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Ed Webb

Giulio, the islands and national security | Mada Masr - 0 views

www.madamasr.com/...-islands-and-national-security

Egypt policing repression security research academics academia freedoms freedomofexpression NGOs

shared by Ed Webb on 01 May 16 - No Cached
  • The security logic seems to suggest that one cannot be sure that a researcher working on Islamic endowments in the 15th century isn’t really a spy — he might be looking for maps of Siwa, Halayib and Shalatin, the Yaghbub Oasis, or Tiran and Sanafir. Since we have border disputes with all our neighbors, not only can you not copy maps related to any border issue, you can’t conduct research on any topic vaguely connected to borders.
  • The security logic doesn’t stop at maps and borders. It casts suspicion on every topic. An Egyptian colleague working on Mamluk history was denied a research permit. An American colleague was denied a permit for a project on the history of private presses in the 19th century. A student of mine studies the history of the Labor Corps during World War I; his permit was also rejected
  • The official’s response (I paraphrase) was:Here’s someone studying the history of irrigation, and we have a dispute with Ethiopia over the Nile waters. We have no doubt that this student is honest and isn’t a spy, but how can we be sure that his thesis won’t fall into malicious hands, that it won’t contain information that could harm us — for example, info about Ethiopia’s right to the Nile waters? Such details could damage our negotiating position. Of course, we know employees at the National Archives are sincere patriots, and the same is true of most professors and students doing research there, but we have considerations that no one understands but us.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Field research is infinitely more difficult. If a researcher wants to conduct a field study or distribute a questionnaire or opinion survey, she needs the approval of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). Its very name shows the perceived intimacy of the association between knowledge and the war effort.
  • The situation at the National Archives is reflected in all public institutions. Their mandate is not to serve the public, but to subject them to constant surveillance.
  • the security mentality in countries that respect the public is countered by a mentality that pushes back in the opposite direction, that respects the right to privacy, academic research and free expression. This mentality circumscribes the security mentality with numerous legal and administrative regulations.
  • In Egypt the security mentality runs amok. Just mentioning national security is enough to shut down a conversation instead of initiating it. Voices defending academic freedom and the freedom of research are few and far between (though brave and strong) — most importantly the March 9 Movement (a working group on university independence), the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression, and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
  • The responsible agency treats the National Archives like a state archive, not a national archive owned by and serving the public.
  • When I first saw Giulio Regeni’s photo on Facebook, when he was still missing, my heart skipped a beat. A foreign researcher who speaks Arabic fluently, living in Dokki and moving about the city at will, one who is working on the extremely sensitive topic of workers’ right to form independent unions, and one who is also a political activist who writes anti-regime articles for a communist paper under a pseudonym. If the security authorities knew of him, I thought, they would consider him a spy.But Giulio wasn’t a spy. He was a doctoral student. I never met or corresponded with him, but I know Giulio and know him well. He’s like the students I’ve taught for 20 years. Having now read and become familiar with his work, I can say that not only is he not a spy, he’s an exemplary student, one who loved Egypt and Egyptians and made efforts to help them.
  • we know that we’re living one of the worst moments of our modern history and that our rights, liberties and lives are under threat at all times by our own government.We know that our government, in the name of defending national security, has attacked universities and killed students demonstrating on campus. We know that our government, in the name of defending national security, has shut down the public sphere, appropriated political activity, and prevented people from expressing their opinion and peaceful demonstrating — unless the demonstration’s purpose is to give Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a mandate to do whatever he likes.
  • waging war on civil society organizations, accusing them of foreign collaboration, treason and getting rich off foreign funding. But it’s the government itself, specifically the army, that is the biggest beneficiary of foreign funding. No one dares make a peep about that.
  • arrested tens of thousands of members of Islamist groups and sentenced hundreds of them to death in trials lasting just a few minutes, trials that dealt a mortal blow to the integrity of the Egyptian judiciary and people’s faith in it
  • arrested hundreds of journalists, writers and political activists, and sentenced them to years in prison
  • we, the people, the true owners of this country, are insisting on knowing what happened to Guilio Regeni and are holding on to our right to be consulted about our own national security.
Ed Webb

