June, 25 2024, 12:29pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7413 5566,After hours: +44 7778 472 126,Email:,press@amnesty.org
‘Positive news’ as Julian Assange released from UK prison
LONDON
Reacting to Julian Assange’s release from Belmarsh, a high security prison in the UK, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, said:
“Amnesty International embraces the positive news that Julian Assange has finally been released from UK state custody after five years of imprisonment, and that this ordeal is coming to an end for him and his family.
“We firmly believe that Julian Assange should never have been imprisoned in the first place and have continuously called for charges to be dropped.
“The years-long global spectacle of the US authorities hell-bent on violating press freedom and freedom of expression by making an example of Assange for exposing alleged war crimes committed by the USA has undoubtedly done historic damage.
“Amnesty International salutes the work of Julian Assange’s family, campaigners, lawyers, press freedom organizations and many within the media community and beyond who have stood by him and the fundamental principles that should govern society’s right and access to information and justice. We will keep fighting for their full recognition and respect by all.”
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
LATEST NEWS
Self-Styled Working Class Fighter Trump Readies Cabinet Shaped by Billionaires
"Fascism backed by Big Money is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances," said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
Nov 08, 2024
Having won Tuesday's election after hammering home a message about high prices and garnering the support of many working-class voters, President-elect Donald Trump has begun the process of staffing top positions for his second term—drawing from Wall Street and reportedly taking the advice of billionaire backer Elon Musk.
As Axiosreported on Thursday, "Musk is helping staff the top ranks of the incoming White House and will run an unregulated entity to recommend ways to cut and reorganize government"—the so-called government efficiency commission Musk proposed with the aim of "conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government."
Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson is reportedly in the running to be treasury secretary, a position that would give him influence over the tax cuts and deregulation both he and Trump support. Paulson is also a proponent of tariffs, which Trump touted as the answer to everything from expensive grocery bills to high childcare costs.
Economists and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee in the November 5 election, warned voters that tariffs on imports would worsen inflation by pushing U.S. companies to offload costs onto consumers.
Other potential candidates to lead the Treasury Department include hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, a top fundraiser for Trump and unofficial adviser to the Trump campaign, and transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick, CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
Lutnick is also a backer of cyptocurrency firm Tether, which the Biden administration has been investigating for allegedly violating anti-money laundering rules. As journalist Jacob Silverman said on Wednesday, that probe is likely to be closed when Trump takes office.
Days before the election, Lutnick signaled in a CNN interview that Trump's team is likely to elevate former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a high-level position related to health, telling the network that a conversation with Kennedy led him to believe the debunked view that vaccines cause autism.
Trump has also said Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has no background in medical care or public health but has long promoted anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, will have a "big role" in the administration. Last week Kennedy toldNBC News that he would push for fluoride, which reduces tooth decay, to be removed from public drinking water.
Other wealthy members of Trump's inner circle who are expected to serve in the administration include his former Small Business Administration leader, Linda McMahon, whose name as been floated as a possible secretary of commerce, and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy, a billionaire who has billed himself as a "scientist" but is more accurately described as a biotech financier, has hinted at a potential role as homeland security secretary. He staged an appearance in which he arrived at a Trump campaign event on the back of a sanitation truck—a reference to President Joe Biden's response to a racist joke at a Trump rally in which Biden appeared to call the Republican's supporters "garbage."
But Ramaswamy's attempt at showing solidarity with working-class voters stands in contrast to his opposition to a wealth tax and his view that student debt cancellation is a "scam."
Ahead of the election, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted that a third of Trump's campaign funding had come from billionaires, including Musk, who poured $119 million into helping him win and who saw his wealth surge after Trump's victory.
Trump has pledged to appoint "several" of his billionaire backers to his Cabinet, said Reich. "Fascism backed by Big Money is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances. We saw it in 1930s Germany, and we're seeing it again today."
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Wall Street Giddy Over Coming Merger Boom as Trump Expected to Fire Lina Khan
One corporate CEO welcomed the Republican's victory as "an opportunity for consolidation."
Nov 08, 2024
Wall Street is "foaming at the mouth," as one leading business magazine put it, at the prospect of a corporate merger frenzy following Republican Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election—a win that's set to spell the end of antitrust champion Lina Khan's popular tenure at the helm of the Federal Trade Commission.
Trump's second administration, which is likely to be stacked with billionaires and corporate-friendly officials, is expected to take aim at merger and acquisition guidelines issued last year by Khan's FTC and the U.S. Department of Justice after decades of relentless corporate consolidation.
David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at the Wall Street behemoth Goldman Sachs, predicted in a note published Wednesday that under Trump's incoming administration, "the regulatory posture of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division that during the past four years challenged many proposed business combinations will likely be more relaxed."
That more relaxed posture, according to Kostin, could result in a 20% increase in merger activity in just the first year of Trump's second term.
Raul Gutierrez, the head of mergers and acquisitions at the investment banking firm Truist Securities, echoed Kostin's assessment, tellingBloomberg that "you should be able to see larger transactions move forward" under the incoming Trump administration.
"Some of these had been put on hold given the current antitrust stance," said Gutierrez, "and I think you'll see a greater willingness to test agencies out once the administration takes over."
