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Julian Assange loses court battle to stop US expanding extradition appeal

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has lost a high court battle to prevent the US government expanding the grounds for its appeal against an earlier refusal to allow his extradition to face charges of espionage and hacking government computers.

On Wednesday, judges said the weight given to a misleading report from Assange’s psychiatric expert that was submitted at the original hearing in January could form part of Washington’s full appeal in October.

Sitting in London, Lord Justice Holroyde said he believed it was arguable that Judge Vanessa Baraitser had attached too much weight to the evidence of Prof Michael Kopelman when deciding not to allow the US’s appeal.

The expert had told the court he believed Assange would take his own life if extradited. But he did not include in his report the fact that Assange had fathered two children with his partner while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London – a fact Assange later used in support of his bail application.

Clair Dobbin QC, for the US, argued the expert misled Baraitser, who presided over the January hearing.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Assange, told the court Baraitser, having heard all of the evidence in the case, was in the best position to assess it and reach her decision.

He said Kopelman’s report was given long before any court hearing and against a background of concern for the “human predicament” in which Assange’s partner, Stella Moris, found herself at the time.

Delivering the latest decision, Holroyde said it was “very unusual” for an appeal court to have to consider evidence from an expert that had been accepted by a lower court, but also found to have been misleading – even if the expert’s actions had been deemed an “understandable human response” designed to protect the privacy of Assange’s partner and children.

The judge said that, in those circumstances, it was “at least arguable” that Baraitser erred in basing her conclusions on the professor’s evidence.

“Given the importance to the administration of justice of a court being able to reply on the impartiality of an expert witness, it is in my view arguable that more detailed and critical consideration should have been given to why [the professor’s] ‘understandable human response’ gave rise to a misleading report.”

The US government had previously been allowed to appeal against Baraitser’s decision on three grounds – including that it was wrong in law. Assange’s legal team had described the grounds as “narrow” and “technical”. The two allowed on Wednesday were additional.

Oregon declares state of emergency as another ‘extreme heatwave’ looms

The Oregon governor declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as the region prepared for triple-digit temperatures mere weeks after a deadly heatwave clobbered the Pacific north-west.

Kate Brown said: “Oregon is facing yet another extreme heatwave, and it is critical that every level of government has the resources they need to help keep Oregonians safe and healthy.”

The declaration took effect at midday on Tuesday amid concerns over the safety of residents, some of whom do not have air conditioning, and the impact the soaring temperatures could have on critical infrastructure. The order is expected to remain in place until 20 August.

Brown recommended Oregon residents take proactive steps to keep cool, including staying well hydrated; visiting one of the dozens of cooling centers at libraries, community centers and other spaces across the state; and watching out for neighbors, friends and family.

The heatwave arrives less than two months after record-high temperatures, which in some areas exceeded 115F (46C), resulted in hundreds of deaths across the Pacific north-west and western Canada. Meteorologists reported that the extreme temperatures came from two pressure systems, while a study from World Weather Attribution determined that the heatwave would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change”.

This week’s heatwave is also the result of a high-pressure system forming over the north-east Pacific. But the temperatures are expected to be more intense as a direct result of the climate crisis, explained Larry O’Neill, Oregon’s state climatologist.

Although these temperatures won’t be as high as they were in late June, in some places they could approach August records or even all-time records, he said.

And the fact that temperatures in some areas are expected to climb into the triple digits for the second time this summer is also significant.

“This would be kind of a heatwave that maybe we experience every two to three years in the past, but this will be the second strong one this summer,” said O’Neill.

Sicily logs apparent highest ever temperature in Europe at 48.8C

The highest temperature in European history appears to have been recorded in Italy during a heatwave sweeping the country, with early reports suggesting a high of 48.8C (119.85F).

If this is accepted by the World Meteorological Organisation it will break the previous European record of 48C (118.4F) set in Athens in 1977. The temperature was measured at a monitoring station in Syracuse, Sicily, and confirmed soon after by the island’s meteorological authorities.

The finding comes amid a fierce heatwave stretching across the Mediterranean to Tunisia and Algeria. Fires have blazed across much of the region for more than a week. Italy’s government has declared a state of emergency. Turkey and Greece have also been hit by devastating conflagrations.

Trevor Mitchell, a meteorologist from the UK Met Office, said: “The Società Meteorologica Italiana say that the temperature report of 48.8C is genuine. However, with potential records such as these there is typically a process of verification before they can be declared officially.

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The extreme heat in Europe is the latest unwelcome record to strike the northern hemisphere this summer. Temperature records have been smashed in Canada, the west of the US, Finland, Estonia, Turkey and Moscow. Unprecedented floods have swept through Germany and parts of China. Record wildfires are blazing in the Siberian taiga, the world’s biggest forest.

In Russia’s Sakha republic forest fires have released 208 megatonnes of carbon this year, almost double last year’s record, according to Mark Parrington, a senior scientist with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

Climate scientists have long predicted that fossil fuel emissions from vehicles, factories and deforestation would lead to more extreme weather. The latest report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released on Monday, said the link was unequivocal and irreversible but that worse impacts could be reduced if governments acted quickly.

“This is climate change in 3D. It is here,” said Owen Gaffney, an analyst at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We are radically changing the climate system so hot areas will get hotter, wet areas will get wetter. We are going to get more extremes.”