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This is the woman who made that black hole photo possible. PHOTO: Washington Post
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- We all looked at a black hole and learned about Katie Bouman
- EU leaders offered Theresa May a Brexit extension until Halloween
- South Korea decriminalised abortion
- Trump purged key personnel from Homeland Security
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New Zealand banned most semi-automatic weapons
- India's sprawling elections got underway (in some cases with a bang)
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Uber filed for a potentially massive I.P.O.
- U.S. authorities branded the IRGC as a terror group
- Leaders of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement were charged
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Amazon employees were revealed to be listening to your Echo
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Assange flashes a victory sign from a police wagon. PHOTO: Jack Taylor / Getty
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The grand saga of Julian Assange took a dramatic turn this week. On Thursday, the London bobbies led a dishevelled and heavily-bearded Assange out of his diplomatic donjon, and for the first time in nearly seven years the founder of Wikileaks stepped into the world. It's a vastly different world from the one he escaped in 2012. This week we look at what's changed.
Displeasing the most powerful person on Earth
From its founding in 2006, Wikileaks has been a fearless organisation, one that essentially grew out of Assange's own idiosyncrasies and moral views. It has published documents (albeit torching quite a few journalistic standards along the way) that revealed illicit practises in Swiss banks, corrupt behaviour from Peruvian officials, confidential documents from companies like Amazon and Sony, and of course a veritable treasure trove of information from within the CIA. As a torch-bearer for transparency Assange has relished holding the powers-that-be over the purifying flames of public disclosure. But by 2010 (with the help of Chelsea Manning) Wikileaks had also started to become something else, a cause célèbre. Its 'Collateral Murder' video shook the world with cockpit footage that showed American attack-helicopter pilots mowing down Iraqis during a 2007 attack, cracking jokes as they went. Its Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs laid bare the scale of America's war machine. And the US State Department cables showed the world just how the sausage of American diplomacy gets made.
Then-president Barack Obama raged against the violations of state secrecy, instructing the Department of Justice to build a case against Assange. But there was little else he could do, especially after Assange quick-stepped through the front door of Ecuador's London embassy in 2012 and applied for political asylum. Wikileaks had become a household name and Assange had acquired the status of a celebrity-in-exile. The numerous allusions to David and Goliath were not lost on him.
But his war wasn't waged without specific purpose. Leaked chatroom transcripts reveal that as early as 2015 Assange had positioned Wikileaks against the US Democratic Party. His thinking was that a victorious GOP would have its bellicose impulses reigned in by the collective opposition of Democrats, liberals and the media. Conversely, a successful Democratic candidate would have carte blanche power to engage in further foreign interventions (quite possibly with GOP goading). That logic led Wikileaks to become more overtly political as it published 20,000 hacked Democratic National Committee emails in July 2016, including several from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta in the month before America's presidential election. Many are still trying to grapple with the implications of those decisions.
Truth-seeker to traitor
The second crucial change since Assange's self-exile has been the wholesale collapse in support for Wikileaks generally, and him personally. At the most basic level it's become clear that the Australian national had exhausted the patience of his Ecuadorian hosts. Six and a half years is a long time to squirrel someone away in your embassy, let alone someone as politically explosive as Assange. The former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa was a close supporter of Assange's nominally anti-imperialist mission, and remained steadfast even as public support for the exile waned. But in 2017 Correa stepped down after three terms in government. His replacement, Lenín Moreno, did not take so kindly to Wikileaks operating from Ecuadorian soil. In June 2018 Moreno threatened to eject his unwanted guest from the embassy. Now it has finally happened.
But public opinion had shifted against Assange well before Correa left office. In the United States he had become public enemy #1 after the 2016 election: a lightning rod for anti-Trump hysteria and anger. To many Americans Wikileaks had started to look rather like a foreign propaganda outfit. And Trump loved it. America's 45th president has altered innumerable lives with the undiscerning power that comes with his office. But for Assange that change is palpable and intimate; his story arc bends unnervingly close to Trump's own. The pair are tied through innuendo, chance and the shared goal of scuttling Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations.
There were also unanswered questions about his refusal to cooperate with Swedish authorities over sexual assault allegations in 2012 – the trigger for him to enter asylum in the first place.
Surveillance saturation
The final change, arguably the most pertinent one, is the world's surrender to online surveillance. When Wikileaks was founded in 2006 the internet was still viewed as a radical technology, a democratic tool that could challenge existing power in real life. Yes, it had been colonised by corporate entities that are now bywords for power and money, but its promise of enfranchisement had not yet worn thin. And Wikileaks embodied radical potential. Perhaps that is why it seems so anachronistic in 2019.
It would not be hard to make the case that the internet is no longer a radical space; Edward Snowden's disclosure of global dragnet surveillance put paid to that idea. America's NSA and Britain's GCHQ have hardcoded surveillance into the very backbone of the internet. China too is in the same game, which is why Huawei has become such a prominent target in the West. The heady days of action and protest following Snowden's leaks may have felt like a rallying cry but in hindsight they proved to be more of a death-rattle. Nothing changed for the better. And so the great tragedy of Wikileaks is not the personal plight of its narcissistic founder, it is the meek (and maybe inevitable) acceptance of the internet being transformed into a panopticon.
It appears likely that Assange will spend at least some time in a British jail for breaching parole. But this will most likely be a temporary stop en route to America. Last year the U.S. DOJ accidentally revealed that – contrary to years of statements otherwise – they had sealed indictments against Assange. On the day of his arrest those indictments were unsealed. The mask is finally off. The long-suffering Chelsea Manning has already been arrested for failing to give evidence during this secret investigation. So now we wait to see whether the charges against Assange stack up. His supporters will be pleased to know that the Trump DOJ is trying to charge him on the same evidence that the Obama DOJ had previously decided was too weak to stand. Then there is the bigger question of whether he will find Trump, who has tangibly benefited from Assange's intervention, to be more sympathetic than Obama would have been.
