As always, these are the stories that have caught my eye, nothing more, nothing less.
Olympics
UPDATED: 17-y-o arrested in England for sending nasty tweet to losing Olympian (Boing BOing)
Olympics spectator with Parkinson’s wants ‘exoneration’ after arrest (The Guardian)
Why do Olympic records keep getting broken? (Boing BOing)
Wikileaks – Assange
Ecuador’s president denies granting asylum to Wikileaks’ Assange (Boing BOing)
WikiLeaks: From ‘Torch of Democracy’ to Anti-American ‘Cudgel’ (Die Presse, Austria) (The Moderate Voice)
UK/Ecuador Assange asylum standoff continues (Boing BOing)
A Global Glimpse at the Diplomatic Standoff Over Julian Assange (Sweden, Ecuador, Britain and Australia News Providers) (The Moderate Voice)
Ecuador claims UK threatens to barge in to embassy and grab Assange (Boing BOing)
Belarus
Belarus sacks top brass over teddy bear scandal (Reuters)
Canada
Canadian border guards stop looking for dope exporters, focus on stolen cars and fissiles (Boing BOing)
China
Houses built on the roof of a shopping mall give residents a yard in town (i09)
Traffic hacks: elderly woman in China ties sex doll to tree to slow motorists (Boing Boing)
Man in rural China loses arms in industrial accident, makes his own prostheses (Boing Boing)
China’s one-percenters make ready to take the money and run (Boing Boing)
Pigs Depicted Having Sex Doggy-Style In Zhengzhou Public Square Are Said To Represent Filial Piety (Beijing Cream)
France
France’s batshit HADOPI copyright law on life-support; three strikes is dying (Boing BOing)
Gambia
Gambia: Free activist jailed for life over anti-government T-shirts (My Joy Online)
Germany
German copyright trolls will single out cops, Arab embassies and clergy for accusations of porn downloads (Boing Boing)
Guatamala
Guatemala: Former police chief convicted in 1980s disappearance (Boing Boing)
Hungary
Neo-Nazi MEP from Hungary discovers he is Jewish (Boing Boing)
India
After worst blackout in global history, India’s power minister rates his performance as “Excellent” (Boing BOing)
Iran
Iran Bans Women From 77 College Courses (The Frisky)
Israel
FBI Probed GOPers’ Alcohol Plentiful Incident In Israel Where One Let It All Hang Out In Nude Swim (The Moderate Voice)
Japan
Prosecutors Start Criminal Probe Into Fukushima Nuclear Accident (Bloomberg)
Japan: record high radiation levels found in Fukushima fish, more than a year after nuclear accident (Boing Boing)
Lakota Nation
Lakota Sacred Grounds removed from auction…. FOR NOW (ontd_political)
Lithuania
Lithuania denies entry to Soviet-styled Porsche (Reuters)
New Zealand
Man suffocated to death in DIY gadget-control helmet (Boing Boing)
Norway
Anders Behring Breivik declared sane and sentenced to 21 years (Ontd_political)
Russia
Why Our Entirely Reasonable Support For Jailed Russian Punkettes Could Trigger World War III (ontd_political)
Pussy Riot’s closing statement (Boing Boing)
Pussy Riot, sentenced to two years in a penal colony, release new anti-Putin single (Boing Boing)
Gay parades banned in Moscow for 100 years (BBC)
Free Pussy Riot [Jasmina Tesanovic] (Boing Boing)
Pussy Riot solidarity protests: Topless lady with chainsaw cuts down massive crucifix in Kiev (Boing BOing)
When Putin’s Thugs Came for Me (WSJ)
Not a Pussy Riot protest: the Face-Kini is big in China (Boing BOing)
Sri Lanka
French tourists in Sri Lanka receive suspended jail terms for pretending to kiss Buddha statue (Boing BOing)
Syria
Kremlin Suspends Use of Tartus Naval Base in Syria (The Moderate Voice)
Syrian Military Defectors in Turkey: Should They Return Home and Join the Fighting? (The Moderate Voice)
Syria’s Latest and Highest-Level Defections (The Moderate Voice)
Syria: Mapping the insurgency (BBC News)
Thailand
Thailand: politician accidentally kills woman with machine gun in restaurant (Boing Boing)
Tibet
New reports of Tibetans burning themselves alive to protest Chinese opression (Boing Boing)
Uganda
Ebola in Uganda (Boing BOing)
United Kingdom
Porn Trial: How Consenting Sex May Be Illegal in the UK (ontd_political)
Disabled can go for gold in Paralympics but can’t earn brass. (ontd_political)
The Grave of Richard III may be under parking lot (Discovery News)
Gender-neutral toy department (Boing Boing)
Call centre brings in prison labour at £3/day, fires regular workers (Boing BOing)
UK prisons to open outsource call centres; David Cameron urges business to switch to prison labour (Boing Boing)
How Hollywood-funded corporate vigilantes in the UK shut down SURF THE CHANNEL and sent its owner to jail (Boing Boing)
English seaside town with no chain coffee shops fights off Costa Coffee incursion (Boing Boing)
Amazon recruits 5000 UK cornershops to act as delivery depots (Boing BOing)
Man in a coma is “fit for work,” loses disability benefits (Boing Boing)
Boots keeps selling quack remedies intended for babies, even after they are banned from US import over fears of broken glass (Boing BOing)
