The cable, released by Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, cited US embassy officials “checking out” a Middle Eastern-looking couple on the grounds that they were near the embassy and had the word “Islam” on a sign inside their car.

The Swiss Justice Ministry is investigating the program, and says there is evidence of the same sort of widespread surveillance out of the Geneva embassy as the US was found to be conducting in Norway and Denmark.

However while Norway eventually conceded that certain of its officials had secretly approved of the spying (while not telling the officials launching the investigation), Swiss officials say the US approached them on the possibility of launching such operations and was rebuffed at least twice. The evidence now is that they decided to go through with it anyhow.

WikiLeaks says that the Postfinance closure was the result of a technicality, and that Assange had provided the address of his lawyer in Geneva for bank correspondence. The account was presented on the WikiLeaks site as the place to donate for the Julian Assange Defense Fund.

WikiLeaks still retains two fund-raising bank accounts which don’t appear in immediate threat of seizure, in Germany and Iceland, respectively. Last week Paypal seized WikiLeaks’ account (and according to WikiLeaks some 60,000 Euros in funds with it) claiming the whistleblower group was engaged in criminal enterprises.

Assange is facing charges for “rape” in Sweden related to allegations that condoms broke during consentual sex, and the Swedish government is seeking his extradition from Britain to face the charges.

Assange has been seeking residency in Switzerland, but US Ambassador to Switzerland Donald Beyer has warned the Swiss not to provide him shelter.

WikiLeaks has been condemned by US officials as a grave threat because the whistleblower organization has published a number of seriously embarrassing classified military documents related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A number of hawks have called for direct military action against WikiLeaks in general, and Assange in particular, and the Senate is considering a bill that would label WikiLeaks a “transnational threat” to the United States.

Assange has recently been operating out of Sweden, but was denied a request for Swedish citizenship. An Australian citizen, Assange has been wary about traveling to many Western nations recently, fearing for his safety.

A minaret is a tall, thin tower which is built as part of (or sometimes adjacent to) a mosque, and is traditionally used to make the call to prayer for nearby Muslims. Much as Christian churches often have steeples, minarets are seen as a major identifying feature for Muslim religious structures.

And indeed, the impetus for the ban seems to primarily be right wing angst about the nation’s growing immigrant population, which is chiefly Muslim. Muslims make up roughly 4% of the nation’s population, making them the largest non-Christian religious group.

The campaign played up the “threat” posed by the Islamization of Switzerland, a prominent poster featured a burqa wearing woman standing in front of a Swiss flag impaled on imposing black minarets.

Though Switzerland has no nationally recognized state religion, its assorted cantons mostly have officially recognized state religions of their own which are subsidized by taxpayers.

While the ban is largely expected to be overturned by either the Swiss Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights as a violation of religious freedom compacts the Swiss government has agreed to respect, it is seen as a major victory for the Swiss People’s Party, the populist political party that pressed for the ban.

But the vote’s international attention may also do considerable harm to Switzerland’s traditional neutrality, and already it is being condemned by overseas Muslims. Swiss Muslims, for their part, are trying to figure out what this ban means for their role in Swiss society.

The talks would be directed at international (particularly US) concern over Iran’s civilian nuclear program. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “there is nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon.” America’s most recent National Intelligence Estimate says Iran has no active nuclear weapons program, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly certified that Iran has not diverted any of its uranium to any non-civilian use.

In a separate revelation on the potential US-Iran rapprochement, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey confirmed reports that there were ongoing high-level, secret talks involving the US and Iran in Geneva, but added that “the talks are on a purely informal level and the foreign ministry is not involved.”