WikiLeaks Cables For Dec. 9, 2010: North Korea's Nuclear Deal With Burma

WikiLeaks continues to release a steady stream of confidential documents from the U.S. State Department, despite the arrest of its founder Julian Assange on Tuesday.

The batch of WikiLeaks cables released today, Dec. 9 -- a few dozen -- looks at some regions of instability and points of contention worldwide. The cables touch on North Korea, Burma, Egypt, Venezuela, Kosovo and Nigeria, as well as other nations.

There are 251,287 total documents to be leaked, WikiLeaks says, and only a small fragment (less than 1 percent) have been published thus far.

Here are some highlights from today's leaked documents:

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Burma: North Korea Deal Is Part Peaceful

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Burma is building secret nuclear facilities and collaborating with North Korea, according to today's WikiLeaks cables. Though, according to a Burmese official, the North Korea and Burma alignment is not just about weapons and the nuclear component is peaceful. From the cable:

Australian Ambassador to Burma Michelle Chan informed CDA that XXXXXXXXXXXX told her the Burma-DPRK connection is not just about conventional weapons. There is a peaceful nuclear component intended to address Burma's chronic lack of electrical power generation. When Chan cited reports of a Burma-Russia agreement for development of a peaceful nuclear reactor, XXXXXXXXXXXX responded that the agreement with Russia is currently just for "software, training." The DPRK agreement is for "hardware."

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Burma is building secret nuclear facilities and collaborating with North Korea, according to today's WikiLeaks cables. Though, according to a Burmese official, the North Korea and Burma alignment is not just about weapons and the nuclear component is peaceful. From the cable:

Australian Ambassador to Burma Michelle Chan informed CDA that XXXXXXXXXXXX told her the Burma-DPRK connection is not just about conventional weapons. There is a peaceful nuclear component intended to address Burma's chronic lack of electrical power generation. When Chan cited reports of a Burma-Russia agreement for development of a peaceful nuclear reactor, XXXXXXXXXXXX responded that the agreement with Russia is currently just for "software, training." The DPRK agreement is for "hardware."

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Comments

[Rubiconski]

10:00 AM on 12/11/2010

The paranoia within the US state department is pathological.

[GeorgeP922]

01:20 PM on 12/10/2010

WTF??? We are hoping that SERBIA gets to join the EU?

Ever heard of your decades long ally Turkey.

The European ally that is simply to "brown" for the EU.

[blutigeroo]

07:37 PM on 12/10/2010

The EU is simply used as a carrot on a stick to keep Turkey in line. I think the Turks know this.

[ivan kovac]

08:51 PM on 12/11/2010

Serbian war criminals joining EU. Tell me more?

[General Armchair]

12:12 PM on 12/10/2010

I would like to urge everybody who is a member of Facebook to "search" for "wikileaks" on Facebook and join the 1.217 million Facebook users (as of 12:10 pm ET Friday) who "Like" WikiLeaks. You will then receive WikiLeaks Newsfeeds, allowing you to closely follow the ongoing cyberwar.

I urge you to post support of WikiLeaks of your Facebook pages, and to urge your "Friends" to "Like" WikiLeaks. The organization deserves all our support. Thank you.

[flossophy]

01:24 PM on 12/10/2010

You remind me of how the Obama campaign was run in '08.... The word went out to the rest of the country: tell your friends who don't pay attention to politics or world events to 'like' Obama... don't pay attention to what others are saying about him... just have lots of hope and change and bIind support.
 

[General Armchair]

02:25 PM on 12/10/2010

Huh! Would not have taken you for somebody who supports the Government's suppression of free speech. Learn something new every day!

Carry on....

[hypple]

08:19 PM on 12/10/2010

you're not a fan of truth, evidently.

[sigh-ence]

11:50 AM on 12/10/2010

"BURMA!"
"Why did you say 'Burma'?"
"I panicked."

[booboo111]

11:41 AM on 12/10/2010

Man, when we start importing those boots, you can kizz your Uggs goodbye!

[bipolarcat452]

01:01 AM on 12/11/2010

Agreed! Get my daughter a pair of those pastel neon green DPRK galoshes!

[RobberBarons]

11:17 AM on 12/10/2010

How about SK deal with the US,

Dear Colleague:

Free trade theorists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo must be rolling in their graves to see pacts like President Obama’s Korea Agreement called “free trade.” Like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the pact, written by unelected trade bureaucrats, spans 1,000 pages.

It includes endless pages of rules and regulations enforced by foreign tribunals. This act is a sneaky form of international preemption, undermining the critical checks and balances and freedoms established by the U.S. Constitution’s reservation of many rights to the people or state governments.

