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The United States Embassy on Tuesday filed two assurances with the British Foreign Office saying it would not seek the death penalty against imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and would allow Assange “the ability to raise and seek to reply upon at trial … the rights and protections given under the First Amendment,” according to the U.S. diplomatic note.  

Assange’s wife Stella Assange said the note “makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen. Instead,” she said, “the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited.”   

The note contains a hollow statement, namely, that Assange can try to raise the First Amendment at trial (and at sentencing), but the U.S. Department of Justice can’t guarantee he would get those rights, which is precisely what it must do under British extradition law based on the European Convention on Human Rights. 

The U.S. Department of Justice is legally restricted to assure a free speech guarantee to Assange equivalent to Article 10 of the European Convention, which the British court is bound to follow. But without that assurance, Assange should be freed according to a British Crown Prosecution Service comment on extraditions.

In USAID v. Alliance for Open Society, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that non-U.S. citizens outside the U.S. don’t possess constitutional rights. Both former C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo and Gordon Kromberg, Assange’s U.S. prosecutor, have said Assange does not have First Amendment protection.

Because of the separation of powers in the United States, the executive branch’s Justice Department can’t guarantee to the British courts what the U.S. judicial branch decides about the rights of a non-U.S. citizen in court, said Marjorie Cohn, law professor and former president of the National Lawyers’ Guild. 

“Let’s assume that … the Biden administration, does give assurances that he would be able to raise the First Amendment and that the [High] Court found that those were significant assurances,” Cohn told Consortium News' webcast CN Live! last month.

“That really doesn’t mean anything, because one of the things that the British courts don’t understand is the U.S. doctrine of separation of powers,” she said.  “The prosecutors can give all the assurances they want, but the judiciary, another [one] .. of these three branches of government in the U.S., doesn’t have to abide by the executive branch claim or assurance,” Cohn said. 

In other words, whether Assange can rely on the First Amendment in his defense in a U.S. court is up to that court not Kromberg or the Department of Justice, which issued the assurance on Tuesday. “The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment,” said Stella Assange.

Assange Can Challenge Assurances

Assange’s legal team now has the right to challenge the credibility and validity of the U.S. assurances filed on Tuesday. The U.S. would then have a right to reply to Assange’s legal submissions to the court, which will hold a hearing on May 20 to determine whether or not to accept the U.S. assurances.

If the court does, Assange can be put on a plane to the U.S. theoretically that day. If not Assange would be granted a full appeal against the Home Office’s 2022 order to extradite him.  Assange is wanted in the U.S. on 17 charges under the 1917 Espionage Act and one on conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces up to 175 years in a U.S. dungeon.

“The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future — his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism,” Stella Assange said. 

BREAKING:

“The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he… pic.twitter.com/lu7bkw0M5u

— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) April 16, 2024

In its 66-page ruling on March 26, the two High Court judges wrote Kromberg wouldn’t have said Assange would be without First Amendment rights at trial “unless that was a tenable argument that the prosecution was entitled to deploy with a real prospect of success.”

“If such an argument were to succeed it would (at least arguably) cause the applicant [Assange] prejudice on the grounds of his non-US citizenship (and hence, on the grounds of his nationality),” the judges said. They added:

“The applicant wishes to argue, at any trial in the United States, that his actions were protected by the First Amendment. He contends that if he is given First Amendment rights, the prosecution will be stopped. The First Amendment is therefore of central importance to his defence to the extradition charge.”

This is the statement Stella Assange put out on X Tuesday at 11:36 am EDT...

“The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen. Instead, the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited. The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future — his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism. The Biden Administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late.”

Gold is considered a unique asset due to its enduring value, historical significance, and application in various technologies like computers, spacecraft, and communications equipment.

Commonly regarded as a “safe haven asset”, gold is something investors typically buy to protect themselves during periods of global uncertainty and economic decline.

It is for this reason that gold has performed rather strongly in recent years, and especially in 2024. Persistent inflation combined with multiple wars has driven up demand for gold, helping it set a new all-time high of over $2,400 per ounce.

To put this into perspective, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu visualized the performance of gold alongside the S&P 500.

See the table below for performance figures as of April 12, 2024.

Over the five-year period, gold has climbed an impressive 81.65%, outpacing even the S&P 500.

Get Your Gold at Costco

Perhaps a sign of how high the demand for gold is becoming, wholesale giant Costco is reportedly selling up to $200 million worth of gold bars every month in the United States. The year prior, sales only amounted to $100 million per quarter.

