Ethiopian government spying on American citizen

Thanks to the documents released by Edward Snowden, we know that the US government thinks that it has the right to spy on citizens all over the world. While it claims to abide by legal restrictions that prevent it spying on Americans (a claim that has been seen to be increasingly hollow), it openly asserts that it can spy on the people of other countries without restriction. The only regret it has expressed is for getting caught spying on the leaders of friendly countries.
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Why the two-state solution is (almost) dead

Those who advocated for a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict under the slogan of ‘One land, two peoples’ took what was always the more principled stand, saying that was the only way to reconcile the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to the land they were living in with the need of the Jews who also wanted a homeland, was to have both groups live there together and work out a modus vivendi. It was idealistic no doubt, but made sense since the two groups shared so much in common, except for allegiances to their different tribal gods.
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Introducing the ‘inhibited persons list’

We are all aware, or should be aware, of the infamous secret ‘no-fly list’ that the US government maintains that can result in people being abruptly told that they cannot board a plane without being told why or any means of getting off the list, short of going to court. It appears that the government also maintains another secret list called an ‘inhibited persons list’ that flags people for harassment.
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The state of religious freedom worldwide

The International Humanist and Ethical Union has published its 2013 Freedom of Thought report that takes a country-by-country look at the “Rights, Legal Status, and Discrimination Against Humanists, Atheists, and the Non-religious” and rates them according to five categories: 1. Free and Equal 2. Mostly Satisfactory 3. Systemic Discrimination 4. Severe Discrimination 5. Grave Violations.
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How the NSA and GCHQ targeted WikiLeaks and its supporters

The latest revelations from the Edward Snowden trove of documents says that the NSA and GCHQ kept track of the people who visited the Wikileaks site, as part of its international campaign to put pressure on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. This appeared in an article by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher in their new news medium The Intercept.
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The 12 worst things Yahweh did

Rob Bricken has combed through the Bible and come up with a list (yes, another listicle!) with the ten worst things that the Judeo-Christian god has done, things that seem to have been driven mostly by sheer spite unbecoming of a supposedly all-powerful deity. As Bricken begins, “Before Jesus arrived and his divine father chilled out, the Old Testament God was, ironically, kind of a hellraiser. He was not a nice guy. He really liked killing people. And he may have actually been insane.”
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The Israel lobby’s rearguard actions

The Israel lobby in the US has had its hands full recently trying to get its agenda of total US support of hardline Israeli government policies implemented, and is fighting back rising criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as well as of its own role in influencing US foreign policy. In doing so it has become much more visible than it once was and has been subjected to much more criticism.
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