The Google AdWords API Help forum notifies us that the AdWords API is undergoing unscheduled maintenance since late last night.
This impacts users of v2009 of the AdWords API only.
Eric Koleda from the AdWords API Team team said:
We are currently performing some unscheduled maintenance on the AdWords API servers. You won't be able to access the API, but your ads will continue to run as normal. I'll update this thread when the servers are available again.
Stan Grinberg from the AdWords API Team added that this is "only affecting v2009 of AdWords API."
Currently, there has been no update on the status of this unscheduled maintenance.
So if you have issues with the API, you now know why.
Forum discussion at Google AdWords API Help.