blakehounshell One thing that emerges from the WikiLeaks cables: U.S. ambassadors are generally sophisticated and knowledgable; other officials less so 8 minutes ago via web

2002 interview with Peter Christopherson

Dept of State letter to WikiLeaks/Julian Assange

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(PDF)

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  WikiLeaks is what happens when the entire US government is forced to go through a full-body scanner 

US embassy cables: browse the database

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Pakistan's Ambassador to US with some unhysterical Wikileaks real talk

US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment

How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked

An innocuous-looking memory stick, no longer than a couple of fingernails, came into the hands of a Guardian reporter earlier this year. The device is so small it will hang easily on a keyring. But its contents will send shockwaves through the world's chancelleries and deliver what one official described as "an epic blow" to US diplomacy.

The 1.6 gigabytes of text files on the memory stick ran to millions of words: the contents of more than 250,000 leaked state department cables, sent from, or to, US embassies around the world.
What will emerge in the days and weeks ahead is an unprecedented picture of secret diplomacy as conducted by the planet's sole superpower. There are 251,287 dispatches in all, from more than 250 US embassies and consulates. They reveal how the US deals with both its allies and its enemies – negotiating, pressuring and sometimes brusquely denigrating foreign leaders, all behind the firewalls of ciphers and secrecy classifications that diplomats assume to be secure. The leaked cables range up to the "SECRET NOFORN" level, which means they are meant never to be shown to non-US citizens.
As well as conventional political analyses, some of the cables contain detailed accounts of corruption by foreign regimes, as well as intelligence on undercover arms shipments, human trafficking and sanction-busting efforts by would-be nuclear states such as Iran and Libya. Some are based on interviews with local sources while others are general impressions and briefings written for top state department visitors who may be unfamiliar with local nuances.
Intended to be read by officials in Washington up to the level of the secretary of state, the cables are generally drafted by the ambassador or subordinates. Although their contents are often startling and troubling, the cables are unlikely to gratify conspiracy theorists. They do not contain evidence of assassination plots, CIA bribery or such criminal enterprises as the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan years, when anti-Nicaraguan guerrillas were covertly financed.
One reason may be that America's most sensitive "top secret" and above foreign intelligence files cannot be accessed from Siprnet, the defence department network involved.
The US military believes it knows where the leak originated. A soldier, Bradley Manning, 22, has been held in solitary confinement for the last seven months and is facing a court martial in the new year. The former intelligence analyst is charged with unauthorised downloads of classified material while serving on an army base outside Baghdad. He is suspected of taking copies not only of the state department archive, but also of video of an Apache helicopter crew gunning down civilians in Baghdad, and hundreds of thousands of daily war logs from military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It was childishly easy, according to the published chatlog of a conversation Manning had with a fellow-hacker. "I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like 'Lady Gaga' … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing ... [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history." He said that he "had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months".
Manning told his correspondent Adrian Lamo, who subsequently denounced him to the authorities: "Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public ... Everywhere there's a US post, there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. Worldwide anarchy in CSV format ... It's beautiful, and horrifying."
He added: "Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain."
Manning, according to the chatlogs, says he uploaded the copies to WikiLeaks, the "freedom of information activists" as he called them, led by Australian former hacker Julian Assange.
Assange and his circle apparently decided against immediately making the cables public. Instead they embarked on staged disclosure of the other material – aimed, as they put it on their website, at "maximising political impact".
In April at a Washington press conference the group released the Apache helicopter video, titling it Collateral Murder.
The Guardian's Nick Davies brokered an agreement with Assange to hand over in advance two further sets of military field reports on Iraq and Afghanistan so professional journalists could analyse them. Published earlier this year simultaneously with the New York Times and Der Spiegel in Germany, the analyses revealed that coalition forces killed civilians in previously unreported shootings and handed over prisoners to be tortured.
The revelations shot Assange and WikiLeaks to global prominence but led to angry denunciations from the Pentagon and calls from extreme rightwingers in the US that Assange be arrested or even assassinated. This month Sweden issued an international warrant for Assange, for questioning about alleged sexual assaults. His lawyer says the allegations spring from unprotected but otherwise consensual sex with two women.
WikiLeaks says it is now planning to post a selection of the cables. Meanwhile, a Guardian team of expert writers has been spending months combing through the data. Freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke obtained a copy of the database through her own contacts and joined the Guardian team. The paper is to publish independently, but simultaneously with the New York Times and Der Spiegel, along with Le Monde in Paris and El País in Madrid. As on previous occasions the Guardian is redacting information likely to cause reprisals against vulnerable individuals.

