If any one Steal a any document of U.S Super Computer how we can say America Nuclear Plant is save If any one Attack on U.S Computer and steal any Secret information about Atomic plant. If America Nuclear plant is Connected with Super Computer How can be said is Safe..... American Nuclear plant is big threat of the world after the leaks.
Family of television cameraman killed by US troops in Iraq might sue those who worked with US to prevent soldiers' arrest The Hotel Palestine several months after the bomb in which José Couso died. Photograph: Jerome Sessini/ In Visu/Corbis
The family of a television cameraman killed by US troops during the invasion of Iraq said it was considering taking legal action against Spanish ministers and others who worked with US officials to prevent a Madrid court arresting the soldiers involved.
The brother of cameraman José Couso, who died after a tank opened fire on a journalists' hotel in Baghdad, said the family was mulling court action after US embassy cables published by the Guardian and El País revealed how Spanish ministers intervened after a Madrid court issued arrest warrants for three soldiers.
"We have always known that the Spanish government connived [with the US]," Couso's brother Javier said. "What I ask myself now is whatever happened to our national sovereignty?"
Couso, who worked for Spain's Tele 5, and Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk were killed when a US tank opened fire on the Hotel Palestine on 8 April 2003.
In October 2005 a Madrid court ordered the arrest for questioning of three US soldiers and issued an international warrant for them.
Spain's attorney general's office appealed against the measures and the case has since been shelved.
Couso's family is fighting for the case to be reopened. "We believe the behaviour of the attorney general's office and of prosecutors office at the national court has perverted the true nature of these institutions," Javier Couso said.
Spain's governing socialist party and the opposition People's Party, both of which have been embarrassed by the cables, have remained tight-lipped. Socialist ministers have called the Madrid cables – which deal with US attempts to stop court investigations into torture at Guantánamo Bay, CIA rendition flights and the Couso case – as "decontextualised" and "partial".
Ministers have also denied that Spain was offered $85,000m (£54,000) to cover the costs of each former Guantánamo prisoner it accepted.
Javier Zaragoza, the chief prosecutor at the national court, who comes across in the cables as a close ally of the US as it tried to stop investigating magistrates using universal jurisdiction rules to investigate torture at Guantánamo Bay, said the reports of conversations contained in the cables were "biased" and "malicious".
"They come to ask you for information, not to tell you what you should do," he said in an interview with La Voz newspaper. "The thing is that they always try to make themselves look valuable to their government, but they never set the course of action followed by prosecutors or the justice system in Spain."
In an editorial, El País asked for a "clear explanation" of the contacts between prosecutors, ministers and the US embassy in Madrid.
What do the cables released by WikiLeaks tell us about the French president and his relationship with the United States? WikiLeaks has released a US embassy cable that says Nicolas Sarkozy can be 'brilliant, impatient, undiplomatic and hard to predict'. Photograph: Aude Guerruci/EPA
US strategy of keeping quiet over fears about Pakistan's nuclear security is not working according to experts Satellite image showing the Khushab plutonium reactor in Pakistan. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images
The leaked US cables on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal reveal a serious and growing threat of nuclear terrorism that has been deliberately played down by western governments, counter-proliferation experts said yesterday.
They argued there were political and legal constraints on the assistance the US and others could offer Pakistan to help improve security, and that home-grown safety measures had not kept pace with the rapid growth of the country's nuclear complex and the spread of extremism.
"The intersection of terror and proliferation is nowhere more evident than in Pakistan," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US state department non-proliferation official now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"Officials have been talking about this for years," Fitzpatrick said. He argued there were good reasons for the gap between Washington and London's public assurances that the Pakistani arsenal was secure, and the private concerns about the terrorist threat revealed in the WikiLeaks cables.
"The United States has been helping Pakistan make the material more secure, but talking about it doesn't help. It just makes the Pakistanis resist further assistance."
The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty also places legal limits on the help one country can give another on its nuclear weapons establishment.
Meanwhile, however, there are clear signs that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its estimated stockpile of 90 warheads.
