TRUMP CHIDES UNITED NATIONS FOR MISMANAGEMENT, URGES IMMEDIATE REFORM

TRUMP CHIDES UNITED NATIONS FOR MISMANAGEMENT, URGES IMMEDIATE REFORM:

TRUMP WANTS TO LEAD UNITED NATIONS IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION TO HELP MORE PEOPLE GLOBALLY NOT FATTEN THE POCKETS OF ELITE GLOBALISTS.


Sources: Business Insider, CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Youtube


**** 'Bureaucracy and mismanagement': Trump urges reform during his first UN visit


U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the United Nations for bloated bureaucracy and mismanagement on his first visit on Monday to U.N. headquarters, calling for "truly bold reforms" so it could be a greater force for world peace.

Ahead of his maiden speech to the annual U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump hosted a short event to boost support for changes to the United Nations.

"In recent years the United Nations has not reached its full potential because of bureaucracy and mismanagement, while the United Nations on a regular budget has increased by 140 percent and its staff has more than doubled since 2000," Trump said.

"The United Nations must hold every level of management accountable, protect whistleblowers and focus on results rather than on process," Trump said.

"I am confident that if we work together and champion truly bold reforms the United Nations will emerge as a stronger, more effective, more just and greater force for peace and harmony in the world," Trump said in his first remarks at the U.N. in New York since his inauguration as president in January.

In a building where long statements are commonplace, Trump spoke for just four minutes.

Some 128 countries were invited to attend Monday's reform meeting after signing on to a U.S.-drafted 10-point political declaration backing efforts by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "to initiate effective, meaningful reform."

U.N. Security Council veto powers Russia and China did not sign the declaration.

Businessman Trump, who complained during his 2016 election campaign about the United States paying a disproportionate amount of money to the United Nations, made the point again on Monday.

"We must ensure that no one and no member state shoulders a disproportionate share of the burden and that's militarily or financially."

The United States is the biggest U.N. contributor, providing 22 percent of its $5.4 billion biennial core budget and 28.5 percent of its $7.3 billion peacekeeping budget. The contributions are agreed on by the 193-member General Assembly.

Guterres, who also took office in January, told the meeting: "To serve the people we support and the people who support us, we must be nimble and effective, flexible and efficient."

He agreed that U.N bureaucracy was a problem that kept him up at night.

"Our shared objective is a 21st century U.N. focused more on people and less on process," Guterres said. "Value for money while advancing shared values – that is our common goal."

Trump also said that all peacekeeping missions should "have clearly defined goals and metrics for evaluating success."

The United States is reviewing each of the U.N. peacekeeping missions as annual mandates come up for Security Council renewal in a bid to cut costs.

The United States is a veto-wielding council member, along with Britain, France, Russia and China.

On Sunday night, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.

When asked if the U.N. refugee agency could perform its current missions if the United States cut its voluntary contributions to the budget, according to a pool report Grandi answered: "I would say no."
"U.S. aid is vital to what we do to support refugees around the world and to find solutions to their situations," Grandi said.

G8 Summit Shuts Out Israel; OCCUPY Protesters Oppose Protecting RICH; Iran To Nuke Israel; NO PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

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WHY VOTE?

JOBS, PROTECTING THE RICH, GLOBAL ECONOMICS, HUMAN RIGHTS (VOTING), REAL SYSTEMIC REFORM & PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2012 G8 SUMMIT MEETING:

Due to Occupy Protesters & other Organizations rallying against Global Leaders attending the 2012 G8 Summit, the Meeting was moved to Camp David for Pres. Obama's Safety.

Occupy Protesters are protesting the 2012 G8 SUMMIT because they are tired of Global Leaders doing what THEY want versus what's Best for THE PEOPLE.

The Middle Class & Poor are Fighting Back against the G8 because the Global Financial System Is FOREVER Rigged To ONLY PROTECT The Rich & Very Rich!

At the Annual G8 Summit Meetings Our Global Leaders come together to Gamble Away more of Our Freedom on Risky Financial Plans & Ideas with the use of Taxpayers' MONEY!

In other words it does NOT matter what the People Want or Need, Global Leaders are going to FORCE their Bitter Pill Financial Decisions down our throats anyway.

Even in America its all about PROTECTING THE RICH, But Make the Poor Suffer, while continuing to PROTECT THE RICH!

Now Please Don't Get It Twisted!

