The pretty shores of Lecidere in Dili is where young people hang out with their laptops and gadgets, enjoying free WiFi under a roof shaped like a wave.

For the preceding three decades it was almost unthinkable. For the proceeding decade-and-a-half after, it has become almost a forgotten afterthought if not for documentaries and commentaries in the media.

It is obvious that the “virus” of corruption has penetrated all levels and groups in society. While it is common that the amount of money involved in a corruption case is on a par with the rank or position that one holds — a high-ranking official is associated with a huge amount of embezzled money while a low-ranking one usually has a much smaller amount — the recent discovery of a non-commissioned police officer implicated in corruption involving a huge amount of money is, therefore, extraordinary and, at the same time, suspicious.

The confession by a young woman that she was paid Rp 10 million (US$1,050) to have sex with a flamboyant defendant in a corruption scandal that has rocked a political party, which itself claimed to be corruption-free and based on religious ethics, was a startling relevation for millions of television viewers during a broadcast trial hearing on Friday.

Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is now facing an acid test of leadership, dealing with thousands of squatters who are challenging a city program to relocate them from state land in Pluit, North Jakarta, that they have occupied for years.

Alarming segregation among the Chinese, non-Muslim and Malay communities, the rising frustration of the Malaysian people against the government’s slow pace in combating corruption and an increasing demand by young people for democracy marked the installment of Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday.

The internal control department of the Tax Directorate General, already strengthened by a whistle-blowing system, is utterly ineffective in discouraging tax officials from indulging in corruption, as demonstrated by the latest affront to the public on Wednesday.

The elites of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) finally allowed the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Wednesday to confiscate five cars believed to be connected to a money laundering case allegedly involving the party’s former chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq.

It is almost unthinkable that Toro Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka — Japan’s second largest city after Tokyo — has no sense of shame in repeating the irresponsible habits of several ultranationalist or right wing politicians who continue to irritate Japan’s neighbors, which suffered at the hands of Japanese military occupation before and during World War II.

Support the President, scholars said, in a rare statement supporting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In an open letter to Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr, the scholars from campuses across Australia urged their government “to publicly support President Yudhoyono’s willingness for a peace dialogue with Papuans as a way to find a peaceful solution” in the long term for Papua.