"The interview otherwise stays in Assange's usual territory: everyone's out to get him, for unjust reasons, UK politicians are in thrall to the USA and WikiLeaks is good for the world."
Somewhat over-egged perhaps but sounds about right. Sadly.
Couch-surfer extraordinaire Julian Assange has granted an interview to Australian breakfast radio program “Kyle and Jackie O” in which he characterises his stint in the Ecuadorian embassy as a “siege” and reveals he has banned smartphones at the Ecuadorian embassy as he assumes they are all surveilled. The interview, which …
And you wonder why Britain doesn't just revoke Ecuador's diplomatic status like they threatened to three years ago. It's not like the UK has anything special going on in Ecuador, are they (meaning even if Ecuador retaliates, the diplomats just go home and probably show a finger on the way out)?
"And you wonder why Britain doesn't just revoke Ecuador's diplomatic status"
You have no idea what you are talking about do you?
There NOTHING stopping them going in and arresting him right now....oh except you do that and you lose the moral high ground and effectively have told every other nation in the world they can do the same to us.
Diplomatic protection is little more than a gentleman's agreement only held together by the nuclear option of no one being the first to press the red button.
Perhaps, but after three years of nose-snubbing, you'd think England would start to think, "Enough is enough" and very succinctly ask if any other nation would be this patient over someone who's obviously flaunting your laws to escape your justice? By challenging other nations to ask "What would YOU do?" England can maintain the high ground by making the other nations "walk a mile in their shoes," so to speak.
PS. Is sound considered a weapon? If not, why hasn't England tried the Noriega Attack yet?
The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
Source: Article 22, Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
Hungarian Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty spent 15 years in the US embassy in Budapest from 1956-1971.
Julian can stay where he is until he or Ecuador get fed up.
On the plus side, 3 and a quarter years of self imprisonment and counting. Plus he's reduced to only getting attention from a breakfast radio show, not exactly first headline on News at Ten.
On the subject of bottom-of-the-pile news hacks, has El Reg tried to get an interview with him? [/Trollface]
I'd be interested to see if he really does have the power to ban smartphones in the embassy. Is he really claiming that visitors to the embassy are searched at their phones confiscated?
If so the next logical question would seem to be, how much is he paying top have such control over the embassy? To which a sensible follow up would be, it's it even legal for the embassy to accept such payments, should they exist?
"I don't know - this sounds like a cunning plan. Harrods is an absolute warren, no-one would be able to find him in there!
On the other hand, he'd never find his way out either."
I don't know about that, some unfortunate could be in for a very unpleasant surprise when they open their Harrods Christmas Hamper to get the Goose Foie Gras and Beluga Caviar...
On the other hand, I'm a bit surprised that no one has sent him a birthday cake laced with something the might require a trip to a hospital for a "check up". Nothing dangerous, just something to make him sick enough (physically) to seek help. Unless he has embassy credentials the cops could nab him, and end this game.
"Pressed on which smartphones are the most secure, he said the fact that underground exploit markets are currently offering US$1 million for a working iPhone exploit, rather more than is on offer for rival platforms, shows Apple is going better at security than Android or BlackBerry."
The higher premiums paid for Apple exploits might be to do with the fact that Apple users are better off (you'd have to be to pay for an iPhone) and thus are worth more to the ne'er-do-wells targeting them.
Kinda agree with this.
Maybe not so much about relative security, more that the perps see Apple users as likely higher value targets. Which shows how dumb said perps really are, given Apple's 13.9% market share in Q2 2015
http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-market-share.jsp
If the rest of the market is so insecure compared to Apple, surely it's worth targeting the 86.1% of the market that ain't Apple...? Low hanging fruit an' all that.
"You're really asking me to compare anything that Assange has done with the Cuban missile crisis?"
Not at all. I'm comparing the US government's actions with things the US government has done. I'm pointing out that the absurd suggestion that the US government doesn't harbour grudges is absurd. Giving the following example:
In 1961 the US government planted ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey aimed at Russia (of course). The Russians responded by attempting to send similar munitions to Cuba. The US got all uppity and indignant at that and very, very nearly started an intercontinental nuclear war. Fortunately the Russian leadership was able to diffuse the situation. The US government brought its people home too and all was well settled in to lay siege to Cuba for HALF A FUCKING CENTURY so far.
The US government has NOT "forgotten about AssangeTM" - the US government is a demented psychopath which harbours mindless grudges for decades.
Everybody writes something so cringingly crawley about Assange or full of vitriol.
I have yet to meet anybody who doesn't hate him however. So presumably the people who present him as a messiah are just doing it to sell papers.
Wikileaks I have no problem with. Julian Assange is a total muppet.
"Everybody writes something so cringingly crawley about Assange or full of vitriol.
I have yet to meet anybody who doesn't hate him however"
I think of him in the same way that I think about Margaret Thatcher. Lots of good work done in the early years before they went mad
Wrong, wrong wrong, wrong and wrong! best explanation ever is here.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=should+of
Should of should be banned from the language as an insult!
The only time it makes any sense is in the sentence "Should Of Mice and Men be written in another language"
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"Surveilled - Is not a word[1]. Please discontinue usage thereof or I shall cancel my subscription to this publication forthwith!"
As stated, the Oxford English dictionary says you're wrong. For that matter, Google, Dictionary.com, Webster, Random House, and Macmillan disagree with you as well.
We colonialists may be a bit plebian compared to someone of your stature, but when you deign to give tidbits of information to the masses please make sure they're correct
" Google, Dictionary.com, Webster, Random House, and Macmillan disagree with you as well...."
What more proof do you need that this is all a commie NSA / CIA plot to subvert the Queen's English??
And just how near are the dreaming spires of Oxford to Cheltenham?
So now we know for sure that the OED, that pillar of righteous loquation, has also been perverted to the service of those nasty colonial rebels.
What next? Cricket?
Be afraid, be very afraid.
"And just how near are the dreaming spires of Oxford to Cheltenham?"
About 40 miles. Our friend, disgusted of Wiltshire however, is resident in a shire of secrets, from Porton Down to TURNSTILE. He'd be a mole if he could burrow through the chalky, chalky downs of home. Trust him not...
I doubt if the cops are stopping and searching every vehicle leaving the Ecuadorian embassy, and even if they are they won't be allowed to search diplomatically sealed containers, so it seems that the Ecuadorians could easily smuggle him out anytime if they really wanted to.
Does anyone know for sure that Assange is really still at the the embassy in London, and not actually already in Ecuador and just keeping the myth of his location in the embassy alive for convenience?
Recall that the embassy is merely part of a larger building. Also, IIRC, that building has no interior garage. Meaning there's a few feet of publicly-accessible space between car and building, and plenty more space between the entrance of the building and the entrance to the actual embassy on the second floor. IOW, anyone coming and going through that building is subject to at least surveillance. As for diplomatically sealed containers, pouches, envelopes and small bags, yes. But is there any documented proof of a diplomatically sealed trunk or other container large enough to contain a person and breathing equipment?
Fucking Air Malaysia flight MH350 and its pings.
The word "ping" was used every two minutes on the news shows for weeks, each time with a Stephen Fry mini explanation inserted so everyone could keep up.
I vote the next idiot that gives a piece of tech jargon to the lumpen press has his/her thumbs hammered flat.