WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates
• Mervyn King's damning views on Cameron and Osborne
• Lib Dems drop attack against Cameron after Ivan's death
• US and UK fears over Pakistan's nuclear weapons
• Pakistan army sponsoring militants as cash goes missing
• Full coverage of the WikiLeaks cables
• Lib Dems drop attack against Cameron after Ivan's death
• US and UK fears over Pakistan's nuclear weapons
• Pakistan army sponsoring militants as cash goes missing
• Full coverage of the WikiLeaks cables
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2.53pm: Sources close to the Canadian prime minster Stephen Harper have asked us to point out that Tom Flanagan, the professor who flippantly called for Assange's assassination (8.38am), does not have a formal role as an adviser to Harper.
Canada's respected magazine, The Walrus, carried a long profile of Flanagan in 2004. It was headlined "The Man behind Stephen Harper".
We should have made clear that Flanagan is a former adviser to Harper. The 8.38am post has been changed.2.28pm: The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to sue the Americans after some of the cables accused him of corruption.
"This is the United States' problem, not ours... Those who have slandered us will be crushed under these claims, will be finished and will disappear," he said according Hürriyet Daily News.
It adds:
One leaked cable that was signed by former US envoy to Ankara Eric Edelman claimed that Erdogan had eight secret accounts in Swiss banks, a claim the American diplomat said had been made to the US Embassy by two contacts. He did not give further evidence. Other documents accused Erdogan of reaping personal gain from a billion-dollar privatisation.
2.07pm: Mervyn King has won the backing of former MPC member Charles Goodhart. He said David Blanchflower's call for King to go was "ludicrous", according to the Telegraph.
"The comments on WikiLeaks make it perfectly clear that the Governor is not in the pocket of the Coalition at all. If anything, they underline how independent of any political party he has been," he said.
1.59pm: If you're a bit overwhelmed by the gush of WikiLeak stuff this is useful. My colleague Haroon Siddique has summarised today's key points.
1.32pm: In 2007 the then US ambassador to London, Robert Tuttle, sent a wonderfully irascible cable about the congestion charge in London. Here's the key quote:
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has focused his ire publicly against the US Embassy and the Ambassador personally. His position, however, should be seen in the wider context of his anti-American positions on many issues and his coziness to the likes of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.
12.53pm: Jason Burke in Delhi reports on Indian reaction to the cables.
in US diplomat's appraisal of India's ability to implement their controversial "Cold Start" doctrine for a rapid but limited military operation to punish Pakistan in the event of a terrorist strike emanating from their neighbour.
Tim Roemer, the US ambassador to India, described "Cold Start" as "a mixture of myth and reality" in one cable. There is also some interest in views across the border.
CBN-IBN ran an interview with the retired Pakistani general Asad Durrani saying the cables "did not reveal anything that people are not alread
Revelations from WikiLeaks are leading many bulletins in India today with reports focusing on American diplomats' comments about Pakistan's support for a range of militant organisations; Western fears that Pakistani nuclear fuel may fall into terrorist hands; and the suggestion that Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Kayani was close to ousting President Asif Ali Zardari in March 2009.
After two days of relatively muted reaction, the new documents from the American embassy in Islamabad are set to be plastered across front pages tomorrow and have provoked the first very careful - and deniable - response from the Indian government beyond banalities.
Until today coverage in India has focused on Hillary Clinton's mildly disparaging comments about India being a "self-professed frontrunner" for a permanent United Nations security council seat and her instruction to diplomatic staff to gather personal information about some of their Indian counterparts. Earlier in the week Indian newspapers worked themselves into slightly overheated outrage.
But the Pakistani documents take the story into new territory, touching on one of India's sorest points. Government officials are now anonymously briefing reporters that the documents prove that "Pakistan is hunting with the hound and running with the hare."
The Press Trust of India, the government news agency, has been running reports of the WikiLeaks documents at the head of its international news section. Coverage is also focusing on the issue of the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir and particularly the view of Anne Patterson, US ambassador in Islamabad, that resolving the 63-year-old Kashmir conflict "would dramatically improve the situation".