Tourism blooms in Israel's Arava desert - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 1 views

www.al-monitor.com/...ourism-agriculture-gusets.html

Israel tourism desert arava Negev Naqab agriculture economy

shared by Ed Webb on 09 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • “I think that the agricultural potential here has exhausted itself,” Weinstein tells Al-Monitor. “Agriculture here is incredible, but there are limits on water and demand, so anyone who wants to continue living here will have to learn to create some other quality industry. I think that tourism here will be fine. I won’t make millions, but if I can support myself at least partially from these bungalows, that would be excellent. I can still do that when I am older.” He says that anyone in the region who is not a farmer still bears a certain stigma, but people are starting to change their attitudes. “We all have some work to do on the way this is perceived. There are farmers who came down to the Arava to get away from people. Now, suddenly they have to play host.”
  • New facilities that have opened in the region over the past few years include a bee farm, an alligator farm, an antelope farm, and other attractions that combine agriculture with tourism and the untamed wilderness.
  • ''This is the only strip of land left in the country with fresh air and wide-open virgin spaces. And it’s in a part of the country that is not disputed politically and has no demographic issues,”
  • Ed Webb on 09 Apr 16
     
    The real story here is the changing economics of desert agriculture. Arguably, no-one should have been growing peppers in such an arid environment, although the technologies developed to do so have been impressive. It's still a great place to grow dates, though.
Ed Webb

An audience with Okasha | Egypt Independent - 0 views

www.egyptindependent.com/...audience-okasha

Egypt politics media

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • When not standing up to the regime, Okasha was busy being part of it: In 2010, he was elected MP of a constituency in his native Daqahlia on a National Democratic Party ticket.
  • Okasha’s Al-Faraeen appearances are the stuff of legend and have transformed him into a cult figure. There is something a bit unreal about his TV persona — the animated delivery, the meandering and sometimes bizarre anecdotes, the sudden explosions of rage. A catalog of popular “Okasha-isms” now exists, such as his warnings about Masonic plots on “13/13/13” and his challenge to Mohamed ElBaradei to prove his qualifications for the presidency by describing how ducks are force-fed in the Egyptian countryside.
  • While his critics dismiss him as a buffoon and enemy of the revolution, Okasha has proved himself to be an astute broadcaster with mass appeal.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • since 25 January last year, his channel has been able to articulate the fears of ordinary people who are not necessarily against the revolution politically, but who have been left reeling by the uncertainty it produced, or fears about the intentions of the ruling Brotherhood — albeit that the Al-Faraeen formula is a high-octane, shrill incarnation of these concerns.
Ed Webb

Tahrir Monologues: Storytelling the highs and lows of revolution - Street Smart - Folk ... - 0 views

english.ahram.org.eg/...50350.aspx

Egypt media theatre theater Tahrir memory

shared by Ed Webb on 14 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • The performance displayed the fear, the doubt, and the waning of faith that materialised in the months that followed the stepping down of former president Hosni Mubarak. “Stories of unity and diversity seem like a ridiculous memory now,”
  • This performance at Left Bank featured memories from the battle in Mohamed Mahmoud Street last November, the December clashes at the cabinet sit in, and the February football match massacre in Port Said.
Ed Webb

Camel domestication research challenges Bible's origins | Green Prophet - 0 views

www.greenprophet.com/...camel-bible

Israel religion history camels universities

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Camels are mentioned as pack animals in the biblical stories of Abraham, Joseph, and Jacob in the Bible. But archaeologists have shown that camels were not domesticated in the Land of Israel until centuries after the Age of the Patriarchs (2000-1500 BCE). In addition to challenging the Bible’s historicity, this anachronism is proof that the text was compiled after the events it describes, according to researchers.  Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen from Tel Aviv University have used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the moment when domesticated camels arrived in the southern Levant, pushing the estimate from the 12th to the 9th century BCE, according to them. The findings, published recently in the journal Tel Aviv, further emphasize the disagreements between Biblical texts and verifiable history, and define a turning point in Israel’s engagement with the rest of the world. I would like to point out that Tel Aviv University swings very much to the left so much to the point where they go out of their way to disprove biblical texts. This is in direct contrast to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a right-wing university which swings in the other direction.
Ed Webb

