Tag Archives: Western Europe

UK police outside Ecuador embassy amid WikiLeaks tweets

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British police stationed armed officers outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Friday after tweets from WikiLeaks quoted what it said were high-level sources saying that Julian Assange could be kicked out of the building within “hours to days.”

The red-brick embassy building with white window frames and balconies was quiet. No embassy official or any British authorities commented on the WikiLeaks founder’s status.

Asked about the presence of armed officers outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, London’s Metropolitan Police force said there had been no change in police procedure.

Police said in a statement there is an active warrant for Assange’s arrest and that the police are “obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy.”

Police withdrew the round-the-clock guard outside the embassy in October 2015 after more than three years in favor of what the service called a “covert” approach.

Assange hasn’t left the embassy since August 2012, fearing if he steps off Ecuador’s diplomatic soil he will be arrested and extradited to the U.S. for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.

Ecuador’s foreign ministry issued a statement late Thursday saying it wouldn’t comment on what it called “rumors, theories or conjectures.”

Later, a senior official told The Associated Press that no decision had been taken to expel Assange from the embassy.

A small group of protesters and supporters of WikiLeaks’ founder gathered Thursday outside the London embassy. On Friday morning, a van appeared outside the building showing a placard that said “Free Speech” and featured images of Assange and convicted classified document leaker Chelsea Manning. Police moved it on.

WikiLeaks on Thursday tweeted: “BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within “hours to days” using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext–and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.”

Another tweet said it had received a secondary confirmation from another high-level source.

But a top official said while Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno was angered by the apparent hacking of his personal communications, he denied WikiLeaks’ claim and said no decision had been taken to expel Assange from the Embassy. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter.

On Tuesday, Moreno blamed WikiLeaks for recent allegations of offshore corruption that in appeared in local media outlets and the publication of family photos to social media.

Moreno accused WikiLeaks of intercepting phone calls and private conversations as well as “photos of my bedroom, what I eat, and how my wife and daughters and friends dance.”

Moreno provided no evidence, but the speech reflected ongoing tension between Assange and his hosts at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

WikiLeaks in a statement called Moreno’s charges “completely bogus,” saying it reported on the accusations of corruption against the president only after Ecuador’s legislature investigated the issue.

Assange’s defense team suggested on Twitter that Moreno was trying to use the scandal to pressure the WikiLeaks founder.

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Gonzalo Solano reported from Quito, Ecuador and Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia. Barry Hatton contributed from Lisbon, Portugal.

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Study challenges health benefits of moderate drinking

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It might just be enough to kill your buzz: A new study challenges the idea that a drink or two a day could actually be good for you.

In a study conducted in China, the researchers found that moderate drinking slightly raised the risk of stroke and high blood pressure. They weren’t able to figure out, though, whether small amounts of alcohol might also increase the chances of a heart attack.

People who have a drink or two a day have long been thought to have a lower risk of stroke and heart problems than nondrinkers. But scientists were unsure if that was because the alcohol was beneficial or if the people who didn’t drink had other health issues.

“The claims that alcohol has some magical, protective fix … has no particularly serious scientific basis,” said Richard Peto, of the University of Oxford, one of the study’s senior authors.

Peto said their findings should apply to other populations beyond China and to any alcoholic drinks like beer or wine, even though the study participants mostly drank spirits. The research was published online Thursday in the journal, Lancet .

For their research, the Chinese and British scientists took genetics into account. They focused on two variants common among East Asians that can make drinking unpleasant. For those with the variants, drinking alcohol can result in quickly turning red, a fast heart rate, nausea or headaches.

Because such gene variations occur randomly, the researchers were able to design the equivalent of a randomized study. Much of the previous research on alcohol and health effects has relied on studies that can’t prove cause and effect.

The scientists tracked more than 500,000 people across China, following them for a decade. They recorded their medical history, including whether they smoked or exercised, and how much they drank. A third of the men reported drinking most weeks, compared with few of the women.

About 160,000 of the participants had the two gene variants. Among the men in that group, drinking ranged from none to up to four drinks a day. The researchers looked at how many had strokes or heart attacks, and compared them to participants without the variants and to the women with the variants.

Overall, the study found alcohol increases the stroke risk by about one-third for every four additional drinks per day. The researchers found no protective effects for moderate drinking. For people who drink up to two drinks a day — which would qualify as moderate drinking — scientists said they would have an increased stroke risk of about 10% to 15% when compared to nondrinkers. There weren’t enough heart attacks among the participants to be able to draw a conclusion about heart risks, the researchers said.

In a journal commentary, the authors called for stricter controls on alcohol, saying its risks have been underestimated.

“The alcohol industry is thriving and should be regulated in a similar way to the tobacco industry,” wrote Shiu Lun Au Yeung and Dr. Tai Hing Lam of the University of Hong Kong.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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