The WikiWeek: July 8, 2011

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 ...

SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images
SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images
SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images

THE CABLES

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.)

Charles Homans is a special correspondent for the New Republic and the former features editor of Foreign Policy.

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