2011-08-25 WikiLeaks Notes: Latest News on #Cablegate Releases & #WikiLeaks

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.
- See @wlfind for some of the latest information found in the newly released WikiLeaks cables.

>> Updates on WikiLeaks news from #wlfind twitter hashtag (as curated by @wikileaks):

* 2010 Korea sells "experimental" Nuclear Reactor to Jordan, wants to sell to Turkey and the UAE.

* Omar Soliman told us Egypt wants Gaza to go "hungry" but not "starve".

* Tantawi/Soliman said Israel is welcome to reinvade Philadelphi corridor.

* In 2010 US pushed Colombia to ship small arms to Haiti.

* US concerned that resolution of the North Korean conflict might lead to China asking US to leave Korea.

* Wikileaks cable on the closure of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights by @DrMajeedAlalawi.

* A 2007 cable ties private oil field security to Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services.

* Bribery between Chinese and Sri Lankans exposed via Wikileaks' US embassy cable.

* US diplomat posed as Korean tourist in undercover visit to China tiger farm

* US embassy: "the Chinese presence looms large in Angola"

* Sale of Israeli Dead Sea Products in US based on massive organized fraud, violation of US law.

* US staff have 'meetings' with Scientology over Hamburg Interior Ministry employee Ursula Caberta.

06:05 PM Weaknesses in the management and regulation of China’s fast expanding nuclear sector have, according to U.S. diplomatic cables, permitted the use of cheap, out-of-date technology that vastly increases the risk of nuclear accident.

05:55 PM ‘Fresh blow’ delivered to the Indonesian government: in the latest documents published by WikiLeaks, Indonesia’s president Yudhoyono measures against corruption and the economic crisis are heavily criticized and questioned. Additionally, he is accused of using Indonesian intelligence to spy on his political rivals.

05:00 PM Matiullah Khan, paid by the Australian government to work with Australian special forces in Afghanistan, is believed to be involved in drug trade, a cable says.

''credible accounts indicate that Matiullah operates protection rackets, skims from the [police] payroll, and is involved in the illegal narcotics trade''

04:40 PM OpenLeaks' partner der Freitag's claim that certain documents originally obtained by WikiLeaks are now available online in unredacted form is mostly false.

04:20 PM #wlfind initiative an example of true democratization of information. via editorsweblog

03:40 PM Today’s second batch of thousands of cables from U.S. embassies in South Korea, Laos, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, East Timor, Philippines, Vietnam, Burma, Singapore, Equatorial Guinea, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Bolivia, Mali, Brunei, Mauritius, United Kingdom, Niger, Eritrea, Congo, Kenya, Czech Republic, Romania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Luxembourg, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Burundi, Namibia, Lativia, Estonia, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Argentina, Angola and Peru has just been published!

03:00 PM WikiLeaks will have released over 100.000 U.S. diplomatic cables by the end of today.
Support their work!

12:35 PM South-African party ANC’s practices compared to those of the apartheid regime, in a U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, with regards to its handling of the Abahlali baseMjondolo protest movement:

"The parallels between AbM's struggles against the ANC and the latter's fight against the apartheid regime cannot be ignored (…) The accounts of forced removals, violence, intimidation and leaders in hiding seem like echoes of a time supposedly gone forever."

ANC was democratically elected in 1994, after decades spent fighting the apartheid regime.

12:20 PM Thousands of new cables were released today by WikiLeaks concerning Sudan, Ukraine, Iraq, Spain, Egypt, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Tunisia and Poland.

You can easily search these cables with cablegatesearch.net.

Please share any interesting information you find at #wlfind. And do check the @wlfind twitter account for some of the most interesting revelations that have been found.

12:10 PM Today Suelette Dreyfus addressed questions regarding internet censorship, whistleblowing, WikiLeaks and other related topics during a facebook Q&A session.

"We have had this glorious decade and a half of incredible freedom from the freeness of the internet. And it has led to huge benefits to all societies. The minute that freedom is taken away, we become a lesser society. The internet is the last checkpoint - the last safeguard - before we cross the Berlin Wall into the old East Germany.", she wrote.
"When the parts of the mainstream media began to lose its way for a period, becoming embedded and compromised in its ability to tell the truth without fear or favour, it was the internet that put pressure on it to lift its game by doing information better. Competition is a great thing, but markets (in information and otherwise) only work if you have low barriers to entry for competitors. The internet provides that structure for information and the media. It basically says 'If you provide junky information, someone out there can - with little money - provide more truthful information.'"

12:05 PM The United States sought ‘talking points’ to deny abuse of Bahraini detainee in Guantanamo Bay.
A cable from 2005 documents an ‘action request’ on part of the U.S., following press reports on the sexual humiliation of a Bahraini detainee:

"Action request: Embassy has talking points on the hunger strikes, but requests talking points to respond publicly to questions about the treatment of Al Dossary, as well as any points that could be conveyed privately to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to the diplomatic note."

11:50 AM Libya’s attempt to purchase lethal weapons from U.S. firms in 2009 and other recent revelations from the newly released cables.

11:30 AM WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson will speak at the COLPIN 2011 Investigative Journalism Conference in Ecuador, on September 2. The talk will focus on the present and future of investigative journalism.

10:00 AM The making of an enourmous ‘Courage is Contagious’ graffiti in Lebanon.