ACLU: Reducing HIV Transmission Requires Decriminalizing Sex Work.

Iraqi Crowds Erupt in Joyous Celebrations as PM, Elected Under Bush Constitution, Offers to Resign.

Setting up a system that is less corrupt will be a bigger challenge. I hope they succeed.

Regarding Ayatollah Sistani, I have read that the long-established Shi'a tradition is to have separation between the religion and state, so that religious leaders can criticize oppression by the state. Iran's "Islamic Republic" was an aberration against this tradition.

US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Put Patients First Act, which would insist that religion is no excuse for discrimination in providing medical care.

What to do with imprisoned Islamist terrorists poses a conundrum, world-wide.

In Western countries the danger of Islamist terrorism is pretty small, overall. The danger of being murdered by an Islamist terrorist is tiny compared with the danger of being murdered for some other reason, and unless you are black that too is small.

Thus, if we resist the pressure to freak out about this tiny danger, we will find that releasing Islamist convicts at the end of their sentences is an acceptably small risk in an otherwise-risky world.

Corbyn is resisting that pressure.

*[US military] contractors gleefully report record earnings in divisions that bid on 'classified' projects, the fastest-growing part of the Pentagon's budget.*

Aside from the harm of a pit for public money spent in unaccountable ways, there is also the danger that these systems will be used to repress people, either in the US or elsewhere. This includes mass surveillance, which (as China shows, especially in Xinjiang) is the preparatory step for repression.