May 11, 2009

French role in the export of torture practices

NEW YORK — Developing countries are routinely blamed for using brutal techniques on prisoners. The same condemnation should be extended to industrialized countries that not only used these techniques themselves but also exported them to other countries. France is a case in point. There ...

Apr 23, 2009

No place for doctors who torture

Physicians and other medical personnel were involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorists suspects held overseas by the CIA, according to a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The report was obtained by journalist Mark Danner, who has written ...

Apr 14, 2009

Pakistan: building peace by building schools

You can try to force peace through military might — and you are bound to fail — or you can build peace through education. That seems to be the main lesson behind Greg Mortenson’s life and work. Thanks to his efforts, 78 schools have ...

Mar 22, 2009

Legacy of a ‘disappeared’ family in Argentina

Politics can have a devastating effect on a country and its people, as I discovered during a recent trip to Argentina. I stayed at the Buenos Aires apartment of a relative by marriage, university professor Felix Eduardo Herrera, who died there in 2007; the ...

Feb 17, 2009

Rumsfeld prosecution could set precedent

NEW YORK — There is now enough evidence to try former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes, Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, recently told “Frontal 21,” a German television program. Nowak’s statement confirms what human rights and legal organizations ...

Jan 26, 2009

Recalling the one who mixed politics, poetry

NEW YORK — At a time when we plainly see the negative effects of politics and greed in the life of nations, it is important to remember Pablo Neruda, a Chilean writer whom Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “the greatest poet of the 20th century ...

Jan 13, 2009

A good time to improve the United Nations

NEW YORK — In recent years the United Nations has become a target of criticism, particularly in the United States, even as the failure of the U.S. to pay its dues to the organization has considerably hindered its work and reduced its effectiveness. The ...

Dec 26, 2008

Doctors held for talking with the ‘enemy’

NEW YORK — Cyrus the Great, the first Achaemenid emperor and founder of Persia, would be ashamed of the actions of the Iranian government with regard to the uncalled for detention in June of two Iranian doctors, who are experts on AIDS. The flagrant ...