Silvio laughs off ‘cable criticism’

Moscow, Nov. 29: US diplomats refer to the Russian President, Mr Dmitry Medvedev, as a hesitant leader and the Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, as an “alpha male,” Kommersant reported on Monday citing documents released by WikiLeaks.

The business daily said the relevant WikiLeaks documents were obtained by Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly and released on a private Twitter account.

The WikiLeaks documents also show that US diplomats have nicknames for most of the world leaders: the Iranian President, Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was referred to as “Hitler,” the French President, Mr Nicolas Sarkozy a “naked emperor”and the German Chancellor was called Angela “Teflon” Merkel.

US diplomats also thought that the Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai, was “driven by paranoia”.

Though many nations reserved their opinions about the WikiLeaks releases, the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Silvio Berlusconi laughed off a damning assessment of his “ineffective” leadership, his partying lifestyle and his close links with Mr Putin. However, Italy’s Opposition said the releases has caused more disrepute.

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