Free Republic

To the United States, Julian Assange may now be Public Enemy Number One. Some American politicians have even called for his execution. But less than a year ago, the founder of WikiLeaks was officially entertained at a US Embassy cocktail party by one of the very diplomats whose secrets he would soon spill to the world. Mr Assange's site had already published dozens of leaks embarrassing to the US, including secret Guantanamo Bay detainee handling manuals and the full emails of Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate. The US State Department condemned the manuals' publication as "a criminal act."

Britain warned Iceland that it would be frozen out of the European Union after its President abruptly vetoed the repayment of a £3.6 billion loan. The Treasury expected Reykjavik to rubberstamp the terms of repayment for the loan extended by Britain and the Netherlands at the height of the financial crisis. The loan meant that 400,000 savers with deposits in Icesave did not lose their money. President Ólafur Grimsson stunned the world’s financial community by refusing to sign the repayment schedule into law. Instead, he said that the matter would be decided in a referendum among Iceland’s 243,000 voters. The...

The government was last night facing the very real prospect of the first British consumers losing substantial amounts of their savings following the collapse of the popular internet bank Icesave. More than 300,000 British savers had accounts worth in total £4bn with the Icelandic bank, attracted by best-buy savings rates of more than 7%, on offer as recently as Monday. But yesterday withdrawals were frozen after its parent group, Landsbanki, went into receivership. Savers desperate to withdraw their cash found they were unable to log on to the website, and, unlike savers with Northern Rock, now face losing any balances...