2011-07-22 WikiLeaks Notes: Latest News on #Cablegate Releases & #WikiLeaks

Image

This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a daily news update of stories that are obviously related to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression. All the times are GMT.
New Cable(s) were released today.

08:40 PM Diplomatic cables analysed by The Telegraph show criticism had been previously directed at Norwegian intelligence for failing to keep track of suspected terror cells and having a complacent attitude towards terrorism.

U.S. authorities reportedly had to ‘press’ their Norwegian counterparts, as there was a generalized feeling of ‘immunity’ to potential attacks.

Today a deadly bombing took place in the country’s capital Oslo, outside the building that housed the offices of the country’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, killing 7 people, and a shooting in Norway’s Utoya island where the Prime Minister’s Labour party youth section's yearly gathering was taking place also made several victims. The exact number is yet to be determined. via Reuters

06:35 PM The first of ten parts of Andy Worthington’s WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004 analysis can now also be read on the WikiLeaks website.

Four parts of this series have been published at andyworthington.co.uk.

06:30 PM Lawyer Mark Stephens, who was until recently part of Julian Assange’s legal team, appears to have been one of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World phone-hacking victims.

08:05 AM Contacted by CNET, the Library of Congress denies originally categorizing WikiLeaks as an extremist website.
Instead, according to a spokesman, the classification was automatically adopted from the catalogue of the National Library of Australia. Both have removed books having WikiLeaks as a subject from the ‘extremist website’ category after receiving inquiries from supporters of the organization.

07:10 AM WikiLeaks’ partner in Mexico ‘La Jornada’ exposes a request of intervention of the United States, then under the Bush administration, in Mexico's 2006 presidential election. The Archbishop of Guadalajara asked for U.S. assistance to prevent popular leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) from winning the election, which proved controversial for suspicions of electoral fraud.

The archbishop, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, described the rise of popular socialist governments in Latin America as a ‘dangerous trend’ :

"Sandoval after mentioning his personal dream of building a sanctuary in Guadalajara to commemorate Mexican martyrs, echoed some of our Vatican interlocutors in raising concern about the increasing presence of leftist leaders in Latin America - Castro, Chavez, Morales, Kirchner, Bachelet, and perhaps Lopez Obrador - and called it a dangerous trend (ref B). He asked whether President Bush could help. Sandoval said that under Lopez Obrador's governance, crime and violence had risen in Mexico City."

(A similar take on this story, in english, by the newspaper Guadalajara Reporter.)

06:55 AM Julian Assange sent out a short message to the Dominican people (low quality video, the original was broadcast by Noticias SIN).

The SIN media group is in possession of 2000 diplomatic cables relating to the Dominican Republic. An analysis of the first cable to have been released, on corruption in the Supreme Court of Justice, can be seen here (video in spanish).