I have absolutely NOTHING at all against people who are Financially Successful.

Every Human Being on Planet Earth Should Have Equal Opportunities To Achieve Some Level Of Financial Success As Mark Zuckerberg Did!

If NOT Billionaires, Then Millionaires Or Just Extremely Comfortable.

In fact I Admire & Applaud ALL People who became Financially Successful via Innovation & Hard Work.

Please Understand that I am NOT one of those American Citizens who Opposes Wealth because I am NOT one of those Individuals.

I LIKE MONEY OK!

I'm just saying that our World's Financial System, including the United States, is Currently NOT Set up to allow Middle Class & Low Income People to Achieve the Same Level of Upward Mobility & Success as that of Most Wealthy People.

Thus the Annual G8 Summit Meeting is NOT about Global Economics, Human Rights, Voting Rights, JOBS, REAL Financial Reform, REAL Systemic Reform or PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Its actually just more of the SAME Status Quo Stuff.

CONTINUING TO PROTECT THE RICH WHILE MAKING THE POOR PAY MORE!

Let’s be REAL for just a moment shall we?

The Global Financial System Is FOREVER Rigged To ONLY Protect The Rich & Very Rich!

More than likely that's the way it will ALWAYS be until Jesus returns!

So much for the Good of Common, Everyday People.

So Why VOTE?

Why do we even continue to VOTE if what WE Need is Never Considered in Local & Global Political Decisions which Affect us?

My VOTE may NOT make a significant mathematical difference in the outcome of an Election or Primary but I will continue to VOTE anyway.

And…..

Parents must instill in their Youth the Importance Of Expressing Our Individual Voices Via The Democratic Process Of VOTING.

i.e., THE DEMOCRACY PROJECT!

Isn't that why the Process of Political Democracy was established?

Why VOTE?

Because as an African-American citizen living in America, I recognize the Blood & Sacrifice My Ancestors & BLACK Leaders of yesterday made so that I could walk into a 21st Century Exit Poll Booth and LEGALLY Cast my Ballot to Elect Politicians. Even Politicians who LIE to ME!

Nevertheless We Must Continue To VOTE & Elect Leaders, even if only for Symbolic Reasons.

Because Voting is the ONLY Way Our Voices will be Heard right?

Wait a minute!

Were any of YOU who Voted in the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Elections & Primaries Invited to Attend the 2012 G8 Summit World Meeting?

I Wasn't!

And why wasn't Israel invited to the 2012 G8 Summit?

I thought NATO has an Alliance with Israel.

Am I wrong?

So why wasn't Israel invited to attend this year's G8 Summit Meeting where Global Financial Plans & Global Peace Talks are discussed?

Because its quite apparent Israel is most likely being Set Up to allow Iran take the First Hit with a Nuke Bomb.

Yes some World Leaders STILL Want to Secretly Protect Iran.

Yes there are also some World Leaders who STILL Want to see Israel wiped Off the Face of Planet Earth!

I Pray I'm Wrong about this Foreign Policy theory Because GOD Almighty Has Vowed To NEVER Allow Israel To Be Destroyed by Anyone or Anything.

Perhaps Our Global Leaders Should Either Read The Holy Bible Or Ask God Directly Via Prayer What HIS Plans Are For Israel's Future.

I Can Tell You That It Mostly Does NOT Include Israel's Destruction.

PRAY FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

PROTECT OUR VOTING RIGHTS!

WE MUST NOT CONTINUE TO JUST KEEP PROTECTING RICH PEOPLE ONLY, WHILE MAKING THE POOR PAY FOR THE RICH!

THERE MUST BE REAL REFORM FOR EVERYONE INCLUDING THE RICH & THE VERY RICH!

OCCUPY UNTIL REAL CHANGE OCCURS FOR EVERYONE!

WHY VOTE?

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Attack on Chicago police stations, Obama office were planned, prosecutors say


Three anti-NATO protesters charged with terrorism conspiracy planned to attack four Chicago police stations, the local campaign headquarters for President Barack Obama and the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, prosecutors alleged in court documents Saturday.

While friends of the three men insisted they were just operating a home brewery, prosecutors stated that police found a gun that fires mortar rounds, swords, a hunting bow, ninja-like throwing stars and knives with brass knuckle handles.
The beer operation, prosecutors added, was used to fill bottles with gasoline that would later be thrown as Molotov cocktails.