And, President Obama’s Korea Agreement sets up foreign tribunals to which the United States mst submit for judgment. Foreign investors are allowed to skirt the U.S. court system to directly ue the U.S. government for trade pact violations before UN and World Bank tribunals. Those provisions enable demands by such forms for compensation in U.S. taxpayer funds for violations of the special foreign investor privileges the pact provides. There are nearly 80 Korean firms with more than 200 establishments set up in this country now that would acquire these new rights to raid our Treasury using foreign tribunals.

We urge you to oppose President Obama’s Korea Agreement.

Sincerely, Ron Paul

[RedBall24]

11:04 AM on 12/10/2010

Our diplomats and leaders have been saying for months how dangerous this leak is and how many people it’ll get killed. So far the only causalities I see are the egos and ethics of our leaders and diplomats.

[blutigeroo]

07:38 PM on 12/10/2010

The ethics have been dead for a long time.

[Oilygarch]

09:59 PM on 12/10/2010

Maybe it'll prevent more civilian casualties from the 150,000 that have already happened in Iraq because of a war that lacked transparency from the get-go?

[StansDad]

10:33 AM on 12/10/2010

I just don't see the point of maintaining a truce with them. I mean, our only hope for a peaceful reunion died when Kimmy named his equally-if-not more insane son to take mantle as their man-god ruler. They are just going to keep starving their people and occasionally firing on south korea.

[Congo Line]

10:16 AM on 12/10/2010

I still can't believe that nowhere in these leaks is an admission of the fact that (Miss) King Jong-Il looks like a bloated old woman. It's like the Korean version of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"
Tragickistan.

[rgateman]

09:44 AM on 12/10/2010

These 'leaks' don't amount to diddly-squat. Pfc Manning is only one of over 8 million people 'authorized' to see this stuff including our military, civilian gubmint employees and various contractors and mercenaries. So what's the big secret that every other gubmint in the world did not already know or read in a foreign newspaper?

[Hirnlego]

09:49 AM on 12/10/2010

Who cares what the government knows? We need a more highly informed population around the world.

Leak baby leak!

http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/

[rgateman]

10:08 AM on 12/10/2010

Ramen to that one.

[Smart One]

10:18 AM on 12/10/2010

There are some things that are quite a big deal. Spying on Ban Ki Moon. Using political pressure to prevent Dick Cheney from being prosecuted in Spain. The immediate impact is not as much as it should be because we are all cynical and jaded. Yes, we do know that our government does these things. It does not make them any less shocking.

More shocking is the fact that there are so many secrets. I agree, millions had access. Many more in this country did not. Its frightening to think that almost everything is secret. There are two classes of people in this country, the 10 percent who do know and the 90% who are kept in the dark. That is not acceptable. It sounds dangerously close to a group of accepted party members who are afforded more privileges then the rest of us. For as long as I can remember, there has been a shadow government in the U.S. All of say, "we know there is more going on" or we run into someone that tells us that military operations are being run in South America or this is going on or that and yet we never have the hard truth. It has infected our whole culture and slowly become accepted practice. That acceptance is a serious threat to democracy.

[Oilygarch]

10:03 PM on 12/10/2010

Add to that that government workers are not allowed to speak up, rally or protest.

[rgateman]

09:37 AM on 12/10/2010

Great pic of Dear Leader at the unheated Purple Pink and Green boot store. Hey! Isn't that some of the Palin fambly in the background?

[TILL]

09:17 AM on 12/10/2010

The argument the gov. is going to clamp down on us and info because of the leaks, and therefore, the leaks are a threat to National Security is Not where we want to go. The gov. works for us, not the other way around. If the gov. wants to react to innocuous leaks,unbridled then it forewarns us what they are capble of in the future. The present administration is more secretive and less transparent than the previous, who lied us into an illegal war. We need to put out a stop sign, and ironically, it's Don't Tread On Us The People, because it's getting way out of hand. Timing it is. The leaks say it's time for us to hold our ground, our leaders don't realize they are becoming the biggest threat to America, and to the rest of the world.

[HLL]

09:13 AM on 12/10/2010

PETITION ~ WikiLeaks: STOP the Crackdown of WikiLeaks ☮

"To the U.S. and other governments and corporations involved in the crackdown on WikiLeaks: We call on you to stop the crackdown on WikiLeaks and its partners immediately……"

420,127 names from around the world, so far ☮

http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/95.php?CLICKTF

[ptg0]

08:55 AM on 12/10/2010

I thought the next release was supposed to be regarding the banksters.

[MrBadExample]

09:05 AM on 12/10/2010

They've only released about 1,000 of the 251,000 documents in the current dump. they may be saving them as a form of blackmail if something happens in Assange's court case, or they may be waiting for other reasons.

[ver1tas]

10:52 AM on 12/10/2010

Should be coming in January..

[WriterGirl]

06:25 PM on 12/10/2010

I can't add anything but compliment you on your image - love it!

[xdiesp]

08:14 AM on 12/10/2010

Suddenly, each and every news article is fluff compared to the actual stuff. This.