21 August, 2010 — BBC News

Julian Assange was cited as saying the release of the allegations were ‘deeply disturbing’

Swedish authorities say they have issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, on accusations of rape and molestation.

The warrant was issued late on Friday, said Karin Rosander, communications head at Sweden’s prosecutors’ office.

Swedish police have been trying to contact Mr Assange, but have not yet been able to, she told the BBC.

Wikileaks, criticised for leaking Afghan war documents, quoted him saying the charges were ‘without basis’.

The message, which appeared on Twitter and was attributed directly to Mr Assange, said the appearance of the allegations ‘at this moment is deeply disturbing’.

In a series of other messages posted on the Wikileaks Twitter feed, the whistle-blowing website said: ‘No-one here has been contacted by Swedish police’ and said it had been warned to expect ‘dirty tricks’.

Last month, Wikileaks published more than 90,000 secret US military documents on the war in Afghanistan.

US authorities criticised the leak, saying it could put the lives of coalition soldiers and Afghans, especially informers, at risk.

Mr Assange has said that Wikileaks is intending to release a further 15,000 documents in the coming weeks.

Ms Rosander said there were two separate allegations against Mr Assange, one of rape and the other of molestation.

She gave no details of the accusations. She said that as far as she knew they related to alleged incidents that took place in Sweden.

Media reports say Mr Assange was in Sweden last week to talk about his work and defend the decision by Wikileaks to publish the Afghan war logs.

21 August, 2010 — BBC News

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has donated $5,000 (£3,900) to help defend Army Spc Bradley Manning, the man suspected of giving classified documents to the website Wikileaks.

Mr Moore told the AP news agency he hopes to make the public understand Spc Manning allegedly exposed ‘war crimes’.

Spc Manning, 22, is being charged with leaking a 2007 video of a US helicopter attack in Iraq that killed 11 people.

The Army private faces up to 52 years in prison if convicted.

The Pentagon is also investigating whether Spc Manning gave Wikileaks 77,000 Afghanistan war logs. US officials say the disclosure of those documents endangered the lives of innocent people.

‘He did a courageous thing and he did a patriotic thing,’ Mr Moore said.

The Bradley Manning Support Network, a group raising money for an attorney for Spc Manning, said they were delighted with Mr Moore’s support.

19 August, 2010 — John Pilger

On 26 July, Wikileaks released thousands of secret US military files on the war in Afghanistan. Cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians are documented. In file after file, the brutalities echo the colonial past. From Malaya and Vietnam to Bloody Sunday and Basra, little has changed. The difference is that today there is an extraordinary way of knowing how faraway societies are routinely ravaged in our name. Wikileaks has acquired records of six years of civilian killing for both Afghanistan and Iraq, of which those published in the Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times are a fraction.

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