The three were being held on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, possession of an explosive or incendiary device and providing material support.
The men were identified as 20-year-old Brian Church, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; 24-year-old Jared Chase, of Keene, N.H.; and 24-year-old Brent Vincent Betterly, of Oakland Park, Mass.

Defense attorneys told a judge on Saturday that undercover police were the ones who brought the Molotov cocktails, and that their clients were entrapped, the Associated Press reported.

Bond of $1.5 million was set for each defendant.

Michael Deutsch, one of their attorneys, later told reporters outside the courtroom that it was all a setup. Two informants "ingratiated themselves" with the three men and "this was all their idea," he insisted.

But Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told reporters "the evidence speaks for itself" about what he called an "imminent threat."

"They were making the bombs ... (and had) directions on how to implement this," added Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.

Sarah Gelsomino, another attorney for the men, earlier said they were "absolutely in shock and have no idea where these charges are coming from."

"The National Lawyers Guild deplores the charges against Occupy activists in the strongest degree," Gelsomino said in a statement decrying the charges.

Six others initially arrested have been released. They were all detained in a raid Wednesday on a home in Bridgeport on Chicago's South Side, NBCChicago.com reported.
Beer or bombs?

But the group of protesters said what police thought was suspicious was actually a home beer-brewing operation.

“We were handcuffed to a bench and our legs were shackled together. We were not told what was happening,” one of those detained but later released, Darrin Ammussek, told NBCChicago.com.

“I believe very strongly in non-violence, and if I had seen anything that even resembled any plans or anything like that, we wouldn’t have been there," he added.

He claimed that during 18 hours in custody, police never told him why he was arrested, read him his rights or allowed him to make a phone call, The Associated Press reported. He said he remained handcuffed to a bench, even after asking to use a restroom.

"There were guards walking by making statements into the door along the lines of 'hippie,' 'communist," 'pinko,'" a tired-looking Ammussek told reporters just after his release.

NBCChicago.com said the National Lawyers Guild had threatened legal action if the detained protesters were not released or charged by Friday night.

“They came in with guns drawn and broke into a unit that was not housing protesters in order to get into another unit in the building that was housing protesters,” said the guild's Kris Hermes.

Security has been high throughout the city in preparation for the summit, where delegations from about 60 countries, including 50 heads of state, will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.

Among the pre-NATO protests planned for Saturday was a march on the home of Mayor Emanuel. The big show will be on Sunday, the start of the two-day NATO summit, when thousands of protesters are expected to march 2½ miles from a band shell on Lake Michigan to the McCormick Place convention center, where delegates will be meeting.


On Friday, Chicago police on bicycles and foot tailed activists through the streets of the city, but ignored taunts and went out of their way to make as few arrests as possible. Protesters made a lot of noise and tried to evade police, but otherwise were relatively uneventful.

In all, police said there was a single arrest on a charge of aggravated battery of a police officer. Another man was briefly taken into custody, but he was released a short time later after being questioned by police, a department spokesman said.

Also, officers were seen trying to arrest a man who scaled a bridge tower and pulled down part of a NATO banner. Earlier, police handcuffed a man at the end of a noisy but largely peaceful rally organized by the nation's largest nurses union.

From the police side of the protest line, it went largely how Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy envisioned it earlier this month when he said, "We're not going to lock somebody up for dropping a banana peel."

Michael Olstewski, 22, a recent music school graduate who came to Chicago from Atlanta, one of hundreds of protesters who took to the streets on Friday for a spontaneous march, said protesters may be waiting to make a big statement.

He said he didn't do anything to get arrested Friday, "but later in the week ... If I feel it's strategic and a powerful statement" he would provoke police into arresting him.




NATO: Alliance partner Israel not invited to Chicago summit, chief denies any Turkey link

Israel will not be invited to NATO’s May 20-21 summit in Chicago, the alliance’s top official said Friday. But he denied that alliance member Turkey had blocked Israel’s participation.

Instead, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the reason is because Israel does not participate in NATO’s main military missions.

News reports have claimed that Turkey blocked Israel’s participation because of the raid in 2010 by Israeli troops on ships heading to Gaza in which eight Turks and a Turkish-American died.

NATO has a system of partnerships with dozens of nations across the globe such as the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven friendly nations, including Israel.

In the past, partner nations did not usually attend the alliance’s summits. But Fogh Rasmussen said 13 would do so this time.

