Q&A: "Mistakes Will Continue to Happen When There Isn’t Transparency"

Not many people want to spend time at Guantánamo Bay. But while studying law at the University of Miami in 2005, Mahvish Rukhsana Khan became outraged to learn of the lack of rights afforded detainees in the "war on terror" and was keen to get involved.

RIGHTS: Rendition Victims "Missing" in Ethiopia

A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses the Ethiopian government of detaining at least 10 victims of unlawful rendition incommunicado and without charge since early 2007.

U.S.: Brief Talks with Syria Spur Speculation

A series of meetings between U.S. and Syrian diplomats, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, at the United Nations over the past week is stirring speculation that Washington may at last be moving toward engaging Damascus.

POLITICS-US: Bush Had No Plan to Catch Bin Laden after 9/11

New evidence from former U.S. officials reveals that the George W. Bush administration failed to adopt any plan to block the retreat of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the first weeks after 9/11.

POLITICS: U.S. War on al Qaeda Widely Viewed as a Bust

The U.S. is failing to rein in its primary target in the "global war on terror" - al Qaeda - according to a new poll of 23 countries across the globe.

U.S.: Iran Resolution Shelved in Rare Defeat for “Israel Lobby”

In a significant and highly unusual defeat for the so-called "Israel Lobby", the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has decided to shelve a long-pending, albeit non-binding, resolution that called for President George W. Bush to launch what critics called a blockade against Iran.

POLITICS: Financial Crisis Likely to Further Erode U.S. Influence

While the White House and U.S. lawmakers hash out final terms of a proposed 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout, foreign policy analysts are warning that the current financial crisis could very well hasten the decline of U.S. power and influence overseas.

U.S.: Bipartisan Group Urges Deeper Diplomacy with Muslim World

In an implicit indictment of President George W. Bush's "global war on terror" and the hawkish pronouncements by Republican candidate John McCain, a bipartisan group of nearly three dozen U.S. leaders called here Wednesday for Bush's successor to place much greater emphasis on high-level diplomacy - including direct engagement with Iran and Syria - in dealing with the Middle East and the Muslim world.

IRAQ: Awash in "Missing" Weapons

Clandestine gun suppliers, funded by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, have flooded Iraq with a million weapons since 2003, charges a new Amnesty International investigation.

POLITICS-US: Arab Americans Favour Obama by Wide Margin

With less than two months before the November elections, Arab American voters in the United States are poised to vote heavily Democratic, according to a poll released here today by the Arab American Institute (AAI).

POLITICS-US: Vested Interests Drove New Pakistan Policy

The George W. Bush administration's decision to launch commando raids and step up missiles strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda figures in the tribal areas of Pakistan followed what appears to have been the most contentious policy process over the use of force in Bush's eight-year presidency.

US/MIDEAST: Obama Advisor Stresses Carrots Over Sticks

Dr. Susan Rice, senior foreign policy advisor to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, says the U.S. would make every effort to avoid resorting to a military attack on Iran under an Obama administration.

BOOKS-IRAQ: "We Blew Her to Pieces"

Aside from the Iraqi people, nobody knows what the U.S. military is doing in Iraq better than the soldiers themselves. A new book gives readers vivid and detailed accounts of the devastation the U.S. occupation has brought to Iraq, in the soldiers' own words.

POLITICS-US: The Most Secretive Govt Ever?

The administration of President George W. Bush continues to expand government secrecy across a broad array of agencies and actions - and at greatly increased cost to taxpayers, according to a coalition of groups that promote greater transparency.

BOOKS-US: "A Policy of Deliberate Cruelty"

Perhaps the most thorough and informative book about the George W. Bush administration's approval of the use of torture and "extraordinary renditions" of alleged terrorists to third countries has continued to stay on bestseller lists.

POLITICS: Slow Sunni Integration Could Derail Iraq Successes

Amid reports that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has launched a campaign to disband the so-called Awakening Movement, or Sahwa, concerns among analysts and policy makers here is growing that such an effort could result in a resumption of sectarian violence, if not civil war.

POLITICS-US: Intel Council Warned Against Raids in Pakistan

The National Intelligence Council, the U.S. intelligence community's focal point for estimating future developments, warned the George W. Bush administration last month that a decision to launch commando raids by U.S. troops against al Qaeda-related targets in Pakistan's North-West Frontier region would carry a high risk of further destabilising the Pakistani military and government, according to sources familiar with the intelligence community's response to the issue.

AFGHANISTAN: US-NATO Airstrikes Bring Higher Civilian Toll

Ramped-up U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan are causing an increased civilian death toll, raising concerns about the fallout from civilian deaths on the war effort against the Taliban insurgency, according to a major new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released here Monday.

POLITICS-US: Aerospace Lobby Wages Its Own Election Campaign

"In about the time it takes you to drive into a gas station, insert your credit card in the pump, fill the tank, take your receipt, and get back on the road, a foreign power can use a missile to disable the U.S. communications satellite that made your transaction possible."

US/PAKISTAN: Raid May Herald More Confrontational Policy

An apparent raid into Pakistani territory by U.S. forces stationed in Afghanistan has prompted angry denunciations from Pakistani officials and renewed questions about the future of the war against the Taliban in the region.

BOOKS-US: Revelations of an Abu Ghraib Interrogator

Few people have thought as much about the morality of the U.S. occupation of Iraq than Joshua Casteel, a former U.S. Army interrogator who served at Abu Ghraib prison in the wake of the detainee abuse scandal there.