Депешата [10SKOPJE64] од 11 февруари 2010 година (некласифицирана) ја напишал амбасадорот Рикер од скопската амбасада и во неа ги сумирал разговорите што ги имал со конгресменот Померој при неговата посета на Република Македонија под наслов:
Евро- атланските напори остануваат блокирани
Кратко резиме:
Амбасадорот Рикер на конгресменот Померој му рекол дека 1. американската долгорочна цел е Република Македонија да биде дел од ЕУ и НАТО, но интеграции се во застој поради проблемот со името; 2. Земјата има затегнати меѓуетнички односи; 3. Во земјата има проблеми со владеењето на правото, и со корупцијата; 4. Спори економски реформи.
Кратко резиме:
Според депешата [10SKOPJE75] од 22 февруари 2010, откако бил известен дека учеството на македонските војници во Авганистан се соочува со поголеми ризици, претседателот Иванов истакнал дека македонските војници се подготвени за поголеми ризици и загуби во Авганистан, но од американските партнери побарал да се подготви стратегија за одговор кон домашните медиуми и кон јавноста околу можните загуби во Авганистан.
Потребата од стабилизација на Авганистан, според Иванов, е важна за Македонија поради две работи: (1) можноста авганистанските екстремни и радикални елементи да се префрлат во Западен Балкан; (2) поради опасноста од движењето на дрогите од Авганистан кон Европа. Воедно, претседателот Иванов ја истакнал својата разочараност од несериозниот пристап на некои европски лидери кон предизвиците на авганистанската безбедност.
The role of European countries in the rendition, detention and torture of alleged terrorists has been scrutinized numerous times. The most comprehensive overview was compiled by Swiss politician Dick Marty on behalf of the Council of Europe in 2006. This report is freely available on the internet.
This document describes a network of European countries facilitating extrajudicial measures taken by the CIA. If these allegations can be proven, they are in violation of national and international law.
In the above report, two European countries are said to have hosted so called "black sites" in which detainees would be subject to torture, Poland and Romania. The main arguments supporting these allegations are flight tables, from which can be proven that aircraft connected to the CIA landed at airports which are not normally used for international traffic of this scale.
These assumptions are also supported by eye witness accounts of airport employees, detainees, and others with a knowledge of these sites.
This information has been in the public domain for years, but there have not been any serious legal consequences for those involved. Even though a parliamentary committee investigation in Lithuania concluded that there were at least two black sites in the country, this did not lead to a prosecution. (Lithuania is not mentioned in the Marty report as these prisons were in operation in 2005 and 2006, during and after the report was written).
Of these three countries, Poland's role has been scrutinized most in the international press:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6212843.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jan/04/politics.usa
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,621450,00.html
Two cables, exposing the use of the state repressive apparatus by the Macedonian PM Gruevski to quell dissent and the corruption in the Gruevski inner circle, were immediately denied as falsification in an official statement of the ruling party VMRO - DPMNE.
[09SKOPJE601] MACEDONIA: GOVERNMENT USES STATE ORGANS TO ENFORCE LOYALTY AND SILENCE DISSENT
[09SKOPJE332] MACEDONIA: DANGEROUS DRIFT?
The diplomatic reports from the Embassy of Skopje were analyzed and published first by the WL partner's site Bivol and the european portal EurActiv on Friday. Macedonia is preparing for parliamentary elections this Sunday.
The cables are fake and fabricated by the opposition party SDSM and the A1 television, the official Gruevski's party statement claims. According to the text "financial and political interest" are motivating this falsification.
Another pro-government analyst went further in this logic and accused Greek secret services to help SDSM.
Macedonia and Greece has a long running and unresolved dispute about the name of the former yougoslav republic.
Македонската влада на премиерот Никола Груевски и неговиот внатрешен круг систематски го користи правниот и репресивен апарат на државата, за да ги исклучи неистомислениците, открива американски дипломатски извештај добиен од Wikileaks и дели со Bivol.bg и EurActiv.com
Позадина
Тајните Извештаи на САД, добиени од EurActiv и сајтот за истражувачко новинарство бивол, кој објавува ексклузивни материјали на Wikileaks за Балканот, содржат информации за Груевски и неговото опкружување од владејачката партија ВМРО-ДПМНЕ, кои создаваат "атмосфера на страв" во земјата кандидат за Европската унија.
Филип Т. Рикер, амбасадор на САД во Скопје од септември 2008-ма година, пишува во извештаите од декември 2009-та, дека Груевски ги користел сеопфатните обвиненија за злоупотреби, против официалните членови на македонската политичка елита.
