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Wikileaks releases transcripts of Hillary Clinton’s closed-doors Wall Street speeches – in which she admits being ‘kind of far removed’ from the middle class

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  • clinton-wall-streetWikileaks published campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails Friday
  • One, sent by research director Tony Carrk, contains ‘flags’ from speeches
  • Excerpts include Clinton‘s positions on Wall Street and electronic security
  • Carrk seems to imagine potential damaging headlines based on the ‘flags’
  • One of these possible headlines reads: ‘Clinton admits she is out of touch’

By CLEMENCE MICHALLON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Hillary Clinton admitted to being ‘kind of far removed’ from the middle class, according to a leaked transcript of a speech she gave on Wall Street.

Wikileaks on Friday published emails from campaign chairman John Podesta. One of them, sent by campaign research director Tony Carrk in January this year, points out ‘flags’ in Clinton’s paid speeches.

The email, titled ‘HRC paid speeches’, lists excerpts from several of Clinton’s speeches in front of audiences such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.

Carrk seems to have written potential damaging headlines, as if to imagine how her comments could be perceived. One of these possible headlines states: ‘Clinton admits she is out of touch.’

The next paragraph includes the following excerpt, from a speech Clinton gave in 2014.

‘And I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I was growing up. Never.

‘I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were. My father loved to complain about big business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing.

‘And now, obviously, I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven’t forgotten it.’

Wikileaks (editor Julian Assange is pictured) published emails from campaign chairman John Podesta. One, sent by research director Tony Carrk, points out ‘flags’ in Clinton’s speeches.

Julian Assange, who has been living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, had planned to give a speech marking Wikileaks’ 10th anniversary on Monday.

The speech, which could have been damaging to Clinton, could have been an ‘October Surprise’ released in time to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

 But he cancelled it and instead spoke by video link in Berlin on Tuesday. 

In his email, Clarrk warns his team that they should ‘give an extra scrub’ to a lot of the policy positions expressed in Clinton’s speech. 

Clinton once said it is necessary to have both a public and a private position on policy, according to the transcript of a 2013 speech included in Clarrk’s email.

‘I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be.

‘But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.’

Clinton’s campaign wouldn’t confirm to BuzzFeed whether the emails published by Wikileaks were authentic.

But spokesman Glen Caplin said administration officials have ‘removed any reasonable doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized Wikileaks to meddle in our election and benefit Donald Trump’s candidacy’.

Sweden to interview Wikileaks founder

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free-wikileaksEcuador has agreed to allow Sweden to interview WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange inside its embassy. The Australian has been sheltering in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid arrest on a Swedish criminal warrant.

Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that “in the coming weeks” a Swedish judge will be admitted inside its diplomatic compound to take a statement from the 45-year-old Australian national.

Assange is wanted for questioning over a 2010 rape allegation in Sweden but has been inside Ecuador’s UK mission for more than four years in a bid to avoid extradition.

Assange denies the charge, saying the sexual contact was consensual and the charges politically motivated to retaliate over his role in Wikileaks, which publishes leaked data that is often embarrassing for governments and officials.

A long-running saga

Assange won an important victory before the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Februrary which had found that Sweden and Britain violated his fundamental rights.

Ecuador has maintained it would allow Sweden to take custody of Assange if Stockholm guarantees that he would not be sent to the United States for prosecution over WikiLeaks’ release of 500,000 US diplomatic cables in 2010.

Since then the anti-secrecy group has continued to leak files gleaned by hackers including emails from within the Democratic National Committee that suggested collusion between top party officials and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The party’s chair and other top officials resigned following the revelations.

Wikileaks has also been criticized for dumping unfiltered data including a recent email dump from Turkey’s ruling political party that had little apparent public interest value but included the personal contact information of women voters in nearly every Turkish province.

jar/kl (AFP, EFE)

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/sweden-to-interview-wikileaks-founder/a-19464749

WikiLeaks Offers $20K Reward for Information in Murder of Democratic National Committee staffer

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wikileaks offer 20kWikiLeaks is offering a reward for information in the murder of a Democratic National Committee staffer. 

