POLITICS: Canada’s Afghan Mission Gets Bloodier

In hooking up with the U.S.-led campaign of counterinsurgency against the Taliban and other resistance forces in the volatile Kandahar region of Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers are abandoning their traditional mandate of peace-building in troubled parts of the world, says a former diplomat.

RIGHTS: New Abuse Photos Could Spark Riots, US General Warns

Civil libertarians and the Pentagon appear headed for yet another trainwreck in the ongoing dispute over the so-called second batch of photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

POLITICS-US: "State Secrets" Privilege Not So Rare

As whistleblower Sibel Edmonds asks the U.S. Supreme Court to review her dismissed case against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the mainstream media continues to refer to the government's defence - the so-called state secrets privilege - as "rarely used".

POLITICS: UN to Stay On in Embattled Iraq

The United Nations Security Council unanimously endorsed a U.S.-sponsored resolution seeking continued stay of the U.N. staff in that war-torn country for another year, even though the security situation is marred by intense armed resistance and remains volatile.

POLITICS-US: Top Court Nominee Backed Guantanamo Trials

With less than a month left before U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee John Roberts appears for confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, groups on the political right and left are busily loading their heavy artillery - and the Republican chairman of the committee surprised Washington by firing the first shot.

/ARTS WEEKLY/IRAN-THEATRE: Traditional Ta’zieh Play Pokes at Regime

By the time it was banned, a week before the Aug. 6 swearing in of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of Iran, a bold Ta'zieh (traditional tragedy theatre) on the 1997 serial assassinations of several leading dissident intellectuals, had already had a month-long run.

POLITICS: Groups Urge Iraq to Join ICC

When the Iraqi interim government declared its intention to endorse the treaty on the International Criminal Court (ICC), the news came as a happy surprise to many European nations and international civil society groups.

RIGHTS-US: Early Warnings on Prisoner Abuse Ignored

As early as March 2003, senior U.S. military lawyers complained to the Pentagon about the Justice Department's definition of torture and how it would be applied to interrogations of enemy prisoners captured by U.S. forces.

POLITICS: Japan Seeks Larger Military Role

Given a rapidly changing Asian security scenario wherein China and India loom large as future military powers, Japan has seen fit to take the first steps to carve out for itself a more active role in international defence, according to experts here.

POLITICS-US: It’s That Pesky Prisoner Abuse Scandal Again…

As the U.S. Congress left town for its August vacation, the George W. Bush administration was congratulating itself on its legislative victories.

POLITICS: Europe Plays Nuclear Poker with Iran

The Iranian government's threat to resume limited nuclear activities after the European Union (EU) missed a deadline on Sunday to offer new incentives is clearly part of a calculated attempt to mount pressure on the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany).

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: The Selling of Brand Kurdistan

As chaos continues across much of Iraq, the governing authority is coming to yet another crossroads.

POLITICS-US: Reviving the "Radical Centre"

As U.S. President George W. Bush announced the unprecedented "recess appointment" of ultra-nationalist John Bolton as his next ambassador to the United Nations, a group of diplomatic heavyweights was preparing to launch a bipartisan coalition to promote a return to a more moderate and multilateral foreign policy.

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: No Quick Fixes on Madrassas Say Observers

While Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has called for a ''jihad (holy war) against extremism'' he may find that the hardest nettle to grasp is the reform of madrassas (Islamic seminaries) that have been identified as being at the root of the problem.

POLITICS-US: Grannies Rage Against the Machine

The five elderly women stood in front of a U.S. Army recruiting office in Tucson, Arizona, and began to sing. To the tune of "There's No Business Like Show Business", they belted out the lyrics they had written:

POLITICS: India’s Energy Policy ‘Nuked’ by Geopolitics

India, one of the world's big guzzlers of energy, is caught between securing future supplies of depleting conventional energy sources, especially petroleum, and opting for nuclear power complete with an energy-intensive development pattern.

POLITICS-US: Experts Urge More Attention to "Nation-Building"

In light of its continuing travails in Iraq, the U.S. government, particularly the Department of Defence, must place "nation-building" on a par with war-fighting as a top priority in protecting national security, according to a major new report released here Wednesday by a bipartisan task force chaired by two former national security advisers.

RIGHTS-US: Navigating Gitmo’s Legal Labyrinth

As Washington prepares to resume military trials of "war on terror" detainees, a debate over their status is heating up in the U.S. Congress, with even some prominent Republicans demanding higher standards for interrogations and a ban on "cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment".

POLITICS-US: Airwaves Off-Limits to New Propaganda Tsar

One of the most experienced broadcast experts in the United States believes that Karen Hughes - the high-profile confidante of Pres. George W. Bush nominated to help the State Department do a major makeover of U.S. public diplomacy - may not be able to lay a glove on one of its key programmes: international broadcasting.

RIGHTS-US: Subway Hell Just Got a Little Hotter

The New York Police Department's new security policy of subjecting passengers on the city's mass transit system to "random searches" is coming under fire from activist groups, who allege that the searches are not only unconstitutional but also unjustly target immigrants and people of colour.

POLITICS-US: Civil War Spectre Spurs New Iraq Exit Plans

Growing pessimism about averting civil war in Iraq, as well as mounting concerns that the U.S. military presence there may itself be fuelling the insurgency and Islamist extremism worldwide, has spurred a spate of new calls for the United States to withdraw its 140,000 troops sooner rather than later.