@gerrit Not really. The Obama administration produced a document saying that the Government considered itself authorized to kill american citizens without supervision if a series of circumstances concurred. This circumstances were, among others, the citizen being designated a danger to the security of the state, and having them captured by security forces deemed too complicated or risky. While at the moment this meant "terrorists on foreign soil" it can equally be "bothering rival POTUS candidate, who has too many supporters to risk a police detention in the open".

@AleksandrDubinsky Our sources of information about North Korea are either defectors, or the South Korean intelligence, and both of them intentionally distort reality to picture North Korea in the worst light possible. The thing about having humongous amounts of artillery pointing to Saigon has been confirmed by satellite surveillance by the US, but you have to take everything you heard about NK with more than a pinch of salt. As I said before, it's not that surprising if NK can churn out massive amount of shells - but I'd bet the number being closer to 500,000 per year rather than 2m.

@quarague The technology for producing shells is not that revolutionary. The reason the whole NATO combined can't produce as many shells a year is because they don't need that many, can't use them all and can't store them safely in those huge quantities. North Korea is known to have hundreds and hundreds of cannons aiming to South Korea, so having millions of shells ready to use, and industrial capacity to build thousands and thousands of them per month doesn't seem that unreasonable.

@MoziburUllah Pretty much. Laissez-faire capitalism is always endorsed by the countries who at that moment can make desirable goods at the best price. When they see themselves at the losing end of the deal, those principles go out of the window.

@O.R.Mapper A national-wide poll is much, much, much more expensive than a protest. Even if it's a really violent protest with thousands of people burning things and destroying property, recquiring hundreds of police operatives the total cost is a rounding error compared to the cost of organizing a nationwide voting, even in a small nation. As such, any country which allows popular initiative votes wants to make sure the issue is important enough to justify the cost. Recquiring a long and tedious preparation to prove the referendum is worthy to have is not a bug of the system, it's a feature.

@ItalianPhilosophers4Monica I'm guessing Egypt is beting on the already-proven fact that IHL does not apply to Palestinians, and the USA can be easily cowed into submission on regard to policies against them. If Biden wants to press Egypt into opening the Rafah border, it's going to cost them as many weapons transfers to Egypt as they are willing to give Israel.

@ItalianPhilosophers4Monica Egypt is one of the many countries with a pro-Israel government and a not-so-much zionist population - to put it mildly. While Egypt collaborates intensively with Israel, it does it discretely. Egypt soldiers working hand-on-hand with the IDF is a picture they don't want seen being shared among its youth on social media, and they can't allow having any casualties on Rafah. They could trust Hamas not to attack the Rafah crossing; now they can't, nor they can trust the IDF. As such, staying the hell away from it it's the wisest thing right now.

@FourLegsGoodTwoLegsBad Which implies the situation I've described above. Aid was going Egypt - Gazans, now it should be Egypt - Israel - Gazans, and I doubt IDF forces can tell an Egyptian from a Palestinian - or that they care. They can't even tell Israelis from Palestinian civilians, as some hostages could tell you if they were still alive.

An even better position would be to pressure Israel into allowing aid to reach Gaza, but nobody is willing to do that. Israel has taken the Rafah crossing, which was managed by Egypt, and Egypt has said "now it is your problem", which is not that unexpected or unreasonable. With Rafah crossing at their hands, Egypt could send aid to Rafah, then let UNRWA, Red Moon or other Palestinian organization to distribute the food. Now, they would be sitting ducks for Israeli fire, just like World Kitchen workers, and al-Sisi doesn't want that to happen - the uproar at home would be hard to control.

To start with, I know that couples who had a girl could ask for a permission to have another children - so they could have a boy. The policy was stricter if you already had a boy. Also, the policy was stricter in overpopulated provinces and less so in the rest.