2011-08-29 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):

* US Embassy: rights "deteriorated" under Honduras coup regime. Yet State Department never decried it.

* List of US programs initially considered for suspension in Honduras after June 28, 2009 coup.

* 240 WikiLeaks cables of big pharma exclusivity deals.

* Honduran anti-coup activist found decapitated, country's FBI detained him earlier that day.

* Diamond aircraft used for civilian surveillance, sold to China, US, Saudi Arabia.

* U.S. Ambassador: "eroded trust in New Zealand thereby threatening intelligence cooperation" response: "bully tactics".

* Nestle was buying Mugabe farm milk in unmarked tanker - previous owner forced to sell farm cheap.

* Pfizer threatens to withdraw drugs from Philippine market if price controls are imposed.

* Bombs to be transfered "quietly to avoid allegations USG is helping Israel prepare for a strike against Iran".

* US ambassador's secret Hanoi sex guide.

* Panama: Media stifling of a 2004 election-eve bomb shell.

* "Ivanhoe's former President Robert Friedland ... seemed to claim that the Gov of Mongolia was in his pocket".

* Sexism and low pay in Russian diplomatic corps.

* Ten Iraqis (5 children) killed in US raid: residents of home handcuffed & executed; house bombed.

09:05 WikiLeaks has published a Statement on the 9 Month Anniversary of Cablegate: Release of 133,887 Cables, as well as a list of 30 new revelations from the crowdsourcing initiative #wlfind.

08:55 PM Andrew Peterson, prosecutor in the Grand Jury investigation against WikiLeaks, has been ‘required to take an unexpected business trip’ out of the United States, thus leading to the possible delay of the next court hearing, originally scheduled for September 2, 2011.

Through their twitter account, WikiLeaks has asked why no reference to Daniel Domscheit-Berg on the course of this investigation:

Many names are on the various WL-US grand jury docs. JA [Julian Assange], Rop [Gonggrijp], even BJ [Birgitta Jonsdottir]. But never DDB [Daniel Domscheit-Berg]. Why?

In another tweet, WikiLeaks addresses the rumors that there are unredacted documents originally obtained by the organization currently circulating online, unprotected:

"WikiLeaks 'insurance' files have not been decrypted. All press are currently misreporting. There is an issue, but not that issue."

There has been no 'leak at WikiLeaks'. The issue relates to a mainstream media partner and a malicious individual.

07:00 PM Residents of Cebu, Philippines, may have allowed death squads to go on killing sprees in the city in the mid-2000s as a means to combat crime, a US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks said.

05:00 PM Julian Assange has been detained for 265 days without any charges.

04:45 PM In a letter to George W. Bush, recently published by WikiLeaks, Turkish parliament member Hasan Korkmazdcan, expresses hope for complicity in the denial of the Armenian Genocide:

"Turkish studies proved that the Armenian claims are the result of fanaticism. We are hopeful that you will resist this campaign which is based on a false interpretation of events which found no proof in the archives of the Ottoman Empire," Korkmazdcan wrote.

Furthermore, President Bush did not support the non-binding congressional resolution recognizing the massacre of 1.5 million of Armenians as Genocide, which was however, passed, despite the White House's opposition. via PanArmenian

04:30 PM Former El Salvador President Antonio Saca sent troops to Iraq in order to ‘please Washington’ and ‘maintain his close friendship’ with George W. Bush, reveals WikiLeaks media partner El Faro.

01:00 PM U.S. diplomatic cables provided to the Herald confirm the brutality of the Fiji military regime.

10:00 AM At least one prominent member of an Israeli crime family was able to reach the United States with the intent to commit murder as a result of exemption from U.S. law, writes Ali Abunimah, in a piece based on a cable from May 2009 titled “Israel: A Promised Land for Organized Crime?”, regarding U.S. concerns with the ‘global reach’ of Israel’s organized crime.