it's time for boris to stop listening to the rotten americans...

certain death...

FREE ASSANGE TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A New Zealand nurse praised by Boris Johnson for helping to save his life said treating the prime minister was the "most surreal time in her life", her parents have said.

Jenny McGee, along with Luis Pitarma from Portugal, was praised by the PM for standing at his bedside "when things could have gone either way".

Ms McGee's parents told Television New Zealand they are "exceptionally proud".

They said she treated Mr Johnson like any other patient.

Mr Johnson was discharged from St Thomas' Hospital in London on Sunday, one week after being admitted to be treated for coronavirus. He spent several nights in the intensive care unit where he was given oxygen.

He said the NHS "has saved my life, no question" and paid tribute to many medics, singling out Ms McGee and Mr Pitarma specifically.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52268341

By Gus Leonisky at 14 Apr 2020 - 8:54am
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love is an act of hope...

Julian Assange secretly became engaged and fathered two children all while in hiding in a London embassy, it has been revealed.

On Sunday, the WikiLeaks founder’s fiancee outed herself as she expressed fears the Australian’s life may be “coming to an end” at Belmarsh Prison.

“It’s been … 10 years of breaking someone down, of trying to destroy his life,” Stella Moris-Smith Robertson said.

Ms Moris-Smith Robertson showed off photographs and videos of the couple’s sons Max and Gabriel as she issued a teary plea for the UK to bail her 48-year-old partner, one year after he was taken into custody.

The trained lawyer, who said she spoke fluent Swedish, explained that she met Assange in 2011 when she was a legal researcher looking into Sweden’s legal theory to help in his rape case.

The pair formed a close friendship that by 2015 developed into a romance.

“Falling in love is kind of an act of rebellion in a context where there’s a lot of attempts to destroy your life,” she said.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2020/04/13/julian-assange-children/

Com'on Boris! Your turn to help !

FREE ASSANGE TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Gus Leonisky at 14 Apr 2020 - 8:58am
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FREE ASSANGE NOW....

It should not be a matter of distinction, but Julian Assange is a figure who is becoming the apotheosis of political imprisonment. This seems laughable to those convinced he is an agent without scruple, a compromiser of the Fourth Estate, a figure best packed off to a prison system that will, in all assuredness, kill him.

That’s if he even gets there. Having spent a year at Her Majesty’s Belmarsh prison, the WikiLeaks publisher faces the permanent danger of contracting COVID-19 as he goes through the bone-weariness of legal proceedings.

Even during the extradition hearings, he has been treated with a snooty callousness by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser, which does not bode well for a favourable finding against the US submission. As he endures them, he suffers in a facility that is succumbing to the misrule caused by the coronavirus.

On April 9, Assange’s friend Vaughan Smith gave a description of conditions that gave little cause for Easter cheer.

“Julian is now confined alone in a cell for 23.5 hours every day. He gets half an hour of exercise and that is in a yard crowded with other prisoners.”

Smith also had a shot at the running of the prison.

“With over 150 Belmarsh prison staff off work self-isolating, the prison is barely functioning.”

The UK Department of Justice has adopted a mild approach to the issue of releasing prisoners in the face of the coronavirus epidemic. Despite the Prison Governors’ Association suggesting the release of 15,000 non-violent prisoners, the Department of Justice has opted for the lower total of 4,000. To date, a meagre 100 have been released.

Assange insists that the situation is graver at Belmarsh than is otherwise advertised. Official figures put the number of COVID-19 deaths at one in the maximum security facility. There are at least two, with the possibility, argues Assange, of more.

By any reasonable assessment, Assange fits the bill of a non-violent prisoner, and one with genuine political credentials. He was granted asylum by Ecuador, a point of little interest to Baraister. His condition both physical and mental has appalled friends, acquaintances and a number of officials.

Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has spent much time beating the drum of awareness about his plight. Since 2010, he stated in May last year,

“there has been a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Mr Assange, not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, Sweden and, more recently, in Ecuador.”

Rather than turning their attention to this state of circumstances, news outlets prefer to gorge themselves on other details, such as the newly revealed identity of his partner, which Judge Baraitser refused to keep concealed.

The writing on this subject is needlessly though predictably tawdry. “WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange fathered two sons while hiding in embassy,” has been a favourite formulation.

The Daily Mail can barely resist stirring the sauce pot, giving Assange the appearance of an international man of fornicating mystery.

“Gabriel, aged two, and his one-year-old brother Max were conceived while their father was hiding out to avoid extradition to America, where he faces espionage charges over the leaking of thousands of classified US intelligence documents.”

But the man who sowed his oats was also, the Mail is thrilled to remind us, “wanted in Sweden where he was accused of rape.”

It was rather good of them to also tell readers that Swedish prosecutors dropped the investigation, though it does so with customary scepticism.