There is also much interest y aware of. These things have been said continuously for so many years."
However, experts caution that India's often sensationalist media may be overreacting. "There certainly won't be much effect on the Indo-Pak relationship. What is coming out really just emphasises the growing convergence of opinion between the Indian analysis and that of international politicians and diplomats. That will be the biggest effect," said Ashok Behuria, of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in Delhi.
News has also just broken that India has also denied a visa to former Pakistani President Pervez Musharaf, who was to visit to address media meetings and think tanks in Delhi this weekend.
12.47pm: Former members of WikiLeaks, who fell out with Assange, are to launch a rival whisteblowing website later this month, Der Spiegel reports.
"As many people as possible should have access to as many documents as possible," the former Germany spokesman for WikiLeaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, told the newspaper.
12.40pm: Bafflement all round at Ed Miliband's failure to mention Mervyn King's criticisms at PMQ.
Kevin Maguire, the Daily Mirror associate editor, tweets: "Ed Miliband's got a better economic argument but failed to make it. Or quote Mervyn King at lightweight Cameron. Inexplicable."
12.32pm: In the event PMQ's was surprisingly light on WikiLeaks references. But the Labour leader Ed Miliband couldn't resist a jibe using the "children of Thatcher" line. (Here's that cable again). "I'd rather be a child of Thatcher than a son of Brown," Cameron replied.
12.18pm:Tyrannical, thin-skinned, erratic and flash - the cables don't paint a flattering portrait of Nicolas Sarkozy. But it is his pro-American stance that is causing the biggest stir in France, writes Angelique Chrisafis.
Le Monde's analysis of cables from the US embassy in Paris today focuses on Sarkozy's stance as the most pro-American French leader since the war and his efforts to woo the US.A 2006 cable cited by the paper details how Sarkozy, a year before running for president, suggested that France and the international community would have to help the US in Iraq, perhaps by replacing the American army with "an international force".
The hint that Sarkozy might have sent French troops to Iraq has shocked France this morning. No French troops were ever deployed in Iraq, and the idea was never mooted once Sarkozy became presidential candidate. Sarkozy, like Jacques Chirac, was against the Iraq war, although, the cables show he felt Chirac was "excessive" in the way he showed his opposition to the US over the invasion.
Even with the damning US views of Nicolas Sarkozy's personality released by the Guardian and Le Monde today, French commentators remain sniffy about the WikiLeaks cables.
Both the right and left have complained of the "tyranny of transparency". Hubert Védrine, the former socialist foreign minister this morning echoed the warning, from Sarkozy's rightwing government, of a "dictatorship of transparency". He likened the information age and the quest for total openness to the totalitarianism of Mao's China. He said diplomacy was like a family: certain things should not be said in front of the grandparents and the kids.
The journalist and commentator Bernard Guetta wrote in the left-wing paper Libération that confidentiality must be respected and unless the cables revealed major corruption scandals, publishing them was not journalism.
France, which has strong privacy laws and a press in crisis over self-censorship and kowtowing to the government, is wary of the publication of the WikiLeaks cables.
11.59am: Now might be a good time to go over to Andy Sparrow's politics live blog for all the WikiLeaks fallout at PMQs.
11.55am: Downing Street sounds a little exasperated by the continuing questions about WikiLeaks in general and Mervyn King's comments in particular. Here are the latest lines from PA.
Cameron's spokesman refused to answer questions about the WikiLeaks documents at a regular daily media briefing in the House of Commons.
In response to further questions, he said that the prime minister believes the governor is doing a "good job", but declined to respond when asked whether he retains Mr Cameron's confidence.
"The issue of confidence simply doesn't arise," he said.
11.47am: US officials tried to influence Spanish prosecutors and government officials to head off court investigations into Guantánamo Bay torture allegations, secret CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights and the killing of a Spanish journalist by US troops in Iraq, writes Giles Tremlett in Madrid.
