It's a misnomer to say he hasn't been charged. Swedish law has strict requirements regarding the timeline between charging and the court case which in principle means that they only charge someone when he is in their physical custody.

RTFS she will visit Assange who is skipped bail.

Foreign citizen turns up at the border and mentions that she will visit a fugitive from the law and is surprised when that results in an border interrogation?

That is complete and utter rubbish. One of the examples you mention, the Hoover dam, had intolerable conditions for the workers on it. They were promised modern homes to live in with their families whilst they worked in a desert in the middle of nowhere. What they got was a shanty town, nicknamed Ragtown, with little to no amenities and very little protection from the heat with vague promises of that the buildings were coming - that lasted years! 16 people died on one day alone from the heat. Can you imagine what the conditions were like on the work site if people were dying in the town? Imagine carrying heavy loads, working in tunnels with no air and no respite from the heat for months on end. The workers went on strike for better conditions, in response they had their meagre pay cut and when they weren't happy with that they were fired en-masse. There were further strikes by their replacements. 112 people died in total on the dam, 42 of which died of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning from working in tunnels with no ventilation which were conveniently listed as pneumonia.

Your description that they "paid a living wage and considered the welfare of their employees sacrosanct" could not be further from the truth.

So in order to get through security, you have to get through security's security?

Larnach Castle? Isn't that in Dunedin, NZ?

The Swedes don't want to question him, they want to charge him and that can only happen on Swedish soil. In order to charge someone they need to do that as part of a formal interview. So by volunteering to be interviewed in a place where he cannot be charged and wouldn't agree to leave with them if he could be, Assange is playing to the crowd by offering terms he knows cannot be accepted.

That whole article sums up what is wrong with these venture capitalist funded start-ups; they want to compete on a different playing field than established companies. They want to be able to import cheap labour from other countries as they aren't willing to pay the going rate for local engineers. They don't want to register their employees properly as they will be liable for more taxes and to give their employees the rights they are entitled to.

As a European, I'm glad these guys are finding it difficult to ride roughshod over the laws has to protect workers. If you can't afford to do things the proper way then your business is not viable. Complaining that you can't find exploitative loopholes that depress wages for the rest of us is laughable.

That's nothing, in Swedish "gift" means both "married" and "poison" !

Despite the name, the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation is actually British

You are over-egging NK from my experience.

Friendliness is hard to judge as most people can only speak Korean and almost exclusively pretend like you don't exist. Whether that is through fear or not, I can't say but it is unusual when you consider that NK is the most homogenised society in the world and that the number of western tourist is only ~2000/year that most people did not seem curious at all to see us.

Cooking skills may not be lacking but raw ingredients certainly are. I never realised how much I depend on fruit until I visited NK. I don't particularly like apples but after almost a week of no fruit and almost the same meal everyday (kim shi), I was genuinely excited when I managed to get half an apple. I can only imagine what it is like for ordinary NK citizens.

For all its affront and posturing, you cannot visit NK without recognising that it is a poor country masquerading as a rich one. The paucity of cars even in the city centre of Pyongyang was eerie - especially so when we drove on an empty 10-lane motorway. There seemed to be only about 5 styles of clothing available (especially for men) that reminded me of school uniform every where we went. The complete lack of crime (except against humanity, perhaps) was almost disconcerting.

I have actually visited North Korea in order to see the Arirang Mass Games. Although Truman Show is a good analogy of what it is like there, I feel a better description is like a human safari. While it is heavily locked down there to an amusing extent (my guide genuinely thought Madonna was man but had heard of her), every now and then you saw a glimpse of something that showed you that it wasn't entirely true.

When I was leaving the country and passing through passport control, I was lightly grilled by the border guard. He asked me a few questions and then asked me what my job was.
"Programmer", I replied.
"Which language do you use?"
"Java"
He then leaned forwarded and whispered to me as he gave me my passport back, "Me too".

Actually it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall who said that as a summarisation of Voltaire's beliefs.

The most startling fact I found out when reading this article is that I am now, at 29 years old, past it. I had heard of hardly any of the "top" artists in these lists never mind pirate their music.

All this supposition that Assange is being extradited to Sweden only for them to extradite him to USA his nothing short of a conspiracy theory. Why would anyone go such a convoluted route when they could simply extradite him from the UK using the fast track extradition process (that the USA has failed to honour incidentally). Involving Sweden in the process makes no sense what so ever, to extradite him from there requires both the UK and Sweden's permission and if the USA can get the UK to agree then why involve Sweden at all!