The firestorm of controversy battering the Catholic Church shows no sign of dying down, as the institution and its leaders continue to endure scorching new accusations of pedophile priests abusing young children, and of Vatican officials covering up their actions. Amid all the fury, the Vatican made a bold move: In a reversal of a decades-old pronouncement, the church forgave the Beatles for having deemed themselves more popular than Jesus. Reading praise of the Beatles’ music in the church’s official L’Osservatore Romano, one could almost hear the sound of the Vatican fiddling as it burned. Perhaps the piece by Vallini [...]
Over the past 30 years, the poisonous effects of Afghanistan’s narcotics industry have steadily transformed Iran’s law enforcement and border security institutions, forcing drastic changes in the way Iran deals with what has become a burgeoning transnational narco-insurgency on its southeastern frontier with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iran’s police chief, Brig. Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moqaddam, announced last October that Iranian authorities are now using remote security surveillance and control systems from Tehran to help monitor and interdict the massive flow of narcotics streaming over the border from Afghanistan. But despite the country’s draconian anti-narcotics laws and aggressive interdiction efforts, Iran remains [...]
Just four months after the world’s navies all but declared victory in their war on Somali pirates, hijackings have spiked. In the span of just one week in early January, sea bandits seized four large commercial vessels off the Somali coast. Captured vessels can be ransomed for several million dollars apiece. Piracy’s dramatic resurgence has accelerated a profound change of heart among the shipping companies whose vessels ply East African waters. No longer content to entrust their safety to naval forces, shippers are mulling the wide adoption of seaborne private soldiers — in a word, mercenaries, either sailing aboard targeted [...]
