Germany and U.S. Developing Secret Spy Satellites, Wikileaks Says | AHN: "The United States and Germany are developing satellites that officially are to be used for crisis management during natural disasters but really are intended for spying, according to the latest Wikileaks releases.

The $274 million satellites are scheduled to begin service as soon as next year, the State Department documents say.
Wikileaks, a Web site that publishes secret government documents, appears to have obtained the U.S. State Department communications that describe the program from the U.S. embassy in Berlin.
The satellite program, called HiROS, would use high-resolution images that could identify objects as small as 1.5-feet long. HiROS stands for High Resolution Optical Satellite System."

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3quarksdaily: "Two things we can learn about Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara from the US embassy in Rabat, courtesy of WikiLeaks: 1) it’s a source of personal revenue for Moroccan army officers but 2) everything’s fine really.

Western Sahara used to be a Spanish possession, which Madrid was due to hand over to the indigenous population in 1975. King Hassan II of Morocco took advantage of the chaos in Spain at the time of Franco’s death and annexed the territory. The UN deplored the move; the Polisario Front embarked on a liberation war, which resulted in stalemate and a ceasefire in 1989. By this time Morocco controlled most of the territory and was pouring in settlers to outnumber indigenous Sahrawis.

Under UN auspices, both parties – the kingdom of Morocco and Polisario – agreed to a referendum on independence. Twenty years later, the vote is a lost hope: the Moroccans have driven it into the ground with Byzantine objections, year on year. The UN mission has been sidelined; the settler colonial project continues; there are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Algeria and a population inside the territory that’s punished when it calls for independence."

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The Royal Wedding: secrets of the guest list - Telegraph: "Prince William’s wedding will be the most sought-after invitation of 2011. But neither the Prince of Wales nor the Middletons will be sending out the cards. This will be done by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, which will consult the young couple and look back in files to see which public figures should be invited, according to protocol.
Since Prince William will one day be King, the guest list is not entirely his prerogative. The Queen and the Prince of Wales will have a say, and certain government departments may be consulted, most particularly the Protocol Department of the Foreign Office. Lord and Lady Spencer, for instance, were allowed only 30 personal guests at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981."

Karzai 'refused' to sack minister - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English: "Afghan leader has been defying US pressure to sack an allegedly corrupt minister  for over a year, according to some of the latest diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website.

Secret diplomatic records showed Ismail Khan - privately termed 'the worst' by US officials - kept his job at an agency that controls $2bn in international projects.

The refusal to remove the official despite threats to end US aid highlights how little influence the US has over Hamid Karzai on issues such as corruption.

The state department correspondence was written as Karzai was assembling a cabinet shortly after his 2009 re-election.

Reining in corruption is seen as vital to Afghanistan's long-term stability."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange parties it up on Christmas: "He might be in a lot of trouble for many different reasons but that didn't stop WikiLeaks' Julian Assange from enjoying a party on Christmas day.

Assange currently holed up in a Norfolk mansion on police bail and is facing charges of sexual misconduct in Sweden, reports the Daily Mail.

But he still made merry. Assange enjoyed a traditional Christmas dinner with host Vaughan Smith and other guests and got into the Christmas spirit by dressing up as Father Christmas and proudly posed with a bulging sack bearing the inscription, 'Dear Santa, I've been very, very, very good (most of the time).'

The ten-bedroom manor is looked after by housekeeper and excellent vintages of wine and port are available from the well-stocked cellar.

Assange and guests tucked into a gut-busting feast of turkey and all the trimmings at the 600-acre estate, which contains a sustainable farm complete with livestock, and a carp lake."

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BBC News - Hackers crack open mobile network: "Mobile calls and texts made on any GSM network can be eavesdropped upon using four cheap phones and open source software, say security researchers.

Karsten Nohl and Sylvain Munaut demonstrated their eavesdropping toolkit at the Chaos Computer Club Congress (CCC) in Berlin.

The work builds on earlier research that has found holes in many parts of the most widely used mobile technology.

The pair spent a year putting together the parts of the eavesdropping toolkit.

'Now there's a path from your telephone number to me finding you and listening to your calls,' Mr Nohl told BBC News"

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Wikileaks: Vicious Diplomats Want to Influence Judiciary Also: "Diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks have covered a spectrum of vitiated tactics applied by diplomats and bureaucrats not only in global politics and business, but also how the government machinery is also involved in influencing the judiciary.
And the latest leak casts light on how US ambassadors traded secret customs related documents filed by Odyssey Marine Exploration, a Tampa Florida based treasure-hunting company, in return for helping a US citizen get an impressionist painting from Spain.
A treasure consisting of 600,000 silver coins, several hundred gold coins, and other artifacts, discovered by Odyssey in a shipwreck from Atlantic bed in 2007, has been at the center stage of a legal battle between the American company and Spain. After its discovery, Odyssey named the ship as Black Swan, which the Spanish claim to be their vessel Mercedes that sunk in 1804.
Wikileaks has released the cables that highlight how the US ambassador to Spain Eduardo Aguirre negotiated with the Spanish side to help them securing Black Swan if they returned Camille Pissarno’s “Rue St Honoré. Après-midi. Effet de Pluie” (1897) to Claude Cassirer, a US citizen."

Julian Assange Book Deal: Assange to Keep WikiLeaks Afloat With New Book | ThirdAge: "Julian Assange, the controversial head of secret-document release website WikiLeaks, has signed a book deal worth more than $1 million to pay his organization's legal bills.

Assange told The Sunday Times in London that the book would be an autobiography. He reportedly signed a deal with Alfred A. Knopf for $800,000 and with Canongate books for $500,000. Knopf is an imprint of Random House publications based in the U.S.

Assange says he has been under house arrest in an English mansion waiting to attend hearings on allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion until Jan. 11. He told the British paper due to his circumstances he needs to write the book to keep his website afloat."

How one banking giant is responding to WikiLeaks threat | CFODailyNews.com | No-nonsense Finance news and insights to grow your bottom line: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange revealed his plans to release damaging info on a major US bank, one lending institution sprung into action in an effort to protect itself.

That institution is Bank of America, the lending giant many believe Assange is planning to expose by leaking internal documents and e-mail.

So what is Bank of America doing? First, the bank has been snatching up hundreds of abusive domain names — which include the names of its senior execs and board members.

For example, Bank of America registered a slew of descriptive and insulting domain names for its CEO Brian Moynihan, including:

BrianMoynihanBlows.com
BrianMoynihanSucks.com, and
BriandTMoynihanBlows."

Chinese economist predicts yuan rise: WikiLeaks: "top economist at the state-run China Construction Bank told US officials that the yuan could appreciate by five percent against the dollar next year, according to leaked diplomatic cables.
In a report released by WikiLeaks, the bank's chief economist Hwa Erh-cheng also predicted a three percent rise in the value of the yuan against the dollar this year. So far the yuan has risen 3.05 percent.
Amidst a fierce back and forth between Beijing and Washington over the value of the Chinese currency -- which the United States says is artificially undervalued, skewing trade -- Hwa said an rapid rise was unlikely.
'(Hwa)... agreed that the exchange rate was a 'challenge' for the People's Bank of China (PBOC), and even though the PBOC might be forced to allow appreciation, it would only be incremental because the international environment remained fragile and the export recovery was not strong.'
'Predicting that the RMB (renminbi, or yuan) would rise about three percent in 2010 and five percent in 2011, Hwa concluded that it was unlikely to be a 'one-shot' change.'"