IRAN: Can P5+1 Offer Break the Nuclear Stalemate?
Analysis by Trita Parsi*
WASHINGTON - The P5+1 -- the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany -- will present Tehran with a secret incentive package in the next few days to convince Iran to suspend its enrichment programme and enter negotiations.
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IRAQ: Running Out of Water in Rising Heat
By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*
BAQUBA - Water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation.
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TURKEY: Ruling Party Challenges Closure
By Hilmi Toros
ISTANBUL - Facing closure by the Constitutional Court, Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party has launched its formal defence, claiming that the case against the highly popular party and its leaders has no legal basis, and that it defends secularism despite charges that it plans to turn the country into an Islamic state.
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LEBANON: Hezbollah Unleashes a Coup Bid
By Mona Alami
BEIRUT - Men clad in black have roamed the streets of Beirut since Wednesday, their faces covered with ski masks or dark kaffiya, as they wreaked havoc in the large avenues leading to the airport or dividing Sunni and Shia areas. As darkness loomed over Lebanon, the winds of discord seem to set the Lebanese capital ablaze.
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MIDEAST: Israelis Believe Another War Is Coming
Analysis by Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM - As Israel marks its 60th anniversary, Israelis are deeply pessimistic about the prospects of peace with their neighbours, with an overwhelming majority believing they will be at war again within the next five years.
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US/IRAQ: Pressure to Cut Costs, Troops Strains "Surge"
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - Growing impatience in Congress over the enormous costs being racked up by the Iraq war, as well as the Pentagon's belief that it needs more troops in Afghanistan to fight insurgents there, is putting the vaunted success of the George W. Bush administration's "surge" strategy to the test.
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RIGHTS-US: Abuse Claims Mount Against Pentagon, Contractors
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - As human rights groups demanded the release of a report on a long-running investigation of the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the unlawful interrogations of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, new torture claims were leveled at two U.S. military contractors by a former Abu Ghraib "ghost" detainee who was wrongly imprisoned and later released without charge.
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MIDEAST: Villagers Fight for Promised Land
By Zack Baddorf
BI'LIN, The West Bank - Some 1,700 Palestinians in the West Bank village of Bi'lin have been promised land, but so far it has not been delivered.
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LEBANON: Al-Qaeda on a Slippery Base
By Mona Alami
BEIRUT - Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, announced in an audiotape broadcast Apr. 21 that Islamic groups would play a pivotal role in the war against Jews, and encouraged militants to expel invading 'Crusaders' masquerading as peacekeepers, referring to UNIFIL troops deployed in South Lebanon.
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EGYPT: Salary Hike Kills Strike
By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO - Calls for a nationwide protest against the rising cost of living ended in anticlimax on Sunday (May 4), with most Egyptians going to work as usual. Although protest leaders had urged the public to register its disaffection en masse by staying home, the streets of the capital were busy.
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