For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up... More

　　Up to 20 million people in Bangladesh are at risk of suffering early deaths because of arsenic poisoning - the legacy of a ill-planned water project that created a devastating public health catastrophe. 　　In the 1970s, up to 250,000 children a year died in the country from drinking dirty water;... More

　　Human rights group Amnesty International has called on China to publicly state how many people it puts to death each year. 　　In its annual report on the use of the used of the death penalty worldwide, published on Tuesday, Amnesty said the number of people executed by Beijing last year... More

　　Personal information concerning the private lives of almost 1,000 British Muslim university students is to be shared with US intelligence agencies in the wake of the Detroit bomb scare. 　　The disclosure has outraged Muslim groups and students who are not involved in ‘extremism’ but have been targeted by police and... More

　　On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had... More

　　Alberto Athie, a former Mexican priest, took the difficult decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church following his investigations into a high-profile pedophile priest. 　　He holds up the letter he wrote 13 years ago to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. It details senior Mexican priest Marcial Maciel's sexual... More

　　The recent exposés from Iraq and Afghanistan--with their shocking images, appalling laughter, and video-game ethos--would have shocked the conscience of the world in an earlier era. After all, when what happened at My Lai was exposed during the Vietnam War, it shocked millions of people who hadn't been thinking very... More

　　Israel offered to sell apartheid-era South Africa nuclear warheads in 1975, British newspaper The Guardian has reported. 　　According to documents obtained by the newspaper, a secret meeting between then-Israeli defense minister Shimon Peres and his South African counterpart PW Botha ended with an offer by Jerusalem for the sale of... More

　　When the UN Human Rights Council convened a special session on Sri Lanka last May, many were hoping for meaningful discussion about possible war crimes committed during the final phase of the country's civil war. 　　Thousands of civilians, who had been trapped between the Sri Lankan military and increasingly desperate... More

　　The Israeli government has, for weeks, insisted that the 10,000 tons of supplies on board the Gaza aid flotilla are not necessary. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, reiterated that claim on Friday, telling reporters "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza". 　　"Israel is conducting itself in the most humanitarian manner,... More

　　The Israeli attack on the international aid flotilla - killing nine and injuring dozens more - is not the first example of non-violent resistance by Palestinians and their supporters being met by force. 　　Israel has, in fact, at different times reacted with repression or even extreme violence to cultural and... More

　　Saturday’s anniversary of last year’s disputed election in Iran follows eight days after another milestone: the one-year anniversary of US president Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world in Cairo. 　　The election and the speech - coupled with other events, like Obama’s Nowruz message - created a brief moment of... More

　　An aide to the Afghan president at the center of a corruption probe is being paid the Central Intelligence Agency, The New York Times has reported, citing Afghan and American officials. 　　Mohammed Zia Salehi, chief of administration for the National Security Council, appears to have been on the CIA's payroll... More