Does East Timorese politics “use arms for competition (…) more than the competition of ideas”? Columnist with weekly Tempo Semanal Filipe Rodriguês Pereira questions [Tet] who was behind mysterious shooting incidents across the capital Dili last month. They occurred just after the UN announced the end of its current mission in 2012, also year of a Presidential election.

Despite serious privacy concerns being voiced by both Democratic and Republican leaders and by thousands of digital rights activists using EFF's Action Center, this afternoon the House Judiciary Committee voted 19 to 10 to recommend passage of

As we announced in a recent post, Colombia commemorated its day of independence this past July 20.

Amnesty International has launched an online campaign calling for the release of Jabbar Savalan, a young activist in Azerbaijan who made calls on Facebook for pro-democracy protests in the oil-rich former Soviet republic. Those wishing to join the campaign can sign an online petition here.

The recent events at the Viqarunnisa Noon School and College (VNC), a prestigious girls educational institution in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, has stirred much buzz in the Bangladeshi blogosphere. Porimol Joydhor, a teacher of Bangla department of the school's Bashundhara campus, was accused of raping a female student of class ten at VNC while giving her private tuition in his premises.