The new deal is an important moment and marks a new stage in the relationship between the EU and the UK. It addresses the shortcomings of the Northern Ireland Protocol and delivers long-lasting solutions for trade rules that will work for the people of Northern Ireland. The Windsor Framework is a success.
While the Windsor Framework has so far been warmly received, it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to end the DUP's boycott. Previous trade agreements have been highly contentious and there's no guarantee that this deal will be popular.
The GOP and those suing to repeal Biden’s loan forgiveness plan are doing it to block the president’s agenda while knowing full well the benefits it would have. The secretary of education has the right to provide debt relief in the face of national emergencies, like the COVID pandemic, and SCOTUS should prevent the Republicans’ obstruction.
Biden’s plan to cancel student loan debt is not just irresponsible, it's unconstitutional. The executive branch does not have the power to spend $400B of taxpayer money without Congressional approval. Hopefully, this program is struck down and a constitutional way to address the bloated cost of higher education is found.
There’s a 38% chance that the US will forgive $10,000 of federal student loans per person before 2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
While TikTok is extremely popular with younger generations, its Chinese ownership has caused justified fears over its potential use as a means to collect data on Westerners or promote misinformation and pro-China narratives. As China and the West are locked in an escalating technology war, Europe, the US, and Canada are rightly placing greater scrutiny on TikTok's security and data privacy.
Recent decision-making by Canada, the US, and the EU surrounding TikTok is the latest move in the West's attempts to squeeze Chinese technology companies and lead a political witch hunt. While sanctions against the app will have only a slight impact on TikTok's market value, the real losers will be the Canadians prohibited from using the platform.
There's a 19% chance that the US will ban TikTok before 2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Russian forces are continuing to capture towns on the outskirts of Bakhmut and progressing with their plans of encircling the city. Its capture is important as it will pave the way to securing the rest of the Donetsk region.
Fierce fighting has already been going on in Bakhmut for months and, even if Russia prevails, it will have lost so many men and so much equipment that the result could hardly be celebrated. A Moscow victory in the region might be a symbolic gain, but would provide little strategic benefit in the wider conflict.
There is a 20% chance that Russia will capture or surround a large Ukrainian city before June 1, 2023, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
The evidence continues to mount that the Biden admin.'s rushed and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan directly led to the fall of Kabul and the Taliban returning to power. There's no excuse for the unjust suffering the Afghan people have endured since then, all because Biden wanted to score some cheap political points. While it was Trump who signed the Doha Agreement, it was ultimately Biden who executed a botched withdrawal.
The US's disastrous invasion and occupation of Afghanistan under George W. Bush, not Biden's withdrawal, are to blame for the fall of Kabul and the current security crisis. The fact that Afghan security forces crashed immediately following the US withdrawal indicates that the security situation was simply unsustainable, and the collapse was essentially inevitable. There are, of course, valid criticisms of the withdrawal, but most have been unnecessary partisan attacks against Biden.
There is a clear difference between the United State's relationship with Mexican cartels and that of the Mexican government. While Sinaloa is still the main distributor of illicit drugs in the US, cartel members know that they can't wage violent wars on the US military and police as they do south of the border. When the US government wants a drug lord, it will find him, arrest him, and put him behind bars for a long time.
The US media has an incredibly inaccurate and racialized perspective of the so-called "drug war" in Mexico. Drug trafficking and violence in Mexico have much more to do with how criminal networks work in conjunction with the Mexican state than what amounts to occasional military operations against said networks. Even as the US and Mexican governments' response has expanded and militarized over the years, drug smuggling and use in the US have only increased.
The perpetrators of this cruel terrorist attack must be held accountable. Elan Ganeles, a young man with his whole life ahead of him, was killed in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. The settle rampage on Sunday was, of course, barbaric and monstrous, but that doesn't justify the killing of an innocent young man. Israeli forces must pursue these terrorists and acquire justice for Ganeles's grieving family.
No one wants to see killings in the holy land, but it's the occupation that has caused these tragedies. Palestinians are facing a state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing and are lashing out against their colonizers. Emboldened by international silence after killing more Palestinians last year than in any other year since the Second Intifada, the occupation is becoming even more violent.
It is clear from Murdoch's own admission that the media tycoon chose not to intervene and stop Fox's continued false claims surrounding the validity of the 2020 election. The picture that emerges is that both Murdoch and Fox chose to sidestep the truth in order to appease a pro-Trump audience that was angered when confronted with a loss. Fox shouldn't have aligned itself with extremists regarding election denial.
Freedom of the press is foundational to democracy, and Fox News’s right to report on the news, and provide opinion and analysis, is under attack. The allegations aired were extremely newsworthy at the time, and Fox gave Dominion a platform to respond. It will be extremely difficult to prove “actual malice,” even if a handful of individual commentators did support the claims, so Fox will undoubtedly prevail, and Fox journalists will continue to do their vital job.
There is a 48% chance that the 2024 US Presidential Election will also be considered fraudulent by the losing party, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Palestinian voices have long been silenced by tech giants, and Twitter under Musk has continued this trend of suppressing journalists who speak out against abuses in the Middle East. Musk purports to be a free speech absolutist, yet his regime suspended a Palestinian journalist without reason — a dangerous violation of his rights that has been alarmingly ignored by the mainstream media.
Said Arikat is a dangerous peddler of propaganda whose influence isn't limited to his following online. He deliberately slandered Israel at a State Department press briefing by saying an Israeli soldier had shot "point blank at an unarmed Palestinian," when in reality the officer was firing at a terrorist — just one of his many lies that can lead to anti-Semitic violence and shouldn't be tolerated.
While Iranian officials have described the poisoning as a deliberate criminal act, the Islamic Republic has failed to take action to protect Iranian girls and bring to justice those responsible. This alone would amount to dereliction of duty, but worse still, the fact that women and girls have been the target of the ongoing crackdowns brings the government's own possible role into question. The international community must hold an external investigation.
By launching a criminal investigation into these disgraceful attacks against schoolgirls, the Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated its commitment to encouraging Iranian girls to study, work, and think in a safe environment in order to become protagonists of the nation's progress. It is nonsensical and malevolent to try to blame Tehran for such incidents.
There's a 50% chance that Iran will cease to be an Islamic Republic by January 2036, according to the Metaculus prediction community.