WikiLeaks tweeted Tuesday that it is issuing a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the death of Seth Conrad Rich. 

Rich was shot multiple times on the 2100 block of Flagler Place NW on July 10, police said. It is possible he was killed in an attempted robbery, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said during a news conference last week.

The case remains under investigation. 

Source: WikiLeaks Offers $20K Reward for Information in Murder of DNC Staffer | NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/WikiLeaks-Offers-20K-Reward-for-Information-in-Murder-of-DNC-Staffer-Seth-Rich-389622801.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_DCBrand#ixzz4GrQmny5Z

WikiLeaks: Buying Silence: How the Saudi Foreign Ministry controls Arab media

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Saudi cablesThe Saudi Cables

Cables and other documents from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Foreign Affairs

On Monday, Saudi Arabia celebrated the beheading of its 100th prisoner this year. The story was nowhere to be seen on Arab media despite the story’s circulation on wire services. Even international media was relatively mute about this milestone compared to what it might have been if it had concerned a different country. How does a story like this go unnoticed?

Today’s release of the WikiLeaks “Saudi Cables” from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs show how it’s done.

The oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its ruling family take a systematic approach to maintaining the country’s positive image on the international stage. Most world governments engage in PR campaigns to fend off criticism and build relations in influential places. Saudi Arabia controls its image by monitoring media and buying loyalties from Australia to Canada and everywhere in between.

Documents reveal the extensive efforts to monitor and co-opt Arab media, making sure to correct any deviations in regional coverage of Saudi Arabia and Saudi-related matters. Saudi Arabia’s strategy for co-opting Arab media takes two forms, corresponding to the “carrot and stick” approach, referred to in the documents as “neutralisation” and “containment”. The approach is customised depending on the market and the media in question.

“Contain” and “Neutralise”

The initial reaction to any negative coverage in the regional media is to “neutralise” it. The term is used frequently in the cables and it pertains to individual journalists and media institutions whose silence and co-operation has been bought. “Neutralised” journalists and media institutions are not expected to praise and defend the Kingdom, only to refrain from publishing news that reflects negatively on the Kingdom, or any criticism of its policies. The “containment” approach is used when a more active propaganda effort is required. Journalists and media institutions relied upon for “containment” are expected not only to sing the Kingdom’s praises, but to lead attacks on any party that dares to air criticisms of the powerful Gulf state.

One of the ways “neutralisation” and “containment” are ensured is by purchasing hundreds or thousands of subscriptions in targeted publications. These publications are then expected to return the favour by becoming an “asset” in the Kingdom’s propaganda strategy. A document listing the subscriptions that needed renewal by 1 January 2010 details a series of contributory sums meant for two dozen publications in Damascus, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Kuwait, Amman and Nouakchott. The sums range from $500 to 9,750 Kuwaiti Dinars ($33,000). The Kingdom effectively buys reverse “shares” in the media outlets, where the cash “dividends” flow the opposite way, from the shareholder to the media outlet. In return Saudi Arabia gets political “dividends” – an obliging press.

An example of these co-optive practices in action can be seen in an exchange between the Saudi Foreign Ministry and its Embassy in Cairo. On 24 November 2011 Egypt’s Arabic-language broadcast station ONTV hosted the Saudi opposition figure Saad al-Faqih, which prompted the Foreign Ministry to task the embassy with inquiring into the channel. The Ministry asked the embassy to find out how “to co-opt it or else we must consider it standing in the line opposed to the Kingdom’s policies“.

The document reports that the billionaire owner of the station, Naguib Sawiris, did not want to be “opposed to the Kingdom’s policies” and that he scolded the channel director, asking him “never to host al-Faqih again”. He also asked the Ambassador if he’d like to be “a guest on the show”.

