Criticism grows for Turkey’s mainstream media for largely ignoring intense national protests against the government;  A glimmer of hope as the Korean peninsula cools down;  And Ireland will decide if scrapping an entire legislative body will serve or damage democracy.

The biggest loser in Turkey’s massive nationwide protests appears to be the media.  The country’s two main channels have been self-censoring coverage of the demonstrations, confirming the peoples’ concerns over evaporating press freedoms.  While the streets of the cities erupted, one channel ran a cooking show, and CNN Turk ran a documentary about penguins even as its English coverage acknowledged the protests.  That inspired protesters to adopt penguin memes online and to don penguin t-shirts outside.

North and South Korea are agreeing to hold talks on reopening the Kaesong industrial park, a jointly run factory complex in the North side of the border.  Relations on the peninsula have been soured by the North’s nuclear tests earlier this year.  But Pyongyang has been largely quiet in recent days, with no signs of the usual bombastic rhetoric.  The North offered to let the South set the time and date, so it’s 12 June in Seoul.

The Korean announcement comes one day before President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping were scheduled to meet in California, with North Korea sure to be a prime topic of conversation.  Human Rights groups are pushing Obama to focus on political prisoners and other abuses in China.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi wants to run for President of Myanmar.  Her opposition National League for Democracy Party is expected to win big in upcoming elections, if they are free and fair.  A clause in Myanmar’s constitution bars presidential candidate if they have children with foreign citizenship, and critics say it seems to have been specifically written to bar former political prisoner Suu Kyi from running.  But current President Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government has surprised the world with a series of pro-democracy reforms that have successfully attracted western investment.

Ireland has too many politicians, according to Prime Minister Enda Kenny.  So the Taoiseach is proposing an amendment to the constitution to eliminate the Seanad, Ireland’s upper house.  Members of the Seanad are not directly elected, but rather appointed by various methods, and have power to delay legislation but not to outright spike it.  Kenny says New Zealand and the Scandinavian countries prove that unicameral legislative bodies can exist with democratic checks and balances.  He also says it will save 20 Million Euros per year.  Critics say instead of real democratic reform, Kenny’s proposal concentrates too much power in the hands of the ruling cabinet.

A former member of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in England for raping a teenage boy in a Manchester department store washroom. 55-year old Abdelkader El-Janabi served in Iraq’s military in the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War in the 1990s, and for some reason had been allowed to take UK citizenship in 2012.

Prince Philip is going to celebrate his 92nd birthday in hospital.  He was taken in to the private London Clinic Wednesday night with abdominal pain and will undergo exploratory surgery under general anesthetic.  He cancelled two public gigs over the past week, but observers say he appeared fine at the ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.