Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Ecuador: Assange’s police guard removed

Julian Assange: British police end round-the-clock guard at Ecuador embassy

British police say they will no longer stand guard outside London’s Ecuadorian embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange took refuge in 2012.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said it had “withdrawn the physical presence of officers from outside the embassy” but would strengthen a “covert plan” to prevent his departure.

“The operation to arrest Julian Assange does however continue and should he leave the embassy the MPS will make every effort to arrest him,” it said.
. . .
Swedish prosecutors want to question Mr Assange about a rape claim, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations that expires in 2020.
. . .
The 44-year-old Australian also fears that if he leaves he could eventually face extradition to the United States and a trial over the leak of hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010.

Business Insider’s headline, later changed, referred to Assange’s embassy lodgings as a “>bolt-hole.

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London riots: the shopkeepers fight back

The people who actually work for a living are fighting back the mob,
London riots: Neighbours mount anti-gang patrols amid fears of far-right agitation
Homeowners and shopkeepers took to the streets last night to protect their neighbourhoods from the gangs amid concerns far-right groups are attempting to take advantage of community tensions.

In Eltham, south east London, a crowd of 200 men gathered in the streets, promising to protect their neighbourhood from looters and arsonists following rioting in nearby Lewisham and Woolwich.
“We won’t stand for it. If anyone wants to come down here and start looting tonight, let them try – we’ll be ready for them,” said one.

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London-Santiago: Coincidence or convergence?

The US media is covering the ongoing London riots, burning for the fourth consecutive night, and spreading to other parts of the country.

While London burns,

the fastest-selling items on Amazon.co.uk are batons and baseball bats, as people look to defend themselves and their property in the absence of an effective police.

while a rioter boasts, “We’re just showing the rich people that we can do what we want,” including stealing from a wounded child,

Not covered by the US media is the rioting in Chile:
Violent Protests For Education Reform In Chile

Violence has broken out in Chile’s capital as tens of thousands of students stage another protest demanding changes in public education.

Masked demonstrators are burning cars and barricades, looting storefronts and throwing furniture at police. Officers are responding with tear gas and water cannons.

ALTERNATIVE CROP OF XRC105 .- Masked demonstrators stand near a burning barricade in downtown Santiago during rioting after a students protest in Santiago, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011. Riot police battled high school and university students in the streets of Chile's capital on Tuesday, firing water cannons and tear gas and using officers on horseback to break up flaming barricades.

While the London demonstrators are “showing the rich”, the Santiago demonstrators want private universities to provide education for free. They also want a new constitution, which of course would be subject to their approval.

It is indeed interesting that the US’s staunchest European ally, and South America’s most successful capitalist country have both come under attack following Black Thursday’s crash and the S&P downgrade.

After America may be sooner than we think.

Linked by Adelie Manchot. Thanks!

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London? Whaddaya mean, London?

Diane Sawyer interviews the three top National Security people in the US, and finds out they didn’t know about the latest arrests in London:

Allahpundit has more:
U.S. Director of National Intelligence on London terror arrests: Er, what terror arrests?

If you thought the gaffes in Diane Sawyer’s interview with our counterterror brain trust couldn’t get worse than “364 days a year,” skip ahead to 3:35 and brace yourself. It’s so bizarre that I’m actually searching for ways to rationalize it. Napolitano claimed yesterday that there was no evidence thus far to think the plot was aimed at the U.S., so … maybe they figured Clapper didn’t need to be briefed on it? That can’t be right, though. There were fully a dozen men arrested and, after all, British-based plots have targeted America before, so surely the DNI would be apprised. In fact, let’s approach the question this way: Why would the DNI ever not need to be briefed on a major unfolding plot? Napolitano and Brennan apparently knew the details; even if Clapper was in a meeting when the news broke, wouldn’t you pull him out of it or at least him fill him in on the details on the way to being interviewed by a major network news anchor? Sawyer herself is clearly amazed by his ignorance or else she wouldn’t have devoted valuable airtime to highlighting it.

Maybe, expecting the National Intelligence Director to keep up on major international terror arrests is asking too much?

