POLITICS-US: Anti-War Groups Plan Surge on Washington

Peace activists from around the United States will converge on Washington Saturday for what organisers hope will be the largest demonstration to date against the Iraq war.

POLITICS: U.S., Iranian Publics Not So Different

The people of Iran and the United States share many of the same hopes and fears about global problems but remain deeply distrustful of each other's government, according to a major survey of public opinion in both countries released here Wednesday.

POLITICS: Bush Urged to Make Israeli-Palestinian Peace Now

As U.S. President George W. Bush puts the final touches on his State of the Union Address, an unusually broad group of Middle East specialists here is hoping that he will make his proposed two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a centrepiece of both his speech and his last two years in office.

POLITICS: Bush Continues to Unite the World… Against Him

Despite two years of a concentrated effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her public diplomacy major- doma Karen Hughes to boost Washington's global image, more people around the world have an unfavourable opinion of U.S. policies than at any time in recent memory, according to a new BBC poll released here Monday.

HEALTH-IRAQ: A Long List of Pricy Failures

Today, almost four years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's healthcare system is still a shambles.

US/IRAN: Ahmadinejad Feels Economic Heat

The arrests by a U.S. military unit of six Iranians in Erbil, Iraq and several others in Baghdad earlier this month indicate the deployment of a new strategy against Iran's hardliner government.

POLITICS: U.S. Soldier Speaks Out From Baghdad

More than 1,000 active duty U.S. soldiers have signed a petition to Congress - known as an Appeal for Redress - calling for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. Among them is Sgt. Ronn Cantu of Los Angeles, California. He served in Iraq with the 1st Infantry Division from February 2004 until February 2005 and participated in the second siege of Fallujah in November 2004.

IRAQ: U.S. “Cure” for Health Sector Worse than the Disease?

While some critics of the stumbling rehabilitation of Iraq's health care system focused on the failure to deliver basic infrastructure and supplies, others questioned the whole U.S. approach.

POLITICS-US: Democracy Languishes, but Neo-Con Strategy Lives

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) may have effectively closed up shop two years ago and its key neo-conservative allies in the administration, such as Scooter Libby and Douglas Feith, may be long gone, but the group's five-year-old Middle East strategy remains very much alive.

HEALTH-IRAQ: What They Asked For, They Did Not Get

The convoy of flatbed trucks picked up its cargo at Baghdad International Airport last spring and sped northwest, stacked high with crates of expensive medical equipment. From bilirubin metres and hematology analysers to infant incubators and dental appliances, the equipment had been ordered to help Iraq shore up a disintegrating health care system.

SOMALIA: The New Frontier in the War on Terror

Somalia has become the new frontier in the war on terror, joining the unpopular club of Afghanistan and Iraq, a situation that is worrying the rest of Africa.

POLITICS-US: A Mea Culpa, But No Habeas Corpus

A senior U.S. defence department official who suggested that major corporations should stop doing business with large law firms who represent Guantanamo Bay detainees has apologised for his remarks - but his apology failed to satisfy some legal and human rights advocates.

IRAQ: U.S. Offers Scant Help to Fleeing Refugees

With some two million of its citizens having fled to other countries and another 1.7 million internally displaced, Iraq has become one of the world's biggest and fastest growing humanitarian crises for which the United States should take far more responsibility, according to human rights groups and other experts.

POLITICS: Bush’s New Iran Policy – No Evidence for IED Charge

For 18 months now, the George W. Bush administration has periodically raised the charge that Iran is supplying anti-coalition forces in Iraq with arms.

POLITICS: U.N. Officials Question Iraq’s Rough Justice

The U.S.-backed government in Baghdad is facing harsh criticism from the international community for ignoring calls to adopt a policy of restraint with regard to carrying out death sentences against the members of Iraq's former ruling party.

POLITICS: Bush’s New Iran Policy – War Plan or Propaganda?

President George W. Bush's seemingly aggressive Iran policy of taking direct action against alleged Iranian "networks" involved in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, combined with the deployment of a second carrier group off Iran's coast, triggered speculation that it is related to a plan for an attack.

POLITICS: U.N. Sidesteps Military Invasion of Somalia

When former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticised the U.S. military invasion of Iraq as an "illegal" act, he was blasted by right wing neo-conservatives in the United States.

POLITICS: Bush&#39s Iraq Plan – Goading Iran into War

President George W. Bush's address on Iraq Wednesday night was less about Iraq than about its eastern neighbour, Iran. There was little new about the U.S.'s strategy in Iraq, but on Iran, the president spelled out a plan that appears to be aimed at goading Iran into war with the U.S.

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: Bush Isolates Himself Further

President George W. Bush's decision to escalate U.S. military intervention in Iraq and issue new threats against Syria and Iran appears to have left him politically more isolated than ever.

POLITICS: U.N. Chief Urges Bush to Close Guantanamo

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Thursday for the United States to shut down its widely condemned prison complex in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. military has locked up hundreds of foreign citizens on suspicion of links to terrorism.

HEALTH-US: Sick, Literally, of Fighting in Iraq

Susan Tileston hasn't seen her son, Levi Moddrelle, in more than two years. Levi served in the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan and then Iraq, where he was stationed for almost a year. He returned home for Christmas in 2003, but wasn't the same.