Julian Assange ready to meet police, says his lawyer

A lawyer working for Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange has said he is trying to arrange for his client to meet the police.

The Metropolitan Police have received a European arrest warrant for Mr Assange from Sweden.

The Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.

Mr Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, has criticised the Swedish prosecutors, saying Mr Assange had been offering to meet since August.

He said they had offered to put Mr Assange up for interview at the Swedish embassy, by video conference recorded in Sweden or at Scotland Yard.

Mr Stephens said: "So far the Swedish prosecutor has declined to take up those offers.

"That's obviously to be regretted, and is deeply unsatisfactory both for the women who made the complaints, and indeed for Julian Assange, whose name's been so comprehensively traduced, particularly in the last seven days in the week while the cables have been released."

Mr Stephens said: "I haven't even seen the warrant yet. We have got 10 days to do this and a lot of complex schedules to organise."

Security review

Meanwhile, Downing Street issued strong criticism of Wikileaks for publishing secret diplomatic cables identifying important facilities.

The cables include sites and factories in Britain which the US says are vital to its security.

Security officials say the sites could now become terrorist targets and Foreign Secretary William Hague says the release of the information could have put lives at risk.

The list includes pipelines, communication and transport hubs.

Several UK sites are listed, from Cornwall to Scotland, including key satellite communications sites and the places where transatlantic cables make landfall.

A number of BAE Systems plants involved in joint weapons programmes with the Americans are listed, along with a marine engineering firm in Edinburgh which is said to be "critical" for nuclear-powered submarines.

Meanwhile, Home Secretary Theresa May has said all government departments have been told to carry out a security review following the publication of the secret US diplomatic cables on the Wikileaks website.

She told MPs that the prime minister's security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, had written "to all departments to ask them to look again at their information security and to provide him with an assurance about the level of that information security".

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