“At the Lisbon summit (in 2010), we made clear that we would enhance dialogue and cooperation with partner nations ... because in today’s world security challenges know no borders, and no country or alliance can deal with most of them on their own,” he told journalists.

Two other members of the Mediterranean group, Jordan and Morocco, are among them. But Fogh Rasmussen said Israel is not because it does not participate in missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo.

“Israel has not been invited to attend the summit because Israel is neither a participant in ISAF nor in KFOR ... no one has blocked an invitation because it’s not been an issue,” Fogh Rasmussen said. ISAF and KFOR are acronyms for coalition forces in Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Earlier this year, Turkey scuttled a plan to include an Israeli warship in a NATO-run flotilla patrolling the Mediterranean.

In the past, Israeli warships and air force jets have joined in some NATO exercises, but Israel’s participation in the naval operation would the first time its armed forces have taken part in one of the alliance’s military operations.

Representatives of about 60 nations and international organizations will attend the Chicago conference. Partner nations include include Sweden, Switzerland, Qatar, Georgia, Australia and New Zealand.

Representatives of Russia and several Central Asian states also have been invited to discuss the war in Afghanistan — the summit’s main focus — “because they provide important transit arrangements to the benefit of our operation,” Fogh Rasmussen said.

The alliance has repeatedly said it is prepared to enhance practical cooperation with all partner nations in the region, including Israel. But some members have opposed past attempts to forge closer cooperation with the Jewish state, saying that could hurt the alliance’s relations with other Muslim countries, including Afghanistan, which remains NATO’s top operational priority.


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Sources: AP, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Russia Today, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Jim Yong Kim Tapped By Pres. Obama To Lead World Bank; Fighting Global Poverty

College President Is Obama’s Pick for World Bank Chief

The White House on Friday named Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College and a global health expert, as its nominee to lead the World Bank.
That makes Dr. Kim the front-runner to take the helm of the multinational development institution on June 30, when its current president, Robert B. Zoellick, will step down at the end of his five-year term. Tradition has held that Washington selects the head of the World Bank and Europe the leader of its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, since they were founded during World War II.

Dr. Kim’s name was not among those widely bandied about since Mr. Zoellick announced his plans to move on last month. Highly respected among aid experts, Dr. Kim is an anthropologist and a physician who co-founded Partners in Health, a nonprofit that provides health care for the poor, and a former director of the department of H.I.V./AIDS at the World Health Organization.

“The leader of the World Bank should have a deep understanding of both the role that development plays in the world and the importance of creating conditions where assistance is no longer needed,” President Obama said Friday. “It’s time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency.”

In a statement, Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary and an alumnus of Dartmouth, praised Dr. Kim: “Development is his lifetime commitment, and it is his passion. And in a world with so much potential to improve living standards, we have a unique opportunity to harness that passion and experience at the helm of the World Bank.”

Dr. Kim, who was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2003, was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1959 and moved with his family to the United States when he was 5. He graduated from Brown University in 1982, earned an M.D. from Harvard University in 1991 and received a Ph.D. in anthropology there in 1993.

He was the first Asian-American to head an Ivy League institution when he took the Dartmouth post in 2009.

While working with Partners in Health in Lima, Peru, in the mid-1990s, Dr. Kim helped to develop a treatment program for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the first large-scale treatment of that disease in a poor country. Treatment programs for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are now in place in more than 40 nations, according to Dr. Kim’s biography on Dartmouth’s Web site. He also spearheaded the successful effort to reduce the price of the drugs used to treat this form of tuberculosis.

“Jim is all about delivery and about delivering on promises often made but too seldom kept,” said Paul Farmer, a co-founder of Partners in Health, in an e-mailed statement. “I can think of no one more able to help families, communities and entire nations break out of poverty.”

During his short tenure at Dartmouth, Dr. Kim won a reputation as a level-headed technocrat who frequently encouraged students to think globally.

“Most every college president has to get up and say it’s important to go off and change the world,” said Jonathan S. Skinner, an economist at Dartmouth. “But there aren’t many college presidents who’ve gone out and have changed the world.”

Dr. Kim’s ascension to the head of the World Bank is not a sure thing. But the United States supported the candidacy of Christine Lagarde, the former French finance minister, to head the International Monetary Fund last year, presumably assuring that Europe would support Dr. Kim’s nomination.

