The US faces a worldwide diplomatic crisis. More than 250,000 classified cables from American embassies are leaked, many sent as recently as February.
• Saudi Arabia put pressure on the US to attack Iran. Other Arab allies also secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.
• Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.
• Details of the round-the-clock offensive by US government officials, politicians, diplomats and military officers to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and roll back its advance across the Middle East.
• How Israel regarded 2010 as a "critical year" for tackling Iran's alleged quest for nuclear weapons and warned the United States that time is running out to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
• The secret EU plot to boycott the inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president after the disputed Iranian election in 2009.
• Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were denied blueprints for a secret nuclear reactor near Qom and told by Iran that evidence of bomb-grade uranium enrichment was forged.
• Saudi Arabia complained directly to the Iranian foreign minister of Iranian "meddling" in the Middle East.
• The US accused Iran of abusing the strict neutrality of the Iranian Red Crescent (IRC) society to smuggle intelligence agents and weapons into other countries, including Lebanon.
• Britain's ambassador to Iran gave the US a private masterclass on how to negotiate with Iran.
• How a 75-year-old American of Iranian descent rode a horse over a freezing mountain range into Turkey after officials confiscated his passport.
Plus:
• The story of how the 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked.
• Background on Siprnet: where America stores its secret cables.
• Editor's note: publishing the cables.
• Explore the Guardian's searchable database of the leaked embassy cables
Der Spiegel
A long piece in English primarily about the US view of Germany, including some bracing views of Berlin's leadership and the description of Chancellor Angela Merkel as "risk averse and rarely creative".
New York Times
The New York Times highlights US intelligence assessments that Iran has acquired missiles from North Korea which could for the first time enable Tehran to strike at western European capitals.
El País
A trawl through the 3,620 documents in the haul originating from the US embassy in Madrid, dating from 2004 to this year (in Spanish).
Le Monde
The French paper also leads on the allegations of US spying on UN leaders but also covers Washington's view of France, as gleaned from the cables (in French). President Nicolas Sarkozy is described as "susceptible and authoritarian", and a French diplomatic adviser has described Iran as a fascist state and Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez as a madman transforming his country into another Zimbabwe.
(source:guardian.co.uk)
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