WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attends a seminar in Stockholm earlier this month Photograph: Reuters
Swedish prosecutors say they hope to announce today whether they will pursue two cases of alleged sexual assault involving Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
Prosecutors say they are considering a complaint of sexual molestation from one woman, Ms A, who has previously been an active supporter of Assange. They say they are also still considering whether any offence may have been committed against a woman known as Ms W, who met Assange at a seminar in Stockholm this month, and who originally alleged rape, a charge which was soon dropped. Assange has emphatically denied committing any offence against either woman.
In a case mired in conflicting claims, only a few essential events are clear:
• On Friday last week, Ms A and Ms W together approached police in Stockholm and reported that they had been sexually assaulted by Assange.
• Both women reported that they had been involved in consensual sexual relationships with Assange, but each reported a separate non-consensual incident of a similar character in which Assange allegedly had sex with them without using a condom.
• Both alleged incidents were very recent. The alleged molestation of Ms A was said to have occurred on the morning of Saturday 14 August. The alleged rape of Ms W was said to have occurred on the morning of Tuesday 17 August.
• The Swedish police passed a report to prosecutors, who issued a formal warrant for Assange's arrest on suspicion of rape. On the following day, the charge of rape was dropped and the warrant was rescinded.
It is understood that before going to the police, both women asked Assange to have a health check to reassure them, and that Assange declined to do so. Ms W is said to have visited a hospital on Thursday before going to the police.
One source who is closely involved said neither of them had originally wanted the case prosecuted; that Ms W had wanted to report the alleged rape to police without their pursuing it, and that Ms A had gone with her to give her moral support and then become embroiled with the police, who had insisted on passing a report to prosecutors. Neither the police nor the prosecutor has spoken to Assange to record his version of events. The fact that a warrant had been issued for his arrest was rapidly leaked to a Swedish newspaper.
It remains unclear why the prosecutor first issued and then withdrew the arrest warrant. The prosecutor's office has said that the original issuing of the warrant was not a mistake, and that it was cancelled when it received new information.
The chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, yesterdayyesterday told the Guardian: "I will analyse this matter thoroughly and make all necessary legal judgements, to be able to decide on the progress of the investigation. My estimation is that I can give information later this week, probably tomorrow." Ms A spoke at the weekend to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and said she was not frightened of Assange and that he was not violent. She said she had only ever alleged sexual molestation, not rape, and added: "In both cases, what started out as voluntary sex subsequently developed into an assault. The other woman wanted to report rape. I gave my story as testimony to her story and to support her. We stand by the information."
In a weekend interview with the same paper, for which he is due to become a regular columnist, Assange said: "I never, neither in Sweden nor in any other country, had sex with someone in a way that is not built on total consent from both sides." He said nobody had asked him for his side of the story but that he needed to know more about the accusations before he could discuss them in any detail.
In subsequent tweets and interviews, Assange suggested that the timing of the allegations against him was "deeply disturbing". He told al-Jazeera on Sunday: "It is clearly a smear campaign … The only question is who was involved. We can have some suspicions about who would benefit, but without direct evidence, I would not be willing to make a direct allegation." He said he had been warned that the US Pentagon was planning to use dirty tricks to spoil things for WikiLeaks.
In her interview with Aftonbladet, Ms A said: "The charges against Assange are, of course, not orchestrated by the Pentagon. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a twisted attitude to women and a problem with taking 'no' for an answer."
Assange attracted global attention last month when he posted a database of US military records from Afghanistan on the WikiLeaks website. The Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel published stories which were based on the records. US military authorities were highly critical of Assange's actions.
A double suicide bombing against members of Somalia's parliament has raised concern that Somalia's Al Shabab militants - an Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group - are launching a new offensive against the country's weak, Western-funded government.
Al Shabab said it was responsible for Tuesday’s attack, which government officials said killed 32 people including six legislators.
"Our Mujahideen forces carried out an operation at Hotel Muna … which accommodates members of parliament and intelligence officers,” spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told reporters. “Our martyrs succeeded in killing 60 to 70 government officers, MPs, intelligence officers and civil servants.”
The raid came the day after Mr. Rage said Shabab was launching a “massive war” against “invaders” who would “face larger attacks from now on.”
“Before today’s hotel bombing, you could easily say that Al Shabab was just flexing its muscles as a warning to new troop-contributing nations not to get involved,” said a European diplomat in Nairobi, Kenya who tracks security developments in Somalia. “But with the suicide bombing – which would have taken time to plan – we’re not so sure. It could be that they really are ready to ramp this up.”
