28-08-2012, 02:23 PM
The following anonymous essay has been posted as a comment on numerous websites about the WikiLeaks matter:
A WikiLeaks Primer
Originally, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange fled Iceland as he was under surveillance by business-suited strangers, plus he was tipped off by the bank where the WikiLeaks' account was located that they had been approached by US government personnel.
In Sweden, Assange was immediately approached by a Bonnier family publication for exclusive rights in publishing WikiLeaked documents.
Assange declined their offer, both against the principle of exclusivity, and because he'd been advised that the publication was similar to Rupert Murdoch's British tabloids; not necessarily respectable.
It is important to understand that the Bonnier family is a major European media family (Bonnier AB is one of the 10 largest media companies in the world), who's ownership extends to American publications such as Sports Illustrated, Popular Science, Time, etc.
[See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnier_Group and alsohttp://www.bonnier.com/about-us/]
The woman who first approached Assange for consensual sex, Anna Ardin, worked for one of the Bonnier family publications, and while her present source of income is difficult to determine, she appears to be surviving nicely. Ardin would later approach the second young lady, Sofia Wilen (who also had consensual sex with Assange), to accompany her to the police.
The law firm which volunteered to represent the two women is comprised of two law partners, Claes Borgstrom, who has two sisters who work for Bonnier family companies, and Thomas Bodstrom, who publishes through the Bonnier family media company (he writes legal fiction).
Bodstrom was also the Swedish Minister of Justice who had OK'ed the CIA's illegal kidnapping of several Swedish citizens of Arabic origin --- also called extreme rendition --- who were transported to Egypt for torture (and what could have led to murder), but were eventually released and sued the Swedish government in Swedish courts, winning a financial judgment against them.
Sweden claims it would never allow extradition to any country with a legalized death penalty, yet by allowing extreme renditions to such countries, we know this to be a lie.
Originally when the women approached the police, a junior prosecutor on duty ordered Assange to remain in Sweden, but the Swedish Prosecution Authority shortly dropped all charges as they had no merit.
Later, after allowing Assange to leave Sweden, and due to political pressure from the highest levels of government, the Swedish Prosecution Authority resumed the case without merit, seeking Assange's extradition, solely for questioning, in violation of both existing Swedish law, and the regulations pertaining to issuing European Union arrest warrants (two very important points!).
During those early events in Sweden, Anna Ardin had chat message traffic with reporters for a Bonnier family tabloid, Expressen, which indicated criminal conspiracy and malfeasance on her part, and while her attorney, Claes Borgstrom, illegally directed her to delete this evidence, she forgot to delete the copy from her blog site, later downloaded by an enterprising Australian journalist.
Unfortunately, this has received scant attention or reportage in the corporate media.
Later, the other law partner and former Justice Minister, Thomas Bodstrom, went on a book tour in America, where he routinely spread disinformation about the WikiLeaks/Assange case. Much of the time Bodstrom stayed at a residence in Virginia, a short drive from the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
A curious coincidence, or logistical necessity?
The present Justice Minister, Beatrice Ask, who resurrected the extradition case against Assange, was originally appointed to her cabinet positions by Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister who is presently the Swedish foreign minister.
Carl Bildt appears unfavorably mentioned in several WikiLeaked cables, and was a director at Lundin Petroleum during their involvement in massacres of Sudanese living on oil-rich land in that African country.
Later, in America, a relatively unknown author named Jaclyn Friedman, would attempt to publicize the consensual sex case against Assange as rape charges. Friedman's web site, at that time, displays her boasting of enjoying sex with multiple male partners in a given week's time, although at times Ms. Friedman claims to be an avowed lesbian?
Perhaps more troubling is that Ms. Friedman was published through Perseus Books, which at that time was owned by the private equity firm, Perseus LLC, which was also listed as the business address, for tax purposes, for the American Friends of Bilderberg, Inc., whose directors are listed as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle.
The business contact for that group at Perseus LLC and either the firm's CEO or a senior executive, was James Johnson, a major character featured in a recent book by NY Times financial reporter, Gretchen Morgenstern, cited as playing a major governmental role in the subprime mortgage meltdown.
A Bonnier family member, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, was and still may be the Swedish ambassador to Israel.
Quite a bunch of improbable connections pertaining to a strange case of consensual sex?
In June 2010 ECOS (European Coalition on Oil in Sudan), an umbrella group of European organisations, including about 50 NGOs, published a report called "Unpaid Debt", urging Sweden, Austria and Malaysia to probe whether Lundin Petroleum (then Lundin Oil), in consortium with Petronas and OMV, had broken international law between 1997 and 2003.