Egyptian TV inflames divisive politics - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...ilitary-journalism-incite.html

Egypt TV television politics regulation

shared by Ed Webb on 07 May 14 - No Cached
  • in Egypt's divisive media landscape, it is often big-name hosts like "El Boss" Eissa and Hadidi — or Al-Faraeen channel's Tawfik Okasha — who can dominate the media discourse, for better or worse.
  • the weird, wonderful and — at times — toxic world of the Egyptian news talk show
  • incitement and emotive broadcasting is on the rise. "There's been a resurgence in this sort of television, … driven by emotions and anger," a sort of television he says has grown more "hysterical" in the past nine months.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • "[But] compared to print media, TV [incites] more," Dabh argues. "It's a lot easier to play off someone's emotions, it's easier to go on a tirade and get a rise out of people, than it is in print media."
  • "If [the authorities] applied the same standards that they did to the Islamist channels, there wouldn't be many channels left in Egypt now," Dabh said. Instead, regulation — like the announced media code of ethics — is based on political motivation. "The press code is really only invoked when it’s politically convenient,"
Ed Webb

State Dept. rejects Davutoglu's denial of media watchdog report - Al-Monitor: the Pulse... - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...ee-report-media-davutoglu.html

Turkey freedomhouse media press censorship AKP politics US USA EU

shared by Ed Webb on 07 May 14 - No Cached
  • Only a day after the US-based watchdog Freedom House, in its "Freedom of the Press 2014" report that was released May 1, relegated Turkey from the league of “partly free” countries to the league of “not free” countries, Davutoglu exploded. Speaking at a joint news conference with Omani Foreign Minister Yousef bin Alawi bin Abdullah in Ankara on May 2, he said, “No one can put Turkey in that category. All kinds of opinions are openly voiced in Turkey. In this sense, the press freedom in Turkey is freer than some countries called 'partly free.'” If he had left it there, there would be no problem. But, he urged Turkish reporters to act against the Freedom House report: “I’m calling on the press and the intellectuals to display a stance against this report. We expect our journalists to reject this report,” he said, and alleged that “a perception operation is being conducted against Turkey.” The term “perception operation” is increasingly used by government officials and pro-government media to describe an alleged smear campaign underway against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of Turkey.
  • in a manner that would further complicate the AKP’s image in the Western world, the pro-AKP mouthpiece daily Star drew attention to Freedom House President David J. Kramer’s “Jewish origin,” and also alleged that Freedom House is financed by philanthropist George Soros and Jewish lobbies. Mehmet Ocaktan, editor-in-chief of the staunchly pro-AKP daily Aksam (who is also a former MP of the ruling party), was very blunt. He wrote: “Half-witted Turkish friends of proven anti-Turkey foreign sources are quietly skilled in covering up anything good that has been done. For example, they grab as a salvation nothing but a scandalous Turkey report of the Freedom House that is financed by famous speculator Soros, who has made a billion dollar profit from domestic troubles he instigates in various countries, and [the] Israeli financial lobby. For one thing, the data about detained journalists in Turkey [are] old and almost none of them [are] accurate. For Freedom House, [which] always lists Israel among free countries, to put Turkey in the same bracket as Uganda, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tanzania and Kenya is not only dimwitted but also an indicator of absolute ignorance.”
  •  “What I think would change the way people look at Turkey is if they unblocked YouTube, if they didn’t block Twitter. I think that’s what drives people other places to say, ‘Hey, maybe freedom of expression isn’t that great in Turkey right now,’”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • “Freedom House has noted complaints by the government of Turkey about Turkey being ranked “not free” in our report, "Freedom of the Press 2014." The government’s objection that the ranking does not take into account events occurring in 2014 is misplaced, as made clear by the report. “The report evaluates events that occurred during 2013. The rating does not take into account events that occurred in Turkey since January 1, 2014. They include the government’s recent releases of journalists in the Ergenekon and KCK cases, regressive changes to Turkey’s Internet law 5651, the blocking of Twitter and YouTube, and the law increasing the powers of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT). These and subsequent events occurring in 2014 will be evaluated in Freedom of the Press 2015. “Freedom House also notes with concern that some media outlets resorted to anti-Semitism in criticizing the report. Freedom House calls on the government of Turkey to join us in condemning the use of hate speech.”
Ed Webb

