News and Analysis (8/12/13)

“A security official in the capital told BBC Arabic the authorities had hoped the announcement to disperse them would encourage protesters to leave. But this has not happened and the number of people at the sites is increasing”:

“The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans’ communications using their name or other identifying information” providing the NSA with a loophole potentially allowing ‘warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans’:

“In a handwritten complaint filed in federal court, the inmates say they have been denied congregational Friday prayer” and that evening meals to break their day-long fast during Ramadan were delayed until more than two hours after the time at which the Qur’an required the fast to be broken”:

“[T]he inherent double standard in the treatment of white/powerful women who cover their faces versus the treatment of poor/disenfranchised/ brown women who do, is far more interesting to me than the problematic regurgitation of orientalist clichés which frankly, I’m virtually inured to” — Myriam Francois Cerrah:

We got no clear explanation why the embassies were closed, and now we get no clear explanation of why it is safe to reopen them:

“Once again, an inexperienced and impatient mass movement has overreached after gaining power. Once again, liberals have been frightened by the changes their former partners want to enact and have come crawling back to the old regime for protection”:

A speed bump in southern Egypt and no parking signs in Texas are flashpoints:

“Attempts to bring stability to Myanmar’s strategic northwest Rakhine State could be unraveling after police opened fire on Rohingya Muslims for the third time in two months, reviving tensions in a region beset by religious violence last year” …

… while “hard-line Buddhist groups have mounted a campaign against Muslim and Christian targets” i Sri Lanka:

“The island, which is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet and sits between top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and Iran,” last year expelled “two American rights activists were deported for trying to report on events marking the first anniversary of demonstrations for democratic reforms”:


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