POLITICS-US: White House Wields Another Stick on Iran

The heads of the U.S. State and Treasury Departments jointly announced new sanctions aimed at the further economic isolation of Iran Thursday, citing the Islamic Republic's defiance on its continued nuclear programme and its alleged involvement with terrorist organisations.

POLITICS: U.S. Military Ignored Evidence of Iraqi-Made EFPs

When the U.S. military command accused the Iranian Quds Force last January of providing the armour-piercing EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that were killing U.S. troops, it knew that Iraqi machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for years, a review of the historical record of evidence on EFPs in Iraq shows.

POLITICS-US: Bush Rules Out Any Detente with Cuba

Insisting that the recent transition in Cuba represents "the dying gasps of a failed regime", U.S. President George W. Bush Wednesday vowed to maintain Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba until its government "has adopted in word and deed fundamental freedoms."

US-IRAQ: Ill-Equipped Soldiers Opt for “Search and Avoid”

Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here say that morale among U.S. soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed "search and avoid" missions.

POLITICS-US: Bush Risks Falling Off Turkish-Kurd Tightrope

Spurred by the deployment of at least 100,000 troops along Turkey's border with Iraq, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is pressing its closest clients in Iraqi Kurdistan to crack down hard against the Kurdish Turkish Workers' Party (PKK), which Washington considers a terrorist organisation.

POLITICS-US: Cheney Raises the Rhetoric Against Iran

In the harshest speech against Iran given by a top George W. Bush administration official to date, Vice President Dick Cheney Sunday warned the Islamic Republic of "serious consequences" if it did not freeze its nuclear programme and accused it of "direct involvement in the killings of Americans".

BOOKS-US: Decoding the Enigmatic Republic of Iran

Condoleezza Rice was in a triumphant mood the day Baghdad fell in April 2003, writes journalist Barbara Slavin in her new book, "Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies".

POLITICS-US: Homeless Vets Play the Waiting Game

U.S. Army Specialist James Eggemeyer injured himself before he even set foot in Iraq, jumping out of a C-130 gunship during training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

POLITICS-US: Military Resistance Forced Shift on Iran Strike

The George W. Bush administration's shift from the military option of a massive strategic attack against Iran to a surgical strike against selected targets associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker earlier this month, appears to have been prompted not by new alarm at Iran's role in Iraq but by the explicit opposition of the nation's top military leaders to an unprovoked attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

POLITICS-US: Ties With Turkey Dodge One Bullet

Amid rising bilateral tensions with Turkey and strong White House pressure, the Democratic leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to set aside a controversial resolution recognising as a "genocide" the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

RIGHTS: Award Honours Defiant GIs, Crusading Colombian Senator

A growing number of U.S. military personnel are publicly expressing opposition to the ongoing occupation of Iraq, said the leaders of a group of active-duty service members who were honoured here Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive Washington think tank.

HEALTH-US: Soldier’s Death Highlights Medical Staff Shortages

On Sep. 19, Kay McMullen had the last conversation she ever would with her son, Gerald Cassidy, or G.J., as he was known to his family and friends.

RELIGION-US: Keeping the Muslim Faith – And a Low Profile

Ali Hanif is an African-American Muslim living in Oakland, California. On Fridays, his day off, he attends group prayers at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Northern California (CCNC). But Hanif says that he never volunteers his religion to strangers.

POLITICS-US: More Hegemony, Less Imperialism, Urges Clinton

In her most comprehensive - if characteristically cautious - foreign policy pronouncement to date, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed a clear preference for diplomacy and "soft power" in pursuing U.S. interests abroad, but added she would not hesitate to use military force unilaterally if she deemed it necessary.

POLITICS: White House Hopes to Avert Major Rift With Turkey

A resolution recognising as "genocide" the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago has gained the sponsorship of a majority of members in the U.S. House of Representatives. But it has also drawn heavy criticism from George W. Bush administration officials, who argue that the non-binding and largely symbolic legislation could harm relations with Turkey at a particularly crucial time.

POLITICS: U.S. Asked to Curb Military Excesses in Iraq

The United Nations has asked the United States to help prevent military excesses by multinational troops and private security firms accused of using indiscriminate force against civilians in Iraq.

US-IRAQ: Heat Turns Up on Blackwater Inquiry

As with most of the controversies that have embroiled the U.S. in Iraq, the activities of the George W. Bush administration's mercenary force remained murky and opaque. Enabled by the U.S. State Department, private security firms such as Blackwater USA seemingly occupied a state of legal limbo that allowed their guards to operate with impunity.

MIDEAST: November Talks Must Be Inclusive, Urge U.S. Graybeards

To succeed, next month's Israeli-Palestinian conference here should establish and endorse the contours of a permanent peace accord and secure the participation of Arab states that do not currently recognise Israel, including Syria, according to a letter sent Wednesday to President George W. Bush from a bipartisan group of eight former top U.S. policy-makers.

RIGHTS-US: High Court Won’t Hear Rendition, Torture Case

In a major rebuff to human rights and government accountability activists, the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday declined to take up the case of a German citizen who was allegedly abducted, detained and tortured by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme.

US-IRAQ: Unable to Defeat Mahdi Army, U.S. Hopes to Divide It

Although the U.S. military command's frequent assertions that the primary threat to U.S. forces in Iraq comes from Iranian meddling, its real problem is that Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi army is determined to end the occupation and is simply too big and too well entrenched to be weakened by military force.

POLITICS-US: Three Iraqs Worse Than One?

With a strong majority of U.S. citizens favouring withdrawal from Iraq within a year and presidential elections set for 2008, Democrats and moderate Republicans continue to face an uphill struggle to force President George W. Bush to change course.