquired a major presence — official or not — in the deeply classified war rooms of unlikely partners, including, researchers say, Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Although both countries officially reject the existence of the Jewish state, they now find themselves the subject of a charm offensive by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that mixes a shared hostility to Iran with intelligence knowhow. The Israeli government has never talked publicly about its relationship with NSO. Shortly after he stepped down as defence minister in November, Avigdor Lieberman, who had responsibility for regulating NSO’s sales, said: “I am not sure now is the right time to discuss this . . . I think that I have a responsibility for the security of our state, for future relations.” But he added: “It is not a secret today that we have contact with all the moderate Arab world. I think it is good news.”
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LONDON, May 12 -- Investigations show how cash, legal support and millions of tweets underpin anti-Islam activist - but Facebook removes his ‘donate’ button. The British far-right activist Tommy Robinson is receiving financial, political and moral support from a broad array of non-British groups and individuals, including US thinktanks, rightwing Australians and Russian trolls, a Guardian investigation has discovered. Robinson, an anti-Islam campaigner who is leading a “Brexit betrayal” march in London on Sunday, has received funding from a US tech billionaire and a thinktank based in Philadelphia. Two other US thinktanks, part-funded by some of the biggest names in rightwing funding, have published a succession of articles in support of Robinson, who has become a cause célèbre among the American far right since he was jailed in May for two months. His imprisonment on contempt of court charges prompted a vigorous international Twitter campaign, with 2.2m tweets being posted using the hashtag #freetommy between May and October. An analysis conducted for the Guardian by the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that more than 40% of the tweets came from the US, 30% from the UK and other significant volumes from Canada, the Netherlands and nine other countries. A separate study of about 600 Twitter accounts, believed to be directly tied to the Russian government or closely aligned with its propaganda, found significant numbers had tweeted prolifically in Robinson’s defence. On Facebook, Robinson has more than 1 million followers from at least a dozen countries outside the UK, including the US, Australia, Sweden and Norway. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been using Facebook donation tools designed for charities to raise funds for his activism for several months. He says he has raised several hundred thousand pounds via online donations, some of which were solicited via the Facebook donate button. Robinson has said he plans to use the money to launch a European version of the rightwing conspiracy website Infowars, and to sue the British government over his prison treatment. But the tool is meant for charities alone. When the Guardian alerted Facebook to this, the social media company switched off the function within hours. The investigation has established that:
Horowitz, the co-founder of the DHFC, told the Guardian in an email: “Tommy Robinson is a courageous Englishman who has risked his life to expose the rape epidemic of young girls conducted by Muslim gangs and covered up by your shameful government.” Canada seeks help USA to resolve dispute with China over arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou6/5/2019 OTTAWA, May 6 -- Canada is leaning on the United States to help settle a dispute with China, which has started to block imports of vital Canadian commodities amid a dispute over a detained Huawei executive. In a sign of increasing frustration at what it sees as a lacklustre US response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is signalling it could withhold cooperation on major issues. China has upped the pressure on Canada in recent weeks over the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, arrested last December on a US warrant. It halted Canadian canola imports and last week suspended the permits of two major pork producers. After Meng’s Vancouver arrest, Chinese police also detained two Canadian citizens. Beijing is refusing to allow a Canadian trade delegation to visit, forcing officials to use video conference calls as they try to negate a major threat to commodity exports. With no cards to play against China without risking significant economic damage, Canada has launched a full-court press in Washington, which is negotiating its own trade deal with Beijing. “It’s a very challenging situation. When we raise it with the Americans they just say, ‘Dealing with the Chinese is tough’,” said a Canadian government source. “It’s also not clear who we should be targeting since you never know who is up and who is down in the administration at any given point,” said the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter. Among those the Canadians approached are Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Republican Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. The State Department said it was “concerned” by the canola ban. In March, the Foreign Relations Committee responded to Canada’s concerns by passing a bipartisan resolution supporting the country. Canada says the United States is obliged to help, given that the US arrest warrant triggered the crisis with Beijing. US negotiators have rejected Chinese proposals to include the Huawei issue in their current trade deal discussions, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. LONDON, May 2 -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces an initial hearing in London on Thursday over an extradition request from the United States, a day after he was jailed for 50 weeks for jumping bail. The US wants to extradite the Australian whistle-blower, who was arrested on April 11 after spending seven years in Ecuador’s London embassy, to face charges of “conspiracy” for working with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. The US indictment, which was only revealed following his dramatic arrest for breaching bail, accuses him of helping crack a password stored on US department of defence computers in March 2010. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years. Manning passed hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, exposing US military wrong-doing in the Iraq war and diplomatic secrets about scores of countries. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said on Wednesday that all efforts would now be focused on preventing Assange’s extradition to the US. “It will be a question of life and death,” he warned. Assange’s supporters believe that more serious charges could be filed if he is transferred to the US, and he fears the death penalty. Hrafnsson was speaking outside London’s Southwark Crown Court, where a British judge handed Assange a 50-week jail term for breaching a British court order when he sought refuge in the embassy in June 2012. ‘I apologise unreservedly’ At the time, Swedish authorities wanted to extradite Assange over claims of sexual assault and rape, which he denied. He claimed the allegations were a pretext to transfer him to the United States. There is no longer an active investigation in Sweden and the extradition request has lapsed, but Assange was still accountable for breaching British law, leading to him being dragged shouting from the embassy by police when Ecuador gave him up last month. The 47-year-old, his shaggy beard neatly trimmed, raised his fist to supporters in the public gallery at Southwark Crown Court as he was taken down to the cells. In a letter read out on his behalf, Assange expressed regret, saying: “I did what I thought at the time was the best or perhaps the only thing that I could have done.” “I apologise unreservedly,” he said. Assange’s team is fighting his extradition and the process could take years. WikiLeaks is also back in the news in the United States, over its alleged role in the leak of Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 US presidential election. The Swedish claims against Assange date back to 2010, when he was at the centre of a global storm over WikiLeaks’ exposures. The sexual assault claim expired in 2015, but while the rape claim was dropped in 2017, the alleged victim wants the case reopened. If Stockholm makes a formal extradition request, Britain must decide whether to consider it before or after that of the United States. WASHINGTON, April 26 -- A court in Washington has sentenced Russian national Maria Butina to 18 years in prison, reports from the courtroom. Judge Tanya Chutkan ignored the defense lawyers’ request Butina should be sentenced to a term equal to the period she has already spent in custody. Instead, she sustained the prosecution’s request for sentencing Butina to 18th months. Butina’ caseMaria Butina, 30, was charged with conspiracy for the purpose of conducing activities in favor of a foreign country in the territory of the United States. US secret services claimed Butina indulged in such activity without being registered as a foreign agent at the US Department of Justice. Butina was arrested in Washington on July 15, 2018 ahead of the summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Helsinki. Moscow described the charges against Butina as a fake and demanded her release from custody. Butina had arrived in the United States for a course of studies. Last spring she obtained a master’s degree at American University, where she studied international relations. On December 13, Butina faced court in the District of Columbia to plead guilty to one of the charges concerning the foreign agents act. She signed a plea bargain with the prosecutor-general’s office. The date when the sentence might be pronounced was not disclosed at once at the request of the attorney’s office, because the process of Butina’s cooperation with the investigation, it was stated, might take some time. BRUSSELS, April 24 -- The European Parliament voted last week to interconnect a series of border-control, migration, and law enforcement systems into a gigantic, biometrics-tracking, searchable database of EU and non-EU citizens. This new database will be known as the Common Identity Repository (CIR) and is set to unify records on over 350 million people. Per its design, CIR will aggregate both identity records (names, dates of birth, passport numbers, and other identification details) and biometrics (fingerprints and facial scans), and make its data available to all border and law enforcement authorities. It's primary role will be to simplify the jobs of EU border and law enforcement officers who will be able to search a unified system much faster, rather than search through separate databases individually. "The systems covered by the new rules would include the Schengen Information System, Eurodac, the Visa Information System (VIS) and three new systems: the European Criminal Records System for Third Country Nationals (ECRIS-TCN), the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS)," EU officials said last week. CIR passed through the European Parliament last Monday, April 15, in two separate votes. The CIR rules for borders and visa checks were adopted by 511 to 123, and nine abstentions, while the CIR legislation for police and judicial cooperation, asylum and migration was approved 510 to 130, and nine abstentions. The European Parliament and the European Council promised "proper safeguards" to protect people's right to privacy and regulate officers' access to data. Ever since plans to create this shared biometrics database have been made public last year, privacy advocates have criticized the EU, calling CIR's creation as the "point