POLITICS-US: Alito Confirmation Marks Shift to the Right

The U.S. Senate's confirmation Tuesday of Judge Samuel Alito to serve on the Supreme Court marks a clear victory for Pres. George W. Bush and, even more, for the right-wing movement dedicated to reversing many of the gains made by women and minorities over recent decades.

POLITICS: Hamas Ascendance Was Years in the Making

The reaction in the United States to the surprise victory by Hamas in last week's Palestinian elections appears to have ignored the role that Washington played in bringing the radical Islamist group to power.

POLITICS: Bungled Peace-Building Opens Door to Terrorism

Washington's attempts to bring security to Iraq and Afghanistan are not only making life harder for local people, they are breeding more terrorists, warn international security experts.

POLITICS: Most Iraqis Doubt US Will Ever Leave

Large majorities of Iraqis believe that the United States has no intention of ever withdrawing all its military forces from their country and that Washington's reconstruction efforts have been incompetent at best, according to a new survey released here Tuesday.

POLITICS-US: Requiem for a Development Dream

Foreign affairs experts agree that the George W. Bush administration is quietly engineering the death of its traditional system for delivering foreign aid - and some of them think it's not such a bad idea.

IRAQ: US Realignment With Sunnis Is Far Advanced

Two major revelations this past week show how far the George W. Bush administration has already shifted its policy toward realignment with Sunni forces to balance the influence of pro-Iranian Shiites in Iraq.

SYRIA: Assad Keeps Footing Amid Political Tremors

Despite a U.N. probe into his possible role in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and a public challenge to his rule by a prominent Syrian politician in exile, Syrian President Bashar Assad appears likely to endure for the foreseeable future, according to experts here.

POLITICS: Remaking USAID for a Permanent War on Terror?

In a series of developments - some more publicised than others - the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, has been undergoing a transformation that will more closely align its activities with the State Department and the Pentagon.

RIGHTS-US: Hamdan Case Tests Indefinite Detentions

Since Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast last August, the U.S. government has come under scathing criticism for being slow to respond.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: Hamas Upset Rattles Bush Strategy

The stunning victory of the Islamist Hamas party in parliamentary elections Wednesday in the Palestinian Authority (PA) poses stark new challenges to U.S. President George W. Bush's hopes of advancing an Israeli-Palestinian peace process and promoting democracy throughout the Arab Middle East.

POLITICS: US Tries to Pressure Iran with Attack Stories

Recent reports in the Turkish and German press of the U.S. asking the Turkish government to support a possible attack on Iran and alerting allied countries of preparations for such an attack appear to be part of a strategy to pressure the Iranian regime rather than the result of a new policy to strike Iran.

RIGHTS-US: Post-9/11 Dragnet Snares Class Action Lawsuit

Four Muslim men who were detained without charge for months in the aftermath of Sep. 11, 2001, eventually cleared of any connection to terrorism, but then deported to Egypt, have been allowed to return to the U.S. to pursue their class action civil lawsuit against the U.S. government.

POLITICS-US: The Demagogue Neocons Love to Hate

"Let us state the obvious," wrote Reuel Marc Gerecht, the resident Persian Gulf specialist at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute in the Weekly Standard's feature article Monday. "The new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a godsend."

SRI LANKA: US Promises Aid Against Tigers

As the four-year-old ceasefire in Sri Lanka is on the verge of crumbling, the United States has offered to strengthen its military assistance programmes and increase training for government forces if the country's rebel group resumes its separatist war in the northern and eastern provinces.

RIGHTS: Iraq Tops Nations With Minorities at Grave Risk

Iraq tops a list of countries whose minorities find themselves most at risk of persecution and even mass killing at the start of 2006, according to a new threat index released Thursday by the London-based Minority Rights Group International (MRG).

DEVELOPMENT: Groups Worried About New US Aid Czar

The United States has unveiled a new plan for how it spends foreign aid dollars that links U.S. security to democracy and development overseas.

POLITICS-US: Activists Vow to Shut Down Army Recruiting Sites

A leading coalition of peace groups in the United States is planning to stage nationwide protests against the U.S. war in Iraq on Mar. 19, the day when U.S.-led military forces invaded that country three years ago.

RIGHTS: US, European Hypocrisy Left “Leadership Void”

The Bush administration's "global war on terrorism" continued to set back the cause of human rights in 2005, according to a major U.S. rights group, which said that U.S. and European hypocrisy in carrying out that war led to a "global leadership void" that had been taken advantage of by more opportunistic powers, particularly Russia and China.

POLITICS-US: Two Groups Sue to Stop Wiretaps

Two major U.S. civil liberties groups Tuesday filed lawsuits calling on federal courts to order the George W. Bush administration to halt a National Security Agency (NSA) programme that has intercepted the overseas telephone and email communications of hundreds, possibly thousands, of U.S. citizens without a court-approved warrant.

POLITICS: Women’s Anti-War Petition Circles the Globe

Eminent female writers, artists, lawmakers and social activists in the United States are reaching out to women leaders across the world in an attempt to forge a global alliance against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

POLITICS-US: Bush Seeks His Enemies’ Help in Iraq

To avoid failure of its mission in Iraq, the George W. Bush administration has been driven to seek the help of two major enemies - the Sunni insurgents and the government of Iran - but both initiatives have failed to make progress because officials were not given any real negotiating authority.