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The former deputy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is vowing to launch a rival site soon that he says will be more transparent than the original.
Dubbed "Openleaks" and run by Assange's former number two at WikiLeaks Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the site has no content on it at the moment apart from a logo and the message "Coming soon!"

In an interview with the OWNI technology website, Domscheit-Berg declined to go into the details of his dispute with Wikileaks but suggested it had strayed from its mission.

"In these last months, the organization has not been open any more, it lost its open-source promise," he said, adding that Openleaks plans to provide the means for leaked information to be published, without itself being a publisher.

U.S. and other authorities have cracked down on WikiLeaks and Assange since the site started publishing thousands of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that have embarrassed the United States and other parties around the world.

Assange, a 39-year-old Australian who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, is in policy custody in Britain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden, which wants to question him about allegations of sexual crimes. He denies the allegations.

Domscheit-Berg, who was previously involved with German hacker group the Chaos Computer Club, said Openleaks would begin trials in early 2011 and turn to bigger media later. It currently has 10 members.

"We are already drowning in applications," he said.

Sarah Palin urged Americans on Sunday not to forget Haiti as she wrapped up a weekend visit to an aid group's sites in this country vexed by a cholera epidemic, earthquake reconstruction and political crisis.

Accompanied by her husband, Todd, daughter Bristol, and a Fox News crew, the former Alaska governor arrived in Haiti during a respite from the riots and violence that have followed the Caribbean nation's dysfunctional Nov. 28 election.

At least four people were killed in unrest, which has dimmed international hopes that the U.N.-backed elections held on November 28 could create stability for Haiti as it struggles to recover from a devastating January earthquake that killed 250,000.

The 2008 vice presidential candidate was a guest of Rev. Franklin Graham, whose aid group works in the impoverished country. Palin visited Samaritan's Purse projects, including cholera clinics where people are being treated for extreme dehydration.
More than 2,000 people have died of the disease, which scientists believe was recently reintroduced into Haiti, and nearly 100,000 have fallen ill.

"I do urge Americans not to forget Haiti," she said at a Sunday afternoon news conference.

Palin's tightly stage-managed trip was largely closed to the press. She declined to take questions at the news conference.

Noting that severe problems afflicted Haiti even before last January's devastating quake, she said her fellow citizens should "get out of your comfort zone and volunteer to help."

She traveled in part by helicopter, and the aid group declined to share her itinerary, citing security concerns. The U.S. State Department reissued last week its travel warning for Americans considering visits to Haiti.

At the news conference, Palin created some confusion when she referred to a potential drawdown of U.S. assistance to Haiti.

"I know that there's been some discussion of U.S. aid perhaps being lifted from this area," she said. "Again - not to get political - but if some of the politicians would come here and see the conditions, perhaps they would see a need for, say, a military airlift to come bring supplies that are so needed here."

It was not clear what she was referring to, and a Palin spokeswoman declined to elaborate.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, who is chairman of a Senate subcommittee that oversees appropriations for Haiti, recently called for the suspension of direct budget support to the Haitian government until a solution is found to an electoral crisis that has sparked riots in recent days. But his spokesman said Sunday that he was not referring to humanitarian aid or reconstruction money.

Palin spoke about seeing firsthand the challenging economic, political and environmental conditions in which Haitians live and advocated "fundamental changes," including the need for job creation in agriculture and tourism sectors.

"Thank the media for keeping a spotlight on this country and on the conditions that the people are living in. That they are trying to survive amidst and to be here and to see firsthand the conditions and what it takes for the people who are living here, in such adverse conditions, what it takes just to survive their daily lives are so challenging because of economic and political and environmental conditions," Palin said.

Exclusive access during the trip was given to Fox News, whose Greta van Susteren traveled with the group to Haiti. Video and pictures posted online by the aid group show Palin holding hands with Haitian children, visiting cholera patients and handing out Christmas presents, and laughing with Graham and van Susteren.

"I've really enjoyed meeting this community. They are so full of joy," Palin was quoted as saying on the organization's website. "We are so fortunate in America, and we are responsible for helping those less fortunate."

Several suspects have been arrested for a suicide attack that killed six U.S. troops when an explosives-packed minibus blew up at the entrance of a joint NATO-Afghan base in southern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz said that several arrests had been made Sunday night for the blast, which was the deadliest attack on coalition troops this month.

"Individuals believed to be involved in yesterday's attack have been arrested by Afghan and coalition forces," Blotz said at a news conference, adding that no shots were fired as the suspects were taken into custody.

NATO has declined to identify the victims' nationalities, but an Afghan army official in southern Afghanistan said on Monday that the six were Americans. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about NATO casualties.

He said the confirmation came in an official report about the attack.

NATO has claimed improvements in security after months of raids, patrols and strikes on insurgents in Kandahar province, but Sunday's attack shows the area is still far from safe.

The assault came just days ahead of a major White House review of its Afghan strategy following President Barack Obama's decision last year to send 30,000 American reinforcements in a bid to reverse gains by the Taliban since they were ousted from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Afghan officials said Sunday's suicide attack took place in Kandahar's Zhari district, where Mullah Mohammad Omar organized the Taliban in the early 1990s.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the blast, saying the insurgent group was retaliating for attacks on its fighters in the area in recent months.

U.S. and Afghan forces launched a major operation in September to secure Zhari, a lush farming region of irrigation canals and grape vineyards that the Taliban have used as a staging area for attacks on nearby Kandahar city and other parts of the south.

Zhari has remained insurgent territory despite five major NATO operations in recent years. In 2006, a Canadian-led force launched a concerted push in Zhari and nearby Panjwai district, driving out the Taliban but at a cost of 28 coalition lives. Months later, the Taliban were back.

More than 680 international troops have been killed so far this year, well above the 502 killed in 2009. The last attack to kill that many NATO troops happened Nov. 29, when an Afghan policeman turned his gun on his American trainers in the east, killing six of them before he himself was shot dead. The Taliban claimed that they had sent him to join the police as a sleeper agent.

Two weeks before that attack, insurgents killed five U.S. soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.

The level of ongoing fighting and the mounting death toll will be key to the Obama administration's December review. The president has committed to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in June 2011, but the feasibility of that goal will depend greatly on whether commanders believe last year's surge has reined in violence to the point that Afghan forces can start taking the lead.

In Kabul, meanwhile, a group of about 100 recently elected parliamentarians signed a letter urging President Hamid Karzai to convene the new parliament by Dec. 19 in order to end uncertainty about the legislature following an election plagued by accusations of fraud.

Parliament is currently in its winter recess, which typically ends around mid-January. The lawmakers urged Karzai to start the new session next week to show that pending Supreme Court cases will not block legislature's work.

Afghanistan's attorney general has called on the court to annul the elections, citing evidence that high-level officials were involved in cooking the results. Election officials, meanwhile, have said that neither the attorney general nor the Supreme Court have the authority to change the results.

Karzai has said that he is not planning to delay the opening session and his spokesman argued Monday that the disagreements over how to resolve election disputes will not spark a crisis.

"What is right now going on between the institutions in Afghanistan is a normal issue in a democratic country," spokesman Waheed Omar said. "There are specific institutions who are working on interpreting the law and we are sure that a legal solution is going to be found."