Canada is appearing sporadically throughout the information released so far.

A 2009 cable dealing with Afghan president Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, speaks of the powerful local leader and reputed drug trafficker in Khandahar province lobbying Canada for contracts to go to his friends.

"AWK is understood to have a stake in private security contracting, and has aggressively lobbied the Canadians to have his security services retained for the Dahla Dam refurbishment. Both he and the governor have tried to exert control over how contracts are awarded in the province all of which could be a significant conflict of interest in the province," the cable reads.

One cable from the American embassy in Tripoli, Libya, makes reference to "Libyan Leader Muammar al-Qadhafi" and his planned trip to the United Nations. Gadhafi had planned to stop in Newfoundland on his return trip prior to the stopover being cancelled by Ottawa. According to the cable, Qadhafi has a fear of flying over water and cannot fly for more than eight hours.

There are also references in several cables to American efforts to have other countries take prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military detention site. American diplomats tried to get Belgium to take prisoners by promising that the move would help raise the country's stature within Europe while the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati was offered money, reported to be millions of dollars, to take Chinese Muslim prisoners known as Uyghurs.