Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY [LINK | Article]
Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
"United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day (or just World Press Day) to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in 1991."
So much for World Press Day and all those noble UN declarations when journalist and whistleblower publisher, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, has been denied liberty for over 4 years without charge.
Silent on the Kiev Dead US Hypocrisy Over Ukraine and Saudi Arabia
by BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
Boris Nemtsov was a Russian politician who was shot dead in Moscow on January 27, 2015. He was opposed to Russia’s government and its leader and therefore, according to Western dogma of these times, his murder must have been ordered by President Putin.
Police began investigating the crime promptly but there was no pause for deliberation on the part of some western leaders and much of their media : they reacted immediately and leapt to censure the Russian government and especially President Putin in terms that were not only abusive, insolent and confrontational but confirmation of the fact that there is no intention on their part to ever consider diplomacy in their dealings with Moscow.
French President Hollande described Nemtsov as a “defender of democracy” and called the death an assassination. Britain’s prime minister Cameron declared that “Boris Nemtsov is dead. But the values he stood for will never die,” and demanded that the death be “fully, rapidly and transparently investigated.” President Obama announced that “we call upon the Russian government to conduct a prompt, impartial, and transparent investigation into the circumstances of his murder.”
These Western heads of government knew well that their public pronouncements and peremptory demands were condemnatory insinuations against the democratically elected administration of Russia, but their intention is to cripple the country and topple President Putin and they seize any opportunity to disparage and insult him. Their line of attack is that if something unpleasant happens in Russia it is without doubt the fault of President Putin who must at once be subjected to vilification in terms that imply his personal responsibility for whatever crime has taken place.
There would have been sanctimonious uproar in the west if Putin ever commented in such a fashion about, for example, the killing by police of unarmed black people in America, but spiteful pronouncements on Russia’s domestic affairs by western leaders are considered praiseworthy by most western mainstream newsoutlets which have been very quiet about some strange happenings in Ukraine where, as The Economist observes, “Dodgy economic policy, distaste for reform and endemic corruption have brought the country to its knees.”
In the three months after the killing of Nemtsov there were at least eleven mysterious deaths in Ukraine, most in the capital, Kiev:
January ...29: politician Aleksey Kolesnik, dead by hanging. February 24 : politician Stanislav Melnik shot dead. February 25 : mayor of Melitopol Sergey Valter dead by hanging. February 26 : deputy chief of Melitopol police, Aleksandr Bordyuga, found dead. February 28 : politician Mikhail Chechetov, dead by fall from apartment window. March ........ 9 : politician Stanislav Melnik shot dead. March .......12 : politician Oleksandr Peklushenko shot dead. March .......22 : former prosecutor Serhiy Melnychuk dead by fall from apartment window. April ...........13: journalist Sergei Sukhobok shot dead . April ...........15 : politician Oleg Kalashnikov shot dead. April ...........16 : journalist Oles Buzyna shot dead.
By coincidence most of the dead had been critical of the Ukraine government, supportive of Russia, or possessed information that might have been embarrassing for the Ukraine’s billionaire President Petro Poroshenko, owner of a mammoth confectionary corporation, car plants, a shipyard, and a major television station, who delivered an address to a joint session of the US Congress and continues to receive unquestioning western support for his increasingly erratic statements and behavior.
Although most western media and all western political leaders ignored these deaths, the redoubtable Newsweek scented a story and began to investigate. It recorded that:
In reply to a legal request by Newsweek for information on investigations into the deaths of seven other former officials, all tied to [former President] Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, the General Prosecutor’s Office responded that all the information about all the deaths was a state secret — a staggering claim to make about a series of apparently unrelated civilian deaths they told the press were suicides.
If the equivalent office in Moscow had given such a response to a western media inquiry there would have been scathing headlines in the New York Times, the British Telegraph and all the other determinedly anti-Russian media machines of the west. Newsweek’s informative observations on obvious corruption in official legal circles in Ukraine elicited no follow-up of any kind in the west’s media — but had there been similar revelations about Russia there would have been a blitz of self-righteous condemnation.
