The European Union is considering taking legal action against France for violating EU’s discriminatory laws. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-winged government has been engaged in a massive deportation of Roma — also commonly referred to as ‘Gypsies’.

The discovery of another “secret prison” in Baghdad is alarming. There are fears that this one is linked to the Interior Ministry and that the campaign against former armed forces members is re-starting.

The first film I was able to catch at this year’s One World Human Rights Film Festival was A Place Without People documenting the expulsion of the Maasai from the Serengeti in Tanzania. “Can’t at least we preserve the Serengeti for the animals and the people who come after us,” exclaimed Bernhard Grzimek, a German conservationist/zooligist famous for inspiring the creation of the Serengeti National Park. By this statement I presume he meant preserve it for other colonialists and not the Maasai, the parks original inhabitants. From British rule up to the country’s present day independent government, those in power have failed to recognize the tribe’s place in the park’s ecosystem and their role in preserving its balance for centuries.

When you count all the Christian families who have fled their homes in Mosul in the last few days and not just those who fled to Tal Keef as we have done and as Bishop Emil Shimoun Nona, Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, has done then the scale of the catastrophe engulfing Mosul’s Christians becomes clear.

Supporters of a deep investment of American blood and treasure in a long, costly and difficult counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign in Afghanistan have the obligation to clearly articulate how their proposals will lead to success. We deserve honest, well-explained justifications, not hand-waving past foundational considerations when such examinations would be inconvenient to COIN proponents.