Hope engendered by the referendum to create South Sudan last year has been undermined by inter-ethnic strife and mass killings by the forces of Sudan President Omar al-Bashir.
George Bush’s torture facilitator finds much to like in William Shawcross’s new book.
Libertarians and atheists have some commendable stances — but for the wrong reasons.
As 2011 came to a close, the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il took the world by surprise (including the CIA which, like the rest of us, only learned of his passing 48 hours later). Given the dearth of understanding about North Korea in the West, the media could only speculate about the future of the new regime in Pyongyang. The usual pundits also took the opportunity to renew their calls for regime change. After all, 2011 was the year when the masses rose up to overthrow repressive regimes; could the same fate be in store for North Korea?
Some Syrians would welcome Western intervention
John F. Kennedy essentially bought his way into politics. His father, the wealthy Joseph Kennedy, picked out a nice congressional seat in Massachusetts and basically paid the occupant of the position to step down and run instead for the Boston mayoralty. JFK’s father then tried to pay off the Democratic frontrunner to drop out of the race, and when that didn’t work, persuaded William Randolph Hearst not to run any of the candidate’s ads or pictures in Hearst-owned newspapers. Joe Kennedy even paid a janitor named Joseph Russo to run in the race in order to dilute support for another leading candidate named Joseph Russo. Recognizing the importance of PR, the Kennedy family contributed $600,000 – an enormous sum in 1946 – for a children’s hospital in the district where JFK was running for office.
The images conjured up sordid memories of decades ago. Two young people laying dead on the ground, shot to death while heavily-armed state policemen were breaking up a public protest. The Dec. 11 slayings of education students Jorge Alexis Herrera and Gabriel Echeverria de Jesus outside the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo not only revived scenes from the First Dirty War of the 1960s and 1970s, but also added more names to a growing, modern-day list of dead, disappeared, tortured and wounded activists across Mexico.
South Korean parliamentarian Kim Geun-Tae was a soft-spoken man passionately dedicated to promoting peace and reunification on the Korean peninsula.
Prime minister Netanyahu approved trying right-wing activists in military court.
Each year Conn Hallinan’s blog Dispatches From the Edge awards news stories and newsmakers that fall under the category of “Are you serious?”