WikiLeaks website brought down in U.S. and Europe by 'powerful' cyber attack 'from China'



China urges U.S. to 'properly handle relevant issues'



Dossier reveals Beiging 'willing to accept a unified Korea run from Seoul'

Superpower fears nuclear activity is 'a threat to the whole world's security'

Worries that death of dictator Kim Jong-il could spark further instability

The WikiLeaks website today said that it was under a forceful internet-based attack with the site inaccessible to users in U.S. and Europe.

The site, which just distributed a trove of U.S. diplomatic documents, said in a Twitter message on that it is under a 'distributed denial of service attack,' a method commonly used by hackers to slow down or bring down sites.

WikiLeaks was also under attack on Sunday - but the latest assault - believed to come from China - appears to be more powerful.

Brought down: WikiLeaks said they had today come under a powerful cyberattack and the website was not accessible from either the U.S. or Europe

WikiLeaks said the malicious traffic was coming in at 10 gigabits per second, which would make it a relatively large effort.

The WikiLeaks site is hosted in Sweden and devoted to releasing anonymously submitted documents.

The attack followed China urging Barack Obama to get a grip on the fallout from leaked U.S. embassy documents that revealed Beijing is privately preparing to abandon its ally North Korea.

According to cables made available by WikiLeaks, the Chinese are ready to accept Korean reunification and increasingly believe their nuclear activities are 'a threat to the whole world's security'.



Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei today said Beijing has noted the Wikileaks' disclosure of a trove of State Department cables, but declined further comment.

Awkward ally: Kim Jong-il is seen more as a threat by China. Beijing today urged the U.S. to 'properly handle' the fallout from the WikiLeaks dossier

He said: 'We hope the US side will properly handle relevant issues.'

'We don't want to see any disturbance to China-US relations,' Mr Hong added.



According to the documents, Beijing worries that further instability in 'spoiled child' North Korea could cause a massive influx of refugees.



They have estimated that they could only cope with an influx of 300,000 people and may need to use the military to close the border in the event of a crisis.



In February South Korean vice-foreign minister Chun Yung-woo told U.S. ambassador Kathleen Stephens that among the younger generation of Communist leaders North Korea was no longer seen as a reliable ally.



The South Korean politician said China was no longer prepared to engage in armed conflict to protect its ally.



The cables revealed: 'Chun argued that in the event of a North Korean collapse, China would clearly 'not welcome' any US military presence north of the DMZ (dimilitarised zone).



'Again citing his conversations with (the officials), Chun said the PRC (China) would be comfortable with a reunified Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the US in a "benign alliance" - as long as Korea was not hostile towards China.



'Tremendous trade and labour-export opportunities for Chinese companies, Chun said, would also help 'salve PRC concerns about... a reunified Korea,' The Guardian reported today.



Further cables revealed Beijing's uneasiness about North Korean military testing.



The U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, Richard Hoagland, was told by Cheng Guoping he was 'genuinely concerned by North Korea's recent nuclear missile tests'.



'"We need to solve this problem. It is very troublesome."'

Military drills: A South Korean ship approaches its floating base off Yeonpyeong Island today as war games with the US begin In in the Yellow Sea

And 69-year-old North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il who has had a stroke has begun to lose his touch.

He has begun to reverse his policies and backtrack on issues.



The problem, the cables said, was that 'officials also chart their own course as different factions competing for Kim's attention, making it difficult for Kim to set a firm, clear direction'.



The dictator had forced all students in China and all those working there to return to the country because a single one of them had defected.



Yesterday China edged away from its previously tame stance towards its rogue neighbour by calling for 'emergency consultations' and inviting a senior North Korean official to Beijing.



It came as South Korean residents scrambled for cover yesterday as North Korea threatened to launch a 'sea of fire' over military drills in the Yellow Sea with the US military.



Residents were ordered into bomb shelters as the sound of artillery fire was heard just days after two of its soldiers were killed by North Korea shells.

The tension between the two countries has escalated since North Korean artillery fire five days ago and the start of 'war games' in South Korea.



South Korea's Defence Ministry has now ordered reporters to leave Yeonpyeong, saying 'the situation is not good' on the island following the start of the military drills.



Lieutenant General Yoo Nak-Joon, commander of South Korean Marine Corps, salutes during the funeral ceremony for two marines killed during North Korea's attack on Yeonpyeong Island

The South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak has meanwhile warned his country to be ready for a surprise attack by the North.



His warning came as a state-run website in the North warned that the military exercises would be an 'unpardonable provocation' and that it would create a 'sea of fire' if any of its territory was violated.



The latest explosions in the South were heard but there were no confirmations that anything had been fired. No witnesses saw explosions and there was no damage.



But the rhetoric from North Korea escalated with new warnings of a 'merciless' assault if further provoked and a top Chinese official made a last-minute visit to Seoul to confer with South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.

Fears of further conflict have grown since last week after South Korea's Marine commander Lieutenant General Yoo Nak Joon vowed 'thousand fold revenge' at the funeral for the two dead Marines.

