POLITICS-IRAQ: Starting From Square One, One Year Later

One year after invading U.S. and British forces consolidated their control over Iraq, the administration of President George W Bush appears to be back at Square One, if not in negative territory, over how to ensure that control in the short to medium term.

POLITICS: The Military Marches on in Pakistan

The military has pulled the strings from behind the political scene for decades, but the institutionalisation of its role in this South Asian country this month removes much of the pretense that it is a full parliamentary democracy.

POLITICS-NEPAL: Demonstrations Fail to Ignite Popular Protests

The popular press in Nepal has been sounding out the drumbeat of a growing opposition-launched "peoples' movement" against King Gyanendra. Screaming headlines tell of the thousands of protestors marching across the capital Kathmandu, demanding restoration of a representative government.

SPAIN: Zapatero Takes the Helm, Pledges to Turn Country Around

Spain's Parliament officially voted Friday to put socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the helm of the government, a move that goes beyond a simple change of the political party in power: it could mean the economic and political transformation of the country and the relaunch of international social democracy.

POLITICS: Divided Europe Now Gets Confused

The growing anarchy in Iraq and the terror attacks in Madrid are having opposite effects across Europe. One confirms the broad European opposition to the war on Iraq, the other is encouraging an uncompromising stand against Islamic militancy.

POLITICS-IRAN: Reformists Debate on What Reform Is

The movement to liberalise this Islamic republic has hit a slump as reformist politicians regroup after electoral defeat and amid public consternation about the prospects for change.

IRAQ: The Mess Is Getting Harder to Clear

Iraq may slowly be emerging from a month of the most intense bloodshed since the declared end of the war almost a year ago. But a lull in the fighting in the bloodstained Sunni town of Faluja, west of Baghdad, and a tentative deal with the Sadr Shia militia in the south seem exceedingly fragile. If there is a pause, nobody expects it to last very long.

IRAQ: The Mess Is Getting Harder to Clear

Iraq may slowly be emerging from a month of the most intense bloodshed since the declared end of the war almost a year ago. But a lull in the fighting in the bloodstained Sunni town of Faluja, west of Baghdad, and a tentative deal with the Sadr Shia militia in the south seem exceedingly fragile. If there is a pause, nobody expects it to last very long.

IRAQ-U.S.: Fallujah Puts Bush in Crisis Mode

How do you know when the president of the United States is in crisis mode? When he cuts short his Easter holiday at his Texas ranch and returns to Washington to hold a rare press conference that he asks U.S. television networks to air on prime time.

POLITICS-HAITI: Disarmament a Dud

"Without disarmament, Haiti's democracy will remain at risk," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on his recent visit to the battered nation, adding, "we call on all armed groups to lay down their weapons and allow the duly constituted authorities to impose the rule of law".

IRAQ-U.S.: One, Two, Many Messes

While the United States does not look quite yet like the ''pitiful, helpless giant'' that tortured Richard Nixon's imagination during the Vietnam War, the past week's events seem to have moved it very much in that direction.

IRAQ-U.S.: One, Two, Many Messes

While the United States does not look quite yet like the ''pitiful, helpless giant'' that tortured Richard Nixon's imagination during the Vietnam War, the past week's events seem to have moved it very much in that direction.

POLITICS-IRAQ: A Year After Occupation, Resistance Digs In

Iraqi groups opposed to the U.S.-led occupation of their country have regained full or partial control of four Iraqi cities and are resorting to the kidnapping of foreigners, a scenario that spells more violence ahead as the country marked on Friday the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

SRI LANKA: Tiger Rebels Have Reason to Smile if Peace Talks Resume

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels would find themselves in an enviable position if the country's stalled peace talks do resume in the coming weeks.

IRAQ: Shiite Uprising Signals Double Trouble for U.S. – Experts

With U.S. Marines effectively locking down the defiant city of Fallujah in the rebellious ''Sunni Triangle'', other U.S. military forces in Iraq opened a new front Monday to quash an apparent uprising by a Shiite militia in Baghdad and the south, in what some experts warn could be a major turning point in the year-old occupation.

HAITI-U.S.: Powell to Visit Latest Occupation

Fresh from visiting U.S.-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Secretary of State Colin Powell will set down in Port-au-Prince on Monday to check out the Bush administration's latest charge, Haiti, where Washington helped oust the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, less than two months ago.

BOLIVIA: New President, Same Old Economic Policy

Many of the protesters who took part in the popular uprising that toppled former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada last October were hoping for a change in the country's free market economic policies.

IRAQ-U.S.: Fallujah Punctures Washington’s Optimism

April Fools' Day is traditionally one of good-natured mischief, but not this year. Indeed, U.S. President George W. Bush's trademark smirk, which normally fits the day's spirit almost to a T, was nowhere to be seen Thursday.

IRAQ-U.S.: Fallujah Punctures Washington’s Optimism

April Fools' Day is traditionally one of good-natured mischief, but not this year. Indeed, U.S. President George W. Bush's trademark smirk, which normally fits the day's spirit almost to a T, was nowhere to be seen Thursday.

AFGHANISTAN: Donors Pledge More Money And Troops

Persistent insecurity, rapid growth of the drug economy and the slow pace of reconstruction continue to cripple economic and political progress in Afghanistan.

/CORRECTED REPEAT/BURMA: Key Meet to Test if Junta, Opposition Can Work

All eyes are now on whether Burma's military rulers and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are on the verge of agreeing to work together on the country's political future, after Rangoon announced this week that a National Convention that will draft a new constitution will resume work in May.