In early 2006, Polish government officials visited Iran, and subsequently related their impression to US diplomatic staff. A detailed report can be found in the diplomatic cable 06WARSAW203.

MFA Director for Security Policy Robert Kupiecki provided the most in depth account: he describes how he was confronted with a number of rather disturbing arguments, including a biased understanding of the Middle East peace process, holocaust denial and conspiracy theories about the West trying to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear facilities.

One part of his lengthy negotiations with Iranian officials, however, is related in more detail:

"Foreign Minister Mutaki first raised the issue of Ali Ashgar Manzarpour, a British-Iranian citizen now in Polish custody awaiting extradition to the U.S. for violation of the ban on exports to Iran. Mutaki demanded Manzarpour be released and warned of a deterioration in bilateral relations should he be extradited to the U.S. Then Mutaki criticized Poland for voting in favor of a UN third Committee resolution regarding Iran's human rights record. He warned Iran would "open a file" on Poland's alleged hosting of a CIA "secret prison.""

In all likelihood, Mutaki refers to Stare Kiejkuty (see this link for our previous coverage).

This fragment proves that Iran strongly believed the CIA prison existed. It also proves that the Polish side considered it worth reporting the incident, and that the US perceived this piece of information to be important enough to be included in a cable. The latter is perhaps the most telling aspect of this story, and it fits into the general context of US diplomacy in this period. CIA rendition and detention are one of the leitmotivs of Cablegate.

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.

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

* Absolutely extraordinary cable on Indian extrajudicial assassinations 'encounter killings'.

* Georgia expresses concern over 2010 increase in Russian arms shipments to Armenia.

* WikiLeaks Cable Shows US Embassy Believed Jakarta Election Was ‘Rigged’.

* Tantawi sucking up to centcom in 2006, said "simple" Egyptians don't understand benefits of US-Egypt relationship.

10:35 PM Muammar Gaddafi was a key financier of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its military wing and offered support to terrorist groups world wide.
Excerpt of a U.S. diplomatic cable from 1991:

"On rare occasions the Libyans have used couriers to deliver money to terrorist organizations; the transfer usually occurs in a third country"

The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

A redress is a means to set right, to remedy or rectify; or a satisfaction for wrong done.

On #Sept17 US Day of Rage has peaceable assemblies of people planned in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.  We call on the rest of the nation to join us and #occupywallstreet.

Why?

Wall Street is a huge contributor to the political machine, which in turns enables Wall Street's corporate plunder of our nation. Both the Democratic and Republican parties set the bankster agenda because of the MONEY. When we at US Day of Rage speak of 'taking the MONEY out of politics', we have no choice but to focus on the sources of the MONEY.

Bought by hard and soft dollars, disloyal, incompetent, and wasteful interests have usurped our nation’s civil and military power, spawning a host of threats to liberty and national security.

Authored by Nikolas Kozloff

Chávez's Former Wife Herma Marksman

At the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, diplomatic staff routinely spoke to the rightist Chávez opposition during the Bush years. But in 2004, an odd encounter occurred between the Americans and Chávez's former wife, Herma Marksman, who held a rather disparaging view of the Venezuelan president. Marksman, a history professor who was married to Chávez between 1984 and 1993, told U.S. diplomats that the firebrand populist was ambitious from an early age and "even thought of running the country as a 20 year-old."

Later, as a junior officer, Chávez fell under the influence of Douglas Bravo, a former Communist and guerrilla leader from the 1960s. According to Marksman it was Bravo, and not Chávez, who developed the political philosophy of the Bolivarian Revolution. Though Marksman cast Chávez as an intellectual lightweight, she added that he "should not be underestimated." The Venezuelan was "an excellent storyteller, who often characterizes his opponents as devils, which is a powerful religious symbol to the poor."

According to Marksman, Chávez was unscrupulous, "trusted few people" and "does not have true friends." If he had a problem, Marksman added, Chávez would only confide in his brother Adan or Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Marksman remarked cryptically that several individuals within the Chávez government were "dangerous," including some figures in the inner circle such as Diosdado Cabello (for more on him, stay tuned for future posts).

Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, in an interview for the political TV show “Face to Face” with host, Tsvetanka Rizova, September 4, 2011. (Video here):

TR: There was information, released by WikiLeaks, showing your position on GMO had been quite hypocritical.

BB: Released by whom?

TR: Hmm, I don’t know if you are aware that your ministers went to…

BB: I do not read them.

