“Unsurprisingly, the Israel-Gaza crisis has become the next digital battlefield. But recent shifts in the online ecosystem have made an already difficult arena even more challenging. What changes have further stressed the online information space? And is there anything we can do to reverse course? When a blast rocked the area around Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on October 17, 2023, likely killing hundreds, reports out of the region failed to accurately convey the uncertainty around the event. The reasons for this failure are certainly wide-ranging. Among them, covering evolving events in Gaza remains extremely difficult, with only a small number of journalists on the ground. For over a decade, social media provided an imperfect solution to help address this challenge. It operated as a ‘megaphone’ to disseminate real-time information about events unfolding in places where some journalists were unable or unwilling to go en masse. Since then, this type of hyper-localized content has often complemented more traditional reporting, providing a unique window on conflict zones, protests, and other rapidly evolving events that otherwise might go underexplored. In the past, X, formerly known as Twitter, offered a forum for users on the ground to disseminate these insights at scale, but recent policy changes not only make it harder to identify authoritative content but also may actively boost false claims.” (Valerie Wirtschafter/Brookings)
“The argument that the entire population of Gaza can be held responsible for Hamas’s actions is quickly discredited when one looks at the facts. Arab Barometer, a research network where we serve as co-principal investigators, conducted a survey in Gaza and the West Bank days before the Israel-Hamas war broke out. The findings, published here for the first time, reveal that rather than supporting Hamas, the vast majority of Gazans have been frustrated with the armed group’s ineffective governance as they endure extreme economic hardship. Most Gazans do not align themselves with Hamas’s ideology, either. Unlike Hamas, whose goal is to destroy the Israeli state, the majority of survey respondents favored a two-state solution with an independent Palestine and Israel existing side by side. Continued violence will not bring the future most Gazans hope for any closer. Instead of stamping out sympathy for terrorism, past Israeli crackdowns that make life more difficult for ordinary Gazans have increased support for Hamas. If the current military campaign in Gaza has a similar effect on Palestinian public opinion, it will further set back the cause of long-term peace.” (Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins/Foreign Affairs)
“The European Union has made Namibia a key part of a major infrastructure development plan it is rolling out to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The southern African country has agreed a partnership with the bloc to develop its renewable hydrogen capacity, backed by 1 billion euros ($1 billion) in EU investments. The deal is part of the EU’s Global Gateway initiative, a plan to ‘mobilize’ 300 billion euros ($322 billion) in public and private investments to develop projects focused on green energy, transport infrastructure and digital economies in various parts of the world.The partnership with Namibia includes plans to develop the Walvis Bay port, the entry point from the Atlantic side to the Walvis Bay – Maputo Corridor. Jutta Urpilainen, European commissioner for international partnerships, held talks with Namibian President Hage Geingob at the first ever EU-Namibia Business Forum, which was held in Brussels this week … Semafor: Why is revitalizing Namibia’s port infrastructure considered so important? Jutta Urpilainen: A thriving green hydrogen and critical raw materials industry requires good transport connectivity. Upgrading the ports of Walvis Bay and Lüderitz and developing the wider Maputo-Gaborone-Walvis Bay Strategic Corridor will be important for the future of these value chains.” (Alexis Akwagyiram/Semafor)
“The Democratic Party’s yearslong unity behind President Biden is beginning to erode over his steadfast support of Israel in its escalating war with the Palestinians, with a left-leaning coalition of young voters and people of color showing more discontent toward him than at any point since he was elected. From Capitol Hill to Hollywood, in labor unions and liberal activist groups, and on college campuses and in high school cafeterias, a raw emotional divide over the conflict is convulsing liberal America. While moderate Democrats and critics on the right have applauded Mr. Biden’s backing of Israel, he faces new resistance from an energized faction of his party that views the Palestinian cause as an extension of the racial and social justice movements that dominated American politics in the summer of 2020. In protests, open letters, staff revolts and walkouts, liberal Democrats are demanding that Mr. Biden break with decades-long American policy and call for a cease-fire.” (Reid J. Epstein and Anjali Huynh/NYT)
“There is a big debate going on in Tokyo over Japan’s position in the Israel-Hamas war. Some say Japan should strongly support Israel together with other major Western countries, especially as this year’s chair of the Group of Seven (G-7). Others say Tokyo should maintain a neutral position, not taking sides with the Israelis or the Palestinians. Japan is caught between a diplomatic rock and an economic hard place: between the United States, Japan’s only ally, which stands firmly with Israel, and Middle Eastern countries, from where Tokyo imports 94 percent of its crude oil and which strongly support Palestine. ‘Japan strongly condemns the attacks which severely harmed innocent civilians,’ Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 8, one day after Hamas’ massive surprise attack on Israel. ‘Japan is deeply concerned about a number of casualties in Gaza as well. All the parties concerned should exercise maximum restraint,’ he added, an attempt to keep Japan’s stance balanced.” (Takahashi Kosuke/The Diplomat)
The poppy fields of Afghanistan. (Christina Oxenberg)
“The Israelis are actually in a far more perilous position today than the United States was after 9/11. October 7 was a far greater shock in every imaginable sense. The murders and kidnappings were more brutal; the numbers, relative to its population, orders of magnitude higher; and its government far more divisive and distrusted than even the very questionably legitimate George W. Bush administration was. Swift vengeance is the order of the day, consequences be damned. As the Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard has noted, in horror, ‘Lawmakers from the ruling party are openly and unashamedly calling for a second Nakba, where the defense minister orders a denial of water, food, and fuel to millions of civilians; a country whose president, Isaac Herzog, Israel’s moderate face, says that all Gazans are responsible for Hamas’ crimes.’” (Eric Alterman/TNR)
“Last week, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against Digital Currency Group (DCG), its CEO Barry Silbert, and DCG’s bankrupt subsidiary Genesis Global Trading for defrauding investors of more than $1 billion. While the case lacks the lurid details of the FTX collapse late last year, DCG’s alleged fraud has also implicated one of D.C.’s centrist luminaries: economist and former Treasury secretary Larry Summers. And much like former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s allies in D.C., Summers has managed to avoid media scrutiny for his legitimization of DCG. While Summers became the media’s face of advocating for harsh Fed rate hikes and devastating unemployment, he has spent his time since leaving the federal government cashing in from a litany of advisory positions and seats on corporate boards of directors, in addition to teaching at Harvard. In 2016, he began to advise DCG, holding a position that was alternately called senior adviser and advisory board member for over six years, until he resigned from the company in January of this year, after the SEC and DOJ announced a probe into DCG. Afterward, Summers scrubbed his personal website of any mention of his time there. But that does not absolve him of what was grossly irresponsible behavior at a minimum.” (Henry Burke and Julian Scoffield/The American Prospect)
“To embrace the label of being a witch is to reclaim pride in being an independent woman, defying gender conventions, asserting control of your agency, and telling the patriarchy to shove it. Embodying witch imagery was as practical for Nicks as it was emotional, a means of accentuating her movements on arena stages. Swaying in the moment became twirls of grandeur, her sleeves, veils and skirts casting sparkles and shadows onto faces below. Nicks even winked to her legacy with a cameo on American Horror Story: Coven in 2014, playing piano so tenderly it moves one of the coven members to twirl under Nicks' strictly-musical spell. It's no wonder that women in music, past and present, identify with witch imagery to assert their own confidence in life, subversion, and romance.” (Jill Krajewski/Noisey)
“Palestinians are familiar with such scenes in real life: apparent blindness followed by staggering realization. When someone, a stranger, suddenly comes to know what perhaps they did not want to know. A few months ago, I was in Palestine with a group of international writers for the Palestine Festival of Literature, a traveling festival with a strong pedagogical element: while the evenings are devoted to readings and panel discussions, the daytimes are jam-packed with tours and talks for the visiting writers. Several of these writers experienced something like tragic awakening. They said things like ‘My youth is gone’ and ‘I have walked through a door and it has locked behind me.’ These were not even people who needed to be brought over from a distant political position: they came to Palestine with the desire to learn. They visited Hebron, and saw the soldiers patrolling, guarding settlers; they visited the destroyed town of al-Lydd; they navigated checkpoints; they traveled through Jerusalem and crossed in and out of the West Bank; they listened to statistics of killings and imprisonments and nighttime raids and asked careful questions. And they all seemed genuinely changed by the experience. I was moved to see them moved, while at the same time I experienced a kind of despairing déjà vu: the scene of recognition having become at this point rather familiar.” (Isabella Hammand/The Paris Review)
“As the pop star releases her latest re-recorded album, ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version),’ Bloomberg reports that she has achieved billionaire status. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, (Taylor) Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour catapulted her net worth to $1.1 billion. ‘Swift Inc. is essentially a multinational conglomerate with the world’s most devoted customer base, its most charismatic CEO and significant economic power,’ the Bloomberg article states, estimating that her 53 U.S. tour dates this year added $4.3 billion to the country’s gross domestic product. According to the publication, the Eras Tour earned over $700 million in ticket sales for shows performed so far — and that’s not including profits from her box office-topping ‘Eras Tour’ film or the international leg of her tour, which kicks off in South America next month. In fact, since Bloomberg has only deemed the singer a billionaire based on “assets and earnings that could be confirmed or traced from publicly disclosed figures,” her actual net worth is probably much higher. To calculate Swift’s new billionaire status, Bloomberg analyzed the value of her music catalog and five homes, as well as profits from music sales, streaming, concert tickets and merchandise. The estimation also took into account income tax, touring and travel costs and payment to her employees.” (Ellise Shafer/Variety)
“President Biden returned to meet with EU counterparts after his whirlwind trip to the Middle East. … The inability to reach any form of agreement on critical minerals, steel and aluminum tariffs, and green subsidies meant the summit had few specific deliverables. Despite US pressure on Europe to levy similar steel and aluminum tariffs on China, divisions remained due to European concerns about international trade rules. Europe is seeking greater access to subsidies under the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) especially given pressure faced from Chinese competitors. However, these transatlantic efforts also reveal that perceived regulatory differences over labor and environmental conditions across supply chains have stymied agreement on critical minerals. As the US and EU chart their respective trade and climate strategies, less visible is the continued dialogue between the private and public sectors, and joint efforts by stakeholders across diverse industries on artificial intelligence. The rapid pace of development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has generated intense debate and varying policy responses in the EU and the United States. While the EU moves forward on legislation on AI, having deliberated over a strategy since 2018, the Biden administration is expected to use existing tools as Congress debates how to move forward with legislation on AI policy issues through federal antitrust regulation. Sustained efforts to act collaboratively and responsively are needed given the increasingly central place AI will play in digital infrastructure. Outreach to big tech companies is also critical amid concerns about the impact of a non-democratic state (such as China) setting the rules on AI governance.” (Michelle Egan/The Wilson Center)
“Discord, the online messaging platform that started as a haven for gamers, became better known earlier this year as the site where hundreds of classified U.S. defense documents were leaked. The crisis put the spotlight on the work of John Redgrave, Discord’s head of trust and safety who often works with law enforcement. But the bulk of those interactions focus on other kinds of cases involving minors, like child sexual abuse. That job has gotten harder, and easier, because of advances in artificial intelligence. Redgrave shared how Discord worked with law enforcement to thwart high school shootings in Brazil and revealed new software that can detect child sexual abuse material that hasn’t been identified by authorities. Redgrave, a serial entrepreneur in machine learning, joined the company two years earlier after Discord acquired his startup Sentropy, which makes software to fight online harassment. At Discord, he has expanded the trust and safety team while also leaning into machine learning to prevent exploitation on the platform.” (Reed Albergotti/semafor)
“In the 1920s, at the beginning of the ‘age of aviation’, the Jesuit French priest Father Antoine Poidebard undertook one of the world's first aerial archaeological surveys, using a biplane and a camera to document hundreds of ancient forts and other sites throughout what today is Syria, Iraq and Jordan (Poidebard Reference Poidebard1934). Having piloted a biplane during the First World War, Poidebard later became a priest at Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut and joined the 39th Aviation Regiment of the French Levant forces, through which he began his expansive aerial survey of desert regions. Although today Poidebard is remembered primarily for his technological innovation in using aerial photography as an archaeological survey tool (Griswold Reference Griswold2019), an achievement that also fascinated his contemporaries (e.g. Dussaud Reference Dussaud1934; Jones Reference Jones1934; Hopkins Reference Hopkins1935), the substance of his investigation was based on mapping Roman-period forts and defensive installations along the eastern periphery of the empire. In his magisterial monograph, La Trace de Rome dans le desert de Syrie (Reference Poidebard1934), Poidebard presents hundreds of previously unknown forts and other sites over an area that stretches more than 1000km along the Roman frontier or limes.” (Antiquity)