Government and Diplomatic Services around the globe are breathing a temporary sigh of relief after Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, announced that they had run out of toner for the office photocopier. With over 2 million documents to copy and release, he feels confident that they can get back on track and make up any delay but a number of obstacles still exist.
He says, ‘we thought on Wednesday that some of the copies were coming out a bit faded and by Thursday we noticed streak and lines. Luckily, one of my colleagues is ex-CIA and he remembered that if you bash the toner cartridge against the copier, you can loosen up the powder inside and get another 100 copies out. Unfortunately, it went complete caput this afternoon and to be honest the traffic on the ring-road on a Friday afternoon makes it impossible to get to Cartridge World by 5pm and because we rely on donations, we can’t afford the prices at Staples’.
Assange is no stranger to controversy – last year when he released thousands of secret documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanisation, he blamed a faulty franking machine for sending these documents to a retirement home in Eastbourne. He is also being actively pursued by authorities to answer rape allegations. Assange has repeatedly defended himself by saying he was 'simply trying to clear a paper jam'.