Khan's term officially expired in late September, but she's expected to stay on at the FTC until Trump is inaugurated in January and chooses a replacement. While Vice President-elect JD Vance has praised Khan, "Trump and his allies are likely to get rid of anyone associated with the Biden administration's antitrust battles with the big Silicon Valley tech companies," The New York Timesreported earlier this week.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who pumped upward of $118 million into Trump reelection efforts, wrote days before the November 5 election that Khan "will be fired soon."
According to the FTC's latest data, the Biden administration brought a record number of merger enforcement actions in fiscal year 2022. A recent analysis by the American Economic Liberties Project found that the Biden administration "brought to trial four times as many billion-dollar merger challenges as Trump-Pence or Obama-Biden enforcers did."
Under Khan's leadership, the FTC has taken legal action against some of the most powerful companies in the world, including Amazon and Microsoft.
But Trump's election victory has sparked hopes on Wall Street that aggressive merger enforcement could soon end.
"We think that under a Trump administration, deal approvals will speed up markedly and the process will be more clearly delineated," Mark Fitzgibbon, managing director of the banking company Piper Sandler, wrote in a research note.
David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, hailed Trump's victory as "an opportunity for consolidation."
Kroger, a company that is currently locked in a legal battle with the Khan-led FTC over its attempt to acquire competitor Albertsons, saw its stock price jump in the wake of Trump's election victory, with investors anticipating "a more lax environment for corporate mergers" under the Republican, Barron'sreported.
Axiosreported Friday that "the $35 billion credit card merger of Capital One and Discover will be a bellwether for how Trump's antitrust crew views the M&A environment."
"Shares of each company rose 15% after his election," the outlet observed, adding that shares of the airline companies Frontier and Spirit also surged in a "sign their previous attempt at a merger could be revived."
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Trump's Chief of Staff Pick Worked as a Tobacco Lobbyist While Running 2024 Campaign
The president-elect previously vowed to "drain the swamp," but his chief of staff pick, Susie Wiles, co-chairs a firm that has lobbied for tobacco giant Swisher International, Tesla, Uber, AT&T, and other corporate giants.
Nov 08, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday selected Susie Wiles, a longtime GOP strategist who has spearheaded the Republican leader's campaign operations since 2021, to serve as White House chief of staff, saying in a statement that she helped "achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history."
But Trump's team didn't mention in its announcement that Wiles worked as a lobbyist for the tobacco company Swisher International while running the former president's 2024 bid. Citing disclosure forms filed earlier this year, the investigative outlet Sludgereported Thursday that Wiles "worked to influence Congress on 'FDA regulations.'"
"Wiles has not filed a termination report for her work with Swisher, but she has not reported lobbying for the company since the first quarter of the year, when the company paid her firm Mercury Public Affairs $30,000 in fees," Sludge noted.
The outlet pointed out that Mercury—which lists Wiles as a co-chair on its website—has "large lobbying contracts with several junk food companies that will be working to oppose" Trump's stated objective to "Make America Healthy Again" by, among other changes, working to remove processed foods from school meals.
Mercury "lobbies for sugar cereal company Kellogg's, high fructose corn syrup sauce maker Kraft-Heinz, and Nestlé SA, the Swiss company whose brands include KitKat, Hot Pockets, and Nestea," Sludge reported.
"Some of Mercury's other clients, highlighted on its website, include Gilead Sciences, Pfizer, Tesla, Uber, Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, NBC Universal, Gavi: The Vaccine Alliance, and the nation of Qatar," the outlet added.
Kieran Mahoney, Mercury's CEO, said in a statement that Wiles' selection as Trump's chief of staff "is great news for the country," calling her "a valued colleague."
Despite his attempt during the campaign to posture as an ally of the working class and an enemy of Washington, D.C.'s pervasive corruption, Trump is expected to fill his Cabinet with billionaires and others with extensive corporate ties.
Two billionaires, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, are leading the transition team tasked with staffing the incoming administration. Politicoreported that Lutnick—who donated more than $10 million to Trump's campaign—has "faced accusations from some Trump insiders that he has improperly mixed his business interests with his duties standing up a potential administration."
"Concerns about potential conflicts of interest for Lutnick include Cantor Fitzgerald and its relationship with one of the most controversial cryptocurrency companies in the world, Tether, which issues a digital token that is pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar and is reportedly under federal investigation," the outlet noted.
Reporting in recent days has indicated that the two top contenders to lead the Treasury Department in the second Trump administration are billionaires: hedge fund manager and Trump megadonor Scott Bessent and investor John Paulson, a vocal proponent of tax cuts and large-scale deregulation.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who pumped more than $118 million into efforts to elect the former president to a second White House term, is also expected to play a major role in shaping Trump's administration.
"Musk is helping staff the top ranks of the incoming White House and will run an unregulated entity to recommend ways to cut and reorganize government," Axiosreported Thursday. "This creates conflicts of interest at an epic scale. But it's hard to see the Trump White House caring, or Musk letting it slow him down."
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen observed in a recent report that at least three of Musk's companies—Tesla, X, and SpaceX—are currently facing scrutiny from at least nine federal agencies "for alleged misconduct."
"Enforcement priorities can shift significantly when administrations change," the group said. "Musk's self-serving desire to thwart the numerous civil and criminal investigations into his businesses seems a likely reason for the billionaire’s increased involvement in electoral politics."
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