IRAN: Ahmadinejad Sworn in Amid Protests

When incumbent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived at parliament by helicopter to take the presidential oath in front of the members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the setting resembled a country under military rule.

IRAQ: Chance of a Breakthrough With the Kurds?

A recent meeting between Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani appears to be a crucial step in lowering tensions in the country, but it has also prompted questions as to whether the two leaders can put an end to their differences.

MIDEAST: Hope Now Advances to Autumn

Much of the world is side-tracked into the summer holiday mood, but the Obama Administration consistently stresses it won't allow its Middle East peacemaking effort to be side-tracked: We'll soon be hitting full stride, is the constant White House message.

POLITICS: U.S. Officials Protect Pak Military on Aid to Taliban

Despite evidence implicating the current Pakistani Army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in a major military assistance program for the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan over the past few years, senior officials of the Barack Obama administration persuaded Congress to extend military assistance to Pakistan for five years without any assurance that the Pakistani assistance to the Taliban had ended.

GUYANA: Govt Complicity With Drug Ring Aired in New York

This small English-speaking nation, home to the Caribbean trade bloc (CARICOM), has been in the news recently due to allegations in a New York court that the government here willingly and knowingly gave surveillance equipment to a private death squad so that it could hunt down and execute more than 200 criminal suspects and opposition activists it wanted off the scene - as far back as 2002.

MIDEAST: Obama Maneuvres Between Jewish Israelis, Jewish Americans

Pres. Barack Obama has repeatedly declared himself a close friend of Israel. But many Israelis inside and outside their country's government have now expressed concern about the lack of closeness, or even just of attention, with which they feel Obama is treating them.

MIDEAST: The Old Bibi Is Back

"Reckless", "cavalier", "unscrupulous", "petty politician, not statesman"...these and such epithets applied to Benjamin Netanyahu by friends and foes alike - not that he ended up with many friends - when he was first Israel's Prime Minister back in the late 1990s.

MIDEAST: Building Peace on an Incomplete Wall

Beneath the towering eight-metre concrete slabs, an army jeep patrols the Israeli side of the 'security wall' that cuts through Palestinian territory, dividing the occupied West Bank from Israel.

US-IRAQ: Al-Maliki Dons Mantle of Seasoned Statesman

His visit to the U.S. this week was meant to be a show of statesmanship, much different than when he was in Washington last time.

SOUTH AMERICA: Brazil Outshines Regional Bloc

The enthusiasm for Brazil today on the economic front and the lead role played by its government in the international arena are in stark contrast with the inertia dogging the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the regional integration project and trade bloc that has been one of its priorities since the 1980s.

MIDEAST: Fatah’s Leadership Crisis Deepens

Fifty years ago, a small group of Palestinian teachers and engineers living in Kuwait founded a secretive movement aimed at liberating those portions of previously British-ruled Palestine that became the State of Israel in 1948.

MIDEAST: Defiant Netanyahu Plays his Jerusalem Card

Israel's newly installed ambassador in Washington says the "disagreement" with the U.S. over Israel's settlement policy will be resolved "soon". Speaking on Israel Radio, Michael Oren was giving his first interview since taking up his post.

POLITICS: Lines Are Drawn in Iran

With the historical Friday Prayer sermon given by former president and current chair of the Council of Experts and Expediency Discernment Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Jul. 17, and the riposte by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei three days later, lines have been drawn in unprecedented ways in Iran.

MIDEAST: ‘Let Obama Talk…’

A joke deriding U.S. President Barack Obama is said to be making the rounds in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau, according to Aluf Benn, the normally well-informed Ha'aretz diplomatic correspondent: "What do Americans do when anything breaks down in their home - when the sink is blocked, the toilet overflows, or a fuse snaps? Simple: They ask Barack Obama to give a speech and the problem is solved."

MIDEAST: Turkey Gets Boost from Pipeline Politics

The political geography of the modern Middle East has been affected for one hundred years by the appetite of westerners and other outsiders for the region's hydrocarbons.

ENVIRONMENT-NIGERIA: Playing With Fire

Nigeria's gas flare-out date has once again been extended - this time to 2011. The decision follows 25 years of political procrastination by the federal government and illegal behaviour on the part of major oil multinationals engaged in flaring associated gas (AG), the byproduct of oil production in the Niger Delta.

US-IRAQ: Kurds Caught Up in Biden’s Diplomatic Offensive

The indefinite postponement of a referendum on Iraqi Kurdistan's controversial draft constitution just days after a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has given rise to speculation that Washington may have played a role in the delay.

SCIENCE: G8 Failure to Launch on Climate

The G8's failure to make meaningful commitments on climate last week pushes the world ever closer to global climate catastrophe, experts warn. Without commitments to take action, there is little comfort in G8 countries' agreement to keep overall global warming below 2.0 degrees Celsius.

MIDEAST: Fine-Tuning the Cold War

Ambiguity - is it the watchword for all involved in the issue over whether Iran goes nuclear, especially in light of the ongoing political uncertainties that engulf the Islamic Republic?

MIDEAST: Succession Issues Face Key U.S. Allies

Two key U.S. allies in the Arab world, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are now both facing succession crises that may absorb, or even split, their political elites. This promises a period of political unpredictability ahead in both countries.

POLITICS: Behind Detainee Release, a U.S.-Iraqi Conflict on Iran

The release Friday of five Iranians held by the U.S. military in Iraq for two and a half years highlights the long-simmering conflict between the U.S. and Iraqi views of Iranian policy in Iraq and of the role of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) there.