Australia #17 >>>/qresearch/14213207

Julian Assange's Ecuadorian citizenship revoked

ABC/AP - 28 July 2021

Ecuador has revoked the citizenship of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in a British prison.

Assange received Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018 as part of a failed attempt by the government of then-President Lenín Moreno to turn him into a diplomat and get him out of its embassy in London.

On Monday, the Pichincha Court for Contentious Administrative Matters revoked this decision.

Ecuador's Foreign Ministry said the court had "acted independently and followed due process in a case that took place during the previous government and that was raised by the same previous government."

Carlos Poveda, Mr Assange's lawyer, said the court made the decision without due process, and Mr Assange was not allowed to appear in the case.

"On the date [Mr Assange] was cited he was deprived of his liberty and with a health crisis inside the deprivation of liberty centre where he was being held," he said.

Mr Poveda said he would file appeals asking for amplification and clarification of the decision.

"More than the importance of nationality, it is a matter of respecting rights and following due process in withdrawing nationality."

Ecuador's justice system formally notified Australia of the decision in a letter responding to a claim filed by the South American country's Foreign Ministry.

Naturalisation is considered damaging when granted based on the concealment of relevant facts, false documents or fraud.

Ecuadorian authorities say Assange's naturalization letter had multiple inconsistencies, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents and unpaid fees, among other issues.

Where Assange is now

Mr Assange has been in London's high-security Belmarsh Prison since April 2019.

He was arrested for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle.

Mr Assange spent seven years inside Ecuador's London embassy, where he fled to in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

US prosecutors have indicted Mr Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

US prosecutors claim Mr Assange unlawfully helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published.

Lawyers for Mr Assange argue that he acted as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents exposing US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In January, a lower court judge refused an American request to send Mr Assange to the US.

But earlier this month, Britain's High Court granted the US government permission to appeal a decision that Mr Assange could not be sent there to face espionage charges.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-28/julian-assange-s-ecuadorian-citizenship-revoked/100328868

General Research #17995 >>>/qresearch/14224236

It Begins… Illinois Superintendent Will Hand Out Yellow ID Badges Based on Vaccination Status

Galesburg, IL School District 205 Superintendent John Asplund sent this shocking email out to staff members announcing a new ID badge policy.

School staff now have the option to change from the customary white ID badge to a yellow ID badge to indicate that they have received the covid vaccine.

They are actually going to use Yellow Badges for identification.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/07/begins-illinois-superintendent-will-hand-yellow-badges-based-vaccination-status/

General Research #17995 >>>/qresearch/14224292

GOP Lawmaker Asks if Quorum-Busting Democrats’ Seats Can Be Vacated

State Rep. James White (R–Hillister), who serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety, sent the letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday, in response to what he referred to as a “thoughtful inquiry” from one of his East Texas constituents.

For the House to conduct business, a quorum of two-thirds of the chamber’s members (100 out of 150) is required to be present. A 30-day special session began on July 8 to address issues like omnibus election integrity legislation, which the Texas House failed to pass during the regular session. Just a few days in, however, more than 50 Democrat House members left, leaving the House unable to consider legislation for the past two weeks.

Those Democrats have not given any indication of when they plan to return, leading White to ask the following question of Paxton:

With this in mind, does our constitution or state statutes expressly allow for the vacating of legislative seats or seeking a determination if legislators have vacated their legislative seats when members deliberately deny the constitutional quroum [sic] requirement, announce intentions to leave and remain outside the State […] in order to prevent the presiding officer from compelling attendance, and have taken the oath of office?

Were the seats to be vacated, special elections would be called to replace the absent members.

Though some attorney general opinions take months to gather, White asked for an “expedited response” given the time frame, adding, “[I]n times such as this we need the cooling saucer of reasoned and constitutional deliberation and not the cauldron of ideological fervor.”

Currently, the Texas House and Gov. Greg Abbott have done little to compel Democrat lawmakers to return.

Although the House is currently under a “call of the House,” during which members are to be compelled to return to the chamber and those that are in the chamber can not leave, House Speaker Dade Phelan has given permission slips to Democrats and Republicans alike. This led Democrat State Rep. Philip Cortez (San Antonio) to travel back and forth between Austin and Washington, D.C., prompting Phelan to issue a civil arrest warrant to bring him back to the Capitol.

Though Abbott promised on television appearances that Democrat lawmakers would be arrested and brought to the state Capitol, no other arrest warrants have yet been issued for the other quorum-busting Democrats.

Additionally, Phelan has refused to strip Democrats from the committee chairmanship positions he placed them in earlier this year, with the sole exception of stripping State Rep. Joe Moody (D–El Paso) of his speaker pro tempore title.

With the current special session more than halfway over and no clear end in sight, it remains to be seen which tools Republicans will be willing to use to bring their Democrat colleagues back.

https://texasscorecard.com/state/gop-lawmaker-asks-if-quorum-busting-democrats-seats-can-be-vacated/?

General Reserch #17999 >>>/qresearch/14227200

Radioactive Material Disappears En Route To Michigan

Radioactive material headed to Michigan from an Ohio company never made it to its destination, a filing by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission revealed. In its "Current Event Notification" report for Wednesday, the commission that regulates commercial nuclear power plants and other civilian uses of nuclear materials in the United States said the Ohio Bureau of Radiation Protection had informed officials about a missing shipment involving Prime NDT Services.

The Ohio radiation bureau learned from Prime NDT that a source of Iridium-192 was shipped through an unnamed carrier on July 12 from a facility in Strasburg, Ohio, to a facility in Michigan, the NRC said. Iridium-192 is a radioactive isotope of iridium, which can be used in industrial gauges that inspect welding seams in such equipment as pipelines and in medicine to treat certain cancers, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The material can also be used to make a dirty bomb…

The material, while having medical and industrial uses, may also be used in what is known as "dirty bombs."

According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit organization that works to prevent attacks and accidents involving nuclear material,"a radioactive 'dirty bomb' or radiological dispersal device made by combining radioactive material with conventional explosives to spread it … could cause significant short- and long-term health problems for those in the area and could leave billions of dollars in damagedue to the costs of evacuation, relocation and cleanup."

Radioactive materials used in those devices, the NTI says, "are dispersed across thousands of commercial, industrial, medical and research sites … and many of them are poorly secured, particularly during transport when they are vulnerable to theft. In fact, the same isotopes used for life-saving blood transfusions and cancer treatments in hospitals around the world— such as cesium-137, cobalt-60 and iridium-192— could be used to build a bomb."

The event notification report for the material intended to be shipped to Michigan stated that multiple agencies were alerted, including the Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Also, the notice said, "the state of Tennessee has been informed."

full article: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/radioactive-material-disappears-en-route-michigan