U.S.-AFRICA: 'Mutual Partnership and Mutual Respect'

"We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans," U.S. president Barack Obama told Ghana's parliament. And the keys to that future, as outlined in his speech, include democratic elections, accountability, good governance and strong institutions.

HONDURAS: Coup d'Etat – What's In a Name?

The events unleashed two weeks ago in Honduras have raised questions about the options available in a democratic system to penalise infringements of the constitution without, in turn, trampling the constitution.

IRAN: Protests Erupt on Student Massacre Anniversary

Tehran's relatively tranquil week ended with large protests commemorating the tenth anniversary of attacks on the dormitories of Tehran University in 1999, making Thursday yet another significant day in the short post-election history of protests since Jun. 12.

CLIMATE CHANGE: G8 Declares a Lack of Promise

The G8 summit is no climate change meeting, and not formally associated in any sense with the series of negotiating meetings leading up to the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. But the outcome of a G8 sponsored forum on climate change should get environmentalists worried about any outcome in Copenhagen.

POLITICS-INDIA: Waiting to Hear Clinton on AfPak, China

It is hard to say whether U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will find herself being quizzed more on Washington's 'AfPak' strategy to contain global terror or her appeasement of a financially muscular China, when she lands in India mid-July.

G8: Politely, a Revolution Under Way

It is with too much ease that we all sometimes use the word 'revolution'. Because all too often the change being championed is one that too many others simply do not notice. But that isn't the case here: the change pushed for at the G8 summit in Italy, and at other such forums, is no less than revolutionary, and can only be seen as historic.

TURKEY: Constitutional Crisis Escalating

Tension between the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and the high command of the Armed Forces (TSK) has escalated to new heights after a series of political coups and counter-coups.

G8: It Will Be a Tale of Two Summits

There is a reason that eight and five do not add up to 13 when it comes to the G8. And it is not just that the five developing countries that now attend the summit of the eight mighty ones as a matter of course are less rich. It's because they have their own way to go, and parallel with the G8 meet, their own summit to attend.

IRAQ: Is Another Conflict Inevitable?

Relations between Iraq's various Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman ethnicities are going through a new round of complications since a provision in the draft constitution of the country's northern Kurdistan region declared a range of disputed areas part of the historical Kurdish homeland, infuriating non-Kurds in the country.

MIDEAST: Future of Fatah in Doubt

The future of Palestinian unity talks is far more complex than the bitter rivalry, bloodshed and division which represent the yawning chasm separating Palestine's two main political factions, Hamas and Fatah.

US-HONDURAS: Dictatorships and Double Standards Revisited

When the Honduran military deposed President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday, in an incident that stirred memories of Cold War military coups in Latin America, it also seems to have caused at least some foreign policy commentators here to revert to positions reminiscent of the Cold War.

AFRICA: Maternal Mortality, A Human Rights Catastrophe

The right to the highest attainable standard of health: not the most fashionable of human rights, but the limits on people's enjoyment of their right to health often coincide with continuing inequalities behind claims of economic growth or political reform.

POLITICS-US: Playing the Hawk with North Korea

If the Obama administration needed a rogue nation to demonstrate its foreign policy resolve, central casting couldn't have supplied a better candidate than North Korea. The government in Pyongyang routinely promises to unleash destruction of biblical proportions on its enemies. It has pulled out of international agreements, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has sentenced two U.S. journalists to 12 years of hard labour on the charge of violating its borders. And after conducting two nuclear tests, it now declares itself a nuclear power.

TURKEY: Military Ghost Rises Again

Less than two years after its discreet sealing, the truce between ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) seems to have ended.

MIDEAST: Deal on Gaza Makes Headway

Under a complex twin-pronged initiative from the U.S. and Egypt, Israel's hard- line government is moving towards backtracking on two major planks of its policy in the occupied territories - resisting demands for a blanket freeze on all settlement building in the West Bank, and acquiescing in the end of its tight siege of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

IRAN: Cries and Whispers

After several tumultuous days, the streets of Tehran are relatively quiet. But the density of police and basij presence has given the city an air of suffocation. It is hard to breathe.

MIDEAST: Iran Crisis Ripples Outward

As the political crisis that erupted after Iran's Jun. 12 elections enters its third week, it is becoming evident that this crisis will have repercussions in many parts of the Middle East - and far beyond.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Airstrike Report Belies “Blame Taliban” Line

The version of the official military investigation into the disastrous May 4 airstrike in Farah province made public last week by the Central Command was carefully edited to save the U.S. command in Afghanistan the embarrassment of having to admit that earlier claims blaming the massive civilian deaths on the "Taliban" were fraudulent.

MIDEAST: The Writing Is On the Settlement Walls

A paralysing equation has long bedevilled would-be Middle East peacemakers: either, go directly to negotiating the kernel issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict - borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem - and leave, in the context of a full peace, the thorny question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to fall naturally into place. Or, tackle the settlements head-on, thereby opening the way for a peace drive.

US-IRAQ: Fate of Withdrawal Pact to be Decided at the Polls

As Iraqis witness a spike in violence after a months-long relative lull, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has decided to put its security agreement with the U.S. to a public referendum, although the move appears to be only heightening a sense of uncertainty over the fate of the country.

POLITICS-US: Obama’s Right Turn

Human rights and open government advocates were heartened by President Barack Obama's pledge during his first week in office to create "an unprecedented level of openness in government" and "establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration".