(By Kara Brandeisky) President Obama on Friday announced some reportedly limited reforms to National Security Agency surveillance programs. Since the first disclosures based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Obama has offered his own defenses of the programs. But not all of the president’s claims have stood up to scrutiny. Here are […]
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Archives for 2014
Assange on Obama Speech: “Embarrassing,” Dragged Kicking and Screaming to Reform by Snowden
Julian Assange responds to Obama speech on NSA reform at CNN AFP reports: Obama surveillance pledge will change little: Assange (via AFP) WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday dismissed President Barack Obama’s proposals to curb the reach of the National Security Agency (NSA), saying they would change very little. In a speech intended to quell […]
Taking on al-Qaeda: Syria’s Uprising within an Uprising
(By Rania Abouzeid) It was bound to happen, this uprising within an uprising against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a transnational ultraconservative Islamist group that ostensibly fights alongside Syria’s disparate rebel groups but more often intimidates, antagonises, or opposes most of them, including other conservative Islamists. Long brewing tensions between ISIS and […]
Last Chance – Annual Informed Comment Fundraiser
I hope you all like the new design. Of course, the changes are a work in progress but 2014 is an important year for Informed Comment. We will be adding some editorial staff and expanding our coverage to include the most important news organisations in the Middle East to provide a comprehensive political and news […]
The GOP’s War on Science Endangering America: Climate Change, Evolution, Regulation
The Republican Party is increasingly emerging as an anti-science party. Since American greatness was built on its science and technology (and not on the odd cult of biblical inerrancy), this development is a danger to the republic, and, indeed, to the world. The US used to be about solving problems, about a can-do spirit, not […]
Beware of self-destructive Turkish propaganda
Yesterday, the Hürriyet Daily News reported about a recent warning by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan to all ambassadors of Turkey who were gathered in Ankara for an annual “envoy’s conference.”
Gül keeps pressing for a way out
Turkish President Abdullah Gül keeps pressing for a way out of the political crisis in the country despite the opposition’s refusal to keep cooperating on a constitutional change
Turkish state fund seizes assets of CHP Istanbul candidate Mustafa Sarıgül
The decision was taken after the current mayor of Istanbul’s Şişli district failed to repay loans worth $3.5 mln taken out in 1998, daily Hürriyet reports
UNESCO cancels event on Jewish ties to Land of Israel
Days before opening of Paris exhibit, UN cultural body bows to pressure from Arab states, who said it would harm peace talks