Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange looks out a plane window as he reportedly approaches Bangkok airport for a layover.
Assange to go free in plea deal
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was released from a UK prison on Tuesday and is on his way to the remote Northern Mariana Islands, where he’s expected to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge as part of a plea deal with the US Justice Department. This will reportedly allow him to return to Australia as a free man.
A complex legacy. As the 16-year battle comes to a close, Assange will either be remembered as a champion for freedom of information or a dangerous vigilante.
In 2009, he conspired to use his WikiLeaks website to disclose tens of thousands of activity reports about US involvement in the Middle East in what was by far the largest leak of classified information in American history. Then. in 2016, Wikileaks released thousands of emails stolen by Russian hackers from the Democratic National Committee at the height of Hillary Clinton’s battle with Donald Trump for the US presidency in a leak credited with helping sink her candidacy.
After five years of court hearings, Assange has been charged with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. He is expected to be sentenced to 62 months, with credit for time served in a British prison, meaning he would be free to return to his home country of Australia.LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 23, 2021: Demonstrators march through central London in solidarity with Julian Assange ahead of next week's US extradition appeal hearing at the High Court on October 23, 2021 in London, England.
Assange’s last stand?
Assange was indicted in the US in 2018 on 18 charges for the publication of classified documents through Wikileaks, an activist organization he founded in 2006. Assange claims he acted as a journalist exposing US military wrongdoing, while prosecutors counter that he conspired to hack a Pentagon computer and endangered intelligence sources.
Since then, the native Australian has been in “one form of detention or another,” according to his wife Stella Assange, including Britain’s high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019. If he loses his bid to avoid extradition, Assange’s legal team may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. US President Joe Biden is also reportedly considering an Australian request to drop the case.
Why is Julian Assange in the news again?
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
What's left to sanction with Russia and have existing sanctions been effective?
There's very little left to sanction with Russia that the Americans and their allies want to sanction. I mean, you could try to cut off Russian oil exports to, say, India, but no one wants to do that because that would cause a global recession. Food, fertilizer, same thing. At the end of the day, the sanctions that the West can put on Russia without a massive impact to themselves and the world they've already put. But because Biden said there'd be hell to pay if anything happened to Navalny in jail and he's dead now, and it's pretty clear the Russians, the Kremlin killed him. That means they have to sound tough. But ultimately, the only thing that is changing Russian behavior is the provision of significant military support to the Ukrainians, and that is determined by US Congress going forward.
Is Israel preventing humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza?
Certainly that is the case, and they've been very reluctant to allow significant humanitarian aid to get into Gaza. Their view is that a lot of that aid would be taken by Hamas, and there's very limited capacity to stop Hamas from doing it. It's terrorist organization. Most of the rest of the world says, yeah, even if that's the case, you've got a couple of million civilians in Gaza whose homes have been destroyed, who've been displaced, that have no other way to live unless you provide them with support. And in very short order, the principal danger to civilians in Gaza will be humanitarian and will not be the war. That's how bad the humanitarian crisis is getting, even though the war fighting continues to go on.
Why is Julian Assange in the news today?
Well, because he is facing one of his last opportunities to avoid extradition to the United States. He is in the UK right now. He's wanted on almost two dozen criminal charges by the United States in regard to he and his organization putting out classified material and diplomatic cables over ten years ago. Those are serious crimes from the United States. But supporters of Assange are all about, look, this is, you know, putting truth to power and shining a light on massive human rights abuses. And if it wasn't for Assange, people wouldn't know about those abuses. It's kind of the same thing people have been saying about Snowden. There is a massive political debate that we can't finish in 180 seconds, but that's why Assange is in the news. We will see what the high court rules.
That’s it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Demonstrators protest outside London s Royal Courts of Justice on February 20, 2024, as the court hears WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange s final UK appeal against extradition to the US.
Julian Assange, explained
In a two-day hearing this week, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, made a last-ditch effort to avoid extradition from the UK to the US, where he could be charged with spying and punished for exposing top-level government secrets.
His lawyers argued that the extradition case is politically motivated and an assault on freedom of speech and press. If he loses, the only remaining block to extradition lies with the European Court of Human Rights, which has already dismissed two applications from him in 2015 and 2022.
Assange was charged in secret in the US in 2018, and should he be extradited, he could face up to 175 years in prison (though government lawyers have said it’s likely to be close to 4-6 years). Meanwhile, Australia’s parliament is calling for Assange to serve his sentence in his homeland.
But since Assange’s story began almost 15 years ago, it’s time for a refresher. Here’s what you need to know.
Who is he? Assange is an Australian-born hacker and publisher. Depending on where you stand, he is either a free speech hero, a journalistic ally, a national security threat – or all of the above.