David Leigh @'The Guardian' 

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Blogging the WikiLeaks cables

Right-Wing Think Tank Praised Ireland's 'Economic Freedom' ... and Then Its Economy Crashed

It hasn't even been a year since the Heritage Foundation placed Ireland among the top ten countries on its Economic Freedom Index. I wasn't intending to write about Ireland at the time, but any time the Heritage Foundation holds up any country as an economic example attention must be paid. It's an invaluable opportunity to learn what not to do, in terms of economic policy.

Even way back then, in April of this year, Ireland's economic crisis was serious enough to make it a real head-scratcher that anyone would place it on top ten list, and hold it as an example of economic success, as the Heritage Foundation's Index is intended to do. Ireland is indeed an example. It's nearly a textbook example of the epic failure of conservative economics to grow an economy and austerity to spark a recovery.

At the time, Heritage glossed over Ireland's economic trouble with a short paragraph.

Despite the crisis, Ireland’s overall levels of economic freedom remain high, sustained by such institutional strengths as strong protection of property rights, a low level of corruption, efficient business regulations, and competitive tax rates. These strengths provide solid foundations on which to build recovery and curb long-term unemployment.

That short paragraph is actually loaded with irony. The very "institutional strengths" that Heritage highlights effectively neutered the "Celtic Tiger" that the Irish economy was suppose to be. Just a year before it was written, Ireland became the first Eurozone country to fall into a recession. A month after Heritage published its index, Ireland's recession evolved into a depression . As in the U.S., Ireland's economic boom was driven by a housing bubble that took the economy down with it when it burst, with shrinking economic output and spiraling unemployment following in its wake. The bursting of that bubble was made even more devastating by the effect of conservative policies on the Irish economy.

On top of the housing bubble, Ireland's economy largely relied on exports, 90% of which were made by foreign-owned multinationals, attracted by the corporate tax rate that was among the lowest in Europe. The tax rate was sweetened by more lucrative concessions designed to attract multinationals. Indeed, when tax-cutting advocate Charlie McCreevy became Labour Finance Minister in 1997, he soon implemented what some deemed were unnecessary property-tax incentives, along with a 20% cut in capital gains tax for property investment. Banking on permanent prosperity, essentially, led to tax cuts that have deprived the country of much-needed reserves, and left it stuck choosing between severe budget cuts in service of the national debt, or investing in programs to keep people working and stimulate the economy...

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Terence Heath @'Alternet'

US warns Wikileaks' Assange on possible leak

N.Korea "readies missiles" China suggests talks

♪♫ Primal Scream - Loaded (26-11-10 @ Olympia, London)

♪♫ Primal Scream - Damaged (26-11-10 @ Olympia, London)

Police radar guns could help identify suicide bombers

The radar guns police use to spot speeding motorists have inspired a version that aims to identify a would-be suicide bomber in a crowd.

A radar gun fires microwave pulses at a car and measures the Doppler shift of the reflected signal to calculate its velocity. However, the strength and polarisation of the reflected signal – the "radar cross section" – can provide additional information about the size and shape of the reflecting object and the material it is made from.

William Fox of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and John Vesecky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, wondered whether the wiring in a suicide vest would alter the radar cross section of a bomber enough to allow a radar gun to pick him or her out in a crowd.

To find out, the pair used software to simulate how radar signals at 1 gigahertz and 10 gigahertz would be reflected by the most common arrangements of looped wiring typically used by suicide bombers. They found that the clearest reflected signals were in the 10 gigahertz range...

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Paul Marks @'New Scientist'

US-South Korean exercises begin

'Read The Fourth Ammendment, Perverts'

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Remember...

The Real Threat to America

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” 

UCL Occupation Coverage - Billy Bragg Speech

Bit worried exactly where his other hand is...

Samuel Beckett BBC Radio Plays

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1. A Piece of Monologue (UK, 1986)

BBC Radio Cast: Ronald Pickup

2. Cascando (UK, 1964)

BBC Radio Directed by: Donald McWhinnie Cast: Denys Hawthorne, Patrick Magee Music composed by Marcel Mihalovici

3. Cascando (Ireland, 1991)

RTE Radio Directed by: William Styles Cast: Bosco Hogan, Frank O’Dwyer Music by Gerard Victory

4. Embers (UK, 1959)

BBC Radio Directed by: Donald McWhinnie Cast: Jack MacGowran, Kathleen Michael, Kathleen Helme, Patrick Magee Music performed by Cicely Hoye

