HIGHLIGHTS - Latest WikiLeaks developments

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attends a news conference at the Geneva Press Club in this November 4, 2010 file photo.

LONDON (Reuters) - WikiLeaks published details of sites around the globe which the United States considers vital to its interests, prompting criticism that the website is helping militants identify targets for attack.

The details are part of 250,000 diplomatic cables obtained by the campaigning website which are being made public.

The list begins with a cobalt mine in Kinshasa, Congo and refers to various locations in Europe where drug companies produce insulin, treatment for snake bites and foot and mouth vaccines.

Here are some of the latest revelations in U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks and related stories:

ANALYSIS

- Heroes to some, villains to others, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange highlight divisions over data security and show the tech-fuelled information revolution is outpacing debate over its use.

WIKILEAKS FOUNDER

- Julian Assange says he and his colleagues are taking steps to protect themselves after death threats following the publication of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables on their website.

- Australian police are investigating whether WikiLeaks' Australia founder, Julian Assange, has broken any of the country's laws and is liable to prosecution there, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said.

MIDEAST

- Top U.S. officials have grown frustrated over the resistance of allies in the Middle East to help shut the financial pipeline of terrorists.

CHINA

- China's GDP figures are "man-made" and therefore unreliable, the man who is expected to be the country's next head of government said in 2007, according to U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

- The hacking of Google Inc that led the Internet company to briefly pull out of China was orchestrated by two members of China's top ruling body.

IRAN

- The WikiLeaks publication of secret cables was not the embarrassing blow to U.S. diplomacy many people assume, but a deliberate ploy by Washington to improve its image, a senior Iranian official said.

- Iran told Gulf Arab states it was not a threat and wanted cooperation, in an apparent attempt to lower tensions after WikiLeaks revelations that Gulf Arab leaders are deeply anxious about its nuclear program.

AUSTRALIA

- Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd defended Australia's relations with China as "robust" on Monday after a WikiLeaks report he advised he United States it may need to use force to contain China if it failed to conform to global standards of behaviour.

LIBYA

- Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi caused a month-long nuclear scare in 2009 when he delayed the return to Russia of radioactive material in an apparent fit of diplomatic pique, leaked U.S. embassy cables showed.

GERMANY

- A top official in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives said he was shocked how sloppily the United States policed sensitive data and that it had failed to live up to its responsibilities as a global power.

AFGHANISTAN

- The United States needs to work hard to re-establish confidence with the international community after hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. cables were obtained by the WikiLeaks website, Afghanistan's foreign minister said.

- Leaked U.S. government cables critical of Afghanistan and Pakistan have helped bring the two nations together, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said, dismissing their content as lies.

- Afghanistan's finance minister offered to resign over a leaked U.S. cable which reported him as describing President Hamid Karzai as a "weak man" and said ties with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were damaged.

- British troops were "not up" to the task of securing Afghanistan's Helmand province and the governor pleaded for U.S. reinforcements, American diplomats said.

EGYPT

- President Hosni Mubarak warned U.S. officials Egypt might develop nuclear weapons if Iran obtained them. A U.S. ambassador described Egypt, recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. aid since making peace with Israel in 1979, as a "stubborn and recalcitrant ally" in a February 2009 cable.

Egypt lobbied last year to delay southern Sudan's secession vote for 4-6 years because it feared the division could imperil its share of Nile waters.

ITALY

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi dismissed reports of U.S. worries over his ties with Moscow and repeated he had never profited personally from his contacts.

LEBANON

- Four Lebanese generals detained over the killing of Rafik al-Hariri were held without legal basis, a U.N. investigator told U.S. diplomats three years before they were freed, the Daily Star newspaper reported.

- U.S. spy planes flew reconnaissance flights over Lebanon from a British air base in Cyprus in a counter-terrorist operation requested by Lebanese officials.

MEXICO

- A Mexican official said the government was in danger of losing control of parts of the country to powerful drug cartels.

RUSSIA

- President Dmitry Medvedev said the leaks showed the "cynicism" of U.S. diplomacy but suggested they would not seriously upset improving ties with Washington.

TURKMENISTAN

- Turkmenistan's leader is described as "not very bright" and "a practiced liar" in a cable from the U.S. embassy in the gas-rich Central Asian state. It said President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov did not like the United States, Iran or Turkey, but was fond of China.

UNITED NATIONS

- The CIA prepared a list of the kinds of information on U.N. officials and diplomats that it wanted U.S. envoys in New York and around the world to gather.

VENEZUELA

- Cuban intelligence services directly advised Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in what a U.S. diplomat called the "Axis of Mischief," according to a State Department cable. Other cables revealed U.S. anxiety at Chavez's "cosiness" with Iran, and concerns of Venezuelan Jews over what they saw as government prejudice against them.

YEMEN

- Yemen's parliament will question the deputy prime minister over leaked diplomatic cables that indicated Yemen covered up U.S. strikes on al-Qaeda in the Gulf Arab state, parliament members said on Monday.

- Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh secretly offered U.S. forces open access to his country to launch attacks against al Qaeda targets.

(Compiled by World Desk, London)