Shoplifting Is Big News; Stealing Millions From Workers Is NotUrban crime is the golden child of local media, as recent FAIR coverage (6/21/21) has shown. But as FAIR’s Julie Hollar recently noted, the amount of attention given to a topic does not always reflect the seriousness of the situation. An alleged “crime surge” at Walgreens drugstores in San Francisco was a hot topic for Bay Area news outlets in the early months of 2021. When Lyanne Melendez, a reporter for the ABC-owned KGO-TV in San Francisco, tweeted out a cellphone video of a brazen shoplifter, it elevated this narrative into a nationwide story. The video purports to show a man apparently filling a garbage bag with items before riding a bicycle out of the store, as two people, one of whom seems to be a store security guard, record him. FAIR identified 309 published pieces on the 21-second video, using a combination of Nexis and Google advanced search to find every article published by a news outlet, from the video’s publication on June 14 to July 12—a 28-day timeframe. Compare this to another Walgreens-related theft story: the November settlement of a wage theft and labor law violation class-action lawsuit against Walgreens, filed by employees in California for $4.5 million. A multimillion-dollar settlement coming after a two-year legal struggle, this should have been a national news story, not to mention a major topic in local California outlets. But FAIR was unable to find a single general news outlet that covered the settlement, looking from November 2020 to July 2021, using the same search parameters as the aforementioned shoplifting video.
https://fair.org/home/shoplifting-is-big-news-stealing-millions-from-workers-is-not/Chris Hedges: Bless our American traitorsIntelligence analyst Daniel Hale exposed the indiscriminate murder of noncombatants in the global US drone war. For his heroism, he faces 10 years in prison while those who oversee these war crimes continue their killing spree. Daniel Hale, an active-duty Air Force intelligence analyst, stood in the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park in October 2011 in his military uniform. He held up a sign that read “Free Bradley Manning,” who had not yet announced her transition. It was a singular act of conscience few in uniform had the strength to replicate. He had taken a week off from his job to join the protesters in the park. He was present at 6am on October 14 when Mayor Michael Bloomberg made his first attempt to clear the park. He stood in solidarity with thousands of protesters, including many unionized transit workers, teachers, Teamsters and communications workers, who formed a ring around the park. He watched the police back down as the crowd erupted into cheers. But this act of defiance and moral courage was only the beginning.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/529747-drone-whistleblower-hale-jailed/Afghanistan: Iran could be the biggest loser from US withdrawalIran, because of its Shia character, was a special target of animosity for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. There is also a great deal of anti-Iran sentiment among Pashtuns. Tehran nearly went to war with the Taliban in 1998 after its diplomats were massacred in Mazar-i-Sharif. Iran thus supported the Northern Alliance and the Afghan Shia groups fighting the Taliban. India, because of its rivalry with Pakistan and its fear of the Taliban’s extremist Islam - and Russia for similar reasons - backed the Northern Alliance. At the time, Turkey was not deeply involved in Afghan politics, although it became more engaged after the US and Nato intervention. Since the US exit, the Taliban have advanced rapidly and now claim to control 85 percent of Afghanistan. Many Afghan citizens and more than 1,000 government troops have fled to Tajikistan. In the meantime, despite calls for intra-Afghan talks and political compromise, the Taliban have shown no interest in power-sharing. This unwillingness to compromise will inevitably lead other groups to resist them, ultimately inviting the interference of external powers. Yet, the old pattern of alignments is unlikely to reemerge. Firstly, Iran is unwilling to confront the Taliban, notwithstanding the potential threats to its eastern borders. Rather, Tehran seems to be seeking accommodation with the Taliban, recently hosting talks among Afghan groups, including Taliban representatives. While some have argued the Taliban have changed, and are no longer dangerous, anti-Iran and anti-Shia, other Iranians would disagree, but regardless, any deal involving Iran and the Taliban would alienate Iran’s traditional allies in Afghanistan and undermine Tehran’s ability to influence developments in the country.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-withdrawal-afghanistan-iran-could-be-biggest-loser