"Јавни апсења, притвори или истраги на сегашни и поранешни министри, партиски членови и членови на опозицијата.Ги постави под притисок македонските политичари да се воздржат од предизвици и критики кон владата на Груевски", пишува Рикер.
Дипломатите на САД во Македонија, исто така, го информираат Вашингтон дека до нив стигнале поплаки од невладини организации, чии членови биле повикани од полицијата на застрашувачки "информативни разговори".
"Покрај тоа, овие тактики се прикажани на македонската јавност како храбри напори на владата да се справи со корупцијата, а со тоа се оправдува јавната поддршка за овие злоупотреби", пишува амбасадор Рикер.
Cables released from WikiLeaks provide important material in the ‘evidence war’ between ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and Kenyan politician William Ruto.
The cables support Moreno-Ocampo’s arguments that exposing information about critical witnesses would be a severe threat to them and that allegations on Ruto’s involvement in the extrajudicial killings in 2007-2008 post-election violence are recognized by the U.S. embassy, which is far from ‘rubbish rumors picked up by rag blogs’ as Ruto criticized the evidences the allegation is based on.
William Ruto, the Waki Commission, and the tragedy of extrajudicial killings during 2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya
Extrajudicial killings during 2007-2008 post-election period in Kenya has been condemned internationally, mainly by the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, Alston. WikiLeaks received the Amnesty 2009 New Media Award due to its notable work on leaking and reporting about the hundreds of extrajudicial killings tacitly approved by the Kibaki government and widely conducted by Kenyan Police force working with armed militias.
Among the leaked material is a report titled The Cry of Blood: Report on Extra-Judicial Killings and Disappearances, which is written by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). The UN acknowledged the report’s credibility after confirming that the information found in the report is backed by investigation results of other civil society organizations and that of the preliminary research done by UN Special Rapporteur team in 2009.
Below are photographs taken as evidences of extrajudicial killings in the report:
Borissov described himself as "Bulgaria's biggest asset"
"We must continue to walk a fine line between being used by Borisov's publicity machine and alienating an exceptionally popular and seemingly pro-American politician who may emerge as Bulgaria's next leader. In other words, we should continue to push him in the right direction, but never forget who we're dealing with."
This is the conclusion of a diplomatic report dedicated to now Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, sent by former US Ambassador to Sofia, Jonh Beyrle on May 9, 2006. The report’s confidentiality level is listed as SECRET/NOT FOR FOREIGNERS, only one level below the highest TOP SECRET – cables classified as TOP SECRET are not available to Wikileaks.
The reasons for classifying the report are coded as 1.5 (b,d), meaning confidential sources have been used in its preparation.
The cable has another characteristic – from a total of 978 reports sent from Sofia, there are just a few that have been checked and approved simultaneously by the Embassy’s political, military and security advisors, not just Ambassador Beyrle.
"The Dirt"
This is how Beyrle titled the section focusing on Boyko Borisov’s criminal past. Incidentally, the paragraph has the "lucky" number 13, while in the brackets, after 13, the level of confidentiality is purposely listed as SECRET/NOFOR, which corresponds to the highest level of classified information for this cable.
An interview with Julian Assange for the Bulgarian site for investigative journalism Bivol.bg - Wikileaks media partner.
On Cablegate
Bivol: WL started Cablegate with the partnership of five top international media outlets. Are you happy with this model? What are the limitations of this approach?
Bradley Manning moving to Fort Leavenworth
'US officials' say private Bradley Manning is being moved to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas according to the Associated Press. An announcement is expected tomorrow at the Pentagon. "The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the move has not yet been made public."
Fort Leavenworth is home to the United States Disciplinary Barracks, the U.S. military's only maximum-security facility, which houses male service members convicted at court-martial for violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. According to Wikipedia, only enlisted prisoners with sentences over five years, commissioned officers, and prisoners convicted of offenses related to national security are confined to the USDB. Manning is still awaiting trial. Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, opened October 5, 2010, is also on the Fort Leavenworth site and may be the one Manning is headed to.
Press briefing at the Pentagon contained the following:
Violence has escalated significantly in the past month between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Itamar attack, which involved the stabbing of five members of a Jewish family by two individuals whom were believed to be Palestinians, and arms found, which Israel believed were being smuggled from Iran, inflamed tensions further. As some suggest Operation Cast Lead II has begun, Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth and Al Akhbar have begun to release US State Embassy cables on Israel from WikiLeaks.
Haaretz reports on Hamas and the Gaza Strip. According to a November 2009 cable, Israel has no clear or consistent policy and Israel has refused US requests to “allow more goods into Gaza to assist the population.” Also, months after Operation Cast Lead, Embassy Tel Aviv reported, “Israelis are enjoying the best security situation since the outbreak of the second intifada [in 2000], the result of Israeli intelligence successes in destroying the suicide bombing network in the West Bank as well as good security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.”