The end of Newsweek’s piece is especially noteworthy:
Watching the [Ukraine's] top prosecutors leaving the General Prosecutor’s Office in sharp suits and stepping into gleaming Porsches, BMWs and Land Rovers, it’s clear that the average state prosecutor’s wage, equivalent to 400 euros [USD 430] per month, isn’t their only source of income. Within the same building, officials are representing an array of different interests. With such great wealth at stake, the truth about these deaths is unlikely to emerge any time soon. Back in Odessa, three prosecutors laugh as they dismiss allegations that their office tried to cover up Sergei Melnychuk’s murder. They have good reason to be happy. They’re off to the Rugby World Cup in London later this year, an event where one ticket . . . sells for the equivalent of 400 euros.
Just the sort of people you would trust to conduct legal action concerning mysterious deaths of anti-government figures.
The leader of the west’s anti-Russian campaign is President Obama who told the media on March 2 that “freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of information, basic civil rights and civil liberties inside of Russia are in much worse shape now than they were four or five, ten years ago.” If this is so, then he was right to point it out.
But Obama’s condemnation of countries that are guilty of denying “civil liberties” is intriguingly selective. There is one particularly rich country that escapes the net of his disapproval.
FAIR USE - COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
COMMENT
Full article is at link provided.
Funny how all those Western heads of state, politicians, ambassadors, former intelligence services & NATO talking heads, and the mainstream media that so delights in vilifying Putin, aren't as enthusiastic in calling attention to this perverse lawlessness in Ukraine and aren't condemning Poroshenko and his US masters.
Syria - Sweden - Palestine
Palestinian Intel Reveal Their Role in Releasing x2 Swedish Monk Hostages in Syria
Thomas Olson (50 years) + Martin Rein (33) arrived to Sweden on Saturday.
[ This is very intriguing. Were these guys really monks? Would it be cynical to wonder whether Sweden's recent recognition of Palestine might have helped things along in the hostage freeing exercise? I don't know the answer to those questions; I'm just taking some wild guesses here. ]
Palestine – Human Rights
Islam Hamed, Brazilian-Palestinian hunger strike in Palestine prison
US embassy Manilla - protesters clash with the police over US troops, calling for withdrawal US troops
US military biggest joint exercises with Philippines in15 years on April 20, 2015 over 6,600 American forces, 61 Australian US efforts to increase its presence in region Philippines protests re foreign military {incl. Aussie troops}
Philippines dropped demand on Canada govt to take back trash that was illegally shipped 2 years ago.
50 containers of trash arrived from Canada in 6 batches 2013
household waste incl. adult diapers
passed off as scrap materials
Canadian Embassy subject of demonstrations & petitions, refuses to take back Canada trash http://globalnation.inquirer.net/121534/ph-gives-in-to-canada-over-garbage-dispute/
[So disrespectful. Canadian authorities should be ashamed.]
Philippines President Aquino state visit to Canada - May 7 to 9 bilateral: labour, development, infrastructure Philippines President Aquino 1-day working visit to USA - May 10th
China
Canada national - Uyghur ethnic
claims: harshly interrogated & pressured to spy on Uyghur China
via US propaganda channel: Radio Free Asia
Origin: USA govt funded source, Radio Free Asia http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php/sid/232263121
[ South Africa looks scary. The riots aren't people just smashing up shops, or something like that. They're actually attacking other people with lethal intent: bricks, rocks, massive knives, tomahawks etc, going by the photos of mobs on the streets. ]
Somaliland {autonomous region Somalia}
postponement of Somaliland presidential & parliamentary elections
visiting British delegation from UK Embassy in Addis Ababa Ethiopia
led by deputy ambassador Ms Cate Evan
current administration extended 1 year.
extension / now elections due: 26th June 2016.
[ So if the US isn't deporting those in USA who have fallen foul of the law to places they've never lived (after a prison stint); they're forcibly settling Guantanamo prison detainees in places they've never lived - without adequate compensation. So much for the US govt as human rights 'champions'. ]
Military defends use of controversial weed-killer in US-backed coca fumigation program Since 2000, US has spent between $1 billion & $2 billion on fumigation program alone.
Just recent things that caught my attention - including trivia I found interesting, or even amusing (eg the Germans going Bollywood video).
Couldn't sleep, even though I'm super tired and sort of cranky.
