Like other “networking giants” in the industry it leads, Cisco Systems does business with governments and private sector entities around the world. It is not particular about its customers, which have included some of the world’s most repressive regimes. Yet neither is it forthcoming about just how the company delivers its products and services—often extremely sophisticated, cutting-edge networking “Solutions,” as Cisco describes them—to states where such technology may be used for internal repression.

The U.S. human rights community had been anxiously awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. Those whose rights are abused in foreign lands will need to meet a stiffer test to gain access to U.S. courts, but U.S. corporations will still be liable for misdeeds committed abroad.

Humanity must be destroyed so that the Earth can survive. At least, according to the alien Klaatu.

Hillary Clinton for America’s chief diplomat? It’s true that President-Elect Obama appears to be embarking on something of a “Clinton Restoration” of a number of officials who served his Democratic predecessor during the latter’s two 1990’s terms.

“The Human Condition” (Ningen no Joken), explores the moral and ethical dilemmas of life within authoritarian systems.