The Oil Drum | Saudi Arabia's Crude Oil Production Peaked in 2005 - 0 views

www.theoildrum.com/5154

KSA oil future reserves peak

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Mar 09 - Cached
  • In this time of economic crisis, it would appear appropriate for Saudi Arabia's oil fields to be publicly audited. The full disclosure of total remaining reserves, by field, would enable more effective future oil production and consumption planning in this post peak oil age.
  • Many readers will question the validity of my URR estimates, shown in Figure 1, thinking that the true KSA URR must be higher. A perceived high URR is in the national interest of KSA because it needs its customers to continue their demand for oil leading to sustainable high oil prices for KSA. If customers thought that KSA had less than 100 Gb of oil left then conservation and switching to alternatives would increase. KSA has been creating this perception of overabundant oil reserves for at least sixteen years because it believes that this will maximize the price of its remaining oil.
  • Ed Webb on 03 Mar 09
     
    Notice allegation of government of KSA manipulating perceptions of its reserves in order to maintain demand and high price.
Ed Webb

One-sided debate - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views

krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/...one-sided-debate

nytimes krugman

shared by Ed Webb on 10 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Ed Webb on 10 Mar 09
     
    You don't have to agree with Prof Krugman's specific argument here to take note of the general point - what gets left out of coverage can be as important as what is included.
Ed Webb

PressThink: It Took 23 Years, But I Finally Got to Give My View of the National Press o... - 0 views

journalism.nyu.edu/...took_moyers.html

journalism politics future ideology press

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Feb 09 - Cached
  • Great that Bill gave you a louder platform to point out the corrosive effects of the Washington bubble, of which the national media are so important a part. A shame that the discussion of the possible impact of the internet was so brief at the end there. Nevertheless, I think what came over quite strongly was the sense that this is a moment of real potential for change, for fracture in the ideological hegemony of the establishment, for ideas otherwise readily dismissed as 'radical' or 'far left' or simply laughable to finally get a hearing in the public sphere. Because the public sphere itself has become a more contested, dynamic, and fractious place, which is all to the good. Nice work all round.
  • Ed Webb on 07 Feb 09
     
    Discussion of the Bill Moyers video also bookmarked
Ed Webb

Ahmadinejad Faces Challenges From Left And Right : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...story.php

shared by Ed Webb on 04 Feb 09 - Cached
  • Those who know Khatami say he believes the council wouldn't dare disqualify him.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 04 Feb 09
       
      That's fighting talk!
  • city vs. village in Iran — city voters being better educated and tending toward the liberal side; village voters more conservative.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 04 Feb 09
       
      This is not simply an Iranian issue. Much of the region experiences serious cleavages of this kind. Mass migration from the country to the cities changes electoral outcomes considerably.
  • Many conservatives have come to be critical of the controversial Iranian president.
Ed Webb