TR: Well, let me tell you. Your ministers…

BB: I do not read them.

TR: Your ministers went there and have said that due to public pressure we will not plant GMO crops, but otherwise we want them and count on Europe to make us do it.

BB: I think that…

TR: What are our guarantees that you are sincere when it comes to the environment?

BB: (thinking) What minister went there?

TR: Miroslav Naydenov (Agriculture Minister) is cited there.

BB: I asked him; he said he did not go. And he did not discuss any such matter.

...

BB: And about GMO… The way you presented it, it looks like someone had been a hypocrite.

TR: Yes, this is how it looks like, according to WikiLeaks; it was simply hypocritical.

BB: Who is WikiLeaks?

TR: How come, who is WikiLeaks? (BB: Who does it represent; who decides…) The ones who release the cables…no one has denied these cables so far.

BB: Yes, because no one wants to deal with them, because once they start denying them…

TR: Don’t you think that if this was a lie, there would have been some official statement? Everyone keeps quiet; it means they are true.

BB: If they were true, they would have published them all, from A to Z, not selectively, to choose and release depending on when and what is convenient… in connection…I am talking about those on Bulgaria.

TR: We must come to conclusion now.

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.
The @wikileaks twitter account is constantly being updated with the latest WikiLeaks/Cablegate2 news.

08:40 PM Extraterrestrial life confirmed, by Tajik leader.

05:20 PM Both U.S. Embassy in Tashkent and UNICEF opposed a boycott to child labor in the cotton industry in Uzbeskistan, seemingly in an attempt to keep good relations with the country. Cables show both institutions overlooked NGOs reports regarding exploitation of children, preferring to rely on information from ‘staff of international organizations on the ground in Uzbekistan’.

Despite NGO findings of coercion and intimidation, in a cable dated January 9, 2009, the Embassy still continued to report its belief that child labor was not forced, prefering to use the term "mobilized" versus "forced labor" and that school-children's cotton picking was "an ingrained part of the local culture" and was an "exhausting rite of passage":

"Many students look forward to the annual mobilization to pack their guitars, trail mix-equivalent snacks, vodka (for university students), and head out to the farms. The work can be exhausting, but they make the best of it. Students sometimes have campfires and enjoy evening entertainment, which provide opportunities to mingle with members of the opposite sex more freely than at home."

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.

09:30 PM U.S. Embassy cables published by WikiLeaks regarding pharmaceutical drugs and the U.S. Government’s efforts to raise medicine prices in developing countries are the subject of a piece authored by James Love, where he also comments on media reaction to the publication of Cablegate2 by WikiLeaks:

While I join those who are greatly saddened by this lapse in security, and aware of the consequences, I am also shocked at the bitter attacks on WikiLeaks, which seem unbalanced, under the circumstances.

After reading these cables, it is difficult to stomach the defenses of US secrecy. Forcing developing countries to raise the price of drugs has predictable and well known consequences -- it kills people, and increases suffering. Many people could care less -- including reporters and editors of newspapers. How much of this ends up in the Washington Post, the New York Times or the Guardian these days? But others who do care now have more access to information, and more credibility in their criticisms of government policy, because of the disclosures of the cables.

09:00 PM Cables show that former Blackwater employees continued to work in Iraq after the firm was banned from the country following a shooting in 2007, during which guards hired by the company killed 17 Iraqi citizens.

Your Excellency,

One year ago you were opening a bridge connecting the Roma district in Tsarevo with the rest of the Black Sea town.

You were standing among the audience next to the town’s Mayor, Petko Arnaudov, and Regional Governor, Konstantin Grebenarov. Both are former members of a party, declared criminal by current Bulgarian legislation – the Bulgarian Communist Party, and are agents of the macabre Communist State Security, DS.

I stood behind you with a large portrait of Lenin. The following message was written on its back: “Уберите посла, верните Вождя. Агент ДС “Гоце” и Агент ДС “Иванов” град Мичурин” (In Russian, meaning “Take away the Ambassador, bring back the Leader. DS Agent Gotse (which is the alias of current Bulgarian President, Georgi Parvanov, as Communist State Security Agent) and DS Agent, Ivanov (which is the alias of the Mayor Petko Arnaudov), town of Michurin).

I was hoping that you, personally, and the attending media would notice the board and ask me why I was standing there and what this curious installation meant. But the first one to notice me, even before you, was the Mayor, who became outraged and said: “Who is the Gipsy with Lenin?”

