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.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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