MEDIA-US: Iraq, Natural Disasters Dominated TV News in 2005

Led by Hurricane Katrina, natural disasters and Iraq dominated the U.S. television news during 2005, accounting for almost half of the content of the three major network news shows over the course of the year, according to the latest annual round-up of the weekday evening news by the New York-based Tyndall Report.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/POLITICS-US: L’Affaire Abramoff Ripples Outward

On Saturday, Tom DeLay, a powerful Texas Republican, became the biggest political casualty thus far of L'Affaire Abramoff, as he was forced to resign his post as majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives amid mounting evidence of widespread corruption and influence-peddling on Capitol Hill.

CANADA: Sick of Being Little Brother, Let Alone “Retarded Cousin”

As the federal election date draws near on Jan. 23, Canadian political parties are staking their ground on the government's deteriorating relationship with the United States.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: Schism Grows Between Religious Right and Left

The news stories chosen as the Top 10 of 2005 by members of the "righteous-wing" of the Republican Party offer significant insight into what U.S. religious conservatives consider most important.

LABOUR-US: Minimum Wage Fight Sidesteps Washington

The U.S. Congress reached a dubious milestone at the start of the New Year: its 100th month without raising the minimum wage earned by millions of workers at the very bottom of the economic ladder.

POLITICS-US: The House That Jack Built Tumbles Down

Tuesday's guilty plea by Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials threatens to unravel a network of right-wing lobbyists and lawmakers whose rise since the early 1990s was fueled as much by cash and influence-peddling as by ideological conviction.

FINANCE-US: The Biggest Company You Never Heard Of

In a move that does not auger well for the environment, the Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries recently finalised its 21-billion-dollar buyout of forest products producer Georgia Pacific Corporation, making Koch the United States' largest privately held company.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: Canadians Imagine an Army of Peacemakers

Canadian peace activists are trying to head off the usual calls for increased military spending by the two major political parties that tend to coincide with the country's national elections, now set for Jan. 23.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: A “Conservative” Identity Crisis

One of the most misleading U.S. journalistic conventions has been the use of "conservative" to describe right-wing Republicans, like President George W. Bush and the party's leadership in Congress. More than four years into the "war on terrorism", it is clear to all but the blindest observers that they are anything but.

POLITICS-US: Congress to Probe Domestic Spying

As those loyal to Pres. George W. Bush circle the wagons to aggressively defend his programme of conducting surveillance of phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens, a judge on the court set up to review requests for such actions has resigned, apparently in protest.

POLITICS-US: Patriot Act in Limbo Amid New Spying Flap

A bipartisan majority of senators refused to reauthorise the USA Patriot Act Friday, which was hurriedly passed six weeks after the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, and gave U.S. law enforcement agencies significant expanded powers to investigate suspected terrorists.

RIGHTS-US: Watchdogs Protest Pentagon’s “Mission Creep”

By the end of the current session of Congress later this month, the Pentagon could have legal authority to "covertly" gather intelligence on U.S. citizens in the United States - a power taken away following excesses during the Vietnam War.

POLITICS-US: The Mogul, the Movie and the Mission

As moviegoers flocked to see the first major film adaptation of C.S. Lewis' popular children's book, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", this weekend, its backer, conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz, is on his way to becoming one of the most powerful media moguls in the United States.

HEALTH-US: Is the Mud Worse Than the Flood?

Soil analyses released by the environmental group the Sierra Club this week reveal high levels of arsenic and other heavy metals at nearly every location tested in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, following the severe floods unleashed by Hurricane Katrina in August.

DEVELOPMENT-US: Hurricane Victims Mired in Red Tape

Three months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans faced a town hall meeting of several hundred displaced constituents - but had few answers to questioners seething with anger, frustration, confusion and hopelessness.

RIGHTS-US: Abolitionists Denounce 1,000th Execution

As the United States approaches its 1,000th execution since capital punishment resumed here in 1977, human rights groups at home and abroad are using the grisly milestone to press for abolition of the death penalty.

POLITICS-US: It’s a Holly Jolly Christmas Conspiracy

Christian fundamentalists, right-wing Christian legal groups, and most of the Fox News Channel's prime time crew are echoing variations on the same theme - liberals are out to take the Christ out of Christmas.

RIGHTS: Native Canadians to Get 1.7 Billion for School Abuse

The Canadian government announced Wednesday an "agreement in principle" to pay 1.7 billion dollars to tens of thousands of Canada's indigenous peoples who were physically and sexually abused in government-financed, largely church-run "residential schools".

POLITICS-US: Democrats, NGOs Assail “Crony” Appointees

Critics of the George W. Bush administration are charging that recent appointments suggest that the president has failed to learn from the Katrina disaster and the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court, and continues to favour political loyalty over qualifications and competence.

POLITICS-US: Republicans Cut and Run from Iraq and Bush

Although he dislikes foreign travel and formal summits, U.S. President George W. Bush must be relieved to be spending this week as an honoured guest in several Asian capitals. According to the stereotype, Asians are unfailingly polite.

POLITICS-US: Public Lands Steered to Private Hands

Richard Pombo, a California Republican who chairs the House Resources Committee, is making a name for himself these days by offering up a series of controversial bills relating to land use in the United States' national parks and other critical environmental issues.