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The fastest way to turn the UK into Cuba

Foreign corporations who do business in Cuba pay the Cuban government the salary of each of their Cuban employees, and then the Cuban government pays the employee.

That is how Cubans are slaves of their government.

Now the Brits are proposing going the same Communist route (and, by the way, it’s a proposal from their Conservatives.):
UK Proposes All Paychecks Go to the State First

The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.
The proposal by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.

How long before Washington decides this is a really good idea, just like the “excellent” NHS in the UK?

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When Gumby mated with a Cyclops…

… Wenlock and Mandeville were born:

Mandeville?

Stoke Mandeville’s famous spinal injuries unit meanwhile was where the Paralympic movement began, and the naming of one mascot after the hospital is an explicit attempt to raise the profile of the Paralympic Games.

Mandeville’s designers unfortunately had the bad taste of making his crotch an incontinent blue. Ugh.

The reviews are in:

Two parts-Pokemon to one-part lava lamp with yellow ‘Taxi’ lights on their foreheads

Betsy:

the stupidest and downright ugliest Olympic mascots ever

Stephen Bayley:

“If the Games are going to be remembered by their art then we can declare them a calamitous failure already.”

Greg Pollowitz:

London, We’re Laughing at You, not with You

Tammy Bruce:

Lesson? Don’t Smoke Crack When Designing Olympic Mascots

Moe Lane:

It must be a fascinating planet that the designer of this must be from: I wish that I could visit it.

UPDATE
Welcome, Tammy Bruce readers! Please visit often.

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Meanwhile in London…

I was talking to a friend from London this morning. He had a lot to say about what life in the big city’s like right now.

Pres. Obama arrived with an entrouage of 500 yesterday. Upon arriving in England, Obama took a helicopter and flew to London where he’s staying at the American ambassador’s residence in Regent’s park.

My friend lives in Regent’s Park.

The city has been under huge preparations for the G20 for the best part of a week, but yesterday the barricades started going up in an ever-increasing number in the Regent’s Park area. Since there’s a large mosque, my friend thought the barricades had to do with something going on at the mosque, but it was due to the Presidential visit. The zone was cordoned off, more barricades were put up, and “the area was literally filled with police.”

And then Obama arrived in his helicopter. My friend said, “It was a sight to behold. There was an air corridor: A group of helicopters flew in place while the presidential helicopter came through and landed.” Mercifully, most of the 500 people in the entrouage took other means of transportation.

My friend continued, “now we have security like the end of the world was near: helicopters, police cars, riot police, and everything else you can think of.

“As you go further away from the Ambassador’s house, then you have the demonstrators. Between the police and the demonstrators, it’s like living in a stage of siege.”

The Times on Line has a video in this report, Brown and Obama deny G20 splits as protesters scuffle with police. You can see the protestors vandalizing the Royal Bank of Scotland windows in full sight of the reporters who are eagerly recording the crime.

The article states,

The Metropolitan Police said that around 4,000 protesters had gathered in the City for a protest outside the Bank of England and a “Meltdown Carnival” headlined by the left-wing rock singer Billy Bragg.

Mixing in with them were City workers who had deliberately “dressed down” – on police advice – to avoid being the targets of protesters.

In clear spring sunshine, the protests were initially good-natured, but isolated scuffles soon saw police retreat behind their barriers. By 1pm, the violence was worsening, with police using their batons to push back the crowds.

Even before the protest began, 11 people were arrested as they drove an armoured personnel carrier – painted blue with the words “riot police” in capital letters – towards Bishopsgate. All 11 were arrested for being in possession of police uniforms.

More than 30 forces have provided specialist officers for the days around the summit when there will be unprecedented levels of protests and 40 diplomatic delegations requiring security.

It’s going to be a long week in London.

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“We won’t pay for their crisis”

I was hoping to make it to NY City today but had to change plans, so now I’m browsing through my feed reader, and came across this at Power Line:

we-wont-pay

Demonstrators march through central London March 28, 2009. Thousands of demonstrators marched through London on Saturday to demand action on poverty, jobs and climate change at the start of a week of protests aimed at the G20 summit in the capital.

“We won’t pay for their crisis”

Exactly what Lula was saying. As I said earlier, Lula meant what he said, and said what he meant.

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