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Several of Julian Assange’s ex-colleagues say they’re launching a WikiLeaks-like site called OpenLeaks next week.

According to Forbes columnist Andy Greenberg, leakers will be able to submit information to the site, but the site won’t publish it. Instead, the leakers will name who – such as specific media organizations or watchdog groups – can have access to the information, Forbes reported. Those users will make their own decisions about fact-checking, editing and publishing.

That will allow the exposure of the information without the same legal questions that WikiLeaks faces, one of OpenLeaks’ founders, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, told Forbes.

The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter said OpenLeaks’ founders wanted to continue to expose secrets but were unhappy with Assange’s methods.

“As a short-term goal, this is about completing the technical infrastructure and ensuring that the organization continues to be democratically governed by all its members, rather than limited to one group or individual,” one anonymous staff member told the paper.

Assange, the Australian founder and editor of WikiLeaks, is being held in England over Swedish sex-crime allegations unrelated to the WikiLeaks controversy.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he has authorized “significant” actions related to a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks.

Iran denied reports on Friday that it had freed a woman originally sentenced to death by stoning. The news came a day after human rights campaigners announced to the media that sources in Iran said she had been released.

The Web site of Iran’s state-run English language news channel, Press TV,, said reports that the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, had been released were false and were part of a “vast publicity campaign by Western media.”

Ms. Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in 2006 and sentenced to stoning, but after Iran came under withering worldwide criticism, Iranian authorities said she would not be executed that way. They then accused her, and eventually convicted her, of killing her husband.

Mina Ahadi, spokeswoman for the International Campaign Against Stoning, announced Thursday that sources in Iran had said Mrs. Ashtiani, her son and her lawyer were free. Ms. Ahadi’s group has supported Ms. Ashtiani.

After news reports aired Ms. Ahadi’s statements, Maureen Harper, the wife of the Canadian prime minister, and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy issuing celebratory statements.

Some news reports also ran images of Ms. Ashtiani standing in the doorway of her home in a village in Iran’s northwestern Azarbaijan region and speaking with her son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, in an informal setting, prompting further speculation that they had been released.

The photographs have subsequently been revealed to be stills from a new documentary program, due to be broadcast on Press TV. The Press TV web site said Ms. Ashtiani had gone to her home with a camera crew to recount details of the murder.

The documentary, Iran’s latest attempt to counter the international news media campaign against Ms. Ashtiani’s execution, is its first to directly address foreign audiences on the issue. On two previous occasions, Iranian state broadcasting has shown confessions by Ms. Ashtiani that human rights groups said appeared to have been forced.

Iranian programs have also aired denunciations by her of human rights campaigners who have joined her cause.

“They are taking my side unnecessarily, I do not consider them legitimate at all,” Ms. Ashtiani said in comments shown on domestic television in November that her lawyers have said were made under pressure during detention.

Two Germans who entered Iran intending to interview Ms. Ashtiani’s son remain in detention after being arrested by Iranian security officers in October and charged with spying. German leaders have said the two were journalists.

The trade deficit in the United States narrowed, according to the latest monthly data out Friday, though America’s largest trading partner, China, still exports far more than it brings in.

The U.S. trade balance, which measures the difference between the nation’s imports and exports, narrowed to $38.7 billion in October, down 13% from $44.6 billion in September, according to the Commerce Department. Economists were expecting a deficit of $44.5 billion.
The decline brought the U.S. trade deficit to a 9-month low, as exports jumped 3.2% to $158.7 billion, the highest since August 2008, and imports fell 0.5% to $197.4 billion.

The boosted demand for U.S. goods and services could boost overall economic growth in the fourth quarter “quite substantially,” said chief U.S. economist Paul Dales of Capital Economics in a research note, though he expects that the trade gap will trend wider of the next year or two.

Meanwhile, China announced that its trade surplus fell to $22.9 billion in November — a 16% decrease over October’s $27.2 billion surplus, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news agency in China.

China’s exports soared 34.9% in November, a $17.3 billion increase from the previous month, China’s General Administration of Customs said Friday.

But the country’s imports jumped 37.7% to $130.4 billion — a sign that its government efforts to promote more domestic consumption may slowly be taking hold. Facing political pressure from the U.S. and other trade partners, China’s government has said it is trying to narrow its trade surplus.

Exports and imports totaled $283.7 billion last month — a new record high — compared with $273.1 billion in September, the GAC said in a statement on its website.

China is the world’s largest exporter, shipping out far more goods than it buys from other countries. That’s a sore point for global competitors like the U.S., which is suffering from snail-speed growth, while China’s economy is hurdling ahead at a staggering pace.

In yet another attempt to combat inflation, the People’s Bank of China raised the reserve requirement ratio for its banks by a half-percentage point on Friday for the third time in the span of a month. China increased the requirements twice in November.

The reports come a week ahead of an important trade meeting between the two world superpowers: The U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meets next week.

On Monday, 31 U.S. senators sent a letter to Wang Qishan, China’s vice premier, urging him to solve several trade issues at the upcoming meeting.

The senators said they want to discuss intellectual property disputes, “discriminatory innovation practices” and barriers to U.S. beef exports, reaching solutions ahead of an important visit from Chinese President Hu Jintao in January.

While the committee doesn’t have specific jurisdiction over currency issues, the senators also echoed other cries from U.S. lawmakers that China needs to allow its currency, the yuan, to float more freely against the dollar.

“We urge China to demonstrate its commitment to adopting a market-determined exchange rate by allowing its currency to appreciate meaningfully in advance of President Hu’s visit,” the letter said.
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The United States has accused China of keeping its currency, the yuan, undervalued by buying up large reserves of foreign currencies. A cheaper yuan gives an advantage to Chinese exporters by allowing them to undercut foreign competitors.

In September, the House passed a bill that would allow for tariffs on Chinese goods. In their letter earlier this week, the 31 senators said they might follow suit.

China and other global leaders, have retorted, accusing the U.S. Federal Reserve of hypocrisy, saying its recent policy of quantitative easing artificially devalues the dollar.