The WikiLeaks website was fighting to stay online today after Sweden issued a new arrest warrant for its elusive chief and it battled cyber attacks and government attempts to silence it. The whistleblowing website's founder Julian Assange briefly broke cover to say he had boosted his security after receiving death threats amid the storm unleashed by his site's publication of some 250,000 US diplomatic cables.

Just when it seemed that America's "Homeland Security state" could not get more surreal, the United States Transportation Security Administration has rolled out a costly Scylla and Charybdis at major airports: either you accept dangerous doses of radiation and high-resolution imaging of your naked body, or, worried about the health risks of cumulative radiation, you opt out of the new full-body x-ray machines (rapidly dubbed "porno-scanners").