Lying in bed I kept thinking how detached or alienated I feel from my 'real' life (as opposed to the things that absorb my interest).
Lying between sleep and wakefulness, I felt a freaky floating away, bobbing or elevator type of feeling (like motion but obviously not really being in motion). That put an end to trying to sleep. Guessing that's anxiety.
Thought I'd mess around on here to relax and it's worked. I'm feeling pretty chilled out now.
BNP Paribas sentenced in $8.9 billion accord over sanctions violations
Reuters on May 2, 2015 @ 1:40 AM
By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK (Reuters) - BNP Paribas SA was sentenced to five years probation by a U.S. judge on Friday in connection with a record $8.9 billion settlement resolving claims that it violated sanctions against Sudan, Cuba and Iran.
U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield in Manhattan formally ordered the French bank to forfeit $8.83 billion and pay a $140 million fine as part of a sentence that also called for BNP Paribas to enhance its compliance procedures and policies.
Some of that money could now go to people harmed by the three sanctioned countries under a program the U.S. Justice Department announced in court.
Georges Dirani, BNP's general counsel, told the judge that the bank accepted "full responsibility for its conduct," and was under CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafé's personal supervision already improving its policies.
"There's no question the organization will not tolerate the kind of behavior we have seen in this case," Dirani said.
The case marked the first time a global bank pleaded guilty to violations of U.S. economic sanctions, the Justice Department said.
The sentencing followed BNP Paribas' guilty plea in July to conspiring from 2004 to 2012 to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act.
The sentence imposed by Schofield followed the terms of a heavily negotiated plea deal the Justice Department announced that month.
Authorities said that BNP essentially functioned as the "central bank for the government of Sudan," concealing its tracks and failing to cooperate when first contacted by law enforcement.
Prosecutors said BNP also evaded sanctions against entities in Iran and Cuba, in part by stripping information from wire transfers so they could pass through the U.S. system without raising red flags.
BOMBING VICTIMS
Friday's sentencing took place in a courtroom crowded with people Schofield said claimed to have been harmed by actions taken by the sanctioned countries and who were seeking restitution.
While Schofield said they were not legally entitled to that relief, prosecutor Jennifer Ambuehl said the Justice Department would evaluate distributing the $3.84 billion in forfeitures it received in the deal to people harmed by Sudan, Cuba and Iran.
Ambuehl called the effort "unprecedented" and said the Justice Department would shortly be launching a website to accept claims.
But the program, which covers anyone harmed from 2004 to 2012, came as a disappointment to victims of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people.
Several victims had flown to New York in anticipation of the program's announcement. They hadcited a U.S. court's finding that without Sudan's support, al Qaeda could not have perpetrated the attacks.
"We had hoped that the Department of Justice would stand with us and are deeply disappointed that it chose to delay and not do the right thing," George Mimba, the former head of the Kenya embassy employees, said in a statement.
BNP's sentencing had been delayed for months while it awaited word on whether the U.S. Labor Department would allow it to continue to manage retirement plans despite the plea. The department granted BNP that exemption this month.
A New York state court judge on April 15 sentenced BNP Paribas in a related case in which it agreed to forfeit $2.24 billion.
That sum, along with a $508 million payment to the Federal Reserve and a $2.24 billion payment to the New York Department of Financial Services, are credited toward the $8.9 billion ordered by Schofield on Friday.
The sentencing came a day after BNP Paribas reported first-quarter net income of 1.65 billion euros ($1.83 billion), up 17.5 percent. Revenue grew 11.6 percent to 11.1 billion euros.
The case is U.S. v. BNP Paribas SA, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-cr-00460.
(Editing by Ted Botha) Copyright2015 Thomson Reuters Source - here
On April 25, 2012, President Obama nominated Schofield to serve as a United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York...
Schofield is the first Filipino American in the history of the United States to serve as an Article III federal judge.
... U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on June 6, 2012 ... reported Schofield's nomination to the full U.S. Senate on July 12, 2012.
The U.S. Senate confirmed Schofield on December 13, 2012 in a 91-0 vote. She received her commission on December 13, 2012.