Police arrived and took me away to the precinct where I received a citation for violating public order, even though I did not violate anything. They also confiscated my sign. I suppose meanwhile Agent Ivanov (Petko Arnaudov) took you to an official dinner where you proposed toasts for the integration of Roma.

Minutes before the policemen took me away, I saw you hugging and kissing Agent Ivanov. It was truly touching. The Roma applauded, the municipal female workers were taking deep breaths and were moved.

Photo credit AFP.

We all know the reasons why Hezbollah is keeping its arms in Lebanon, despite the liberation of the South from Israeli occupation (except Sheba’s farms). This is directly related to an Iranian decision facilitated by Syria, so it’s much more than a matter of pure ‘national interest’. We, in Lebanon are too nice that we serve the ‘whole region’s interests’, and we have been doing so for almost centuries.

But it’s different when you hear it from the Speaker Nabih Berri straight to the American Ambassador. Anyway, this is what the US cable 01BEIRUT3057 released by Wikileaks told us. By the way, our politicians don’t tell us this in public, or when they stand for elections, although we know it, but they are proud to admit to the big powers that they are not masters of their own destiny, and they are just pawns for other ‘big powers’. Ironically, Nabih Berri accuse his Lebanese political opponents of being pawns to their American masters (which is true in some examples). Is this some type of schizophrenia?

The cable goes back to 2001, 18 months after the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon. In it, Berri said that the path Hizballah chooses (supposedly provocative or passive, or to disarm or not) would depend on the course of US-Iranian relations…then Bla bla bla on Sheba’ farms…then Berri predicated that there would be no end to cross-border attacks until there was a comprehensive peace agreement. Ok, I don’t know, they keep tell us that Hizballah’s arms are there to defend Lebanon (yes, but may be on the way).

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.

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

* FBI Director asked Mubarak for Egyptians' fingerprint records for FBI 'global fingerprint database'.

* Saudi King Abdullah "must have had a hand" in forced divorce verdict, maybe to "set an example".

* An entire report of the involvement of Greece and Souda bay military base on the Iraq war.

* Palestine Authority pursuit of Israel through the ICC would be viewed as war by Israel.

* Greeks were told that US base in Crete had no involvement with NATO bombing. Truth: it supplied fuel to B52.

* Israeli official: "We don't do Gandhi well" in reference to how Israel deals with nonviolent protests.

* "Unrest December 2009 Athens - What happened" : A full report from US embassy cables.

* U.S. Ambassador : "Singapore elects, um selects its President".

U.S. media outlets have recently been abuzz about new documents showing that, for the past decade, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) ran a secret anti-terrorism unit headed by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials. Not only did this "Intelligence Division" -- which some have described as the NYPD's "own version of the CIA" -- blur the lines previously separating domestic law enforcement and national security, but the Division's "Demographics Unit" deliberately targeted racial minorities as part of a "human mapping" system modeled on Israel's operations in the West Bank.

The Huffington Post reported:

"Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD has become one of the country's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying. ...

"The department has dispatched teams of undercover officers, known as 'rakers,' into minority neighborhoods ... according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as 'mosque crawlers,' to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing."

Anonymous #OpTarmageddon Official Press Release - For Immediate Release:

Early in July, deep below the radar of the Tar Sands Oil Industry, Anonymous and GreenSec boarded the LulzSub and began a journey of environmental justice. This journey had only one endpoint: success. With all the attention Anonymous recently had received , a sub was the sure choice to ensure maximum impact and minimum damage to the fleet. When Big Brother watches, you go under the surface.

All July, we supported a protest against the Tar Sands oil industry, which ended in protesters dancing on the meeting table of the Governor of Montana. We networked like ants in the internets to get word out about this civil disobedience, and about the issue at hand. Anonymous, the world's greatest think tank, then spent weeks researching the corporations involved, uncovering mountains of email addresses and contact info for employees who work to destroy our planet for profit.

Anonymous then brought the LulzSub to the surface for air and snacks. We immediately caught wind of Tar Sands industry representatives creating fake Twitter and Facebook profiles to spread false enthusiasm about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, we created an Orinoco Flow of facts and links, sustaining a week-long information campaign. We widely spread word of the upcoming Washington D.C. protests, where now, over 850 people have been arrested at the White House for peaceful sit-ins. By mirroring the actions of these "astroturfers" we hoped to provide a true counterpoint to the artificial hurrahs of the fake accounts.

