2005: The London-based Financial Times reported on June 15 that President Mubarak intends to name a Vice President – a step he has refused to take throughout his 24 year tenure as President – after the September Presidential elections. We reached out to the reporter who filed the story, who confirmed to us that Soliman…
Wikileaks
Wikileaks is one of the biggest and most important stories in the world, challenging governments and journalists alike. I’ve been writing extensively about the group since 2006, featured an exclusive interview in 2008 with founder Julian Assange and examined the myriad of issues around the website. Assange himself asked me in the early days whether I wanted to be on the group’s board to vet incoming leaks and determine their veracity before publishing. I agreed but unfortunately this never eventuated.
Memo to MSM; Assange is less important than his leaks
Julian Assange, facing a barrage of personal attacks from media companies and foreign governments, rightly tells the UK Observer today that it’s highly revealing how much attention is directed at him as opposed to the allegations presented in the Wikileaks-released documents. He slept with women? Sure, that’s clearly more vital than criminality or torture backed…
Wikileaks shows that Egypt/US cuddling achieved little positive
Wikileaks cables released this week show the real relationship between Washington and Cairo, a toxic brew of money, slight pressure, fear of Islamism and reliability. Who needed whom more? US diplomats and their masters never imagined a different Egypt because they never wanted it to happen. It suited America just fine. The real rights of…
New York Times pledges to be on right side in “clash of values”
How very revealing. Here’s New York Times editor Bill Keller in a long essay for a forthcoming Times book, “Open Secrets: WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy: Complete and Expanded Coverage from The New York Times“, talking about his paper’s view on Wikileaks. Apart from the almost obligatory slamming of founder Julian Assange, Keller explains the…
We should support Bradley Manning part 8753
Land of the free? Earlier today Jane Hamsher and David House visited the Quantico Marine Corps Base to visit accused WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning and deliver a petition protesting the conditions of his confinement. David House is on Quantico’s visitation list, and both he and Jane have been there before. Before today’s visit, Jane called…
How Australians feel about their Julian Assange
Er: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was named “un-Australian of the Year” by a men’s magazine on Monday for publishing thousands of leaked US diplomatic cables on his whistleblowing site. Australian-born Assange edged out God, Denmark’s Princess Mary and Prime Minister Julia Gillard to take Australian lads’ title Zoo Weekly’s dubious award for promising to dump…
Holding the bastards to account
Yes: Robert Stary, Assange’s Melbourne-based lawyer, thinks his client’s defense should be pretty straightforward, because he considers Assange to be a journalist, protected by U.S. First Amendment guarantees of free speech. But Stary is worried about some possibilities: “Our main concern is really the possible extradition to the U.S. We’ve been troubled by the sort…
Reporting the occupation; voices in Jaipur
Today I chaired a session here in Jaipur, India at the literature festival with three men who know something about war and conflict. Brit Rory Stewart, New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson and the Washington Post’s David Finkel. We faced a packed audience – hundreds in an outdoor tent with overflowing crowds hanging out as far…
America doesn’t want to be on the side of democracy
So the US government is caught out lying about the supposed threat posed by Wikileaks. In many ways, the damage to Washington is more far-reaching. Maybe not in a practical sense but it’s image around the world. Suffice to say, it’s worsening. For example: Confidential US diplomatic cables from 2005 and 2006 released this week…
Ireland hearts US torture
Another government, post Wikileaks, shown to have lied post 9/11: Slowly but surely the entire shameful truth is coming out about Shannon airport, CIA renditions, and the lengths the Irish government went to avoid the evidence. One of the first Dublin embassy cables from Wikileaks confirmed that the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern knew…