Some Chinese named in WikiLeaks cables nervous, but so far unharmed

When the WikiLeaks website released its full set of 251,287 unredacted U.S. State Department cables two weeks ago, it lifted the curtain on hundreds of Chinese who've met with American embassy officials over the years. That sudden unveiling has left both the cables' sources and observers of Beijing wondering whether the Chinese government will crack down. | 09/14/11 16:53:20 By - Tom Lasseter

WikiLeaks: China wanted to invest in U.S. banks during '08 crisis

During the throes of the 2008 financial crisis, a top Chinese banker told U.S. officials that his company and others in China were interested in taking significant stakes in U.S. banks but expected a backlash from regulators and the American public, according to U.S. diplomatic memos. | 09/04/11 15:44:27 By - Rick Rothacker

WikiLeaks: China, Paulson at odds over threat from subprime crisis

On the eve of the U.S. financial crisis, Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was urging more financial innovation on his Chinese counterparts, even as the Chinese were calling for stricter regulation, U.S. diplomatic memos show. | 09/04/11 15:44:02 By - Rick Rothacker

WikiLeaks makes all its U.S. diplomatic cables public

The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks made public its entire cache of pirated State Department cables Thursday night in a torrent of once secret information that is sure to renew debate over the impact of one of the largest security breaches in U.S. history. | 09/02/11 00:06:39 By - Mark Seibel

WikiLeaks: Cables detail concerns of U.S. contractor held in Cuba

A U.S. government subcontractor spent 25 days in a Havana jail before he received his first visit from a U.S. diplomat, but he'd already met with a Cuban lawyer involved in the case of five Havana spies whom Cuba wants freed from U.S. prisons, according to classified U.S. diplomatic cables. | 09/01/11 17:55:49 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks: Iraqi children in U.S. raid shot in head, U.N. says

A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi. | 09/01/11 16:42:04 By - Matthew Schofield

Terrorist attacks had changed architecture even before 9/11

Did the destruction of the World Trade Center 10 years ago spark a sea change in architectural design with safety and security in mind? No. That spark was lit years before. | 08/30/11 15:23:58 By - Tish Wells

WikiLeaks: Coast Guard officer is key U.S. man in Havana

The most effective official in the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana may well be a U.S. Coast Guard officer who's technically a counter-drug specialist but is sometimes approached by the Cuban government for some back-channel diplomacy. | 08/07/11 00:02:26 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks: Bush, Obama passed on sanctioning Syrian insiders

Two U.S. administrations declined in recent years to place sanctions on Syrian officials who now are involved in that country's harsh crackdown on dissidents, despite the officials' involvement in crushing internal opposition previously, according to secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks. | 08/03/11 17:37:04 By - Kevin G. Hall

WikiLeaks cables show US calling shots in Haiti

A month before a newly elected Haitian President René Préval was to assume office in 2006, frustrated U.S. officials found themselves in a diplomatic tussle with Haiti’s interim government over returning criminals to the country. | 07/20/11 20:03:47 By - Jacqueline Charles

WikiLeaks: Cable says peace group's founder threatened U.S. students in Cuba

The founder of a New York-based group that supports the Cuban government threatened to pull the scholarships of U.S. medical students in Havana if they contacted the U.S. diplomatic mission on the island, according to a State Department cable. | 07/10/11 00:02:58 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Martelly's pick as Haiti prime minister had rocky tenure as top cop

The choice of Bernard Gousse sparked outrage among some parliamentarians, who repeatedly warned Haitian President Michel Martelly this week that Gousse was an unacceptable choice. U.S. State Department cables show U.S. diplomats took a dim view of Gousse's job performance when he was Haiti's justice minister in 2004. | 07/06/11 20:26:47 By - Jacqueline Charles

WikiLeaks: Cuban cardinal pushed to close critical magazine

A Vatican expert on Cuba told U.S. diplomats in 2007 that Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega had pushed to shutter a highly regarded Roman Catholic magazine that often criticized the communist system, according to a State Department cable made available by WikiLeaks. | 06/26/11 06:02:16 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks: Saudi crackdown on Shiites has echoes in Bahrain

This year's harsh crackdown on Shiite Muslims in Bahrain follows the playbook that Sunni Muslim-ruled Saudi Arabia used against Shiites in its own Eastern Province as recently as two years ago, secret State Department cables show. | 06/22/11 19:34:13 By - Daniel Lippman

WikiLeaks: Venezuelan prelates defied pope to bash Chavez

Pope John Paul II, who was fast-tracked for sainthood earlier this year, ordered Venezuela's clergy to stay out of efforts to topple President Hugo Chavez nearly 10 years ago but Venezuela's church hierarchy defied him, with the encouragement of the administration of then-President George W. Bush, secret documents show. | 06/21/11 18:56:16 By - Kevin G. Hall

WikiLeaks: Few Cubans can name U.S.-backed dissidents

The peaceful Cuban dissidents who receive the most attention in the U.S. were largely unknown to Cubans seeking to emigrate, American diplomats in Havana found in a survey taken in 2008, according to a classified State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks. | 06/18/11 16:36:19 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks cables show worry about Saudi oil security

When al Qaida suicide bombers tried on Feb. 24, 2006, to blow up Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq oil processing facility, arguably the world's most important petroleum hub, it was taken as a sign of strength that internal security had foiled the attack. Secret U.S. State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks and shared with McClatchy and other news organizations show otherwise. | 06/15/11 10:17:58 By - Kevin G. Hall

