Ecuador granted political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, setting up a diplomatic confrontation with Britain, which angrily insisted it would extradite him to Sweden.
Two silhouettes cut through the water a few hundred yards (metres) from a rainy, windswept beach bordering the flat grasslands near the small Inuit community of Wales, in the far west of Alaska.
The Olympic flag arrived Monday in Rio de Janeiro, which will host the 2016 Summer Games -- a challenge which authorities in Brazil say the city is prepared to conquer.
Britain's military will take two years to return to normal after it was called upon to provide 18,000 troops for the London Olympics, the chief planner warned in an interview published Tuesday.
China played down the frantic drive for gold medals and focused on "Olympic spirit" and sportsmanship at a London Games marked by an unusual bout of soul-searching.
The London Olympics closed in a blaze of music and colour Sunday after a two-week sporting festival that electrified the host nation and was watched by billions around the world.
Designer Giorgio Armani predicted that the London Olympics would be the most stylish ever, but fashion experts say there has been as much bad taste as elegance on display.
Most Britons believe the London Olympics have delivered good value for money, according to a poll published Saturday, as the hosts revel in Britain's best performance at the Games for more than a century.
Usain Bolt is targeting a spectacular send-off as the Olympic track and field competition draws to a close on Saturday with Jamaica aiming to seal their sprinting supremacy.
London mayor Boris Johnson has had a golden political Olympics, emerging for the first time as a serious contender for prime minister despite -- or perhaps because of -- his clownish antics.
The razzmatazz of the London 2012 Olympics is a world away from the last Games held in London in 1948, when athletes had to survive on rations, stitch their own kit and wash it themselves.
Britain's world-renowned football club Manchester United slashed the price of its US share launch, cutting the amount it was raising in Friday's IPO to $233 million from a hoped-for $300 million or more.