5. Rough for Radio (UK, 1976)

BBC Radio Directed by: Martin Esslin Cast: Billie Whitelaw, Harold Pinter, Patrick Magee, Michael

6. Words and Music (UK, 1962)

BBC Radio Directed by: Michael Bakewell Cast: Patrick Magee, Felix Felton Music composed by John Beckett

7. The Old Tune (Ireland)

Adaptation by Beckett in English of La manivelle, a radio play by Robert Pinget RTE Radio Directed by: William Styles

Cast: Peter Dix, Brendan Gauldwell

8. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (Ireland, 1958; Caedmon Audio, read by Cyril Cusak)

@'seedy'

U.S. Shuts Down Web Sites in Piracy Crackdown

U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More

North Korea is Ecstatic Over Response to Attack

EBR - William S. Burroughs Tribute Mix

1] Shackleton - Short Wave - Skull disco
2] Clouds - Protecting Hands Part 1 - Deep Medi
3] Martyn - Far Away - 3024
4] Ramadanman - Don't Change For Me - Hessle Audio
5] Breakage - Justified - Digital Soundboy
6] Von D - Nouvelle Histoire - Argon
7] Ramadanman - I Beg You - Hessle Audio
8] Martyn - Seventy Four - 3024
9] Shackleton - Death Is Not Final - Skull Disco
10] Burial - Raver - Hyperdub
11] Mj Cole - Sincere (Nero rmx) - Prolific
12] Mrk1 - Troubleshoot - Dark Circles
13] The Others - 100 $ bills - MILF
14] Trolly Snatcha - We Rock The Forest  

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@'Mixcloud'

One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars!!!

90,000 cargo ships travel the world's oceans. Photograph: Peter Maenhoudt/AP

Britain and other European governments have been accused of underestimating the health risks from shipping pollution following research which shows that one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars.
Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles.
Pressure is mounting on the UN's International Maritime Organisation and the EU to tighten laws governing ship emissions following the decision by the US government last week to impose a strict 230-mile buffer zone along the entire US coast, a move that is expected to be followed by Canada.
The setting up of a low emission shipping zone follows US academic research which showed that pollution from the world's 90,000 cargo ships leads to 60,000 deaths a year in the US alone and costs up to $330bn per year in health costs from lung and heart diseases. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates the buffer zone, which could be in place by next year, will save more than 8,000 lives a year with new air quality standards cutting sulphur in fuel by 98%, particulate matter by 85% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%.
The new study by the Danish government's environmental agency adds to this picture. It suggests that shipping emissions cost the Danish health service almost £5bn a year, mainly treating cancers and heart problems. A previous study estimated that 1,000 Danish people die prematurely each year because of shipping pollution. No comprehensive research has been carried out on the effects on UK coastal communities, but the number of deaths is expected to be much higher.
Europe, which has some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, has dramatically cleaned up sulphur and nitrogen emissions from land-based transport in the past 20 years but has resisted imposing tight laws on the shipping industry, even though the technology exists to remove emissions. Cars driving 15,000km a year emit approximately 101 grammes of sulphur oxide gases (or SOx) in that time. The world's largest ships' diesel engines which typically operate for about 280 days a year generate roughly 5,200 tonnes of SOx.
The EU plans only two low-emission marine zones which should come into force in the English channel and Baltic sea after 2015. However, both are less stringent than the proposed US zone, and neither seeks to limit deadly particulate emissions.
Shipping emissions have escalated in the past 15 years as China has emerged as the world's manufacturing capital. A new breed of intercontinental container ship has been developed which is extremely cost-efficient. However, it uses diesel engines as powerful as land-based power stations but with the lowest quality fuel.
"Ship pollution affects the health of communities in coastal and inland regions around the world, yet pollution from ships remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system," said James Corbett, professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware, one of the authors of the report which helped persuade the US government to act.
Today a spokesman for the UK government's Maritime and Coastguard Agency accepted there were major gaps in the legislation. "Issues of particulate matter remain a concern. They need to be addressed and we look forward to working with the international community," said environment policy director Jonathan Simpson.
"Europe needs a low emission zone right around its coasts, similar to the US, if we are to meet health and environmental objectives," said Crister Agrena of the Air Pollution and Climate Secretariat in Gothenburg, one of Europe's leading air quality organisations.
"It is unacceptable that shipping remains one of the most polluting industries in the world. The UK must take a lead in cleaning up emissions," said Simon Birkett, spokesman for the Campaign for Clean Air in London. "Other countries are planning radical action to achieve massive health and other savings but the UK is strangely inactive."
The calculations of ship and car pollution are based on the world's largest 85,790KW ships' diesel engines which operate about 280 days a year generating roughly 5,200 tonnes of SOx a year, compared with diesel and petrol cars which drive 15,000km a year and emit approximately 101gm of SO2/SoX a year.