11.40am: Prime minister's questions at midday. It is sure to be spiced by Mervyn King's comments about Osborne and Cameron. Andrew Sparrow will be covering on the the politics live blog.
11.33am: Hillary Clinton has emerged from that OSCE summit in Kazakhstan to answer more questions about WikiLeaks.
She said had discussed the the leaked cables with her international colleagues, according to AP.
11.24am: One of the cables quoted Tory party officials in October 2008 expressing concern about George Osborne's "high-pitched vocal delivery".
A month later the Daily Mail published a story about Osborne having voice-coaching lessons from a £100-per-hour Harley Street expert.
Some observers claim that in the past year his voice has dropped in tone and his speaking style sounds less posh.
11.01am: The British government gave secret assurances that it would "protect US interests" at the Chilcot inquiry, the Telegraph reports.
The story is top of Juan Cole's list of ten revelations about the Middle East that we have learnt from the cables so far.
10.40am: William Hague said he, David Cameron and George Osborne were all "children of Thatcher" and staunch Atlanticists, according to one of the latest cables to be released.
10.25am: The Bank of England has issued a terse statement in support of King. "The governor has a very effective working relationship with both the chancellor and the prime minister," a spokesman said.
10.17am: Nick Clegg was sent to Kazakhstan for that tricky OSCE summit with Hillary Clinton. He said the leaks of the US cables would not harm the UK's "uniquely strong relationship" with the US.
Following his discussion with Clinton in the Kazakh capital Astana, Clegg said: We discussed a wide range of issues, including Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process and Sudan.
I made clear to Secretary Clinton that recent WikiLeaks disclosures would not affect our uniquely strong relationship. UK-US co-operation will continue with the same depth and closeness as before.
10.05am: Mervyn King should resign, says his former monetary policy committee colleague, David Blanchflower.
Hélène Mulholland has the story based on this CiF piece by Blanchflower.
Mervyn King is one smart guy and that has always been abundantly clear. Unfortunately, it is his thirst for power and influence that has clouded his judgment one too many times. He has now committed the unforgivable sin of compromising the independence of the Bank of England. He is expected to be politically neutral but he has shown himself to be politically biased and as a result is now in an untenable position. King must go.
9.35am: Yet more rabid reaction in America. Former Pentagon official KT McFarland, said Manning should be executed and WikiLeaks declared a terrorist organisation.
9.24am: More WikiLeaks hysteria. The Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said the person responsible for the leaks should face the death penalty.
"Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty," Huckabee said according to Politico.
9.20am: The respected Middle East analyst Juan Cole finds evidence in the latest cables of British impatience with the diplomatic process last year over Iran's nuclear programme
.
One cable shows Simon McDonald, head of the foreign and defence policy secretariat at the Cabinet Office, said Gordon Brown wanted to impose a 30-day deadline on Iran.
He said the cable also suggested that the UK and the US wanted to get hold of Yukiya Amano, the then incoming head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and "twist his arm to be more alarmist in his reports on Iran."
8.55am: US state department spokesman PJ Crowley was repeatedly pressed to explain disclosures that US diplomats were ordered to spy on the UN leadership.
We've published an extended extract of the exchange. It included this defence from Crowley:
Diplomats are diplomats and their job is to interact with people, gather information, gain a perspective of events around the world, and report those findings in a way that helps inform our policies and inform our actions. They are not intelligence assets. It can be useful for a diplomat to understand from Washington – you have a diplomat out in any place in the world, hey, there are issues that are of particular interest to the United States government. If you come across information that might be relevant to these issues, let us know. That's … those are … that is something that diplomats actually do every day. But one particular cable does not turn a diplomat into an intelligence asset.
8.38am: The anti-WikiLeaks campaign is now becoming hysterical. Tom Flanagan, a former adviser to the Canadian prime minister Stepher Harper, called for the assassination of Julian Assange on a CBC news programme.
The "shockingly flippant" comment is being seen as a fatwa against Assange.
