Wednesday 18 May 2011

Raja Petra teams up with WikiLeaks' Assange

READY TO ROCK ... The whistle-blowing duo Assange and Petra marking the 'smart' partnership at the Duke of York, Norfolk, UK

(Harakah Daily) - Malaysia Today, the online portal run by self-exiled blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, has teamed up with world renowned whistle-blower website WikiLeaks run by Julian Assange.

Marking their cooperation, Petra and the Australian-born Assange signed a Memorandum of Understanding in a simple ceremony in Norfolk yesterday.

Launched in 2006, WikiLeaks, which made world headlines over its exposure of US documents in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, specialises in the publication of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistle-blowers.

In February, amid revelation of diplomatic cables embarrassing governments across continents, Assange, who in 2009 was awarded Amnesty International's Media Award, appealed against a decision by a court in UK to have him extradited to Sweden to face charges related to sex crimes, which he has denied.

Petra's own whistle-blower website meanwhile has been no less controversial, rocking Malaysian politics with its publication of confidential documents exposing everything from corrupt low-level civil servants to an alleged involvement of the prime minister's wife in a murder case.

Only recently, Petra granted an interview to UMNO-owned station TV3, urging authorities to investigate a statutory declaration claiming that Rosmah Mansor, the prime minister's wife, had been personally involved in the brutal murder of Mongolian agent Altantuya Shariibuu in November 2006.