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South Africa: Dispensing with Judges

In 1960 chocolate-skinned Robert Sobukwe, 38, head of the black nationalist Pan-African Congress, was sentenced to three years in jail for “incitement to riot.” As his release date drew near last week, Sobukwe, a slim onetime university lecturer, was hustled from the maximum-security prison in Pretoria to a bleak detention camp on Robben Island in Table Bay, six miles from Cape Town. There he learned, just the day before he was to receive freedom, that South Africa's Parliament had rammed through a new security act empowering Justice Minister Johannes Vorster to keep political prisoners in custody indefinitely, even after their sentences have expired

Has Bangladesh’s Elite Police Force Gone Too Far?

On March 27, Bangladeshi doctors amputated the leg of Limon Hossain, a 16-year-old student, four days after he was shot during a raid by the Rapid Action Battalion , Bangladesh’s elite security force.

When The Terror Began

But on Sept. 5, 1972 at the Munich Olympics, history would not wait.

Jordan: King Abdullah Holds On, Despite Rising Discontent

Spare a thought for Jordan’s King Abdullah as he visits Washington this week, complaining of the dire consequences of the failure of his Israeli neighbor to make peace with the Palestinians: it’s not easy being a monarch in a Middle East buffeted by the democratic winds of the Arab Spring, and even less so when your country is wracked with rising tensions between its indigenous Bedouins and Palestinians who comprise as much as half of the population. When the King visited the southern tribal area of Tafila on Monday, a rare skirmish between the gathered crowd and security officers hinted at the powder keg atop which Abdullah sits.

Haunted by The Iceman

Military Police at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison dubbed him the Iceman; others used the nickname Mr.

Syria’s Wounded Refugees: Tales of Massacre and Honorable Soldiers

The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad doesn’t make threats lightly. And as they confronted the uprising in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, government security forces were blunt, according to the medical staff in area’s small hospitals and the local Red Crescent outpost there

Shuttle Tragedy

Simulated launch, real deathNASA officials had one word for the simulated launch of the space shuttle at Cape Canaveral last week: “Super!” Then disaster struck. For reasons yet to be explained, five Rockwell International technicians removed an access panel and entered a rear section of the orbiter above the engine.

Desperately Fleeing Syria: Refugees Cross into Turkey

The young Syrian in the white undershirt cradled a toddler in his arms as he sat beneath a line of laundry strung up between two stout gum trees. He stared out from behind the rusty metal gate of the disused tobacco warehouse that is now home to hundreds of Syrian refugees, most of whom are from the flashpoint town of Jisr al-Shughour, some 40 kilometers south of the Turkish border

Why the Pakistan Army Won’t Fight Afghanistan’s Taliban

President Barack Obama is about to announce his new strategy for Afghanistan, but the success of whatever option he chooses will depend heavily on Pakistan acting to stop its territory being used to attack Western forces next door. And that’s bad news, because the demands of its own domestic counterinsurgency campaign, doubts about the duration of U.S

Jamaica Violence: Drug Gangs’ Political Ties Spark Anger

The death toll from the battle between Jamaican security forces and supporters of alleged drug lord Christopher Coke that erupted over the weekend reached 30 on Tuesday with no end yet in sight.