of no return" in creating "a Big Brother centralised EU state database." Once up and running, CIR will become one of the biggest people-tracking databases in the world, right behind the systems used by the Chinese government and India's Aadhar system. In the US, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations run similar biometrics databases. The database's existence can be easily justified by the necessity to give law enforcement better tools for tracking migrants and criminals; however, there's always the fear that the system will slowly be expanded to include and track people that are not the subject of any criminal investigations, such as tourist traveling across the EU space. WASHINGTON, April 21 -- The allegations from the US’ intelligence agency are the latest to pile pressure on Huawei in the West. The CIA has told government officials in the UK and elsewhere that Chinese telecoms maker Huawei accepted funds from Chinese military and intelligence agencies, The Times reported on Saturday. The US intelligence agency alleged that Huawei accepted funds from China’s National Security Commission, the People’s Liberation Army and a third branch of the Chinese state intelligence network, the paper said. The allegations were provided to top politicians in the UK and the other ‘Five Eyes’ countries, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, earlier this year, The Times said, citing a UK source. US officials are pressuring allies to ban Huawei products from their 5G networks amidst trade tensions between the US and China, saying the kit could be used for spying. Security To date, only Australia and New Zealand have agreed to an outright ban, with other allies opting to monitor Chinese products to ensure they’re secure. The UK is entering the final stages of a review into the issue. Huawei has always denied its products could be used for spying. A representative of the company said Huawei would not comment on “unsubstantiated allegations backed up by zero evidence from anonymous sources”. The US is reportedly planning to use a summit in Prague next month to push allies to adopt telecoms security approaches that would effectively mean banning Chinese companies. The US government has banned its agencies from using Huawei gear, and top educational institutions have ended deals with Chinese firms to avoid losing federal funding. WASHINGTON, April 20 -- US prosecutors have recommended a judge in Washington to sentence Russian citizen Maria Butina to 18 months in prison, according to documents submitted to the court. "The government’s recommended sentence of 24 months (prior to factoring in cooperation), with a downward departure to 18 months, based on substantial assistance to law enforcement, is well within the range of sentences imposed by courts for similar conduct," the document reads. Earlier on Friday, the Russian citizen’s defense team requested sentencing her to a prison term that does not exceed the time she had already spent in jail. The final decision will be made by Judge Tanya Chutkan. The sentencing of Butina, who has already spent nine months behind bars, is scheduled for April 26. Maria Butina, 30, was arrested in Washington DC on July 15, right before the Helsinki meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump. The US Department of Justice said that she was suspected of acting "as an agent of Russia inside the United States by developing relationships with US persons and infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation." On December 13, Butina pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the US law governing foreign agents operating in the country and signed a plea agreement. The prosecution said at the time that the process of Butina’s cooperation with the investigation might take some time. WASHINGTON, April 19 -- US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Russia did not affect the 2016 presidential election in the United States. "Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President. He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected," Trump wrote on his official Twitter account. The FBI, as well as the intelligence committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives, have been handling the investigation into Russia’s alleged interference into the 2016 US presidential election. In May 2017, the US Department of Justice announced that former FBI Chief Robert Mueller had been appointed as special counsel to investigate alleged Russian interference, shortly after Trump fired James Comey from his FBI chief’s post. According to The Washington Post, Mueller is using documents compiled by Comey in his investigation. A report by US Attorney General William Burr published on March 24 has confirmed that there was no collusion between Moscow and Donald Trump's presidential campaign. However, the document claims that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the US 2016 presidential election through cyber attacks, as well as through the activities of Russia’s Internet Research Agency. Trump and key members of his team have been repeatedly rejecting all the accusations concerning any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Moscow has also been refuting these allegations. ROTTERDAM, April 18 -- South Korean giant says it respects intellectual property and is disappointed at certain media reports. Samsung Electronics has been dragged into the row surrounding intellectual property theft from Dutch chipmaker ASML. Earlier this month ASML admitted it suffered intellectual property theft in 2015, but it rejected a media report at the time that it had been struck by Chinese spies. Court documents in the US reportedly showed six former ASML employees, all with Chinese names, had breached their employment contract by sharing information on ASML software processes with a company called Xtal Inc. IP theft ASML is one of the world’s largest makers of microchip manufacturing