New AU troops
The statement came within days of the arrival of hundreds of fresh soldiers to boost the 6,300-strong African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM.
These Ugandan reinforcements are likely to be the first of up to 4,000 new troops promised for the mission after the AU last month won pledges from Guinea, Djibouti, and others to send extra soldiers.
Eleven mostly foreign fighters, from Afghanistan, Algeria, India and Pakistan, were found dead at the weekend after blowing themselves up while preparing home-made explosives in a house in northern Mogadishu.
On Monday, Kenyan newspapers reported that Kenyan anti-terror police arrested 12 men on Lamu island, close to the border with Somalia, who had bomb-making equipment and maps of Nairobi. Three were said to have traveled from Somalia.
But is this really a new offensive?
But whether this points to a serious threat to Somalia and the region from Shabab is not yet clear.
Despite the rhetoric about all-out war, Al Shabab may be resorting to terrorist attacks such as this one because it is incapable of launching an offensive that would completely dislodge Somalia's transitional government, says E.J. Hogendoorn, head of the Horn of Africa program at the International Crisis Group’s office in Nairobi.
"Al Shabab is not in a position to pursue their war in a conventional way, because they simply don't have the capability to do so,” he says. "So do you go asymmetrical, with terrorist attacks? Clearly that is what they are doing. They are trying to undermine the support for government by launching terrorist attacks on different government agencies."
Security responsiblity for areas under the control of Somalia's weak transitional government is shared by government forces and AMISOM peacekeepers, with AMISOM guarding high profile locations such as the presidential palace, the airport, and seaport, security experts say.
But the hotel where the parliamentarians were staying may have relied on the poorly trained government soldiers, many of whom receive their salaries sporadically.
In addition, Al Shabab has "gotten better at trying to drive a wedge between the Somali people and AMISOM" by starting mortar exchanges with AMISOM forces in populated areas, luring AMISOM into firing at areas where civilian casualties are likely, says Hogendoorn.
That creates a dillema for AMISOM. If they don't respond with mortars of their own, the other alternative is to go after Shabab forces with ground troops, which leaves them open to ambush and terror-style attacks.
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has partnered with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to launch a new 24-hour news network for the Arab world, a move that has drawn mockery from Murdoch's critics and questions from media experts.
First and foremost among those questions is whether a news service linked to the famously pro-Israeli Fox News will resonate among Arab viewers.
"Fox News, famous for its uncomplicated, gung-ho and pro-Israel stance whilst maintaining a mocking notion of neutrality, does not seem like a likely partner" for the Middle Eastern news network, writes David Roberts at the Gulf Blog. "Their coverage of Middle Eastern issues is far from renowned or competent."
The new channel, based in Saudi Arabia, "will focus on development in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world on the political, economic and social fronts," Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the world's 19th-wealthiest person according to Forbes, said in a statement.
The network will be competing with the two principal international Arabic news services, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and "is going to become an addition and an alternative for viewers," bin Talal said.
His statement gave no name for the new channel, and it only said the launch would be in the "near future."
The deal comes four months after Murdoch bought a nine-percent stake in bin Talal's Rotana Group. Bin Talal owns seven percent of Murdoch's News Corp, making him the largest shareholder after Murdoch himself.
As RAW STORY reported last year, the Saudi prince is known for his financial ties to the Bush family and the defense industry-oriented Carlyle Group and for owning a fair-sized stake in Disney and in Citigroup.
At times, the growing partnership between Murdoch and bin Talal has proven embarrassing for Murdoch's network, whose commentators and guests often take stridently anti-Arab positions.
Earlier this year, Fox host Glenn Beck appeared to blame the 9/11 attacks on bin Talal, when he paraphrased Giuliani as saying to bin Talal, "I don't think we want your help. You already sent us help, and you flew that help into the plane-- into the trade centers."
Following the 9/11 attacks, then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani refused a $10 million aid offer from bin Talal, because the Saudi prince had suggested that US policies may have contributed to the attacks. At the time, Fox News praised Giuliani's decision.
It's these sorts of tensions that make media observers wonder whether an alliance between the owner of Fox News and an Arabic news network can work.
"Just because it’ll have News Corp. backing doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be friendly to the Western interests, if only because the network won’t be incredibly profitable if it’s all pro-West, all the time," writes Michael Merritt at the Atlantic Right blog. "But I’ll take a bet that it will be less biased against the West than, say, Al-Jazeera."
