from www.aolnews.com - American ambassadors could be in for some awkward embassy parties this holiday season. Because hidden in WikiLeaks' release of diplomatic files are some exceptionally unflattering portrayals of world leaders. Here's a roundup of the most insulted:
Col. Moammar Gadhafi. An adviser to the sultan of Oman describes the Libyan leader as "just strange." A report by Gene Cretz, the U.S. ambassador in Tripoli, meanwhile, says Gadhafi cannot travel anywhere without his "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytska, 38,[pictured] as she alone "knows his routine."
The Libyan tyrant is also afraid of flying over water and "appears to have an intense dislike or fear of staying on upper floors." His vertigo is so extreme that he can't climb any more than 35 steps.
Silvio Berlusconi. The gaffe-prone Italian prime minister is "feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader," according to Elizabeth Dibble, U.S. charge d'affaires in Rome, reports The Guardian. Another cable from the Italian embassy described Berlusconi as a "physically and politically weak" leader whose "frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest."
Berlusconi's relationship with Russia also comes under suspicion. Cables mention lavish gifts, energy contracts and a "shadowy," Russian-speaking Italian fixer. Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin."
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president is dubbed "an emperor with no clothes" who has a "thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style."
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan leader is portrayed as a paranoid wreck. A dispatch from Kabul calls him "an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him."
His brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, a powerful and untouchable figure in the southern province of Kandahar, also comes in for criticism. "While we must deal with AWK as the head of the provincial council," records a September 2009 cable, "he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker."
Angela Merkel - U.S. diplomats struggled to warm to the German chancellor, whose political survival skills led them to dub her "Angela 'Teflon' Merkel." In a 2009 dispatch from Berlin, officials declared, "She is risk averse and rarely creative."
Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev - Prime Minister Putin may have handed Medvedev the Russian president's office in 2008, but a cable from the Moscow embassy that same year states that Putin is still "alpha-dog." It adds that Medvedev is "pale and apprehensive" and "plays Robin to Putin's Batman."
Kim Jong Il - A diplomat's source referred to North Korea's ailing despot as a "flabby old chap" who had suffered "physical and psychological trauma" as a result of a stroke.
Robert Mugabe- In an unduly optimistic 2007 cable titled "The End Is Nigh," Christopher Dell -- then America's ambassador in Harare, Zimbabwe -- predicted the dictator's imminent downfall.
"To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactitian [sic]," says Dell.
"However, he is fundamentally hampered by several factors: his ego and belief in his own infallibility; his obsessive focus on the past as a justification for everything in the present and future; his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including supply and demand)."
