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Julian Assange has been imprisoned through barbaric abuse by powerful people of their positions in government and the law, and through the almost total disorganisation of ordinary people. People's ability to defend themselves at law and find crowd support in England nearly 400 years ago was often more sophisticated and engaged than our own.  A famous case was when, in May 1649, Cromwell arraigned John Lilburne for high treason and incitement of Leveller mutinies in the New Model army.

Australia’s former Foreign Minister and NSW Premier, Bob Carr, will launch a new book on Australia’s role in nuclear weapons proliferation, past, present and future. The book will be launched at Gleebooks in Sydney on Tuesday 14 June at 6:00 pm. The book, Fact or Fission: The Truth about Australia’s Nuclear Ambitions, was written by Richard Broinowski, a distinguished former diplomat, who served as Australian ambassador to Vietnam, the Republic of Korea and Mexico.

Chris Hedges discusses ‘The Trial of Julian Assange,’ a new book by Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture, in this edition of Hedges show, On Contact.

Australian politicians won't like this. There is a new book out by a couple of economists, called Game of Mates. Most readers of candobetter.net are familiar with how Australia's land-tenure system is stacked in favour of the psychopaths, but Paul Frijters, with Cameron Murray have come out with a number of very important videos as well as their book about how our system is wrecking our society and our wealth distribution. See inside for the videos. Please pass this article on because the publicity and public education associated with this book is absolutely crucial at a time when our land-use planning system is on the point of being privatised and taken beyond citizen or government control in Victoria and elsewhere in the context of developer organisations aiming at 8 new cities between Melbourne and Sydney and the replacement of Australia's entire population several times over in a short space of time.

The following short videos are entertaining but explore the problem and solutions. They are available on youtube but also published on the authors' blog https://gameofmates.com/videos/ Buy the book here: https://gameofmates.com/.

Recording of a timely and important interview with Tony Kevin, author of Return to Moscow UWA 2017. As a young Australian diplomat, Tony Kevin visited Brezhnev's Soviet Union in from 1969-1971. He returned on official business in 1985 when Chernenko was in power, then again, very briefly, in 1990. During these times he was not able to get to know the Russians due to the policy of both governments against fraternisation, thus Russia ironically became a source of growing fascination for him. He continued to inform his fascination from many sources, always at a distance. Concerned today by the threat to peace from US-NATO anti-Russian propaganda, and more fascinated by Russia than ever, he returned on his own to Russia (no longer the Soviet Union, of course) in 2016. Return to Moscow examines past and present attitudes to the people of Russia and to its leaders through empathic eyes and an understanding of the change in geopolitics from cold war to US interventionist.

On Putin: "Not since Britain's concentrated personal loathing of their great strategic enemy Napoleon in the Napoleonic wars was so much animosity brought to bear on one leader. Propaganda and demeaning language against Putin became more systemic, sustained and near universal in Western foreign policy and media communities than had ever been directed against any Soviet communist leader at the height of the Cold War. This hostile campaign evoked an effective defensive global media strategy by Russia. [...] A new kind of information Cold War took shape, with - paradoxically - Western media voices more and more speaking with one disciplined Soviet-style voice, and Russian counter voices fresher, more diverse and more agile." [Cited from Tony Kevin's book.] The interview in the video took place at Russia House in Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia. It was organised by Claire Woods of the Traveller's Bookstore. The interviewer was Associate Professor Judith Armstrong, former head of European Languages Department at Melbourne University.

An example of the afore-cited disciplined Soviet-style now dictating western newsmedia was to be found in another interview conducted by Australian ABC Victoria's Jon Faine on his Conversation Hour at around 25.25 minutes in: Jon Faine interview: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/radio/local_melbourne/audio/201703/abi-2017-03-29.mp3. Faine seems to suggest that Russia is nothing much to worry about because:

JON FAINE: "Russia's found it can't match the west militarily. It can't match the west financially. It can't match the west in industrial design, invention and technology, but it can undo the west through the west's Archilles' heel - democracy."

TONY KEVIN: "No. Russia can match the west militarily. It has a huge nuclear deterrent. We tend to talk among ourselves as though that doesn't exist anymore. It's as if we've all said, 'if we don't talk about nuclear weapons, they won't be there.' But they are there. There are militaries on both sides of the frontier training all the time in how to use tactical weapons. This is the world we live in. And Russia has also gained the great command of this country that used to be clunky and used to be unable to keep up with the west technologically. They're now world leaders in handling information technology, as you know."

Back to the video of the Russia House talk: In response to a question from the audience, Tony Kevin concludes his interview with this statement:

"And I say it here and I say it because of Jon Faine: Syria is one of the points where World War 3 could start. The other two are Ukraine and the Balkan states, on the border of Russia, because, in all these situations, there's a lack of understanding, of comprehension of the other side's point of view. There's a self-righteousness and there's a - I think if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, we would already have war involving the west, Russia, and Syria. That's how bad it is. [...] I know Russia's got a very bad press on Syria, but my position is that Russia is there at the request of a sovereign government, which is run by a man called President Assad, which has a seat in the United Nations, and Russia is trying to help that government hold that country together. And, what are we doing in Syria? We seem to be supporting a change in cast of opposition elements, many of whom we don't really know what their politics are, some of whom are extremely unpleasant people, who do extremely unpleasant things. And, so Syria is a mess. But I'm glad that Russia is trying to help bring about some peace and order in Syria."

Yes, Return to Russia is a very important book, with its author in a position of unique authority, given the perspective of his age and his experience of different epoques in Russia and western deep state international policies. Fortunately it will be hard for the Establishment to completely bury his opinion, so lucidly expressed.