Washington and Seoul have urged China, North Korea's main ally and biggest benefactor, to step in to defuse the situation amid fears of all-out war.



South Korean marines carry the flag-draped caskets of their comrades at the funeral

But a round or military drills and war games between the US and South Korea in the Yellow Sea will add to the tension in the area.



Washington insists the drills involving the nuclear-powered USS George Washington supercarrier are routine and were planned well before Tuesday's attack.



North Korea has expressed outrage over the Yellow Sea drills and issued a fresh warning today.



'We will launch merciless counter-military strikes against any provocative moves that infringe upon our country's territorial waters,' the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.



The Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 war ended in a truce, but not a peace treaty. Their border is one of the world's most heavily fortified, guarded by troops on both sides.



The bitter trade of threats has escalated since the North's bombardment of the island and surrounding seas on Tuesday killed four people, injured 18 and set buildings and forests ablaze.

Two South Korean soldiers were killed and a dozen injured after dozens of artillery shells were fired onto Yeonpyeong island setting more than 60 houses ablaze and sending civilians fleeing in terror.



The incident is believed to have been sparked by South Korean military exercises in the area, which the North had objected to.



Retired South Korean Marines burn a North Korean flag and portraits of the country's leader Kim Jong-il and his son Kim Jong-un

North Korea said that the deaths had been regrettable and blamed them on The South using the men as a 'human shield' on the island.



The comments came the two dead Marines were honoured with a gun salute as families wailed and grim-faced officials saluted the funeral cortege.



'All Marines, including Marines on service and reserve Marines, will avenge the two at any cost, keeping today's anger and hostility in mind,' said Lieutenant General Yoo Nak Joon, commander of the South Korean Marine Corps standing in front of a hearse lightly dusted by snow.



'We will put our feelings of rage and animosity in our bones and take our revenge on North Korea.'



Two Marines and two civilians were killed in the attack. The funeral was followed by three separate anti-North Korea protests in the capital as a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier headed for joint manoeuvres with South Korea on Sunday, infuriating North Korea and prompting a warning from its only major ally, China.



'It's time for action. Time for retaliation. Let's hit the presidential palace in Pyongyang,' shouted close to 1,000 Marine veterans in downtown Seoul who burnt photographs of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his anointed successor, son Kim Jung-un.



North Korean reacted to it's neighbour's comments on the eve of the US-South Korean in the yellow sea that have enraged the North and worried China by issuing a statement through its state-controlled news agency.

Clutching her face, the mother marine Moon Kwang-wook weeps at the funeral

North Korea's state news agency said that although 'it is very regrettable, if it is true, that civilian casualties occurred on Yeonpyeong island, its responsibility lies in enemies' inhumane action of creating a 'human shield' by deploying civilians around artillery positions.'



The North said its enemies are 'now working hard to dramatise 'civilian casualties' as part of its propaganda campaign, creating the impression that the defenceless civilians were exposed to 'indiscriminate shelling' all of a sudden from the North'.



South Korea is said to have been conducting artillery drills on Tuesday from the island, located just seven miles from North Korea's mainland, but fired away from the mainland.



The North said it warned South Korea to halt the drills on the morning of the attack, as part of 'superhuman efforts to prevent the clash to the last moment'.



The North said that Sunday's planned US-South Korean war games showed that the United States was 'the arch criminal who deliberately planned the incident and wire-pulled it behind the scene'.



As protesters in Seoul demanded their government take sterner action against North Korea, the North issued new warnings against the war games which have started today on US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea.



The North called the games an 'unpardonable provocation' and warned of retaliatory attacks creating a "sea of fire" if its own territory is violated. The comments ran on North Korea's state-run

Uriminzokkiri website a day after the North's warnings that the peninsula was on the 'brink of war'.

Lawmakers have blasted President Lee Myung-bak's government for not responding strongly enough. The defence minister resigned, taking responsibility, and Kim, a career soldier, was appointed in his place.

Shells: Terrified South Korean civillians watch artillery fire hit Yeonpyeong island on Tuesday in attacks that killed four people

Regional giant China has said it is determined to prevent an escalation of the violence but warned against military acts near its coast as U.S. and South Korean forces prepare for exercises in the Yellow Sea.



A North Korean website operated by the government propaganda agency said the war drills were 'another unforgivable military provocation'.



The U.S. military said the exercises, planned long before Tuesday's attack, were designed to deter North Korea and were not aimed at China.



The United States is sending an aircraft carrier group led by the nuclear-powered USS George Washington for the manoeuvres with South Korea.



'We've routinely operated in waters off the Korean peninsula for years,' said Captain Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman. 'These latest provocations have been by the North and they need to take ownership of those, not us.'



U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said North Korea's nuclear ambitions and leader Kim Jong-il's unpredictability increased the threat of regional instability.



'It's hard to know why China doesn't push harder,' Mullen told CNN television's Fareed Zakaria GPS in comments due to air on Sunday. 'My sense is they try to control this guy. And I'm not sure he is controllable.'

