Wikileaks Founder's autobiography

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to write an autobiography, which should net him around $1.3 million.

In an interview with the Sunday Times (subscription required), Assange revealed that the book will be published in the UK as well as the U.S. He would receive $800,000 from U.S. publisher Alfred A. Knopf, a unit of Random House, and £325,000 ($502,000) from UK publisher Canongate Books Ltd.
A spokesman for Random House confirmed the deal, but not the amount. “We are very excited to be publishing this book. The work that Assange has been doing at WikiLeaks has tremendous importance around the world,” he said.

Assange’s motives for writing an autobiography are quite clear: he needs the money. “I don’t want to write this book, but I have to. I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat,” Assange told the Sunday Times.

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New Wikileaks US Plan to Defend Baltics from Russia

The US and Nato have drawn up plans to defend Nato's Baltic members against Russia, latest US diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks show.

The cables, published in the Guardian, reveal plans to expand an existing strategy to defend Poland to include Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Wikileaks is releasing hundreds of diplomatic cables, angering the US.

Meanwhile, a warrant for the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has reached UK authorities.

Mr Assange, who is believed to be in hiding somewhere in England, is preparing to talk to British police, his lawyer said.

Mr Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden in connection with rape allegations which he denies.
The latest leaked documents show that in January this year, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently signed a confidential cable saying allies in Nato had agreed to expand the contingency plan to defend Poland, to include the Baltic states.

The nine Nato divisions involved would be American, British, German and Polish, the Guardian says, citing information leaked to Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

The cables say the military plans should not be discussed publicly as it might lead to an unnecessary increase in Nato-Russia tensions.

Russian news agency Interfax quoted a source in the Russian foreign ministry as saying Moscow was "perplexed" by the leaked plans.
Peter Biles says the documents should be seen against the background of Washington's efforts to "reset" its relations with Russia and improve co-operation.

One secret cable from the US mission to Nato in Brussels revealed that US Admiral James Stavridis, the alliance's top commander in Europe, had proposed in January expanding Nato's contingency plans for defending Poland - known as Eagle Guardian - to include Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

The cable adds: "The expansion was formally submitted to Allies for decision under a silence procedure."
Another cable, signed by Mrs Clinton, instructs US embassies how to deal with the new Nato plan for the Baltic states, and stresses that the project must be kept secret.

"We see the expansion of Eagle Guardian as a step toward the possible expansion of Nato's other existing country-specific contingency plans into regional plans," it says.

Analysts say other cables show a degree of frustration between Warsaw and Washington over plans to deploy Patriot air defence missiles to Poland.

This had been the key price for a Polish decision to back the Bush administration's wider missile defence plans.
But rather than getting operational systems with their full crews, the Poles received only launchers minus their missiles and a token number of US troops.

One senior Polish official is quoted in a cable from February 2009 as telling the Americans that his country expected to get operational missiles and not what he called "potted plants".
Sources have told the BBC that the European Arrest Warrant for Mr Assange arrived on Monday afternoon.

Mr Assange's UK lawyer, Mark Stephens, told the BBC: "We are in the process of making arrangements to meet with the police by consent in order to facilitate the taking of the question and answer that is needed."

Sweden first issued an arrest warrant for Mr Assange on 18 November but it was invalidated by a procedural error. A new warrant was issued on 2 December.

The Swiss post office's bank, PostFinance, has frozen Mr Assange's accounts.

PostFinance, in a statement on its website, said Mr Assange had "provided false information regarding his place of residence" during the account opening process.

"Assange entered Geneva as his domicile. Upon inspection, this information was found to be incorrect.

"Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance. For this reason, PostFinance is entitled to close his account."

Wikileaks says it and Mr Assange have lost 100,000 euros in assets in a week.

In one of its most controversial leaks so far, Wikileaks released on Monday a US State Department cable from February 2009 asking its officials around the world to update a list of key sites, the loss of which "could critically impact" the US.

The list includes undersea cables, key communications, ports, mineral resources and firms of strategic importance in countries all over the world.

Former UK Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind described Wikileaks' actions as "verging on the criminal".

