Activists dressed up as prisoners protest American torture during a demonstration in Chicago Dec. 10 on International Human Rights Day. (Newscom/Xinhua News Agency/He Xianfeng)
Analysis The Obama administration is following a long historical precedent in flouting the rule of law and refusing to prosecute U.S. officials for authorizing or carrying out torture.
Ukrainian army soldiers perform a weapons exercise at a training ground outside Lviv, western Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. The Ukrainian government is anxious to use Thursday’s visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Kiev to reiterate its plea for lethal aid. President Barack Obama has opposed the idea of sending weapons to Ukraine but sources in his administration say this position could change in the light of recent events. (AP Photo/Pavlo Palamarchuk)
Nearly 70 years ago, a group of Manhattan Project scientists, having seen the power of nuclear destruction, created what they called the “Doomsday Clock.” It was a mechanism designed to warn the world of how imminent the threat of global catastrophe was becoming — the closer the clock moved to midnight, the closer we were to doomsday. Last month, the group of Nobel laureates charged with maintaining the clock changed its time to 11:57 p.m., denoting the closest we’ve been to doomsday in more than 30 years. Their reasoning is based not just on the world’s inaction on issues like climate change, but its provocative march toward a new Cold War. Continue reading An arms race won’t help Ukraine→
Approximately 3.2 million people have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria
Nigeria is to investigate reports of rapes, child trafficking and other abuses in camps for people fleeing from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
The country’s National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) has formed a panel to investigate the abuses.
A spokesperson for Nema told the BBC that investigators would visit every camp for displaced people.
The UN has one of its biggest peacekeeping operations in DR Congo
The UN has withdrawn its backing for a planned offensive against rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after the government refused to sack two generals, a spokesman has said.
Pope Francis warned African bishops against new and unscrupulous forms of colonization such as the pursuit of success, riches, and power at all costs; but also fundamentalism and the distorted use of religion, and new ideologies that destroy the identity of persons and families. He was speaking to representatives of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).