In recent years, major emerging economies have criticized the decades-old gentlemen’s agreement giving the United States control of the World Bank’s presidency. The Group of 20 countries has called for a fairer, more transparent selection process for the top posts at the World Bank and the I.M.F., and the World Bank itself has reaffirmed its commitment to an open and merit-based process.

“We are trying to ensure that we start having a process whereby we can choose the most qualified person, regardless of nationality,” said Amar Bhattacharya, the director of the Group of 24, an umbrella group of developing countries. “The struggle is about the credibility of the process as much as it is about who wins.”

Dr. Kim, as an American, will not escape some of that criticism. But his background working in poorer countries may partly insulate him, and Mr. Obama was reportedly drawn to him in part because of his work fighting tuberculosis and AIDS.

In addition, powerful emerging market countries, like Brazil and China, failed to rally around a single, viable candidate since the announcement of Mr. Zoellick’s departure.

Dr. Kim is not the only candidate for the World Bank job. On Friday, Angola, South Africa and Nigeria put forward Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian finance minister and former World Bank official.

José Antonio Ocampo, the former finance minister of Colombia and a United Nations official, is rumored to be another candidate.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, the development economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, had put himself forward for the position and won the support of some developing countries, including Kenya, although the United States was not supporting his candidacy. On Friday, Mr. Sachs withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Dr. Kim.

“Dr. Jim Kim is a superb nominee for the World Bank presidency,” Mr. Sachs said in an e-mailed statement. “I congratulate the administration for nominating a world-class development leader for this position.”

The World Bank will stop accepting nominations at 6 p.m. Eastern time Friday. If there are more than three candidates, the board will name a shortlist soon thereafter. The bank has said it intends to select its new president in the time for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in April.

The bank provided $57.4 billion in support to low-income and middle-income countries last year. Under Mr. Zoellick’s leadership, the bank raised an additional $90 billion for its fund for the world’s poorest. It also opened up huge troves of data to the public to aid research on development and poverty.


Sources: AP, NY Times, Youtube

U.S. Involved In Wikileaks Release? Conspiracy Theories Quickly Spreading

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Was U.S. Involved In Leak? Why Didn't U.S. Officials Stop Leak?


The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches, which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high-level concerns over Pakistan's growing instability, and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

• Inappropriate remarks by Prince Andrew about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.

• Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice-president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.

• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally.

• Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a "virtual mafia state".

• The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italiango-between.

• Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.

The US has particularly intimate dealings with Britain, and some of the dispatches from the London embassy in Grosvenor Square will make uncomfortable reading in Whitehall and Westminster. They range from political criticisms of David Cameron to requests for specific intelligence about individual MPs.

The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an "alpha-dog" and Hamid Karzai as being "driven by paranoia", while Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative". There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."

Other revelations include a description of a near "environmental disaster" last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium, technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and a profile of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.

US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.

As the cables were published, the White House released a statement condemning their release. "Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the US for assistance in promoting democracy and open government. By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals."

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK. They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the US have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the US government. That will continue."

The US ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman, said: "We have briefed the UK government and other friends and allies around the world about the potential impact of these disclosures … I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the United Kingdom will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values."

Sir Christopher Meyer, who was British ambassador to the US in the Blair years, thought the leaks would have little impact on diplomatic behaviour. "This won't restrain dips' [diplomats'] candour," he said. "But people will be looking at the security of electronic communications and archives. Paper would have been impossible to steal in these quantities."

The state department's legal adviser has written to the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and his London lawyer, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that the publication would place at risk "the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and co-operation between countries".

The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US soldier earlier this year and passed to WikiLeaks. Assange made it available to the Guardian and four other news organisations: the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El País in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from the most significant cables, but have decided neither to "dump" the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says that, contrary to the state department's fears, it also initially intends to post only limited cable extracts, and to redact identities.

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of "private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys".

PJ Crowley, the state department spokesman in Washington, said: "Let me assure you: our diplomats are just that, diplomats. They do not engage in intelligence activities. They represent our country around the world, maintain open and transparent contact with other governments as well as public and private figures, and report home. That's what diplomats have done for hundreds of years."

The acting deputy spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, Farhan Haq, said the UN chief had no immediate comment. "We are aware of the reports."