The Saudi Cables are rife with similar examples, some detailing the figures and the methods of payment. These range from small but vital sums of around $2000/year to developing country media outlets – a figure the Guinean News Agency “urgently needs” as “it would solve many problems that the agency is facing” – to millions of dollars, as in the case of Lebanese right-wing television station MTV.

Confrontation

The “neutralisation” and “containment” approaches are not the only techniques the Saudi Ministry is willing to employ. In cases where “containment” fails to produce the desired effect, the Kingdom moves on to confrontation. In one example, the Foreign Minister was following a Royal Decree dated 20 January 2010 to remove Iran’s new Arabic-language news network, Al-Alam, from the main Riyadh-based regional communications satellite operator, Arabsat. After the plan failed, Saud Al Faisal sought to “weaken its broadcast signal“.

The documents show concerns within the Saudi administration over the social upheavals of 2011, which became known in the international media as the “Arab Spring”. The cables note with concern that after the fall of Mubarak, coverage of the upheavals in Egyptian media was “being driven by public opinion instead of driving public opinion”. The Ministry resolved “to give financial support to influential media institutions in Tunisia“, the birthplace of the “Arab Spring”.

The cables reveal that the government employs a different approach for its own domestic media. There, a wave of the Royal hand is all that is required to adjust the output of state-controlled media. A complaint from former Lebanese Prime Minister and Saudi citizen Saad Hariri concerning articles critical of him in the Saudi-owned Al-Hayat and Asharq Al-Awsat newspapers prompted a directive to “stop these type of articles” from the Foreign Ministry.

This is a general overview of the Saudi Foreign Ministry’s strategy in dealing with the media. WikiLeaks’ Saudi Cables contain numerous other examples that form an indictment of both the Kingdom and the state of the media globally.

Source: https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/buying-silence

 

WikiLeaks Expose Democratic Party Voicemails Releases Hacked Audio

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wikileaks audioAfter releasing nearly 20,000 emails from the US Democratic National Committee, WikiLeaks has dumped audio recordings from the organization.

The new release includes 29 voice messages pulled from the emails of high-ranking DNC officials, totaling 14 minutes.

One file (#16014) involves a Clinton supporter calling to demand that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders be prevented from winning the primary.

The emails released over the weekend showed that officials within the ostensibly neutral organization had a clear bias toward former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Sanders supporters were outraged, and the embarrassment forced DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign ahead of this week’s convention. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has pointed out, however, that her replacement has been shown to be equally guilty of anti-Sanders bias.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had promised the release of more documents.

The latest release comes on the same night that US President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the convention.

Sputnik is in the process of delving into this new release, and will update our readers as revelations emerge.

Turkey’s AKP provided Massoud Barzani with $200 million: Wikileaks

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akp-barzani-wilileaksHEWLÊR-Erbil, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— The website WikiLeaks released on Tuesday nearly 300,000 emails allegedly sent from Turkey’s ruling AK Party (AKP), some of which were related to Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, four days after a failed military coup in Turkey.

One of the emails posted on the WikiLeaks website, dating back to March 15, 2016, purports to show evidence that the AKP gave Masoud Barzani $200 million in financial aid. The Kurdistan Regional Government is not mentioned in the email and the Kurdistan Region is referred to as “areas under the control of Peshmerga.”

According to the email, the AKP provided Barzani with the sum due to the temporary halt of Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil flow following the re-activation of the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik oil pipeline, which was stalled for 24 days.

he KRG called on Ankara for financial assistance as it struggles to pay the salary of Peshmerga forces due to financial crisis according to information in the email posted on WikiLeaks.

The date of the email coincides with a statement by KRG Spokesman Safeen Dizayee, which confirmed to NRT the KRG owed the Turkish government $200 million. The email claims to reveal the money was provided by the AKP according to a deal which does not mention the KRG or Turkey. There was no report from the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources regarding the sum of money.