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), an independent thinktank in Washington, published satellite pictures last month which showed construction work on a third heavy water reactor at the Khushab nuclear complex, where plutonium for nuclear warheads is made.
Shaun Gregory, a Bradford University professor who has extensively studied Pakistani nuclear security, said that there were multiple chinks in its armour.
"The military elements of this are fairly robust, but not invulnerable. But on the civilian side, where the fissile material is processed and the weapons produced, levels of safety and security are much lower," he said.
In an assessment of Pakistani nuclear security published last year, Gregory noted terrorist groups had mounted a string of attacks on nuclear weapons facilities, including a nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha and a nuclear air base at Kamra, both in 2007. In August 2008 Pakistan Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to a nuclear weapons assembly site at Wah.
The army has several concentric layers of security at these sites but Gregory points to other attacks like the assault on the army headquarters itself in Rawalpindi last October – in which the attackers wore army uniforms, drove military vehicles and had detailed maps of the site – as signs of growing sophistication.
"Should terrorists decide to take control of a nuclear weapons site, they are developing the means of doing it. The only thing lacking is a detailed knowledge of where the nuclear weapons are stored."
The gap could be filled by collusion with some of the 130,000 people involved in the Pakistani nuclear arms complex.
"I don't think that in the context of a Pakistani army where there are people disgruntled with what the United States is doing in the region, you can say that collusion can be permanently discounted," Gregory said.
In that context David Albright, the head of ISIS, believes Washington's strategy of keeping quiet about its fears of Pakistan's nuclear security, in the hope of greater co-operation, is not working.
"I've been told for years that the problem was worse than what has been told publicly," Albright said. "But what is surprising is that the United States doesn't have more leverage. We're not getting enough for our money."
He pointed to the failure of repeated efforts of US officials to retrieve US-supplied high-enriched uranium (HEU) in storage at a Pakistani civilian research reactor. Washington has also been unsuccessful in persuading Islamabad to lift its opposition to a global treaty to stop the production of fissile material.
Pakistan is currently blocking talks on the treaty in Geneva. Albright said: "Hiding the truth can't be the basis for a long-term policy."
Serious Organised Crime Agency flags up Interpol 'red notice' over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's whereabouts
Julian Assange is being sought by police over rape allegations. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
British police are continuing to look for the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, over rape allegations made against him in Sweden.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is handling the case, confirmed yesterday it had flagged up an Interpol "red notice" to all UK police forces that the whereabouts of Assange were being sought.
Police sources said Assange would be arrested if they discovered his precise location. The 39-year-old is believed to be in the UK.
A Soca source said: "If there is intelligence or information to say he is in a said location, then that will be acted upon. With a red notice issue it means he's on the radar, on police force systems. Law enforcement Plc is looking for him."
A source close to Assange told the Guardian that his lawyer had been assured by police that he would be approached first if there was any attempt to detain the WikiLeaks founder.
Although the red notice does not amount to an arrest warrant, an Interpol spokesman said that often they were interpreted as a "valid request for provisional arrest" especially if the two countries, such as Sweden and the UK, have extradition treaties.
A Soca source described it as an "initial locate and trace" request by Interpol for Assange, with the red notice asking people to contact police if they have any information about his whereabouts.
Assange, who is from Australia and is thought to have been in London recently, moves regularly from country to country and is known to have spent periods in Britain and Sweden. The source added that police had not received any information relating to the whereabouts of Assange or any indication that he might currently be in the UK.
The red notice concerning Assange was sent from Interpol on 20 November to all its 188 member countries after being contacted by the Swedish authorities who want to interview him over sex offence allegations.
Assange is wanted by Swedish prosecutors on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. He denies the allegations.
Initially details of the notice were marked "restricted" and only came to light yesterday after Sweden said its request could be publicised.
Today, Assange's lawyer issued a vigorous condemnation of the Interpol move. Comparing the Swedish prosecutor to Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Stalin's notorious security chief, Mark Stephens said "neither Mr Assange nor his lawyers have been provided any further information beyond that reported in the press."