The dispatches also shed light on older diplomatic issues. One cable, for example, reveals, that Nelson Mandela was "furious" when a top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher shortly after his release from prison to explain why the ANC objected to her policy of "constructive engagement" with the apartheid regime.

"We understand Mandela was keen for a Thatcher meeting but that [appointments secretary Zwelakhe] Sisulu argued successfully against it," according to the cable. It continues: "Mandela has on several occasions expressed his eagerness for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the ANC's objections to her policy. We were consequently surprised when the meeting didn't materialise on his mid-April visit to London and suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela's plans."

The US embassy cables are marked "Sipdis" – secret internet protocol distribution. They were compiled as part of a programme under which selected dispatches, considered moderately secret but suitable for sharing with other agencies, would be automatically loaded on to secure embassy websites, and linked with the military's Siprnet internet system.

They are classified at various levels up to "secret noforn" [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn.

More than 3 million US government personnel and soldiers, many extremely junior, are cleared to have potential access to this material, even though the cables contain the identities of foreign informants, often sensitive contacts in dictatorial regimes. Some are marked "protect" or "strictly protect".

Last spring, 22-year-old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was charged with leaking many of these cables, along with a gun-camera video of an Apache helicopter crew mistakenly killing two Reuters news agency employees in Baghdad in 2007, which was subsequently posted by WikiLeaks. Manning is facing a courtmartial.

In July and October WikiLeaks also published thousands of leaked military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq. These were made available for analysis beforehand to the Guardian, along with Der Spiegel and the New York Times.

A former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who reported Manning to the US authorities, said the soldier had told him in chat messages that the cables revealed "how the first world exploits the third, in detail".

He also said, according to Lamo, that 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".

Asked why such sensitive material was posted on a network accessible to thousands of government employees, the state department spokesman told the Guardian: "The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath revealed gaps in intra-governmental information sharing. Since the attacks of 9/11, the US government has taken significant steps to facilitate information sharing. These efforts were focused on giving diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to more data to more effectively do their jobs."

He added: "We have been taking aggressive action in recent weeks and months to enhance the security of our systems and to prevent the leak of information."


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Sources: CNN, Guardian.co.uk, Meet The Press, MSNBC, RT, Youtube, Google Maps

Assange Holds World Hostage With Huge Encrypted "Insurance" File; Threatens To Release

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WikiLeaks' "Insurance" File Aimed At Ensuring Work Goes On



An encrypted cache of uncensored documents that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has circulated across the Internet may ensure that a huge array of secrets will be revealed even if the website is shut down or Assange is arrested.

Tens of thousands of supporters have downloaded the "insurance" file, which has been available since July, and it includes files on BP and Guantanamo Bay, The Sunday Times reported.

Assange has warned that efforts to curtail his activities could trigger a deluge of national and commercial secrets.

"If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically," he said in a live chat with readers of the Guardian newspaper this week.

One reader asked if he was tempted to release the password for the encrypted file, but he did not respond to the question.

The Sunday Times said the U.S. Defense Department was unsure what was in the file, and computer experts said it was unlikely that the U.S. could defeat its encryption.

Assange is known to possess documents on a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians and Bank of America documents. It is not clear how WikiLeaks obtained the diplomatic documents, but the U.S. government's prime suspect is an Army private, Bradley Manning, who is in custody on charges of leaking other classified documents to WikiLeaks.



WikiLeaks has embarrassed Washington and foreign leaders by releasing a trove of brutally frank U.S. diplomatic cables. The latest batches have touched on U.S. diplomats' view of Afghanistan and North Korea, Iranian nuclear ambitions , and Chinese attacks on U.S. Internet targets.

WikiLeaks crackdown

In the aftermath, Assange has faced a variety of legal and technical pressures.

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He is named in an arrest warrant from Sweden on an allegation of rape, but is currently free in Britain while issues surrounding the warrant are worked out. Politicians in the United States have called for his arrest for releasing U.S. diplomatic documents, and some have even said he should be assassinated.

DDOS attacks on Assange's website Wikileaks gathers strength and was forced to switch hosts after Amazon.com said WikiLeaks had violated terms of service. The site that provided WikiLeaks a domain name cut off service, saying it was being hit by sabotage attacks.

Some of the contingency plans were revealed Friday when WikiLeaks emerged with a Swiss address, WikiLeaks.ch, provided by the Swiss Pirate Party, which champions Internet freedom.

But on Sunday, the Swiss group that now supports the site said the website's main server in France had gone offline.