Merritt speculates that the network may also incur the wrath of Saudi censors if it takes its pro-Western attitude too far for the country's conservative ruling class. Max Fisher at the Atlantic Wire suggests it may be a good idea for the new news network not to rely too heavily on Fox News as a source of information. He points to a map that Fox recently ran, showing Iraq labeled as "Egypt."
Tensions being heightened as more elite backers are revealed
Steve Watson Prisonplanet.com
Monday, Aug 23rd, 2010
The wife of ‘Imam’ Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed mosque three blocks away from ground zero in lower Manhattan has further fanned the flames of the controversy by comparing opposition to the project to a hatred of Jews.
“We are deeply concerned, because this is like a metastasized antisemitism,” Daisy Khan said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday.
Ms. Khan is an executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), putting her at the forefront of the proposed 15-story Cordoba House building, along with her husband Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
“It’s beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims.” Khan added in comments picked up and pushed by other mainstream media sources.
Khan, appearing on “This Week” said that she and her husband were determined to push ahead with the mosque, adding that there is “too much at stake.”
As we reported in our article last Friday, Imam Rauf is a sitting member of the ultra elitist Council On Foreign Relations (CFR) and in his role at ASMA has also received financial backing for the mosque from powerful globalist sources including the Rockefellers and the Carnegie Corporation.
Employees of the Cordoba Initiative have refused to comment on the connection, with one stating that “It is not necessary to disclose” who is funding the mosque. It has since emerged that evangelist Jim Wallis and his Sojourners publication, the CFR’s “Christian” backers of the Cordoba project, are heavily backed by the left arm of the globalist franchise, billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
Another report revealed that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the co-owner of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, has also directly funded Rauf’s projects to the tune of more than $300,000.
It seems that every elite tentacle is extending itself into the mosque project.
This information provides a compelling backdrop to the theory that the move to establish the mosque is a deliberate attempt to further stoke religious tensions and divert attention away from the real enemy of free humanity, the corporate globalist elite who continue to profit from global war and division.
Indeed, intelligence officials suggested over the weekend that the spectacle could boost extremist movements by fueling feelings of discrimination and vilification via ongoing extensive news media coverage in Muslim countries.
Scenes at the proposed site, some two minutes walk away from the World Trade Center complex, have become heated, with clashes between protesters both for and against the mosque.
The media is today playing up a video showing protesters confronting an African American man who they presumed was a muslim, but in fact was not.
As you may have heard, former Bush senior adviser Karen Hughes came out against Cordoba House over the weekend. Hughes called on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to move the project in order to "provide a path toward the peaceful relationships that he and his fellow Muslims strive to achieve."
What was mystifying about her opposition, as TPM noted, was that she did not mention that Rauf had a long-term relationship with the Bush administration. Nor did she mention that as the Bush State Department's chief of outreach to Muslims she participated with him in multiple bridge-building efforts to the Muslim world.
Here's her explanation: Hughes claimed in a statement to me that she doesn't remember any of the work she did with him.
As it happens, when people first started pointing out the connections betweeen Hughes and Rauf, I asked Ms. Hughes' office to comment. She sent me a statement, which I didn't get around to posting. Here it is:
"As Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, President Bush asked me to focus on interfaith dialogue to try to encourage greater understanding and respect between leaders of different faiths, and to encourage leaders of all faiths to speak out against all acts of terror and violence. As a result, I met with many Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and attended numerous events and conferences across the world and it's entirely possible he was at some of those, but I don't have specific recollections of that. I believe acts of violence pervert all faith and I continue to encourage religious leaders to speak out against suicide bombings, terrorist attacks and all acts of violence."
As TPM points out, Rauf repeatedly participated in events with Hughes, who saw improving relations with the Muslim world as an imperative. Rauf even claims he met with her. So I'll leave it to you to judge how likely it is that Hughes wouldn't remember any of their work together.
The Saudi prince whose post-9/11 relief check was rejected by former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani has found a more willing recipient in the city for his millions: the head of the Ground Zero mosque project.
The same Saudi potentate, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owns the biggest chunk of the parent company of the Fox News Channel outside of the Murdoch family.
