International Features

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, …

The Road to Jerusalem Does Not Lead Through Tehran Summary —  Israel is pushing the Obama administration to tackle Iran’s nuclear program before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Washington shouldn’t listen. LEON HADAR is a Research Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. =============================================================== As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to Washington for a meeting with President Barack Obama, …

Secularism has triumphed in India. So it seems. The Congress Party, under the firm hold of Sonia Gandhi, won the one-month-long election held in five stages. Though the Congress and its allies have fallen short of winning the required 272 seat, with the backing of the Third Front’s BahuJan Samajwadi Party of Mayawati, they have the support of 333 members …

London, Aug.8 (ANI): Muslim women are to be guaranteed equal rights in marriage under a new wedding contract negotiated by leading Islamic organisations and clerics in Britain. The Telegraph quoted Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Director of the Muslim Institute and author of the contract, as saying that this is the biggest change in Sharia law in Britain in the last 100 …