WikiLeaks: Saudis often warned U.S. about oil speculators

What role Wall Street investors play in the high cost of oil is a hotly debated topic in Washington. The Obama administration, the Bush administration before it and Congress have been slow to take steps to rein in speculators. The Saudis, however, have struck a steady theme for years that something should be done to curb the influence of banks and hedge funds that are speculating on the price of oil, according to diplomatic cables made available to McClatchy by the WikiLeaks website. | 05/25/11 15:35:43 By - Kevin G. Hall

WikiLeaks cables show that it was all about the oil

With oil trading near $100 a barrel and gasoline near $4 a gallon at the pump, Americans can take solace in knowing that securing sources of oil has been a chief focus of U.S. embassies across the globe for years. | 05/16/11 16:10:44 By - Kevin G. Hall

WikiLeaks: U.S. saw Israeli firm's rise in Latin America as a threat

A security company led by the former head of operations for the Israeli military made such inroads into Latin America a few years ago that U.S. diplomats saw it as a security risk and moved to thwart the company's expansion, U.S. diplomatic cables show. | 05/09/11 16:11:35 By - Tim Johnson

WikiLeaks: U.S., Venezuela even fought over McDonald's

The embittering of relations between Venezuela and the U.S. sank so low in recent years that even a McDonald's combo meal and a two-for-one offer from Domino's Pizza were the subject of acrimony. | 05/05/11 16:30:45 By - Tim Johnson

Libyan city struggles with history of fighting America

The U.S. has long known that the eastern Libyan city of Derna was a major source of Libyans fighting in Iraq. As U.S. officials strive to figure out who the rebels are and what, if any, radical Islamist influence there might be in eastern Libya, onetime fighters are wrestling with their feelings toward the U.S., a former foe whose support and weapons they now depend on. | 05/01/11 15:48:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Who's still being held at Guantanamo

Until now, there has been no comprehensive list of who is still held at the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba. McClatchy determined who was still there using secret intelligence files obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to McClatchy. Clicking on a name will allow you to read the file and in most cases view a photo of the detainee. | 05/01/11 00:01:00 By -

WikiLeaks cables show Graham as senator-diplomat

Senator Lindsey Graham's meeting with Gadhafi are described in secret State Department cables that McClatchy obtained from WikiLeaks. Dozens of cables reveal Graham's meetings with dictators, heads of state, military strongmen and communist chiefs around the globe over the last seven years. | 05/01/11 06:11:19 By - James Rosen

Guantanamo's detainees come into view for first time

Using some 750 secret military-intelligence files obtained by the WikiLeaks website, and comparing them with other public documents and interviews with lawyers and U.S. officials, McClatchy has been able to give names, and frequently faces, to the 172 men who are still at Guantanamo nearly 10 years after the prison camps opened and more than two years after Obama ordered them closed. | 05/01/11 05:00:01 By - Carol Rosenberg

WikiLeaks files on Guantanamo unlikely to help those jailed on flawed evidence

Newly released Wikileaks documents detail how the U.S. government held many Guantanamo detainees based on shaky evidence. Even so, the revelations are unlikely to dramatically change their fates. | 04/27/11 19:06:18 By - Marisa Taylor and Chris Adams

Guantanamo secret files show U.S. often held innocent Afghans

Naqibullah was about 14 years old when U.S. troops detained him in December of 2002 at a suspected militant's compound in eastern Afghanistan. A secret U.S. intelligence assessment written in 2003 concluded that Naqibullah had been kidnapped and forcibly conscripted by a warring tribe affiliated with the Taliban. The boy told interrogators that during his abduction he'd been held at gunpoint by 11 men and raped. Nonetheless, Naqibullah was held at Guantanamo for a full year. | 04/26/11 19:58:08 By - Tom Lasseter

Wikileaks: Dim view of Panama president Obama will meet

Ah, to be a fly on the Oval Office wall Thursday as President Barack Obama meets with Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, the subject of a series of State Department cables that WikiLeaks obtained and passed to McClatchy. | 04/26/11 14:31:27 By - Tim Johnson

WikiLeaks: Just 8 at Gitmo gave evidence against 255 others

U.S. military intelligence assessing the threat of nearly 800 men held at Guantanamo in many cases used information from a small group of captives whose accounts now appear to be questionable, according to a McClatchy analysis of a trove of secret documents from the facility. | 04/25/11 19:54:05 By - Tom Lasseter and Carol Rosenberg

WikiLeaks: Secret Guantanamo files show U.S. disarray

The world may have thought the U.S. was detaining a band of international terrorists whose questioning would help the hunt for Osama Bin Laden or foil the next 9/11. But a collection of secret Bush-era intelligence documents not meant to surface for another 20 years shows that the military's efforts at Guantanamo often were much less effective than the government has acknowledged. | 04/24/11 22:29:31 By - Carol Rosenberg and Tom Lasseter

WikiLeaks cables bare secrets of U.S.-Laotian relations

The 2007 U.S. arrest of the late Hmong leader Vang Pao hurt him, but it did wonders for U.S.-Lao relations, classified State Department cables show. Lao officials were "pleased and surprised" by the arrest of the man who'd long denounced their regime, a U.S. diplomat reported. Suddenly, Lao military officers began talking. Bureaucratic barriers shrank. Cross-cultural exchanges became feasible. | 04/22/11 18:04:00 By - Michael Doyle

Drug gangs help themselves to Central American military arsenals

Crime groups in cahoots with venal army officers are looting military arsenals in Central America, giving them powerful weapons that allow them to outgun police and challenge the region's regular armies. | 04/21/11 15:50:00 By - Tim Johnson