WND has learned that one of the original board members of the nonprofit group promoting the 13-story mosque and "cultural center" took the job as a favor to James A. Baker III, the former President George H.W. Bush official and lawyer who defended Saudi government officials against a lawsuit filed by families of 9/11 victims. Baker has counted bin Talal as a client.
Bin Talal has pumped more than $300,000 into the project headed by New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as part of the prince's campaign to "improve the image of Islam in the American public." The prince's charitable foundation in 2008 gave $125,000 to Rauf, which came on the heels of an earlier $180,000 gift, according to the Arab press.
The foundation is run by Muna AbuSulayman, a Saudi woman who appears on Rauf's website as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
Additionally, the prince funded "through a generous grant" the reprinting of Rauf's 2004 book, originally titled "A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11."
The amount of the grant is undisclosed. Attempts to reach bin Talal's Saudi-based foundation were unsuccessful.
Guiliani refused to accept bin Talal's $10 million donation after bin Talal blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for the 9/11 attacks and suggested the U.S. take a position more favorable to the "Palestinian cause."
Critics called his offer "blood money" and praised Guiliani for rebuffing it.
After Giuliani's snub, bin Talal took a more indirect strategy to influence American policy.
In a 2002 interview in the Arab press, bin Talal intimated that "Arabs should focus more on penetrating U.S. public opinion as a means to influencing decision-making" on the war on terror and U.S. foreign policy.
Bin Talal proceeded to give more than $500,000 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. The prince currently is helping CAIR finance a $50 million campaign to fight "Islamophobia" in America. According to a sensitive State Department cable, top CAIR officials in 2006 traveled to Saudi Arabia to solicit bin Talal and other wealthy Saudis for campaign funds.
"We are planning to meet Prince Alwaleed bin Talal for his financial support to our project," CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad told the Arab press at the time. "He has been generous in the past."
In addition, the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference has kicked in more than $300,000 for CAIR's propaganda effort, according to the book "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," which exposes CAIR and other fronts for the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America.
CAIR last week held a press conference at the National Press Club to support the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero. It also denounced critics as "Islamophobes." CAIR occupies a suite next door to Rauf's Manhattan offices, and Rauf has honored CAIR's New York chapter spokesman as one of his "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
The Justice Department says CAIR is a terrorist front group for Hamas and its parent the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR in 2007 was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal scheme to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas suicide bombers and their families, prompting the FBI to cut off all outreach to the group.
The group in the past has insisted it receives no foreign support but now acknowledges taking it least overseas money from bin Talal, whose operations are based in Saudi Arabia. However, CAIR argues it shouldn't be held to a higher standard than Fox.
"News Corp. is headed by Rupert Murdoch and is the parent company of Fox News Channel," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. "If CAIR is taken to task for bin Talal's donation to us, so should these companies be taken to task for accepting his money."
"KHC [Kingdom Holding Co.] intends to continue to leverage its relationship with New Corp.'s mangement to identify new investment opportunities," the website says.
Indeed, bin Talal last month launched a new Arabic TV news channel in partnership with the Fox network. The 24-hour broadcast channel will compete with Al-Jazeera. Earlier this year, News Corp. agreed to buy a 9.1 percent stake in bin Talal's Rotana Media group for $70 million. Rotana hosts Fox channels in Saudi Arabia.
Critics call bin Talal an "agent of Saudi influence" who has even marshaled direct influence over editorial content at Fox. He once boasted of persuading producers to change a screen banner under video footage of Muslims rioting in France to remove its Islamic reference.
"I picked up the phone and called [New Corp. chief Rupert] Murdoch," bin Talal said. "Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from 'Muslim riots' to 'civil riots.'"
Fox does not deny his account.
Leading Fox News opinion hosts, however, have been editorializing against the Ground Zero mosque plan. Bill O'Reilly has called for it to be built elsewhere, and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have spoken against it. Yesterday, the three hosts of "Fox and Friends" – Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade – agreed it should not be built near the World Trade Center site.
News Corp. also owns the Wall Street Journal. Insiders say two of the newspaper's top investigative reporters covering terrorism left after Murdoch scaled back their beats. Glenn Simpson and Susan Schmidt, both award-winning journalists, had broken major stories on Saudi funding of terrorism.
Bin Talal, News Corp.'s second-largest shareholder outside the Murdoch clan, has described his relationship with Murdoch's son and heir-apparent James Murdoch as "very close."
"If he (Rupert) doesn't appoint him, I'll be the first one to nominate him to be the successor of Mr. Rupert Murdoch, God forbid if something happens to him," bin Talal told Charlie Rose in a recent TV interview.
