Cablegate Wikileaks

Atanas Tchobanov is the spokesman for balkanleaks.eu and co-editor of Bivol.bg as well as a regular writer on WL Central.

Balkanleaks.eu is a whistleblowing Web site modeled on WikiLeaks, and formed to "promote transparency and fight the nexus of organized crime and political corruption in the Balkan states." The site solicits "confidential documents related to political, criminal or financial topics, by offering a manner of collection that is secure and anonymous." Bivol.bg is a Web site devoted to investigative journalism.

In a climate where only three years ago, the editor in chief of a Bulgarian online news provider was severely beaten following several attacks on journalists the same year, both balkanleaks.eu and Bivol.bg have been instrumental in exposing corruption and the abuse of power by organized crime and politicians. You can read some of Bivol's coverage here at WL Central and also here in Bulgarian and Macedonian.

On November 10, 2009, a blackout left 18 of the 26 Brazilian states without power, also effecting Paraguay. At the time, it was the worst accident of its kind for the Itaipu Plant, from its inauguration in 1982. Paraguayan and Brazilian authorities reported a "total shutdown" of the turbines. A map of the event can be accessed here.

The explanation of the event was never clear and is still considered the largest blackout occurred in the country. Brazilian authorities, specifically the Minister of Mines and Energy, Edison Lobao pointed to meteorological reasons for the event, which was confirmed later by a government commission to study the only open case.

As any keen observer must have noticed, the world-wide social turmoil of the last year is closely linked with the availability of information, or in other words, the stark quest for transparency with which corrupt Governments and corporations around the globe have suddenly come face to face with. As philosopher Slavoj Žižek recently put it in a debate held in London with Julian Assange and Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman : “We may all know that the emperor is naked, but the moment somebody publicly says the emperor is naked: everything changes.

In this massive uncovering Wikileaks’ Cablegate has played a crucial role, not only providing an ongoing stream of secret information to the general public, but by showing that a better society, one working efficiently to reach its true idealistic goals, absolutely needs transparency. In an interview with Forbes Assange used a clear metaphor to illustrate the effects of transparency in a society by comparing them to those that would occur in a market situation: “To put it simply, in order for there to be a market, there has to be information. A perfect market requires perfect information”, he also added that “WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical”. In other words if a Government is to work efficiently to achieve the goals it was elected for, citizens need clear and accurate reports on their leader’s actions; if they are failing to comply then they will be forced to do so by the general electorate. It is not to be implied, however, that Wikileaks and their sudden irruption in the scene have caused all the unrest directly: the emperor was already naked, they just called it out publicly and on a huge scale.

Next: Ibori offers to set up fund with stolen billions

"In a desperate bid to save himself from arrest and prosecution, former Delta State governor, James Ibori, offered to surrender a huge chunk of his stolen billions to a trust fund that could finance development projects, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable made available to NEXT.

The September 24, 2009 dispatch reported that Mr. Ibori, shortly before escaping to the United Arab Emirates after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission closed in on him, approached the United States embassy in Abuja for a deal that would have him give up between 20 and 50 percent of his loot in return for promises by foreign governments not to prosecute him. The former governor, the cable said, approached the embassy through a U.S. businessman and reputed lobbyist in the Washington, DC area, who estimated Mr. Ibori's stolen wealth to be about $3billion (N450 billion)."

Read more Cable

Next: Etteh is Obasanjo's romantic interest, say American officials

"That former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the previous and first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, Patricia Etteh, have had more than a passing relationship has been popular street gossip in Nigeria for a long time.

But the Americans took the matter beyond chatter. In an October 19, 2007 cable to Washington, Lisa Piascik, the Charge d'Affairs of the US embassy in Nigeria, stated that both politicians were sweethearts."