He continued: "This appears to be a persecution and a prosecution. It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue a red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor's questions. Mr Assange has repeatedly sought meetings with the prosecutrix – both in Sweden and subsequently – in order to answer her questions and clear his name. It is relevant that Mr Assange sought permission from the prosecutrix to leave Sweden and she gave him her permission. Since leaving Sweden Mr Assange has continued to seek meetings with the prosecutrix, but his requests have either been ignored or met with a refusal."
He added: "At this point in time, we have no evidence pointing to a link between these allegations from August and the issue of the Interpol alert just two days after the WikiLeaks first release of US diplomatic cables. However, it is highly unusual for a red notice warrant to be issued in relation to the allegations reported as having been made, since Swedish law does not require custodial orders in relation to the allegation – indeed to our knowledge this is a unique action by the Swedish prosecuting authorities in applying for a red notice on the basis of these allegations.
"We are also investigating whether the prosecutor's application to have Mr Assange held incommunicado without access to lawyers, visitors or other prisoners – again a unique request – is in any way linked to this matter and the recent, rather bellicose US statements of an intention to prosecute Mr Assange."
If Assange is arrested in the UK, police will notify Swedish authorities immediately before he faces proceedings to extradite him to Sweden at City of Westminster magistrates' court in central London.
"Once he has been located, the Swedish authorities would be contacted and then they would send an arrest warrant and that gets processed by us, to make sure it ticks all the boxes within the legislation, and then it gets actioned," said the Soca source.
He said the process could be delayed if Assange chose to appeal against attempts to extradite him.
An Interpol spokesman said: "In cases where arrests are made based on a red notice, these are made by national police officials in Interpol member countries."
The WikiLeaks founder is facing growing legal problems around the world after US Republicans revealed yesterday they were pushing for his criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act.
Scotland Yard refused to divulge any discussions that may have taken place concerning Assange.
A Metropolitan police spokesman said: "We don't discuss purported communications regarding extradition cases unless someone is being called before the City of Westminster magistrates court, where we deal with our cases."
Meanwhile, Assange's mother, Christine, who runs a puppet theatre in Queensland, Australia, said she was worried about her son's wellbeing.
"He is my son and I love him, and obviously I don't want him hunted down and jailed. I'm reacting as any mother would. I'm distressed," she told Australian radio. "
One message, often buried, comes out loud and clear from the embassy cables: the US should choose its allies more carefully President Obama with King Abdullah in Riyadh, during an official visit in 2009. The Obama administration has since concluded a $60bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The WikiLeaks US embassy cables have revealed that the king has urged the US to attack Iran. Photograph: AFP/Mido Ahmed
Among the most arresting lines in the trove of diplomatic cables made public this week was one from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. "Cut off the head of the snake," he advised his American friends. Any herpetologist would agree that this is good advice in dealing with a threatening viper. But who is this snake? King Abdullah was referring to Iran, obliquely arguing for a military attack.
Yet, there was another tantalising detail in the trove of cables that suggests the larger threat comes from inside King Abdullah's own country. "Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like al-Qaida," the New York Times reported in its first article on the leaked documents.
That is a huge, though not unsurprising, revelation. It reflects how complex and sometimes self-defeating America's foreign alliances have become. Saudi Arabia is an intimate ally of the United States, yet Saudi money supports the world's most violently anti-American terror network.
This deeply troubling contradiction has its roots in Saudi history and tradition. The regime's survival is based on a deal with the Wahhabi clerics who dominate religious practice in Saudi Arabia – and whose austere brand of Islam is among the world's most reactionary. Clerics agree to support the regime, ignoring both its alliance with infidel America and the notoriously unIslamic lifestyles of its thousands of princes. In exchange, the regime gives these clerics billions of dollars, much of which they use to run mosques and religious schools across the Islamic world. More than a few of these mosques and schools, often run by Saudi clerics or others they have trained, are incubators of terror, where generations of lost boys learn to chant the Qur'an and hate America.
The deal is, as former CIA director James Woolsey once described it, "for the Wahhabis to be given all of the money in the world they could ever remotely dream of needing or wanting to spread their sect's beliefs, and for them to leave the House of Saud alone."
