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Posts by Omar Waraich

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"A thousand dead humanitarians in three years - when did that become normal?"

United Nations Under-Secretary-General Tom Fletcher on the violence facing humanitarian workers in conflict zones.

Watch the event➡️ bit.ly/4cDWXbb

1 day ago 53 39 0 3
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Nine lessons for the US from Viktor Orbán’s defeat | Kenneth Roth As US elections approach, the Hungarian prime minister’s loss is a reminder that history does not march relentlessly toward autocracy

Hungarian voters' rejection of their autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, holds important lessons for efforts in the United States to resist Trump's own autocratic tendencies. Here are nine lessons that I draw: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

2 days ago 3 3 0 0
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A.I. Has a Message Problem of Its Own Making A.I. companies are facing hostility and mistrust—and much of the heightened, sometimes histrionic rhetoric about the powers of the technology has come from within the industry.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman wants to “de-escalate” the rhetoric around A.I. But if you tell people that your product will upend their way of life, take their jobs, and possibly threaten humanity, they might believe you. www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

1 week ago 68 14 8 5
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How Project Maven Put A.I. Into the Kill Chain A new book charts the creation of a secretive system that automates warfare for the military. The progression from target identification to target destruction is four clicks.

A new book charts the creation of a secretive A.I. system that automates warfare for the military. The progression from target identification to target destruction is four clicks. www.newyorker.com/books/under-...

1 week ago 28 13 2 4
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How to End the Iran Crisis Tehran needs positive incentives, not just pressure.

"This war has proved that Washington can’t force Tehran into submission." - @FedericaMog, former top EU negotiator with Iran.

www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/how-end...

1 week ago 27 7 0 0
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Double Shot of Privacy's Defender in D.C. You're invited to join EFF’s Executive Director Cindy Cohn at two events in Washington, D.C. on the national tour for her new book: Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital

Cindy Cohn's tour discussing her new book, Privacy's Defender, continues in Washington, D.C. on April 13 with Gigi Sohn and April 14 with WISP! Register now: www.eff.org/deeplinks/2....

2 weeks ago 64 15 1 0
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The rise of facial recognition policing The technology is being rolled out by forces across the country—and there are no obvious limits on how it can be used

In the absence of any specific laws governing police use of facial recognition, the public is asked to take it all on trust, writes Mark Wilding fro Liberty Investigates

3 weeks ago 18 15 2 0
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Over 100 International Law Experts Warn: U.S. Strikes on Iran Violate UN Charter and May Be War Crimes Over 100 international law experts sign letter on Iran War, UN Charter, and international humanitarian law.

Over 100 international lawyers (including me) warn that U.S. strikes on Iran violate the UN Charter and may be war crimes.

Read the letter here:

www.justsecurity.org/135423/profe...

3 weeks ago 358 150 7 12
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Gas May Hit $4 Today, Oil Rises Again Above $110 The Strait of Hormuz, which is used to transport 20% of the world’s oil, is still closed and Iran said Friday it forced at least three ships to turn back.

The Strait of Hormuz, which is used to transport 20% of the world’s oil, is still closed and Iran said Friday it forced at least three ships to turn back.

3 weeks ago 775 328 142 43
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Blue quotation marks and text on a white background, stating: “An AI system can perform technically well and still fail farmers if it ignores economic and ecological realities.”

Blue quotation marks and text on a white background, stating: “An AI system can perform technically well and still fail farmers if it ignores economic and ecological realities.”

A collage with two panels. The left panel shows a person sitting outdoors with a camera and a laptop. In the background, a chain-link fence is visible. The right panel features someone cheerfully carrying seedlings in a field, with others in the background. The image is in a blue and green color scheme.

A collage with two panels. The left panel shows a person sitting outdoors with a camera and a laptop. In the background, a chain-link fence is visible. The right panel features someone cheerfully carrying seedlings in a field, with others in the background. The image is in a blue and green color scheme.

Big Tech’s AI tools trained on Western data often can’t recognize local crops, forests, or farming conditions without adaptation to local environments restofworld.org/2026/ai-agriculture-loca...

3 weeks ago 7 5 0 0
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The Iran war highlights the creeping use of AI in warfare The war in Iran has added to concerns about the risks of using AI to select targets during armed conflict.

The US-Israeli war with Iran has amplified long-standing concerns over the adoption of artificial intelligence-supported targeting in modern warfare.

3 weeks ago 11 6 2 0
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Nancy Fraser | After Habermas Jürgen Habermas may be variously described as the moral conscience of postwar Germany, the last great systematic...

Incredible, sharp, critical reflection on Habermas’ legacy from Nancy Fraser. This is the postmortem I’ve been hoping would come and also sums up so much of my relationship to his work

4 weeks ago 202 61 6 7
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Middle East Conflict: Rhetoric, Actions Flout Laws of War The geographic spread, speed of escalation, and open disregard for international norms by all parties one month into the Middle East conflict are a critical stress test for the international legal ord...