Today’s release of all Wikileaks cables included the complete set of cables from the US embassy in Manila. Most interesting are the cables that deal with meetings between the Philippine government and the US embassy in the context of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s fight for political survival amid allegations of election fraud. Cables reveal that ranking Arroyo government officials were already contemplating the declaration of a state of emergency to crackdown on opposition groups.

In 2005, wiretapped phone conversations involving the president and an election official were leaked to the public. Malacanang at first tried to deny the authenticity of the tapes yet at the same time sought to suppress their dissemination. In the tapes, Arroyo was asking Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to help secure her 1 million vote lead over nearest rival Fernando Poe, Jr.

In a confidential US embassy cable dated June 17, 2005, the US embassy candidly acknowledged that the voice on the “Garci tapes” was that of the president. “Garcillano could be a key witness. He is apparently the person President Arroyo is speaking with in the audiotape,” the cable said.

“Snippets of the tapes featuring what certainly seems to be the President’s voice have even been re-mixed with music to make what is becoming a very popular ring tone for cell phones,” the embassy noted.

However, in an earlier cable, the US embassy said it received transcripts of the “Garci tapes” several weeks before their release, but noted there was no smoking gun to link Malacanang to election fraud.

In the same cable, it was revealed that the Arroyo government, through two officials, suspected the US of involvement in the release of the Garci tapes but the US embassy was quick to deny this.

Thousands took to the streets to demand Arroyo’s ouster or resignation. A broad anti-Arroyo united front had taken shape.

Emergency rule now an option

From 2004-2010, the Philippines witnessed one of the worst waves of human rights violations in its history. Hundreds of activists were killed or abducted. Hundreds more were arrested and faced with trumped-up charges. The magnitude of the abuses caught the attention of the international community. The issue also further isolated the regime of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The main suspects in the killings and disappearances were state security forces.

There were numerous embassy cables on the US position regarding extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. My own estimate is that there were more than 40 cables that referenced extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. These cables ranged from scenesetters for visiting US officials, to actual reports on the actions taken by the US embassy and the Philippine government on EJK’s.

But while there were strong statements of concern to address the killings of activists and journalists, the US continued to provide economic and military aid to the Arroyo government. While the US said “there’s more that needs to be done”, the US also noted progress in the human rights situation as well as Arroyo’s “seriousness” in addressing the problem.

The Philippines remains the biggest recipient of military aid in this region of Asia, receiving some $30 million annually in Foreign Military Financing, education and training as well as Excess Defense Articles. Human rights issues in the country must be taken in the context of US support for Philippine security forces. With the nationwide phenomenon of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, a feat that can only be accomplished by state security forces, there is a valid perception that US tax dollars funding of human rights abuses committed by the AFP.

Photo credit GlobalVoicesOnline.

Who said that CIA didn’t know where Imad Mughniyeh was, or what was his job, or didn’t have any hints!?

This is from Wikileaks 95BEIRUT2749 cable released 3 days ago, in its para 8:

"for what it is worth, papers also report trends which suggest business as usual for Hizballah. The often inaccurate daily ‘Nida Al-Watan’ reported the re-election of Imad Mughniyah as the central security chief, with four assitants named Mustafa Badr Ad-Dine …"

Have you noticed who was mentioned too? Yep, the suspect in Rafiq Hariri’s murder as per the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (as of 2011), Mustafa BadrEddine. What a coincidence!

Ironically, the partisan newspaper Nida Al-Watan was right in this reporting. The cable is written in a tone suspecting this report, with no further comment on Mughniyeh who was one of the most wanted men by the CIA at the time. For me, it seemed business as usual to the cable author.

It’s not clear why the US didn’t make a big fuss out of it in Lebanon or with its government. It may be because they knew they couldn’t reach him in diplomatic means as they would have had to go via Syria, Iran and Hezbollah. And they may have simply waited for 9 years before they got him in their democratic way.

In my ‘Lebanon, the medieval Ottoman country’ post, I described 14March leaders as a bunch of sectarian warlords. I was not indicating only to their history during the Lebanese civil war, but rather to their current and recent history in peace time.

These leaders are currently advocating building a civil unarmed society in Lebanon (which is their main argument against Hezbollah), but in reality they do not mind getting armed to fight Hezbollah. I think they surely serve foreign interests in a way or another too, or at least they accept to be used. Let’s be practical here, we know how international politics is conducted, and politicians have to exploit international balances and political opportunities, and this is fine. But to ‘exploit’ opportunities to go back to civil war? I am not sure about that.

