Mike Tyson Challenged China's Urban Law Enforcement Officers

Former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson asked in Sina Weibo, China's most popular social media platform, “Who is the best fighter in China?”. A follower said Cheng-guan, China's urban law enforcement officers, who are notorious for managing the street by beating up street vendors. More from Offbeat China.

Iran: Jailed Blogger on Hunger Strike

Hossein Ronaghi Malki a jailed blogger who is serving a 15-year sentence in prison started his hunger strike last week.A Facebook campaign has been launched to support him.

VIDEO: Caracas’ Tower of David, the World's Tallest Slum

VocativVideo has produced a video about Venezuela's ‘Tower of David’, an unfinished 45-story building taken over by squatters in the 1990s: The tower was originally intended to be a symbol of Caracas’ bright financial future, complete with a rooftop helipad, but construction stopped because of a banking crisis and the...

India-Bhutan Friendly Relations: A Reality Check

Blogger Yeshey Dorji from Thimphu, Bhutan comments on the current state of apparently friendly India-Bhutan relations: India’s unabashed transgression into our domestic affairs has demonstrated that where it is an understanding between two unequal partners, there is little reason to believe that any commitment – whether written or unwritten, will...

30 Years Ago: Remembering The Anti-Tamil Pogrom And Riots In Sri Lanka

To remember Black July, the anti-Tamil pogrom and riots in Sri Lanka during July 1983, citizen journalism website Groundviews launched a special online publication titled “30 Years Ago“. It consists of an array of contents, from mixed media triptych to info-graphics, audio podcasts to video, photography to compelling write-ups. According...

Churches Attacked in Upper Egypt

David Degner shares photographs from the mobbed and burned churches in Mallawi, Minya, in Upper Egypt here. He writes: Friday two churches in the village of Mallawi, a village in the province of Minya, were attacked and set on fire. After the attack on the pro-Morsy sit in where more...

Guatemalan Indigenous People Hold Peaceful Protests

As part of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Guatemalan indigenous people held peaceful protests around the country to demand that their rights be respected. Cultural Survival reported on the peaceful protests which were held on August 9, 2013: The general sentiment of the protests as sited by...

Kilombo Conference on Africa, Africans and Social Justice

The Kilombo Centre for Citizens’ Rights and Conflict Resolution, Peki, Ghana is organizing the 2nd Kilombo Conference on Africa, Africans and social Justice. The conference is aimed at bringing together a large and representative gathering of Africans and people of African descent to discuss issues bothering on Africa, Africans and...

China: Egypt's Bloody Crackdown Brings Back Memories of Tiananmen

Egypt’s bloody crackdown on August 14 reminded many Chinese of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. Many condemned the violent crackdown and applauded the courage of the Egyptian people to fight for democracy. But some saw the current chaos in Egypt as a result of a blind promotion of Western-style democracy....

PHOTO: Thousands Occupy Taiwan's Ministry of Interior and Paint Their Protest

More than twenty thousand people occupied the entrance of the president office on August 18, 2013 against the Land Expropriation Act and forced expropriation. Later at night, five thousand protesters entered the Ministry of the Interior and started their sit-in protest [zh]. They painted inside the building on the struggle between...

VIDEO: Father of Jailed Vietnamese Blogger Speaks About his Case

The 88 Project uploads a video interview of the father of Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, the Vietnamese blogger who is facing a 16-year jail term for allegedly spreading anti-government propaganda. …to claim innocence for him we have many times appealed to the top state leaders and related government agencies for...

Uzbek Authorities Seek to Control Bloggers

The authorities in Uzbekistan are seeking to impose strict controls on the country's bloggers. Alisher Abdugofurov on Registan.net shares his opinion about why this is happening in a society where there are not many bloggers to start with.

Iran: More than 200 People Arrested At Rock Concert

Sazmakhfi writes 220 people were arrested at a rock concert in Tehran on Friday. Iranian security forces did not allow Iranian metal band Dawn of Rage performs its concert.  

Bucharest, Not Budapest: A Chocolate Bar Explains the Difference

The capitals of Romania and Hungary, Bucharest and Budapest, respectively, are so often confused that those unfamiliar with the region often book airplane tickets to Bucharest, when their intention is to get to Budapest and vice-versa. In fact, 400 soccer fans from Spain chartered a flight last year to the...

PHOTO: Churches are Crying in Egypt

In reaction to burning churches, a little girl in Upper Egypt sketched this picture that brought tears to my eyes: pic.twitter.com/iymw3SF49R — daliaziada (@daliaziada) August 15, 2013 Egyptian women rights advocate Dalia Aziada posted this tweet after several Coptic churches were burnt across Egypt following a brutal military operation on August 14 2013, to clear...

Hong Kong Activists Condemn Cairo Massacre

Crowdmapping Mexico's Disappeared

# PorTodosLosDesaparecidos (For all the missing) is a direct initiative, without intermediaries, which seeks to create a direct contact between the victims, citizens, family and the media. The goal is to document the 27,000 people missing that the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has registered. The Secretary of the Interior...

Rabaa, Egypt: I Have Seen Patients With Their Heads Blown Out

Islam Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian doctor who was protesting at Rabaa in Cairo found himself trying to save his fellow protesters as their camp came under brutal siege by Egyptian security forces on August 14, 2013. He narrated his first-hand horrific account in a public Facebook note: I have seen patients...

Iran: New Foreign Minister Has a Facebook Page

Iran's new foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has a Facebook page where he answers questions. He says “my children and I update this page.” The page has more than 10,000 likes. Facebook is filtered in Iran but used by all presidential candidates.

VIDEO: Protests Against South Korea's Spy Agency Held Across North America

As protests against South Korea's spy agency's involvement in election gets bigger, overseas Koreans and Americans of Korean descent have joined the movement. This photo montage on the Youtube shows small rallies held in major U.S, cities, such as Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Arizona and in Canada.

Peru: An Encounter with Mario Vargas Llosa

Peruvian blog Los mil rostros de la ciudad [es] tells about an encounter [es] its blogger had with writer Mario Vargas Llosa on a street in Miraflores, where many of Vargas Llosa's novels take place: I met Mario Vargas Llosa when Populibros published his book The time of the hero,...