German intelligence also spied on Austria for the US By dpa correspondents
Europe
01.05.2015
By our dpa-correspondent and Europe Online auf Facebook posten Auf Twitter posten
Berlin (dpa) - The US National Security Agency (NSA) used Germany‘s foreign intelligence service to spy on Austria, according to a report due to be published in Sunday‘s edition of Bild newspaper.
German media had previously reported that the NSAused the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, to spy on high-ranking officials in the European Commission and in France‘s Foreign Ministry and presidential palace.
After
an investigation into the search terms given by the NSA to the BND to
use at its monitoring station in the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling, words like "gov," "diplo" and the German equivalent of "federal office" were discovered.
These search terms resulted in 12,000 hits, according to an internal BND email from August 14, 2013. The hits included material from the government of Austria, which like Germany is a federation and, therefore, covered by the same search term.
The Bild article, an advance copy of which was seen by dpa, said Austria then appeared in more than 10 requests from the NSA.
The affair has led to a split in Germany‘s governing coalition as the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) has attacked its partners in the centre-right Christian Democratic and Christian Social unions (CDU and CSU).
"The supervision by the chancellery over the BND seems to have failed miserably," SPD general secretary Ysmin Fahimi was quoted by Friday‘s edition of the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper as saying in a direct attack on Chancellor Angela Merkel, who leads the CDU.
"The chancellery, which has been led by the CDU for 10 years, bears the responsibility for the German secret service behaving properly," she said.
Fahimi also raised questions about Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, who is accused of lying to parliament over the affair.
"If the accusations are true, I do not rule out personal consequences [for de Maiziere]," she said.
The opposition Greens have called for a parliamentary committee to investigate the affair.
Government sources told dpa Friday that the spying
scandal had taken on great political dimensions and resignations at the
BND or within the government could not be ruled out.
A former government insider sharply criticized how the affair has been handled so far in a report in Focus magazine Friday.
"Everyone is beating up the BND at the moment, mostly for ideological reasons," the chancellor‘s former secret service coordinatorBernd Schmidbauer was reported as saying.
"This is how we will destroy our security in this country," he said.
Referring to BND president Gerhard Schindler,
he said: "It is a disgrace how he has been deserted by these men in the
chancellery when really it should be their most noble duty to give him
encouragement at this time."
He said Germany‘s cooperation with US intelligence services was essential.
"We are nothing without the intelligence service insight of the Americans," said Schindler, who coordinated the secret service in the 1990s. "We are like headless chickens."
The first accusations came to light last week that the NSA had used the German intelligence agency to spy on European firms and politicians on its behalf.
The NSA asked the BND to use its huge computer servers to monitor web traffic and look for keywords, IP addresses of computers and names. The BND told the chancellery years ago that the searches were probably illegal under German law.
The magnitude of the scandal, the biggest to hit the BND in its 59-year history, remains unclear.
All of the search terms requested by the United States since the beginning of the cooperation in 2002 were checked only once. Even that task was enormous. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung, NDR and WDR reported that alone in 2013, 690,000 telephone numbers and 7.8 million IP searches were requested.
On behalf of NSA and, apparently, in violation of German law, German BND spied on:
European Commission
France
Austria
Interior Minister accused of lying to parliament cover up.
..............................................
Airbus’ legal step targets spying on it
By The Associated Press
Posted: May 2, 2015 at 1 a.m.
BERLIN — European aviation company Airbus said Friday that it’s taking legal action after reports that it was targeted by German and U.S. intelligence agencies.
The company, which makes civilian and military aircraft and is a fierce rival of U.S. manufacturer Boeing, said it will file a criminal complaint with prosecutors in Germany against “persons unknown.” That’s a common procedure in Germany which requires authorities to investigate.
“We are aware that as a major player in this industry we are a target for intelligence activities,” the company said in a statement. “In this particular case there appears to be a reasonable suspicion of alleged industrial espionage. We are alarmed by this and have therefore asked the German government for information and we are in dialogue with them.”
Airbus said it was made aware of the allegations by press reports and didn’t have any information of its own on the matter.
The claims that Merkel’s government knew about German state intelligence spying on behalf of the Americans against the country's own industrial interests raise disturbing questions about the integrity of German government leaders.
The apparent betrayal of German national interests by Chancellor Angela Merkel is not only evident over the recent industrial spying scandal on behalf of America. The slavish pursuit by Merkel of Washington's anti-Russian policy over Ukraine — in contradistinction to her country's national interests — also cogently suggests that the chancellor is serving a foreign master.