By launching oil exploration in such an unstable region, the consortium set the wheels in motion for a power struggle that had led to numerous crimes, including widespread "killing of civilians, rape of women, abduction of children, torture and forced displacements," the report claimed.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt was on the board of directors of Lundin Petroleum at the time.
Hat tip to Linda Minor.
A WikiLeaks Primer
Originally, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange fled Iceland as he was under surveillance by business-suited strangers, plus he was tipped off by the bank where the WikiLeaks' account was located that they had been approached by US government personnel.
In Sweden, Assange was immediately approached by a Bonnier family publication for exclusive rights in publishing WikiLeaked documents.
Assange declined their offer, both against the principle of exclusivity, and because he'd been advised that the publication was similar to Rupert Murdoch's British tabloids; not necessarily respectable.
It is important to understand that the Bonnier family is a major European media family (Bonnier AB is one of the 10 largest media companies in the world), who's ownership extends to American publications such as Sports Illustrated, Popular Science, Time, etc.
[See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnier_Group and alsohttp://www.bonnier.com/about-us/]
The woman who first approached Assange for consensual sex, Anna Ardin, worked for one of the Bonnier family publications, and while her present source of income is difficult to determine, she appears to be surviving nicely. Ardin would later approach the second young lady, Sofia Wilen (who also had consensual sex with Assange), to accompany her to the police.
The law firm which volunteered to represent the two women is comprised of two law partners, Claes Borgstrom, who has two sisters who work for Bonnier family companies, and Thomas Bodstrom, who publishes through the Bonnier family media company (he writes legal fiction).
Bodstrom was also the Swedish Minister of Justice who had OK'ed the CIA's illegal kidnapping of several Swedish citizens of Arabic origin --- also called extreme rendition --- who were transported to Egypt for torture (and what could have led to murder), but were eventually released and sued the Swedish government in Swedish courts, winning a financial judgment against them.
Sweden claims it would never allow extradition to any country with a legalized death penalty, yet by allowing extreme renditions to such countries, we know this to be a lie.
Originally when the women approached the police, a junior prosecutor on duty ordered Assange to remain in Sweden, but the Swedish Prosecution Authority shortly dropped all charges as they had no merit.
Later, after allowing Assange to leave Sweden, and due to political pressure from the highest levels of government, the Swedish Prosecution Authority resumed the case without merit, seeking Assange's extradition, solely for questioning, in violation of both existing Swedish law, and the regulations pertaining to issuing European Union arrest warrants (two very important points!).
During those early events in Sweden, Anna Ardin had chat message traffic with reporters for a Bonnier family tabloid, Expressen, which indicated criminal conspiracy and malfeasance on her part, and while her attorney, Claes Borgstrom, illegally directed her to delete this evidence, she forgot to delete the copy from her blog site, later downloaded by an enterprising Australian journalist.
Unfortunately, this has received scant attention or reportage in the corporate media.
Later, the other law partner and former Justice Minister, Thomas Bodstrom, went on a book tour in America, where he routinely spread disinformation about the WikiLeaks/Assange case. Much of the time Bodstrom stayed at a residence in Virginia, a short drive from the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
A curious coincidence, or logistical necessity?
The present Justice Minister, Beatrice Ask, who resurrected the extradition case against Assange, was originally appointed to her cabinet positions by Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister who is presently the Swedish foreign minister.
Carl Bildt appears unfavorably mentioned in several WikiLeaked cables, and was a director at Lundin Petroleum during their involvement in massacres of Sudanese living on oil-rich land in that African country.
Later, in America, a relatively unknown author named Jaclyn Friedman, would attempt to publicize the consensual sex case against Assange as rape charges. Friedman's web site, at that time, displays her boasting of enjoying sex with multiple male partners in a given week's time, although at times Ms. Friedman claims to be an avowed lesbian?
Perhaps more troubling is that Ms. Friedman was published through Perseus Books, which at that time was owned by the private equity firm, Perseus LLC, which was also listed as the business address, for tax purposes, for the American Friends of Bilderberg, Inc., whose directors are listed as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle.
The business contact for that group at Perseus LLC and either the firm's CEO or a senior executive, was James Johnson, a major character featured in a recent book by NY Times financial reporter, Gretchen Morgenstern, cited as playing a major governmental role in the subprime mortgage meltdown.
A Bonnier family member, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, was and still may be the Swedish ambassador to Israel.
Quite a bunch of improbable connections pertaining to a strange case of consensual sex?
