Life For Death? – The five-year trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, accused of 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other offenses, is finally coming to a close in The Hague on Thursday, with a …
After Murdochs Are Grilled At Inquiry, Media Scandal Shifts From Hacking to Politics
On April 25, News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch sat before the same media ethics inquiry his son and heir apparent, James Murdoch, had faced the previous day. And like his son, the elder Murdoch was grilled on his …
Alone and Forgotten, One American Doctor Saves Lives in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains
At the Mother of Mercy Hospital, deep in rebel-held territory in southern Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, 14-year-old Daniel Omar describes how, on a bright clear day in early March, a bomb dropped by his own government blew off both …
Will Pakistan and India’s Back-to-Back Missile Tests Spoil the Mood?
Another nation decided to flex its ballistic muscle this week in what is shaping up to be a missile-happy month in Asia. On Wednesday, Pakistan announced it had successfully launched what it called an intermediate-range ballistic …
Israel’s Top General Says He Doubts Iran Will Try for the Bomb
The Israeli military chief of staff says he doubts Iran will try for a nuclear weapon, but that persuading its leaders against the option requires a credible threat of attack. Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, who heads the Israel Defense …
Must-Reads From Around the World: April 25, 2012
Why Voters in Europe Want a Change of Tactics in the Euro Crisis
Given the catastrophic mantra rising in media reports and from certain pundits, one contrarian point needs to be made clear: democracy can’t and won’t kill the debt-stricken euro. As Europeans at the ballot box are …
Power Struggles in Baghdad and Beyond Mean Opportunities for Iraq’s Kurds
The thriving Kurdish mini-state in northern Iraq is a monument to the ability of the nationalist Kurdish-Iraqi leadership to parlay the conflict between more powerful geopolitical forces around them to maximum advantage. And the …
Purged Chinese Official’s Son Denies Tales of Extravagance: ‘I Have Never Driven a Ferrari’
Bo Guagua, the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai, says that his high-priced overseas education was funded by scholarships and his mother’s work as a lawyer and denied reports that he drove a Ferrari to the U.S. …
James Murdoch Grilled Over Phone-Hacking and Political Ties
James Murdoch endured an exhaustive day of testimony at an inquiry into British media ethics and defended his position as the head of News International, the U.K. arm of News Corporation. The appearance of Murdoch, the heir …
Gareth Williams Inquest: Who Put a British Spy in a Bag?
On Aug. 16, 2010, British spy Gareth Williams failed to attend a meeting at MI-6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. On Aug. 23, his family notified police that they last heard from the 31-year-old—a math prodigy who had …
Must-Reads From Around the World: April 24, 2012
China’s Crisis – As the Bo Xilai saga continues, the New York Times reveals that for much of the last decade, while the now-disgraced official was moving up the ranks of the Communist Party, his relatives were using his …
How France’s Presidential Runoff Could Shape Iran Diplomacy
French President Nicolas Sarkozy may have once been caught in an unguarded moment telling President Barack Obama he couldn’t stand Benjamin Netanyahu and branding the Israeli leader “a liar,” but Netanyahu would nonetheless lose …