Consumers aren’t the only ones buying gold, either. Central banks around the world have been accumulating gold in very large quantities, likely as a hedge against inflation.

According to the World Gold Council, these institutions bought 1,136 metric tons in 2022, marking the highest level since 1950. Figures for 2023 came in at 1,037 metric tons.

If you’re fascinated by gold, be sure to check out more Visual Capitalist content including 200 Years of Global Gold Production, by Country or Ranked: The Largest Gold Reserves by Country.

With Western sanctions widely failing against Russia, as well as Ukraine's depleted air force unable to patrol its skies, Western leaders have said General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets would be game-changing in the war (these are the same leaders that said the M1 Abrams tanks would be game-changing). But with M1 Abrams busted and F-16s unlikely to hit the highly contested airspace of the Eastern European country anytime soon, desperate Kyiv made a bold effort in recent months to target Moscow's crude refineries (how the war is funded) with wave after wave of stealthy suicide drones. 

For months, Ukraine and the Western leaders (and the CIA) cheered (either publicly in NATO-friendly corporate press or behind the scenes) about bombing Russia's refineries deep within the country with suicide drones, sending crude refining capacity-idled in the country to nearly 14%.

However, the short-lived celebrations are winding down. Reuters estimates that capacity idled at refineries in Russia fell from 14% to 10% at the end of March, primarily because the refineries are being repaired quickly. 

Reuters noted several damaged Russian refinery plants that were hit by Ukrainian drone attacks have been fixed in recent weeks. Also, other refineries with planned maintenance have come back online. 

That includes the Rosneft-owned Ryazan plant, which put back the CDU-4 and main CDU-6 primary oil refining units into operation, as well as Kuibyshev refinery repairing CDU-4 and Syzran's CDU-5 and previously idled for maintenance CDU-6.-Reuters

According to Reuters estimates, Russian oil refining capacity idled by drones plunged to 90,500 metric tons per day (660,000 barrels per day) from around 123,800 tons per day (907,000 bpd) previously. 

The last major Ukrainian drone attack on a large Russian refinery facility occurred on April 2 at the Taneco refinery in Nizhnekamsk, Russia, the third-largest refinery in the country. 

Reuters pointed out that Russia's total primary oil refining capacity was shut down due to outages, and maintenance was around 4.4 million tons in April, up from 4.1 million tons in March. 

Since April 2, there have been no new reports of successful drone attacks on large Russian refineries. 

We wonder why? Well, it's pretty easy to figure this one out. 

Last week, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Ukraine that drone and missile attacks should not be focused on energy infrastructure but instead on military targets because of the risk of sending Brent crude prices over $100 per barrel. 

And recall this note from last month, ""Terrified" Joe Biden Demands Ukraine Halt Strikes On Russian Refiners As It Is Sending Oil Prices Surging."

Ukraine only attacking Russian refineries with drones instead of sinking Russian tankers as that would send oil soaring and would cripple Biden re-election odds.

Once Trump wins, Ukraine will go scorched earth on Russian oil infra/tankers.

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 17, 2024

The main goal of the refinery drone attacks by Ukraine is to crush Moscow's funding of the war through crude product (such as diesel) exports. The quick repair work and resilience of the Russian economy from repeated Ukranian attacks and Western sanctions shows how elites in Washington and Brussels are failing in a world dangerously spiraling into a multi-polar state. 

If Biden's foreign policy is basically to keep Brent prices sub $100/bbl before the presidential elections in November. Well, they're going to have a whole lot of trouble if Israel uses Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth jets to bomb critical oil/gas infrastructure in Iran. 

Friday will witness another Gaza-related showdown in a very divided United Nations Security Council, as council member Algeria has prepared a draft resolution for the body recognize a Palestinian state.

It would require nine votes and no vetoes on the part of the US, Britain, France, Russia or China in order to pass - which means it won't happen, given the US as a close ally of Israel is expected to surely block it. The plan ultimately seeks to bestow on Palestine full UN membership status.

Looking ahead to the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Wednesday: "We do not see that doing a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily get us to a place where we can find ... a two-state solution moving forward."

The US position has long been that a Palestinian state must be born out direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, and not accomplished superficially within an external forum like the UN.