No doubt Assange will fight the coming extradition case tooth and nail, but – as Manning has already found out – the wrath of an embarrassed superpower hovers like the sword of Damocles and it cannot be side-stepped.
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A protester daubed with a message: "Just fall, that's all". PHOTO: AFP / Getty
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Bashir follows Bouteflika
Having lost favour with his people, and (more importantly) with his military, Omar al-Bashir relinquished the presidency of Sudan late in the week. His fall was marked by the tell-tale signs of a leader who'd been offered terms he couldn't refuse. Military vehicles moving slowly through the streets of the capital in the early morning, a ferocious exchange of small-arms fire around the presidential palace, regular programming interrupted by an emergency bulletin, a ranked officer onscreen saying things like "peaceful transition of power" and "mandatory curfew". In Sudan – as in so many countries – the military is by far the most powerful institution. The loss of its imprimatur is a mortal blow for any ruler, but especially so for one like Bashir; who 30-years ago prised open the gates to power with the barrel of a gun.
Protests that had begun over soaring food prices had morphed into general unrest - dozens of activists had died at the hands of police. And so, after months of protests against the ageing dictator, the military stepped in to affect change. There are heartening signs that the protesters will not accept the status quo, or the curfew. One activist said, "What is happening in Sudan is that the old system is being rebuilt in new clothes. I'm 30 years old, and my whole life we have suffered from lack of freedom and continuous threats."
The ruinous Darfur crisis (we hesitate to call it a war – it was really a proliferation of massacres and counter-massacres), regular military interventions in South Sudan, and a willingness to harbour Islamic extremists meant that the 75-year-old Bashir has left office with few friends in the international community. We hope for two things: that the demonstrators prevail with their demands for civilian government, and that the army hand over Bashir to the International Criminal Court.
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A stadium teeming with Prabowo supporters. PHOTO: Reuters
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More elections
Despite the risk of causing plebiscite overload (after last week's election-heavy issue of The Wrap), we can't really ignore this one. We've entered the home stretch of the Indonesian election. A titanic battle is underway for control of the world's most populous Islamic nation. And it pits the popular moderate incumbent Joko Widodo against a challenge from the religious right. This is Prabowo Subianto's second clash with Jokowi (as he is commonly known), having come off second-best in the bitterly-contested 2014 election.
The president can point to a commendable record of bottom-up development in Indonesia over the past five years, including bolstered national health insurance schemes and education systems. But he has copped flak from an increasingly vocal array of Islamists who perceive Indonesia as too accomodating to Christians and other religious minorities. Prabowo Subianto, for his part, is an ex-General with fond memories of Suharto's muscular reign (he was formerly married to the second daughter of the 'Smiling General'). And he has had no trouble entertaining outlandish proposals from Islamists.
There have been several reports of Indonesia's politically-aligned gangs causing trouble in the lead up to the vote, although this is often overplayed by Western media. Of much more pressing concern is the fact that 50,000 pre-marked ballots have been discovered in Malaysia. The discovery of the ballots – all in favour of Jokowi – have prompted an investigation by electoral authorities.
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The Lofoten Islands. PHOTO: The Independent
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Learning how to say no
In most parts of the world oil exploration and extraction is accelerating. Not so in Norway. Politicians there have voted down a license to exploit billions of barrels of oil under the seabed near the idyllic Lofoten Islands. The decision has thrown the country's oil industry into chaos – major players have argued that the new licence is a critical part of the country's future production. This is a strange, new phenomenon.
New family members
Archaeologists in the Philippines have discovered a distant and scarcely-recognisable relative of the human race. Dubbed Homo Luzonensis – named for the island of Luzon they were found on – these skeletal remains date back 60,000-70,000 years. What's so special about them is their size: they are estimated to have stood around 4ft tall or shorter. Curved toes also suggest a propensity for climbing trees, an ability that was believed to have been lost long before then. The more we learn about our family, the stranger it gets.
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Incoming! PHOTO: Reuters
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Rough landing
The Israeli spacecraft Beresheet has spent the last seven weeks slowly making its way to the moon. Beresheet, named after the Hebrew phrase for "in the beginning", moved in a widening orbital gyre around Earth, slowly making its way towards our smaller companion. But just as the dishwasher-sized lander entered the lunar orbit things started going wrong. Communications were lost with the probe and it disintegrated after slamming into the surface. We're not sure what the Hebrew phrase for "in the end" is.
No, no and no
This week the retired Pope Benedict XVI blamed rampant paedophilia within the Catholic church on (wait for it) the 1960's sexual revolution. Apparently the loosened morals of the era had a guiding hand in forcing thousands of otherwise upstanding priests to rape children.
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Quote of the week
"The measurements we have made are very surprising. The methane previously detected by ground-based telescopes, the ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Express spacecraft and the Nasa Curiosity rover seems to have disappeared. Mars continues to confound us."
– Scientists were overjoyed when they detected methane emanating from Mars. On Earth the presence of methane is mostly associated with the presence of living things. Exciting, right? Well, it would be, had it not disappeared.
Headline of the week
Chernobyl has become a radioactive rave scene and stag do venture
– The NZ Herald
Special mention
Our special mention of the week goes to Xi Jinping for his masterclass in how to be a successful social media influencer. The Chinese government is getting millions of people to download an app promoting news about him. Apparently one can even face punishment for not keeping up to date with his latest musings.
Some choice long-reads
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Download the app. It's very good.
Tom Wharton
@trwinwriting
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