Oil exports to Turkey via the Kirkuk- Yumurtalık oil pipeline resumed on March 11, after being stalled for 24 days due to act of sabotage near the city of Urfa in Turkey’s southeast.

KRG officials made statement regarding the stoppage of oil flow, some of whom said the pipeline was damaged in an explosion, but investigation did not find evidence of an explosion.

Last February Kurdistan MP and Finance and Economic Affairs Committee Deputy Ali Hama Salih has criticized the KRG for “misleading” the public in Kurdistan and giving “contradictory speeches” regarding the cessation of the region’s oil exports.

“The KRG is deceiving the public,” he said. They have recently reported there was an explosion on the oil pipeline while yesterday the KRG spokesman said bombs have been placed surrounding the pipeline. On the other hand, the Ministry of Natural Resources says the pipeline is old and will be reconstructed,” Salih added.

Hours after Wikileaks released thousands of the ruling AK Party emails, Turkey blocked access to WikiLeaks website.

 

Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after ruling party email dump

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wikileaks erdogan(Reuters) Turkey has blocked access to the WikiLeaks website, the telecoms watchdog said on Wednesday, hours after it leaked thousands of ruling party emails just as Ankara grapples with the aftermath of a failed military coup.

Around 50,000 soldiers, police, judges and teachers have been suspended or detained since the attempted coup on the weekend, and Turkey’s Western allies have expressed concern over the crackdown’s reach.

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released nearly 300,000 emails from the AK Party dating from 2010 to July 6 this year. Obtained before the attempted coup, the date of their publication was brought forward “in response to the government’s post-coup purges”, WikiLeaks said on its website.

The source of the emails was not connected to the coup plotters or to a rival political party or state, WikiLeaks said.

Founded by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks publishes leaked material, mostly from governments. In 2010, the organization published classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents in one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history.

Turkey’s Telecommunications Communications Board said on Wednesday that an “administrative measure” had been taken against the website – the term it commonly uses when blocking access to sites.

Turkey routinely uses Internet shutdowns in response to political events, which critics and human rights advocates see as part of a broader attack on the media and freedom of expression.

(Reporting by Can Sezer; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)




WikiLeaks Publishes Internal Emails of Turkish Ruling Political Party AKP

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Wikileaks Turkey emailsPart one of a series of emails the organization plans to release, the first batch contains nearly 300,000 emails that date from 2010 to one week before the failed coup attempt.

In a statement, WikiLeaks claims that the source of the emails “is not connected, in any way, to the elements behind the attempted coup, or to a rival political party or state.”

The organization planned to release the documents later in the year, but moves its publication date forward in light of Ankara’s crackdown on those supsected of being involved in the coup.

“It should be noted that emails associated with the domain are mostly used for dealing with the world, as opposed to the most sensitive internal matters,” WikiLeaks said in its statement.

Ahead of the release, WikiLeaks claimed it suffered a cyberattack, possibly aimed at preventing the email from being made public.

“Our infrastructure is under attack. #TurkeyPurge #Turkey,” the organization tweeted. “We are unsure of the true origin of the attack. The timing suggests a Turkish state power faction or its allies. We will prevail and publish.”

These attacks have continued now that the documents have been published.

Fighting in the streets of Istanbul and Ankara last week left nearly 300 people dead and over 1,400 injured as part of the Turkish military’s attempted overthrow of the govermnet of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the wake of the coup attempt, Ankara has launched an unprecendented crackdown on thousands of individuals suspected of being involved in last week’s failed coup attempt, including governors, prosecutor, intelligence officers, judges, and military personnel.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Turkish government filed a formal request with Washington for the extradition of political and religious figure Fetullah Gulen, who Ankara has blamed for the coup attempt.

source: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160719/1043306281/wikileaks-turkey-akp.html

WikiLeaks cables implicate UK & Saudi Arabia in secret deal to secure UNHRC seats

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Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal (R) and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond © Faisal Al Nasser / Reuters

Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal (R) and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond © Faisal Al Nasser / Reuters

RT Report Two years after the controversial appointment of Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s leading human rights offenders, to the UN human rights council, Wikileaks cables have revealed a “secret deal” suggesting that the British government was a key player behind Riyadh’s nomination.
Some of the 61,000 files from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, dated January and February 2013, translated by both UN Watch and newspaper, The Australian, reveal that the two countries reached a secret deal to ensure that they would both be elected to the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2013, despite Saudi Arabia’s horrific human rights record.