John Vidal @'The Guardian'

SageFrancis Come on!!! Willie Nelson Arrested in Texas for 6 oz of weed? That's so ridiculous. This is a good time to start a new "hash" tag. #FreeWilly

US warns allies on Wikileaks' potential diplomatic leak

Electronic Explorations Podcast 133 – Shackleton

01) – Shackleton and Vengeance Tenfold – Stripped III (version)

02) – Shackleton – Man On A String Part 1 and 2

03) – Shackleton – Angel On A String

04) – Shackleton – Fireworks

05) – Shackleton – Deadman

06) – Shackleton – Bottles

07) – Shackleton – Hypno Angel

08) – Shackleton – Something Has Got To Give

09) – Shackleton – Massacre

10) – Shackleton – Torn Skin III (version)
 Download

The self-effacing Lancashire-born Sam Shackleton first came to prominence during the early rise of the dubstep scene, running the label Skull Disco alongside Appleblim. Skull Disco is considered to have been quite influential, in that it combined more abstract or avant musical forms with music that could work on advanced dancefloors. It was home to Shackleton’s cuts such as ‘Stalker’, ‘Death Is Not Final’ and ‘Blood On My Hands’, reworked by Ricardo Villalobos into an 18 minute four to the floor version. Most recently he released 3 EPs on Perlon, a Berlin label renowned for its low key approach to high creativity. From dubstep to techno, Shackleton’s maverick take on big basslines and complex beats doesn’t fit into any easy categories and that’s how it’s going to stay. Shackleton’s records and live sets are thrilling and unique in their absorbing complexity and pure dancefloor enchantment.

“I got into making music on a computer by default.  My previous partner in music went to the other side of the world and converted to Islam, and I didn’t want to be a one-man karaoke outfit so I bought a computer.  This turned out to be a good thing for me as it made it easier to make the music that I wanted to make. Mine and my friend’s lives had a diverse soundtrack, but I remember that Stooges, Can, Throbbing Gristle, Kraftwerk and Faust were all favourites.  To be honest, I haven’t really moved on from that stuff. I started playing guitar in a punk band at 14.  We were not very good and got booed off stage and things thrown at us.  Plus ça change, really!”

Discussing his forthcoming Fabric 55 release (Dec 2010)

fabric 55 is a timely record of Shackleton’s electric live performances, recorded in the studio but directly inspired by the fabric floor. The mix features partly new and unreleased original material – as well as tracks that have previously appeared on Perlon, Skull Disco and Hotflush, but in very different forms than the listener will have heard before. Rising out of the murky opening atmospheres are Shackleton’s favoured tribal drums and percussion that rapidly kick things into action. Refined sub-bass underpins much of the music here, alongside ceaseless drums, ominous vocal samples and layers of precise hisses, bleeps and mournful melody. Key to Shackleton’s sound is a lightness of touch and delicacy in the arrangement that could be at odds with the force of his sound but instead illuminates the different parts and awakens the senses. At times seriously freaky and twisted, with frantic percussion and jarring keys, there’s an all-encompassing deepness to the whole as Shackleton weaves a path that completely absorbs up to the final sigh of the closing bars. It’s a mix that instantly captures the listener and barely lets up before finally releasing you after 80 minutes of some of the most deep, intense and beautiful electronic music you are likely to hear this year.

“ I never thought that fabric would be interested in my music to be honest and so it was a pleasant surprise when they asked me to play in room 1, back before most other London venues would touch me, or indeed had probably heard of me.  It was an even more pleasant surprise for me that some people enjoyed it.  I’ve since been asked back quite regularly and every time it seems to go better.  I think this is because of the sound system.  It is amongst the best I have played on…. With the mix I’ve made, I have tried to make a set that would best represent the set I played on that night [at fabric], but minus the mistakes.  Some of the tracks are re-jigged versions of older material, some of them are new.  Some of them will never see a release in any form aside from this.  Some of them are not even tracks just coincidental parts merging with each other between tracks.  Those are the best bits actually.  I don’t expect everyone to like it.  I know it is not to everyone’s taste.  That’s why I appreciate Judy sticking her neck out for this and I hope some people like it.”