Quote:Bonnier Group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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[TD="class: category"]Private[/TD]
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[TD]1804 in Copenhagen, Denmark[/TD]
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[TD="class: adr"]Stockholm, Sweden[/TD]
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[TD="class: agent"]Carl-Johan Bonnier (chairman)[SUP][1][/SUP]
Jonas Bonnier (CEO)[SUP][2][/SUP][/TD]
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[TD]Newspapers, books,magazines, television,cinemas, film production, radio[/TD]
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[TD]US$ 4.24 billion (2010)[/TD]
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[TD]10,820 (2011)[/TD]
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The Bonnier Tower in Stockholm
Bonnier AB (also the Bonnier Group) is a privately held Swedish media group of 175 companies operating in 17 countries. It is controlled by the Bonnier family.
The company was started in 1804 by the German Gerhard Bonnier in Copenhagen, Denmark, when Bonnier published his first book, Underfulde og sandfærdige kriminalhistorier. Gerhard's sons later moved to Sweden. The Bonnier book publishing companies in Sweden that are part of book publishing house Bonnierförlagen now includeAlbert Bonniers förlag, Wahlström & Widstrand, Forum, and Bonnier Carlsen, as well as several other book publishers and imprints in Sweden. Bonnier Tidskrifter publishes magazines, including Veckans Affärer, Damernas Värld, Amelia, Sköna Hem, Teknikens Värld, Resume, nearly a dozen crossword magazines,[SUP][3][/SUP] and the tablet magazine C Mode, among many others. Other subsidiaries include Sweden's commercial TV network TV4 andC More Entertainment; movie theater chain SF Bio and film production companies Svensk Filmindustri and Sonet Films; daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, andSydsvenskan; business daily Dagens Industri; and medical journal Dagens Medicin.
In Denmark, operations include magazine publisher Bonnier Publications, which has subsidiaries in Norway, Finland and Russia; business daily Dagbladet Børsen; and film distributors SF Film and film producers SF Film Production.
Finnish operations include MTV Media Oy, which owns commercial channels MTV3 and Sub, among others; radio channel Radio Nova; book publishers Tammi and WSOY; plus magazines from Bonnier Publications and film productions by FS Film.
In Germany, Bonnier Media Deutschland includes Ullstein Buchverlage, Piper Verlag,Thienemann Verlag and Carlsen Verlag, among others.
In Norway, along with magazines from Bonnier Media and the movie chain SF Kino and film distribution company SF Norge, subsidiaries include book publisher Cappelen Damm.
In the U.S., Bonnier Corporation owns over 40 magazines, including Popular Science,Saveur, Parenting, Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and Popular Photography, a range of action sport magazines including many published by TransWorld Media, as well as a number of niche travel and lifestyle titles. Book publisher Weldon Owen and film production company Warren Miller Entertainment are also part of the company.
Bonnier Publishing book publishing operations are also established with headquarters in the UK, including Autumn Publishing, Hot Key Books, Templar Publishing and Weldon Owen (which is separate from the U.S. book publisher); Piccolia in France; and Five Mile Press in Australia. Bonnier owns as well business newspapers in Russia, Estonia (Äripäev), Lithuania (Verslo žinios), Poland (Puls Biznesu) and Slovenia (Finance Business Daily), as well as medical journals in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, and Slovenia.
Bonnier is also behind several digital startups, including the tablet publishing platform Mag+ and children's toy app producer Toca Boca.
Bonnier is controlled by around 75 family members, including some seventh-generation heirs.
Time Inc. magazines acquisition
In January 2007, the Bonnier Magazine Group agreed to acquire 18 magazines that Time Inc. was divesting. The estimated price was US$ 225 million in cash and the assumption of about US$ 42 million in unfulfilled subscription liabilities (subscriptions already paid but not yet delivered.) The magazines in the package employed 550 people and included Outdoor Life, Popular Science, Field & Stream,Ski, Yachting, and Transworld Snowboarding, as well as 11 other titles that were part of Time Inc.'s Time4 Media Group. Also included were Parenting, and Babytalk, which were part of the Parenting Group. That price was believed to be a multiple of about 11 times cash flow for a group that had net income of around US$ 20 million and revenue of around $230 million.
"We think we did a good deal, and we think Time did as well," said Jonas Bonnier, head of Bonnier Magazine Group. Bonnier already had a small footprint in the US through a 50 percent stake in Winter Park, Florida-based World Publications, which owned the titles Islands and Spa, Saveur, Water Skiing, and Caribbean Travel & Life.[SUP][4][/SUP]
References
External links
- ^ "Board of Directors". Bonnier AB. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
- ^ "Top Management". Bonnier AB. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
- ^ "Bonnier Korsord Om oss." Krysset.se. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
- ^ Kelly, Keith J. (26 January 2007). "Bonnier Coughed Up $225M to Time". New York Post. Retrieved 31 December 2011.
