IRAN: Protesters Defy Khamenei-Sanctioned Crackdown

With tens of thousands of police deployed Saturday to suppress the massive crowds that have been demanding new elections, it appears that the political crisis touched off by the disputed victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has entered a new phase.

US-MIDEAST: Carter Adds Weight to Shuttle Diplomacy Push

Pres. Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and peace envoy Sen. George Mitchell have been moving steadily ahead with the campaign Obama launched on his first day in the White House, to broker a comprehensive and sustainable Arab-Israeli peace.

POLITICS-GABON: Will Bongo’s Death Signal a New Chapter?

As Omar Bongo Ondimba, the Gabonese president who died at age 73 in Barcelona on Jun. 8, is buried in Franceville in the south-west of Gabon on Thursday, his 41-year-reign as absolute ruler of this oil-producing country of 1.5 million has received mixed reviews.

NORTH KOREA: Peace Process Again a Distant Dream

Ever since being elected as President in 2008, conservative Lee-Myung-bak has pursued a hard-line policy towards North Korea, with the country’s left also blaming him for recent tensions in the peninsula.

U.S.: McChrystal Looks to Spin Afghan Civilian Deaths Problem

At his confirmation hearings two weeks ago, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said reducing civilian deaths from air strikes in Afghanistan was "strategically decisive" and declared his "willingness to operate in ways that minimise casualties or damage, even when it makes our task more difficult."

POLITICS: Shock and Awe in Iran

Four days after Iran's Jun. 12 election, the country remains in a state of shock and turmoil, attempting to come to grips with what happened.

MIDEAST: Peace Talk Without Peace Vision

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much anticipated policy speech about his peace intentions was suffused with peace rhetoric, but it was starkly short on a peace vision.

COLOMBIA: All the President’s Spies

Colombian journalist Hollman Morris phoned an international news agency and said in an agitated voice: "I am being followed by the police."

U.S.: Museum Attack Seen as Home-Grown Terrorism

Wednesday’s killing of a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum by an elderly white supremacist is the latest incident in what many see as a potential new wave of right-wing violence triggered, at least in part, by the election of President Barack Obama and the economic downturn.

MIDEAST: Long Way From ‘Settlerland’ to ‘Palestineland’

Has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got the Obama message? To judge by his minimalist response to President Barack Obama's landmark Cairo University address and his continuing reluctance to meet Obama's demand for a total freeze on Israeli settlements, the answer would seem to be, 'No'.

EUROPE: The East Casts a Shadow

A "failure" by Eastern European leaders to lift political campaigns above domestic disputes and change apathy towards European institutions was behind low turnout and far right party gains in European Parliament elections this weekend, political analysts say.

EUROPE: The Right Makes an Unsettling Advance

The political centre-right has vowed it will be "business as usual" following this weekend's elections to the European Parliament in which they retained majority, despite significant threats from the far right.

MIDEAST: Israel Cracks Down on Minority Rights

Three bills recently making the rounds in the Israeli parliament have caused outrage amongst Israel's Arab minority.

RIGHTS: Honour Pledges on Reproductive Health

In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) proposed a groundbreaking shift in the approach to reproductive health: women's reproductive capacity was to be transformed from an object of population control to a matter of women's empowerment to exercise personal autonomy.

LEBANON: Hizbullah Punching Above Its Numbers

Understanding Lebanon's complex political system is no easy task. In a relatively small country of about four million, Lebanon has more than 18 religious communities and dozens of active political parties. The sectarian political system divides the 128 seats of parliament between 10 of those religious sects, leaving one for minorities.

EGYPT: ‘Obama Talks Democracy, Endorses Dictatorship’

Egyptian officials are lining up to praise U.S. President Barack Obama's address to the Islamic world delivered in Cairo Thursday. But local campaigners for political reform say the speech was disappointingly light on the issues of democracy and human rights.

MIDEAST: 'Lay Down Your Pain, Lay Down Your Arms'

U.S. President Barack Obama drew widespread, if in some quarters, guarded praise from around the region as he labelled the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Israelis and the Arab world the No. 2 issue (behind the extremism of a minority of Muslims) that needs addressing if relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world are to be changed for the better.

POLITICS-US: Report Ties Dubious Iran Nuclear Docs to Israel

A report on Iran’s nuclear programme issued by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month generated news stories publicising an incendiary charge that U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran’s progress in designing a "nuclear warhead" before the halt in nuclear weapons-related research in 2003.

EUROPE: Far Right Comes Nearer

As European Union citizens prepare to go to the polls to elect representatives to the European Parliament this weekend (Jun. 4-7), in Brussels there continues to be much speculation about the political make-up of the next five-year parliament.

RIGHTS: Greece Cannot Take Very Much More

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has asked the European Commission to call a meeting between the agency and countries around the Mediterranean to work out a joint strategy to deal with irregular migration.

COLOMBIA: Moving Towards a Paramilitary State?

Visibly indignant, former Colombian president César Gaviria (1990-1994) denounced this week what he called an "appalling" article in a draft political reform law currently under debate in Congress.