Drug gangs muscle into new territory: Central America

Washington has spent billions of dollars to help push drug cartels out of Colombia, and to confront them in Mexico. Now they've muscled their way into Central America, opening a new chapter in the drug war that almost certainly will exact further cost on U.S. taxpayers as American authorities confront drug gangs on a new frontier. | 04/21/11 16:18:50 By - Tim Johnson

Accused WikiLeaks informant moved to prison in Kansas

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning moved Wednesday from solitary confinement in a Marine jail in Quantico, Va., to a one-man cell at a new prison in Fort Leavenworth. He now shares common areas with other inmates. | 04/21/11 07:28:03 By - Dawn Bormann

State Department cables reveal U.S. thirst for all things Iranian

Top Iranian security officials allegedly discussed staging a student takeover of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran in 2009, much as students had seized the U.S. Embassy there three decades earlier, according to a State Department cable. The second-hand anecdote is one of hundreds about Iran contained in classified U.S. cables obtained by WikiLeaks and recently passed to McClatchy. | 04/17/11 17:00:00 By - Warren P. Strobel

WikiLeaks cables show U.S. took softer line toward Libya

Dozens of confidential and secret cables sent in recent years by the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli to the State Department describe a softer and gentler Libya that Americans following the bloody crisis there now would have a hard time recognizing. | 04/07/11 19:20:59 By - Jonathan S. Landay

WikiLeaks claims second U.S. ambassador, in Ecuador

Ecuador on Tuesday asked U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges to leave the country "as soon as possible" after a diplomatic cable provided by WikiLeaks revealed that she had speculated that President Rafael Correa was turning a blind-eye to rampant corruption in the police department. | 04/05/11 19:51:07 By - Jim Wyss

WikiLeaks cable casts doubt on Guantanamo medical care

The Bush administration was so intent on keeping Guantanamo detainees off U.S. soil and away from U.S. courts that it secretly tried to negotiate deals with Latin American countries to provide "life-saving" medical procedures rather than fly ill terrorist suspects to the U.S. for treatment, a recently released State Department cable shows. | 03/30/11 17:20:41 By - Carol Rosenberg

WikiLeaks dispute claims U.S. ambassador to Mexico

U.S. ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual resigned Saturday following weeks of withering criticism by President Felipe Calderon, who said he'd lost trust in the envoy and demanded his removal. Pascual's departure marks the first high-level U.S. diplomat to be felled as a result of the release of U.S. diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks website. | 03/19/11 22:17:53 By - Tim Johnson

WikiLeaks beef: Mexico's Calderon wants U.S. ambassador out

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is waging a harsh campaign against the U.S. ambassador here, repeatedly demanding over the past month that he be replaced in a tiff that has strained ties between the two countries. | 03/16/11 15:58:57 By - Tim Johnson

Clinton spokesman resigns for criticizing U.S. treatment of WikiLeaks suspect Manning

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's chief spokesman abruptly resigned Sunday, three days after he publicly criticized the treatment in confinement of WikiLeaks suspect Army Pfc. Bradley Manning as "counterproductive and stupid." | 03/14/11 18:38:55 By - Warren P. Strobel

Clinton, Crowley statements on Crowley's resignation

These are the State Department's statements on the resignation of Philip J. Crowley after his comments criticizing the prison treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who's being held at the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., on charges related to documents that found their way to the WikiLeaks website. | 03/13/11 14:19:24 By -

State Dept. official's comments about WikiLeaks suspect touch off furor

Public criticism by a State Department spokesman about the treatment of an Army private accused of giving classified U.S. material to WikiLeaks has sparked speculation of a rift within the U.S. government over the handling of the prisoner. | 03/11/11 21:02:10 By - James Oliphant

Army secretary faces questions on WikiLeaks scandal

Army Secretary John M. McHugh is still waiting to hear back on an inquiry he ordered into the WikiLeaks scandal — but that's not stopping lawmakers from focusing on the issue as he and other top Army officials make rounds on Capitol Hill. | 03/04/11 16:44:13 By - Marc Heller

WikiLeaks suspect Manning is charged by Army with aiding the enemy

The Army has charged Pvt. 1st Class Bradley Manning, the soldier suspected of leaking thousands of documents published by WikiLeaks, with aiding and giving intelligence to the enemy, a significant escalation of the government's prosecution of the junior intelligence analyst. Prosecutors alleged he "wrongfully and wantonly" caused intelligence to be published on the Internet, with the knowledge that it would be "accessible to the enemy." | 03/02/11 21:11:45 By - David S. Cloud

Spielberg buys rights to WikiLeaks book

Hollywood film mogul Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to the story of the WikiLeaks saga, the Guardian reported Wednesday. | 03/02/11 19:08:03 By -

Additional charges against Private 1st Class Bradley E. Manning

Press release detailing additional charges against Private Bradley E. Manning in the Wikileaks case | 03/02/11 18:05:24 By -

Wikileaks' Assange to be returned to Sweden

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden for questioning and possible trial on accusations of sexual assault, a British judge ruled Thursday. | 02/24/11 17:07:53 By - Henry Chu

Commentary: Did New York Times bite the hand of WikiLeaks' Assange?