equipment, and it said at the time that no “valuable” files had been accessed. But ASML latter admitted it had been robbed “by a handful of our own employees based in Silicon Valley, who had broken the law to enrich themselves.” ASML said staff at a company (Xtal) were found by a US jury to have misappropriated ASML’s confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets in 2015. Xtal filed for bankruptcy in December after losing the $223m (£171 million) judgement to ASML over the matter. But now Samsung has been dragged into the row, after ASML CEO Peter Wennink, who had initially denied some Dutch media reports that the Chinese government had been behind the theft, then went to state that funding for Xtal had come in part from China and in part from Korea, Reuters reported. Wennink reiterated the alleged Korean connection in a TV interview with Dutch broadcaster NOS on Tuesday this week. “What we have found evidence for is that the (secrets) were stolen by people of American and Chinese nationality with Chinese background,” he allegedly told NOS. “Those products were used to provide services to our largest Korean customer.” Samsung denial That last part has made Samsung very unhappy indeed, as Samsung is ASML’s largest South Korean customer and its largest customer overall. Samsung told Reuters in an emailed response that it was not involved in the industrial espionage. “Samsung makes it a top priority to protect and respect the intellectual property rights of others … No products that have resulted from our partnership with Xtal interfere with ASML’s intellectual property,” Samsung reportedly said. “We are deeply disappointed at media reports that had widely assumed or even suggested Samsung’s involvement in any wrongdoing against ASML, which are not true,” Samsung added. “While we cannot disclose details of our business deals, Samsung had made precautions so as to adhere to all laws and regulations with its development contract with Xtal, including a clause that specifically prohibits the illegal use of third-party IP,” Samsung reportedly said. NEW YORK, April 18 -- A woman from Queens who worked for Air China at John F. Kennedy Airport pleaded guilty Wednesday to acting on behalf of the Chinese government by placing unscreened packages on a flight from New York to Beijing. Ying Lin, who also goes by Randi or Randy, was working at the direction of Chinese military personnel stationed at China’s permanent mission to the United Nations, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Lin, a naturalised US citizen, worked for Air China from 2002 through fall 2015 at JFK and then at Newark Liberty International Airport through April 2016. She could face 10 years’ imprisonment when sentenced. “This case is a stark example of the Chinese government using the employees of Chinese companies doing business here to engage in illegal activity ,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a statement. People walk through international arrivals at terminal four at John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport, where a Chinese woman who worked for Air China has pleaded guilty to working as an agent for the Asian nation. In exchange for her help, the Chinese government provided her tax-exempt purchases of discounted liquor and electronics available only to diplomats, according to court documents, as well as free contracting work at her residence. “Ms. Lin was secreting packages through some of the country’s busiest airports, using her work with the Chinese government to thwart our security measures,” said William Sweeney, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York field office. “We believe this case isn’t unique and hope it serves as an example that the Chinese and other foreign governments cannot break our laws with impunity.” "but not everyone is happy as environmentalists are concerned about bitcoin mining's damaging effect on the land as the cryptocurrency's value halves" REYKJAVIK, April 15 -- Marco Streng first visited Iceland to solve a simple problem. His bitcoin-computers were using ever more energy and the remote North Atlantic island had massive amounts of electricity at inexpensive rates. He travelled no more than three kilometres from the airport terminal to an abandoned airstrip built by allied forces in World War II. This was in 2014 and the barren, windswept ground then seemed like an unlikely place for a financial district. The strip is now where international companies "mine" for bitcoins and other virtual currencies. Powerful computers, stacked inside long and grey warehouses, use more electricity than all Icelandic homes combined, according to a local energy firm. "People don't give me a funny look any more when I explain my plans," Streng said. Raised in Bavaria, Germany, the 29-year-old was a maths prodigy on a glowing academic track until he began collecting digital coins. Being a bitcoin entrepreneur is the only job Streng has ever held. The new industry's relatively sudden growth is yet raising serious concerns for its environmental impact. Iceland's energy comes from hydroelectric dams and geothermal power plants, creating electricity without carbon emissions. But this "green" energy is not entirely environmentally friendly. Hydroelectric dams sink untouched land under water and alter rivers and waterfalls. Geothermal power plants are built over natural hot spring areas, spoiling the unique landscape. "Iceland still has one of the biggest wilderness areas in Europe," said environmentalist Tomas Gudbjartsson, protesting the expansion of energy-infrastructure. "We will simply destroy these areas if we continue." Energy demand has developed because of the soaring cost of producing and collecting virtual currencies. Computers are used to make the complex calculations that verify a running ledger of all the transactions in virtual currencies around the world. In return, the miners claim a fraction of a coin not yet in circulation. In