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
This page will update automatically every minute: On | Off
5.06pm: Over at the Red State blog for red-meat Republicans, some writers are clear how the US should deal with Julian Assange – a bullet in the head:
Assange is a foreign national involved in illegally obtaining classified information that is vital to America's national security and distributing it to our foreign enemies. In other words, he is a spy who has been caught spying. Under the traditional rules of engagement he is thus subject to summary execution and my preferred course of action would for Assange to find a small caliber round in the back of his head.
Alternately, however, I would also support his arrest and lifetime incarceration (provided he'd be housed in a particularly notorious State prison), as would virtually everyone I know who doesn't cheer for the defeat and humiliation of America in the world.
4.49pm: Not all Republicans are calling for Julian Assange's capture, trial and execution. Connie Mack, a reliably right-wing Republican congressman from Florida, is unusually mature on the subject, saying "the blame here should fall on the administration and the Department of Defense."
"If they don't want the information to get out, then they need to have procedures in place to make sure that information doesn't get out," said Mack, who also agrees that Americans should have access to the contents of the cables: "I think that we do have a right to know."Even more extraordinary was that this conversation took place on Fox News.
4.26pm: Der Spiegel has more detail on Daniel Domscheit-Berg's forthcoming book, Inside WikiLeaks:
A spokeswoman for the publisher told Spiegel Online that there were no immediate plans to publish an English version, but that it was "entirely possible" that the book might be translated.There would certainly be a market here in the US.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a seminar in Stockholm earlier this year. Photograph: Reuters 4.06pm: The Guardian's Berlin correspondent, Kate Connolly, reports on some of the internal tensions within WikiLeaks itself, and news that self-styled "WikiLeaks dissidents" plan to explain their own thinking:
WikiLeaks's former spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg is to publish a book about his time with the organisation before he and other members left after fundamental disagreements with Julian Assange over its running.
In a revealing interview with the Berlin daily Die Tageszeitung, Domscheit-Berg says he and other WikiLeaks dissidents are planning to launch their own whistleblowers' platform later this month, whose aim will be to release a broader and less US-centric range of leaked documents to a wider audience, fulfilling WikiLeaks's original aim to have "limitless file sharing".
"As many people as possible should have access to as many documents as possible," he said, adding that Assange had gone against the will of others in the organisation by "making deals" with media organisations meant to create an "explosive effect", which others in WikiLeaks either learnt little about at the time or found out about only much later.Domscheit-Berg, whose book Inside Wikileaks is due to be published at the end of January is highly critical of the "lack of transparency" at WikiLeaks, and of Assange's "autocratic leadership", saying he "would no more trust it as an organisation than I would any other organisation with similar problems".
A spokeswoman at Econ Verlag publishers told the Guardian that Domscheit was soon due to deliver the manuscript, which then had to be submitted to lawyers before publication."It should be good timing though," she said, noting that its sale would coincide with Assange's promise of a fresh deluge of revelations concerning a major US bank.
3.54pm: As we mentioned below, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee – the former governor of Arkansas – thinks the death penalty is the minimum the cable leaker should suffer. Huckabee also said:
"I believe they have committed treason against this country, and any lives they endanger, they're personally responsible for and the blood is on their hands."
Huckabee made his comments while signing copies of his book, Can't Wait For Christmas ("a heartwarming story" – mikehuckabee.com).
3.37pm: Good morning from Washington DC, where it isn't so much leaking as tipping it down outside. WikiLeaks remains on the top of the news agenda as more and more details emerge from the US embassy cables.
3.28pm: They may be frantic behind the scenes, but in Pakistan politicians are presenting a united front with the Americans, according to Declan Walsh.
The US ambassador, Cameron Munter, paid a visit to the Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, at his hilltop residence in Islamabad, where the men downplayed the significance of the leaked diplomatic dispatches.
Gilani said Pakistan's national interests "would not be compromised by such mischief in any manner". At a bridge opening ceremony earlier in the day, Munter said: "Working together, we will get past the WikiLeaks problems."
I'm WikiLeaked out for today. Time to hand over to Richard Adams in Washington.3.25pm: Diplomats and foreign policy lobbyists in Washington are in permanent crisis-mode, frantically trying to contain the damage over the leaks, according to Josh Rogin in Foreign Policy magazine.
When was the last time that every embassy and every consultancy in town went into crisis mode simultaneously," one consultant with clients in Europe and Asia told The Cable. This consultant said that his firm has been totally swamped since Sunday's initial document dump with panicked emails, rushed conference calls and requests for information.
"Basically you have governments that have absolutely no idea what's in these documents. And everybody from senior officials to embassy personnel to Washington consultants are in a mad scramble to go through each new batch of documents as they come out to identify items that are potential vulnerabilities, paint their bosses in an unflattering light, or reveal some sensitive information," the consultant said. "The entire chain of command is in panic mode with every new release."
At the embassies themselves, foreign diplomats are working day and night to try to collect as much information as possible about the coming leaks that reference their own country. One European diplomat said that his embassy had set up an around-the-clock monitoring system to make sure that if something breaks, they will be ready to handle it immediately.
One Washington lobbyist who represents countries in the Middle East said that local press in several countries he works on is reporting on cables that haven't yet been reported on by the media outlets who had advance access to the documents. The lobbyist speculated that foreign governments may also be selectively leaking cables they've come across to spin them in their own favour before WikiLeaks or local media has a chance to get involved.
"New leaked cables are coming from weird sources, thinktanks, the countries involved. There's a lot of stuff being quoted in local press from cables that haven't been released yet and I have no idea where they are coming from," this lobbyist said.
2.53pm: Sources close to the Canadian prime minister, 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.