The End of Solitude - ChronicleReview.com - 0 views

chronicle.com/...21b00601.htm

shared by Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09 - Cached
  • if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Discuss!
  • Reading, as Robinson puts it, "is an act of great inwardness and subjectivity." "The soul encountered itself in response to a text, first Genesis or Matthew and then Paradise Lost or Leaves of Grass." With Protestantism and printing, the quest for the divine voice became available to, even incumbent upon, everyone.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Mark Edmundson makes a similar argument in "Why Read?" - http://the-ed-rush.blogspot.com/2009/01/book-review-why-read-by-mark-edmundson.html - he believes reading has the potential to be life-changing.
  • The world was now understood as an assault on the self, and with good reason.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • The Romantic ideal of solitude developed in part as a reaction to the emergence of the modern city. In modernism, the city is not only more menacing than ever, it has become inescapable, a labyrinth: Eliot's London, Joyce's Dublin. The mob, the human mass, presses in. Hell is other people
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      "Hell is other people" - L'enfer c'est les autres - is one of the more famous utterances of Jean-Paul Sartre.
  • authenticity
  • heroic self-discovery, a voyage through interior realms made vast and terrifying by Nietzschean and Freudian insights
  • the universal threat of loneliness
  • But through the 70s and 80s, our isolation grew. Suburbs, sprawling ever farther, became exurbs. Families grew smaller or splintered apart, mothers left the home to work. The electronic hearth became the television in every room. Even in childhood, certainly in adolescence, we were each trapped inside our own cocoon. Soaring crime rates, and even more sharply escalating rates of moral panic, pulled children off the streets. The idea that you could go outside and run around the neighborhood with your friends, once unquestionable, has now become unthinkable. The child who grew up between the world wars as part of an extended family within a tight-knit urban community became the grandparent of a kid who sat alone in front of a big television, in a big house, on a big lot. We were lost in space.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      This begins to veer into conservative reaction - compare to Rothman on television. Is all so gloomy, really? Would we all be happier if things were more like the 1950s? I really don't think so. Only the rich white men would be happier.
  • A constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, keeps us wired in to the electronic hive — though contact, or at least two-way contact, seems increasingly beside the point.
  • Visibility secures our self-esteem, becoming a substitute, twice removed, for genuine connection
  • My students told me they have little time for intimacy. And of course, they have no time at all for solitude
  • The two emotions, loneliness and boredom, are closely allied. They are also both characteristically modern
  • Boredom is not a necessary consequence of having nothing to do, it is only the negative experience of that state. Television, by obviating the need to learn how to make use of one's lack of occupation, precludes one from ever discovering how to enjoy it. In fact, it renders that condition fearsome, its prospect intolerable. You are terrified of being bored — so you turn on the television.
  • consumer society wants to condition us to feel bored, since boredom creates a market for stimulation.
  • has been said
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Passive mood raises questions: said by whom? in what context?
  • the Internet is as powerful a machine for the production of loneliness as television is for the manufacture of boredom
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Wow - now, that is nicely written, whether one agrees with it or not.
  • Lost, too, is the related propensity for sustained reading
  • Reading now means skipping and skimming; five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity. This is not reading as Marilynne Robinson described it: the encounter with a second self in the silence of mental solitude
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Are both kinds of reading not possible?
  • there is no mental space that is not social (contemporary social science dovetailing here with postmodern critical theory). One of the most striking things about the way young people relate to one another today is that they no longer seem to believe in the existence of Thoreau's "darkness."
  • The MySpace page, with its shrieking typography and clamorous imagery, has replaced the journal and the letter as a way of creating and communicating one's sense of self
  • The suggestion is not only that such communication is to be made to the world at large rather than to oneself or one's intimates, or graphically rather than verbally, or performatively rather than narratively or analytically, but also that it can be made completely
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Do we really buy that suggestion? Does anybody? I know what Facebook et al are selling, but am not convinced too many are buying it.
  • We are not merely social beings. We are each also separate, each solitary, each alone in our own room, each miraculously our unique selves and mysteriously enclosed in that selfhood.
  • One must protect oneself from the momentum of intellectual and moral consensus — especially, Emerson added, during youth.
  • Today, of course, universities do everything they can to keep their students from being alone, lest they perpetrate self-destructive acts, and also, perhaps, unfashionable thoughts. But no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific or moral, can arise without solitude. "The saint and poet seek privacy," Emerson said, "to ends the most public and universal."
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Harsh, dude. But possibly fair. Does this mean universities are broken? Beyond redemption? Or is the argument too sweeping here? Not everybody has the talent or inclination to be a seer. Those that do, will find their solitude, surely?
  • Solitude isn't easy, and isn't for everyone.
  • But it takes a willingness to be unpopular.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 09 Feb 09
       
      Almost anything worthwhile takes that willingness.
  • Not for nothing does "gregarious" mean "part of the herd."
Ed Webb

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Elite Saudi university set to open - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...20099238549230496.html