Denis Simonet of the Swiss Pirate Party said his group is currently redirecting the domain wikileaks.ch to another server based in Sweden.

Simonet told The Associated Press by phone Sunday that the switch could take several hours but that the site that publishes leaked classified documents is still reachable through the numerical address of its Swedish server.

He was unable to immediately say why the French server stopped working.

And WikiLeaks lost a major source of revenue when the online payment service PayPal cut off its account used to collect donations, saying the website was engaged in illegal activity.

The insurance file seems meant to dissuade governments that would attempt to stop Assange's efforts — and to ensure that the material could be released in the event that WikiLeaks is driven offline or Assange is arrested.


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Sources: Forbes.com, Guardian.co,uk, Meet The Press, MSNBC, RT News, Sunday Times, WCNC, Youtube, Google Maps

Julian Assange Exposed: Good Or Evil? (Interview Videos)

Paranoid, Anarchic... Is WikiLeaks Boss A Force For Good Or Chaos?



Just imagine that D-Day is only weeks away.

Months of secrecy and disinformation have succeeded in confusing the Germans about when or where the inevitable invasion will come.

Then an anarchist activist, insisting that in a democracy everyone has the right to know everything, publishes the secret plans for Operation Overlord.

Inconceivable then, but today that is precisely what WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, would do in a similar situation.

In the past, it has released documents relating to Swiss banks, the Church of Scientology, corruption in the Kenyan government, British climate change scientists and even a video taken by a U.S. Apache gunship as it machine-gunned civilians, including two journalists, in Iraq.

Assange - who describes himself as an 'information activist' - insists he is performing an important public duty.

And there is no doubt that WikiLeaks can help to expose dictators and keep democracies honest.

But as his fame and self belief grows, is Assange allowing his unreasoning hatred of authority to colour his approach to vitally important national security judgments?

He says that of the 90,000 documents released this week, WikiLeaks looked at only 2,000 of them.

If that's the case, then he couldn't possibly have known how much information which could endanger U.S. and British soldiers they contained.

Although Assange claims to be driven by the desire for freedom, his attitude - profoundly paranoid and politically anarchist - has more to do with his dysfunctional personal history than any political principle.

Born in Australia in 1971, to two peace activists who met at a demonstration against the Vietnam War, Assange had an unstable childhood.

He is variously reported as having been home schooled or having attended 35 different educational establishments, but there's no doubt that his mother, convinced that she was being stalked by a vengeful former lover, moved home constantly.

By the time Assange was 16, he had developed an obsession with computers.

He appears to have been part of an early group of hackers who named themselves International Subversives and broke into a series of U.S. computer networks including Nasa and the Department of Defence.

As a result, he was pursued by the Australian Federal Police.

Although the prosecution ended with a small fine, Assange had a breakdown and briefly checked himself into hospital. The lead investigator, Ken Day, said recently: 'I think he acted on the belief that everyone should know everything.'

At around this time Assange split up with his girlfriend, with whom he had a child, and then pursued a long and unsuccessful custody battle which further embittered him towards authority. By the end, his mother says, the strain had turned his hair from brown to white.

In the Nineties he founded Wiki-Leaks, a group whose organisation and technology owe more to the hi-tech security services it sees as its enemies than to the anarchist movement from which it springs.

It has no offices and no paid employees.

Key members - except for the increasingly high-profile Assange - are usually known by code letters. Anyone sending information to its website is directed to a computer in Sweden, then bounced to another internet server in Belgium, before the material is finally downloaded at other locations, a process designed to conceal the origin of the leaks from intelligence agencies.

All this computer expertise can also be used the other way round; the leaked U.S. military material was originally encrypted and had to be decoded over many months by Assange and other volunteer codebreakers.

Assange himself is convinced that he is under surveillance by U.S. spies, and won't travel to America for fear of arrest by the government.

He lives a bizarre peripatetic life, with no house and few belongings, moving in recent years between Tanzania, Belgium, Iceland, Sweden and many other countries, given lodging and help by like-minded activists.

His only luggage is a blue backpack containing mobile phones, computer hard drives and a large collection of socks.

But for all the otherworldliness of Assange and his disciples, he ruthlessly manipulates the conventional media that he claims to despise in order to obtain maximum publicity, carefully editing the video footage of the shooting by an American helicopter of Iraqi civilians to achieve maximum impact and choosing a title - Collateral Murder - which encouraged viewers to prejudge the material they saw.

