UN panel concludes war crimes perpetrated in Syria - www's column on Newsvine

UN panel concludes war crimes perpetrated in Syria - www's column on Newsvine ;.. PERPETRATED, ...a U.N. expert panel concluded Wednesday, in a report that provides in chilling detail further evidence of a conflict spiraling out of control.
The panel appointed by the U.N.'s 47-nation Human Rights Council blamed the government and allied militia for the killing of more than 100 civilians in the village of Houla in May, nearly half of them children, and said the murders, unlawful killing, torture, sexual violence and indiscriminate attacks "indicate the involvement at the highest levels of the armed and security forces and the government."
The panel also concluded in its final report Wednesday to the Geneva-based council that anti-government armed groups committed war crimes, including murder, extrajudicial killings and torture, but at a lesser frequency and scale.
It is the first time the panel has used the term "war crimes" to describe its findings. That is because the International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversees the Geneva Conventions known as the rules of war, only said in mid-July that it now considers the conflict in Syria to be a full-blown civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies throughout the country.

US-China Trade and the WTO: Unrealistic Expectations | China Hearsay

US-China Trade and the WTO: Unrealistic Expectations | China Hearsay

Prominent China Blogger Demands Public Apology | China Hearsay

Prominent China Blogger Demands Public Apology | China Hearsay

RELIGION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ITS EVOLUTION - Dr. Riccardo Privitera's column on Newsvine

RELIGION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ITS EVOLUTION - Dr. Riccardo Privitera's column on Newsvine

RELIGION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ITS EVOLUTION - Dr. Riccardo Privitera's column on Newsvine

RELIGION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ITS EVOLUTION - Dr. Riccardo Privitera's column on Newsvine

FISHES SWIMMING

FISHES SWIMMING

Summer in a Land of Contradiction - NYTimes.com

Summer in a Land of Contradiction - NYTimes.com ;..  There is nothing uniquely Russian, really, about all this. Across America and Europe, tens of millions of harried urbanites take off each summer for the simple attractions of a wilder world beyond their confectioned city enclaves.

And yet.

Only in this eclectic, elusive, eternal country does everything feel unchanging yet uncertain. However reliably the vast Russian landscape can enthrall, or the conversation lurch from minutiae to Chekhovian contemplation of anything from death to a hiccup, there is a constant precarity to it all.

This summer, Lida, at 72, is contemplating leaving our village, despite her glorious garden and the many happy hours spent in her lovingly constructed wooden dacha. Five years after a stroke, she fears that she and her 75-year-old husband, Slava, can no longer cope alone. The state offers only material support, slight at that. Still, the land here exerts a pull that the prospect of life in a distant town nearer her daughter does not. “Fate will decide,” she concludes. “Only God knows.”