The old hacks can barely resist regarding the entire matter of Assange having a partner and children as peculiar. The Mail seemed to think it had uncovered a stunning morsel of information that would shock all.

“The news will come as a bombshell to Assange’s friends and enemies since he was widely understood to have led a near-monastic life since entering the embassy in 2012.”

Monks would surely disagree with that flawed assessment, as would his friends.

The theme of oddity has also made it across the Atlantic. The New York Post, for instance, considered it “an even odder twist” that “British rapper M.I.A. is a godmother to the children”. Hardly – M.I.A, along with a large clutch of celebrities, has been a vocal supporter and barracker.

This mixture of lazy scribbling, creepy curiosity and saccharine interest will do little to aid Assange. His partner, now revealed as lawyer Stella Moris-Smith Robertson, attempted to take some of the edge off perceptions of the publisher in a court statement supporting bail.

“My close relationship with Julian has been the opposite of how he is viewed – of reserve, respect for each other and attempts to shield each other from some of the nightmares that have surrounded our lives.”

Retaining that shield will be an increasingly difficult matter now.

Assange’s scalp is precious. The application for bail made by his defence team on March 25 was denied. Access to him from his legal team is limited, hobbling the case. Even during a raging pandemic, where entire states have mobilised their resources, there is always room for little bit of vindictiveness.

Scores need to be settled; the balance sheet ordered. To that end, Judge Baraister and the UK justice system, have not disappointed.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/14/julian-assange-one-year-in-belmarsh/

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Com'on Boris! Your turn to help !

FREE ASSANGE TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Gus Leonisky at 15 Apr 2020 - 4:26pm
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landlords throwing out tenants...

Australia's 8 million residential renters remain in limbo as governments sew together a meagre patchwork of laws that leave both tenants and landlords with questions and growing problems.

Despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison declaring a six-month "eviction ban" in late March, it's merely a slogan until each state and territory parliament passes bills to make it law. Fewer than half have.

Tenants in financial trouble are urged to negotiate a rent reduction with their landlords, but there's no Plan B for if the landlord refuses.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/everything-renters-need-to-know-a...

Contrarily, we wish that some tenants of her majesty's real estate, especially JULIAN ASSANGE, be thrown out in the street...

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Com'on Boris! Your turn to help !

FREE ASSANGE TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Gus Leonisky at 16 Apr 2020 - 11:36am
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care and love...

Boris Johnson’s near–death COVID-19 experience may be a blessing for the future of humanity.

In a remarkable statement of thanks to his National Health Service carers in St Thomas’s hospital, the British Prime Minister gave some indication that his perspective on life may have changed.

Amid his bluster, buffoonery and brinkmanship, a less ideological bent has been on occasional display.

Several years ago he said: “I’m probably about the only politician I know of who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration.”

This was an unthinkable view for his Tory leadership aspirations and in Brexit he expediently abandoned child refugees by dropping protections for unaccompanied children attempting to join their families in the UK.

His emotional thanks to two intensive-care nurses from overseas must have brought home to him the huge dependence of the NHS on foreign health workers.

His realisation might then extend to the fact that the NHS is based on the primacy of care and love, and not on profit and divestment of services to the private sector.

The vision of the lack of universal health care as a cause of the US chaotic response to COVID-19 may also influence him.

He might come to reflect that his party is considering deals to allow more access to the NHS by private US health providers.

He is about to lose the EU’s protective regulations against such deals as a result of Brexit.

He may recognise the incongruity between the current realities in the NHS and the UK’s recently expressed support for the core principle of the World Health Organisation as an example of universal health coverage – and the NHS was indeed established to ensure everyone could access health services, regardless of their ability to pay.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/uk-news/2020/04/16/boris-johnson-c...

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Com'on Boris! Your time to show your care and love!

FREE ASSANGE TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Gus Leonisky at 16 Apr 2020 - 8:07pm
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the truth is a hard master...

The US’ request to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange sets a dangerous precedent, the Intercept’s founder Glenn Greenwald has told RT, warning that it puts journalists around the world in danger.

The most “amazing” fact about Assange’s case, as far as Greenwald is concerned, is that the US government is seeking to charge him for violating the Espionage Act. But the WikiLeaks founder “is not an American citizen, he never worked with a media outlet in the United States, [and] none of the alleged crimes he committed took place on American soil,” he said during former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s show on RT Spanish.

If Assange is successfully extradited to the US, Greenwald predicts this will prove the country has the right to “reach over and grab” someone “anywhere in the world” reporting things they don’t like.

Even though the outcome of Assange’s case will likely have major effects on the state of journalism in the US and around the world, it has gotten little attention from the mainstream media. This, Greenwald says, is due to Assange being politically unaffiliated and making enemies of both the left and the right in the US.

https://www.rt.com/news/486886-assange-arrest-greenwald-correa/

By Gus Leonisky at 27 Apr 2020 - 12:31pm
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destroying the NHS in pommyland...

