Amid continued debate over whether or not Sochi is prepared to host the 2014 Olympics, which begins Thursday, reporters from around the world are starting to check into local hotels — to their apparent grief. Some journalists arriving in Sochi are describing appalling conditions in the housing there, where only six of nine media hotels are ready for guests.

How are sectarian politics affecting the lives of those in Lebanon? After a series of bombings fuelled by sectarian tensions, citizens have taken to social media, using the hashtag #NotAMartyr to express their frustration with Lebanon’s fragile state of security and politics. We'll continue that conversation and hear what some citizens have to say about shaping their nation’s future.

A Twitter war broke out between the Indian minister Shashi Tharoor’s wife and his alleged mistress on Thursday over vague and melodramatic tweets from his account. The social media battle sparked after Tharoor’s account, allegedly hacked, posted emotionally dramatic messages accompanied by the Twitter handle of Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar.

Jihadists have been on the internet a long time, and they probably know how to use it better than you do. Since the early years of the world wide web, radical Islamist groups used it for a number of different jihad-y means, from recruitment and financing to propaganda and communication. But how has this changed over the past decade, and in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations of NSA spying, what does the future hold for jihadists and the internet?

Ever since fighting began in South Sudan a month ago, social media has played an important role - as a source of practical information, sharing news, and as a kind of support network. It may sound unlikely in a country in the midst of fighting that has killed more than 1,000 people and displaced thousands more, but over the past three days there have been hundreds of tweets using the hashtag #ThingsIloveaboutSouthSudan - praising things like the food, local customs and the hospitality

African politics took on a humourous angle as Twitter users joked about their countries' affairs using high school analogies. The hashtag #AfricanNationsInHighSchool quickly went viral as Africans online weighed in with perceptions of their own nations and their neighbours, referencing everything from common stereotypes to current affairs. Mentions of the hashtag skyrocketed to nearly 50,000 uses in less than 24 hours.