Successive American presidents have turned a blind eye to piles of evidence that Saudi money is being used to foment holy war against America. They have reason to do so. The absolute monarchy that rules Saudi Arabia generously cooperates with American global policies – even agreeing, according to one leaked cable, to supply China with oil in the hope of wooing it away from reliance on Iran. Saudi Arabia supplies much oil to the US. And it is the world's largest consumer of American weaponry.
The Obama administration recently announced a deal to sell Saudi Arabia a staggering $60bn worth of weapons. This is new only in scope. In 1990, the New York Times ran a story headlined "US to Sell Saudis $20bn in Arms; Weapons Deal is Largest in History." Seventeen years later, the same newspaper ran an almost identical headline: "US Set to Offer $20bn Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia and Other Gulf States."
How could President Obama, in the midst of a recession, refuse to sell the Saudis another $60bn worth, given the number of jobs this sale will create? He might argue that it is unwise to send so much highly sophisticated weaponry to a kingdom with an uncertain future. King Abdullah is 86 or 87, and is currently hospitalised in New York. He has no designated successor in the country where Osama bin Laden was born and remains highly popular. Weapons systems the US sold to the Shah of Iran wound up in the hands of Islamic militants who seized power there in 1979; a comparable scenario in Saudi Arabia is hardly impossible.
Obama might also argue that arming a country that arms our enemies endangers American lives. That, of course, would provoke questions about Pakistan, America's other two-faced ally. It is no secret that while Pakistan takes billions of dollars in American aid, most of it military, it arms and supports the Taliban and other violently anti-American groups.
Raising questions about these relationships is difficult. Revising them would require sacrificing short-term convenience for long-term benefits, and the US government is not good at long-term thinking. Yet, as King Hamad of Bahrain told American diplomats in one newly-leaked cable: "The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." He was talking about Iran, but his wisdom applies at least as well to America's perverted relationships with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
King Abdullah, according to another leaked document, was also talking about Iran when he told American diplomats, "The bottom line is that they cannot be trusted." This week's leaks suggest that this truism applies at least as much to his own government, and that of Pakistan, as it does to Iran.
From deep in the vast archive of these leaked documents, a voice cries out to America: look more closely at your allies. Those who served your purpose at one time may now be dangerous enemies.
Many commentators, however, hint at a conspiracy as Israel escapes damaging exposure King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia with Barack Obama. Riiyadh's official line is to dismiss the WikiLeaks documents. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed the WikiLeaks revelations of Arab hostility to Iran as worthless "psychological warfare". But the idea that 250,000-plus pages of classified US documents actually shed any new light on Middle Eastern realities has also been widely dismissed by many Arabs or simply ignored by their governments.
In Riyadh, where King Abdullah was shown to have repeatedly urged the US to attack Iran to "cut off the head of the snake", the only official reaction has been to say sniffily that the documents "do not concern the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, nor does the kingdom have any role in producing them, nor is it aware of their authenticity".
Mainstream Arab media have covered the story of the leak. But little attention has been paid to the most sensational aspect of it for the region – that Saudis, Bahrainis, Emiratis and other leaders repeatedly urged the US to strike Iran to stop its nuclear programme. Many have wondered, however, why Israel appears to have escaped any damaging exposure – and hinted at an improbably vast conspiracy to deceive.
It is true of course that Arab governments enjoy little popular support and that Arab public opinion tends to favour a strong Iran, even a nuclear-armed Iran, as a counterweight to Israel and to US hegemony. That explains why hawkish comments about Persians or pragmatism about Israel are expressed largely in private. Public candour is rare.
So even al-Jazeera, the freest media outlet in the Arab world, has beencoy about reporting on the indiscretions of the emir of Qatar (whose family owns the Doha-based satellite channel), who is shown to speak frankly to US interlocutors about telling lies to Iran. "It is a very sensitive story," admits one employee.
Also in Qatar, the Peninsula newspaper quoted psychologist Dr Mozah al Malki as saying: "It is all deliberate. We can clearly see through the ploy. The idea of the so-called leaks is to further intensify tension between Iran and the Gulf Co-operation Council countries." According to the paper: "The so-called exposé by the much-touted whistleblowing website WikiLeaks involving Iran and three GCC states does not have many takers in Qatar."
