POLITICS: U.S. Isolated in Opposing New Human Rights Body

The United States is being reduced to a minority of one in its unyielding opposition to a proposal to create a new Human Rights Council (HRC) to replace the U.N.'s existing much-maligned Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

POLITICS-US: Mass Casualties in Collapse of Port Deal

Thursday's effective collapse of the deal to sell operations in six major U.S. ports to a Dubai-owned company following a strident three-week Congressional campaign against it threatens so many different important interests that it is difficult to make a full accounting.

AFRICA: Group Slams Janus Face of U.S. Policy

When some 6,000 U.S.-led NATO forces land next June for two weeks of manoeuvres in Cape Verde, will they be rehearsing more for rapid deployment in humanitarian emergencies, as in Darfur, Sudan, or for securing oil supplies and access to other key African resources?

RIGHTS: U.S. State Dept. Names Iran Among Worst Violators

Releasing the latest edition of its annual human rights "Country Reports", the U.S. State Department Wednesday named Iran and China as among the world's "most systematic human rights violators" in 2005, along with North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Belarus.

POLITICS-US: Old Divides Resurface as Bush Sinks

As U.S. President George W. Bush's standing in public opinion polls plumbs new depths, his fellow Republicans are finding it ever more difficult to maintain their unity on key hot-button issues, such as foreign policy, immigration and civil liberties.

IRAQ: U.S. Officials Downplay Civil War Threat

The George W. Bush administration deliberately played down the seriousness of the threat of sectarian civil war in Iraq following the mass killings of Sunnis in revenge for the destruction of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, despite abundant evidence that even worse sectarian violence is certain to follow the next terrorist bombing.

POLITICS-US: Relations with Russia Moving in “Wrong Direction”

Fifteen years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, bilateral ties between Russia, its successor state, and the United States are "headed in the wrong direction", according to a new report released here this week by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

RIGHTS: Peace Activists Arrested at U.S. Mission to U.N.

New York police arrested four women activists outside the United States mission to the United Nations Monday as they tried to deliver a petition signed by 72,000 people calling for immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.

PAKISTAN: Anxiety Ahead of Bush Visit

Apprehension and expectation are uppermost in the minds of Pakistani leaders as United States President George W. Bush begins, Thursday, the business end of a four-day tour of India and Pakistan.

POLITICS: Poll of US Troops in Iraq Underlines Growing Pressure to Withdraw

The findings of an unprecedented poll of U.S. troops in Iraq are certain to add to steadily growing pressures on the administration of President George W. Bush to accelerate Washington's withdrawal from a country that is increasingly seen as being on the verge of civil war.

RIGHTS: Top U.S. General Dismisses Grim Abuses Report

A senior U.S. military commander has branded as "propaganda" a new report from a major human rights group revealing that of the 98 detainees who have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, 34 are suspected or confirmed homicides.

POLITICS: Bush Seeks to Draw India, Pakistan Closer to U.S.

U.S. President George W. Bush hopes his maiden tour of India and Pakistan this week will draw both South Asian giants more firmly into Washington's orbit, as well as help restore his battered foreign policy image back home.

RIGHTS: EU Watchdog Probes Renditions, “Black Sites”

The 46-member Council of Europe, the continent's oldest political organisation, is investigating whether European governments have allowed Washington to use their airspace to ferry terror suspects to third countries or to secret prisons dubbed "black sites", where detainees were allegedly tortured.

POLITICS-US: Public Sees Bush as Getting No Respect Abroad

A large majority of the U.S. public believes that Pres. George W. Bush, whose carefully cultivated image of no-nonsense cowboy toughness has been a hallmark of his presidency, has become the Rodney Dangerfield of international politics, according to the latest in a series of annual surveys by the Gallup polling firm.

IRAQ: U.S. Holds Its Breath in Aftermath of Mosque Bombing

Two days after the bombing of one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines in Iraq, analysts and officials here are holding their breath, desperately hoping that a rapid descent into a sectarian civil war in Iraq can still be avoided, if not reversed.

RELIGION: U.S. Christian Leaders Apologise For Iraq War

Christian leaders from the United States lamented the war in Iraq and apologised for their government's current foreign policy during the 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which ended Thursday.

RIGHTS-US: Remember Rendition?

A few months ago - particularly after The Washington Post broke the story of secret U.S. "black sites" in Eastern Europe - it would have been difficult to pick up a newspaper or watch television without hearing the words "extreme rendition".

POLITICS-US: Neo-Con Superhawk Earns His Wings on Port Flap

Love him or hate him, Frank Gaffney is effective.

POLITICS: UAE, Jolted by Port Deal, Is Key Western Arms Buyer

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the centre of a growing controversy over its proposed management of U.S. port terminals, is one of the world's most prolific arms buyers and a multi-billion-dollar military market both for the United States and Western Europe.

POLITICS-US: How Neo-Cons Sabotaged Iran’s Help on al Qaeda

The United States and Iran were on a course to work closely together on the war against al Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002 - until Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped in to scuttle that cooperation, according to officials who were involved at the time.

POLITICS-US: “Leninists!” Cries Neo-Con Nabob, Suing for Divorce

The Washington foreign policy elite finds itself on pins and needles this week awaiting a response from the neo-conservative heavyweights at the Weekly Standard magazine to a scorching denunciation by one of their most venerable fellow-travelers, Francis Fukuyama, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.