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.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
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