The news that Swiss authorities are freeing film producer and child molester Roman Polanski is simply sickening. The LA Times looked at the important question as to how Polanski’s original sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old girl compared against the sentences of others who committed the same crime and had the same plea deal, in which a person admits to [...]

I got the following press release this morning from the International Crisis Group, which points out the continued, bloody existence of the Lord’s Resistance Army. As much as I respect the crisis group, the conclusions in its new report aren’t new at all. The LRA has been a regional menace for years. Think tanks and humanitarian groups [...]

I couldn’t find a live link to this USA Today story that was in Monday’s edition. So here it is:
Aid Frustration: ‘We’re racing against the clock’: Thousands waiting for food, water, medical care
By Marisol Bello and Donna Leinwand
PETIONVILLE, Haiti — Haitian physician Reginald Lubin wanted to help earthquake victims at a hospital in this suburb [...]

I mentioned in a previous post that NGOs should work and play well with the US military in Haiti relief operations because it has the capacity to do certain parts of the work, such as logistics. NGOs have reservations about this, as outlined in this 2006 article from Doctors Without Borders. Some concern is understandable, [...]

This story from AlertNet, the humanitarian news service from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, looks at the impact on civilians of the fighting in Pakistan between the government and the Taliban. I do think that military force is sometimes needed to prevent a greater tragedy, though the situation in Pakistan is far too complicated, and I’m [...]

And thank goodness she did, human gaffes and all.
Secretary of State Clinton will always be a lightning rod for people who are at odds with her or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. I remember back when Bill Clinton was making his first run for president, and there were wild stories out there that said [...]

This news report from Agence France-Presse sounds a hell of a lot like the violence in 2006 that led up to the Islamic Courts winning power in Somalia from the transitional government. That government was created by Western powers from among Somalis outside the country, and had zero public support within Somalia. And it was toppled when the [...]

Tuesday is the annual commemoration among Jews of those who died in the Holocaust. Although too much looking backward can numb the senses, it is worth remembering what Hitler and the Nazis did to 12 million people whose only crime was to be Jewish, or a gypsy, or disabled or gay. The Nazis erected an [...]

Sen. Judd Gregg had an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe that makes some important points on how the Obama administration should proceed with its policy toward the military regime in Myanmar. He’s exactly right in his point that the US must continue to demand that the National League for Democracy, led by the detained democracy activist Aung San [...]

I applaud President Obama for ending the global gag rule . Also known as the Mexico City policy, the rule required that any international nongovernmental organizations receiving US funding end any abortion services it offered, be it counseling or medical procedures themselves. The restriction impacted groups that provided not only counseling about abortion, but also badly needed [...]