@'Electronic Explorations'

jeremyscahill Re: alleged US support for PKK in @wikileaks docs, remember allegations #Blackwater weapons ended up w PKK in #Iraq 2 minutes ago via Echofon

The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves - And Why It Matters

Joy Division public Q&A with Stephen Morris, Peter Saville and Jon Savage

Joy Division’s Stephen Morris will be talking about the influence and legacy of his former band at a public Q&A session in London next month.

Drummer Morris will be in discussion with Peter Saville (who has designed the new Joy Division +/- box set) and music critic Jon Savage. The event takes place on Wednesday 8 December at 7pm at Rough Trade East, London E1 6QL.

The event is co-hosted by Rough Trade and Rhino UK in association with NME. Numbers are strictly limited; for more information contact Rough Trade East.

@'FACT' 

Peter Saville 

Arkitip No. 0049 will be a virtual catalog of Peter's work including essays from Saville's colleagues throughout his career. It will also include two original prints from the designer in an edition of 1500. The prints will be 12 x 12 inches on 100 lb. archival stock and will sit on top of the magazine inside a custom designed box carefully encasing the magazine and prints. 

HERE

Iceland to elect citizens' panel to rewrite constitution

The divide is bigger than we thought...

(Thanx Fifi!)

Dutch Court Says That Copyright Owners Are Better Off When People Are Downloading From Unauthorized Sources

Here's a bit of a surprise. According to this report, beyond just the FTD ruling we wrote about last week, there was another copyright case decision in the Dutch appeals court of The Hague, which stated that "since downloading from illegal sources for private use was permitted under Dutch law," it's actually to the advantage of copyright owners that such sites exist.

Of course, part of the reasoning for this is that there's a private copying levy, and the court was arguing that unauthorized downloads should be taken into account when calculating that levy. So, this could mean higher subsidies and "you must be a criminal" taxes in the Netherlands. Still, the argument is somewhat striking:

With reference to statements made by the Minister of Justice, the Court argued that the legitimate interest of the right holders is more adequately protected in a regime that allows downloading from illegal sources. In view of the Dutch government's statements, such a levy system better ensures that compensation is due to right holders for the use of their work.

I'm not convinced that's actually true, but it's still quite surprising to hear a court say it like that. I would imagine entertainment industry lobbyists are banging down Dutch doors right now...

@'techdirt'

HA!

(Click to enlarge)

Court affirms jail time for Pirate Bay founders

wikileaks UK Government has issued a "D-notice" warning to all UK news editors, asking to be briefed on upcoming WikiLeaks stories. about 1 hour ago via web

Grinderman live

North Korean shelling heard near Yeonpyeong

South Korea reported sounds of artillery fire emanating from North Korea today, but said it appeared to be routine training. The news came hours after Pyongyang warned that the South's joint drill with the US was pushing the peninsula to the brink of war.

Seoul-based broadcaster YTN said the shells appeared to have landed within the North, away from the disputed maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea.

The firing came days after four people on a nearby island were killed in a Northern artillery attack. Pyongyang said that was a response to shelling by the South, which was conducting a live-fire drill exercise.

Seoul said its troops did not fire towards the North. But Pyongyang's foreign ministry said yesterday that shells were "bound to drop inside [the North's] territorial waters". It does not accept the Yellow Sea border, drawn unilaterally by the US at the end of the Korean war.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the few dozen residents who remain on Yeonpyeong fled to emergency shelters as they heard the distant explosions this afternoon.

Earlier the North had threatened "a shower of fire" in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency, warning: "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again war exercises targeted against the [North]."

It added that it was "ready to annihilate enemies' stronghold" and said its forces "precisely targeted and struck" South Korean artillery units on Tuesday.

Pyongyang often issues bellicose warnings when military manoeuvres are due in the area.

The US has dispatched an aircraft carrier group led by the USS George Washington to take part in training with the South Korean navy from Sunday. The exercises were planned before this week's attack but had been postponed with the US citing scheduling conflicts.

Beijing has expressed concern about the exercises in the Yellow Sea, which lies between Korea and China. But its protests were far more muted than the complaints which saw off plans for drills there earlier this year.

The US is pressing China to restrain its ally and a White House official said Barack Obama is likely to discuss the Korean situation with President Hu Jintao within days.

Domestic criticism of Seoul's response to the bombardment has continued despite the defence minister's resignation yesterday.

Hundreds of South Korean veterans demonstrated in the border town of Paju today, accusing the government of being too weak.

"The lazy government's policies towards North Korea are too soft," said Kim Byeong-su, the president of the association of ex-marines.

"It needs to take revenge on a bunch of mad dogs. We need to show them South Korea is not to be played with."

Tania Branigan @'The Guardian'