*UN staff in West Bank accuse Israeli authorities of campaign of harassment.

Documents seen by the Guardian list hundreds of incidents, including UNRWA workers allegedly being blindfolded and beaten.*

I see no reason to doubt these accusations. Those employees are Palestinians. It is quite common for the Israeli soldiers and border patrol, or the fanatical "settlers", to treat Palestinians brutally.

Why would they make an exception for those who work for UNRWA?

*Yes, TikTok sucks. But the rules for tech giants must be better than "it's only bad if China does it."*

I think countries can indeed be safer by barring antisocial media platforms that accumulate data for adversary countries.

It is true that this also helps dictatorships block the influence of anyone from outside the dictator's power. But dictators already do that, as it suits them, So I don't think this is a valid argument about what a free country should do.

However, it is equally dangerous for a "domestic" company to collect lots of personal data about people, with which to manipulate and control them. And using peer pressure to make almost everyone "consent" is not an excuse. We need to protect American minors, and American adults, from Facebook and Ex-Twitter as well as Lies Social, and to do it in a way that respects freedom of speech.

My proposal is to require recommendation engines to be independent from platforms, using a standard protocol, so that any user can choose to send an edited subset of per viewing history on any platform to any recommendation engine, anonymously. then choose to follow (or not) some or all of the recommendation.

When the US supported the coup against President Zelaya of Honduras, the coup-installed government under President Hernández gave coup investors large parts of the country to rule as fiefs.

The new government has revoked these fiefdoms, and Hernández is in a US prison convicted of narcotrafficking, but the coup investors are trying to impose their long-term power through a secret court run by the World Bank.

It seems that CAFTA, a business-supremacy treaty, includes an ISDS clause

which they hope the World Bank will help them enforce.

Honduras has announced it will abrogate its membership in CAFTA and defy the World Bank. Bravo!

Such treaties often have a clause saying that the special power of foreign investors will continue for some number of decades even if the country pulls out of the treaty. Rejecting CAFTA may not be enough to make the World Bank drop the cases. If not, there will be struggles around the world to convince other governments to refuse to support the coup investors.

I can't forecast which side Obama will take, but it is clear that the wrecker would take the side of the investors if they bribe him enough.

GM cars snoop on their drivers, and GM makes the data available (through a broker) to insurance companies.

To make this data available to anyone but the owner or renter of the car should be a crime. If the car is owned by a rental company, that company should not have access to it either.

The campaign by poor countries for the World Trade Organization to temporarily suspend patents on treatments and vaccines for Covid-19 was defeated by governments in the pockets of Big Pharma.

Patents are the expensive, gruesome way to fund drug research. We should abolish those patents and fund the research with public money.