By Uche Onyebadi IT is not easy for any country to tell the world that it engages in some form of torture in breach of international conventions against inflicting brutality on other human beings in order to extract information from them for whatever reason. It is even more unlikely that a country would publicly do […]

THE hottest issue in the U.S. today arguably is police brutality and its impact on race relations. But, it is not a new topic. Like a dormant volcano, it was activated by the gruesome and apparently unconscionable killing of two African American men by white policemen. Even more infuriating was how the bodies of both men were recklessly allowed to lie in the streets, stripped of any form of human dignity or decency.

MY normal Saturday morning rituals consist of tracking local and international news and watching the English Barclays Premier League football, or soccer as the game is known in the United States. Last Saturday, I ignored both rituals. The league had taken a break due to international soccer tournaments in Europe. As for news, I guessed the world would still be there later in the day when I would catch up with what I might have missed earlier. What I did was to watch all sorts sporting activities when I was not grading students’ papers.

WITH its huge population of over one billion citizens, India is the world’s largest democracy. But, the U.S. believes it is the beacon of democracy in our world. Last week, U.S. citizens went to polls for the mid-term election.

TODAY, Americans go to the polls in their mid-term elections. These elections come two years into the presidency of every American leader, hence the “mid-term” nature of these cyclical polling.

LAST week, 14-year-old Jaylen Fryberg calmly walked to his school, Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Washington State, and took out his anger on his fellow students. He was armed with a .40 caliber handgun.

IT seems implausible that the president of the United States of America could have his credit card rejected or declined when he tried to make a payment. But, it happened to President Barack Obama. Before you conclude that it might have been the handwork of some of his Republican Party opponents who were out to embarrass, if not humiliate him, please read the story.

WOMEN in America have recorded phenomenal achievements and left indelible marks in U.S. history. Take a look at the U.S. Supreme Court. There, three women sit on the bench with six men. This is a statement that women have paid their dues so to speak alongside men in this country that consistently boasts of equal opportunity based on ability, and uses every chance it gets to preach the same message to the rest of the world.

TWO men are reportedly responsible for transporting Ebola to Nigeria and the US. Both men are of Liberian origin. That is where the similarities in the tale end. With its underdeveloped healthcare facilities, Nigeria robustly tackled the problem and now appears to have the situation under manageable control. Unlike Nigeria, the US with its sophisticated medical facilities and high level of preparedness to tackle any health epidemic, approached the issue with underserved levity.

With the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, the war against Ebola, the racial tensions exemplified by the recent killing of Michael Brown by an apparently trigger-happy policeman in Ferguson, Missouri, and all other issues that crowd the official schedule of the White House, the issue of domestic violence in the U.S. has not been getting deserved headlines. But, the issue has refused to drop off the radar of important public issues in the country.