POLITICS-US: Storm Relief Funds Earmarked for Faith Groups

Nearly a month after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared that it would use taxpayer money to reimburse faith-based organisations for the services they rendered in the aftermath of the hurricane.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ARTS-AFRICA: Images From a Forgotten War

Five photojournalists are hoping their work will refocus the world's attention on the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where "millions have died in little more than seven years while we caress the cat and fret over which disaster to watch on television".

POLITICS-US: Bush Picks Loyalist for “Swing” Court Seat

Increasingly under siege on a range of fronts from Iraq to hurricane reconstruction, President George W. Bush Monday nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers, a long-time loyalist, to a critical and possibly decisive seat on the powerful nine-member U.S. Supreme Court.

FINANCE: Tax Cuts, Oil Appetite Eroding U.S. Sovereignty

A combination of huge tax cuts, an insatiable appetite for foreign imports, especially oil, and record government spending is steadily eroding U.S. independence and freedom of action, according to a "special report" released Thursday by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

POLITICS-US: Public Sceptical About Bush’s Democracy Crusade

The U.S. public is deeply sceptical about the priority President George W. Bush has put on promoting democracy abroad, and its experience in Iraq has made it more so, according to a detailed new survey released Thursday by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) and the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland.

POLITICS-US: In Blow to GOP Discipline, “The Hammer” Falls

After a year of dismissing as "politically motivated" charges that he had repeatedly violated Congressional ethics rules, the troubles of Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay dramatically escalated Wednesday when he was forced to temporarily resign his post after being indicted by a Texas grand jury for his role in helping the Republican Party win control of that state's legislature in the 2002 elections.

POLITICS-US: Next Court Nominee Likely to Face Harsher Scrutiny

As Pres. George W. Bush prepares to nominate a successor to retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner - as early as this week - he may be facing one of the most bruising battles of his presidency.

RIGHTS-US: Calls Mount for Prisoner Abuse Commission

New allegations of prisoner torture in Iraq are likely to add urgency to pending legislation that would create a 9/11-type commission to investigate detainee treatment and ensure that the U.S. operates within the law on interrogations.

ENVIRONMENT: Bush Climate Policy More Fossil Than Fuel

Has the United States reached a tipping point on global warming, as yet another destructive hurricane uproots millions of its citizens?

POLITICS-US: Faith-Based Hiring Sets up Congressional Rift

Advocates for separation of church and state took a major hit yesterday as the U.S. House of Representatives voted to allow "faith-based" groups to discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring personnel to participate in the Head Start education programme for poor children.

POLITICS-US: FDR Revival?

Sixty years after his death, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the policies he pursued - both at home and abroad - during his record 12-year presidency appear to be enjoying something of a comeback.

U.S.: Years Before Katrina’s Environmental Costs Can Be Measured

Hurricane Katrina may cost the United States more than 200 billion dollars in rebuilding and recovery, but the full environmental cost may take years to calculate, experts say.

POLITICS-US: Critics Predict Katrina Whitewash

U.S. President George W. Bush's appointment of his own homeland security advisor to head a White House investigation of what went wrong with the government's Hurricane Katrina response and how to fix it is being greeted with some scepticism by emergency preparedness and response experts.

POLITICS-US: Uncertain Anniversary for Iraq War Champions

It was four years ago today that a little-known group called the "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) published an open letter to President George W. Bush advising him on how precisely he should carry out his brand-new "war on terrorism".

POLITICS-US: 9/11 Lessons Ignored in Katrina Response

The U.S. government's sluggish and uncoordinated response to Hurricane Katrina again drew public attention to some of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have yet to be implemented or have made unsatisfactory or marginal progress.

DEVELOPMENT-US: Katrina Survivors Demand Right of Return

On the morning after U.S. Pres. George W. Bush promised to carry out "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen", a coalition of African American leaders laid out their vision of what needs to be done to restore the physical and human damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

POLITICS-US: Sailing Toward Lame Duck Land on Katrina’s Waters

More than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, U.S. President George W. Bush is looking increasingly like a political "lame duck", struggling hard to stay afloat on a rising tide of pessimism and popular discontent.

HEALTH: Disaster’s Psychic Wounds Take Longest to Heal

Public anger over the failures of U.S. federal, state and local authorities to respond quickly to the massive flooding in New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina can only deepen the survivors' lasting psychological trauma, says a Yale University sociologist.

POLITICS-US: Senate’s Kabuki Dance With Roberts Goes On

After three days of hearings on the confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts to be the seventeenth Chief Justice of the United States, what the public has learned is that the nominee appears to be as much Talmudic scholar as jurist.

POLITICS-U.S: Trans-Atlantic Group Calls for Nuclear Deal With Iran

Ahead of a crucial International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting, next week, a group of some 50 prominent experts and former foreign-policy officials from the United States and Europe have mooted a deal with Iran on it's controversial nuclear programme.

POLITICS-US: Court Nominee Dodges Key Questions

Senators continued their judicial minuet with Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John G. Roberts, with the witness refusing to answer questions about abortion, but expressing the view that privacy is a Constitutional right and asserting support for most of the court's landmark civil rights decisions.