THE CABLES

AMERICAS

Members of Haiti's elite complained to the U.S. Embassy in 2005 about eroding security in the country.

ASIA

A Taliban representative told U.S. officials in 1996 that the Taliban had shut down "Arab" training camps in Afghanistan, and had no idea where Osama bin Laden was. A U.S. embassy official met with a Taliban representative the following year to discuss the Afghan drug trade and the group's sheltering of bin Laden.

A 1999 State Department meeting with future Afghan President Hamid Karzai, identified here as the "son of an important Afghan tribal leader."

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad sizing up the Taliban's Mullah Omar, circa 1997.

Beijing was unhappy about North Korean nuclear tests in 2006, but powerless to stop them.

The Japanese island of Okinawa, host to a longstanding U.S. military presence, is tilting toward China and away from the United States.

MIDDLE EAST

Bahrain's recent crackdown on its Shiite minority came out of Saudi Arabia's playbook.

THE NEWS

Julian Assange is reportedly backing off of plans to publish his memoirs.

WikiLeaks briefly manages to accept donations via Visa and MasterCard before the companies shut them down again. (WikiLeaks is threatening to sue them in response.)

A medic in Britain's Royal Navy has been sentenced to seven months' detention for refusing to train on account of WikiLeaks-inspired moral objections.

An excellent telling of the sad saga of Pfc. Bradley Manning from New York. (The online friend whose chats with Manning provide much of the new information in the piece has also made their correspondence available for download.)

THE CABLES

AFRICA

U.S. diplomats condemned the "appalling greed" of Moroccan King Mohammed VI's inner circle.

AMERICAS

The George W. Bush administration supported Catholic clergy in Venezuela who protested against Hugo Chávez (and defied the pope in so doing).

A 2008 survey found that half of Cubans couldn't identify any of the major dissidents on the island that receive U.S. backing.

ASIA

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman was an influential player in Obama's China policy during his tenure as ambassador.

Andrew MacGregor Marshall, who quit Reuters over a WikiLeaks-related disagreement, is self-publishing his reporting based on his own trove of Thailand-related cables.

Gaming out the internal power dynamics of China's Politburo Standing Committee.

THE NEWS

Julian Assange revamps his legal team.

GOP presidential hopeful and former Arizona Gov. Gary Johnson is pretty much the only Republican willing to defend WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks thinks Bitcoin is too dodgy for donations.

Remember those cameras that Assange supporters claimed were being used to spy on him? They're actually there to monitor traffic.

THE BIG PICTURE

Has WikiLeaks ushered in an era of no government secrets?

THE CABLES

AFRICA

How Coca-Cola got embroiled in a fight between Muammar al-Qaddafi's sons.

An aide to Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki tells U.S. diplomats that Kibaki is soft on corruption.

The Kenyan president's mistress also has alleged links to mercenaries.

ASIA

U.S. diplomats are nervous about China's growing influence in the African telecom sector. Australia, meanwhile, is worried about Chinese encroachment on its own mining industries.

MIDDLE EAST

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the "George Steinbrenner of Iran."

THE NEWS

Twenty-two new charges have been filed against Pfc. Bradley Manning, including capital offenses -- enough to send him to jail for life.

Manning's lawyer says Manning has been subjected to degrading and inhuman conditions in jail, including being forced to sleep naked.

The Department of Defense won't let Rep. Dennis Kucinich visit Manning in jail.

Did a WikiLeaks cable finally push the director of the London School of Economics to resign over the Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi affair?

Mexican President Felipe Calderon says WikiLeaks disclosures have caused "severe damage" to U.S.-Mexico relationship.

Julian Assange appeals his extradition to Sweden on sex assault charges.

PayPal has a change of heart about letting people give Assange money.

Anonymous manages to force its nemesis HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr out of his job, moves on to bugging the Koch brothers.

Julian Assange wants to trademark his name.

Assange is, or maybe isn't, an anti-semite.

THE BIG PICTURE

What's at stake for American journalists if Assange is prosecuted.

Why Assange is ruining WikiLeaks.

Why the best way for the U.S. government to prevent the next WikiLeak is less secrecy.

THE CABLES

AFRICA

U.S. diplomats in 2008 called the Libyan city where protests erupted this week "a locus of extremist activity" not really under the control of Muammar Qaddafi's government.

ASIA

What U.S. diplomats have to say about Xi Jinping, China's next leader.