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 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 already 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.
It sounds like it will have a greater European focus. The activists criticise WikiLeaks for concentrating too much on the US and want to take a broader approach, Der Spiegel says citing the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung."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.
"That sort of impatience does not comport with genuine diplomacy, and it seems clear that the British were eager to impose further sanctions as soon as possible," Cole writes.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.
8.29am: The leaks are "embarrassing" and "awkward," the US defence secretary Robert Gates admitted last night. But he said the consequences for American foreign policy should be limited. CNN uploaded this video of his remarks.
8.08am: Hillary Clinton faces an awkward time today at a summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Kazakhstan. Among the delegates are the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who US diplomats were instructed to spy on, along with other UN leaders.
Meanwhile, Hillary's husband Bill said he expects lives will be lost as a result of the leaked cables."I'll be very surprised if some people don't lose their lives," the former president said in a speech in North Carolina, according to AP. "And goodness knows how many will lose their careers."
Speaking to reporters after the event Bill Clinton said Julian Assange is trying to evade the reach of American law because he knows what he did was criminal.
"That doesn't mean that he did succeed in evading the reach of American law," he said.
7.57am: Prince Andrew is also under the cosh.
He used his royal position to demand a special briefing from the Serious Fraud Office weeks before launching a tirade against the agency's "idiotic" investigators at a lunch with businessmen in Kyrgyzstan.
The anti-monarchy organisation Republic have demanded the prince's resignation as UK trade envoy.
Republic spokesman Graham Smith said today: "On one hand Andrew is seeking private briefings from the Serious Fraud Office, on the other he is railing against the SFO and apparently condoning bribery in the course of international trade."Still not a peep from Buckingham Palace on all this.
7.39am: Interpol is on his back, Sarah Palin wants him to be hunted down like a terrorist – it couldn't get much worse for Julian Assange, and now his mum has now piped up to talk of her distress at his plight.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald she said: "He's 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 added: "A lot of stuff that's written about me and Julian is untrue".
7.23am: Will Mervyn King be forced to resign? Not necessarily. In a detailed blogpost analysing the cables, our chief political correspondent Nick Watt writes that in some respects the disclosures are helpful for the governor.
The publication of King's private thoughts is a mixed blessing for the governor. On the one hand the cable may feed the perception, voiced last week by the monetary policy committee member Adam Posen, that the governor is "excessively political". Posen complained that the governor was unwise to endorse the speed of the Tories' deficit reduction plans in May. But on the other hand King may be able to claim that his criticisms of Cameron and Osborne show he is no Tory cheerleader.
7.09am: It's bumper day of WikiLeak revelations. There's lots to get through so here's a summary of the main stories today:
• Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England, privately criticised David Cameron and George Osborne for their lack of experience, the lack of depth in their inner circle and their tendency to think about issues only in terms of their electoral impact. Here's the cable.
• George Osborne lacked gravitas before the election and was seen as a political lightweight because of his "high-pitched vocal delivery", according to private Conservative polling relayed to US embassy diplomats. Here's the cable.
• The defence secretary, Liam Fox, told the Americans that the Tories would be tougher on Pakistan because they were less reliant on votes from the Pakistani community than Labour.
• The Liberal Democrats' two top strategists, Polly Mackenzie and Chris Saunders, now both working in government, planned to run a fierce anti-Cameron election campaign, describing him as "out of touch with real life". The death of Cameron's son Ivan forced them to drop the plan since it "eliminated these vulnerabilities".
• American and British diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India
• Pakistan's army is covertly sponsoring four major militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban and Mumbai attackers Lashkar-e-Taiba.
• US special forces soldiers have been secretly embedded with Pakistani military forces in the tribal belt, helping to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida fighters and co-ordinate drone strikes.
• The cables make a number of other embarrassing disclosures about Pakistan including: president Asif Ali Zardari's preparations in case he gets assassinated; and the army chief's plan to oust Zardari.
• A series of classified US memos depict the French president Nicolas Sarkozy as a self-absorbed, thin-skinned, erratic character who tyrannises his ministers and staff.
• Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is facing growing legal problems around the world, with the US announcing that it was investigating whether he had violated its espionage laws. And Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst suspect of leaking the cables, faces 52 years in jail.
• George Osborne lacked gravitas before the election and was seen as a political lightweight because of his "high-pitched vocal delivery", according to private Conservative polling relayed to US embassy diplomats. Here's the cable.
• The defence secretary, Liam Fox, told the Americans that the Tories would be tougher on Pakistan because they were less reliant on votes from the Pakistani community than Labour.
• The Liberal Democrats' two top strategists, Polly Mackenzie and Chris Saunders, now both working in government, planned to run a fierce anti-Cameron election campaign, describing him as "out of touch with real life". The death of Cameron's son Ivan forced them to drop the plan since it "eliminated these vulnerabilities".
• American and British diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India
• Pakistan's army is covertly sponsoring four major militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban and Mumbai attackers Lashkar-e-Taiba.
• US special forces soldiers have been secretly embedded with Pakistani military forces in the tribal belt, helping to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida fighters and co-ordinate drone strikes.
• The cables make a number of other embarrassing disclosures about Pakistan including: president Asif Ali Zardari's preparations in case he gets assassinated; and the army chief's plan to oust Zardari.
• A series of classified US memos depict the French president Nicolas Sarkozy as a self-absorbed, thin-skinned, erratic character who tyrannises his ministers and staff.
• Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is facing growing legal problems around the world, with the US announcing that it was investigating whether he had violated its espionage laws. And Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst suspect of leaking the cables, faces 52 years in jail.
You can follow all of yesterday's events on Tuesday's live blog.
