Great grey owl family in Sweden

This video shows great grey owls, adult and young, in Sweden.

Candidate Joe Biden and the Iraq war

This 18 February 2020 video from the USA is called “Worth the Price?” New Film Shows How [Joe] Biden [one of the Democratic party presidential candidates] Played Leading Role in Push for U.S. to Invade Iraq.

Kenyan primate seen again after twenty years

This 18 February 2020 video from Kenya is called Elusive African primate captured on camera for the first time in 20 YEARS.

From the University of Helsinki in Finland, 18 February 2020:

Good news from the Kenyan Taita Hills: the Taita mountain dwarf galago still survives. This was confirmed by researchers working at the University of Helsinki Taita Research Station.

The tiny nocturnal prosimian, weighing only 100-180 grams, was first reported in 2002, but no sightings had been made since.

President Sanders, a blow to US anti-Semitism

In this 17 February 2020 video, a United States Jewish supporter of candidate Bernie Sanders says that if Sanders would be elected, that would be a blow to anti-Semitism in the USA; which has grown under Donald Trump’s presidency.

In the video, Bernie Sanders says:

I am very proud to be Jewish and I look forward to becoming the first Jewish president in the history of this country.

How spiders build webs, time lapse video

This 16 February 2020 video says about itself:

Spider Web Building Time-lapse | BBC Earth

We filmed a garden orb-web spider building their amazing spider web in this time-lapse as well as slow-motion footage as they capture their first prey with it!

Candidate Bloomberg supports bombing hospitals, civilians

This 18 February 2020 video from the USA is called [billionaire presidential candidate] Bloomberg Defends War Crimes, Bombing Hospitals & Civilians.

Bloomberg is the Democrats’ Trump, by by Benjamin Dueholm.

BLOOMBERG’S BILLIONS BOUGHT SILENCE The plan was shocking even in Mike Bloomberg’s New York: At the height of the Great Recession, with the number of homeless people approaching record highs, the city had quietly begun charging for from working families living in its rundown shelters. But the nonprofit world declined to take a public stand against Mayor Bloomberg, for fear of alienating their most important donor: Mayor Bloomberg. [HuffPost]

Leopard cub reunites with mother

This 18 February 2020 video from South Africa says about itself:

Leopard cub and mom reunited

This leopard cub caught up with mommy after being left while mom was on a mission.

‘Stop torture, imprisonment of Julian Assange’

By Laura Tiernan:

The Lancet publishes letter from doctors: “End torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange”

18 February 2020

This week’s edition of the Lancet—the world’s pre-eminent peer-reviewed medical journal—carries a letter from 117 medical doctors in 18 countries, renewing their call for urgent action to save the life of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Their letter appears less than one week before the start of the US extradition hearing in London that may decide Assange’s fate.

The doctors’ two-page letter appears in the correspondence section of the Lancet under the heading “End torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange.” It was written by Dr Stephen Frost (UK), Dr Lissa Johnson, clinical psychologist (Australia), Dr Jill Stein (former leader of the US Green Party) and William Frost (UK).

“The case of Assange… is multifaceted,” the doctors write. “It relates to law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, journalism, publishing, and politics. It also, however, clearly relates to medicine and public health. The case highlights several concerning aspects that warrant the medical profession’s close attention and concerted action.”

Nearly three months ago, on November 22, more than 65 doctors issued an open letter to the UK government challenging the illegal and arbitrary detention of Assange. A follow-up letter to the Australian government was issued on December 16. Neither government has responded.

Issuing their appeal to medical colleagues throughout the world—the Lancet has 1.8 million subscribers—the letter’s authors describe multiple human rights violations by the US, UK, Swedish, Ecuadorian and Australian governments against Assange. This includes nearly a decade of “illegal and arbitrary detention” and relentless state persecution amounting to “prolonged psychological torture.”

Readers of the Lancet might be shocked to learn that doctors treating Assange in London have faced intimidation and state surveillance—methods commonly employed by military dictatorships. “There was… a climate of fear surrounding the provision of health care in the Embassy,” the letter recounts, with treating doctors forced to report their identity to police.

