United Press International

The world's attention is turning to the waters off the coast of Australia, where some 400 asylum seekers are waiting to learn their fate. The group, who appear to be mostly refugees from the tyrannical Taliban regime in Afghanistan, were rescued last Sunday by a Norwegian freighter when the wooden Indonesian vessel that carried them issued a distress call. Indonesia would not accept the refugees, and so far Australia is keeping them at bay as off its northwest shore, near… more

The Bush administration is being criticized for its decision not to send a top-level diplomatic delegation to the U.N. Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, because it objects to the anti-Semitic attacks on Israel being promoted there, including the old libel that Zionism is a form of racism.

The U.S. government should continue to insist that Zionism is not a form of racism, but rather a form of nationalism as legitimate as any other. However, while Zionism itself is… more

Every summer, news reports portray fire-fighters struggling heroically to contain wildfires as they rage out of control in the American West, threatening homes and sometimes lives.

Most of us assume that these giant conflagrations, often started by lightning, are a normal part of the natural cycle. That's partly true--and partly wrong.

The worst fires tend to occur where enormous amounts of dead tinder have accumulated in thick stands of trees. In much of the American West, neither the trees nor… more

With the election of Mexico's president Vicente Fox, a dynamic and charismatic reformer, a new era in U.S.-Mexican relations has begun.

To reinforce his effort to bring Mexico into the 21st century, Fox is seeking closer ties with the United States. Many of his ideas for promoting closer collaboration across the border are excellent.

One of his ideas, though, is terrible. Fox has proposed to alleviate the poverty problem in Mexico by dramatically increasing the number of Mexican nationals who… more

Today only a single dictatorship remains in the Western Hemisphere: Cuba.

Thanks to communism, Cuba -- once one of the wealthiest Caribbean … more