This cable [09TELAVIV2473] features Major General Yoav Galant, the Israel Defense Forces general responsible for Gaza and southern Israel, commenting:
According to a March 19 article on Magdeburger Nachrichten, the owner of the German WikiLeaks domain, Theodor Reppe, had been accused of facilitating access to child pornography, and accessing it himself through his Tor server. All charges were dropped as he could demonstrate that he only forwarded Internet traffic to WikiLeaks, but did not himself maintain the site. (WikiLeaks published an Australian Internet blacklist which also contains links to child pornography sites.) Moreover, he could prove that the Tor server was used by many other individuals, rather than just by himself. Thus, the IP of his Tor server could not be linked to his own Internet activities.
At the Left Forum in NYC, I spoke on a panel called "What Has WikiLeaks Revealed." I presented with Danny Schechter, founder of MediaChannel, and someone who is a broadcast/print journalist and an internationally recognized speaker and writer on media issues.
Schechter and I each gave a presentation. That audio will be posted at some point. But, for now, as I prepare for the National Conference for Media Reform 2011 that is being held in Boston from Friday, April 8th through Sunday, April 10th, I would like to share what Schechter had to say on US media, particularly US corporate media.
*Click play button below to hear Schechter talk about the media
1. Introduction
2. Resources for Collateral Murder
3. Resources for War Logs
2010 was, in many ways, the year of the WikiLeaks. Although the organization had been in operation for four years, and had published many high profile leaks, this was the year that WikiLeaks became a household name. Beginning April 2010, WikiLeaks released a succession of leaks apparently sourced from within the United States government, or military, and pertaining to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. WL Central's Kevin Gosztala investigated the War Leaks and produced this valuable summary and analysis of their extent and significance. This page is an overview and resource bank.
El País: La corrupción policial en Ecuador es generalizada (Police corruption is widespread in Ecuador)
"La corrupción "es generalizada" en las filas de la Policía Nacional de Ecuador y quien fuera su comandante, Jaime Aquilino Hurtado, utilizó su poder como la máxima autoridad del cuerpo para extorsionar, acumulando así dinero y propiedades, facilitar el tráfico de personas y obstruir las investigaciones contra compañeros corruptos. (Corruption is widespread "in the ranks of the National Police of Ecuador and who was their commander, Jaime Aquilino Hurtado, who used his power as the ultimate authority to extort the police, accumulating money and property, to facilitate the trafficking and to obstruct investigations against corrupt colleagues.)"
Read more (Spanish) Google Translate
El País: El fiasco de las pruebas de la CIA (The fiasco of the CIA evidence)
"El CD Rom facilitado por Microsoft Corporation a la CIA con los correos electrónicos de varios sospechosos de enviar desde España suicidas a Irak contenía información explosiva, pero en los tribunales españoles no sirvió de nada. (The CD Rom supplied by Microsoft Corporation to the CIA with the emails of several suspected suicide bombers sent from Spain to Iraq containing explosive information, but in the Spanish courts to no avail.)"
El País: "Los más buscados" por EE UU: el sandinismo antidemocrático y corruptor ("Most Wanted" by the U.S.: the Sandinistas undemocratic and corrupting)
"El gubernamental e izquierdista Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), cuya revolución acabó en 1979 con la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza, prometió establecer la justicia social en Nicaragua, pero acabó siendo un movimiento corruptor, autoritario, que avasalló a la oposición y aceptó fondos del narcotráfico, según afirma un informe de la embajada de Estados Unidos en Managua. (The governmental and leftist National Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN, Spanish acronym), whose revolution in 1979 ended the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, promised to establish social justice in Nicaragua, but ended up being a spoiler movement, authoritarian, who overpowered the opposition and accepted funds drug trafficking, according to a report from the U.S. Embassy in Managua.)"
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(Image Credit: Dali Rău)
UK MP quizzes Crown Prosecution Service over Assange extradition case
Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert has raised the relevance of the Human Rights Act to the role played by the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Sweden's attempt to extradite Julian Assange.
In reply to Mr Huppert's questions during a joint committee hearing on human rights, Keir Starmer, director of Public Prosecutions, admitted that the CPS "are bound by the Human Rights Act, and we are bound by our duties to the court." However, he added that human-rights issues would be for the courts to determine rather than for the CPS.
Impenetrable though those legal distinctions may appear in the abstract, parliamentary attention to possible politicization of law is significant where it appears that the boundaries between law and politics are not clear and stable.
