human rights

The uses of diplomacy

Today Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for African affairs, rendered a grim assessment of the post-election bloodbath in Kenya, saying it amounted to "ethnic cleansing," but not "genocide."  This distinction is so fine as to be described as "Talmudic," except that it contains no ancient Hebraic wisdom or indeed any other system of thought. MORE

El Cheapo kidneys, get them while they're warm

In the grossest violation of the Hippocratic Oath since Mengele, a gang of surgeons in Gurgaon, India, allegedly rounded up beggars and day-laborers, drugged them, and sliced out their kidneys.  Other poor Indians surrendered their kidneys to the doctors for handfuls of cash. In all, the gang bought or stole as many as 500 organs in a nine-year medical crime-wave -- then installed them, for a price, in the renally-diseased bodies of rich Indians and foreigners. Leaving aside the surgery-at-gunpoint and the forcible anesthesia, two gruesome facts stand out.