How the Palestinians were expelled from their homes

In the west and especially in the US, one of the least known elements of the story of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the ugly story of how the Palestinians were uprooted from their land and homes leading up to and through the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The heroic story of how the Jews, ‘a people without a land’ came to occupy ‘a land without a people’, was always based on a false premise. Palestine, far from being a largely unoccupied wasteland, was a bustling place, home to many people whose ancestors had lived there for millennia.
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Hindus becoming like Christians about sex

In the past, Hinduism used to take a refreshingly open attitude towards sex. One has only to see the carvings on old Hindu temples with people engaged in all manner of sexual acts to quickly recognize this. But that was then, this is now. Hindus have become just like people of other major religions in viewing sex as something sinful and to be discouraged except in highly restrictive settings.
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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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