Other Gulf papers simply ignored details about their rulers' comments to American interlocutors. Rami Khouri, a syndicated columnist, found the revelations sad, shocking and even pitiful: "The assorted Arab leaders who are quoted as asking the United States to hurry up and do something about Iran's growing nuclear technology capabilities reveal an apparent inability to take care of their own countries and citizens," he wrote in Beirut'sDaily Star.
The splenetic Asa'd Abu Khalil, who writes the Angry Arab blog, noted that many Arabs on Twitter and Facebook have been raising questions about WikiLeaks because the revelations about the Middle East were largely either known or expected. "Some are noticing that nothing damaging to Israel – even diplomatically – has been released. Some are suggesting that the US government is behind WikiLeaks. Personally, I discount those conspiracy theories although conspiracy theories can be helpful." But then he asks: "Is it possible that the intelligence officer who released them protected Israel by holding off on some documents?"
Another critical note about the revelations was sounded by the pan-Arab paper al-Quds al-Arabi, edited by the Palestinian Abdel-Bari Atwan, whosplashed the Saudi-Iran story on Monday and wrote an editorial demanding an explanation of the Saudi position.
But others suggested the impact of the WikiLeaks row would in the end be negligible: "Citizens of the Arab world, and in particular the Arabian Gulf, will not be very surprised at the content of most of these leaks,"commented Zaid Derweesh. "They know that what is said in public by their leaders differs greatly from what goes on behind closed doors. They also know that their governments will go along with whatever the US asks of them. What may come as a surprise to some will be the degree to which this subservience occurs."
Russian prime minister condemns cable describing him and President Dmitry Medvedev as Batman and Robin Vladimir Putin gave his reaction to the WikiLeaks cables in a candid but frosty interview with US talk show host Larry King. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/AP
The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has condemned as "slanderous" a US cable describing him and Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, as Batman and Robin.
Speaking in a candid but frosty interview with talkshow host Larry King, the Russian prime minister dismissed suggestions that his tandem style of leadership with his protégé, Medvedev, resembled the uneven power share between the two characters.
"The truth of the matter is, this is about our interaction, which is an important factor of the domestic policies in this country," he said. "But to be honest with you, we didn't suspect that this would be done with such arrogance, with such a push and, you know, being so unethically done."
Several messages between US embassies and the state department released by WikiLeaks this week have included salty characterisations of Russia's leaders.
Putin is described as an "alpha dog" running a state dominated by the security services, while Medvedev is pale, hesitant and "Robin to Putin's Batman".
Putin also dismissed an assessment by the US defence secretary, Robert Gates – revealed in the WikiLeaks documents – that "Russian democracy has disappeared". He pointed out that presidential elections in the US sometimes produced a winner who did not gain a majority of the popular vote.
"When we are talking with our American friends and we tell them there are systemic problems in this regard, we can hear from them 'Don't interfere with our affairs. This is our tradition and it's going to continue like that,'" he said. "We are not interfering. But to our colleagues, I would also like to advise you, don't interfere either [with] the sovereign choice of the Russian people."
In the pre-recorded interview with King – to be shown on CNN this evening – Putin echoed the dominant perception in Russia that the embassy cables were deliberately leaked by a faction in the US government or military.
"Some experts believe that somebody is deceiving WikiLeaks, that its reputation is being undermined in order for it to be used for political purposes," said Putin, apparently speaking from an office in Moscow. "Such an opinion is being expressed here."
Putin said that if the leak had not been deliberate, then US information security needed to be beefed up. In a more conciliatory comment, he added: "There have been leaks before. This is not such a catastrophe."
In a separate move, Turkey's prime minister today accused US diplomats of slander after other leaked cables said he had accounts in Swiss banks, painted him as an authoritarian who hates Israel and said he leads a government with Islamist influences.
"The United States should call its diplomats to account," Tayyip Erdogan told an audience in Ankara in his first comments on the leaks, which received wide coverage in Turkish media.
