Ashish Kumar Sen

International aid workers, whose pacifist-tinged neutrality once protected them from harm while they worked in combat zones, now find themselves as hated by militants in Iraq as the American soldiers there. The militants target them as missionaries for a Western-style culture that they consider a threat to Islamic traditions, and ordinary Iraqis fear the presence of a foreign aid worker in their midst will attract the next suicide bomber.

WASHINGTON - Humanitarian aid groups blame the Pentagon for "blurring the lines" between their staff and US-led coalition troops, which has resulted in an unprecedented number of aid workers being targeted by terrorists in Iraq.

WASHINGTON - On the eve of the 20th anniversary of India's deadly Bhopal gas disaster, a leading human-rights group has lambasted the Indian government and Dow Chemical Co for failing to ensure that the survivors of the tragedy received adequate compensation and medical assistance.

WASHINGTON - As Afghans prepare for their first presidential elections on October 9, President Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, is being challenged by over a dozen factional leaders, but most Afghans and international officials expect him to win.

Armed with chutzpah and the determination to "heal Afghanistan," Masooda Jalal is taking on the might of Afghan warlords in the Oct. 9 presidential elections. "The people of Afghanistan are fed up with constant wars and want a fresh start," the lone female candidate told The Washington Times in a phone interview from her home in Kabul.

WASHINGTON - On a September morning just over three years ago, as hijackers piloted airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, few would have guessed the catastrophic consequences for Saudi Arabia.

WASHINGTON - Drawing on the success of the first intifada of the late 1980s, Palestinian groups are launching hunger strikes and mass rallies across Israel in an effort to protest Israeli oppression peacefully.