Israel has clearly rejected that it will allow for a Palestinian state so long as Hamas still exists, and PM Netanyahu has even linked the more secular-leaning Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to 'terrorism'. He has also rejected a prior US call to allow the PA to take over and administer the Gaza Strip. The reality is that the current Gaza war makes the prospect of achieving a Palestinian state more distant than ever.

According to some background via Reuters:

The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the 193-member UN General Assembly in 2012. But an application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council and then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly.

The UN Security Council has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in 1967.

The UK too has long said it will not recognize Palestine outside of a broader deal for a two-state solution that involves Israeli assent.

Spain was the most recent country to unilaterally recognize Palestine as a state, which was announced earlier this month. Those EU states to have previously done so include Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Ireland and Malta have also recently said they are on board and plan to do so.

Leaked Cables Show White House Opposes Palestinian Statehood https://t.co/tzVB9Y20f2 by @kenklippenstein, @DRBoguslaw https://t.co/tzVB9Y20f2

— The Intercept (@theintercept) April 17, 2024

The current war in Gaza and soaring civilian death toll among Palestinians as Israel continues its operation seeking to eradicate Hamas and free the hostages has given extra impetus to those officials in Europe who have wanted to see Palestinian recognition. 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The Oakland Institute published a detailed report in February 2023 titled “War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land”, which exposed how foreign firms have clandestinely taken control of a significant share of Ukrainian farmland by exploiting a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs. Their findings made waves around the world at the time but eventually receded from the public’s attention over half a year later once Western outlets like the USA Today misleadingly “fact-checked” it.

They took advantage of social media users conflating indirect ownership through stakes with direct control to discredit the institution’s report, after which it largely faded from the general discourse. Few could have expected that it would be none other than Polish President Andrzej Duda who just breathed new life into it during his interview with Lithuanian National Radio and Television. He was explaining Poland’s problem with Ukrainian agricultural imports when he dropped the following bombshell:

“I would like to draw particular attention to industrial agriculture, which is not really run by Ukrainians, it is run by big companies from Western Europe, from the USA. If we look today at the owners of most of the land, they are not Ukrainian companies. This is a paradoxical situation, and no wonder that farmers are defending themselves, because they have invested in their farms in Poland […] and cheap agricultural produce coming from Ukraine is dramatically destructive to them.”

Duda represents what’s widely considered to be one of the most pro-American and anti-Russian governments at any time in history so he can’t credibly be accused of “pushing Kremlin propaganda”.

He therefore wouldn’t have confirmed the dramatic claim of majority-foreign ownership of Ukraine’s industrial agriculture, albeit indirectly through stakes in national companies that exploit a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs, if he didn’t have the facts provided to him by Polish experts to back it up.

This development should prompt a resurgence of interest in prior reports on this subject such as USAID’s about how “Private Sector on the Frontlines of Land Reform to Unlock Ukraine’s Investment Potential”. Thomas Fazi’s detailed report for UnHeard back in July 2023 about how “The capitalists are circling over Ukraine: The war is creating massive profit opportunities” is also insightful. Most relevant, however, is what Zelensky told the World Economic Forum in Davos in May 2022. In his words:

“We offer a special - historically significant - model of reconstruction. When each of the partner countries or partner cities or partner companies will have the opportunity - historical one - to take patronage over a particular region of Ukraine, city, community or industry. Britain, Denmark, the European Union and other leading international actors have already chosen a specific direction for patronage in reconstruction.”

One year later, he hosted BlackRock’s management in Kiev, during which time they discussed the creation of an investment and reconstruction fund. According to Zelensky, “Today is a historic moment because, since the very first days of independence, we have not had such huge investment cases in Ukraine. We are proud that we can initiate such a process…We will be able to offer interesting projects to invest in energy, security, agriculture, logistics, infrastructure, medicine, IT, and many other areas.”

Putting the pieces together, the Ukrainian leader made good on his May 2022 Davos proposal by offering companies “patronage” over Ukraine’s industrial agriculture, which was already in the process of unfolding prior to then but was greatly accelerated by last May’s meeting with BlackRock’s management. This took the tangible form of these indirectly foreign-controlled farms outcompeting Poland’s by far, thus leading to the Polish farmers’ protests across the country and the latest troubles in bilateral ties.

The sequence of events detailed thus far places into context mid-February’s report about the G7’s alleged plans to appoint an envoy to Ukraine, who’d obviously be tasked with implementing the Davos agenda if this comes to pass, particularly entrenching foreign control over Ukrainian farmland. It also suggests that Ukraine’s informal focus on ramping up agricultural exports to the EU isn’t just opportunistic, but partially driven by these foreign firms’ preference for speedy and reliable profits.

Ukraine had hitherto been an agricultural powerhouse in the Global South but ceded its market share to Russia on the false pretext that Moscow was blockading the Black Sea, which in turn prompted the EU to temporarily eliminate prior trade barriers for the official purpose of facilitating exports via its territory. In reality, Russia never blockaded the Black Sea, and almost all of the Ukrainian grain that entered the EU remained there instead of traveling through the bloc en route to Kiev’s traditional Global South markets.

It's much quicker for Ukraine to sell its agricultural products in the neighboring EU than to wait however long it takes to export them to Africa, not to mention more reliable as well since it’s unimaginable that these developed economies would ever have the same possible payment problems as developing ones. These self-evident calculations work against Poland’s interests, ergo how much of a struggle it’ll be for that country to defend its domestic market from this influx considering the powerful forces at play.

It's not just the Ukrainian agricultural lobby that wants tariff-free access for these products into the EU market, but also the lobbies of those foreign firms that indirectly control its industrial agriculture. The latter will likely fight tooth and nail to prevent any compromise being reached on Ukraine’s hoped-for EU membership whereby that former Soviet Republic’s agricultural sector would be excluded from any deal. Poland therefore has every reason to continue drawing global attention to these shadowy relationships.

It's only by raising maximum awareness of the fact that “most of the land” within Ukraine’s industrial agriculture sector “is run by big companies from Western Europe, from the USA” that Poland stands any chance of the aforesaid compromise entering into force. That’ll make the country some very powerful enemies who could then meddle in Polish domestic affairs out of vengeance, but Duda’s latest interview suggests that he’s prepared to face their wrath in order to protect Poland’s objective national interests.

A new study by Online Gaming Groups has evaluated over 30 countries to determine the most cost-effective higher education systems, focusing on the percentage of average annual income spent on educational expenses.

This analysis included countries with the highest university fees, and additional costs such as living and rent were considered to accurately assess the full financial commitment needed for education.

By examining the ratio of costs to salary, the study ranked these nations. Belgium emerged as the leader, offering the most cost-effective higher education. In contrast, Israel was noted for having the highest educational expenses on the list, despite having the fewest universities and the lowest quality of higher education.

Belgium tops the list of countries offering the most cost-effective higher education, with annual expenses, including tuition fees, averaging $28,574. The average annual salary in Belgium is $53,890, with 53.02% of this salary spent on living and university expenses. This balance between earning and learning costs underscores the country's commitment to making education accessible.

Switzerland ranks second, with average annual expenses of $51,013 and an average salary of $95,490, dedicating 53.42% of salary to education and living costs. Despite having the highest living costs in the ranking, Switzerland's substantial average salary helps mitigate these expenses, making its education system remarkably cost-effective.

In third place, South Korea presents a contrast with more affordable living conditions and a lower average salary of $36,190. Here, 61.01% of the salary goes towards education and living expenses, with the country having the highest education costs among the top three.

The Netherlands, fourth on the list, has annual expenses of $37,697 against an average salary of $60,230, spending 62.59% of it on education and living costs. The country ensures broad accessibility to higher education with relatively moderate educational costs.

France is fifth, balancing university and living costs against an average yearly salary of $45,290. With 63.50% of the salary allocated to these costs, France maintains a balance between accessible education and high educational quality.

Ireland follows as the sixth most cost-effective country for higher education, with average expenses of $55,129 and a salary of $79,730, dedicating 69.14% of it to education and living. Despite not having the highest costs, the cumulative annual expenses are considerable.

Japan ranks seventh, where 70.14% of the average annual salary of $42,440 is spent on higher education, indicating a premium level of education, as evidenced by the high number of universities and education costs.

Italy, eighth, spends 70.51% of an average salary of $38,200 on education, reflecting the country's rich educational heritage and the high quality of its education system, ranked 14th worldwide.

Australia is ninth, requiring families and students to invest significantly in education, with 72.97% of the $60,840 average salary going toward educational and living expenses, indicative of the country's high standards of living and educational quality.

Lastly, Israel, despite having the highest education costs on the list and ranking lowest in the number of universities and education quality, spends 78.97% of the average salary of $55,140 on education, rounding off the list of the top ten countries with cost-effective higher education.