WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange was at the centre of another political storm yesterday after more than 251,000 US diplomatic cables were published in their original form on the internet for anyone to read.

No attempt was made to redact the cables to protect whistleblowers or other innocent people named in them, provoking fears that some lives could be endangered.

The cables were published in batches, sorted by country, including 34,687 relating to Iraq, 29,431 from China, 19,714 from Afghanistan, 13,209 from Pakistan and 6,732 from Cuba.