His critics says he's motivated by a desire for personal publicity - he says his aim is 'maximum political impact'.

Assange's supporters invite comparison with the so-called Pentagon Papers in the early Seventies - exposing presidential double dealing on the Vietnam War - but those were published by the New York Times and the Washington Post only after careful consideration of the implications.

Assange, by contrast, makes no such ethical judgments.

Pressed on whether his actions risk harming the innocent - soldiers on active service for example - he says, in a scary echo of the kind of the language used by the military that he despises, that 'collateral damage' is inevitable, and concedes that WikiLeaks might end up with 'blood on our hands'.

Would we be so understanding about the activities of a man if he were exposing facts about a war that we all believed to be just - and not the moral and military disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Also troubling is his essential hypocrisy.

Assange claims to believe in making available every piece of information about the military operations, to ensure that the powerful are accountable for their actions.

But he himself operates amid a cult of secrecy, with no accountability to anyone.

There is no doubt that the eccentric Assange has made himself a powerful force in the world today, but whether he is a force for good remains to be seen.


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Sources: CNN, Daily Mail, ITN News, RT News, Youtube, Google Maps

Jimmy Carter On Wikileaks: Restricts Diplomacy & Hurts Trust

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Jimmy Carter: WikiLeaks "Helps No One, But Hurts Diplomatically"


In an exclusive interview with CBS News, former President Jimmy Carter said WikiLeaks' release of secret government documents is not as damaging to the United States as it is to Iraqis and Afghanis helping the United States in the Middle East.

"To have their names revealed as associated with the United States government might put their lives in danger if they are still there, or their families in danger," Mr. Carter told CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante on Monday.

"It's damaging to people who have been revealed as helping the United States, particularly those who are vulnerable," the former president said. "That's a serious negative aspect to it."

The administration and many members of Congress have condemned the release of documents by WikiLeaks.

"When something is finally released -- when I was president and I'm sure it's the same under President Obama -- it's very carefully vetted to make sure that you eliminate all the off-hand remarks and preliminary discussions and you just reveal what the final conclusion was," Mr. Carter said.

"When you take things like that out of context, I think it helps no one, but hurts diplomatically," Mr. Carter said.

Watch the video of Mr. Carter at left. And for more of Plante's interview, watch CBS News' daily politics webcast, "Washington Unplugged," on Tuesday and Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. ET on CBSNews.com. In his first interview since Election Day, Mr. Carter also discussed midterm election results and Republicans' responsibility, his advice for Mr. Obama, and his newest book, "White House Diary."


Sources: CBS News, MSNBC

Obama Scraps Trip To Kaczynski's Funeral, Dangerous Volcanic Ash

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Volcanic Ash Prevents Obama’s Trip To Poland


President Barack Obama scrapped plans to travel to Poland on Saturday for the funeral of Poland's president because of hazardous flying conditions caused by the volcanic ash cloud over Europe.

Obama said the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Lee Feinstein, would represent the United States at the service Sunday in Krakow for Lech Kaczynski.

The White House announcement came about six hours before Obama was scheduled to depart on the overnight flight. Obama called Poland's acting president, Bronislaw Komorowski, with the news that the trip was off, citing fallout from the volcano in Iceland.

Kaczynski and 95 others, including numerous lawmakers, the central bank governor, the commanders of the country's armed forces and the head of its Olympic committee, died in a plane crash April 10 near Russia's Katyn forest, site of a World War II massacre of Polish officers.

Obama said in a statement that he would support the Polish people in any way he can as they recover from the loss of so many leaders and officials.

He said the late president and others who died were close friends of the United States. "The American people will never forget the lives they led," Obama said.

Flights Grounded

All airports in Poland were closed Saturday to flights above the cloud level of 20,000 feet because of the ash cloud, including Balice in Krakow, where most of the dignitaries were expected to arrive Sunday morning, said Grzegorz Hlebowicz, spokesman for Poland's aviation authorities.

Air space across a wide area from Britain to Ukraine was closed and set to stay that way until Sunday or Monday, affecting airports from New Zealand to San Francisco.

Scientists say that because the Icelandic volcano is situated below a glacial ice cap, the magma is being cooled quickly, causing explosions and plumes of grit that can be catastrophic to plane engines.


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Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps