WikiLeaks shrugged off the jailing of its editor-in-chief by publishing a new tranche of secret diplomatic cables yesterday, heaping more embarrassment on the US and some of its closest allies.
After Julian Assange spent his first night behind bars as a remand prisoner in London, his Web site revealed Washington had branded Australia’s ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd as a “mistake-prone control freak” and that the British government was relieved when its Scottish counterparts freed the Lockerbie bomber.
The pressure on WikiLeaks has been steadily mounting, with key sources of funding choked off and Assange having been refused bail.
However, after vowing that it would not be silenced, the site showed its ability to ruffle feathers was unimpaired with its latest revelations.
Rudd, now Australia’s foreign minister, tried to laugh off the confidential assessment by the US embassy in Canberra that he made foreign policy blunders.
Rudd frustrated colleagues by being a “control freak” who was “obsessed with managing the media cycle rather than engaging in collaborative decision making,” extracts of cables published by the Sydney Morning Herald said.
While he was prime minister, he also “deeply offended” Australia’s closest ally in 2008 by aggressively pushing for a meeting with then-president George W. Bush in Washington, only to cancel two days later, the papers showed.
Rudd said the US, not Assange, was to blame for the leak of cables, saying it had a problem with its diplomatic security.
“When you’ve got a quarter of a million cables pecking around out there, and on top of that you have people who have had access in the US system to these sorts of cables in excess of 2 million people, that’s where the core of the problem lies,” Rudd told commercial radio.
There were also potential red faces in Britain whose then Labour government publicly distanced itself from the decision by the devolved Scottish government to free the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi last year.
However, dispatches from the US embassy in Tripoli showed that Britain faced threats from Libya of “dire consequences” if al-Megrahi — who is suffering from cancer — died in a Scottish prison.
Among the threats were the cessation of all British commercial activity in Libya and demonstrations against British facilities.
The dispatches also showed the British ambassador in Tripoli “expressed relief” about al-Megrahi’s imminent release.
“They could have cut us off at the knees,” Vincent Fean, the British ambassador, is cited as saying.
And there were also revelations in connection with US ally Saudi Arabia, as cables painted a picture of a buzzing party scene inside princes’ mansions in Jeddah replete with alcohol, drugs and sex.
While Swedish authorities insist the rape case against Assange has nothing to do with WikiLeaks’ revelations, his detention in London added further pressure on the site as its sources of funding are being throttled.
Visa suspended all payments to WikiLeaks on Tuesday, the day after its rival MasterCard Worldwide took a similar step. The banking arm of the Swiss post office has also closed a WikiLeaks account set up by Assange.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft