Thailand has become the first government to publicly endorse Twitter’s controversial decision to censor messages in certain countries.

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 A Palestinian woman was imprisoned for nine years in a bathroom by her father, beaten, barely fed and only let out at night, a social worker and police said Monday.

She was given only a blanket, a radio, and a razor blade by her father, who encouraged her to kill herself, said the social worker, Hala Shreim.

Palestinian police freed Baraa Melhem on Saturday in the West Bank town of Qalqilya, after a relative told authorities of the woman’s plight, said spokesman Adnan Damiri. Authorities said Melhem was in her early twenties and that she was initially locked up when she was between 10 and 12 years old.

Read more here (via Associated Press/The Guardian)

There were two men with a point to prove in the heats of the 400m, and each, in their own way, did it in style. Oscar Pistorius and LaShawn Merritt both qualified for the semi-finals.

After all the hype and hoopla of the buildup, Pistorius ran well to finish third in his heat, in a time of 45.39sec. That made him the 14th fastest qualifier for Monday’s semi-finals.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Sebastian Vettel‘s seventh victory of the season has extended his lead at the top of the world championship to 92 points. They thought it was all over – it is now.

Red Bull, who had never won at Spa-Francorchamps, made it a one-two with Mark Webber, who is still looking for his first win this season, second and closing on his team-mate at the chequered flag.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Brazilian scientists have found a new river in the Amazon basin – around 4km underneath the Amazon river.

The Rio Hamza, named after the head of the team of researchers who found the groundwater flow, appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider. Scientists estimate the subterranean river may be 6,000km long and hundreds of times wider than the Amazon.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Stalemate had lasted for months, but within a week a stunned population found itself free at last.

The crucial blow came as Muammar Gaddafi and much of the world looked the wrong way. The Libyan revolutionaries who swept out of the western mountains and into Tripoli, turfing a hated tyrant from power in a matter of days, had been regarded as bit players: by Gaddafi as he concentrated his forces to fend off the threat from rebels in Benghazi and Misrata in the east and by European and American politicians as they questioned the point of Nato‘s daily bombing raids after months of military stalemate.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

President Felipe Calderón calls on Mexicans to unite behind policy against drug cartels after attack in Monterrey.

Until recently, Monterrey was seen by the rest of Mexico as an oasis of prosperity and peace amid the violence of the country’s drug wars. But this week’s attack on a casino, in which at least 52 people died, was a reminder that nowhere is safe.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

When Liverpool last beat Bolton eight months and an eternity ago, the photographs were of the manger embracing his assistant and the goalscorer with images of a league table that showed the club had clambered a little further from the relegation zone.

Roy Hodgson lasted another eight days, Sammy Lee is gone, Joe Cole is in the departure lounge and Liverpool, however briefly it may be, are top of the Premier League. That, in short, is the Dalglish Effect.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Russian aerospace engineers join race to provide wealthy thrill-seekers with the ultimate holiday destination.

They  have announced the ultimate get-away-from-it-all holiday, revealing plans to put a hotel into orbit 200 miles above Earth by 2016. The four-room Hotel in the Heavens would house up to seven guests who would be able to cavort in zero-gravity while watching as our planet turns.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Pop art’s enfant terrible continues to influence modern culture and create memorable images – but from the outside, ignoring London fashions.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Condoleezza Rice’s ‘candid’ memoir to shed light on Bush administration.

Rice’s second autobiography will take us ‘into secret negotiating rooms’ where global peace hung in the balance, publishers say.

Read the full story here (via The Guardian)

Where did the terms retro-nuevo and skronk originate? Or hip-hop?

Michaelangelo Matos runs through an exhaustive catalogue of music’s phrasemakers and trendsetters.

Read the full list here (via The Guardian)

Deputy prime minister says Liberal Democrats will not let Tories water down human rights laws.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

Secret documents detail clandestine lobbying of Nato and even Obama following fear of full-scale US invasion.

The Gaddafi regime carried out an extraordinary clandestine lobbying operation to try to stop Nato‘s bombardment of Libya, and believed the western allies were likely to launch a full-scale invasion in “either late September or October”.

Reas the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

Tree of Life actor says he was trying to figure out what role he played in Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning film, while Christian Bale signs on for a new Malick project.

Penn, who spent the majority of Malick’s Palme d’or-winning film moping around a mystery metropolis, was not the only person who found The Tree of Life a difficult watch.

Read the rest of this article here (The Guardian)

Camila Vallejo’s call for better and cheaper education has seen student protests transform into a two-day nationwide shutdown.

Not since the days of Zapatistas’ Subcomandante Marcos has Latin America been so charmed by a rebel leader. Meet Commander Camila, a student leader in Chile who has become the face of a populist uprising that some analysts are calling the Chilean winter.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

A refreshing G and T is deliciously simple, but London’s best cocktail bars are reinventing the classic – with some surprising results.

What makes gin and tonic the perfect summer drink? Maybe it’s the fact that good gin is organic, flavoured by botanicals: fruits, spices, nuts and scents used in the distillation process.

Read the rest of this article here (via the Guardian)

When President Assad or Colonel Gaddafi watches Star Wars – which surely sometimes happens – whatever do they make of it?

Do they tut and nod about the sad necessity of Darth Vader’s strong leadership, and the difficulty of finding a good henchman nowadays? I ask because, among the many stories told about dictators (usually by men), very few are on the tyrant’s side.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

Kurt Cobain loved Abba, wasn’t from Seattle and didn’t invent grunge.

Everett True, the man who pushed the singer’s wheelchair on stage for his last UK show, sets the record straight.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

Defiant Hazare, 74, tells supporters in Delhi he is not yet prepared to give up.

India‘s prime minister has asked parliament to debate the anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare‘s reform proposals and appealed to the weakening 74-year-old to end his nine-day hunger strike.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)