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Nope. They are the actions of someone knowing they are being prosecuted for political reasons, knowing it's exceedingly unlikely he'll get a fair trial, and not trusting authorities - for good reason. It would NOT be the first time Swedish authorities have assisted in renditioning people to the US and their willing torturers.

And know this; in Sweden you'll get more than a fair trial if you're a thief, but if there is any kind of political pressure against you, you've lost before it even started. It's a long standing tradition with plenty examples, if you only care to look for them.

Apple's 30% cut(apps that can only be signed up for online are OK; but such apps are forbidden to link to the signup page in-app; either no sign-up information, or Apple-provided payment mechanism only); which more or less assures that they'll be able to undercut their competitors on iOS, unless some miracle has made the labels 30% or more more generous in their dealings with that competitor.

When I setup my Amazon/Audible account, I did it on a web page (even if it was on iOS), and in fact, that's where I continue to make my purchases (the webpage simply directs back to the app once I've bought a book). It's fairly easy. With Spotify, it's even less of an issue - the user only has to do this transaction once. Arguably, Spotify should simply force users to do what Amazon/Audible do - transact outside of the App for purchases.

Why should Apple be forced to help Spotify make their App simpler piggybacking on the simplicity of iOS without renumeration? Allowing purchases within an iOS app is not some sovereign right of an app creator. It's Apple's rules, and is not dissimilar from Google's rules (even the % is the same - 30%).

Finally, Spotify is owned (20% from last accounting) [1] by the music industry - it's their (very successful) stalking horse into streaming music, which is partly why they've been so successful - Spotify got deals/labels that other apps (Pandora, LastFM) simply could not. It's quite ironic that Spotify is complaining that they can't compete -they've been the ones benefiting from an unlevel playing field for years.

[1] http://www.swedishwire.com/job...

By "the history", you mean "the one case a decade and a half ago where Egypt lied to Sweden and told them that two people were convicted terrorists and promised to treat them well, getting them deported on the flight that Egypt arranged with the CIA", a case that caused such an uproar that the two were given residence, large financial compensation packages, and EU extradition law in general was changed so that countries had to have a history of upholding their promises for extradition to be allowed to proceed? The case that led to such an anti-rendition backlash in Sweden that in in 2006 Sweden had their special forces disguise themselves as airport workers to board a CIA jet and stop the extradition program from going through their territory, causing a major diplomatic incident with the US? A case that was exposed by.. wait for it.... Wikileaks!

While no country is perfect, Sweden has the #1 ranking in the world for the rights of the accused by the peer-reviewed World Justice Project. They have the world's best protections for whistleblowers - it's not even legal to investigate who leaked information in most cases, let alone prosecute. Assange thought so much of Sweden that he was moving there and setting up a new Wikileaks base of operations there - that's why he was in Sweden. He repeatedly called Sweden his shield, he thought so much of them. Right up until he was accused of rape, when suddenly Sweden magically transformed into an evil US lackey. Funny how that works.

This article probably covers the basics. Not sure if it's totally neutral but probably more so than you'll get from Slashdot commenters.

False. Among countless sources you can read which demonstrate the falsity of the "free to leave" claim, you can read the SMS logs between Assange's lawyer and the prosecutor, or the British Lower Court ruling. While Assange was leaving the country, his lawyer (Björn Hurtig) was pretending that Assange had no plans to leave and was setting up an interview between Assange and the prosecutors' office in Sweden. Later he tried to mislead the British lower court into thinking that he didn't know that the prosecutor's office still wanted Assange. The judge caught him in the lie, chewed him out (he's lucky he didn't get hit with sanctions), and received an official condemnation by the Swedish Bar Association.

Assange did face one round of preliminary questioning, and only concerning the girl that there are no rape charges concerning (AA). He has never been questioned about the girl that the rape charge is about (SW). That's what the interview that he was supposed to stand for when he fled Sweden was to be about.

There is no "different crime unit". The initial prosecutor, Eva Finne, was put on the case because the report was made during a weekend and she was the only one available. She initially opened an investigation into two counts of rape and various lesser charges - one count of rape against each woman. News of the investigation quickly leaked (as almost always happens in Sweden due to their whistleblower protection laws), which put the prosecutor in an awkward spot, as the name of a suspect isn't supposed to be released until they're charged. She quickly got a warrant issued against Assange - despite the fact that he had never refused to cooperate. This in turn led to a major backlash. She shortly thereafter she withdrew the rape charges to cancel the warrant, but left the investigation open into the lesser sexual assault charges. This in turn led to a protest being filed by Claes Borgström, the legal representative of the accusers, as SW's victim statement hadn't even gotten into the computer at the time, so there's no way the case could have been fairly reviewed. Sweden has an appeals board process at this stage, which is fairly commonly utilized in the Swedish judicial system. The board ruled in favor of the women, and the case was re-opened, which put the next senior prosecutor, Marianne Ny, on the case. Ny reopened the case for all five counts (it was later reduced to four on appeal; these four are what ended up in the EAW which stands to this day)

A bit about the nomenclature. I use the word "charges", but of course, that's an English term, the Swedish judicial system is structured differently. First you "anklaga" someone, then you "åtala" them. The first stage means you have to have a formal list of things they're approved of, you can get a warrant, the accused can appeal and get a court hearing (all of this happened, Assange lost with a finding of probable cause of rape, and had his loss sustained on appeal). The second stage (being åtalad) starts the process of the trial. The subject has to have everything they're being åtalad over put before them in questioning before the decision to åtala is taken, and then the trial must begin within a short, fixed time period. Hence, you anklaga someone to get them into custody, then you åtala them to try them. Assange has been anklagad but not åtalad. For the purpose of the EAW, being anklagad was ruled as being equivalent of being charged by every level of the UK judicial system, but Assange and a lot of his backers make much ado about him not being "charged", only translating åtalad as charged. Either way, what matters is Assange is charged to the maximum extent possible under the Swedish judicial system at this stage, as he has not surrendered to Swedish custody and thus cannot be åtalad.

I should probably include the sworn statement of the prosecutor (Ny) concerning the questioning: "Subject to

Wikileaks doesn't care about who copies the documents, they are angry because he sabotaged their submission system.

In the absence of evidence of a copyright assignment, a license agreement, or an employer-employee relationship, I'm not going to agree with the assumption that it is their submission system.

It sounds to me like the programmer who wrote the system decided to take his ball and go home. If he owned it, that is more or less his right. Considering that Wikileaks didn't even register as a legal entity until three months ago, the assumption that Wikileaks owns much of anything is a bridge too far.

Nokia has some cool "Apple enemies" coming soon. Have a look at their plans: http://www.swedishwire.com/business/899--nokia-strikes-back-against-smart-enemies

Nokia has some cool "Apple enemies" coming soon. Have a look at their plans: http://www.swedishwire.com/business/899--nokia-strikes-back-against-smart-enemies

Popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay was disconnected from the Internet on Monday. http://www.swedishwire.com/business/803-the-pirate-bay-website-shut-down