It’s the climax of the 1975 hit Three Days of the Condor. On a Manhattan sidewalk fugitive CIA analyst Robert Redford, having outgunned his assassins, confronts his double-dealing boss, who demands he join the sinister plot to control the world’s oil. No way, Redford says, he’s already blown the whistle. And the camera pans across the street where a truckload of newsprint is being delivered – to The New York Times. Game over. Ahh, Hollywood. But what really happens when you’re a major league whistleblower? | 02/15/11 11:18:18 By - Edward Wasserman

WikiLeaks: Assange doubts value of Bank of America e-mails

WikiLeaks has data from Bank of America Corp., but founder Julian Assange isn't sure whether it holds any big news and it may be difficult to interpret, Reuters reported this week. The information consists of e-mails from an executive's computer hard drive, but Assange told Reuters it would require a substantial amount of effort to determine whether any of the material was newsworthy. | 02/11/11 20:52:44 By - Rick Rothacker

WikiLeaks cables assess Cuba's recession survival

As an economic crisis began gripping Cuba in early 2009, U.S. diplomats in Havana reported the island was better equipped to withstand the blow than when its Soviet subsidies collapsed in 1989. The judgments that the communist system would struggle but change and survive were contained in four cables filed by the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana in 2009 and made public by the whistleblower site WikiLeaks. | 02/10/11 06:15:58 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks: ACLU challenges subpoena for Twitter records

The unfolding battle between the United States government and WikiLeaks over the publication of hundreds of thousands of once-secret U.S. documents moved into a new phase Tuesday with the unsealing of court motions asking a federal magistrate in Virginia to quash a subpoena ordering the micro-blogging website Twitter to turn over records of three Twitter users with ties to WikiLeaks. | 02/08/11 21:27:36 By - Mark Seibel

WikiLeaks: Assange extradition hearing will last until Friday

Julian Assange's defense team continued to argue Tuesday that Assange was the subject of a witch hunt by overzealous Swedish prosecutors captive to their own agendas or external pressure, especially from the U.S. out of anger over WikiLeaks' revelation of documents from the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department. | 02/08/11 17:28:11 By - Henry Chu and Janet Stobart

WikiLeaks: Assange lawyer argues Swedish accusations aren't serious

On the opening day of a two-day hearing in London on Sweden's extradition request, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's legal team sought to downplay the severity of the molestation and rape accusations against him and to cast doubt on the credibility and authority of the Swedish prosecutor seeking his extradition, calling a witness who referred to her as an "ultra-radical feminist." | 02/07/11 18:24:53 By - Henry Chu and Janet Stobart

FBI serves 40 warrants in search of WikiLeaks 'hacktivists'

The FBI statement announcing the search warrants was the first indication that the U.S. intends to prosecute the so-called "hacktivists" for a series of computer attacks on websites of businesses that stopped providing services to WikiLeaks last month. Such distributed denial of service attacks are punishable by 10 years in prison. | 01/27/11 19:03:24 By - Mark Seibel

WikiLeaks probe: Army commanders were told not to send Manning to Iraq

Investigators have concluded that Army commanders ignored advice not to send to Iraq an Army private who's now accused of downloading hundreds of thousands of sensitive reports and diplomatic cables that ended up on the WikiLeaks website in the largest single security breach in American history, McClatchy has learned | 01/27/11 16:30:37 By - Nancy A. Youssef

WikiLeaks: 2006 U.S. cable named corrupt Cuban officials

Among those named was Army Gen. Julio Casas Reguerio, who succeeded Raul Castro as minister of defense when he replaced brother Fidel at the head of the government, but gave no details. Another example was Otto Rivero, leader of a group close to Fidel. | 01/23/11 22:42:33 By - Juan O. Tamayo

How Congress helped thwart Obama's plan to close Guantanamo

Saturday marked the second anniversary of Obama's still-unmet order to close the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Many factors contributed to the administration's failure to fulfill one of Obama's campaign promises, but a key one, WikiLeaks cables suggest, is Congress' refusal to let any Guantanamo detainee be resettled in the United States. | 01/23/11 17:04:21 By - Carol Rosenberg

Lawyer files official protest of Manning's jail conditions

The lawyer for alleged government secrets leaker Bradley Manning is accusing military authorities of using punitive measures against Manning at the Marine Corps jail in Quantico, Va., according to a story in The Washington Post. | 01/21/11 17:16:19 By - Ellen Nakashima

WikiLeaks memo belies Hu's glossy pitch to U.S.

Chinese President Hu Jintao this week restated pledges to crack down on illegal business practices and painted a rosy picture for foreign investors, but confidential U.S. diplomatic cables tell a far different story for U.S. businesses. | 01/18/11 16:00:23 By - Kevin G. Hall

WikiLeaks: Swiss banker says he's given records to Assange

Former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer on Monday gave WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange data on about 2,000 clients that he contends may have evaded taxes, published reports said. | 01/17/11 19:42:27 By - Kate Gibson

WikiLeaks: U.S. ambassador warned Ben Ali unpopular

No one can say the Obama administration wasn't warned that Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled his northern African nation Friday night, was unpopular with his people. That apparently was a regular theme of Ambassador Robert F. Godec, according to State Department cables made public last month by the website WikiLeaks. | 01/14/11 20:36:38 By - Mark Seibel

Tunisian President Ben Ali flees country as thousands protest

The president of of Tunisia fled the country Friday after tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the capital to demand his resignation. President Zine el-Abidine ben Ali's destination was unknown. Secret cables highly critical of Ben Ali from the U.S. ambassador and released by WikiLeaks may have fed the unrest. | 01/14/11 19:17:26 By -

In WikiLeaks fight, U.S. journalists take a pass

Just three years after a major court confrontation that saw many of America's most important journalism organizations file briefs on WikiLeaks' behalf, much of the U.S. journalistic community has shunned founder Julian Assange — even as reporters write scores, if not hundreds, of stories based on WikiLeaks' trove of leaked State Department cables. | 01/09/11 15:12:24 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. seeks Twitter info on WikiLeaks' Assange, others

