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WikiLeaks back after 6-hr shutdown
London, December 3
WikiLeaks is up and running again on a Swiss network a few hours after the company providing its DNS services terminated the whistleblower website’s account. 

A page of WikiLeaks website on Friday. The noose tightened around WikiLeaks as cyber attacks temporarily forced the ‘whistleblower’ website off the Internet and its elusive founder Assange faced a fresh arrest warrant. — AFP

N Korea may back off, hoping to win aid
Seoul, December 3
Tensions between the two Koreas have risen to their highest level in at least two decades following the North's attack on Yeonpyeong island last week which killed four persons, including two civilians.
Anti-war activists raise slogans during a rally opposing a download training exercise by US 403rd Army Field Support Brigade outside the port in Gwangyang, around 300 km south of Seoul, on Friday. — AFP

WikiLeaks back after 6-hr shutdown

London, December 3
WikiLeaks is up and running again on a Swiss network a few hours after the company providing its DNS services terminated the whistleblower website’s account. According to News.com.au, some leaked cables were still not loading on the new www.wikileaks.ch site, but they were viewable for the most part after the six-hour shutdown.

n A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan cops, who paid for young “dancing boys, caused panic with interior minister begging US Embassy to try to “quash” the story. n The US military has been charging its allies a 15% handling fee to build up the Afghan army. Germany threatened to cancel contributions, raising concerns that money was going to the US treasury. n Iran is financing a range of Afghan religious and political leaders,training Taliban militants and even seeking to influence MPs, according to cables from the US embassy in Kabul. n Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Colombia's Álvaro Uribe "almost came to blows" at a Latin America unity summit, according to a US memo, which described it as "the worst expression of banana republic discourse".

“WikiLeaks moves to Switzerland,” the group declared on Twitter, although an Internet trace of the new domain name suggested that the site itself was still hosted in Sweden and France.

Earlier in the day, WikiLeaks was offline after US-based EveryDNS.net terminated its domain name system services.

“WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks,” WikiLeaks had tweeted.

The shutdown came two days after Amazon Web Services (AWS) decided to end its hosting agreements with WikiLeaks, resulting in the website going offline for several hours until it was moved back to its previous Swedish host Bahnhof.

EveryDNS.net had said WikiLeaks had violated their provision that stated that “member shall not interfere with another member’s use and enjoyment of the service or another entity’s use and enjoyment of similar services.” “The termination of services was effected pursuant to, and in accordance with, the EveryDNS.net acceptable use policy,” a statement had said.

“The interference at issues arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 5,00,000 other websites,” the statement added.

The termination came amid massive controversy for WikiLeaks, where the whistleblower website began releasing 2,50,000 classified US diplomatic cables in its biggest leak so far, angering leaders across the globe. - ANI 

N Korea may back off, hoping to win aid

Seoul, December 3
Tensions between the two Koreas have risen to their highest level in at least two decades following the North's attack on Yeonpyeong island last week which killed four persons, including two civilians. The two sides have since exchanged fiery rhetoric, but there have been no further clashes. What could happen next?

Peaceful option

This is the preferred peaceful option, but the regional powers disagree over the best diplomatic approach. So the outlook is bleak, for now. China has not condemned the attack, meaning there is little chance of a U.N. Security Council resolution. China, Russia and North Korea have said for months they want a resumption of six-party nuclear disarmament talks, but South Korea, the United States and Japan say they will only rejoin the talks once Pyongyang makes a sincere commitment to denuclearise. The latter three say the North's revelations about its advances in nuclear technology this month underline it is far from sincere. Beijing has proposed emergency talks involving the regional powers to discuss the current crisis alone. Only Russia has expressed unconditional support. Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have said talks with North Korea are not the answer right now, afraid to be seen to be caving into Pyonyyang. Some experts have said another option would be to bring in some "fresh" blood to broker new ideas on how to resolve the standoff. A European country, or another Asian state?

More provocations

This is likely. The North's actions follow a similar pattern and are inextricably linked to its military-first ideology. Analysts say the North believes provocations are an effective way to push South Korea and the USA to the negotiating table where they expect to win concessions in return for improved behaviour. Expect more test-firing by both sides around the disputed maritime waters off the west coast. This is commonplace, but a stray round into a disputed area could spark a firefight which could turn deadly.

War unlikely

The small-scale skirmishes and missile and nuclear tests had been securing less attention from the outside world. The attack on Yeonpyeong marked an uptick in provocative behaviour. It was the first time a civilian area on South Korean oil had come under attack since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war. Public opinion in the South is demanding a tougher retaliatory response to North Korean fire. That, in turn, would worry investors in North Asia, responsible for one-sixth of the global economy, dampening sentiment and causing brief drops in the South Korean won and the stock market. But market players have said it would take the threat of a major military confrontation to cause lasting harm. North Korea will be aware of its limitations and is unlikely to want to provoke a dangerous escalation given the considerable disparity in the military capabilities of the two sides.