"The US is responsible in first degree for the slanders its diplomats make with their incorrect interpretations. There are lies and incorrect information in those documents," he said.
In 2004, the then US ambassador, Eric Edelman, portrayed Erdogan, whose AK party swept to power in 2002, as a politician with "unbridled ambition stemming from the belief God has anointed him to lead Turkey".
Another cable by Edelman in 2004 said: "Inside the party, Erdogan's hunger for power reveals itself in a sharp authoritarian style and deep distrust of others: as a former spiritual adviser to Erdogan and his wife Emine put it, 'Tayyip Bey believes in God … but doesn't trust him."
Writing about alleged corruption in the AK party, Edelman said: "We have heard from two contacts that Erdogan has eight accounts in Swiss banks."
Erdogan said he did not have "a penny in Swiss banks" and said he would resign if such accusations were proved.
"We will continue the process on these diplomats within international law, our officials are working on this," he added.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now faces calls from some quarters in the US for his arrest and extradition on espionage charges. Photograph: Martial Trezzini/EPA
Tamil activists in Britain - where Mahinda Rajapaksa is currently visiting - are seeking an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Photograph: Keystone/Rex Features
American diplomats believed that the Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, bore responsibility for a massacre last year that is the subject of a UN war crimes enquiry, according to a leaked US cable.
Lawyers for Tamil activists in Britain are seeking an arrest warrant against President Rajapaksa - who is currently visiting the UK and is due to meet the defence secretary, Liam Fox, tonight – for alleged war crimes committed last year at the bloody end of the long-running civil war against Tamil separatists. Rajapaksa had been due to address the Oxford Union tomorrow but that appearance has been cancelled due to security concerns.
More than 10,000 Tamils, are thought to have died in the space of a few days in May 2009, when a large concentration of both Tamil Tiger guerrillas and civilians, crammed in a small coastal strip, came under heavy bombardment from Sri Lankan government forces.
In a cable sent on 15 January this year, the US ambassador in Colombo, Patricia Butenis, said that one of the reasons that there was so little progress towards a genuine Sri Lankan enquiry into how so many people were killed was that the president and the former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, were largely responsible.
"There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power," Butenis noted.
"In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka." Fonseka was convicted of corruption by a court martial earlier this year.
In her cable to Washington, Butenis seeks to explain where there is so little momentum towards the formation of a "truth and reconciliation" commission, or any other form of accountability.
Most Tamil Tiger commanders, also under suspicion for war crimes such as the use of civilians as human shields, had been killed at the end of the war.
President Rajapaksa had meanwhile fought an election campaign promising to resist any international efforts to prosecute "war heroes" in the nation's army.
Not only was the Colombo government not interested in investigating itself, but Tamils in Sri Lanka – unlike those abroad – were also nervous about the issue at it might make them targets for reprisals.
Butenis wrote: "While they wanted to keep the issue alive for possible future action, Tamil leaders with whom we spoke in Colombo, Jaffna and elsewhere said now was not time and that pushing hard on the issue would make them 'vulnerable'.
"Accountability is clearly an issue of importance for the ultimate political and moral health of Sri Lankan society," the ambassador concludes, but she does not think it will happen any time soon.
Last month David Cameron endorsed calls for an independent investigation into the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009. The UN has set up a enquiry into the events of last May, but Butenis thinks that any overt foreign push for prosecutions would be counter-productive.
"Such an approach, however, would seem to play into the super-heated campaign rhetoric of Rajapaksa and his allies that there is an international conspiracy against Sri Lanka and its "war heroes," Butenis argued.
A spokesman for Fox said: "Dr Fox will be meeting President Rajapaksa in a private capacity. This reflects Dr Fox's long standing interest in Sri Lanka and his interest in, and commitment to peace and reconciliation there."
Site hosting leaked US embassy cables is ousted from American servers as senator calls for boycott of WikiLeaks by companies WikiLeaks's website cablegate.wikileaks.org, which was hosted by Amazon.
The United States struck its first blow against WikiLeaks today after Amazon.com pulled the plug on hosting the whistleblowing website in an apparent reaction to heavy political pressure.