A U.S. magistrate in Virginia has ordered Twitter to turn over to the Justice Department whatever information it has about five of its users, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Army PFC Bradley Manning, the one-time Baghdad-based intelligence analyst accused of unauthorized downloading of hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents. | 01/08/11 08:55:43 By - Mark Seibel

WikiLeaks: 'Voluptuous' nurse cable costs diplomat his job

In what appears to be the first diplomatic casualty from the latest WikiLeaks revelations, the U.S. ambassador to Libya has returned to Washington and is likely to leave his post, U.S. officials said Tuesday | 01/04/11 19:07:10 By - Warren P. Strobel

WikiLeaks' Assange: 2,000 sites now have all documents

In the event of his untimely death or long-term incarceration, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the sites would make public all the leaked documents his group has, the activist reiterated Thursday in an interview with the broadcaster al Jazeera. Right now, the encrypted documents are password protected. | 12/31/10 08:19:06 By - Gregor Mayer and Ulrike Koltermann

Protesters at Beale AFB decry treatment of alleged WikiLeaks figure Manning

Peace groups outside the main gate of Beale Air Force Base on Wednesday protested the treatment of the private suspected of handing secret reports over to WikiLeaks. Protesters from Veterans for Peace, CodePINK and other groups asked for "basic constitutional principles and human rights" be extended to Pfc. Bradley Manning. | 12/30/10 06:50:40 By - Bill Lindelof

WikiLeaks: Obama change on visa for kidnapper was an accident

A Brazilian who helped kidnap the U.S. ambassador to his country in 1969 should never have received a tourist visa from the State Department last year, according to a U.S. State Department cable made public by WikiLeaks. | 12/29/10 18:11:14 By - Stephen Bodzin, The Christian Science Monitor

WikiLeaks cables highlight Cuba's health care issues

In one Cuban hospital, patients had to bring their own light bulbs. In another, the staff used "a primitive manual vacuum" on a woman who had miscarried. In others, Cuban patients pay bribes to obtain better treatment. Those and other observations by an unidentified nurse assigned to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana were included in a dispatch sent by the mission in January 2008 and made public this month by WikiLeaks. | 12/29/10 07:02:40 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks: How U.S. tried to stop Spain's torture probe

The Obama administration turned to a Republican senator from Florida to deliver a message to the Spanish government: Don't indict former President George W. Bush's legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees or it will chill U.S.-Spanish relations. The Spanish responded with a lecture on the independence of the judiciary. | 12/25/10 11:41:11 By - Carol Rosenberg

Army opens probe of its role in WikiLeaks security breach

The U.S. Army has launched a wide-ranging investigation into how a private allegedly downloaded hundreds of thousands of secret reports and diplomatic cables and handed them to WikiLeaks and whether other soldiers should face criminal charges in the case. It's the second time in just over a year that Army practices have come under intense internal scrutiny after a major security failing. | 12/23/10 17:01:46 By - Nancy A. Youssef

Commentary: Maybe Zuckerberg, not Assange, will be the historical 'footnote'

News may be the first draft of history, but as all writers know, most first drafts end up in the trash. Nobody knows which major happenings of the moment will have lasting importance. Who can say how much weight historians will assign even to 9/11; for all its seemingly epoch-making importance it may be eclipsed by developments we can't foresee, and may get only a nod when the histories of our day are written.

So too Time magazine's decision to crown Mark Zuckerberg, the wunderkind behind Facebook, as its Person of the Year, while bypassing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who the magazine's editor declared would be no more than "a footnote five years from now.'' | 12/23/10 10:57:40 By - Edward Wasserman

Bank of America wonders about WikiLeaks' planned 'megaleak'

Heading into the new year, a big question looms for Bank of America: What's next in the WikiLeaks saga? Julian Assange, the anti-secrecy organization's founder, has said he is preparing a "megaleak" about a large bank, leading to speculation the Charlotte bank is the target. On Monday, he told the Times of London that he had enough information to make the bosses of a major bank resign. | 12/22/10 07:09:08 By - Rick Rothacker

WikiLeaks: Cable tied Israel to killing of top Syrian aide

Eleven months after Israeli planes had destroyed a suspected nuclear site in Syria, a sniper fired a shot that killed General Muhammad Suleiman, President Bashar al Assad's top security aide with responsibility for arms procurement and strategic weapons. Israelis, the US embassy in Damascus reported, were "the most obvious suspects" in the assassination. | 12/20/10 22:54:35 By - Ian Black

WikiLeaks cables roil India's political landscape

Most damaging to the ruling Congress Party was a cable reporting that Rahul Gandhi, scion of India's first political family and pegged by many as the nation's next prime minister, told the U.S. ambassador last year that hard-line Hindu groups in India could be a bigger threat to the country than Pakistan-based Islamic militants. | 12/19/10 20:26:42 By - Mark Magnier

Bank of America says it'll block payments for WikiLeaks

In a statement, the bank said its decision was based on "our reasonable belief" that the website "may be engaged in activities . . . inconsistent with our internal policies." Payments to WikiLeaks have also been blocked by MasterCard, Visa Europe and Pay Pal. | 12/18/10 02:42:24 By - Rick Rothacker

WikiLeaks cables indicate Cuba sought 'secret channel' to U.S.