The Aspen connection
After 9/11, Rauf co-founded the Cordoba Initiative with former Aspen, Colo., Mayor John S. Bennett, which explains why Cordoba's tax filings list an Aspen address.
During his four terms as mayor, Bennett was introduced to bin Talal and other Saudi royals, who own chalets and other properties in Aspen (Bennett's own home is valued at more than $2 million). Bin Talal met his second wife in Aspen.
Before taking over Cordoba as executive director, Bennett headed the Aspen Institute, which included among its board members former Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as well as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice has appeared with Rauf at events in Washington and overseas.
Aspen Institute recently launched the Middle East Leadership Initiative with "generous support" from Saudi Arabia. AbuSulayman, bin Talal's aide, is an Aspen Institute Middle East fellow.
Cordoba's tax filings show that Julia A. Jitkoff of Kingsville, Texas, was a director before resigning in 2007. Sources say the Texas socialite was sponsored by "longtime friend" Jim Baker, who sits on the board of her family's King Ranch holding company.
FEC records show Jitkoff and her family gave over $30,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaigns. Cordoba's 2008 IRS statement shows its books are kept by Kay Zimm of Kingsville.
According to bin Talal's biography, he and Baker met regularly in Houston to discuss business in the 1990s, when bin Talal was a Carlyle Group client of Baker. Joining them for business lunches at the Bayou Club was former President George H.W. Bush, a senior Carlyle adviser at the time.
Baker's Houston law firm, Baker & Botts, which defended Saudi officials against the 9/11 lawsuit, is one of the top international firms specializing in Shariah-compliant finance – another hobbyhorse of bin Talal.
Bin Talal in 2007 donated $250,000 to the James Baker III Institute at Rice University.
Bennett is also close to the Bush family. He graduated from both Yale University and Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. In 2002, bin Talal donated $500,000 to help fund the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship at Phillips Academy.
The Cordoba documentary
The Cordoba Initiative is promoting the Ground Zero mosque. According to its tax filing, its mission statement, among other things, is to "address the root causes of international terrorism."
Cordoba was the center of the Islamic caliphate in Spain, and the Cordoba mosque was built over the cathedral there.
Rauf has also worked on a documentary film – "Out of Cordoba" – by New York director Jacob Bender, a peace activist and Islamic apologist. The 2008 film, for which Rauf is listed as an adviser, purports to document how Islam led Europe out of the Dark Ages.
"Cordoba was the most advanced city on the European continent," Bender says.
He also claims it was the most tolerant, allowing Christianity and Judaism to "coexist" with Islam.
Bender said he made the film to respond to "growing evidence of Islamophobia and attacks upon Muslims," adding that "negative stereotypes about the Muslim are the result of ignorance."
"American society has always been quite isolated, not wanting to know about the rest of the world. Secondly, American popular cultures always needed an enemy to confront," he said. "First it was the native Americans, [then] Germans in World War I, and later the communists."
Then came 9/11 and the war on terror. "In recent years people in the United States looked to justify the huge military budget by finding a new enemy in the Arab and Muslim world," Bender continued. "The 9/11 and al-Qaida presented them with an opportunity to say that Islam is an enemy of the West."
Muslim leaders around the world have given the film rave reviews.
"The film will contribute to solving the problem of misunderstanding between the Islamic world and the West," gushed OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who has proposed with CAIR an international law criminalizing blasphemy of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Listed first among "major funders" backing the film: Alwaleed bin Talal Foundation.
Another backer is the Islamic Society of North America, which bin Talal also finances. The uncle of Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, serves on ISNA's board. The U.S. government recently named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history.
An ISNA affiliate – the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences – changed its name after federal agents raided its offices after 9/11 on suspicion of supporting terrorism. Northern Virginia-based GSISS is now known as Cordoba University.
The raid came the day after Mr. Rage said Shabab was launching a “massive war” against “invaders” who would “face larger attacks from now on.” 
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has partnered with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to launch a new 24-hour news network for the Arab world, a move that has drawn mockery from Murdoch's critics and questions from media experts.
The wife of ‘Imam’ Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed mosque three blocks away from ground zero in lower Manhattan has further fanned the flames of the controversy by comparing opposition to the project to a hatred of Jews.
Another report revealed that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the co-owner of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, has also directly funded Rauf’s projects to the tune of more than $300,000.
