In 1944 a 15-year-old boy was taken from his home in Sighet, Hungary, and sent to a Nazi death camp. This spring, after a joint resolution of Congress, President Reagan will present him with a gold medal at the White House "in recognition of his humanitarian efforts and outstanding contributions to world literature and human rights." There can be no longer journey than the one Elie Wiesel, 56, has taken from a cell in Auschwitz to the corridors of Washington. ...

On Oct. 3, 1993, a mob dragged the bodies of two U.S. soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The soldiers had been killed in an intense street battle that was later immortalized in the book Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. But soon after the firefight, U.S. troops were withdrawn from Somalia, and other places--Afghanistan, Iraq--became known as locations where young American soldiers risked their lives. They're dragging bodies through the streets of Mogadishu once again. ...

Daniel Millis, a volunteer with the faith-based organization No More Deaths, was arrested in 2008 for littering. His crime: leaving bottles of drinking water on trails near the Arizona-Mexico border so immigrants walking through the desert would not die of thirst. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Millis' conviction, by a 2-1 vote. It was an important ruling. However the immigration debate works itself out, we do not want to be a ...

In the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, a five-year-long downpour imprisons people in their homes, washes away the banana plantation and reduces the town of Macondo to ruins. But the deluge dreamed up by Colombian novelist Gabriel Garca Mrquez in his magical-realist masterpiece pales compared to the real-life flooding of his homeland now. Amid 11 months of nearly nonstop rain, dykes have burst and rivers have topped their banks, inundating communities, cattle ranches, and croplands in ...

Water, not oil, is the most precious fluid in our lives, the substance from which all life on the earth has sprung and continues to depend. If we run short of oil and other fossil fuels, we can use alternative energy sources. If we have no clean, drinkable water, we are doomed. As the 6 billion passengers aboard Spaceship Earth enter a complex new century, few issues are as fundamental as water. We are falling far short of the most ...

Guns, money, oil, and an ex-spy chief slinking in the shadows: that's what it came down to Wednesday in Qatar's capital Doha when the NATO-led alliance marshaling air strikes on Libya gathered to defend its actions and brainstorm on how to help a ragtag rebel army finally dethrone Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. The coalition dismissed recent criticism and claims of inner discord with an early statement that the "international community remained united and firm in its resolve." The ...

Death and taxes are always with us, and so are arguments about whether nations ever have the right or duty to intervene in the affairs of others. The case for "humanitarian intervention," under a variety of names, has been asserted at least since the great powers threw their weight behind Greece's struggle for independence in the 1820s, but in its modern form was developed during the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession, when it appeared to many that armed force was ...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is calling for additional security for U.N. staff in Afghanistan, citing a "dramatically escalated threat" due to the world body's support for that nation's electoral process.Ban also said the U.N. is "exploring the feasibility of bringing in additional security units to guard U.N. facilities." The U.N. currently has hundreds of staff in Afghanistan offering technical and operational support for Afghanistan's elections. Various other U.N. agencies are involved in humanitarian work in the war-torn nation.

Over the last two decades humanitarian organization International Medical Corps has cared for hundreds of thousands of victims of wars and natural disasters in more than 25 countries.

The U.N. human rights special investigator for North Korea on Thursday urged the U.N. Security Council to get involved as North Korea's citizens face worsening conditions. The United Nations regards the North Korean government as one of the most restrictive and repressive in the world. The Security Council has slapped North Korea with multiple sanctions. But the United Nations does not tend to intervene in a country's humanitarian affairs. "Let's make good use of the international system," Vitit Muntarbhorn told ...