Recent reports that German state intelligence was spying on behalf of the Americans against the country's own industrial interests are bad enough. But then added to that are claims that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel knew about the espionage — and turned a blind eye.
This raises disturbing questions about the integrity of German government leaders, and primarily Angela Merkel. Is Merkel an asset for American intelligence, serving the geopolitical interests of Washington rather than the good of her own nation, or the wider good of Europe?
The news story in question refers to reports in the German media last week of how Germany's Federal Intelligence (BND) collaborated with the US National Security Agency (NSA) in spying on multinational European defence companies, including EADS and Eurocopter. The specific eavesdropping on these firms — in which Germany has major national economic interests — reportedly dates back to 2008. It is inconceivable that the highest levels of German government, including Chancellor Merkel — did not know about the industrial espionage. Yet Merkel appears to have countenanced the illegal activity, even though such activity would have vitiated German national interests, affording advantage to American competitors.
First of all, the idea that German state intelligence is thoroughly penetrated by American secret agencies is not an outlandish theory.
Far from it. The functioning of the BND as part of the American intelligence apparatus has been going on for decades, since the US oversaw the postwar rehabilitation of defeated Nazi Germany. The Americans and the British wove German intelligence — much of it inherited from the Nazi war machine — into their European-wide operations. German historian Josef Foschepoth and expert on postwar allied intelligence operations says that the West German government signed a secret pact with Washington and London, in 1968, known as the NATO Status of Forces Agreement. That pact mandates "intensive collaboration" and continues to this day — more than two decades since the reunification of Germany.
In essence, the American secret services like the NSA and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), have a free hand to carry out massive surveillance in Germany against whomever they want, whether private citizens or industrial companies. And all with the help of German state intelligence and the federal government.
The tip of this iceberg in espionage and snooping was further revealed with the disclosures in 2013 by former American NSA operative Edward Snowden. Among the trove of revelations made by Snowden was the finding that American intelligence had been tapping the personal communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The eavesdropping dated back to 2002 — three years before the leader of the Christian Democrat Union first became chancellor.
The telling thing is how puny and pusillanimous was the reaction from the German authorities to this disclosure of illicit spying by Washington. Apart from an initial bout of handwringing by Merkel and other Berlin figures, the whole scandal was quickly swept under the carpet as if it never happened. That suggests that the German government was already well aware of its compromised, subservient relation to Washington, as manifested by intrusive access to communications at the highest level.
As noted above such a master-servant relationship between the US and Germany was a fundamental tenet of the postwar American reconstitution of that country, and the predominant role devolved to NATO by Washington over European security affairs. The German government was apprised of, indeed was a willing party to, its subservient role to American intelligence and the free hand given to the latter. So, when the rest of the world learnt of American government spying on Merkel back in 2013 from the Edward Snowden's leaks, perhaps the least surprised person would have been Merkel and her administration. Hence the meek response from Berlin towards Washington and, to any objective observer, its shockingly invasive conduct against German "allies".
Further explosive testimony on the systematic penetration of American intelligence of German institutions came in recent months from former senior newspaper editor, Udo Ulfkotte. In several media interviews and in a best-selling book, Ulfkotte tells how German journalists and politicians are routinely recruited as CIA assets to spin stories or promulgate policies that are aimed at serving the geopolitical interests of Washington, not the interests of the German people. The former editor ofFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung — one of Germany's best-known newspapers — confessed that he was one of the CIA's assets for many years, publishing stories that he knew to be false and which were damaging to international relations, and in particular antagonistic towards Russia.
Thought this was cool. Haven't caught up with the German industrial spying scandal. Must have been too lazy to check links.
Germany, Nazis and CIA / USA links go all the way back to the Gehlen Organisation - established 1946 by the US occupational forces.
So, basically, German intelligence is an offshoot of Nazi intelligence under the control of the CIA/USA 'Daddy'.
"The American secret service works closely with the BND. The BND founder's Nazi background did not disturb the CIA. Reinhard Gehlen, a high-ranking intelligence officer in Hitler's Wehrmacht, brought extensive files about the Russian military with him.
