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Image courtesy: BBC and Telegraph
Recently, the deadline to completely withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union tumbled on 29th March 2019 as the UK is still not ready with concrete terms and conditions to “softly" retract herself from the Union. The hardest times that has wrapped entire Britain under its gamut, which once was the nucleus of major arbiter of power in world politics is somehow managing the ebbs and tides of the changed time. History seems repeating herself the great kingdom is witnessing the political and the awaiting economic upheavals, have been indicated by most political scientists and analysts examining the Brexit as their subject. It all started with the referendum taking place and delivering the unexpected outcomes where the majority opted for exiting the supranational structure, citing the infringement of the UK’s sovereignty as a major cause on 23rd June 2016. The final declaration and statements by the government of the United Kingdom to the European Union, regarding the UK’s intention to leave EU, in accordance with Article 50 (also called the Exit Clause) of the Treaty on the Functioning of European Union (TFEU) were made on 29th March 2017. Following the official notification, the European Council asked all the member countries to adopt the guidelines defining the framework for the negotiations and layout explicitly general positions and principles. Such an exercise by both the UK and the EU combined lead to the commencement of the Brexit Negotiations, which are still ongoing. The UK failing to push for withdrawal on the above deadline pleaded to the EU's Chief Negotiator, Michel Barnier to give an extension for delaying the Brexit till the UK shows a level of preparedness to stand for it. Considering the grave concerns of the UK extension was approved for the requisite time frame.
Altogether, the innumerable exchanges, meeting, strategic-coordination, the consensus-building, dialogues and the operational-functional generalization from the European Union’s as well as the United Kingdom’s end are broadly reiterated as the Article 50 processes or simply the Brexit Negotiations. Negotiations between the EU and the UK have been taking place on a regular basis. The first phase of the negotiations tried to establish and address the enumerated issues:
Subsequently, as of 18th November 2018, the EU and UK touched a negotiation level agreement on the entirety of the UK's withdrawal from the Union, this also helped in setting out the UK’s future framework for Political Relationship with the EU. The EU finally signed on the UK’ withdrawal agreement on 11th January and has been redirected it to the EU Parliament for further deliberation. Still, many things are unfolding within the United Kingdom’s internal politics and her foreign policy. The hard times that the UK is going through seems to have no immediate end to the test of time unless a final agreement with complete negotiation is reached. The UK according to her statutory system is working hard in crafting ratification to the Brexit Negotiations. The last meeting between Prime Minister Theresa May and her European Union counterpart on 10th April 2019 concluded and agreed for an extension of Article 50 to 31st October 2019 so as to avert any kind of disorder and let the United Kingdom withdraw in an orderly manner maintaining the significant-posture of both the European Union and herself.
Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
The co-founder of WikiLeaks Julian Paul Assange (originally Hawkins) has been residing in the Embassy of Ecuador, in London for the past seven years since August 2012 in order to avoid extradition to Sweden on allegations of rape and sexual assault. The Ecuadorian embassy has been providing him political asylum for years on the grounds of protection from torture or death penalty. However, the protection is limited to the Ecuadorian territory; therefore, if he steps out of the embassy he will be arrested. While some are of the opinion that he cannot outrun the law, others view this as an infringement of his right to freedom of movement.
Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and officially launched it in 2007. It was founded on the principle of collecting and making public confidential information for the benefit of the masses. Given its nature, the website has been surrounded by controversy since its inception. In 2010 it published a video showcasing the indiscriminate killing of civilians in Baghdad, Iraq by a US military helicopter. Along with this, it also published thousands of military and intelligence documents which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, former US army intelligence analyst, related to the unreported killing of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan by the US military. Furthermore, WikiLeaks was also accused of interfering in the US Presidential election of 2016 as it published around two thousand emails of John Podesta, the campaign head of the then Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. In January 2019, WikiLeaks even brought the Vatican to the centre stage by publishing internal documents related to the controversy of the Knights of Malta.
The Ecuadorian embassy prohibited Assange’s access to the internet given his continued violations of the terms of asylum. It is believed that WikiLeaks is responsible for leaking documents of offshore corruption scandals of the Moreno government famously known as the Ina Papers as well as photos of Moreno’s family and private life on social media. This has invited Moreno’s outrage and waning tolerance towards Assange’s extended occupancy of the state’s embassy.