Today, Istanbul is a city of Muslims. Before the mid-15th century, however, it was a Christian city of the Byzantine Empire called Constantinople. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Turk Empire, signaling the end of Christianity and Western civilization in the glorious city. Later, the city was renamed Istanbul by the Turks. Ever since, Istanbul has become a curiously fascinating city where the East and the West, Islam and Christianity, and tradition and inn

TAMPA ― The emblem of the U.S. Special Operations Command pointedly illustrates its mission: It shows the tip of a spear. Now SOCOM is expanding this arsenal to create a global network that can project power even as America’s armies withdraw from the battlefields of the last decade. Adm. William McRaven, the SOCOM commander, has been developing this ambitious new role at his headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base here. McRaven is among the nation’s most celebrated warriors. He planned the operat

We’re still legislating and regulating private morality, while at the same time ignoring the much larger crisis of public morality in America.In recent weeks Republican state legislators have decided to thwart the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which gave women the right to have an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks into pregnancy.Legislators in North Dakota passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks or after a fetal heartbeat had bee

Chinese President Xi Jinping has expounded on his “China Dream” in the hope of perpetuating the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.In his inaugural speech on March 17 after assuming the presidency, he devoted much time to elaborating on the China Dream, a notion he first mooted last December shortly after becoming the party’s general secretary.He defined the China Dream as the aspiration of the Chinese people for a great national revival. Although he did not spell out in specific terms what tha