“Disturbingly,” they write, “it seems that this environment of insecurity and intimidation, further compromising the medical care available to Assange, was by design. Assange was the subject of a 24/7 covert surveillance operation inside the embassy, as the emergence of secret video and audio recordings has shown.

“He was surveilled in private and with visitors, including family, friends, journalists, lawyers, and doctors. Not only were his rights to privacy, personal life, legal privilege, and freedom of speech violated, but so, too, was his right to doctor–patient confidentiality.”

The signatories state emphatically, “We condemn the torture of Assange. We condemn the denial of his fundamental right to appropriate health care. We condemn the climate of fear surrounding the provision of health care to him. We condemn the violations of his right to doctor–patient confidentiality. Politics cannot be allowed to interfere with the right to health and the practice of medicine.”

Doctors for Assange (as the doctors are collectively known) have launched a new website, and their letter to the Lancet links to this, “We invite fellow doctors to join us as signatories to our letters to add further voice to our calls. Even as the world’s designated authorities on arbitrary detention, torture, and human rights added their calls to doctors’ warnings, governments have sidelined medical authority, medical ethics, and the human right to health.

“This politicisation of foundational medical principles is of grave concern to us, as it carries implications beyond the case of Assange. Abuse by politically motivated medical neglect sets a dangerous precedent, whereby the medical profession can be manipulated as a political tool, ultimately undermining our profession’s impartiality, commitment to health for all, and obligation to do no harm.”

The doctors issue a stark warning, “Should Assange die in a UK prison, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has warned, he will have effectively been tortured to death. Much of that torture will have taken place in a prison medical ward, on doctors’ watch. The medical profession cannot afford to stand silently by, on the wrong side of torture and the wrong side of history, while such a travesty unfolds.”

Yesterday, Doctors for Assange sent copies of their letter to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel and to Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne. “Mr Assange’s human rights to health care and freedom from torture must be upheld. At this late hour, we call on you to act decisively,” the doctors wrote.

Their letter to the Lancet concludes, “Our appeals are simple: we are calling upon governments to end the torture of Assange and ensure his access to the best available health care before it is too late. Our request to others is this: please join us\.”

This video from the USA says about itself:

The Prosecution of Julian Assange and Its Impact on the Freedom of the Press | National Press Club

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has been indicted on 17 counts of Espionage and 1 count of conspiracy to commit computer crime for WikiLeaks’ 2010 publications of the Iraq War Logs, the Afghan War Diary, and State Department cables leaked to WikiLeaks by US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. On Jan. 30th 2020, these legal and academic experts discussed the impact of Assange’s prosecution on the freedom of the press, at the National Press Club’s First Amendment Lounge in Washington DC.

Speakers:
-Jameel Jaffer, Director, Knight First Amendment Institute
-Amy Jeffress, Attorney, former US Department of Justice
-Ben Wizner, Director, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project

Moderator:
-Mary-Rose Papandrea, Constitutional Law Professor, UNC

The Courage Foundation supports whistleblowers and the public’s right to know. Courage hosts Julian Assange’s defense site at defend.wikileaks.org.

By Fred Mazelis in the USA:

Courage Foundation holds public meeting in New York City in defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

18 February 2020

An audience of about 150 heard a panel of speakers in New York City on February 15 at a meeting in defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is now being held under harsh conditions in London’s maximum-security Belmarsh prison pending the outcome of a request for extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison on trumped-up charges of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Assange’s real crime is his courageous exposure of secrecy, corruption and imperialist war crimes.

The extradition hearing in London is scheduled to begin on Monday, February 24. A rally has been called at the British Consulate in New York City, at Second Avenue and 47th St., for 11 a.m. on that day.

The February 15 meeting, held at the City University of New York Law School in Queens, New York, was organized by the Courage Foundation. Other sponsors included the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

The panel of speakers included James Goodale, the former general counsel of the New York Times during the Pentagon Papers case of 1971; Renata Avila, a member of the defense team for Julian Assange and a close friend of the journalist and publisher; Glen Ford, the executive editor of the Black Agenda Report; and Max Blumenthal, the editor of The Grayzone website.

Several others appeared on video, including Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press nearly 50 years ago; linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky; and author Alice Walker.

The meeting opened with brief video greetings from Jennifer Robinson, a leading member of the Assange defense team, who stressed the international significance of the attempt to railroad the WikiLeaks publisher into an American prison. Robinson pointed to the recent attempt by the fascistic government headed by Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to bring charges against journalist Glenn Greenwald that are virtually identical to those facing Assange.

The first speaker, James Goodale, related the experience of the Pentagon Papers case, which was at first a civil action attempting to enjoin the Times and the Washington Post from publishing the classified government study of the quagmire facing US imperialism in Vietnam. Goodale explained that Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, who was later jailed in the Watergate scandal, directed that the Times and reporter Neil Sheehan be criminally prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for the publication of the Pentagon Papers. However, that the effort collapsed in the face of the deepening scandal and crisis that would lead eventually to Nixon’s resignation.

Speaking of the indictment facing Assange, Goodale warned that if it is successful, it means the end of investigative journalism. “This is a case I have dreaded for 50 years. It is a case that we must all fight.”

A high point of the meeting was the appearance on video of Daniel Ellsberg. He warned that if the prosecution of Assange succeeds, “the public will know essentially what the government chooses to tell them, however untrue and however selective and misleading. … It’s hard to call that a democratic republic.”

Ellsberg explained that both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump had used the Espionage Act to silence dissent. Along with the other speakers, he also stressed the importance of coming to the defense of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who had already served seven years in prison when she was thrown back in jail last March, where she has been held in contempt for nearly a year after she refused to participate in the attempt to frame up Assange.

Noam Chomsky declared that the vendetta against Assange reminded him of Italy under the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who silenced the voice of Italian Marxist and Communist Party leader Antonio Gramsci, who was imprisoned in 1926 and remained there under brutal conditions until his death 11 years later, at the age of 46.

The second member of the panel to speak was Renata Avila, who brought greetings from Assange. “He’s one of us, he should be here,” she declared. Assange “has a very long list of enemies. … His most important ally is the people.” Avila explained that most of the newspapers that had partnered with WikiLeaks in the publication and exposure of corruption and war crimes had now abandoned him. Assange was a political prisoner, she said, who had dedicated his life to the public interest, to resisting secrecy and censorship, rather than using his enormous talents to become wealthy. She warned that the extradition case could drag on until the summer of 2021, and that a powerful movement in defense of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning must be developed and strengthened during this period.

Glen Ford declared that Assange and Manning are being punished because the images made available by WikiLeaks of a massacre in Iraq “demolished the image of the US military as a force for good in the world. … They have contributed materially to the weakening of the US war machine.” US imperialism claims “the power, the right to police the world, imprisoning and killing anyone who opposes its global supremacy,” he added

Ford also related the attack on Assange to “Russiagate”, the campaign to use alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election to portray Assange as an agent of a foreign power in order to frame him under the Espionage Act, while launching a campaign of censorship and other attacks on democratic rights. While Washington lies about its concern for human rights at home and abroad, “the United States meddles in the internal affairs of every nation on the earth,” currently targeting elected governments in Syria, Venezuela and elsewhere. “Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were put at the top of the empire’s hit list. … Assange is of course not a US citizen, he is Australian, but none of that matters” in the campaign to punish him, Ford declared.

The final speaker was Max Blumenthal. He spoke about the years of public demonization of Assange, speaking ironically of his portrayal as “a far-right libertarian, a far-left anarchist, a Russian asset wrecking the otherwise perfectly democratic Democratic Party. …” Blumenthal referred to the fact that the vicious persecution of Assange is now being ignored by the mainstream press and public officials, who are complicit in the attempt to silence and destroy him. The attack on Julian Assange threatens “the survival of critical, courageous, adversarial journalism.”

This author spoke from the floor in the brief question period after the speakers, stressing that the WSWS, the most widely read online socialist publication, has, along with the Socialist Equality Parties around the world, been in the forefront of the campaign in defense of Assange and Manning.

In the past three months alone, more than 100 separate reports, statements and interviews on this campaign have been published by the WSWS. Earlier this month, the SEP held a meeting in defense of Assange in Montreal; and over the next two weeks, a series of rallies are being held by the Australian SEP and the New Zealand Socialist Equality Group, in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia, as well as Wellington, New Zealand. The British SEP is holding a meeting in London next Sunday, the day before the start of the extradition hearing there.

The campaign in defense of Assange and Chelsea Manning must be armed with a political strategy. Max Blumenthal, concluding his remarks on Saturday night, advanced the call for support for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the current Democratic Party presidential primary campaign, along with a pressure campaign to convince him to drop the charges against Assange once elected.

…

As the WSWS has insisted from the outset, there is only one social force that can successfully lead the fight to free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. The defense of these political prisoners is part of the struggle of the international working class against the preparations for world war and dictatorship.

Trump ordered Assange’s seizure by British police and wanted him dead: here.

Two-barred crossbills feeding in Sweden

This video shows two-barred crossbills, male and female, feeding at a coniferous tree in Sweden.

British Conservatives let poor people drown

This 17 February 2020 Sky TV video says about itself:

The devastating impact of Storm Dennis

Parts of Wales were left underwater after being hit by Storm Dennis. Now residents are trying put their lives back together – many of whom did not have flooding insurance.

From daily News Line in Britain:

Tories protect the rich from floods while the rest left to drown

18th February 2020

TORY austerity cuts have meant that poorer areas of the country have been left completely at the mercy of floods, to the extent that villages in Yorkshire have been forced to buy their own flood defences to protect their homes.

As storm Dennis raged across the country over the weekend, dumping a month’s worth of rain on several areas, it became clear that, despite all the Tory claims to the contrary, UK flood defences have been cut to the bone with poorer areas ‘sacrificed’ to protect wealthier towns and cities.

None of this comes as a surprise. Only last November South Yorkshire was hit by floods which revealed that flood response services have been crippled by Tory cuts at the same time that firefighters and other frontline emergency response services have seen their numbers slashed by more than a fifth.

According to studies one in six properties in the UK are currently at risk of flooding, a figure that could double in the future if, as predicted, rainfall increases.

This threat to homes, jobs and lives has been well known for years, but despite this, the Tories have systematically run down flood defences with government spending down by 10% since 2015.

In the aftermath of storm Ciara, and just days before the floods hit this weekend, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) warned that Tory cuts to the tune of £140 million mean that fire and rescue services are ‘fighting with one hand tied behind their back’ and that lives are in greater risk.

The new Tory environment secretary, George Eustice, attempted to fend off criticism by claiming that the government is pledging an extra £4 billion in funding for flood defences over the next five years.

Eustice said: ‘I know that’s no consolation at all to the 400 that have been affected. But it is the case, when you have these events, you’ll never be able to protect every single property. But the investments we’ve made mean we have been able to protect a significant number.’

In fact, all the Tory spending on flood defences up to next year has favoured London and the south-east of England above all other areas, with the biggest projects located in the Thames Estuary.

Up to 60% of the spending plans to 2021 went to London and the south-east, areas which contain only 32% of England’s population but which far out-weigh the north of England or Wales in terms of wealth.

Under the Tories, flood defence projects are funded according to a ‘cost-benefit’ formula – the higher the price of property the better ‘value’ for money.

Spending per person on flood defences was calculated to be £180 in the south-east, and £116 in London, while the northeast only got £33 a head and the West Midlands a derisory £14.

The wealthy are to be protected at all costs while the poor can drown as far as the Tories are concerned.

Protecting towns from floods by pushing the danger onto other poorer communities is the inevitable outcome of plans designed primarily to protect the wealthy – as the inhabitants of the North Yorkshire village of Kirkby Wharfe found this weekend.

Residents of the village, who had to pay for their own inflatable dam, revealed that surrounding land had been designated as a reservoir to prevent the wealthier town of Tadcaster from being flooded by the nearby river.

The villagers were being ‘sacrificed’ to save the town.

Flood defences promised to villages across the whole of the north after the floods of 2015 were either never completed or never even started.

This is the stark reality of capitalism – a system based on profits for a tiny minority of the rich who must be protected at all cost, while thousands suffer from these disasters as a result.

The only way to prevent future disasters is to bring down this Tory government and replace it with a workers government that will expropriate the bosses and bankers and so acquire the resources needed to plan and develop the technological means to provide flood defences that will provide a safe environment for all.