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Swiss Bank Freez Wikileaks's Account

The Swiss post office's bank, PostFinance, has frozen the accounts of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The whistle-blowing website says the freeze includes a defence fund and personal assets worth 31,000 euros.

Wikileaks has published hundreds of secret US diplomatic cables, angering the US government and triggering moves by several companies including PayPal and Amazon to end their services.

Meanwhile, a warrant for Mr Assange's arrest has reached the UK authorities.

Sources have told the BBC that the European Arrest Warrant for Mr Assange arrived on Monday afternoon.

Swedish prosecutors want to question Mr Assange in connection with allegations of rape, which he denies.

He is believed to be in hiding somewhere in south-east England. Once the police have located him, he would be expected to appear at a magistrate's court within 24 hours, pending extradition to Sweden, says the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner.Sweden first issued an arrest warrant for Mr Assange on 18 November but it was invalidated by a procedural error. A new warrant was issued on 2 December.

The move by Switzerland's PostFinance to freeze the Wikileaks accounts is the latest setback to hit the whistle-blowing website since it began publishing the US cables last week.
In a statement on its website, PostFinance said Mr Assange had "provided false information regarding his place of residence" during the account opening process.

"(Mr) Assange entered Geneva as his domicile. Upon inspection, this information was found to be incorrect.

"(Mr) Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance. For this reason, PostFinance is entitled to close his account."
For its part, a Wikileaks statement says it and Mr Assange have lost 100,000 euros in assets in a week.

"Late last week, the internet payment giant PayPal froze 60,000 euros of donations to the German charity the Wau Holland Foundation, which were targeted to promote the sharing of knowledge via Wikileaks," Wikileaks said in a statement.
On Monday, Wikileaks released an extensive list of facilities around the world that, according to the latest leaked cables, the US describes as vital to its national security.

The list includes pipelines, communication and transport hubs.

Several UK sites are listed, including cable locations, satellite sites and BAE Systems plants.

This is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation, says BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

Former UK Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said WikiLeaks' actions were "verging on the criminal".

He told the BBC: "It's not just negligence, it's not just stupidity, it is something which can be of active assistance to terrorist organisations."

UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox echoed Sir Malcolm's remarks, saying: "I think you have to ask about the motives for those who are behind some of the WikiLeaks material. Do they see themselves as some sort of force of anarchy?

"These are some comments, these are selective leaks designed to drive a wedge between us and the Americans and I don't think we should tolerate that."

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Wikileaks Founder Suggests U.S. Is Out to Kill Him

Wikileaks Founder Suggests U.S. Is Out to Kill Him

The world has been waiting in extreme tension for Wikileaks to publish a quarter million leaked diplomatic cables. “World history will be rewritten”, was Assange’s ominous announcement. What we were promised was going to be “Seven times larger than the Iraqi war diaries”  (400,000 documents).

Instead, all we got was a few hundred leaked diplomatic cables, only one of them mildly damaging to the US. America has perhaps been trying to spy on UN officials. Almost all other cables are about how the whole world agrees that Iran is a nuclear menace that should be dealt with sooner rather than later. Cables strongly supporting the US stance on North Korea and Iran.

The Guardian has an interactive world map where one can browse leaked cables per capital. Almost every click yields one to half a dozen “leaks” on how Iran is seeking and smuggling nuclear tech, on how North Korea and China are helping them, on how Iran is persecuting dissidents, threatening its neighbors and generally is pissing off everyone.

CIA/MOSSAD couldn’t have done a better job.

We checked cablegate.wikileaks.org to see if the Guardian hadn’t merely spun the story. They haven’t. All there is on Wikileaks are those few Iran-bashing diplomatic emails and cables. Assange had promised that “World history will never be the same”, but all we got was “Putin is an alpha-male” and “Netanyahu is a very charming man but he often breaks his promises”. And, curiously, lots and lots of dirt on Iran. Why would Assange, a self-professed hater of wars of agression, hold back on 99.95% of the “secret cables” and only release those that accuse Iran of being a nefarious rogue state, thereby greatly aiding and abetting a Neocon bombing campaign against Iran?

We researched the issue from more angles and viewpoints. If this isn’t a spin-job by the mainstream media, could it be that Assange/Wikileaks is a CIA asset? Hardly so. We found Julian Assange’s old blog at IQ.org. He comes across as independent and anti-imperialistic, even anarchistic. Year after year. Hardly someone who would sell his soul to the devil, even though Webster Tarpley suggested that Assange is a MK Ultra victim.

There is some evidence that Assange indeed could be a CIA agent: Julian, when interviewed on his position on “Conspiracy theories”, answered that there are two kinds of Conspiracy theories, “real and crazed ones”, and that he would never allow “crazed” ones to be published on Wikileaks. He gave some examples of “annoying, false conspiracy theories”, such as: “9/11 was an inside job”. Assange will personally make sure that supporting evidence for these “crazy, annoying conspiracy theories” will never make it into Wikileaks. He said: “Why don’t those people find a REAL conspiracy?”. Early in the last decade, Assange had been arrested for 24 counts of computer hacking but he strangely only was fined. Would he have been recruited at that point? Most likely not, because Assange wrote an essay on secret government conspiracies, and his desire to bring down the “Secret Government”. His essay is here: http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf

Note how Assange suggests “kidnapping” and “assassinating” key conspirators. In this case, key members of the “Secret Government”. A bold fellow indeed – and a threat to the Powers that Be, no doubt.

An agent: Possible but improbable. Doubts remain. When “The Jester” orchestrated a DDOS attack on Wikileaks, he immediately was arrested in an unprecedented blitz-operation. So that Wikileaks could continue disseminating Iran-incriminating material? When we look at the damning Iraq war clip he posted on Wikileaks of a group of journalists and civilians, we conclude that Assange is merely naive and likely not a CIA agent. Because, apart from the imaginative title, he edited that “Collateral murder” video to cause maximum damage to the US war machine. He had a professional video editor edit the clip in such a way that it attained maximum shock value. We doubt that the CIA would do that.

So we established that Assange is a very intelligent, yet relatively naive/mild “truther” with a proven anti-US bias. We know he said he would publish a quarter million “history-shattering” diplomatic leaks. We know he has no problem editing his material to make the US look that little bit worse.

But then why is all we got 220 pro-US, anti-Iran leaks that are nothing but rehashed war propaganda and stale trivia? Why are almost all leaks rehashes of the familiar “bomb Iran” rhetoric? “Saudi Arabia wants the US to ‘Cut off the head of the snake’” etcetera, etcetera.

There can be only one conclusion: Julian Assange has been kidnapped, the secret cables (more than 14,000 of them were classified “Secret”!) have been intercepted and only those putting Iran in a bad light were uploaded to Wikileaks. Plus a dozen on different, quite innocuous topics such as that Sarkozy is “authoritarian” and Berlusconi “likes to party” and that Khadaffi “loves blondes”. Because if all leaks would have been anti-Iran, it would have been a little too suspicious – even to the sheeple.

A plausible scenario, given that a wedge has been driven between Assange and his volunteers, and that Assange alone has control over the upload process. Where is Julian Assange now? We will be told he is “in hiding”, as we are told Osama bin Laden is “in hiding”. Because that sounds all too credible, doesn’t it? Bin Laden is a wanted, hunted man and so is Assange. Hiding makes sense. There are enough innocuous leaks to last ten lifetimes, with the speed they are released now, “to give them the attention they deserve”. It doesn’t make sense. No sense at all. Assange’s either a CIA agent or he’s dead. From what we’ve seen from him in many interviews and speeches, he’s not a CIA agent. A self-important manchild for sure. But no agent. Assange is dead.

Julian Assange has been assassinated. He’s dead. Kidnapped and killed by an intelligence service, probably MOSSAD, MI6 or CIA. The “leaks” are obviously part of a disinformation circus intended to tar and feather Iran publicly and with maximum publicity. To instill fear for North Korea, to shame China and to show Europe and the Middle East their place.
The “insurance file” may have been decrypted by the NSA and found to be a bluff. Or perhaps they deemed the contents of that file less detrimental than the contents of 250,000 confidential and secret diplomatic messages. Or they tortured Assange before they killed him, and found out who have the decryption key, and those people are “missing” now too.

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