Whistleblower Web site Wiki-Leaks has unleashed a flood of US cables detailing shocking diplomatic episodes, from a nuclear standoff with Pakistan to Arab leaders urging a strike on Iran.
The leaked memos describe a Chinese government bid to hack into Google; plans to reunite the Korean Peninsula after the North’s eventual collapse; and the king of Saudi Arabia’s call to the US to bomb Iran to halt its nuclear drive.
The confidential cables, most of which date from 2007 to February this year, also reveal how the US Department of State has ordered diplomats to spy on foreign officials and even to obtain their credit card and frequent flier numbers.
The memos, released on Sunday, recount closed-door remarks such as Yemen’s president telling a top US general: “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours” when discussing secretive US strikes on al-Qaeda.
A description of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said he required the near-constant assistance of a “voluptuous blond” Ukrainian nurse.
According to another note that surfaced in the New York Times, the Saudi king considers Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari the greatest obstacle to progress in his country.
“When the head is rotten it affects the whole body,” King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz was quoted as saying.
A separate US diplomatic cable described Ahmed Wali Karzai, a powerful brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as “corrupt and a narcotics trafficker.”
Several diplomatic documents leaked showed that key US allies in Europe and the Middle East were privately pushing for tough action against the Iranian nuclear threat, despite their moderate public posture. In another document, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told his French counterpart that Israel could strike Iran without US military support, but the operation might not be successful.
The Guardian newspaper reported that a classified directive sent to US diplomats under US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s name in July last year sought technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials.
The directive also sought intelligence on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s “management and decision-making style,” the report said. UN officials declined to comment.
The New York Times, Britain’s the Guardian, Germany’s Der Spiegel, France’s Le Monde and Spain’s El Pais published the first batch of the documents on Sunday, saying more would follow in the coming days.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it has lodged a protest with Pretoria after the name of the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa was changed to the “Taipei Commercial Office” on the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (DIRCO) Web site. In October last year, the South African government asked Taiwan to relocate the Taipei Liaison Office, the nation’s de facto embassy, out of Pretoria. It later agreed to continue negotiating through official channels, but in January asked that the office be relocated by the end of this month. As of the middle of last month, DIRCO’s Web
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