In 2010, Wikileaks published nearly 500,000 classified documents on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, diplomatic cables, military footage, and private emails. His publications have put lives at risk, strained US alliances, hurt Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential chances, and sparked democratic uprisings – most notably, the Arab Spring in Tunisia.
The Obama administration decided not to charge Assange out of respect for press freedom, but during the Trump presidency, the US Justice Department accused Assange of violating the Espionage Act.
Assange has spent seven years in asylum and five years in a British jail. Following the initial leaks, a Swedish court ordered Assange’s arrest over allegations of sex crimes. To avoid being extradited to Sweden, Assange sped to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted asylum until 2019.
Ever since, Assange has remained in a UK prison over breaching bail conditions, fighting extradition hearings with the US. In June 2022, the UK approved the extradition, and last year a judge at London's High Court turned down Assange’s request for an appeal – a sign that he has reached the limits of the British courts.
Two British High Court judges are now mulling whether Assange’s time in the UK is up – a process that could take days or weeks.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks by video link during NATO's annual parliamentary assembly in Madrid, Spain.
What We’re Watching: NATO doubles down on Ukraine, Erdoğan mulls Syria ground operation, Chinese COVID protests mellow, news outlets make Assange petition
Lasting support for Ukraine?
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin hoped for a quick victory that would disarm Ukraine and replace its government. Ukrainian fighters, backed and armed by NATO governments, have shredded Putin’s Plan A. His Plan B is to inflict punishment on Ukrainian civilians with attacks on the infrastructure that provides light and heat during the cold, dark winter ahead to try to divide opinion in Europe and the United States over their long-term support for Ukraine’s government. That’s the backdrop for two noteworthy pieces of news this week. On Tuesday, NATO foreign ministers, gathered in Bucharest, will renew their vow, first made in 2008, that Ukraine will one day join their alliance. In the meantime, individual member states will offer more weapons, perhaps including US small precision bombs fitted to rockets that help Ukraine strike enemy targets deep behind Russian lines. The alliance itself will offer electricity generators, fuel, and medical supplies. The message to Moscow: You won’t win a war of attrition. Ukraine’s allies will boost that country’s defenses for as long as it takes to deny Russia a victory.
Will Turkish troops cross into Syria?
Following a terrorist attack that killed six people on a crowded pedestrian street in Istanbul earlier this month, Turkey’s President Recep Erdoğan has placed blame on Kurdish groups operating inside Turkey and on Kurdish fighters in Syria who, Erdoğan says, supply them with weapons. Turkey has already launched artillery attacks and airstrikes on Syria. Kurdish groups on both sides of the border have denied responsibility for the Istanbul attack, but Erdoğan appears ready to order Turkish troops to cross the border into Syria to create a 30-kilometer “safe zone,” a buffer between Syrian Kurds and the Turkish border. Both the US and Russian governments have asked Erdoğan to stand down. Washington wants Syrian Kurds to help with the fight against Islamic State militants. Moscow wants to protect its ally, strongman Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus. But Erdoğan is unlikely to back down, in part because Turkey’s weak economy leaves him and his party vulnerable ahead of elections next year. He knows that a show of strength against terrorism and of defiance against the US and Russia can boost his political standing.
China protests latest: mellower on Monday
The uncommonly large protests against China’s strict zero-COVID policies, which sprung up in dozens of Chinese cities over the weekend, appeared to have died down significantly on Monday, despite activists’ calls for more demonstrations. The drop-off could just be because Mondays are Mondays, but more likely it’s because police and other security services were out in force, particularly in Beijing and in Shanghai, the site of some of the larger demonstrations. Whether things stay calm depends on what happens next. The recent protests were touched off by a fire in western China that claimed 10 lives because quarantined residents were allegedly prevented from leaving the building, but they drew on two years of frustration about the country’s uniquely extreme COVID policies. Any similar spark could ignite the streets again, and fast. President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, whose ouster many protesters boldly demanded, still faces a fraught choice: lift COVID restrictions and risk a wave among a population that has little immunity, or double down on a policy that has enraged his people. For more on how the lockdown has affected ordinary Chinese, see our story about a Shanghai woman who had to steal cherries from the communal garden to make jam at home.
Check out Ian Bremmer's Quick Take on the political fallout from China's COVID protests here.
What We're Wondering: Should the US drop espionage charges against Julian Assange?
Five leading news organizations think so. In a letter to the US government, the New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian, El País, and Der Spiegel have urged the US government to drop espionage-related charges against the Australian national, whose WikiLeaks organization published huge troves of classified US materials in 2010 and 2011. The five newspapers, each of which used WikiLeaks materials, say espionage charges threaten free speech more broadly. After all, if leaking things is espionage, then being a reporter becomes a potentially treasonous offense.
What do you think — are the newspapers right? Click here to vote in our Twitter poll.