Cuba's Raúl Castro wanted to open secret talks with the White House in late 2009 as the only way his government could "make major moves toward meeting U.S. concerns," according to senior Spanish diplomats cited in new WikiLeaks cables. | 12/17/10 07:08:47 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks: U.S. officials pushed Brazil to buy Boeing fighters

Recently released confidential and secret cables show that U.S. diplomats have sought to help orchestrate the sale of about $4.4 billion worth of Boeing fighter jets to Brazil, but the French aerospace industry, a longtime Boeing nemesis, may have the inside track. | 12/16/10 14:17:38 By - Les Blumenthal

WikiLeaks' Assange granted bail by U.K. judge

Julian Assange will be freed on bail and sent to stay at a British country mansion, a U.K. judge ruled Thursday, rejecting prosecutors' attempts to keep the WikiLeaks founder in prison as he fights extradition to Sweden. | 12/16/10 09:16:32 By -

WikiLeaks cable details Cuba's 'frustration' with Jamaica in drug fight

Cuban counter-drug officials cooperate well with a U.S. Coast Guard liaison but also complain that Jamaica has "consistently ignored" calls for help on drug cases, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable from Havana. | 12/16/10 06:55:19 By - Juan O. Tamayo

WikiLeaks: Here's an Ahmad Chalabi story you haven't heard

For Iraq-watchers, a tiny but enticing tidbit surfaced in a WikiLeaks cable from February 2004, 11 months after the U.S.-led invasion. It involved Ahmad Chalabi, the brilliant, controversial and always fascinating Iraqi politician best known for helping to convince the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. | 12/14/10 17:33:45 By - Shashank Bengali

WikiLeaks founder Assange granted bail; Sweden appeals

A British court today granted bail to Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, who faces allegations of rape in Sweden, but he'll stay in jail for at least 48 more hours after Sweden appealed. Some of Assange's celebrity supporters attended the hearing, including Bianca Jagger and Fatima Bhutto, niece of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, reports Britain's The Guardian newspaper. | 12/14/10 11:08:25 By -

WikiLeaks: U.S. frets over Peru's army, resurgent Shining Path

U.S. diplomats in Peru are keeping a close eye on the steady resurgence of the fanatical Sendero Luminoso insurgency but find that corruption in Peru's army stymies efforts to fight the Maoist group, U.S. diplomatic cables show. | 12/13/10 17:46:20 By - Tim Johnson

WikiLeaks: British court to hear Assange bail request Tuesday

A British court will decide Tuesday whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be released on bail, a week after he ordered held on Swedish allegations that he sexually assaulted two women. Britain's The Guardian newspaper talks about the latest developments in the case. | 12/13/10 18:56:51 By -

WikiLeaks: 'Hacktivists' bring new look to online protests

Hacker activists have launched successful attacks on websites for Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Swiss bank PostFinance and the Swedish prosecutor leading the sexual assault case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Working under the banner of Operation Payback, they are part of a new breed of online protesters who say they are ready to engage in acts of cyber-disobedience against major corporations, politicians and religious institutions, all in the name of defending their ideals. | 12/11/10 18:00:19 By - David Sarno

WikiLeaks: U.S. having trouble tying Assange to Manning

Even as some government officials contend that the release of thousands of classified documents by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange jeopardizes U.S. national security, legal experts, Pentagon officials and Justice Department lawyers concede any effort to prosecute him faces numerous hurdles. Among them: Prosecutors have had difficulty finding evidence that Assange ever communicated directly with Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, 23, an intelligence specialist who's widely thought to be the source of the documents. | 12/10/10 17:59:25 By - Nancy A. Youssef

WikiLeaks: Even China complained Cuba wasn't paying its bills

Cuba's financial situation "could become fatal'' within two to three years and the country risks being "insolvent'' as early as 2011, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable from Havana made public Thursday by WikiLeaks. | 12/10/10 13:07:53 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Commentary: WikiLeaks may help U.S. image in the long-term

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have spoken too fast when she denounced the release of about 250,000 confidential diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks as "an attack on America." In the short run, the disclosures will hurt U.S. diplomacy, but in the long run they may help restore the U.S. image abroad. | 12/10/10 02:27:25 By - Andres Oppenheimer

WikiLeaks: Cables reveal U.S. military role in Muslim world

From the Saudi-Yemen border to lawless Somalia and the north-central African desert, the U.S. military is more engaged in armed conflicts in the Muslim world than the U.S. government openly acknowledges, according to cables released by the WikiLeaks website. | 12/09/10 18:22:08 By - Shashank Bengali

Commentary: WikiLeaks and the price of secrecy

Suddenly, foreign news is back. In the past week or so, the long lamented decline in smart, well-sourced, insightful and provocative coverage of international affairs has done a 180. Overnight, the media are brimming with stories about global politics:

Do Arab leaders privately share Israel's fears of Iran?

Is Ahmadinejad making nice to Hugo Chávez in hopes of finding uranium in Venezuela for Iran's nuclear program? | 12/09/10 02:43:24 By - Edward Wasserman

WikiLeaks supporters attack Visa, MasterCard websites

London's Guardian newspaper, one of five that have been publishing U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks reports on what one "breathless blogger" called the "first great cyberwars." Writes the paper: "The technological and commercial skirmishes over WikiLeaks escalated into a full-blown online assault . . . when, in a serious breach of internet security, a concerted online attack by activist supporters of WikiLeaks succeeded in disrupting MasterCard and Visa" websites. | 12/08/10 19:33:05 By -

WikiLeaks: Chavez-Ortega partnership strained over aid

U.S. diplomats viewed Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega as a mercurial opportunist who bashed the United States in public even as he cozied up to officials in private — particularly when he feared Venezuela and other benefactors might not come through with funds. | 12/08/10 17:08:23 By - Jim Wyss

Accuser of WikiLeaks' Assange is linked to Cuban dissidents

One of the two Swedish women whose complaints led to the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been identified as a supporter of Cuban dissident groups. | 12/08/10 06:35:44 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Inside WikiLeaks, Assange arrest creates chaos, report says

