Category Archives: Viva!

Why I support Kurdistan’s independence referendum

Nervana

Here is an English version of my latest article in Al-Hurra  

Kurdistan

( photo via the Guardian)

In 838, a Kurdish leader based in Mosul named Mir Jafar Dasni revolted against the Caliph Al-Mu’tasim. After a series of armed confrontation between Arabs and Kurds in difficult terrain, a (non-Arab) commander of the Arab Caliph, Itakh, won the war and executed many of the Kurds, but Mir Jafar Dasni committed suicide to avoid capture.

Many opponents of the Iraqi Kurdistan referendum may not be aware of the region’s medieval historical conflicts, but undoubtedly they hope that history repeats itself and that the Kurds will be defeated once again, but this is unlikely. Their abundance of foes has united the Iraqi Kurds in support of the referendum. Never in their history have the Kurds been as focused and determined as they are today.

It is easy to join the chorus of…

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Egypt: Stop Anti-LGBT Crackdown, Intimidation

[HRW] Egypt should stop arresting and harassing people suspected of homosexuality using trumped-up “debauchery” and “inciting debauchery” charges, Human Rights Watch said today. Security forces rounded up at least eleven people in the days following a September 22, 2017 concert in Cairo at which young concertgoers waved rainbow flags, a symbol of solidarity with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) people, a defiant act in a country known to persecute gay men and transgender people.

NFL round-up: Cam Newton raises clenched fist as Panthers shock Patriots

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  • Super Bowl champions slump to 2-2 record after defeat against Carolina
  • Rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson stars as Texans thrash Titans

The Carolina Panthers pulled off their biggest win of the season – and inflicted another defeat on the New England Patriots on Sunday – as Cam Newton took control of the game.

Newton threw for three touchdowns and ran for another as the Panthers held off a late Patriots rally to win a thrilling contest 33-30. Newton also caused a stir for non-football reasons as he raised a clenched fist after scoring the 50th rushing touchdown of his career. Earlier in the week, the quarterback said he wanted to send a message of unity after Donald Trump’s attack on NFL players who chose to protest during the national anthem.

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Kamala Harris’ powerful riposte to Trump: ‘Racism is real in this country’

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Democratic rising star lamented ‘assault on our deepest values’ in strongly worded speech that alluded to Trump’s spat with NFL

Kamala Harris, a rising star within the Democratic party who is being closely watched as a possible presidential candidate in 2020, delivered a powerful riposte from the altar to Donald Trump on Sunday, accusing him of waging “an assault on our deepest values”.

Speaking in a historically-charged venue, the First Congregational Church of Atlanta, one of the oldest African American churches in the US founded in 1867 by freed slaves, the California senator gave a blunt account of the problems facing the nation.

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Social media companies must respond to the sinister reality behind fake news

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Research highlights need for paid political content to come with clear disclosures, write Philip Howard and Bence Kollany

Social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter have begun to share evidence of how their platforms are used and abused during elections. They have developed interesting new initiatives to encourage civil debate on public policy issues and voter turnout on election day.

Computational propaganda flourished during the 2016 US presidential election. But what is most concerning is not so much the amount of fake news on social media, but where it might have been directed. False information didn’t flow evenly across social networks. There were six states where Donald Trump’s margin of victory was less than 2% – Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If there were any real-world consequences to fake news, that’s where they would appear – where public opinion was evenly split right up to election day.

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British courts may unlock secrets of how Trump campaign profiled US voters | Technology | The Guardian

Pasquale said news that Facebook information had been used by Russian agents to target US citizens may prove to be a tipping point. “It shows this information has now been weaponised by a state actor. What we’re seeing is really a failure of the first order. Mark Zuckerberg wrote this 6,000-word letter about creating a global political community and yet we now know that Facebook was a platform for a devastating attack on the most robust democracy in the world.”

Source: British courts may unlock secrets of how Trump campaign profiled US voters | Technology | The Guardian

‘A white girl had to die for people to pay attention’: Heather Heyer’s mother on hate in the US | US news | The Guardian

“I think we’ve got to have some difficult, very difficult conversations about people’s beliefs and their anger and their hurt and what it is they need fixed to feel right again,” she said. “We’re not going to hug it out and be happy. That’s just not reality. But we can listen to one another.”“People are listening to me right now, so I’m talking right now,” she said. “When they stop listening, I might shut up, I might not. I’m not good at shutting up.”

Source: ‘A white girl had to die for people to pay attention’: Heather Heyer’s mother on hate in the US | US news | The Guardian

Trump says Rex Tillerson ‘wasting his time’ with North Korea negotiations

Is he humane enough to resign now?

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President’s latest Twitter outburst, after Tillerson says US wants to talk to Pyongyang, threatens to undermine nation’s top diplomat at critical moment

A day after his secretary of state said the US had direct lines of communication to North Korea and was “probing” to find ways to resolve escalating nuclear tension between the two countries, Donald Trump tweeted that his top diplomat should “save his energy” as “we’ll do what has to be done!”

Related: Rex Tillerson: US has direct lines of communication with North Korea

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