Norwegian daily to publish all 250‚000 WikiLeaks cables

Added At:  2010-12-23 9:57 PM

   Last Updated At: 2010-12-23 9:57 PM

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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
OSLO: A Norwegian daily that obtained all the 250‚000 diplomatic cables WikiLeaks is slowly releasing and will publish articles on them independently of the whistleblowing website’s strategy‚ its boss said today.

“We have gained access to all 250‚000 documents‚” said Ole Erik Almlid‚ the managing editor of Aftenposten‚ refusing to say how his newspaper obtained all the classified cables‚ which WikiLeaks has not yet released entirely. At the end of November‚ WikiLeaks said it obtained 251‚287 classified US embassy cables and would cooperate with publications El Pais‚ The Guardian‚ The New York Times‚ Le Monde and Der Spiegel in releasing them.

It also started gradually posting the documents online. On Thursday‚ 1‚896 documents out of a total of 251‚287 were available on WikiLeaks’ Cablegate website. Almlid said Aftenposten’s strategy of publishing articles on the cables would be completely independent from when WikiLeaks or the website’s partner publications release them. Aftenposten could thus run articles on cables that WikiLeaks itself has not yet released‚ he said.

“We will not under any circumstance publish all articles on the web. We will use these documents to write journalistic articles about issues that are important for us to bring to our readers‚” he said.

“We have been publishing five articles every day both on print and on our website‚ and we will continue to do that‚” Almlid added‚ stressing that Aftenposten would not make all documents available online‚ but that a cable could be partially published to go with an article.

Meanwhile‚ WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said his whistleblowing website plans to publish hundreds of ‘sensitive’ US diplomatic cables on Israel‚ Al-Jazeera reported today.

‘Sensitive and classified documents’ on Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon and January’s assassination in Dubai of Hamas militant Mahmud al-Mabhuh would be released‚ Assange told Al-Jazeera in an interview.

Assange said WikiLeaks had 3‚700 US documents on Israel‚ including 2‚700 originating from the Jewish state‚ but denied the website had any agreement in place to spare the country of leaks. “We do not have any secret deals with any country‚” he said according to an Arabic translation of remarks he made in English which were posted on Al-Jazeera’s website.