INTER PRESS SERVICE

2006 may be just a few days old, but it has already presented the Ivory Coast's new prime minister, Charles Konan Banny, with a substantial challenge: how best to deal with the attack staged Monday on Akouedo military base in the east of the financial capital, Abidjan.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: For Bush, January May Be the Cruellest Month

If U.S. President George W. Bush had high hopes of resuscitating his second term in office this month, he is likely to be disappointed by growing bipartisan opposition to many of his policy initiatives and the challenges of completing the leftover work of the last session of Congress.

IRAQ: US Military Still Runs With Dreaded Wolf Brigade

Despite the U.S. command's announcement last week that it would seek to curb abuses by Iraqi commando units, the U.S. military has been extremely tolerant of the most abusive unit of all - the notorious Wolf Brigade - because it regards it as highly effective against the insurgents.

POLITICS-US: Anti-Imperialists Beware – Bush Is Reading Again

The Reader-in-Chief is at it again, and anti-imperialists around the world have reason to be concerned.

POLITICS-IRAQ: US-Shiite Struggle Could Spin Out of Control

The George W. Bush administration has embarked on a new effort to pressure Iraq's militant Shiite party leaders to give up their control over internal security affairs that could lead the Shiites to reconsider their reliance on U.S. troops.

POLITICS-IRAQ: US-Shiite Struggle Could Spin out of Control

The George W. Bush administration has embarked on a new effort to pressure Iraq's militant Shiite party leaders to give up their control over internal security affairs that could lead the Shiites to reconsider their reliance on U.S. troops.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: Nuclear Clouds Gather Over Asia

The Asia-Pacific region has not only emerged as one of the main engines of the world economy but it has also taken the global centre-stage in developments pertaining to nuclear weapons and efforts to acquire a capability to make them.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: A “Conservative” Identity Crisis

One of the most misleading U.S. journalistic conventions has been the use of "conservative" to describe right-wing Republicans, like President George W. Bush and the party's leadership in Congress. More than four years into the "war on terrorism", it is clear to all but the blindest observers that they are anything but.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: Scandal Soup Nears Boiling Point

If the fact that millions turned out to vote in the recent elections in Iraq was considered a victory for the George W. Bush administration, the joy was short-lived in Washington, as early election returns showed that the country will likely be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni religious parties for at least the next four years.

POLITICS: Iraqis Spoke, But Hardly in Unison

The strong turnout in last week's parliamentary elections in Iraq may have been just the kind of civic demonstration that U.S. Pres. George W. Bush needed to restore some confidence in a weary public that Washington's adventure in the country may not turn out to be such a disaster after all.

POLITICS-BOLIVIA: Will Washington Engage Morales?

After years of demonising Evo Morales, whose unprecedented first-round victory in Bolivia's presidential elections Sunday has stunned analysts here, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush must now decide whether to engage him.

POLITICS: U.S. No Longer Seeks “Defeat” of Sunni Insurgents

While U.S. President George W. Bush continued to claim a strategy for "victory" in Iraq in recent speeches, his administration has quietly renounced the goal of defeating the non-al Qaeda Sunni armed organisations there.

IRAQ: Election Comes Up Amid Tension and Hope

Tensions between ethnic and religious groups have been rising in Iraq ahead of Thursday's elections, the third in less than a year, and the last step in the current process of political transition to a democratic government.
Unlike the Jan. 30 elections, Sunni Arabs are expected to turn out in massive numbers.

IRAQ: Election Comes Up Amid Tension and Hope

Tensions between ethnic and religious groups have been rising in Iraq ahead of the elections Thursday.

POLITICS-ASIA: Human Rights Has a Chance in Revamped ASEAN

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

If pious political intentions are a mark of virtue, then Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi deserves praise for comments made as South-east Asian countries embark on a new chapter in the history of their 10-member regional bloc.

POLITICS: Israelis Grow Troubled by Bush Priorities

Despite their mutual enthusiasm for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Israel and the United States appear increasingly at odds over what to do about the larger Middle East region.

RIGHTS: China Awarded ‘Housing Raspberry’

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Just how many people have to be thrown out of their homes in the name of 'economic progress' to arouse the interest of a regional United Nations body that claims to care for Asians living marginal existences?

MIDEAST: Bombing Scatters Political Questions

The Israeli rescue services had hardly finished evacuating the dead and injured from the scene of the suicide bomb blast in the coastal town of Netanya that killed five people on Monday, and already the speculation was under way.

US/IRAQ: Bush Policy Rules Out a Deal on Zarqawi

U.S. President George W. Bush's adamant rejection of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq effectively slams the door on a recent reported offer from Sunni resistance groups to eliminate the al Qaeda terrorist haven in Iraq as part of a negotiated peace agreement.

US/IRAQ: Bush Policy Rules Out a Deal on Zarqawi