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By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN.



In February 2002, I traveled to Saudi Arabia and interviewed the then crown prince, now king, Abdullah, at his Riyadh horse farm. I asked him why the next Arab summit wouldn’t just propose to Israel full peace and normalization of relations, by all 22 Arab states, for full withdrawal from all occupied lands and creation of a Palestinian state. Abdullah said that I had read his mind (“Have you broken into my desk?” he… Continue

Gdansk, Poland, 7 September 2008 (By Yann Le Guernigou and Gareth Jones, Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy defied China on Saturday by meeting the Dalai Lama and said Europe shared the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader's concerns over the situation in his homeland.

China called the meeting an "opportunistic, rash and short-sighted approach to handling the Tibet issue," despite Sarkozy saying he regarded Tibet as part of China and that there… Continue

The passing of proposition 8 (amendment to the California Constitution stating marriage as the union of an heterosexual couple) is just the latest in the seemingly unending list of obstacles raised by organized religion to the development of a better society for all of its members. It seems obvious by now that homosexuality is an integral part of the human experience and that it is to be expected a certain percentage of the population will be born as… Continue

The human rights scandal now known as "Abu Ghraib" began its journey toward exposure on Jan. 13, 2004, when Spc. Joseph Darby handed over horrific images of detainee abuse to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID). The next day, the Army launched a criminal investigation. Three and a half months later, CBS News and the New Yorker published photos and stories that introduced the world to devastating scenes of torture and suffering inside the… Continue

Earthbags (sometimes called sandbags) have long been used, particularly by the military for creating strong, protective barriers, or for flood control. The same reasons that make them useful for these applications carry over to creating housing: the walls are massive and substantial, they resist all kinds of severe weather, and they can be erected simply and quickly with readily available components. Burlap bags were traditionally used for this purpose,… Continue