IT READS like a James Bond novel: its cast includes an enigmatic white-haired computer hacker; a soldier turned whistleblower; secret government correspondence; and the world's most powerful country desperate to contain the situation.

And it is all because of an Australian.

Julian Assange

Julian Assange, the Australian-born face of the Wikileaks website, is in hiding overseas after the US military arrested one of its own soldiers, Bradley Manning, and accused him of leaking a secret video of a US Army helicopter gunning down civilians in Iraq in 2007.

The video was released on Wikileaks earlier this year, and the US is now desperate to find Mr Assange before he leaks thousands of embarrassing state diplomatic cables, which are believed to discuss the the Middle East, its governments and leaders.