The BND has recently been attracting more public attention than ever before, not because of its anniversary but because of revelations that its agents in Iraq have been working with American intelligence. Such collaboration has caused a huge stir in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, where opposition to America's war in Iraq remains strong.
Close working relations between German and American spy services are anything but new. Cooperation began as far back as 1946, before the Federal Republic even existed. Indeed, it constituted the first institutional relationship between the two countries after World War II."
"As Richard Helms, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who was in the early postwar period responsible for Central and Eastern Europe, makes clear in his memoirs, Gehlen's deal with first the U.S. Army and later the CIA did not foresee his spy organization working for the Americans but in a joint operation with them.
At first, the army funded the organization by selling gasoline, cigarettes and other American goodies on the black market. Soon after the German currency reform in 1948, the CIA assumed funding. The CIA sponsored the Gehlen organization until April 1956, when it was taken over by the German government in Bonn, becoming the Bundesnachrichtendienst [BND]".
All this sneaky intelligence stuff keeps surprising me, but it shouldn't be surprising. It's not really sneaky; it's just how it is. The front end is a lie. The back end is the truth.
It doesn't matter who appears to be in government or what kind of opposition there is to anything; what appears at the front end is fake. Those that hold the real power behind the scenes do what they want.
I'd wager that's the rule rather than the exception.
Don't understand why the Germans would undermine their own interests, unless there's a bigger prize for German interests ... or German interest are no longer 'German interests' because Germany is owned by foreign interests?
"Dr Brian Palmer, a social anthropologist from Uppsala University, believes that Julian Assange is safer in the UK than in Sweden.
RT has asked him about why Sweden wants the WikiLeaks founder so badly and his fate if he were to be extradited."
[ ... Introduction ... see particulars above ]
Reporter
Sweden has been in the spotlight quite a bit lately, with the WikiLeaks scandal and the spy and sex probes into Julian Assange. Why does Sweden want Julian Assange to be extradited? Is it just for - to be questioned, rather, for the sex crimes alleged against him?
Dr Brian Palmer
It's hard to say. Certainly, sexual misconduct is taken seriously in Sweden, but few cases get anywhere near the kind of judicial energy behind them as this had. So there seems to also be other factors at play. It may be partly the prosecutors and lawyers involved, and issues of their careers. It may also be that there's some pressure from the foreign policy establishment in Sweden and even from the United States that's played a role.
Reporter
Do you think that eventually Assange will, in fact, be extradited to Sweden?
Dr Brian Palmer
It wouldn't surprise me if he is in the end, but I would say that he and his lawyers have a fighting chance of keeping him there and suggesting that whatever questioning of him the Swedish prosecutors want to do can easily be done by video link.
Reporter
Many critics say that once, and if, Assange is extradited to Sweden that it would be very easy for the US to get him into custody. Do you agree with that?
Dr Brian Palmer
I think that's quite right; that it would be easier to get him to the US from Sweden than from Britain. The Swedish government has shown itself to be more pliant than the British, surprisingly, given the so-called special relationship of trust between Britain and the USA, and the Swedish press has been - and Swedish public intellectuals - have been less vocal in defending WikiLeaks than many people and many papers in Britain, so I think he's safer there.
Reporter
Why do you think that the media has been reluctant to - am I understanding correctly - openly cover WikiLeaks or cover it in a way that looks like Assange has a fair chance?
Dr Brian Palmer
There's been a lot of coverage of WikiLeaks and Assange in Sweden, but he doesn't have that many high profile champions. It's partly because allegations of sexual misconduct weigh so heavily here, that it is a country where feminist ideals are maybe stronger than anywhere else on Earth and, one wishes that no-one would be judged in a case until they had been tried, but there's some hesitation to come to his defence on those grounds; and then, so much of our media in Sweden is owned by a few conservative leaning media houses, particularly Bonniers, a media group that's right leaning and has every interest in not raising these questions, and they're the largest player in the media market in Sweden.
Reporter
You wrote a biography of the Swedish Prime Minister [Fredrik Reinfeldt] and it's no secret you wrote about this: that the Prime Minister has been - or is being advised - by US republican strategist Karl Rove. Why one of America's most notorious neocons and the man, of course, most credited with getting Bush into the White House?
