Middle East Experience

View the intense sight of the Jerusalem wildfire as it lights up Israel's skies.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Jerusalem area wildfire in pictures - see the devastation

Emergency services have evacuated thousands of residents from a number of towns as the fires continue to spread.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Israel requests international aid amid largest fire since Carmel blaze

The UN Security Council called for the establishment, through negotiations, of a new government in Afghanistan.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: UN Security Council discuss Afghanistan in emergency meeting

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Monday night that firefighting efforts near Jerusalem are continuing as wildfires had not been fully extinguished. 

“At this time, it seems that the efforts to bring the fire under control are moving in a positive direction but it must be said that it is not over until it is over,” said Bennett in a statement. 
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Firefighting efforts continue through night near Jerusalem

Saher Ismail, adviser of the education minister, was killed this week outside his house in the Israeli-Arab town of Rameh; he was the 74th Israeli-Arab murdered since the beginning of the year.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Bennett launches national campaign against crime in Israeli-Arab villages

Graffiti artists in the Gaza Strip are painting murals across the besieged enclave after the latest Israeli war to send a different kind of message to the world.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Gaza graffiti combines conflict, despair and hope for Palestinians

Social media platforms like Twitter that incentivize user interaction amplify expressions of moral outrage over time because users learn this type of language gets rewarded with an increased number of “likes” and “shares,” a new Yale University study published in Science Advances shows.These rewards had the greatest influence on users connected with politically moderate networks.“Social media’s incentives are changing the tone of our political conversations online,” said Yale’s William Brady, a postdoctoral researcher in the Yale Department of Psychology and first author of the study.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.He led the research with Molly Crockett, an associate professor of psychology at Yale.The Yale team measured the expression of moral outrage on Twitter during real life controversial events and studied the behaviors of subjects to test whether social media’s algorithms, which reward users for posting popular content, encourage outrage expressions.“This is the first evidence that some people learn to express more outrage over time because they are rewarded by the basic design of social media,” Brady said.Moral outrage can be a strong force for societal good, motivating punishment for moral transgressions, promoting social cooperation, and spurring social change.It also has a dark side, contributing to the harassment of minority groups, the spread of disinformation, and political polarization, researchers said.Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter argue that they merely provide a neutral platform for conversations that would otherwise happen elsewhere. But many have speculated that social media amplifies outrage. Hard evidence for this claim was missing, however, because measuring complex social expressions like moral outrage with precision poses a technical challenge, the researchers said.To compile that evidence, Brady and Crockett assembled a team which built machine learning software capable of tracking moral outrage in Twitter posts. In observational studies of 12.7 million tweets from 7,331 Twitter users, they used the software to test whether users expressed more outrage over time, and if so, why.The team found that the incentives of social media platforms like Twitter really do change how people post. Users who received more “likes” and “retweets” when they expressed outrage in a tweet were more likely to express outrage in later posts. To back up these findings, the researchers conducted controlled behavioral experiments to demonstrate that being rewarded for expressing outrage caused users to increase their expression of outrage over time.The results also suggest a link to current debates on social media’s role in political polarization. Brady and his colleagues found that members of politically extreme networks expressed more outrage than members of politically moderate networks.However, members of politically moderate networks were actually more influenced by social rewards.“This suggests a mechanism for how moderate groups can become politically radicalized over time — the rewards of social media create positive feedback loops that exacerbate outrage,” Crockett said.The study did not aim to say whether amplifying moral outrage is good or bad for society, Crockett stressed. But the findings do have implications for leaders who use the platforms and policy makers who are considering whether to regulate them.“Amplification of moral outrage is a clear consequence of social media’s business model, which optimizes for user engagement,” Crockett said. “Given that moral outrage plays a crucial role in social and political change, we should be aware that tech companies, through the design of their platforms, have the ability to influence the success or failure of collective movements.”She added, “Our data show that social media platforms do not merely reflect what is happening in society. Platforms create incentives that change how users react to political events over time.”Read more:Twitter unblocks accounts of India’s Rahul Gandhi, other opposition leadersInstagram introduces new tools to reduce abusive, racist content
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Social media online outrage influenced by ‘likes’ and ‘shares’: Study

The election of Iran's new president and the Taliban's stunning takeover in Afghanistan have somewhat shaken up the Iran nuclear deal talks, but the United States and Iran clearly know reinstating the deal is in both their favor.
Source: Al Monitor
Full Article: Whither US policy toward Iran?

Afghan asylum seekers will be permitted to enter the UK without a passport, according to British Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace. On Monday he said the government wants to make it easier for interpreters and contractors who supported Western forces to seek asylum in the UK.Ahead of the final withdrawal of US troops, the Taliban entered the capital Kabul over the weekend and seized power. President Ashraf Ghani left the country on Sunday saying he wanted to avoid bloodshed.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Wallace also said that he and the Home Secretary Priti Patel were working together to help Afghans escape. Speaking to Sky News, Wallace said: “We are processing as fast as we can, and where there are rules that we need to change, we are changing those rules.”He said the plan was to ferry them “out from Afghanistan to a Middle East country and then back to the United Kingdom, so we can keep the flow of aeroplanes, in and out.”Wallace said major airlifting operations are underway with the government was planning to fly out 1,500 more people from Afghanistan over the next two days.The Defense Secretary also acknowledged that many officials will be left behind unless they can make it to Kabul where the Taliban have reportedly agreed to allow embassy staff to extract.Wallace also said that the government was planning to fly out 1,500 more people from Afghanistan over the next two days, AP reported.According to Reuters, military flights evacuating diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan resumed early on Tuesday after the runway at Kabul airport was cleared of thousands of people desperate to flee after the Taliban seized the capital.Meanwhile, the Associated Press quoted British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab as saying that the British government is planning an “open-hearted” and “bespoke” asylum policy for Afghan citizens.The details, Raab said, will be set out soon by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel.British officials are calling in people to go to the vicinity of the airport as and when a flight becomes available for them, reported Reuters on Tuesday. There, they have to be allowed through into the airport grounds by the Taliban. Once inside, British officials undertake the necessary security checks before taking them to the airfield where they await their flight back to the UK.Britain is seeking to evacuate 4,000 UK nationals and Afghan allies who have helped over the past 20 years.Read more:Iran says its embassy in Kabul remains open, fully activeTaliban and al-Qaeda bonds remain strong, parting of ways unlikely: AnalystsPentagon working on evacuating US citizens, Afghan citizens out of Afghanistan
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Afghan asylum seekers to be allowed to enter UK without passport: Defense Secretary

Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has removed the US, Israel, Italy and three others from its green list starting August 18, according to Visit Abu Dhabi.The emirate also removed Armenia, Austria and the Maldives from the list due to surging COVID-19 cases.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.After the changes are implemented on Wednesday, the green list will include: Albania, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Malta, Mauritius, Moldova, New Zealand, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Ukraine.Bahrain, Serbia, Greece and Seychelles have been listed as travel corridors, meaning that vaccinated travelers coming from these countries will not need to quarantine upon arrival in Abu Dhabi. Vaccinated passengers traveling from non-green listed countries will need to wear a wristband for health authorities to monitor their mandatory seven-day quarantine.Vaccinated visitors and tourists can now verify their international vaccine certificates. On Sunday, Abu Dhabi’s Emergency, Crisis and Disasters Committee announced the verification process which involves registering and submitting their certificate on the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship app (ICA) before departure.They will then receive an SMS message with a link which will refer them to the Alhosn app - an integral part of the UAE’s pandemic strategy - which will then be activated once they arrive in Abu Dhabi. However, unvaccinated travelers will need to quarantine for ten days.Read more:Abu Dhabi outlines requirements for vaccinated, unvaccinated entry to public placesAbu Dhabi announces verification process for visitors’ intl vaccine certificatesSearch for Dubai trips surges 287 pct early August amid travel rule changes
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Abu Dhabi removes US, Israel, four others from COVID-19 green list