The Syrian rebels have violated the UN’s standards for proper conduct in war, according to a UN report. Based on information from more than 400 interviews inside Syria, the report holds both the rebels and government forces accountable for breaking international humanitarian law. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry is not pleased: [U.N. investigators] said […]

Francois Hollande’s government has flip-flopped on its commitment to keep its budget deficit within the 3 percent-of-GDP cap mandated by the EU, the FT reports. It will “probably stand at 3.7 per cent in 2013 even though we will try to make it lower,” Hollande announced while visiting Dijon. The German Bundesbank was none too […]

On Monday, the FT reported that Pakistan and Iran had agreed to a $1.5 billion pipeline project stretching from Iran’s South Pars gas field all the way across the often-restive Baluchi areas of Pakistan. News footage showed Presidents Ahmadinejad and Zardari shaking hands at the border. The United States was not pleased: “In the coming years as the […]

As usual, I was struck by two seemingly unrelated items reported by Religion News Service on February 28, 2013. I think they are worth being reflected upon together.The first story is about an action by the New York City Commission on Human Rights, which has decided to charge seven ultra-Orthodox Jewish businesses with gender discrimination. […]

One of the primary foreign policy dilemmas facing the second Obama Administration is whether to make a concerted push for Israeli-Palestinian peace, possibly including presentation of a U.S. peace plan, the ultimate form of American involvement, or conversely, to maintain the standoff approach that followed the failed attempts of its first year in office. President […]

Eleven month old baby Omar died horribly and tragically during Israel’s eight day bombardment of the Gaza Strip last November. A striking and heart-wrenching photograph of his distraught father became a centerpiece in the usual and predictable Hate-Israel campaign accompanying the military strike. Baby Omar, the son of BBC journalist Jihad al-Masharawi, died with two relatives, […]

Whether you’re a magnate or a menial worker, nowadays it’s vastly more difficult to find a spouse in China.In the wake of rapid modernization, wealth inequality has spiked, more women are pursuing careers, the skewed gender gap has produced a growing surplus of single men, and family and social networks have frayed as millions of […]

Gaia seems to like fossil fuels much more than many of her followers. Earlier today, Japan announced that it successfully accessed ocean deposits of a new, relatively clean-burning, and hyper-abundant energy source: fire ice. More accurately called methane hydrate, fire ice exists under Arctic permafrost and deep underwater, primarily on seabeds along continental shelves. Up […]

Sudan and its recently jettisoned neighbor, South Sudan, have agreed to restart oil production and exports in no more than four weeks. South Sudan shut down oil production in January 2012 over a dispute with its northern neighbor. This exacted a heavy toll on both countries, whose economies rely heavily on oil export revenues but […]

Disgraced ex-Mayor and shameless identity politician Kwame Kilpatrick has been convicted on twenty-four counts of extortion, racketeering, and bribery. The stunningly corrupt politician, who looted from Detroit’s poor and needy to pay for a life of luxury he never earned, is going to jail. His life is ruined, and his family has been shamed.It’s only […]