Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for May 31, 2013
Newsline: Assange slams Australian Foreign Minister as a ‘well-known liar’
From his refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr a “well-known liar” whose “ignorance is only eclipsed by his arrogance”. Mr Assange, who is sheltering in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual misconduct, made the statements during an online interview with the progressive US independent media program Democracy Now. He had been asked to respond to Senator Carr’s assertion on the ABC that it was a “fantasy” to think that the US was seeking to extradite him once in Sweden to face conspiracy charges over information provided to Wikileaks by Bradley Manning, the US soldier whose espionage trial begins on Monday. “Julian Assange could have been the subject of extradition action by the United States any time in the last two years, when he’s been residing in the UK. He wasn’t. To suggest that the Swedes are after him, as a CIA conspiracy, to get him to Stockholm and allowing – allowing – him to be bundled off to Langley, Virginia, is sheer fantasy,” Senator Carr said. Mr Assange responded that he had never claimed there was a CIA conspiracy, but said the US Justice Department was still engaged in a live criminal investigation into WikiLeaks “of unprecedented scale and nature”. “Bob Carr is a well-known liar in Australian politics. The man’s ignorance is only eclipsed by his arrogance,” said Mr Assange. He went on to accuse Senator Carr of being a “US embassy informer” in his own right as a union official during the 1970s, according to diplomatic cables obtained and published by WikiLeaks. A spokesman for Senator Carr said: “Name-calling doesn’t alter the fact that Mr Assange has received more consular assistance than any other Australian in similar circumstances.
http://www.merimbulanewsonline.com.au/story/1541277/assange-slams-carr-as-a-well-known-liar/?cs=12
Newsline: South Korean Embassy Officials in Laos Accused of Being Asleep at Their Post
Nine young North Korean defectors on their way to freedom in South Korea were deported from Laos on Tuesday under guard of North Korean agents with diplomatic passports. As late as Wednesday, a full day after they had been taken back to the North, the South Korean Foreign Ministry mumbled something about trying to locate them and maybe prevent them from being sent back to the repressive country, where they face internment or execution. Now the ministry claims it did everything possible to help them. A South Korean missionary who was detained in Laos while escorting the young refugees said he informed the South Korean embassy in Vientiane on May 20 that two men with North Korean accents had interrogated them in detention. He says embassy officials told him not to worry and said Lao authorities were just trying to determine whether the defectors were really trying to escape from the North. Instead of trying to help, it seems the South Korean diplomats ended up shooing the defectors along to their doom. The young refugees, who are between 15 and 23, spent 18 days in Laos without meeting a single South Korean embassy official. Diplomats are responsible for defending South Korea’s national interests just as soldiers protect its physical borders. The way they bungled the Lao incident brings to mind a soldier snoozing at his frontline post.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/05/31/2013053101625.html
Newsline: German escapee rearrested at embassy in Bangkok
A German ex-convict who had given his guards the slip at Bangkok’s international airport while being escorted home was arrested in the capital, police said. Police arrested the 25-year-old at the German Embassy in Bangkok, Immigration Police Commissioner Panu Kerdlabpol said. The man was fined Bt6,000 for illegal entry to Thailand, and is likely to be deported on Friday after he “re-enacts his crime” at Suvarnabhumi Airport, the immigration police commissioner said. The German was identified as Carlo Konstantin Kohl. He had reportedly fled the airport on May 15 through an emergency exit in the transit area, while his escorts, civilian guards hired by the Australian immigration department, slept. After serving three years of a jail term in Australia for theft, he was put on a Thai Airways International flight from Brisbane to Frankfurt, with a stopover in Bangkok, under guard. It is unclear whether he faces further charges in Germany. The incident has caused embarrassment at Suvarnabhumi Airport, where authorities have vowed to upgrade their security systems, and in Australia. Thai officials said they were not informed that a German criminal escorted by Australian guards was passing through Bangkok.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/German-escapee-rearrested-at-embassy-30207284.html
Newsline: U.S. embassy in Cairo urges to stay away from Giza’s pyramids
The American embassy in Cairo has bad news for anyone traveling to Egypt: For now, the pyramids in Giza should be considered off limits — at least if you’re visiting without a trusted guide. Describing a pattern of increasing lawlessness at the iconic tourist destination outside Cairo, the embassy is warning that some visitors have found their cars surrounded by angry individuals, and that in some cases those individuals have tried to open the doors. Turbulence at the pyramids is terrible news for Egypt, whose economy is in a tailspin at the moment. Tourism has been a source of strength for the country’s economy in the past, but it has also struggled enormously in the aftermath of the revolution, whose accompanying chaos has understandably scared off many tourists from visiting.
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