The United Nations Security Council suppressed a 2004 secret report detailing the abuses of Ivory Coast death squads for fear of disrupting the nation's fragile 'peace process' and upsetting the government of President Laurent Gbagbo. This revelation proves especially damning in light of the country’s current electoral crisis marked by the resurrection of these Gestapo forces that have brutalised the opposition, as Gbagbo, who was defeated in the recent Presidential runoff a few weeks ago, refuses to cede power. The report was suppressed at the insistence of South Africa’s former president, Thabo Mbeki, who was heavily involved in peace negotiations and has recently returned in the same failing role.

The WikiLeaks Cablegate affair is making it clear to governments that they cannot so easily control what is secret and what is not, said Anriette Esterhuysen, executive director of the Association for Progressive Communication (APC), the world’s longest-running online progressive network founded in 1990. If governments respond rationally, they will realise that it is cumbersome and expensive to keep information secret in a connected networked world and that they should only incur this expense when really necessary, she elaborated.

'Serious challenges now strongly surround the legitimacy of the People's Assembly if it is formed according to the announced results of the parliamentary elections held on November 28 and December 5,' says this statement from the Independent Coalition for Elections' Observation. 'The elections were full of widespread violations that brought Egypt at least 15 years back. The elections were held in a political environment characterised by restrictions on public freedoms in a manner that does not allow for free and fair elections.'