IRAQ: People Concerned More About Own Lives than Saddam’s

Most Iraqis are more concerned with finding jobs, putting food on the table, personal safety and the removal of the occupation forces than the ongoing trial of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

POLITICS: Iraqis Spoke, But Hardly in Unison

The strong turnout in last week's parliamentary elections in Iraq may have been just the kind of civic demonstration that U.S. Pres. George W. Bush needed to restore some confidence in a weary public that Washington's adventure in the country may not turn out to be such a disaster after all.

POLITICS-US: Congress to Probe Domestic Spying

As those loyal to Pres. George W. Bush circle the wagons to aggressively defend his programme of conducting surveillance of phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens, a judge on the court set up to review requests for such actions has resigned, apparently in protest.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS: A Diamond in the New York Rough

Since the September 2001 suicide attacks on New York, the city's bookstores have been flooded with volumes of nonfiction works attempting to explain the phenomenon of terrorism and its links with the world of Islam and the Middle East.

RIGHTS: U.S. Vets Join Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims

Vietnamese victims of the defoliant known as Agent Orange wound up a month-long visit to the U.S. at the invitation of veterans, Vietnamese Americans and peace activists, to press their case for reparations from the U.S. government and the companies that made the deadly chemical.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: The Fog of GWOT

Recent polling on the views of the U.S. public about the "Global War on Terror" (GWOT) suggests increasing ambivalence, confusion and lack of reliable information.

RIGHTS: Group Exposes CIA’s “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan

Amid efforts by a bipartisan coalition in Congress to ban torture and inhumane treatment of detainees in the "war on terror", a major U.S. human rights groups charged Monday that Washington ran a secret prison in Afghanistan where suspected terrorists were held in total darkness for days and even weeks at a time from 2002 until at least last year.

POLITICS-US: Patriot Act in Limbo Amid New Spying Flap

A bipartisan majority of senators refused to reauthorise the USA Patriot Act Friday, which was hurriedly passed six weeks after the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, and gave U.S. law enforcement agencies significant expanded powers to investigate suspected terrorists.

POLITICS-US: Torture Ban May Include a Backdoor

U.S. President George W. Bush suffered a stinging defeat Thursday when overwhelming congressional support forced him to abandon his opposition to anti-torture legislation and reach an agreement with its sponsor, Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.

LATIN AMERICA: More US Aid Flows Through Pentagon

U.S. aid in Latin America is becoming increasingly militarised, according to a new report, which warns that both the U.S. Congress and the State Department are losing control over Washington's assistance to the region as more of it is channeled through the Pentagon.

POLITICS-US: House Joins Senate in Renouncing Torture

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday sent a clear signal to the White House that it overwhelmingly supports a proposed ban on prisoner torture and limitations on interrogation tactics in U.S. detention facilities.

POLITICS: U.S. No Longer Seeks “Defeat” of Sunni Insurgents

While U.S. President George W. Bush continued to claim a strategy for "victory" in Iraq in recent speeches, his administration has quietly renounced the goal of defeating the non-al Qaeda Sunni armed organisations there.

RIGHTS-US: Watchdogs Protest Pentagon’s “Mission Creep”

By the end of the current session of Congress later this month, the Pentagon could have legal authority to "covertly" gather intelligence on U.S. citizens in the United States - a power taken away following excesses during the Vietnam War.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: The Condoners vs. the Condemners

As the battle between the White House and a leading Republican senator over U.S. policies on treating terrorist suspects appears headed toward a final showdown, polls suggest that the U.S. public is ambivalent on the issue of torture.

POLITICS: Israelis Grow Troubled by Bush Priorities

Despite their mutual enthusiasm for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Israel and the United States appear increasingly at odds over what to do about the larger Middle East region.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: The Torture Policy Blowback

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stilettoed her way across Europe last week answering tough questions about Washington's treatment of prisoners in the "global war on terror", 2005 may be remembered as the year "torture" and "rendition" became part of the everyday vocabulary.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Sunnis Opt for Voting – and Armed Resistance

Leading Sunni clerics and insurgent organisations are unofficially encouraging voting by Sunnis in Thursday's parliamentary elections for a slate of candidates who are calling for a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

POLITICS: Arabs Unimpressed by Bush Democracy Drive

Despite a modest decline in hostility toward the United States, opinion in the Arab world appears to have hardened over the past year, according to the latest in an annual series of surveys of six Arab countries released here Wednesday by the Arab American Institute (AAI).

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: Terror Net Yields Few Big Fish

Amid charges that President George W. Bush and the U.S. Department of Justice are inflating the number of criminal prosecutions for terrorism, five cases shed light on the administration's mixed record of convictions during 2005.

RIGHTS-US: Is Condi Channeling Keitel or Condor?

According to his memoirs, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel considered the secret abduction and rendition to Germany of suspected Resistance members - otherwise known as the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) Decree - to be the worst of all of the orders issued by Adolf Hitler for the western occupied territories of the Third Reich during World War II.

POLITICS-US: Ignore Africa at Your Peril, Think Tank Warns Bush

Africa's strategic importance to the United States - both with respect to Washington's "war on terrorism" and the growing competition with China for access to energy supplies and other raw materials - should be given more attention by policy-makers and the public, according to a major new report released here this week by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).