American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and "uncompromising Western secularism" that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
The council's 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious "capabilities gap" and recommends that President Obama make religion "an integral part of our foreign policy."
'God gap' impedes U.S. foreign policy, task force says
Milky Way galaxy littered with 'alien' stars
Dwarf galaxies gobbled up by our own Milky Way make up about a quarter of the 160 star-packed "globular clusters" littering the galaxy, astronomers report Tuesday.In the Monthly Notioves of the Royal Astronomical Society report, which was led by Duncan Forbes of the United Kingdom's University of Swinburne, a team looked at chemical signatures of 93 globular clusters. The clusters are balls containing hundreds to millions of stars littered throughout the galaxy.
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How long can the U.S. dollar defy gravity?
Facing mounting inflation and the escalating cost of the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon, on August 15, 1971, took the United States off the gold standard, which had been in place since 1944 and required that the Federal Reserve back all dollars in circulation with gold. The move amounted to a made-in-America double-digit devaluation, shocking the country's foreign creditors.
Nearly 40 years later, the dollar still dominates world trade. At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, investors fled to the dollar as a temporary safe haven. But the dollar has been falling steadily since 2002, and as the world economy recovered last year, dollar selling resumed, reviving doubts about how long it could remain the world's unrivaled reserve currency.
Judge won't dismiss bulletproof vest suit
A U.S. judge in Washington Tuesday refused to dismiss a whistle-blower suit against the Japanese manufacturer of bulletproof vest material. The suit claims manufacturer Toyobo Ltd. and U.S. company Second Chance Body Armor Inc. conspired to sell defective body armor to law enforcement.
Supplied by Toyobo with a bulletproof material called "Zylon," "Second Chance sold over 66,000 vests between 1998 and 2004 to law enforcement agencies throughout the United States, including over 40,000 to the United States government.
Hospital-Acquired Sepsis, Pneumonia a 'Growing Menace'
Sepsis and pneumonia caused by hospital-acquired infections killed 48,000 people and led to $8.1 billion in increased health care costs in the United States in 2006, says a new study by a project called Extending the Cure.
The project examining antibiotic resistance is based at the Washington, D.C. think-tank Resources for the Future.
Researchers analyzed 69 million discharge records from hospitals in 40 states to assess the impact of preventable infections. They found that a patient who developed sepsis -- a life-threatening immune response to infection -- after surgery stayed in the hospital 11 days longer and cost an extra $33,000 to treat.
Vatican official refuses to quit after defending abortion doctors
The Vatican's top bioethics official on Monday dismissed calls for his resignation following an uproar over his defense of doctors who aborted the twin fetuses of a 9-year-old child who was raped by her stepfather.
Monsignor Renato Fisichella told The Associated Press he refused to respond to five members of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life who questioned his suitability to lead the institution.
Fisichella wrote an article in the Vatican's newspaper in March saying the Brazilian doctors didn't deserve excommunication as mandated by church law because they were saving the girl's life. The call for mercy sparked heated criticism from some academy members who said it implied the Vatican was opening up to so-called "therapeutic abortion" to save the mother's life.
Destroying C.I.A. Tapes Wasn’t Opposed, Memos Say
At a closed briefing in 2003, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee raised no objection to a C.I.A. plan to destroy videotapes of brutal interrogations, according to secret documents released Monday.
The senator, Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, also rejected a proposal to have his committee conduct its own assessment of the agency’s harsh interrogation methods, which included wall-slamming and waterboarding, the documents say.
Iraqi campaign worker killed along with wife, six children
Assailants burst into the home of an Iraqi campaign volunteer before dawn Monday, fatally shooting the man before they stabbed his pregnant wife and their five daughters to death, relatives and authorities said. A sixth child, the only son, was found hanging from a ceiling fan with key arteries severed, a cousin said.
Over the last week and despite warnings that it was too dangerous, 47-year-old Hussein Majeed Marioush had been hanging campaign posters in the volatile mixed-sect district of Zafaraniya, a semi-rural area on the outskirts of southern Baghdad.
War game shows how attacking Iran could backfire
Here's a war game involving Iran, Israel and the U.S. that shows how unintended consequences can spin out of control:
With diplomacy failing and precious intelligence just received about two new secret Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel launches a pre-emptive strike against Tehran's nuclear complex. The strike is successful, wiping out six of Iran's key sites and setting back its suspected quest for a bomb by years.
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