US to protect dissidents after WikiLeaks fall-out

THE Obama administration says it is taking steps to protect or relocate dissidents and human rights activists whose lives may be placed at risk by their disclosure in leaked US diplomatic documents.

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said that American embassies had been told to warn foreign sources of compromising information contained in the cables and offer them assistance. Crowley said he was not aware that anyone had yet asked for help, but said the US was “prepared to help protect people if necessary,” including with relocation.

US officials say countless lives, particularly of government critics in authoritarian nations, have been endangered by the release of the documents by the WikiLeaks website.

Meanwhile, the whistlebower website has left its US web host, Amazon.com, and moved back to a Swedish provider.

The site took up residence on Amazon.com’s self-service web servers after a rash of internet-based attacks started last Sunday against its regular Swedish host, Bahnhof.

The attacks made access to the site a hit and miss affair. The site was also unavailable for hours yesterday, as Amazon’s servers stopped responding to requests.

Amazon.com would not comment on its relationship with WikiLeaks or whether it forced the site to leave.

Pakistan yesterday dismissed Western concerns over the security of its nuclear weapons programme following the publication of more US State Department cables by WikiLeaks.

A fresh cache of US diplomatic cables released on Tuesday and yesterday show widespread concern about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons with worries stretching from Washington to Riyadh to Moscow.

A senior Pakistani government official familiar with

his country’s nuclear weapons programme waved off Western hand-wringing.

“They (the weapons) are secured. That’s it. No matter whatever point of view anybody else has,” he said.

A senior official in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency said the country’s nuclear weapons were “the safest,” and that spent fuel rods in the nuclear reactors were “safe and secure.”

“Your planes have had accidents and lost nuclear bombs at sea,” he said.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s office, in a statement issued after a meeting with the new US ambassador Cameron Munter, said the revelations would not “have any effect on the strong, strategic partnership between Pakistan and the USA, as both sides were resolute to address the misperceptions in the interest of long-term cordial bilateral relations”.

WikiLeaks shook the diplomatic world on Monday when it published reports from more than 250,000 confidential cables in partnership with five Western newspapers.