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A US destroyer intercepted a hijacked Israeli-managed oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden earlier today, freed the crew, and took the Houthi pirates into custody. My colleague Jeff Charles covered the piracy in this post, High Seas Drama: Another Israeli Tanker Seized by Unidentified Attackers Near Yemen.Shortly after dawn local time, the Central Park, a small Liberian-flagged oil and chemical tanker managed by an Israeli company registered in London, sent a distress call saying it was being boarded by armed men. The USS Mason, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was operating in the area. According to reports, the Mason directed...

Beijing, China (LifeNews.com) -- Chinese attorneys are risking their own freedom by pressing for the release of an activist against forced abortions detained by local officials in the eastern Chinese city of Linyi. They have released an open letter calling for authorities to release Chen Guangcheng, who has been under house arrest for the last month after exposing the brutal forced abortion and sterilization tactics of population control officials. The letter comes at a time when Chen may be charged with passing on government secrets because of an interview he conducted with Time magazine about the scandal. Chen said that...

A Chinese attorney who escaped house arrest in his home country for his efforts to protect women from forced abortion for violating the government’s one-child policy said on Thursday that in the 35 years since the practice hundreds of millions of babies have been killed. “Over the past 35 years, China has killed a total of 360 to 400 million young lives as a result of its inhumane and violent birth control policies,” Chen Guangcheng, now senior fellow at Catholic University of America said at a hearing of the Congressional Executive Commission on China. “During a six-month period of 2005,...