Loan companies, in Africa and the US, make would-be borrowers submit to total surveillance by installing spyware in their phones.

I think we need laws to prohibit companies from requiring or even asking customers (including borrowers) to run any nonfree software.

A "smart" phone is a computer. If your computer runs nonfree software, it is someone else's tool to mistreat you. There are smartphones that can run the free operating system Replicant in the main or "application" processor, but all mobile phones have nonfree software, at least in the radio communication processor.

Putin is expelling Turkish citizens from Russia in the harshest possible way, clearly meant as a gesture to prove what a bully he can be.

The reasons stated for this action include bullshit, plus an accusation that is probably true: that Turkey is protecting PISSI's oil export trade.

Both Turkey and Russia must be lying about what happened in the downing of the Russian jet.

Repression in Turkey has reached the point where a state employee has been fired for comparing Erdoğan's face to that of Gollum.

When Erdoğan doesn't understand is that he is the one bringing Turkey into disrepute.

Sending independently operating US combat troops to fight in Syria invites making things worse.

The slow struggle to establish protection of marine species threatened by overfishing takes place in the shadow of the CO2 threat to wipe out entire ecosystems and families.