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Sentencing SaddamWhen a court in Baghdad found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging, President George W. Bush hailed the verdict as a milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law and a vindication

A Guest Comes, Christ ComesStealing a truck to go on a drunken bender in town is not a common occurrence in the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, a Benedictine community in Abiquiu, N.M. Yet the after-hours misdemeanor was perpetrated not by one of the monks, but by a twentysomething participant in

Abu Ghraib at HomeThe now infamous photo of an Abu Ghraib detainee crouching in terror before a snarling dog appalled people around the world. But the same thing is happening in prisons in five U.S. states. Jamie Fellner, director of the Human Rights Watch prison program, points out in an October re

Going Down to the SeaSaving deep-sea ecosystems from destructive bottom trawling is among the issues to be considered in November by the United Nations General Assembly. The marine biologist Sylvia Earle, executive director of Conservation International’s global marine division, has said that

Checks and BalancesTypically, Americans think of governmental checks and balances as the interplay among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. But when all three branches lean toward the same political party and have the ideological cohesion to override minority views (as has been the ca

Justice in the Rift ValleyThose with long memories, as well as admirers of Isak Dinesen’s writings, may recall the Honorable Hugh Cholmondeley, the third Baron Delamere, who was one of the original white settlers of British East Africa in the 1900’s. Lord Delamere, and later his family,

Witness of MercyNickel Mines, a small farming town in Lancaster County, Pa., has been a place of both human grief and divine grace this month. The horrific killings of five young Amish girls, who were captured, bound and then shot by a deranged man who burst into the town’s one-room schoolhous

Nigerias Potent CocktailNigeria is the 10th largest oil producer in the world, and its delta region provides much of America’s oil needs. But because the nation is plagued by violence, corruption and environmental degradation, the resulting wealth benefits few of its poorest inhabitants. The I

As Others See UsInequities in the U.S. criminal justice system were among the subjects of concern that drew criticism from the United Nations Human Rights Committee last July in Geneva. Maximum security prisons came under fire for virtually 24-hour confinement of prisoners to their cells. Also of co

Census Data and the PoorThe poor became poorer last year, according to a recent analysis of the new U.S. Census Bureau data by the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Put another way, the report points out that the proportion of poor people who experienced severe povertythat is, whose