· August, 2013

Stories about Politics from August, 2013

Crowdsourcing Malaysia’s 2014 Budget

  31 August 2013

Through the #bajet2014 website, Malaysians can give specific ideas in drafting the government's 2014 budget. They can also use the special page to approve or reject a particular proposal

Lebanon: The Smell of Death

On August 23, two bombs exploded in outside two mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Forty-seven people were killed, and over 500 injured. Joey Ayoub, at Hummus for Thought, shares a must-read testimony of the heartbreak at the hospital of a friend who was in Al Salam mosque...

Iran: Facebook Diplomacy

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs, posted a short piece with six questions about Syria on his Facebook page which received 1,100 comments as of Friday, August 30. Some called Zarif on the hypocrisy of criticizing Western intervention as intervention, when Iran has its own presence on the ground.

South Korea: 4500 Catholic Leaders Protest Against the Spy Agency Scandal

  30 August 2013

Prominent citizen journalist Media Mongu posted a Youtube video of Catholic leaders denouncing the state spy agency's interference in the presidential election. His description read ‘an unprecedented number of 4502 clergy members have gathered at Sogang University, the alma mater of the current President Park, to release a manifesto that calls on President...

A Historian's Pessimistic Farewell to Macedonia

  29 August 2013

Historian, analyst and blogger Harald Schenker, who has lived in Macedonia since 1999 and is now moving to Switzerland, created social network buzz with his farewell post, addressed to a “failing Macedonia”, in which he provides a diagnosis for the country's demise and a plea for rebuilding Macedonian society. The...

Online Reporting of Bribery in Thailand

  27 August 2013

Bribespot Thailand encourages Thais to report cases of bribery and corruption in the country. Through an interactive map, the website also identifies bribery hotspots in Thailand.

Suspicions Arose Over North Korean Defector-Turned-Lawmaker

  24 August 2013

During a parliamentary hearing on the spy agency election interference scandal, Cho Myung-chul, a ruling party lawmaker famous for being the first North Korean defector to take a senior government post in South Korea, went under fire for making snide and offensive remarks discriminating against people from certain province. More criticisms mount as...