the case of bitcoin, a total of 21 million can be mined, with about 3.3 million left to create. As more bitcoins enter circulation, more powerful computers are needed to keep up with the calculations - and that means more energy. According to Dutch bitcoin analyst Alex de Vries, who operates a Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index on the website Digiconomist, bitcoin energy consumption is still on the rise globally, after receding late last year following a drop in value. Earlier this month, authorities in China, where coal-rich regions host the world's biggest cryptocurrency mining farms, announced plans to crack down on the industry completely, claiming massive energy waste and pollution. The move is expected to load pressure on Iceland and other areas still welcoming the business. "They are great customers," said Johann Snorri Sigurbergsson, business development manager at the local energy firm HS Orka, as he praised the bitcoin farms for steady and stable energy usage. "The computers are just always on, always running on maximum capacity." HS Orka provides electricity to the southwestern Reykjanes peninsula where the cryptocurrency "farms" are largely based. Over the past year, the region's energy supply has been nearly exhausted and HS Orka is expanding its capacity with a hydroelectric dam in the remote Tungufljot river, near the Great Geysir hot spring tourist attraction. LONDON, April 13 -- More than 70 British members of parliament have signed a letter urging the home secretary to ensure that WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden if a case there is reopened against him. The letter, signed late on Friday by mostly Labour Party MPs, urged UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid to "stand with the victims of sexual violence" and ensure the rape claim against him can be "properly investigated". "We do not presume guilt, of course, but we believe due process should be followed and the complainant should see justice be done," it said. The 47-year-old Australian activist was arrested by British police on Thursday and forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London after his asylum was revoked, bringing to an end more than six years in the building. Assange originally sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where prosecutors wanted to question him over a rape allegation, which he denied. Sweden suspended its investigation of serious sexual misconduct two years ago because Assange was beyond their reach while at the embassy. But on Friday, Swedish prosecutors said they were examining the rape case at the request of the alleged victim's lawyer. Embarrassing information British Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said it was right that he should face justice if charges are brought. "If the Swedish government wants to come forward with those charges, I believe that Assange should face the criminal justice system," said Abbott, who added that the arrest was politically motivated as WikiLeaks has published enormous tranches of sensitive military information. "We all know what this is about. It's not the rape charges, serious as they are, it's about WikiLeaks. All that embarrassing information about the activities of the American military that was made public and that is what it is about." The move by British MPs to push for Assange's extradition to Sweden came hours after the Labour Party called on the government to halt his extradition to the United States, where he has been charged with offences related to his work with whistle-blower Chelsea Manning. Abbott said Prime Minister Theresa May should intervene as she did in the case of British hacker Gary McKinnon, whose extradition request she rejected on medical grounds in 2012. But May has shown no desire to interfere with the US's wishes this time. She welcomed the arrest in Parliament on Thursday, where Sajid Javid, the current home secretary, accused Labour of supporting a man with "a track record of undermining the UK and our allies and the values we stand for". US prosecutors say Assange faces five years in prison if convicted of "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion", though further charges are expected to be brought against him. Abbott's comments followed a post on Twitter by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday that praised Assange's exposing of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and said that his extradition to the US "should be opposed by the British government". KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 --The spectacle of Julian Assange, bearded and haggard, resisting arrest while London police officers dragged him through the street, punctuated the end of seven confounding years inside the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he lived with his cat in a small corner room as the world's most famous self-proclaimed political refugee. Assange, 47, has long fashioned himself as a crusader for revealing secrets. The Internet group he founded, WikiLeaks, published caches of classified US government communications, as well as e-mails hacked by Russian intelligence clearly intended to damage the presidential candidacy of Mrs Hillary Clinton. Though arrested on Thursday (April 11) morning by the British for skipping bail, Assange was immediately charged in the United States for conspiracy to hack a government computer. To supporters, Assange is a martyr and champion of free speech. To the US government, he is a pariah and a lackey of the Kremlin. But it was the hardened opinion of Ecuador's government that perhaps mattered most. He had become an unwanted houseguest. At the tiny red-brick embassy, he continued to run his Internet group, conducted news conferences before hundreds of fawning admirers from a balcony, rode his skateboard in the halls, and played host to a parade of visitors, including Lady Gaga and Pamela Anderson, a rumoured lover who brought