New Zealand will contribute $1.5 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross for crucial humanitarian assistance in Iraq, Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee has announced. [...] “The funding will help meet critical humanitarian needs through providing emergency food, water, healthcare and household items to affected people.

[W]e found that the ICRC tends to issue such statements only after a massacre has already taken place. For instance, when we studied the Bosnian civil war, we examined the timing of the use of force and the public diplomacy in the form of “naming and shaming” the disputants. The ICRC voiced its concerns 13 times, 11 times quite mildly. The ICRC reacts to international humanitarian law abuses. But its public condemnations do not reduce the carnage in the weeks that follow.

When it comes to military-style computer video games, realism sells. In first-person shooter games like the top-selling "Call of Duty" and "Modern Warfare," players are virtual participants in realistic battlefield scenarios inspired by and often based on actual combat situations. But while the onscreen firefights, death, and destruction are not real, the decisions players make in order to "win" the game are another matter.

The Ministry of Defense announced Thursday that it would host a global meeting to discuss how the rules and regulations of international humanitarian law can be integrated into Colombia’s military’s planning and operations.