Funds crisis clips WikiLeaks' secret service

LONDON, UK: Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, has announced that the whistleblowing website is suspending publishing operations in order to focus on fighting a financial blockade and raise new funds, according to media reports.

Assange, speaking at a press conference in London on Monday, said a banking blockade had destroyed 95 p.c. of WikiLeaks' revenues.

The website, behind the publication of hundreds of thousands of controversial US embassy cables in late 2010 in partnership with newspapers revealed that it was running on cash reserves after "an arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade" by the Bank of America, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Western Union.

WikiLeaks said in a statement: "The blockade is outside of any accountable, public process. It is without democratic oversight or transparency. The US government itself found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to a US financial blockade. But the blockade of WikiLeaks by politicised US finance companies continues regardless."

WikiLeaks said “in order to fight for its survival” it has decided temporarily to stop publishing secret state documents, while it battles the financial blockade through the courts.

In a statement, WikiLeaks said: “In order to ensure our future survival, WikiLeaks is now forced to temporarily suspend its publishing operations and aggressively fundraise in order to fight back against this blockade and its proponents.”