News Archive

  "Believing they were looking at a crime scene, investigators collected the bones and started examining them in Tuxtla Gutierrez," the state capital, the institute, known as INAH, said in a statement. The police in 2012 weren't being stupid; the border area around the town of Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has long been plagued by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico usually show a hole bashed through each side of every skull, and were usually found in ceremonial plazas, not caves. But experts said Wednesday the victims in the cave had probably been ritually decapitated and the skulls put on display on a kind of trophy rack known as a "tzompantli." Spanish conquistadores wrote about seeing such racks in the 1520s, and some Spaniards' heads even wound up on them. While usually strung on wooden poles using holes bashed through them - the common practice among the Aztecs and other cultures - experts say the ca...

  War stories tend to be reported from the front lines of battle. While these stories are captivating, they often overlook the important supporting elements, or logistics, of combat. How do soldiers get their bullets when they join the battlefield? Where does their clean drinking water come from? And their fuel? Who ensures there is medical equipment available should someone get hurt? Who comes to get a vehicle and fix it or tow it away when it breaks down? These aspects of war occur in the shadows, and support soldiers can receive little public acknowledgement or recognition for their work unless they fail to keep up with the demands of war. In recent weeks, I watched the first phase of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine turn into a logistics nightmare hampered by the complexities of war. What initially seemed a relatively straightforward invasion by Russian forces into neighboring Ukraine turned, according to on-the-ground news reports, into a soldier’s nightmare of equipment loss...

  The Red Cross’s long tradition of neutrality is proving controversial in some quarters as it seeks to help victims on both sides of the war between Russia and Ukraine. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), established in 1863, acts as a guardian of international law. Its humanitarian arm, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), offers aid to victims of war and disaster with the support of many national Red Cross societies. The ICRC, which has won the Nobel Peace Prize three times, has stood by its principle of neutrality since its inception. Neutrality “is at the heart of our licence to operate,” ICRC Director-General Robert Mardini  said  last month. “This is how we build acceptance by parties to the conflict.” “The Red Cross needs to nurture relationships with all countries,” Lucille Marbeau, an ICRC spokesperson in Ukraine, said in an interview. Red Cross’s neutrality means it does not take sides in war. The Red Cro...

With 58.54% of the vote, Emmanuel Macron unambiguously bucked the recent trend thanks to which incumbent French presidents consistently failed to earn a second term due to their unpopularity. In their election night commentaries, the Macronists noted with glee that their man was the first to gain re-election outside of a period of cohabitation. That sounded like some kind of odd accomplishment invented for the Guinness Book of Records. But it served to distract the public’s attention from what became clear throughout the evening: that, though resoundingly reelected, Macron is just as resoundingly an unpopular president. Apart from Macron’s supporters, the commentators across the political chessboard saw the blowout more like a stalemate than a checkmate. The left had been divided during the first round. It now appears ready to at least consider uniting its disparate forces for June’s two rounds of legislative elections, which everyone on the left is now calling the “third roun...