“As the Middle East conflict has spread and intensified, so too has the dangerous rhetoric by leaders on all sides, including open threats to commit war crimes.”

- @bolopion.bsky.social / @hrw.org on the past month of war in the Middle East

Read more ⤵️

4 weeks ago 0 2 0 0
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In the Age of A.I., What Is Taste? And Do We Still Have It? A.I. companies are attempting to hitch themselves to an aura of artisanality. But has the online ecosystem become so polluted that it has warped our ability to exercise taste at all?

Great piece by @chaykak.bsky.social . Tech companies know AI i
s anti-taste. To have taste is to discern. AI trained indiscriminately on data is not discerning www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

1 month ago 7 6 1 0

It was a pleasure to talk to @mehdirhasan.bsky.social about Nation of Strangers on legendary @zeteo.com

4 weeks ago 7 1 1 0
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Live updates: Iran war likely to last 4 to 5 weeks, Trump says As the war in the Middle East spirals further, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the U.S. has “the capability to go far longer” than its projected four-to-five-week time frame for its military operations against Iran.

The Israeli military says soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon as part of a broader effort to increase security for residents in northern Israel near their shared border as it battles Hezbollah militants.

1 month ago 50 29 20 4
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Horrific news from Iraq where feminist activist and human rights defender Yanar Mohammed, co-founder and director of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), has been assassinated by gunmen outside of her home just days after returning from Canada.

1 month ago 264 144 7 4
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Arrived in #SouthSudan and travelled directly to Malakal.

Met communities living through years of displacement, as well as families forced to return due to the war in Sudan.

They want peace – but people also need support now to rebuild their lives with dignity.

2 months ago 11 3 0 0
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Gaby Wood · At the Movies: ‘The Secret Agent’ Like Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, which had a similarly successful run last year, The Secret Agent is set during...

‘A large part of what’s great about 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘈𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵 is Wagner Moura, who inhabits his role with the naturalism of a documentary subject and the charisma of a star. He plays two roles, the second of which I won’t reveal.’

Gaby Wood at the movies.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

2 months ago 23 6 2 1
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Both Democrats and Republicans helped create the infrastructure for ideological surveillance at the US border—but the Trump administration is deploying it in the service of a radically partisan and censorial agenda. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

2 months ago 68 18 1 2
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What’s Labour actually good at? In a government of few policy successes, one policy area stands out

Even his enemies are likely to admit Ed Miliband is Labour’s best cabinet minister, writes Michael Jacobs. Not even Morgan McSweeney could stare him down...

4 months ago 12 2 1 1
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Why I should never have used ChatGPT as an OCD therapist I fear for people relying on AI for mental health advice

It was unwise to seek mental health advice from a platform that isn’t regulated to provide it—and is incentivised to keep users online, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social.

4 months ago 16 8 1 3
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Escape From the Abyss: Surviving the Atrocities in El Fasher

“I carried him on my back. It took seven days.” A camp in eastern Chad is now home to more than 100,000 refugees of Sudan’s civil war, and is a key destination for those fleeing El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State. Resources are strained as the number of newly displaced people increases.

4 months ago 447 175 21 8
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Michael Sheen spent his own money to write off $1.3 million of neighbors’ debts | CNN Actor Michael Sheen has bought $1.3 million of his neighbors’ debts and written them off using $129,000 of his own money.

The actor Michael Sheen used all his money to start a fake debt collecting business, buy 900 people in Wales's debt, and excused it. If Musk bought ALL $194 billion in medical debt in the U.S. and excused it in the same way, he'd still be the world's riches man by hundreds of billions of dollars.

4 months ago 9700 2734 152 299

The CBS reporter who led the story calls pulling it a "political" decision.
"The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment."
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...

4 months ago 2475 720 69 48

boy, a grim echo of Budapest's memorial to pogrom victims here.

4 months ago 621 137 3 1

The victims at Brown University?

Ella, a white Christian student, and Mukhammad, a Muslim student who originally came from Uzbekistan.

We're all in this together. Be wary of the hatemongers who are demonizing an entire faith for the sins of the few and love guns more than our kids.

4 months ago 1655 346 17 9
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Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who tackled one of the Bondi killers, became an Australian citizen 3 years ago.

His deed was "his way of conveying his gratitude for staying in Australia, for being granted citizenship."

He took 5 bullets, and fears he'll lose his left arm.

www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

4 months ago 24130 6044 629 518
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apart from the sheer inconceivable horror of the El Fasher massacre and its attendant horrors itself, the thing I'm feeling depressed about is that it probably won't matter.

these were people already on the utmost margins of the global system, who the world has already decided it doesn't care about

4 months ago 1038 241 17 5
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Why I should never have used ChatGPT as an OCD therapist I fear for people relying on AI for mental health advice

I fear for people relying on AI for mental health advice, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social.

4 months ago 6 4 1 0