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Tuesday 30 November 2010

WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates


• Latest leaks show China ready to abandon North Korea
• Prince Andrew's sweary outbursts at media and French
• Hillary Clinton leads international condemnation of leaksChina North Korea Kim visit

The latest diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks show that China is ready to accept a reunified Korea and regards North Korea as a spoiled child. Photograph: KCNA/EPA

10.34am: Gordon Brown a made personal request to allow the hacker Gary McKinnon to serve a sentence in the UK, but the request was rejected by the US, the latest disclosure shows.

Here's the relevant document.

10.15am: Pentagon papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has defended the release of the cables.

Asked on CNN's Larry King show about Hillary Clinton's condemnation of the WikiLeaks, Ellsberg said "There hasn't been a secretary of state who wouldn't have said exactly the same thing about the Pentagon papers.

"I'm sure in America they see Julian Assange as the most dangerous man. A truth teller is potentially very embarrassing."

Saving diplomats embarrassment was not enough of an excuse to withhold the information, he said.

9.55am: There's no mention of Ecuador in the haggling over Guantánamo Bay prisoners. But according to Al Jazeera, Ecuador has offered residence to someone to another US problem - Julian Assange.

"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Kintto Lucas, the deputy foreign minister, said.

"We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the internet but in a variety of public forums."

There's more in Spanish on the Ecuador news siteEcuadorinmediato.com

9.31am: The New York Times trawl for latest leaks reveals the extraordinary horse trading between the US and its allies over the fate of Guantánamo Bay prisoners.

Slovenia was promised more "high-level attention" if it helped with detainees''; the Maldives said it would accept prisoners in return US help in getting IMF loans; and the Pacific nation Kiribati was offered $3m to take 17 Chinese detainees.

There's lots more including details a suggestion by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to implant electronic chips in the detainees.

9.13am: The chairman of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly, Choe Thae Bok, arrived in Beijing today for a five-day visit, according to AP. He was summoned by China to discuss the current tension in the peninsula after the North unleashed a fiery artillery barrage on a South Korean island.

They have lots to talk about, but don't expect any leaked cables from that visit.

Tania Branigan

8.44am: Over to Tania Branigan in Beijing where Chinese officials have been making their first comments on the leaked cables.

Beijing called on the US to "properly handle" the emergence of the diplomatic cables, but sought to play down the issue in its first response to the release.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular press briefing: "We do not want to see any disturbance in China-US relations."

But he declined to comment on any of the issues raised in the documents. Asked whether Beijing believed that North Korea had behaved "like a spoilt child" – as a senior official remarked, according to one of the cables - Hong replied: "China takes note of the leaked reports. We hope the US side will properly handle the relevant issues. As for the content of the documents, we do not comment on that."

8.43am: Former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind said China will be "very very angry" with the disclosures on China's possible new stance on North Korea. "And rightly so," he told Today programme.

Malcolm Rifkind MP

"The tragedy of these WikiLeaks is that if China is contemplating a historic change in its attitude to North Korea and possibly support for reunification, this premature revelation ... will have put that back by years. That shows the damage that can be done by unauthorised leaks from private conversations."

He said the documents on Korea, and the cables yesterday about Saudi Arabia's desire to attack Iran, should only have been available to handful of senior officials. "Clearly they [the Americans] lost control of the system," he said.

On Prince Andrew's comments Rifkind said they were "very unwise remarks to make". But he said he should carry on as trade envoy. "He is an extremely good trade representative. He has always been known to be a blunt speaker," he said.

8.07am: Most of the last night's BBC Newsnight programme was devoted to WikiLeaks.

It included some interesting comments on the Duke of York from Labour MP John Mann. He suggested that the Prince might have to resign as trade ambassador.

If these comments by Prince Andrew are accurate - and of course we don't know that yet - then clearly it's of public interest that they are out there, so that he can judge whether he is performing the role well and government can make that judgment as well.

Prince Andrew will need to think through if he is actually carrying out this role to the best of his abilities.

7.34am: The rest of the British media wasn't that interested in WikiLeaks disclosures yesterday. But that's all changed today now that royalty is involved.

duke-of-yuk

The Daily Mirror's front page describes Prince Andrew as the Duke of Yuk (left), the Sun calls him the Tirade Envoy.

The Daily Mail goes with Exposed: Andrew's 4-letter Tirade; and the Telegraph leads with "Duke raged at 'idiocy' of fraud inquiry" (though its web version of the story has slightly different headline).

Inside the Telegraph devotes four news pages to following-up the WikiLeaks and Guardian disclosures, but its comment pages are sniffy about the exercise. "The mass release of American diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks website has, so far, generated a great deal of heat but not a lot of light," its editorial says.

It also carries a scathing opinion piece from the former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, now chairman of the intelligence and security committee.

It is too early to say precisely what damage the WikiLeaks revelations will do. Many of us suspected that Arab leaders were even more alarmed than the West at the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. It does not surprise me that they would be supportive of a military attack if all other pressures fail. The fact that this is now public may bring home to the international community and, in particular, Russia and China, that the UN Security Council must agree very heavy sanctions and pressure on Iran if the whole Middle East is not going to be disrupted by conflict.

But regardless of whether the spotlight of unauthorised publicity might, occasionally, help rather than hinder, the deliberate leaking of sensitive dispatches and diplomatic cables is highly damaging in what is already a very dangerous world.

7.15am: Here's a catch-up on the current batch of leaked US diplomatic cables:

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