KSA education higher-ed university science religion

shared by Ed Webb on 23 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Saudi Arabia has set up a new research university, a multibillion dollar co-educational venture built on the promise of scientific freedom.
  • Saudi officials have envisaged the postgraduate institution as a crucial part of the kingdom's plans to transform itself into a global scientific hub - the latest effort in the Gulf region to diversify its economic base.
  • the new university will not require women to wear veils or cover their faces, and they will be able to mix freely with men.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • KAUST has enrolled 817 students representing 61 different countries, of whom 314 begin classes this month while the rest are scheduled to enroll in the beginning of 2010.
  • 71 faculty members include 14 from the US, seven from Germany and six from Canada
  • KAUST may indirectly challenge the brand of conservatism that critics say has stifled progress in the Muslim world."We do not restrict how they wish to work among themselves," Shih said, referring to whether men and women can freely intermingle on campus."It's a research environment ... driven by scientific agenda."Officials say KAUST's embrace of scientific freedom marks Saudi Arabia's determination to not be left behind as technology increasingly drives global development.
Ed Webb

My first take on The Speech | Marc Lynch - 0 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...the_speech

lynch Obama Cairo Islam diplomacy publicdiplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Jun 09 - No Cached
  • the rollout of the speech already stands as one of the most successful public diplomacy and strategic communications campaigns I can ever remember -- and hopefully a harbinger of what is to come.  This wasn't a one-off Presidential speech.  The succession of statements (al-Arabiya interview, Turkish Parliament, message to the Iranians) and the engagement on the Israeli-Palestinian policy front set the stage.  Then the White House unleashed the full spectrum of new media engagement for this speech -- SMS and Twitter updates, online video, and online chatroom environment, and more.  This will likely be followed up upon to put substance on the notion of this as a "conversation" rather than an "address" -- which along with concrete policy progress will be the key to its long-term impact, if any. 
  • It's not like Bush left a legacy of active democratization which Obama is supposedly abandoning.  Rather than repeat the old buzzwords to please those invested in the democracy promotion industry, Obama did something more important by addressing head on some of the most vexing issues which have plagued American thinking about democracy in the region. This, to my eye, was the key statement:  America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.  As I noted yesterday, that suggests clearly that the U.S. will accept the democratic participation of peaceful Islamist movements as long as they abstain from violence --and respect their electoral victories provided that they commit to the democratic process.  He made a passionate defense of that latter point, that victors must demonstrate tolerance and respect for minorities and that elections alone are not enough.  But he clearly did not prejudge participants in the electoral game -- the old canard about Islamists wanting "one man, one vote, one time" thankfully, and significantly, did not appear.
Ed Webb

Face.com Brings Facial Recognition To Facebook Photos (We Have Invites) - 0 views

www.techcrunch.com/...acebook-photos-we-have-invites

face.com recognition facebook surveillance

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Mar 09 - Cached
  • How many photos of you are there on Facebook that you’re completely unaware of? Israeli-based Face.com will help you find them with ‘Photo Finder,’ a Facebook app that uses facial recognition to help members locate untagged photos of themselves and their friends.
  • Face.com claims to be able to perform facial recognition on all one billion photos currently uploaded into Facebook every single month using only a few machines.
  • Ed Webb on 27 Mar 09
     
    Of course, one can imagine less bengin applications of this technology.
  • Jim Franklin on 28 Mar 09
     
    Scary.
  • Ed Webb on 28 Mar 09
     
    'Benign' rather than 'bengin,' obviously.
Terri Soifer

The Axis of Stability: Why Qatar and the UAE Are So Calm - Blake Hounshell - Internatio... - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...237350

shared by Terri Soifer on 20 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • and many residents of the five northern emirates -- the ones not named Abu Dhabi or Dubai -- often feel they've been left out of the sweepstakes.
  • . Political filtering of the Internet is nowhere near as comprehensive as, say, China, but both governments have the capacity to censor websites and occasionally use it. A recent petition for political reform, signed by 130 Emirati activists and scholars, was met with stony silence by the government and next to no coverage in the local press.
  • e UAE
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • deed, while Arab satellite channels Al Jazeera (hosted in Qatar) and Al Arabiya (hosted in Dubai) tend to refrain from raking muck on their home turf, they regularly ask tough questions and
  • goes so far as to mandate that Muslim preachers across the country all read the same moderate sermon each Friday, written by a committee of moderate government sheikhs. And in Abu Dhabi, a phone bank of moderate scholars stands by, ready to provide an acceptable answer to such questions as, "Is it OK to go fight jihad in Afghanistan?"
  • Terri Soifer on 20 Apr 11
     
    he UAE even goes so far as to mandate that Muslim preachers across the country all read the same moderate sermon each Friday, written by a committee of moderate government sheikhs. And in Abu Dhabi, a phone bank of moderate scholars stands by, ready to provide an acceptable answer to such questions as, "Is it OK to go fight jihad in Afghanistan?"
Ed Webb