Wired.com's Threat Level, citing one "dispirited WikiLeaks activist," is reporting that the arrest without bail of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday has left the organization in a state of uncertainty, despite transition plans laid out prior to his surrender to British police. | 12/08/10 05:09:29 By -

An Assange prosecution would raise 1st Amendment issues

Angry over the bombardment of leaks of classified material, top Obama administration officials are considering filing an extradition request with Sweden to have WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange face criminal charges, possibly for espionage. But such proceedings would test whether First Amendment protections extend to a website with a worldwide audience. | 12/07/10 21:10:38 By - Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage

WikiLeaks: Assange jailed; Visa, MasterCard join boycott

Julian Assange, the founder of the controversial WikiLeaks website, was arrested Tuesday and ordered to remain in custody until a hearing next week on his possible extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women. The jailing came as governments and businesses around the world continued their efforts to halt the ability of WikiLeaks to function. | 12/07/10 09:47:58 By - Henry Chu

WikiLeaks: Swiss bank freezes Julian Assange's account

The Swiss bank PostFinance on Monday closed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's bank account in the latest international move to isolate Assange in the wake of his release of once-secret U.S. State Department cables. A bank spokesman said the account was closed because Assange was not a Swiss resident. | 12/06/10 12:50:46 By - Mark Seibel

Commentary: WikiLeaks exposed no real secrets about Middle East

What have we learned so far from the WikiLeaks trove of secret documents?

We have discovered that what American diplomats say behind closed doors is not terribly different from what they say in front of open microphones. The tone changes a bit, and the diplomatic jargon and niceties fall away. But, from what we have seen so far, the overall policy objectives seem to align rather closely with what officials say in public. | 12/06/10 02:43:29 By - Frida Ghitis

Commentary: In a WikiLeaks world, nothing is secret

The surprise isn't that WikiLeaks is apparently going after Bank of America. The surprise is that it hasn't happened before now.

More than a year ago, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he had a trove of information taken from a BofA executive's hard drive. Since then, WikiLeaks has published a classified video of U.S. forces killing Iraqi civilians; war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan; and, just this week, more than 250,000 messages from U.S. diplomats stationed all over the world. | 12/05/10 02:18:40 By - Tommy Tomlinson

WikiLeaks: U.S. cables give grim view of Mexico drug war

As snapshots of Mexico's drug war, the U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks over the past few days offer surprising, and sometimes grim, images. Some of the bluntest language came in a cable from U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual, who wrote that "Mexico's use of strategic and tactical intelligence is often fractured, ad hoc, and heavily reliant on the United States for leads and operations." | 12/04/10 16:25:00 By - Tim Johnson

WikiLeaks fallout: Why more secrecy might be worse

WikiLeaks' release of tens of thousands of classified government documents this year has prompted U.S. officials to add layers of new safeguards. But that very impulse has sparked debate among experts about whether those new protections might make national security secrets more vulnerable, not less. | 12/03/10 17:05:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

WikiLeaks: Maliki filled Iraqi security services with Shiites

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki fired dozens of officers from the security and intelligence services early this year and replaced them with inexperienced political officers loyal to his Shiite Dawa party, U.S. officials reported in February, according to newly leaked diplomatic cables. | 12/03/10 18:11:00 By - Shashank Bengali

Feinstein wants Holder to prosecute WikiLeaks founder

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Thursday urged Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for espionage, along with "any and all of his possible accomplices." | 12/02/10 20:42:46 By - Foon Rhee

Red faces in Latin America as WikiLeaks reveals foibles

Does Haitian President Rene Preval drink too much? Did a former Argentine chief of staff come to blows with a former president? Is Venezuela's government anti-Semitic? Those are the questions people are asking in the wake of WikiLeaks revelations. | 12/02/10 18:45:00 By - Tim Johnson

Pakistanis: WikiLeaks proves leaders are U.S. puppets

A deluge of U.S. diplomatic cables has tarnished the reputation of Pakistan's political and military leadership with the country's public, adding to anti-American sentiments in Pakistan, analysts and politicians said Thursday. | 12/02/10 18:10:00 By - Saeed Shah

Forget policy, some of this WikiLeaks stuff is great to read

Note to Tatiana Gfoeller, U.S. ambassador to Kyrgyzstan: If you ever tire of the Foreign Service — or get drummed out — there may be a reporting job for you. | 12/02/10 13:13:00 By - Mark Seibel

WikiLeaks cables on Cuba show links to FARC, ETA and ELN

Cuba allows Colombian and Spanish groups branded as terrorists to rest and get treatment on the island, but the groups are unlikely to plan attacks while there, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks. | 12/02/10 07:01:28 By - Juan O. Tamayo

Venezuelan scientists doubt country has uranium despite WikiLeaks

Venezuelan scientists doubt their government's commitment and ability to build a nuclear reactor and called reports that the nation was providing uranium to Iran highly unlikely, according to diplomatic cables issued in 2009 and released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday. | 12/01/10 19:54:10 By - Jim Wyss

Feeling spurned by Turkey, Israel beefs up ties to Greece

Newly divulged State Department cables confirmed this week what Middle Eastern diplomats have been whispering for some time: that Israel's long-touted partnership with Turkey is effectively broken. | 12/01/10 17:25:00 By - Sheera Frenkel

Commentary: Through WikiLeaks lens, Iran is a scary place

Julian Assange, the chief of WikiLeaks, is a pirate willing to endanger people’s lives with mass releases of secret U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic documents. | 12/01/10 14:55:08 By -

Does WikiLeaks have dirt on Bank of America, too?

