/ARTS WEEKLY/INDIA: Bollywood Gets Serious About HIV/AIDS

Song and dance against a verdant valley. Good pitted against evil. Fantastical villains. Bright colours. Spectacle and turmoil. No more, no less, this is Bollywood as the Indian film industry has been known for decades.

POLITICS-US: Watching the Watchdogs

For the past few years, U.S. citizens have lived with an increasingly secretive government.

RIGHTS-US: Immigration Debate Misses the Point, Expert Says

As a nervous Congress was approving billions of dollars to make the United States safer in the wake of the London bombings, a nationally recognised authority on immigration detention charged that the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and other immigrants are being ignored.

POLITICS-US: "Bush’s Brain" Besieged

Battered by sagging poll numbers, new doubts in the aftermath of the London bombings about the effectiveness of its war on terrorism, and no let-up in the bad news out of Iraq, the White House has found itself this week embroiled in yet another controversy, one that threatens the credibility, if not the tenure, of the man widely known as Pres. George W. Bush's "brain."

RIGHTS-US: Lawsuit Challenges Military’s Gay Ban

Twelve gays and lesbians discharged from the military because of their sexual orientation are suing the U.S. government in an effort to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars homosexuals from openly serving.

POLITICS-US: Ralph Reed’s Reckoning

Ralph Reed, the wunderkind of the U.S. religious right during the 1990s, recently gathered supporters together for a rally promoting his candidacy for the lieutenant governor of Georgia - a campaign many political observers believe is the former leader of the Christian Coalition's first step on the road toward higher office.

POLITICS-CANADA: A Tale of Two Cities

Community activists are criticising what they say is a link between cuts to social services and massive budget overruns for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games due to rising labour rates and material costs.

POPULATION: Intermarriage Moving US from Salad Bowl to Melting Pot

The number of inter-racial marriages in the United States increased more than ten-fold between 1970 and 2000, according to a new report which concludes that U.S. attitudes towards inter-racial dating and marriage has undergone a "sea change" over the past generation.

POLITICS-US: What 800 Million Buys on Capitol Hill

U.S. drug companies spent more than 800 million dollars over the past seven years in campaign donations and lobbying that have produced favourable laws and tens of billions of dollars in extra profits, according to a Washington-based watchdog group.

POLITICS-US: The Christian Left Strikes Back

As prodigiously funded groups on the religious right prepare to square off against the equally well-endowed but largely sectarian left in a take-no-prisoners battle over the replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, there are signs that a new progressive religious movement may be emerging.

RIGHTS-US: The New McCarthyism

A spectre is again haunting U.S. colleges and universities.

MEDIA: Before Woodstein, There Were Upton, Lincoln and Ida

Most people in the United States under 40 have no idea what real investigative journalism is. Those old enough to remember Watergate and Deep Throat think it started with Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward and "All the President's Men".

POLITICS: Spectres of Militarism, Nationalism Dog Independence Day

As U.S. citizens mark their annual celebration of patriotism, the Fourth of July holiday, they might do well to also ponder the spectre of two other "isms" that threaten the Republic's durability and strength raised by two important books published over the past year.

POLITICS-US: Parting the Veil of Government Secrecy

The American Civil Liberties Union receives thousands of pages of reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation about prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

RIGHTS-US: Hoping for a Miracle

This weekend, one of Latina Magazine's top 10 women of the year will enjoy a place of honour by riding in the lead float in the Jefferson City, Missouri, Fourth of July parade.

CANADA: Gay Marriage Galvanises Nascent Religious Right

As Canada joins the three other countries in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, religious conservatives who actively opposed the move are licking their wounds and vowing that their fight is not over.

POLITICS-US: Jesus is Not Our Co-Pilot, Academy Insists

The U.S. Air Force continued to carry out damage control Tuesday before a congressional committee looking into religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which trains future officers.

ENERGY-US: Nuclear Industry Poised to Win Big

Incentives for nuclear energy in a new U.S. energy bill have come under attack from environmentalists and consumer groups who say the legislation will make the United States reliant on expensive and dangerous commercial nuclear plants.

RIGHTS-US: Groups Detail Growing Police State

The FBI is carrying out "unwarranted investigations for religious or political reasons", according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which charges that "the agency has sunk back into the kind of political monitoring it did in the 1960s and 1970s."

POLITICS-US: Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams…

Five members of Congress recently disclosed that a registered lobbying firm paid for their trip to Ireland's Ashford Castle. When their travel - an apparent breach of Congressional rules - was made public, they simply changed their documentation to show that a not-for-profit organisation, not a lobbyist, had picked up the tab.

POLITICS-US: Republicans Take Aim at "Gitmo" Messenger

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is hitting back at a Senate Republican report calling on the George W. Bush administration to reassess financial support for the organisation because it is allegedly using U.S. funds to lobby against U.S. interests.