Australian MP and shadow minister reflects on WikiLeaks, Spycatcher, and freedom of the press
Malcolm Turnbull (L-Wentworth), former leader of the Opposition in the Australian House of Representatives and the current shadow minister for Communications and Broadband, spoke to Sydney University Law School on 31 March about his experiences representing former MI5 officer Peter Wright, author of Spycatcher, and about the concerns and responsibilities the Australian government faces relative to Assange's own situation and to WikiLeaks publications generally.
El País: Daniel Ortega, en la lista estadounidense de "los más buscados" (Daniel Ortega, on the U.S. list of "Most Wanted")
"Nicaragua no es una democracia pues los poderes del Estado están controlados por dos personas, el presidente, Daniel Ortega, y el opositor Arnoldo Alemán, expresidente, que no cumplen cárcel porque en el país centroamericano no hay justicia independiente, según un cable de la embajada de Estados Unidos en Managua. (Nicaragua is not a democracy because the branches of government are controlled by two people: the president Daniel Ortega and the opponent Arnoldo Aleman, former president, who are not in prison because the Central American country has no independent judiciary, according to an U.S. embassy cable from Managua.)"
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La Jornada: Falta el aval del Senado, pero ya votó Washington por Marisela Morales (The backing of the Mexican Senate is still lacking, but Washington already voted for Marisela Morales)
Cables on sex trafficking in Armenia reveal frank contempt toward victims and contradictory statements from the law enforcement officials on collusion in sex trafficking. The Republic of Armenia General Prosecutor's Office released an explanation on 14th February 2011 on the corruption allegation mentioned in a cable. The explanation in the official press release is contradicted by information on reports of Armenian investigative journalists and TIP reports published by the U.S. Department of State.
Concerning the information given to the US diplomats by the prostitutes that the employee of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office A. Yeremyan committed violations, it is informed that at that time the RA Prosecutor General tasked to conduct investigation, a interdepartmental committee was formed and all the appeals were checked which were not confirmed based on the conclusions of the interdepartmental committee and the results of the investigation.
The 'violations' mentioned above are mentioned in the cable 06YEREVAN1091, which was written in 2006. This assertion about the 'investigation' against complicity of an official A.Yeremyan has been proven to be false ever since 2006, the year the incident occurred, mainly by the Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) published annually by the U.S. Department of State. The following are evidences that the General Prosecutor's Office did nothing meaningful on the allegation in 2006 until this day:
2006 TIP report:
The government failed to vigorously investigate and prosecute ongoing and widespread allegations of public officials' complicity in trafficking. Victim-blaming and lack of sensitivity for victims remain a problem among Armenian officials, particularly in the judiciary.
Aftenposten: FARYAB: A VIEW FROM MAIMANA
"Governor Shafaq, local Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) leaders, PRT Maimana military and civilian representatives all regard insurgency as the principal challenge facing Faryab province. They express their strongest concerns about Ghormach district, but see the entire "Pashtun belt," stretching northeast along the Turkmenistan border as a haven for anti-government fighters both the ideologically-motivated warriors and the "$10 a day" combatants simply seeking a paycheck. The weak performance of the Afghan Border Police (ABP) and the absence of Turkmenistan forces close to the border facilitate insurgent activity in this corridor. The Governor and the Afghan National Police (ANP) Chief favor the establishment of militias to enhance the counterinsurgency effort. From a governance and development perspective, Faryab presents a fragmented picture: a "Lone Ranger" Governor, a self-styled reformer with little confidence in other government officials; a newly-elected Provincial Council unsure of its role; and line ministry officials with differing approaches to incorporating popular wishes into the province's development plans."
Aftenposten: LIBYAN REACTION TO AQ-LIFG MERGER
La Jornada: Las armas más letales llegan al narco mexicano desde Centroamérica: EU (The Mexican drug cartels's most lethal weapons come from Central America: United States)
"Según el gobierno de Estados Unidos, las armas más letales y poderosas compradas ilegalmente por el crimen organizado en México, entre ellas equipo tipo militar de grueso calibre, no entran por la línea divisoria entre ambos países, sino provienen de los arsenales de los ejércitos de Centroamérica y son contrabandeadas por la frontera sur, a través de los cruces mal protegidos y peor vigilados por las autoridades mexicanas locales y federales. (According to the U.S. government, the most lethal weapons bought illegally by organized crime in Mexico, including team-caliber military-style, are not from the border line between the the US and Mexico, but from the arsenals of armies in Central America and are smuggled through the south border, poorly protected and poorly monitored by local and federal Mexican authorities.)"
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La Jornada: Armamento importado por Sedena "se desvía" hacia grupos criminales (Weapons seized by Sedena "deviates" to criminal groups)
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