POLITICS: Apparently, Death Squads Neither Quaint Nor Obsolete

On Sunday, the U.S. periodical Newsweek revealed that the Pentagon is actively considering an effort in Iraq that human rights groups say more closely resembles a dark and desperate homage to D'Aubissonism than an actual policy initiative.

US-IRAQ: Families of the Fallen Unite in Grief – And Anger

It has been nearly two years since Fernando Suarez del Solar's son Jesus, a lance corporal in the U.S. Marines, died during the invasion of Iraq.

POLITICS-U.S.: More Dissent in Pentagon Ranks Over Iraq War

For the second time in as many months, a report by a key Pentagon advisory group has implicitly taken the administration of President George W. Bush to task for major failures in pre-war planning, particularly with respect to Iraq.

RIGHTS: Fresh Horrors at Guantanamo

A leading civil rights group says that government records pertaining to an investigation of prisoner abuses at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba are still being withheld, and those it has received under a court order are so heavily censored that they "raise more questions than they answer".

HEALTH-AFGHANISTAN: Detritus of War Keeps Claiming New Victims

For the first time, many more civilians are being killed and maimed in Afghanistan by dud munitions than by landmines, which were more or less outlawed in 1999 but linger around the world as the wreckage of earlier wars.

U.S.: Bush Defensive as Aid Effort Lumbers Into Action

With the South Asian death toll from Sunday's tsunamis well beyond the 100,000 mark and climbing, the administration of U.S. President George W Bush is defending itself against charges that its aid commitments so far have been largely too little, too grudging and too late.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: If Not a Unipolar World, Then What?

With the United States piling up unprecedented trade and budget deficits and bogged down in Iraq without a clear exit strategy, the neo-conservative vision of a U.S.-dominated, unipolar world over which Washington would rule as the ''new Rome'' is seen increasingly by foreign policy elites here as a chimera.

POLITICS-US: Dead Soldier’s Dad Finds No Enemy in Iraq

Fernando Suarez del Solar is a busy man. He is busy opening boxes, counting pills, counting bandages; he is busy checking everything in the boxes that come addressed to him from all over the United States.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: U.S. Politician Targets Immigration

The law to revamp U.S. intelligence services was passed at the 11th hour in the last Congress partly because of a deal that deleted many contentious anti-immigration provisos. But the sponsor of those sections says he will reintroduce them as "must pass" legislation "on the first day of the 109th Congress in January."

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: Bye Bye Unipolar World

This time a year ago, U.S. forces had just pulled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his ''spider hole'' near the Euphrates River, and top military commanders were trumpeting the crippling of the unanticipated deadly insurgency that bedevilled the U.S. occupation for months.

U.S.-IRAQ: Career Soldiers Salute Bush – Poll

Despite escalating violence in Iraq over the past year, almost two-thirds of active duty U.S. soldiers approve of President George W Bush's handling of the situation, and 73 percent believe Washington is ''very'' or ''somewhat likely'' to succeed in its goals there, found the annual 'Military Times Poll', released here Monday.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: Bush Administration’s Homeland ‘Insecurity’

The Bush administration appears set to maintain the secrecy that has characterized its workings since 2001. The latest evidence is a directive from the department of homeland security (DHS) instructing its employees and contractors to share sensitive but unclassified information only with those having a need to know it.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: U.S. to Take Bigger Bite of Iraq’s Economic Pie

The United States is helping the interim Iraqi government continue to make major economic changes, including cuts to social subsidies, full access for U.S. companies to the nation's oil reserves and reconsideration of oil deals that the previous regime signed with France and Russia.

MEDIA-U.S.: Terrorism Shaped 2004 News Agenda

While President George W Bush's November re-election topped the Associated Press' (AP) annual listing of the top 10 news stories for 2004, the other leading choices suggested that the news media might have helped him in his quest.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: U.S. Subservient Japan Ponders Security Role

Japan is securely poised to enter 2005 as a decisive power in global politics but analysts say the new path poses a lingering dilemma for the Japanese public.

CHALLENGES 2004-2005: ‘Islamophobia’ Spreading Far and Wide

A renowned Islamic scholar of Egyptian origin is barred from taking up a post in one of the most prestigious institutions in the United States - the University of Notre Dame - after the U.S. State Department invokes an anti-terrorism law to keep him out of the country.

POLITICS-U.S.: Are They Serious About Syria?

Just when it appeared that Syria was complying in earnest with U.S. demands to secure its border with Iraq and even making unprecedented peace overtures to Israel, key neo-conservative opinion shapers are calling on President George W Bush to take stronger measures against Damascus, possibly including military action.

POLITICS: U.N. Reversal – More Staff Bound for Iraq

After long refusing to risk the lives of its workers in Iraq, the United Nations has reversed its stance and is planning to expand its international staff in the violence-ridden country in time for upcoming elections in late January.

POLITICS: Kofi Annan Receives a Vote of Confidence From His Home Continent

In recent weeks, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been the subject of heated debate in the United States and Europe – this after he was accused of oversight in his handling of the Iraq oil-for-food programme between 1996 and 2003. Allegations of conflict of interest in the Annan family concerning the initiative have also been made.

RIGHTS-U.S.: Families ‘Other Victims’ of 9/11 Round-up

Since 9/11, millions of words have been written about the "terrorists in our midst." Most congratulated U.S. law enforcement for finding and jailing them. Fewer questioned whether the principles of American human rights and civil liberties were being compromised by an over-zealous government gripped by fear.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS: History Debunks Bush Myth

U.S. President George W Bush is not known for his love either of books or of history.