How Julian Assange was Set-Up. Australia BC

The Swedish extradition request for Julian Assange has been considered a blatant set-up by most on the British left who have followed the matter, and many, especially feminists and those campaigning for stricter rape laws have seen the Swedish allegations as superseding the WikiLeaks exposure of absurd levels of secrecy in the western world, led by the neurosis of the American military-Industrial complex that is trying to conquer the world, while fooling the people and blinding democracy everywhere.

This documentary made by ABC shows the extent of the machinations, notably that the two women who have made the rape allegations originally did no such thing, merely seeking police advice on what to do, both of them having had consensual sex with Assange, if he had a sexually transmitted disease. The police, it seems, distressed at least one of the two women by immediately seeking a prosecutor to issue an arrest warrant for Assange. Assange made no effort to leave Sweden until the Prosecutors had been satisfied that he had no charge to face, but they then almost immediately issued a new arrest warrant, giving the impression that Assange had fled, skipped bail, or otherwise tried to escape justice.

Still no charges had been issued, yet an extradition order was filed. The UK accepted the request. Assange was therefore being extradited by the UK so that he could be interviewed over a matter he had already been interviewed over and allowed to go, then had waited until he had been given the all clear to leave the country, before being required by extradition to return, still with no charges laid, to be interviewed again, presumably in the hope of making a case.

Floating in the background is the USA, pretending not to be interested in all this, when the unanimous view is that Assange would be immediately extradited to the US as soon as he landed in Sweden.

Watch the video. It is well produced by the ABC, and shows the shenanigans going on in Sweden in the total ineptitude of the Swedish authorities to massage their procedures enough to make them seem convincing, against the right wing conspiracy of secrecy that the western powers now command, despite their incessant lying about how democratic they are.

See also: The Guardian, and:

Many women in both Sweden and Britain will wonder at the unusual zeal with which Julian Assange is being pursued for rape allegations....

There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety. In the south of the US, the lynching of black men was often justified on grounds that they had raped or even looked at a white woman. Women don't take kindly to our demand for safety being misused, while rape continues to be neglected at best or protected at worst.

Katrin Axelsson, Women Against Rape

Shale Gas Fracking Solves No UK Energy Problems But Leaves us with Many

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says the advent in Europe of a shale gas boom—hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, extracting natural gas from shale using chemicals and water—is not a game changer for energy policy in the UK. Though it has been approved as safe, reports keep emerging with a different message.

Dozens of cases of illness, death and reproductive issues in cows, horses, goats, llamas, chickens, dogs, cats, fish and other wildlife, and humans could be the result of exposure to the gases or the chemicals used in the process, Robert Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and veterinarian, Michelle Bamberger, have found. They interviewed animal owners in six states—Colorado, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas—and cited 24 cases where animals seem to have been affected by the gas drilling.

The authors note that the “most striking finding” of their study was how difficult it was to get solid information on the link between hydrofracking and health effects. Consequently, it is not possible to make a direct link between death and illness due to incomplete testing, proprietary secrecy from gas drilling companies regarding the chemicals used in hydrofracking, and non-disclosure agreements that seal testimony and evidence when lawsuits are settled. Oswald said:

We have a number of case studies—they don’t tell us about the prevalence of problems associated with hydraulic fracturing, but they do tell us how things can happen.

The case studies include:

• In Louisiana, 17 cows died within an hour of direct exposure to hydraulic fracturing fluid. A necropsy report listed respiratory failure with circulatory collapse as the most likely cause of death.
• A farmer separated his herd of cows into two groups: 60 were in a pasture with a creek where hydrofracking wastewater was allegedly dumped; 36 were in separate fields without creek access. Of the 60 cows exposed to the creek water, 21 died and 16 failed to produce calves the following spring. None of the 36 cows in separated fields had health problems, though one cow failed to breed in the spring.
• Another farmer reported that 140 of his cows were exposed to hydrofracking fluid when wastewater impoundment was allegedly slit, and the fluid drained into a pasture and a pond. “These farmers saw workers slitting the liner to decrease the amount of liquid in the impoundment in order to refill it”, said Bamberger. “We have heard it now on several occasions”. Of the 140 cows, about 70 died, and there were high incidences of stillborn and stunted calves.

To provide better assessments of health impacts, the researchers recommend:

• prohibiting nondisclosure agreements when public health is at stake
• increasing food safety testing and research, as the study documented that animals exposed to chemicals were not tested prior to slaughter, and little is known about the effects of hydrofracking chemicals on meat and dairy products
• improving the monitoring of routes of exposure, including in water, soil and air
• most importantly, fully testing the air, water, soil and animals prior to drilling and at regular intervals after drilling is completed, and disclosing fully the chemicals used when hydrofracking.

Bamberger concluded:

Without knowledge of all the chemicals being used, you can’t test before drilling. And if we don’t have predrilling tests then if you find a chemical postdrilling, how can you prove that it came from hydrofracking.

The CCC in its annual report to Parliament examines the notion of a second dash for gas by some who are optimistic that Europe will benefit from the same sort of cheap shale gas boom as that experienced in the USA. The first dash for gas in the 1990s reduced the UK’s emissions as power generation switched from dirtier coal. It thinks a cheaper option than a new “dash for gas” is a fourfold increased investment in clean energy to avoid breaking laws on renewables and climate change, though that would still raise the annual energy bill of a typical household by £100 by 2020. It says the government is giving mixed messages on gas, and should explicitly rule out a new dash for gas.

The report confirms that greenhouse gases fell in the UK by 7 percent in 2011, but says most of this was down to the warm winter, rising fuel costs and falling incomes. Only 0.8 percent of the CO₂ cut was due to policies from government.

It says investment in wind power has been running at only a third of the annual amount that will be needed by the end of the decade. Plans for new nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage projects have also both slipped. There has been an improvement in insulating roofs and cavity walls but little progress on solid walls and low carbon heating. Emissions from new cars have continued to fall but there has been scant progress with vans.

The committee draws on International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts to project that gas costs up to 2020 will remain around 80p per therm, which will make it unaffordable for electricity when the price for carbon is added. However, its projections are challenged by some who believe the global glut of gas will eventually lead to much lower prices if the historic link between oil and gas prices is broken.

The CCC says it has modelled a future with gas at 40p per therm which still shows gas confers no advantage over nuclear power. That is because the government’s controversial carbon floor price will increase from £30 per CO₂ tonne in 2020 to £70 in 2030, forcing up the cost of generating with fossil fuels. Shale gas is a fossil fuel which emits CO2, though it would be hard to know it through its hard sell as a “clean” fuel. Nuclear is also being plugged as a clean option, in the sense that it emits no CO₂, but the residue of radioactive waste with a lifetime of thousands of years is just polluting the earth for distant generations.

Keith Allott, head of climate change at WWF UK, said:

For the fourth year running, the Committee on Climate Change has made clear that a dramatic step change in ambition is needed. Too many key policies—such as the Green Deal, the Green Investment Bank and now the Energy Bill—are hobbled by lack of ambition and poor implementation.

He added that the government risked letting the Climate Change Act wither by neglect.