Feature – News Updates

Admit that North Korea is a nuclear power now. Its audacity is now more obvious. It sent a message on Monday that it should be taken seriously by the big powers. The message came in the form of a nuclear test and a series of short-and-medium-range missile launches. This time around the West and North Korea’s neighbours — both hostile …

In this Nov.. 18, 2008 file image reviewed by the U.S. Military, guards escort a Guantanamo detainee carrying a book at the Camp 4 detention facility at the U.S. Naval open air common area at the U.S. Military Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (AP) Can one visualize a greater violation of International Law, International Humanitarian Law and the most basic …

Over the past 60 years, victims worldwide have endured the CIA’s “torture paradigm,” developed at a cost that reached $1 billion annually, according to historian Alfred McCoy in his book A Question of Torture. He shows how torture methods the CIA developed from the 1950s surfaced with little change in the infamous photos at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. There is …

The inspirational phrase “city on a hill” was coined by John Winthrop in 1630, borrowing from the Gospels, and outlining the glorious future of a new nation “ordained by God.” One year earlier his Massachusetts Bay Colony created its Great Seal. It depicted an Indian with a scroll coming out of his mouth. On that scroll are the words “Come …

Historical amnesia is a dangerous social phenomenon because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead. indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so. For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law — a place, incidentally, …