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Scoop Links: Wikileaks Releases US Diplomatic Cables

Secret US Embassy Cables
Cable Viewer: http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html

Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.

The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.

This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.

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Every American schoolchild is taught that George Washington – the country’s first President – could not tell a lie. If the administrations of his successors lived up to the same principle, today’s document flood would be a mere embarrassment. Instead, the US Government has been warning governments -- even the most corrupt -- around the world about the coming leaks and is bracing itself for the exposures.

The full set consists of 251,287 documents, comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release).

The cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.

More at http://wikileaks.ch/ >>

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Guardian.co.nz: The US embassy cables

The articles published today and over coming weeks are drawn from US state department cables which were sent earlier this year to WikiLeaks, an organisation devoted to exposing secrets of all kinds. The Guardian is one of five publications around the world which has had prior access to the material – around 250,000 cables in all – on condition that we observed common deadlines over the timings of release. The others are the New York Times, LeMonde, El País and Der Spiegel. More>>

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NYTimes.com: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy - Interactive Feature

A mammoth cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the last three years, provides an unprecedented look at bargaining by embassies, candid views of foreign leaders and assessments of threats. The material was obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations in advance. More>>

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Spiegel Online: The US Diplomatic Leaks: A Superpower's View Of The World

251,000 State Department documents, many of them secret embassy reports from around the world, show how the US seeks to safeguard its influence around the world. It is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy. More>>

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LeMonde.fr - Wikileaks : Dans les coulisses de la diplomatie américaine
ELPAÍS.com- La mayor filtración de la historia deja al descubierto los secretos de la política exterior de EE UU

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Quick Reactions: Instant View: Wikileaks Releases US Diplomatic Cables | Reuters

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks released a cache of classified U.S. State Department documents on Sunday that provide candid views of foreign leaders and sensitive information on terrorism and nuclear proliferation. More>>

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Response: H Clinton Remarks On Latest Wikileaks Release

I want to take a moment to discuss the recent news reports of classified documents that were illegally provided from United States Government computers ... More>>

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Available information suggests the leak includes more than 1600 cables relating to New Zealand but the full text of these has yet to be released. However UNDP head and former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark is understood to be included in the instructions for diplomatic staff to gather specific personal information of UN staff More>>

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Kiwipolitico Link: Gettin’ Jiggy Wit Dat Wiki.

The latest document dump by wikileaks, more than a quarter of a million documents detailing “cables” (diplomatic messages) between the US State Department and 274 embassies and consulates from late 1966 until earlier this year, is a treasure trove for diplomatic historians and others interested in the minutia of diplomatic correspondence.

As a recipient of such cables in a former life I have found it highly entertaining and informative to read the musings of US diplomats about foreign leaders, sensitive subjects, US perspectives on those subjects at given points in time, with a fair bit of gossip thrown in. More>>

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Public Address Link: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys

This time it’s the diplomatic cables – and all the usual questions apply to the latest Wikileaks document dump, plus a few more. While the last two releases have come from the theatres of war, much of what is revealed in the diplomatic cables is the business-as-usual of a nation state; perhaps even the business of avoiding war... More>>

No Right Turn: The Big Leak

This morning, WikiLeaks dumped 251,287 secret US diplomatic cables on the world. They've led to a number of interesting revelations, both of the US's dirty dealings (and what it really thinks of its "allies"), and those of foreign governments. One of my favourites so far is 07BERLIN242, about the US government's efforts to avoid international arrest warrants being issued for the CIA kidnappers of Khalid El-Masri, an innocent German man who was rendered and tortured by the US. But there's a lot more; read any newspaper to find it.

But obviously, we're interested in New Zealand. No full cables from or about NZ have been published yet, but there are 1610 tagged as being from or about us, most of them from the US embassy in Wellington... More>>

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TVNZ: Wikileaks Releases US-NZ Diplomatic Cable

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New Zealand diplomats are readying themselves for possible embarrassment after whistleblowing website WikiLeaks released 250,000 United States State Department documents. More>>

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