WikiLeaks' Collateral Damage

WikiLeaks backers say Zimbabwe websites shut down
President Robert Mugabe's wife Grace is suing a private newspaper for $15 million for publishing details from U.S. cables on Wikileaks saying she gained "tremendous profits" from illicit diamonds. The Activists, acting under the name Anonymous, said in a statement on their website: "We are targeting Mugabe and his regime in the ZANU-PF who have outlawed the free press and threaten to sue anyone publishing WikiLeaks." The Zimbabwean government web portal www.gta.gov.zw was unreachable on Thursda...

WikiLeaks backers say Zimbabwe websites shut down
LONDON | Thu Dec 30, 2010 3:10pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Cyber Activists say they have brought down Zimbabwean government websites after the president's wife sued a newspaper for publishing a Wikileaks cable linking her with illicit diamond trading. President Robert Mugabe's wife Grace is suing a private newspaper for $15 million for publishing details from U.S. cables on Wikileaks saying she gained "tremendous profits" from illicit diamonds. The activists, acting under the name Anonymous, sai...

Anonymous topples, defaces Zimbabwe government websites
Stumble This! The Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu-PF) website, Zimbabwean government website and Zimbabwean Finance Ministry website were the target of cyber attacks on Thursday by a loose-knit group of online hacktivists known as "Anonymous." The websites were hit with distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks after Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's wife, Grace Mugabe, sued a newspaper for publishing a Wikileaks cable that alleged she was connected with illicit diamond trade. All t...

Zimbabweans queue to meet South African visa deadline
By Jon Herskovitz Johannesburg | Fri Dec 31, 2010 8:00am EST Johannesburg (Reuters) - Queues stretched for kilometers at Immigration offices in South Africa on Friday as thousands of Zimbabweans tried to meet a year-end deadline to file papers for legalizing their stay in the country. South Africa allowed hundreds of thousands from Zimbabwe to enter without documents about two years ago when its neighbor was swept up in political violence and its already unsteady economy collapsed under the w...

Bush Administration Disapproved Muhammad Cartoon Reprinting
The Wikileaks dump establishes that the US Embassy in Copenhagen did not want the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten to reprint the Muhammad cartoons in 2006. (See here for a refresher on that crisis) Post´s public affairs counselor learned from a "Jyllands-Posten" Journalist (strictly protect) last week that the paper was considering several options to commemorate the cartoons´ first anniversary September 30, including re-publishing the original cartoons or running new ones on the subje...

64172
WikiLeaks is just a pretext. Zimbabwe's decrepit ruler has had the knives out for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai all along. ...

The American Government Enables Worldwide Sharia
This has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that we have been dismissed as “Euro-Trash”, and are therefore not worth reading in the USA. Furthermore, we’d have a much larger audience if we focused more on American politics. On the plus side: we can look at our own country from a slightly different perspective. By perching on a virtual Atlantic Wall and peering westward, sometimes we get to see American Foreign Policy from the standpoint of its benefic...

Nicholas van Praag: Whither Cte d'Ivoire?
This post originally appeared on the World Bank's Conflict blog on December 30, 2010. The stand-off between Messrs Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara in Côte D'Ivoire highlights the new role of regional organizations in dealing with the challenges of irresponsible leadership in their own backyards. Don't assume anything. Photo source FP. In microeconomics we assume perfect information in the same way we often assume responsible leadership in fragile states. While the former is a convenie...

Assange claims Arab officials spy on their own countries for the CIA
In an interview with al-Jazeera's Arabic language network on Wednesday, Wikileaker Julian Assenge claimed to have names of Arab Diplomats who are spying on their own countries for the CIA. “These officials are spies for the U.S. in their countries,” Assange said, according to Qatar's Peninsula newspaper. More: The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview which was a continuation of last week’s interface, that Assange had even shown him the files that contained the

Elcin Poyrazlar: US-Turkey Relations: A Real Cliffhanger
In the last days of 2010 US-Turkish relations managed to escape yet another crisis. Backed by the Armenian diaspora, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to hold a vote on a Controversial resolution that depicts the deaths of Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire as "Genocide". Turkey is extremely sensitive about this -- and put all its weight behind avoiding a Congressional vote. Relations between Ankara and Washington have already deteriorated substantially this year and the resol...

Your pick for Most Intriguing Person of 2010 is ...
He's been called a criminal, a spy and a champion of the First Amendment. Some think he’s a villain. Some see him as a hero. The only thing that’s beyond debate: Julian Assange has more intrigue than the pulp section of a bookstore. Wikileaks' mastermind, the guy who everyone loved to hate or loved to defend, got the most first-place votes (25%) on CNN.com's “Most Intriguing Person” poll for 2010. Following Assange were: 10. Antoine Dodson, whose thoughts a...

Naomi Wolf Anti-Feminist of the year
Her eyes are blue because she's a quart low Just when you think she’s plumbed the depths of stupidity, she grabs a shovel and starts digging: Why is Rape Different? As Swedish prosecutors’ sex-crime allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange play out in the international media, one convention of the coverage merits serious scrutiny. We know Assange by name. But his accusers - the two Swedish women who have brought the complaints against him - are consistently identif

Newsweek's Julian Assange Christmas Photos Are Really Quite Magical
One of the many faces of possibly being extradited, via Robert King/Newsweek ​Did anyone ever watch the sentimental, autobiographical Truman Capote short called "A Christmas Memory"? In it, an orphaned boy lives with a group of elderly relatives, one of whom is his best friend, an eccentric, childlike old woman known as "Sook." They gallivant through the hills and dales together, buying whiskey and making fruitcase and chopping down their very own Christmas Tree. That kind of sums up how...

