IRAQ: Two Years Later, U.S. Still Can’t Keep the Lights On

The reconstruction of Iraq is failing rapidly despite repeated claims of progress by the George W. Bush administration, according to a number of U.S. officials and reports released here this week.

RIGHTS-US: Serious Lapses Taint Probes of Detainee Deaths

Despite repeated vows by the Pentagon to fully investigate the deaths of all detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and elsewhere in the "war on terror", a major human rights group has found a pattern of "grossly inadequate and flawed investigations" that have made it difficult or impossible to hold perpetrators accountable.

POLITICS-US: Powell Aide Blasts Rice, Cheney- Rumsfeld ‘Cabal’

As top officials in the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office await possible criminal indictments for their efforts to discredit a whistleblower, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Wednesday, accused a ''cabal'' led by Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld of hijacking U.S. foreign policy by circumventing or ignoring formal decision-making channels.

RIGHTS-IRAQ: Hussein Trial Put Off Amid Doubts About Fairness

While international human rights groups have long wanted former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, they have serious reservations about whether proceedings that got underway in Baghdad Wednesday will meet international standards of fairness.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Vote Figures for Crucial Province Don’t Add Up

The early vote totals from Nineveh province, which suggested an overwhelming majority in favour of Iraq's draft constitution that assured its passage by national referendum, now appear to have been highly misleading.

POLITICS-US: Washington on Tenterhooks Over Leak Case

Wrapping up a two-year investigation that a growing number of legal analysts expect to yield indictments of at least one, and possibly two, of the George W. Bush administration's most powerful men as early as this week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has Washington on pins and needles.

RIGHTS: UN Warns of Dwindling Respect for Rule of Law

Iraq's special war crimes tribunal, and the "anti-terror" measures pursued by its occupying powers, the United States and Britain, are under fire from the United Nations for undermining international human rights standards.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Sunni Strategy Shifts Toward Voter Turnout

Despite last-minute maneuvering by Shiite and Kurdish leaders to offer the possibility of further changes in Iraq's draft constitution, and warnings by foreign jihadists against participation, all indications are that Sunnis will turn out in large numbers Saturday to cast ballots in the country's referendum.

POLITICS-US: Bush Seen Increasingly as a Failed President

Amid growing signs of disarray and malaise in the White House, U.S. President George W. Bush is seen increasingly by the public at large as a failure whose policies, particularly regarding the economy and the budget, have harmed more than helped the country, according to a major new poll released here Thursday.

LABOUR-IRAQ: The Pay May Be Lousy, But the Fish Head Soup Is Free

Jing Soliman left his family in the Philippines for what sounded like a sure thing - a job as a warehouse worker at Camp Anaconda in Iraq.

POLITICS-IRAQ: A Lose-Lose Referendum?

Five days before Saturday's referendum on Iraq's proposed constitution, the U.S. foreign policy elite appears both anxious and gloomy, increasingly worried that win or lose, the process will bring Iraq one step closer to civil war and, with it, the possible destabilisation of the wider region.

POLITICS-US: Condi May Be Bush’s Expediency Council

Just as the theocratic leadership in Iran is trying to rein in the aggressive nationalism of the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears to be restraining aggressive nationalists in Washington who want to escalate rising tensions with Iran and Syria.

AFGHANISTAN: Four Years After US Campaign, Perils Abound

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the launch of U.S. military operations against the Taliban regime, Afghanistan presents a mixed picture, according to experts here.

POLITICS-US: Think Tank Issues Two-Year Iraq Exit Plan

In an apparent bid to unify fractious Democrats behind a consensus plan on Iraq, a think tank with strong links to the administration of former President Bill Clinton has called for a two-year "strategic redeployment" of U.S. forces there that would ensure their almost total withdrawal by January 2008.

FINANCE: Tax Cuts, Oil Appetite Eroding U.S. Sovereignty

A combination of huge tax cuts, an insatiable appetite for foreign imports, especially oil, and record government spending is steadily eroding U.S. independence and freedom of action, according to a "special report" released Thursday by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

POLITICS-US: Public Sceptical About Bush’s Democracy Crusade

The U.S. public is deeply sceptical about the priority President George W. Bush has put on promoting democracy abroad, and its experience in Iraq has made it more so, according to a detailed new survey released Thursday by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) and the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland.

POLITICS: Cuban Terror Case Erodes US Credibility, Critics Say

The decision Tuesday by a U.S. immigration judge in Texas to deny Venezuela's request to extradite Luis Posada Carriles, whom Caracas has dubbed "the Osama bin Laden of Latin America", was greeted with surprise and disappointment by Latin America activists and even some former U.S. officials.

POLITICS: Bush Loses Favour With Latin American Elites

The image of the United States under President George W. Bush has suffered in Latin America, as well as the Islamic world and Europe, according to a survey released by the Zogby International polling firm in cooperation with the Miami Herald and the University of Miami School of Business Administration.

POLITICS-US: In Blow to GOP Discipline, “The Hammer” Falls

After a year of dismissing as "politically motivated" charges that he had repeatedly violated Congressional ethics rules, the troubles of Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay dramatically escalated Wednesday when he was forced to temporarily resign his post after being indicted by a Texas grand jury for his role in helping the Republican Party win control of that state's legislature in the 2002 elections.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Voting Shenanigans Cloud Key Province

If the referendum on Iraq's draft constitution next month is conducted fairly, it now appears very likely that the document will be defeated by a two-thirds majority in the three Sunni-dominated provinces of Anbar, Salahadeen and Nineveh, plunging Iraq into a new political crisis.

POLITICS-US: Flush From Iraq, Contractors Snap Up Storm Work

The day Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana, Robert Boh watched the dramatic pictures of the unfolding disaster on television at his in-laws' house in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where his family had taken shelter.