The main website and a sub-site devoted to the diplomatic documents were unavailable from the US and Europe on Wednesday, as Amazon servers refused to acknowledge requests for data.
The plug was pulled as the influential senator and chairman of the homeland security committee Joe Lieberman called for a boycott of the site by US companies.
"(Amazon's) decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material," he said in a statement. "I call on any other company or organization that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them."
WikiLeaks tweeted in response: "WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free--fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe."
The development came amid increasingly angry and polarised political opinion in America over WikiLeaks, with some conservatives calling for the organisation's founder, Julian Assange, to be executed as a spy.
Availability of his website has been patchy since Sunday, when it started to come under a series of internet-based attacks by unknown hackers. WikiLeaks dealt with the attacks in part by moving to servers run by Amazon Web Services, which is self-service.
Amazon.com would not comment on its relationship with WikiLeaks or whether it forced the site to leave. Messages seeking comment from WikiLeaks were not immediately returned.
The fury building up among rightwingers in the US, ranging from the potential Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to conservative blog sites such as Red State, contrasts with a measured response from the Obama administration.
The White House, the state department and the Pentagon continued to denounce the leaks, describing them as "despicable". But senior administration officials, with a sense of weary resignation, also called on people to put the leaks into context and insisted they had not done serious damage to US relations.
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, interviewed on television, shrugged aside as "ridiculous" a call by Assange, interviewed by Time magazine, via Skype from an undisclosed location, for the resignation of the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, over an order to spy on the United Nations.
"I'm not entirely sure why we care about the opinion of one guy with one website," Gibbs said. "Our foreign policy and the interests of this country are far stronger than his one website."
John Kerry, the Democratic head of the Senate foreign relations committee, on Sunday denounced the leaks but he sounded more sanguine at an event in Washington on Tuesday night.
He said there was a "silver lining" in that it was now clear where everyone stood on Iran. "Things that I have heard from the mouths of King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] and Hosni Mubarak [Egyptian president] and others are now quite public," Kerry said. He went on to say there was a "consensus on Iran".
But others, particularly rightwingers, are seeking retribution, with Assange as the prime target. Legal experts in the US were divided over whether the US could successfully prosecute Assange under the 1917 Espionage Act. Sceptics said that the US protections for journalists would make such a prosecution difficult and also cited pragmatic issues, such as the difficulty of extraditing Assange.
Huckabee, who was among the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and is likely to stand again in 2012, told the Politico website: "Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty."
His later comments suggest he had in mind Bradley Manning, the US private in Iraq who is suspected of leaking the information and is under arrest in Virginia, rather than Assange.
Another potential Republican candidate for the presidency, Sarah Palin, had earlier called for Assange to be hunted down.
Conservative blogsites and commentators are full of ire directed at Assange, and criticism of the Obama administration for its seeming inability to do anything about it.
Typical is a blog by lexington_concord on Red State, a popular rightwing site, in which the writers says Assange is a spy.
"Under the traditional rules of engagement he is thus subject to summary execution and my preferred course of action would [be] for Assange to find a small calibre round in the back of his head."
The attorney general, Eric Holder, earlier this week hinted at legal action but did not clarify whether his words were aimed at Manning or Assange. A department of justice spokeswoman failed to clarify this yesterday: "He [Holder] said the department would pursue those to be found violating the law." She added she was not commenting on the scope or direction of the investigation.
The Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, interviewed on Fox, suggested Holder's reference had been to Assange. Asked why the US was not mounting a cyberattack on WikiLeaks, Morrell said the disclosures were awkward and embarrassing but these were not sufficient grounds for offensive action.
He referred back to comments made the previous day by the defence secretary, Robert Gates, who attempted to put the leaks in perspective. Gates said: "Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for US foreign policy: I think fairly modest."
A former defence secretary under Bill Clinton, William Cohen, echoed Gates, saying that the information was probably not fatal. Cohen joined the chorus calling for Assange to be prosecuted, provided he can be found.
