The tide of history is turning women from beasts of burden and sexual playthings into full-fledged human beings.

American airstrikes...create risks, especially if our intelligence there is rusty. The crucial step, and the one we should apply diplomatic pressure to try to achieve, is for Maliki to step back and share power with Sunnis while accepting decentralization of government. If Maliki does all that, it may still be possible to save Iraq. Without that, airstrikes would be a further waste in a land in which we've already squandered far, far too much.

Most of the villagers were hiding in the bush, where they were dying from bad water, malaria and malnutrition

A few countries like Sri Lanka and Honduras have led the way in slashing maternal mortality.

For most of history, genocide was just something governments did and nobody blinked.

Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries.

We all might ask ourselves why we tune in to these more trivial matters and tune out when it comes to Darfur