EUROPE

NATO on Russia's military: Meh.

MIDDLE EAST

Inside the United States' cozy relationship with Bahrain.

Bahrain's king told U.S. officials that his country's opposition was trained by Hezbollah.

THE NEWS

The U.S. government's WikiLeaks probe makes its courtroom debut in the United States.

WikiLeaks defector Daniel Domscheit-Berg's (above) book, Inside WikiLeaks, is out in English. WikiLeaks is threatening to sue him.

The preposterously complex hacking and counter-hacking saga engulfing WikiLeaks' online allies.

Australia wants to make sure Julian Assange is treated justly in Sweden.

Anonymous is now going after Iran.

THE BIG PICTURE

Free speech advocate and celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz, now Julian Assange's lawyer, tells FP why WikiLeaks is "the Pentagon Papers case for the 21st Century."

Hillary Clinton's tricky balancing act on WikiLeaks and Internet freedom.

WikiLeaks' Asia cables could be a whole lot worse.

Not much is known about Xi Jinping, the expected next president of China, but according to a newly public WikiLeaks cable, Xi has been complaining to America's neighbors about "well fed foreigners" pointing fingers at China.

In a February 2009 trip to Mexico, the first stop in Xi's six-country tour of Latin America, the current vice president of China blurted out his feelings about criticisms of Chinese diplomacy, according to a diplomatic cable classified by acting deputy chief of mission James Williard.

"There are some well fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs," Xi blurted out at a lunch meeting, appropriately. "China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you."

Xi showed up with representatives of 20 Chinese companies in tow and made the case that China and Mexico have common cause to cooperate economically, as both are developing countries facing the consequences of a global financial crisis they didn't cause. The embassy cable noted that Xi's outburst seemed to reveal the Xi's true feelings about America despite a more diplomatic message during the rest of his visit.

"It should be noted that his criticism of 'well-fed foreigners' sharply contrasted from the overarching cooperation theme of his visit and were delivered on the first leg of his trip in a country with strong ties to the United States," the cable said.

The cable reported that Mexico was trying to correct its huge trade deficit with China and that Mexican officials were wary of China's tactic of expanding economic activity in developing countries.

"We don't want to be China's next Africa," a Mexican official told a U.S. Embassy economics officer, according to the cable, referring to the oft-cited criticism that China has pursued a strategy of seizing the continent's huge natural resources while dumping cheap industrial and manufactured products into foreign markets. "We need to own our country's development."

Two other recently released WikiLeaks cables also detailed China's charm offensive in Latin America and skepticism on that continent of Chinese motives and practices.

"China's strategy in Latin America is clear: it wants to 'control the supply of commodities,' said the Brazilian consul general in Shanghai," according to one cable sent to Washington from the U.S. Shanghai Consulate in April 2009.

"Colombia is wary of Chinese motives and what it sees as lax Chinese environmental and labor standards. However, Colombia needs new economic partners, particularly given the lack of progress on a U.S.-Colombia Free Trade agreement (FTA)," said another cable, conveying the views of Colombian diplomats as reported by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

The cables paint a picture of an aggressive Chinese effort to insert state-owned companies into America's backyard while Latin American countries have few options but to go along in the face of American neglect.

Xi, who is expected to succeed President Hu Jintao in 2012, has been intimately involved in those efforts, the cables show.

So how did his trip to Mexico go? The cables report the results as mixed.

"Xi's visit intensified the Mexico-China dialogue," the cable said. "However, Mexico's trade deficit with China and concerns over China's approach to investment continue to color Mexico's perception of China as a true partner."

THE CABLES

AFRICA

Zimbabwe's first lady is suing a local newspaper over its reporting on a WikiLeaks cable detailing her involvement in the black-market diamond trade. (And apparently doesn't read FP.)

When FP wrote about Africa's failed states this summer, we didn't know the half of it.

Pretty much everyone involved in last week's cable about bribery in the Ugandan oil business denies bribing anyone in the Ugandan oil business.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir allegedly has $9 billion in oil money stashed in Britain.

AMERICAS

American diplomats at the United Nations don't like to talk much about human rights anymore.

The Cuban government misjudges the WikiLeaks cables, which show the U.S. government misjudging the Cuban government.

Joking about Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, or even above Venezuela, is ill-advised.

How Brazil got pharmaceutical companies to hand over cheap HIV/AIDS drugs.

