| Lebanon's hashish equation: If farmers gain, does Hezbollah lose? Posted: 09 Aug 2018 02:52 PM PDT ![Lebanon's hashish equation: If farmers gain, does Hezbollah lose?]( "Lebanon's hashish equation: If farmers gain, does Hezbollah lose?") For generations, residents of the impoverished flat plain of the northern Bekaa Valley have been cultivating cannabis. The illegal enterprise has earned modest incomes for farmers but immense fortunes for the dealers who buy the cannabis in bulk and export the product to lucrative markets in Europe and the Gulf. To defend their illicit crops, the fiercely independent Shiite tribes of the northern Bekaa do not hesitate to resort to arms when the Lebanese Army and police arrive with their bulldozers.
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| Argentina rejects legalizing abortion, but flings open once-taboo topic Posted: 09 Aug 2018 02:15 PM PDT ![Argentina rejects legalizing abortion, but flings open once-taboo topic]( "Argentina rejects legalizing abortion, but flings open once-taboo topic") Noelia Rodriguez sat at a table in front of Argentina's Congress this week, decorating and selling the green scarves that have become synonymous with the movement to decriminalize abortion in Argentina. Early Thursday morning, after 16 hours of debate, Argentina's conservative-leaning Senate rejected a bill to legalize abortion for pregnancies up to 14 weeks.
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| Are you what you post? Social media and the accountability debate Posted: 09 Aug 2018 02:14 PM PDT ![Are you what you post? Social media and the accountability debate]( "Are you what you post? Social media and the accountability debate") A number of young professional athletes, too, have had to answer for racial slurs and anti-gay comments posted when they were teens. Online trolls and political rabble-rousers comb through the social media archives of the famous and politically active, looking for past "gotcha" posts that might have crossed a hard-to-define cultural line that marks off the offensive and unacceptable. More and more, social thinkers and employers are trying to take a more nuanced view of past tweets and social media posts.
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| Jason Kessler and the alt-right implosion after Charlottesville Posted: 09 Aug 2018 02:06 PM PDT ![Jason Kessler and the alt-right implosion after Charlottesville]( "Jason Kessler and the alt-right implosion after Charlottesville") This weekend is in many ways a test for Jason Kessler. Mr. Kessler, the organizer of last year's Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, is staging an anniversary rally in Washington. After a year of being pilloried not only by the left but also his erstwhile allies, this is Kessler's big opportunity to recover from a disastrous rally that shook the nation and shattered the self-described alt-right movement.
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