POLITICS-U.S.: Rice Surprises

Ending weeks of sometimes fevered speculation, Bush administration officials confirmed Thursday that Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice's deputy at the State Department will be a confirmed Atlanticist and arch-realist, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick.

BRAZIL: Lula’s Pragmatism Cost Him Allies but Growth Has Kept Him Popular

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's shift towards the centre of the political spectrum over the past two years and his "pragmatism" have cost him allies on the left, although he remains relatively popular thanks largely to the unexpectedly strong economic growth of around five percent for 2004.

POLITICS: Meanwhile, Back in Iraq…

While the world's attention has been focused for the past 10 days on the catastrophic tsunamis in South Asia and the subsequent relief efforts, the situation for the United States and its dwindling number of allies in Iraq appears to have worsened.

POLITICS: Meanwhile, Back in Iraq…

While the world's attention has been focused for the past 10 days on the catastrophic tsunamis in South Asia and the subsequent relief efforts, the situation for the United States and its dwindling number of allies in Iraq appears to have worsened.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Loss of Innocence in the Politics of Aid

As the international summit meeting to coordinate aid for the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami opens in Jakarta on Thursday, various states are jockeying for political advantage in the region. Prominent among them are the United States, India, Japan and Australia, which have formed a self-nominated ''core group'' while bypassing the United Nations.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: U.S. Turns Away from Arab Reforms

After a year of tough talk from U.S. policymakers about the inevitable 'democratization' of the Middle East, Washington appears to be backtracking, along with its Arab friends in the region.

ASIA: World Is One, Warns Tsunami

It has taken a devastating tsunami that claimed more than 150,000 lives in a dozen countries scattered across the vast Indian Ocean to remind passengers on the fragile spaceship, Earth, of their interdependence and common destiny.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: If Not a Unipolar World, Then What?

With the United States piling up unprecedented trade and budget deficits and bogged down in Iraq without a clear exit strategy, the neo-conservative vision of a U.S.-dominated, unipolar world over which Washington would rule as the ''new Rome'' is seen increasingly by foreign policy elites here as a chimera.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: Bye Bye Unipolar World

This time a year ago, U.S. forces had just pulled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his ''spider hole'' near the Euphrates River, and top military commanders were trumpeting the crippling of the unanticipated deadly insurgency that bedevilled the U.S. occupation for months.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: Bye Bye Unipolar World

This time a year ago, U.S. forces had just pulled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his ''spider hole'' near the Euphrates River, and top military commanders were trumpeting the crippling of the unanticipated deadly insurgency that bedevilled the U.S. occupation for months.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: Where To for the DRC?

For the better part of this year, the peace accords that brought five years of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo to an end have been described as "fragile". As 2004 ends, however, the agreements seem perilously close to breaking down completely.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: Push for Moderate Islam in South-East Asia

Indonesia's new president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, steps into the political limelight just as South-east Asia's identity as a symbol of moderate Islam gets increasingly bruised by the region's own Muslims.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: India-Pakistan Peace Precious, Not Easy

A year after India and Pakistan launched their first serious attempt at a bilateral dialogue after their 1998 nuclear blasts and two major military crises, the prospect of success looks tantalisingly close and yet uphill in the last stretch.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: India-Pakistan Peace Precious, Not Easy

A year after India and Pakistan launched their first serious attempt at a bilateral dialogue after their 1998 nuclear blasts and two major military crises, the prospect of success looks tantalisingly close and yet uphill in the last stretch.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: India to Be the New Big Kid in China’s Block

There is now little doubt that in 2005 the phlegmatic elephant, that is India, will be ready to confront the fiery Chinese dragon in Beijing's own South-east Asian stomping grounds.

INDONESIA: Kalla’s Sun Could Outshine His President’s Bright Star

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono may be smiling at the moment after his deputy won the leadership of the powerful Golkar party at the end of a dramatic four-day national congress, which ended in the resort island of Bali on Sunday. Yet many wonder how long the president's joy would last.

THAILAND: Thaksin’s Shoot-from-the-Hip Courts Regional Backlash

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is in danger of becoming the loose cannon among South-east Asian leaders due to his shoot-from-the-hip tendency in responding to the violence in this country's southern provinces.

POLITICS: Kofi Annan Receives a Vote of Confidence From His Home Continent

In recent weeks, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been the subject of heated debate in the United States and Europe – this after he was accused of oversight in his handling of the Iraq oil-for-food programme between 1996 and 2003. Allegations of conflict of interest in the Annan family concerning the initiative have also been made.

UKRAINE: A Divided Country United in Uncertainty

Most western analysts rejoice in what they describe as the latest struggle for democracy in former Soviet territory, but among the divided Ukrainian and Russian commentators the mood is slightly different. Some ask why for the West democracy is orange, and the blue votes do not count.

POLITICS-US: Intelligence Reform No Victory for Civil Rights

Many of the more draconian provisions affecting privacy, secrecy and asylum-seekers, originally included in Congress' intelligence reform bill passed this week, were omitted in the law's final version. But the agreed compromise still contains language that troubles human and civil rights organisations.

POLITICS-U.S.: So Little Time, So Many Regimes to Change

The interregnum between November's election and the formal launch in January of U.S. President George W Bush's second term has a strange feel.