"Many Arab officials are US spies in their own countries"
"... Top Officials in several Arab countries have close links with the CIA, and many officials keep visiting US embassies in their respective countries voluntarily to establish links with this key US intelligence agency, says Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks. “These officials are spies for the US in their countries,” Assange told Al Jazeera Arabic channel in an interview yesterday. The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview wh...

Dave Winer: America's Tienanmen and Blogger of the Year 2010
First, previous Blogger of the Years. In 2001, I chose a BOTY by nominating several people and letting the readers vote. That year, the choice was Joel Spolsky, who went on to do many great things, such as the Joel on Software books and the Stack Overflow website. Then in 2007, I named NakedJen as the BOTY. To Jen, being a blogger means being vulnerable, exposing who you are, and standing by yourself. A blogger is a sole practitioner, who sticks his or her neck out, but does it with conviction...

A WikiLeaks Christmas: Julian Assange gets festive
He may be under virtual House Arrest, but Wikileaks founder Julian Assange managed to enjoy a very Merry Christmas all the same....

TSA Harassment!!! (Comedy)
Please read our About Page, our Disclaimer, and our Comments Policy. Please note: InformationLiberation is neither liberal or conservative. When one takes the time to research the "liberal elite," whom the Conservatives oppose, and the "conservative elite," whom the liberals oppose, one finds both "elite" are one and the same. "Liberal" or "Conservative" is not a substantive choice, it is only the carefully crafted illusion of a choice, for both parties come together when they are instructed to....

Manning chat logs contain no smoking gun, Wired editors claim
Wired editors claim"> Stumble This! Editors with Wired Magazine have finally come forward to say that the chat logs in their possession contain no further evidence of a Conspiracy between Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the soldier accused of leaking 250,000 US State Department cables. In his Monday column, Salon's Glenn Greenwald suggested that Wired Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen committed "one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year" by withholding the majority of chat logs that co...

Montana's "Inquisition" and Wikileaks
So you are a little girl in grammar school in 1917. Your name is Christine Shupp and you live near Melville in Sweet Grass County. Every morning after the pledge of allegiance to the flag, the teacher makes you, alone, kneel down on the floor and kiss the flag. It is because you are German. You are a rancher in Rosebud County and you call WWI "a Millionaire's war" and you are dragged off by neighbors to jail. You're in a saloon and call war time food regulations "a big joke" and you are sentence...

US fumed as Karzai backed ex-warlord
WASHINGTON — US officials pressured President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry a year ago because of Corruption and ineffectiveness, and threatened to end aid unless he went. Karzai rebuffed the request, according to secret diplomatic records, and the minister — privately termed “the worst’’ by US officials — kept his perch at an agency that controls $2 billion in US and allied projects. The State ...

US spying on Iran from Turkey
Something tells me that the Turks will not allow this to continue. A document released by Wikileaks Wednesday says that the U.S. has been using its Embassy in Turkey to gather intelligence on Iran. According to the cable released from the U.S. Embassy in Turkey, the information was gathered through Iranian citizens living in Turkey. The Iranians who were contacted by the Americans were threatened by Iranian agents not to have contact with American Diplomats, the cable said, and the information...

Karzai keeps minister considered corrupt by US
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials pressured Afghan President Hamid Karzai to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry a year ago because of Corruption and ineffectiveness, and threatened to end aid unless he went. Karzai rebuffed the request, according to secret diplomatic records, and the minister — privately termed "the worst" by U.S. officials — kept his perch at an agency that controls $2 billion in U.S. and allied projects. The State Department corresp...

Protesters in Bilin remove parts of Israels wall
Hundreds of Protesters marched on Friday at the village of Bil’in in a year-end Protest of the Israeli-built wall on villagers’ lands. Despite an Israeli army Blockade on the village since early morning, Israeli and international supporters joined the protest. And the Palestinian Prime Minister and other local leaders joined the villagers of Bil’in this week. As is the case for the past six years, the Protest started after the midday prayers at the village Mosque had ended. As soon as pe

Will 2011 Be the Year of Israel?
I don't know that Shimon Peres can do much about it one way or the other, but I think there is a good chance that something is going to give in 2011. I can't see us going another year with the status quo on the peace process and on Iran. President Obama isn't going to be able to do a whole lot with Congress so he should have a lot more spare time for globetrotting and Diplomacy. At his advanced age and with his vast experience and way of thinking, [President Shimon] Peres identifies himself wi...

Danny Davis ends mayoral race to endorse Carol Moseley Braun
In a surprise move this evening, Danny Davis has bowed out of the Chicago mayoral race to endorse Carol Moseley Braun .  The effort of the Chicago Black powers-that-be have been trying to dwindle the choice of Black Candidates to just one since Mayor Richard M. Daley announced he wouldn't be running for another term in 2011.  Though groups of African-American Chicago politicians and businessmen have supported Davis over any other candidate, Davis is the candidate who has chosen to step...