Assange Formally Granted Asylum by Ecuador

This is not an unexpected development.

The British are saying that they are never going to allow his passage out of the country, and are continuing to imply that they will use a law passed in late 1980s to raid the Ecuadorean embassy.

The law in question was passed after someone shot a Bobby from inside the Iranian Lybian embassy, which is clearly a different circumstance from this.

The real issue here is that pretrial process, and extradition, in Sweden is opaque, and Assange has publicly stated that he would be willing to go to Sweden if they gave him guarantees that he would not be transferred to US custody.

This is about Obama, and people close to him, desperately wanting to get their hands on him so that they can make an example of him. (Even if there is not a successful prosecution, there will be torture, even if he does not get sent to Gitmo, look at what they did to Bradley Manning in pretrial detention.)

Rather unsurprisingly, all the news that's fit to print, i.e. the NY Times reported this as a hit piece against Assange.