Debates over relaxing the lockdown and whether or not the peak of the Covid-19 crisis may now be behind us have run alongside fleeting glimpses of the surreptitious plans being laid to exploit the continued lockdown on NHS public meetings and spring a succession of unpleasant surprises on the NHS as soon as any recovery period begins.

As we go to press The Lowdown has also seen a letter from NHS England’s London Regional Director Sir David Sloman, sent out internally on April 29 but not published, requiring Integrated Care System Chairs and Senior Responsible Officers to take “urgent action” on system plans for London that “fundamentally change the way we deliver health and care.”

Each ICS is ordered to supply a “revised ICS plan” by Monday May 11. The letter spells out a 12-point list of issues on which bureaucrats in each area are supposed to devise new policy, on the hoof, for a “Recovery Board” meeting on May 13.

Even if the country was not on lockdown, this 12-day turn-round period for proposals on fundamental changes for a New Health and Care system for London, to be in place by November 2021, would indicate a complete disregard for any serious consultation or discussion.

But it’s clear from the way this is being done that any notion of public engagement or accountability is a very low priority afterthought. The accompanying Powerpoint presentation entitled ‘Journey to a New Health and Care System’ states that over the next 12-15 months they hope to keep public engagement to a bare minimum: “Include public and stakeholders in the process within the constraints of an emergency”.

It proposes mergers of admin and clinical support services, implying job losses, and a focus on getting people out of hospital as soon as possible – but with no details on how they should be supported after that.

Chances of seeing a health professional would be increasingly small, as primary care and outpatients seem set to become “virtual by default”.

Perhaps just as worrying is that while pushing through a whistle-stop process of planning, NHS England is only planning a snail’s pace return to previous levels of elective surgery: “a plan to restart routine elective care as outlined in the national guidance within 12 months”.

The Powerpoint slides also make clear NHS England is looking to use private hospitals to clear the waiting list that has grown so rapidly with months of cancelled elective operations.

There is no discussion of where the staff are to be found to carry out this additional work, or the added costs of prolonging the NHS block-booking of private beds (which have only been partially used during the Covid crisis, while tens of thousands of NHS beds have remained empty).

There is equally little if any consideration of mental health, community services, or the specific problems of social and racial inequalities.

Conspicuously as with every NHS reorganisation there is no attempt whatever to critically assess previous plans and proposals, and the extent to which so many plans since Sustainability and Transformation Plans in 2016 have disastrously focused on cost-cutting, reconfiguration and cutbacks in hospital services and capacity – and left the NHS in the capital and throughout England desperately ill-prepared, under-staffed and ill-equipped to deal with a pandemic of any scale.

Clearly the plan is to use jaunty new rhetoric of a “post-Covid NHS” to distract attention while NHS bosses covertly consolidate changes that have been accepted with minimal discussion to deal with the Covid crisis, but which would be controversial as a permanent arrangement.

The London Powerpoint makes this clear under the heading of ‘Innovation’; they see the task as being to: “Catalogue the innovations made,” and to “determine those to be retained; evaluate; plan for widespread adoption (e.g., virtual primary care, outpatients, remote diagnostics, new approaches to triage, workforce models, use of volunteers, remote working, pace and urgency to decision making, financial models)”.

NHS England bosses are keen to exploit the situation to short circuit any consultation, “stepping up the new borough based ICPs” which are not public bodies and lack any statutory legitimacy, along with “streamlined decision-making” – in other words even less public consultation on anything.

While each ICS is required to catalogue “changes made to date,” they are also warned that “reversal requires London approval”.

So as the NHS eventually emerges from its biggest-ever crisis, campaigners will need to be proactive in preventing NHS England bosses steering it straight into a new system – designed without evaluation of the impact of the crisis measures or consultation with local communities, and without any public accountability.

Those who don’t share NHS England’s vision of the brave new post Covid NHS will need to “stay alert” and “protect our NHS”.

The Lowdown has previously highlighted the continued work of bureaucrats behind the scenes in South West London to drive through a controversial hospital reconfiguration that could halve numbers of acute beds – while all public meetings and discussions are paused.

These plans reach into Surrey, where the HSJ has now also revealed the newly merged Surrey Heartlands CCG starts life with an inherited deficit of £62m – confirming that the much vaunted recent cancellation of £13.4 billion of NHS debtsrelated only to loans run up by trusts, and that the post-Covid financial regime seems set to be as tight as before.

https://lowdownnhs.info/news/plans-for-post-covid-nhs-hatched-behind-the-lockdown/

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And the good news:

United Kingdom: government renounces tax on access to healthcare for foreign health workers... (Le Monde)

By Gus Leonisky at 22 May 2020 - 9:28am
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