Could Bank of America be the next WikiLeaks target? The Charlotte-based bank said Tuesday that it has "no evidence" that the organization known for revealing U.S. foreign policy secrets has possession of one of its executives' hard drives. But interviews with WikiLeaks' founder suggested otherwise. | 11/30/10 19:06:11 By - Rick Rothacker

Commentary: How can WikiLeaks divulge so much data?

Questions that jump to mind in the latest WikiLeaks dust-up:

How insecure is America's intelligence apparatus if a 22-year-old Army private can download a quarter-million confidential documents without anyone knowing about it? | 11/30/10 14:02:31 By -

WikiLeaks: U.S. had warm words for ex-Guantanamo detainee

A U.S. consular official in Luxembourg gave a former Guantanamo detainee warm praise earlier this year in a cable to Washington made public Monday by the website WikiLeaks. "Mr. Begg is doing our work for us," the cable said, "and his articulate reasoned presentation makes for a convincing argument." | 11/29/10 20:41:00 By - Mark Seibel

Clinton probed Argentine leader's 'nerves,' 'anxiety,' 'stress'

Seeking a frank evaluation of Argentina's president, the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires late last year to delve into her psyche. "How is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner managing her nerves and anxiety?" asked a cable dated Dec. 31, 2009. | 11/29/10 20:06:00 By - Tim Johnson

Obama weighing criminal action against WikiLeaks principals

The Obama administration moved Monday to contain potential damage to U.S. national security from the WikiLeaks release of tens of thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic documents and said it might take criminal action against the whistle-blowing Internet site. | 11/29/10 19:12:00 By - Jonathan S. Landay

In cables, a more nuanced U.S. view of Iran in Iraq

Newly released diplomatic cables show that as part of its drive to counter Iranian influence in Iraq, the U.S. military targeted two senior Iranian intelligence officials in a raid in northern Iraq in 2007.When the men escaped to Iran and sought to return as diplomats, the U.S. military blocked their return by threatening to target them again. | 11/29/10 16:47:00 By - Shashank Bengali

Officials may be overstating the danger from WikiLeaks

American officials in recent days have warned repeatedly that the release of documents by WikiLeaks could put people's lives in danger. But despite similar warnings ahead of the previous two massive releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone's death. | 11/28/10 20:56:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

WikiLeaks release reveals embarrassing diplomatic details

The initial leak Sunday of hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks website contained no explosive revelations, but their blunt language and unvarnished statements of U.S. positions on a wide range of issues could prove highly embarrassing, hurt ties with allies and other countries and diminish trust in Washington's ability to safeguard secrets. | 11/28/10 19:16:59 By - Jonathan S. Landay

All parties broke law in Honduras coup, envoy wrote

The events surrounding the June 2009 coup in Honduras was a carnival of illegal actions by every branch of government, including the successor of the deposed president, according to a diplomatic cable signed by the U.S. ambassador. | 11/28/10 18:37:00 By - Tim Johnson

U.S. officials: New WikiLeaks release will do most harm yet

U.S. diplomats and officials said they're bracing Sunday for at least three newspapers and WikiLeaks to publish hundreds of thousands classified State Department cables that could drastically alter U.S. relations with top allies and reveal embarrassing secrets about U.S. foreign policy. | 11/27/10 20:03:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

U.S. Iraq envoy worried about new WikiLeaks release

With reports swirling that a third document-dump by the Internet organization WikiLeaks could be imminent - and might reveal confidential comments by foreign leaders about their governments - American diplomats are in damage-control mode. | 11/26/10 13:53:09 By - Shashank Bengali

WikiLeaks revelations come as little surprise to many Iraqis

For ordinary Iraqis, it didn't appear to have sunk in Saturday that the 400,000 documents released Friday by the WikiLeaks website contained details of the violent deaths of thousands of people that could finally provide answers and even evidence for some of the tragedies of the war. | 10/23/10 17:10:00 By - Jane Arraf, The Christian Science Monitor/McClatchy

Commentary: WikiLeaks 'War Log' fills in some blanks

The cognoscenti back in Washington, D.C., shrug and say there are no surprises in WikiLeaks' massive dump of documents related to the war in Afghanistan. | 08/02/10 11:39:22 By -

Pentagon rethinking who can access secret information

A low-ranking Army soldier suspected of leaking thousands of classified documents had access to the documents because U.S. officials have pressed to make sure secret information is available to combat units. That idea is now being reconsidered in the wake of the Internet publication of thousands of documents by WikiLeaks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. | 07/29/10 21:11:00 By - Nancy A. Youssef

New details about death of two California soldiers in WikiLeaks documents

Classified military documents published on the Internet this week contain new details about the deaths of two soldiers and a Marine from the Northern San Joaquin Valley and foothills who were killed in Afghanistan | 07/28/10 18:25:12 By - Adam Ashton

Commentary: Why WikiLeaks' 'War Logs' are no Pentagon Papers

The WikiLeaks documents on the Afghanistan war have brought suggestions such as this one [1] (from The New York Times, the newspaper that published both) that they represent "the Pentagon Papers of our time." Not quite. | 07/27/10 11:17:15 By - Richard Tofel

Officials: WikiLeaks release could hurt Afghan war effort

The publication of some 92,000 classified U.S. military reports on the Afghanistan war could complicate the Obama administration's strategy for ending the Taliban-led insurgency by hurting cooperation with Pakistan and throttling the flow of vital ground intelligence, current and former U.S. officials said Monday. | 07/26/10 19:50:47 By - Jonathan S. Landay, Saeed Shah and Nancy A. Youssef