One of the secret cables, obtained by Wikileaks in June, said: “The ministry might find it an opportunity to exchange support with the United Kingdom, where the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would support the candidacy of the United Kingdom to the membership of the council for the period 2014-2015 in exchange for the support of the United Kingdom to the candidacy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Another diplomatic wire stipulated that there was a price tag for being on board the influential UN body: One cable revealed that Saudi Arabia transferred $100,000 for “expenditures resulting from the campaign to nominate the Kingdom for membership of the human rights council.”

While the Saudi regime has already managed to execute some 135 people so far this year, the country’s record in 2013 was almost as bad, putting it among the top five countries in terms of the number of executions carried out that year.

Amnesty International counted a minimum of 79 executions in 2013, with foreigners accounting for “almost half” of them. At least three people were executed for crimes they allegedly committed when they were under 18 years of age.

Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system is based on hardline Shariah law and diverges from the secular interpretation of human rights and law enshrined in UNHRC.

In Saudi Arabia the death penalty can be imposed for a wide range of offenses besides murder, including rape, false prophecy, blasphemy, witchcraft and sorcery. The death penalties are carried out publicly and can be implemented by beheading, firing squad, stoning, and sometimes crucifixion.

Currently Riyadh has come under intense heat for sentencing Ali Mohammed al-Nimr to death by crucifixion, a sentence that was handed down when he was 17, following several days of torture while in custody.

READ MORE: Op Nimr: Anonymous targets Saudi websites as teen awaits crucifixion for ‘anti-govt activities’

The WikiLeaks revelations about the secret London-Riyadh trading raise new concerns over the sincerity of Western nations in their claims that they fight for and defend human rights.

“If the UK is doing back-room deals with Saudi officials over human rights, this would be a slap in the face for those beleaguered Saudi activists who already struggle with endemic persecution in the kingdom,” Allan Hogarth from Amnesty International UK told the Guardian.

“The UK should be supporting the rights of [those persecuted], not pushing the non-existing human rights credentials of the Saudi Arabian authorities,” he added.

“Based on the evidence, we remain deeply concerned that the UK may have contracted to elect the world’s most misogynistic regime as a world judge of human rights,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told the Australian.

In the meantime the Foreign Office told The Australian that it was “standard practice” not to reveal voting intentions or record, a claim that UN Watch denies.

“The claim of the Foreign Office that concealing a country’s UN vote is a ‘standard practice’ with ‘all members’ is manifestly false,” Neuer said.

The director says that it is “troubling” that London refuses to deny the vote-trade deal. The NGO is also furious that the Foreign Office is unable to reassure the public that London’s voting practices comply with the principles of UNHRC, which tries to elect member states based on their human rights record.

The 2013 secret vote deal went a long way and has spurred a recent wave of criticism, as this summer, Faisal bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the UN, was appointed to chair a UN Human Rights Council team.

READ MORE: ‘False legitimacy’: Saudi Arabia hosting UN Human Rights Council slammed by watchdog

The appointment is seen as scandalous as, according to Human Rights Watch, only China and Iran have executed more people this year than Saudi Arabia.

In fact, the HRW, in its latest report on Saudi Arabia, accuses the monarchy of “systematic discrimination” against women and religious minorities while subjecting hundreds of people to unfair trials and arbitrary detention. The NGO also spoke out against anti-terrorism regulations introduces in 2014 used to criminalize “almost any form of peaceful criticism of the authorities as terrorism.”