From AP, Dec. 19: Truck Causes NY Traffic Pileup; 1 Dead, 33 HurtA tractor-trailer smashed into several vehicles on a major highway on Wednesday afternoon, setting off a chain reaction of fiery crashes, killing one person and injuring 33 others,… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Paranoid conspiracy theories proliferate about the Newtown massacre, adding to the noise of pro- and anti-gun control voices that all distract us from the fundamental questions.
Since February, forensic anthropologists have turned up over 400 skeletons at a military base in Cobán, Guatemala, in what has fast become one of the largest discoveries of a clandestine mass grave in the country. During the country’s 36 year… Read moreGuatemala’s ‘Little School of the Americas’
Tourists are flocking to Mexico for the “end of the Maya calendar,” but Maya elders protest that they are barred from performing ceremonies at the archeological sites.
Grist notes a Dec. 12 report on Nature: Cold temperatures have kept crabs out of Antarctic seas for 30 million years. But warm water from the ocean depths is now intruding onto the continental shelf, and seems to be changing… Read moreKing crabs invade Antarctica: no joke
The US National Intelligence Council issued a report, "Global Trends 2030: Potential Worlds," that emphasizes the rise of China and the risk of catastrophic climate change.
The Doha climate conference failed to do more than extend the Kyoto Protocol, even as the Philippines were devastated by a mega-storm that left 1,000 dead.
Chinese and Japanese aircraft had a near-confrontation over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands on the very day that China officially commemorated the 1937 Rape of Nanking.
Human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who defends Chinese peasants struggling to keep their lands, proclaims his support for the Tibetans and calls for Han solidarity with their cause.
As Mali’s prime minister is removed by the junta, Ansar Dine rebels are embraced in peace talks—while the MUJAO rebels are sanctioned by the UN as an al-Qaeda front.
North Korea's launch of an "exo-atmospheric" rocket follows South Korean plans to develop ballistic missiles capable of hitting all of the North's territory, with US oversight.
The US government added Syria's al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant to the "foreign terrorist organizations" list, placing sanctions on two of its senior leaders.