![[Image: 200px-Bonnier_group_logo.svg.png]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bonnier_group_logo.svg){kind=logo}
![[Image: 225px-Bonnierskrapan_Stockholm.jpg]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bonnierskrapan_Stockholm.jpg)
Quote:Journalists 'probing Lundin Oil': report
Published: 13 Sep 11 12:57 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
The two Swedish reporters jailed in Ethiopia were in the country investigating Lundin Petroleum, a Swedish oil and mining company, at the time of their arrest, according to reports in the Swedish media.Martin Schibbye, who has been held in Ethiopian prison with his colleague Johan Persson since the beginning of July, sent a letter dated mid-August to his old classmates from the journalism department of Stockholm University which may hold the key to what the two reporters were doing in the country when they were arrested.
- Swedes jailed in Ethiopia could get life: expert (9 Sep 11)
- Swedes charged with terror crimes in Ethiopia (7 Sep 11)
- Jailed Swedes to stay in Ethiopian custody (18 Aug 11)
"To understand what we were trying to achieve read Kerstin Lundell's book that was published by Ordfront last year," the letter read, according to Swedish newspaper ETC.
Kerstin Lundell's book, "Affärer i blod och olja. Lundin petroleum i Afrika" (Business in blood and oil. Lundin Petroleum in Africa), describes how the company has contributed to the encroachment of the civilian population while extracting natural gas in the Ogaden province of Ethiopia, bordering on Somalia.
While writing the book, which won Lundell the Swedish investigative journalism award Guldspaden in 2010, Lundell decided not to travel to the area in fear of what might befall her there, ETC reports
But in the beginning of July 2011, Schibbye and Persson were arrested by Ethiopian police in the Ogaden province, which they had entered illegally with the help of ONLF guerilla soldiers.
In an email to a journalist friend at Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) Schibbye wrote that he was "doing something on oil" prior to going to Ethiopia, reported the paper.
In June 2010 ECOS (European Coalition on Oil in Sudan), an umbrella group of European organisations, including about 50 NGOs, published a report called "Unpaid Debt", urging Sweden, Austria and Malaysia to probe whether Lundin Petroleum (then Lundin Oil), in consortium with Petronas and OMV, had broken international law between 1997 and 2003.
By launching oil exploration in such an unstable region, the consortium set the wheels in motion for a power struggle that had led to numerous crimes, including widespread "killing of civilians, rape of women, abduction of children, torture and forced displacements," the report claimed.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt was on the board of directors of Lundin Petroleum at the time.
Following the publication of the ECOS report, Bildt defended Lundin in an interview with Swedish public radio, insisting the company's actions in Sudan had "opened the way for a peace deal" in the area.
According to ETC, the story that Schibbye and Persson were working on was supposed to be published in Swedish magazine Filter.
Although the magazine could not contribute to the reporters' expenses in Ethiopia, the editor-in-chief Mattias Göransson had promised the two journalists that if they came back with a story, the magazine would buy it, he told Swedish journalist trade union paper Journalisten last week.
However, the majority of Filter's articles have a domestic focus.
"I don't want to disclose anything about the nature of the article, but I can say that there is a very strong Swedish connection," said Göransson to Journalisten.
Lundin Petroleum is involved in exploration and production of oil and natural gas and is active in Norway, Russia and Sudan, as well as Ethiopia and Somalia.
According to ETC, the company gas been criticised by the United Nations and human rights groups for its activities in southern Sudan.
In 2006, Lundin Petroleum began exploration activities in Ethiopia, despite concerns from human rights groups that Ethiopian authorities had forcibly removed residents to help the company establish operations.
In 2009, Lundin Petroleum, sold its subsidiary in east Africa to Africa Oil, which is jointly owned by Lukas Lundin and Lundin Petroleum. http://www.thelocal.se/36112/20110913/
In June 2010 ECOS (European Coalition on Oil in Sudan), an umbrella group of European organisations, including about 50 NGOs, published a report called "Unpaid Debt", urging Sweden, Austria and Malaysia to probe whether Lundin Petroleum (then Lundin Oil), in consortium with Petronas and OMV, had broken international law between 1997 and 2003.
By launching oil exploration in such an unstable region, the consortium set the wheels in motion for a power struggle that had led to numerous crimes, including widespread "killing of civilians, rape of women, abduction of children, torture and forced displacements," the report claimed.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt was on the board of directors of Lundin Petroleum at the time.
Hat tip to Linda Minor.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.