So the biggest scandal of all, which was revealed by the recently released American diplomacy cables by Wikileaks (and Al-Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon), was their readiness, intention and initiative to seek arms. I don’t deny that Hezbollah was acting like a militia then and still, but this problem surely can’t be solved by having other ‘too many militias’. After 25 years of civil war (1975-1990), 200,000 estimated fatalities, 1 million wounded, and 350,000 displaced person, I am completely baffled that some Lebanese leaders and their supporters still believe that military fights can sort out political and social problems on the ground.

I list below the released cables with links to the original source, which show the Lebanese leaders hypocritical and stupid mentality:

A new Wikileaks release 05WARSAW4030 finally proves that the United States and Poland colluded in their efforts to silence questions about a CIA prison in Masovia.

This is what the cable says:

"[FM] Meller's staff expects that the renditions and "CIA prisons" issue will continue to dog the Polish government, despite our and the Poles' best efforts to put this story to rest. In response to sustained media pressure, PM Marcinkiewicz announced December 10 that his government will order an internal probe "to close the issue." Meller anticipates being asked about renditions by the Polish press while in Washington, and the MFA has asked that we remain in close contact to coordinate our public stance."

In another cable 05WARSAW4037 from the same year, the issue is brought up again:

"[Polish government official Schnepf] noted the GOP's need to find tangible benefit from the mission to gain public support for a continued Polish presence in Iraq. Schnepf also suggested that media reports about alleged CIA prisons in Poland might further undercut this public support."

In hindsight, the assessment that this issue will continue to dog the Polish government was certainly right. Earlier this year, a complaint against Poland was filed with the European Court of Human Rights, amongst others for a failure to investigate the CIA prison. A criminal case which was launched in Poland in 2008 is still ongoing.

The wording of the cable strongly suggest that the US and Poland were trying to influence the press coverage on the matter. How this was to be carried out is not detailed. In fact, very few cables on the topic exist, compared to, for instance, a similar case in Lithuania.

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.

Cablegate2 release
WikiLeaks' full Cablegate archive became available online, primarily due to the negligent publishing of its password in a book authored by Guardian journalist David Leigh.

Now the 251.287 US Embassy cables are also available through WikiLeaks and in searchable format at cables.mrkva.eu.
The whistleblowing organization urges the public to download and mirror the Cablegate2 archive and to continue the disclosure of the important information contained in the cables, by helping Al-Jazeera search the documents and sharing information via twitter using the hashtag #wlfind.

WikiLeaks has released a Statement on the circumstances leading to the disclosure of the archive:

…‘Every day that the corrupt leadership of a country or organization knows of a pending WikiLeaks disclosure is a day spent planning how to crush revolution and reform.

The Guardian has now responded to Wikileaks' accusations. They state that they were told that the password was only temporary, and that the server from which the file was downloaded was only live for a few hours.

They also claim that the file was available on BitTorrent at some point.

This statement raises a valid point, namely how the files came to be posted on the web. Had their present location been controlled by Wikileaks, the file would have been removed by now. According to Spiegel (original), the file was posted online by "supporters", after it was handed back by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who had seized the Wikileaks servers. According to Heise, he was asked to return the old Wikileaks website, which he did. The file in question must have been transferred along with it.

Please see our previous coverage for more information.

Wikileaks just posted this editorial:

WIKILEAKS EDITORIAL - Guardian disclosure

Wed Aug 31 23:44:00 2011 GMT

A Guardian journalist has negligently disclosed top secret WikiLeaks’ decryption passwords to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables.

Knowledge of the Guardian disclosure has spread privately over several months but reached critical mass last week. The unpublished WikiLeaks’ material includes over 100,000 classified unredacted cables that were being analyzed, in parts, by over 50 media and human rights organizations from around the world.

For the past month WikiLeaks has been in the unenviable position of not being able to comment on what has happened, since to do so would be to draw attention to the decryption passwords in the Guardian book. Now that the connection has been made public by others we can explain what happened and what we intend to do.

WikiLeaks has commenced pre-litigation action against the Guardian and an individual in Germany who was distributing the Guardian passwords for personal gain.

Over the past nine months, WikiLeaks has been carefully releasing US diplomatic cables according to a carefully laid out plan to stimulate profound changes. A number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, believe that the co-ordinated release of the cables contributed to triggering the Arab Spring. By forming partnerships with over 90 other media and human rights organizations WikiLeaks has been laying the ground for positive political change all over the world.