Dr Brian Palmer
It's an interesting question, because the conservative party (called the Moderates) have plenty of Machiavellian strategists of their own - plenty of Karl Roves of their own - but Rove has a long-term relationship with the Moderates. Already in the 1980s he came to Sweden to advise them and then he's been back before the election in 2006 and even more recently. He himself has some Swedish roots, and I think it may be partly initiative from his side that he wants to be involved in politics here. And then what the Moderates accomplished before the 2006 election had something in common with Bush's electoral victory in 2000. The problem for both George Bush and Fredrik Reinfeldt was to win the votes of groups who wouldn't necessarily benefit from having a right-wing, tax cutting regime in power. Bush succeeded so well in wooing working-class votes that in the ... 2004 election, Bush won the white working-class by a 23% margin. So working-class voters were really the backbone of his victory. Reinfeldt acknowledged that he was impressed by Bush's campaign and his struggle was also to get working-class voters to support his party (which they hadn't done in the past), and so it's logical that he would have wanted to bring in some of the people from Bush's campaign to help with that - and, not least, Karl Rove.
Reporter
You've said that the method is linguistic innovations, media manipulation and the art of bringing smear campaigns. Is that what Sweden wants to take from a strategist like Karl Rove?
Dr Brian Palmer
The Moderates won the past two elections very much because of the negative image of Fredrik Reinfeldt's opponent in both elections. It was very much the weakness of the opponent the people were voting against, rather than attraction to Reinfeldt. And how to accomplish that through different kinds of negative campaigning, in the broad meaning of campaigning that focuses on the deficits of the other candidate, was something that Rove has been very good at, so he would be a relevant adviser there. Another thing that Rove has been something of a genius at is finding peripheral issues that will mobilise the right voter groups to support the Republicans, and that strategy has also been somewhat effective in Sweden.
Reporter
Is it normal for Karl Rove to be doing this kind of international advising?
Dr Brian Palmer
No. On his own website he notes that Sweden is his only international assignment. The Moderate party in Sweden is the only foreign party that he's worked for; so, as far a I know, he's a pretty US-focused person. But then again, as mentioned, he himself has Swedish roots and he may feel a particular obligation to be involved here - or interest to be involved here.
Reporter
How much influence do you think the US, on a whole - from Assange to NATO to asylum seekers being taken into custody - have on Sweden?
Dr Brian Palmer
Enormous influence and, in a way, almost puzzlingly so at this historical moment that Sweden should be so eager to host NATO military exercises in the north, to share intelligence information at a very high level with the US and NATO that Fredrik Reinfeldt was so very eager to visit Bush, it was one of his first major international visits after he became Prime Minister in 2006. All of that is a bit puzzling when the US is no longer so central to Sweden's exports, for example, as it has been at certain periods, when European relations ought to be more central to Sweden in certain ways, and all of this is a far cry from the Sweden of the 1970s and early 80s when
Olof Palme was Prime Minister and when the most important relations were often with developing nations - with the South African freedom movement; with India, with the Non-Aligned Movement - the once very progressive Sweden has become something of a voluntary apprentice state, some would say vassal state, of the USA.
Reporter
And why do you think Sweden took those kind of policy moves
Dr Brian Palmer
I think a lot of it is admiration for the United States among the foreign policy elite in Sweden, many of whose members have studied at top universities in the US and had spent time there, and have a good network of personal friendships in the US, and now with the conservative governments in 2006 those ties have become even stronger. The motto of one of the young people's divisions of the conservative party over many years was we would like things to be like in the USA - vi vill har du som USA, in Swedish - so an open wish to see a more Americanised Sweden, which is exactly what we're seeing.
Reporter
Thank you very much for being with us.
Dr Brian Palmer
My pleasure.
COMMENT
NOTE I don't speak Swedish, so 'Vi vill har du som USA' (referred to above) is just a best guess at what Palmer has said in Swedish. The transcription could do with one more check of audio against text, but I need to switch tasks because my brain's just about crawled to a stop. LOL Will have to come back to check and comment. Before I split, I'll link an article that I also found interesting.
Bush, Rove Tied to Effort to Dismantle Sweden’s Social Welfare Program
EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 