Escape from Mosul. An Iraqi journalist's story - 0 views

www.al-bab.com/...iraq-escape-from-mosul.htm

media Iraq Islamists

shared by Ed Webb on 11 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The Sunni Muslim extremist group that has taken over the city considers journalists among its worst enemies.
  • Unlucky applicants have no choice but to go back to Mosul or they must search for shelter in the nearest camp for displaced persons. In this shelter, out in the open, there is no protection against the high summer temperatures, or the dust or the noise of babies crying. The sick and elderly are sleeping on the dirt and local and international photographers eagerly take their pictures.
  • I show him my press credentials. But even then he won’t let me into the Iraqi Kurdish region. “We have a new policy,” he explains. “You won’t be able to get in unless you are accompanied by your family, no matter what your profession.” I saw dozens of families entering the region; none of them plan to return home again in the near future.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “The petrol stations have been closed for ten days,” is how the taxi driver who eventually picks us up to take us to the city of Erbil, inside the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, explains the high price he will charge us.
  • I call my family almost every day as well as friends in Mosul. The news coming from inside the city isn’t good. There are bombardments continuously and most of the victims seem to be civilians. Health services are apparently running out of supplies. Eventually I am deprived of the luxury of being able to call them – the telecommunications company in Mosul cuts its services for good on July 4 at 11am
  • I didn’t feel out of place in Erbil though. I met journalists every day, many of whom had left Mosul because they were afraid of being targeted by the IS group or because they needed to search for jobs. Some say that unemployment in Mosul must be as high as 90 percent by now.
Ed Webb

Israeli textbook 'bad for Arabs, bad for Jews' - AJE News - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...-bad-jews-160308091457575.html

Israel Palestinians education civics history memory nakba democracy nationalism

shared by Ed Webb on 11 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 11 Mar 16
     
    Education, particularly history and civics education, has been a highly sensitive battleground in Israel for some time between right and left and between the Jewish majority and Arab minority (leaving aside the Occupied Territories). But as this article correctly reports, this has become more intense under the rightward drift of Israel's governments over the past several years. Parties of the ideological right, whether religious or not, often want control of the education ministry.
Ed Webb

Cameron's McCarthyite smear will not silence opponents of Syria bombing | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...ponents-syria-bombing-76982922

UK Britain ISIS Syria Iraq military war politics opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • David Cameron yesterday denounced all opponents of his plans to bomb Syria as “terrorist sympathisers”. That makes me a terrorist sympathiser as well, and places me in distinguished company.
  • War is specially serious, as it always involves loss of life and causes such suffering. This does not mean that we should never fight a war, but it makes it outrageous when war is used for partisan political advantage.David Cameron and his fellow Tory strategists have been doing exactly that for more than a week. He has been using the argument on Syria to cause chaos in the Labour Party.
  • he has come to share the disastrous analysis of G W Bush after 9/11. The United States president’s notorious statement that “You are either with us or against us” left no room for argument or discussion.Intelligent critics in the United States were cast into the political darkness. With a very few honourable exceptions, the opposition Democratic party rallied behind Bush as the commander-in-chief, gave him sweeping new powers and saluted smartly as he led the United States into his disastrous war in Iraq. US allies had the choice of joining in the US “war on terror” or themselves coming under suspicion or attack.The events of the last 14 years have exposed this way of looking at the world as simple-minded and calamitous. If we have learnt anything from the Iraq War, it is that actions, however well intended, can have unintended consequences.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Some of Jeremy Corbyn's political tactics have been inept, but his cause has been honourable. Last week in the House of Commons he asked a series of sensible and pertinent questions in an unhysterical way.He performed the classic role of a British opposition leader. To charge him and others with being terrorist sympathisers is low politics. If Cameron succeeds in his methods British government will take a sharp turn to the worse.
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