vegan sandwiches. On Thursday, Anderson sent out a batch of Twitter messages attacking the arrest as a "vile injustice" and called Britain and the US "devils and liars and thieves". In interviews with The New York Times in 2016, as part of a long look at his ties to Russia, Assange denied any link to Russian intelligence, in particular regarding the leaked Democratic e-mails. Mrs Clinton and the Democrats were "whipping up a neo-McCarthyist hysteria about Russia", he said. There is "no concrete evidence" that what WikiLeaks publishes comes from intelligence agencies, he said, even as he indicated that he would happily accept such material. Small as they were, Assange's living quarters at the embassy, close to the lavish self-indulgence of Harrods, the famous department store, did not cramp his desire to remain in the limelight. Assange had an office equipped with a bed, sunlamp, phone, computer, kitchenette, shower, treadmill and bookshelves. Three years ago, one person familiar with the set-up called it "a gas station with two attendants". Mr Vaughan Smith, who had been a long-time supporter of Assange and helped put up his bail money, said: "Julian's a big bloke, with big bones, and he fills the room physically and intellectually." "It's a tiny embassy with a tiny balcony," he added, "small, hot and with not great air flow, and it must be jolly difficult for everyone there." But from there, Assange for years held court for admirers and famous curiosity seekers, among them footabll star Eric Cantona, and Mr Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit radio host and former head of UK Independence Party. Still, Assange's isolation was wearing on him, a friend said on Thursday, especially the long, lonely weekends in an essentially empty embassy he could not leave. Even his friends have described him as difficult, a narcissist with an outsized view of his importance and a disinterest in mundane matters like personal hygiene. He was becoming deeply depressed and wondered about simply walking out, the friend said, speaking on condition of anonymity. And relations with his hosts were becoming deeply strained, even adversarial. A copy of a 2014 letter from Mr Juan Falconi Puig, then Ecuador's ambassador to Britain, to the Foreign Ministry, seen by The New York Times, outlined the growing resentment between the diplomats and Assange over his behaviour at the embassy. Among Mr Falconi's top concerns was Assange's penchant for riding a skateboard and playing football with visitors. His skateboarding, Mr Falconi said, had "damaged floors, walls and doors". The ambassador said the football games had destroyed embassy equipment. When an embassy security agent stopped the game and took away the ball, Assange "began to shake, insult and push the agent", reclaimed the ball and then "launched the ball at his body". The letter said Assange had invited a television reporter to interview them at the embassy and had showed the visitor off-limits parts of the building. At one point, according to the letter, Assange used the alarm setting on a megaphone "to attract the police" to record them for the show. "This last action, in the middle of the night, was a clear attempt to annoy the police," Mr Falconi wrote. Another time, the letter said, Assange "violently hit the embassy control room door" demanding in a "threatening manner" that one of the guards come out to speak to him. The guards came out, only to be harassed by Assange, who yelled and shoved them, Mr Falconi wrote. Assange's long presence in the embassy, long after the Ecuadorean president who granted him political asylum had been replaced, finally became too much for the Ecuadorean government. President Lenin Moreno, elected in 2017, explained the decision on Twitter and in a video. "In a sovereign decision, Ecuador withdrew the asylum status to Julian Assange after his repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols," he said. He accused Assange of having installed forbidden "electronic and distortion equipment", accessing the embassy's security files without permission, blocking the embassy's security cameras and mistreating its personnel, including guards. BUENOS AIRES, April 12 -- Ecuador’s police have detained an accomplice of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Ecuadorian Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo said on Thursday. "A person who is close to him lives here, we have convincing evidence that he maintained contacts with former Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino. He was detained this afternoon," she told Sonorama radio station. Assange’s accomplice was hauled off at the airport when he tried to fly to Japan. At a news conference, Roma said that Ecuador’s authorities had information that a person close to Assange, who lives in Ecuador, "contributed to the attempts of destabilizing the situation in the country with the goal of harming the government." Daily Express reported citing journalist Vijay Prashad that the detained individual was Swedish national Ola Bini, a WikiLeaks software developer. He does not speak Spanish. In 2006, Assange set up WikiLeaks that published classified documents on certain governments, including the US. In 2012, Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, which had issued a warrant for his arrest on sexual harassment and rape charges. He was holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly seven years. On Thursday, Ecuador terminated political asylum of Assange. British police arrested Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy for breaching bail issued in 2012 and on a US extradition warrant issued in 2018. Assange’s attorneys fear that in case of his handover to the US, he may face up to 35 years in jail or capital punishment. However, the US Department of Justice claims that the Australian faces just five years behind bars on hacking charges. |
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