Diverticulitis may have nearly done in the Castro regime, but Cuba's political dissidents probably can't.

ANTARCTICA

WikiLeaks is banned there.

ASIA

The Red Cross reported extensive torture of Kashmiris at Indian detention centers in Kashmir to the U.S. embassy in New Delhi in 2005.

Singapore's government owes an apology to basically every major country in Asia.

The Dalai Lama says fighting climate change is more important for Tibet than political independence.

The heir to the Gandhi family political dynasty thinks Hindu extremists are a bigger threat to India than Muslim ones.

Turkmen strongman Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov doesn't like people who are smarter than him.

A former Thai prime minister says Thailand's queen had a hand in the country's 2006 coup. The country's leaders also have their doubts about the crown prince.

Eric Clapton's weirdly persistent influence on North Korean politics.

EUROPE/CAUCASUS

Sweden told the State Department in 2008 that the country didn't have to worry about terrorism. They're probably not saying that now.

Silvio Berlusconi for the win?

The German government is still not digging L. Ron Hubbard.

The Stockholm embassy discusses Sweden's WikiLeaks-enabling Pirate Party in a particularly meta cable.

The Azeri first lady's plastic surgery creates confusion among U.S. diplomats in Baku.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is "bizarre" and "disturbed."

MIDDLE EAST

Do Arab leaders actually care about the Palestinians?

Hosni Mubarak thinks his son is a perfectionist.

Is the Egyptian military in "intellectual and social decline"?

The Arab League doesn't like Steven Spielberg.

THE NEWS

Julian Assange is released on bail after a media-circus-attracting hearing, but not before Michael Moore manages to get involved. Now that he's out of jail, Assange is pretty chatty -- as is Vaughan Smith, the journalist and WikiLeaks supporter who's hosting him until his next court date.

Things are not going nearly so well for alleged Assange document source Bradley Manning.

Australian police determine WikiLeaks hasn't broken any laws in the country, but Assange's lawyer says a grand jury in the United States is considering indicting him.

WikiLeaks is already inspiring imitators around the world, and counterfeit cables are turning up in Russia -- because, you know, that worked so well in Pakistan.

FP's WikiLeaked is too hot for the U.S. Air Force.

Someone posts a manifesto on behalf of Anonymous, the ad-hoc group of hackers that has cyber-attacked an array of targets in solidarity with WikiLeaks over the past two weeks. The manifesto quotes KISS bassist Gene Simmons. A Greek web designer is arrested for it.

Governments may be scared of WikiLeaks, but the Pakistani feminine hygiene industry isn't.

THE BIG PICTURE

A lot of people think Assange should have been Time's 2010 person of the year. Richard Stengel, the magazine's managing editor, isn't one of them. 

Portrait of the hacker as a young man: Julian Assange during his couch-surfing and email-stalking days. 

Would Henry David Thoreau join Anonymous?

Congress considers WikiLeaks.

Mark Prendergast, ombudsman for the U.S. military's official Stars and Stripes newspaper, argues that military personnel should be allowed to read the cables.

If WikiLeaks doesn't get things rolling a little faster, we'll be writing this blog for another 7.6 years.

Dear Lead Guitarist? WikiLeaks' latest batch of cables includes a 2007 dispatch from the U.S. embassy in Seoul relaying an unidentified informant's suggestions for improving communication with North Korea. Among them:

BOOK ERIC CLAPTON

-----------------

¶9. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX passed on the suggestion from his North Korean interlocutors that the USG arrange for Eric Clapton to perform a concert in Pyongyang. As Kim Jong-il's second son, Kim Jong-chol, is reported to be a great fan, the performance could be an opportunity to build good will.

We knew this -- the Financial Times reported in February 2008 that Pyongyang had invited Clapton to perform around the same time it had invited the New York Philharmonic, and that Clapton was receptive to the idea. But in light of Kim Jong Un's recent anointment as his father's successor, it's worth noting the weirdly outsized role that Clapton has played in North Korean politics: Kim Jong Chul reportedly began to fall out of favor as a prospective heir to the Kim dynasty after he and his girlfriend were spotted at a Clapton concert in Germany in 2006. (Eldest son Kim Jong Nam infamously took himself out of the running five years earlier.)

Western pop music is banned in North Korea, so it's not entirely clear why Pyongyang would have made an exception for Clapton. Maybe other classic rock acts hit too close to home.