Egypt had an election recently, with the results coming out now. The new president of Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi. He was the main candidate running that wasn't associated with the previous Mubarak regime. We'll see how things go for Egypt now.

Julian Assange is seeking asylum in Ecuador after his appeal against extradition to Sweden was rejected. Sweden want to question him, with a view to bringing charges later. It's interesting why he wouldn't want to go to Sweden, here's a great comment on reddit.com about the issue:

I have said this in a couple of places already, but since there seems to be a lot of confusion about the possibility of an extradition from Sweden to the US, I hope this can be seen by more people.

First, under Swedish law, a person cannot be extradited to a country where he/she risks death penalty or any physical harm. The extradition to Egypt was a major fuck-up, sure, but given the publicity of the Assange case it's not gonna happen again. There's also a difference since in the Egypt case, they were applying for political asylum and got denied, difference from someone that Sweden has requested to come here.

Secondly, Sweden cannot extradite people for political crimes, which, most likely, would be what Assange would be charged with in the US. Even if the US would label it as "terrorism" it would still be up to Swedish courts to independantly decide if it would be political or not.

Thirdly, an extradition from Sweden to another country has to be approved by the UK, since they have agreed to an extradition to Sweden, not any other country.

Assange is being extradited to Sweden for questioning in the case, not a trial. So far he has not been charged with any crimes. I've read parts of the custody memo which was filed to the court when the prosecutor requested Assange to be put in custody in absentia, and it's pretty much a "he said, she said" case without much evidence. I'd be surprised if it would even go to trial and if it did, I'd be even more surprised if Assange was convicted from the way things look now.

I'm a Swedish lawyer, if anyone has any questions about the Swedish legal system I'd be happy to answer to the best of my abilities. Going to bed pretty soon but I'll carry on tomorrow if there's need.

ACTA has been rejected by another EU committee. We now have to see how the European Parliament will vote on the treaty in July. Whilst there are good things, it does too much damage to basic human freedoms. Until they address this issue in an ACTAv2 or something, I will continue to oppose it.