"He may be hiding in a cave with Osama bin Laden. We don't know where he is but I am confident we will find him in the near future. He will be arrested and brought to justice," Cohen said.
Ruth Wedgwood, a former federal prosecutor and Johns Hopkins law professor, said, in an email exchange, that Assange, an Australian, could prosecuted. "A person who steals or knowingly receives and transmits protected national security information is not exempt from US criminal law merely because he is foreigner. The Espionage Act has been used to prosecute foreign defendants as well as Americans.
"Freedom of the press and the First Amendment would not shelter someone who deliberately steals tens of thousands of closely-held communications containing national security and defence information, and wantonly publishes them to both friends and foes alike, with heedless disregard for the damage that is caused."
Floyd Abrams, the constitutional expert who has argued before the supreme court on the First Amendment, which enshrines press freedom, was more sceptical. He said the government had a plausible case under the Espionage Act, which is phrased very broadly.
The government had looked in 1971 at prosecution of the New York Times over the Pentagon Papers leak and decided against. "Here I think it is a closer call. The documents are much more current and they have the potential to do more harm, for example the reference to the King of Saudi Arabia urging the US to bomb Iran," Abrams said in an phone interview.
"I think for the government it must be a close call. On the one hand, the leaks are of such magnitude and involve topics of such sensitivity and currency, it must be tempting to consider prosecution but on the other hand the government would be forced to address difficult and sensitive issues of whether a journalist could be accused of violating the law."
He added that Assange was not a journalist but does some of the things associated with journalism.
Another legal expert, Scott Silliman, a professor at the Duke University School of Law, said: "A US prosecution of Assange would be possible, but it would be fraught with problems for the government. The applicable statute, section 793(e) of the Espionage Act, is somewhat ambiguous when dealing with a case of this type where the accused claims to be part of or allied with the media. Further, there will probably be difficulties in having Assange extradited to the United States for trial."
Pakistan privately approved drone strikes.US special forces fought side by side with Pakistani soldiers and the government in Islamabad privately approved drone strikes Hunter Killer Drone Strike
while publicly condemning the CIA’s covert raids, according to the Wikileaks diplomatic cables.The revelations of America’s secret war in Pakistan will deeply embarrass President Asif Ali Zardari who has long denied such deep co-operation with Washington for fear it would embolden Islamist opposition to his feeble government. In public, both sides have described putting American boots on the ground as a red line issue.
However, a cable sent by the then US Ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, states that Pakistan has twice requested American soldiers to embed with its Frontier Corps in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, areas dotted with Taliban and al-Qaeda bases. On both occasions Pakistan asked for the help of US special forces to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance – including video footage from drones – to its troops. On one mission they helped the Pakistani soldiers target an enemy base with artillery. “These deployments are highly politically sensitive because of widely-held concerns among the public about Pakistani sovereignty and opposition to allowing foreign military forces to operate in any fashion on Pakistani soil,” she wrote. “Should these developments and/or related matters receive any coverage in the Pakistani or US media, the Pakistani military will likely stop making requests for such assistance.” A second cable describes a 2008 meeting with Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Pakistani prime minister, in which he brushes aside concerns about the use of Predator drones against targets in the tribal areas and gives an insight into how he would deny any co-operation. “I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it,” he told Ms Patterson. There have been more than 100 drone strikes so far this year as the Obama administration steps up its covert use of Predators in the skies over Pakistan. Publicly, Pakistan has insisted the strikes are “unhelpful” while America has refused to confirm the existence of the CIA programme, despite the visibility of strikes. The secrecy has spawned a generation of conspiracy theorists and provided the local media with countless stories of CIA plots, US border incursions and Blackwater operatives at large. Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani analyst, said the latest revelations would be deeply damaging to a government which lacked the strength to articulate its true relationship with Washington, for fear of angering the country’s hardliners. “There is no doubt this will fuel anti-Americanism and will encourage the Islamists and the conspiracy theorists,” he said. The Pakistani government has dismissed the Wikileaks claims. A spokesman for Mr Gilani said: “Our Prime Minister has made a very clear statement questioning the authenticity of these documents. There’s nothing more to say.”
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