POLITICS-US: Bush and Hawks Try Pre-Emptive Strike Vs. Iran Vote

A familiar clutch of hardline U.S. hawks who led the march to war against Iraq have tried to carry out yet another pre-emptive strike. But this time it wasn't military.

IRAN: Cynical Voters Calculate Presidential Ballots

"This election is absolutely unprecedented in terms of numbers of candidates and their supporters. (But) it seems the people and the eight hopefuls are from different planets," says Ali Hasani, 56, a self-employed businessman commuting between Dubai and Tehran.

RIGHTS-IRAN: Exiled Rebel Group Said to Torture Dissidents

An Iranian rebel group that is aggressively campaigning for Washington's support as part of a ''regime change'' strategy in its homeland has committed serious abuses including torture and prolonged isolation, against dissident members, according to a leading human rights watchdog.

INT’L WOMEN’S DAY: Think of These Three Women

International Women's Day asks you to think of half the world, but two writers groups asked Tuesday for attention particularly to three women "under attack for using new information technology to challenge their governments."

POLITICS-US: Hawks Plan ‘Peaceful’ Regime Change in Iran

A heavy-weight group of mostly neo-conservative hawks has published a new proposal for Iran policy that relies heavily on ''peaceful'' strategies to achieve regime change, such as those used by Washington since the 1980s in Central and Eastern Europe, most recently in Serbia and Ukraine.

RIGHTS: U.S. Opens Door to Ebadi’s ‘Enemy’ Ideas

From Washington comes proof that high-profile individuals can sometimes force the Bush administration to reverse policies that violate human rights.

RIGHTS: Iran Tries to Quell Internet Media Wave

Iran's judiciary has threatened Internet journalists with torture and prison if they do not renounce accusations that authorities abused members of the electronic media and dissidents who were rounded up months ago.

POLITICS-U.S.: Springtime for Spooks?

The biggest source of speculation about President George W Bush's foreign policy in a second term is if it will continue on the same aggressive trajectory that marked the first or whether, chastened by Iraq, it will be more restrained over the next four years.

POLITICS-U.S.: Neo-Con Agenda: Iran, China, Russia, Latin America …

An influential foreign-policy neo-conservative with longstanding ties to top hawks in the administration of President George W Bush has laid out what he calls ''a checklist of the work the world will demand of this president and his subordinates in a second term.''

U.S. ELECTION: New Bush Foreign Policy Posture Unlikely

Earnest hopes that U.S. President George W Bush will be prepared to seriously ''reach out'' to U.S. friends and allies overseas to make his foreign policy less aggressive and unilateral in his second term are likely to be earnestly disappointed.

IRAQ: U.S. Failed to Guard Evidence of Abuses – Report

Crucial evidence of alleged human rights abuses that could be used in upcoming trials of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his top aides has apparently been lost or damaged due to U.S. neglect, says a report released Thursday.

POLITICS-U.S.: New Flexibility on the Evil Axis?

Word that the administration is holding talks this week with its European allies on their proposal for a deal with Iran on safeguarding its nuclear programme is raising new questions about whether President George W Bush is easing his confrontational approach to the Islamic Republic.

POLITICS-U.S.: Sidelined Neo-Cons Stoke Future Fires

Sidelined by their failed predictions for Iraq and U.S. President George W Bush's efforts to reassure voters he is not a warmonger, prominent neo-conservatives and their Christian Right allies are nonetheless trying hard to prepare the ground for future U.S. adventures in the Middle East.

POLITICS-U.S.: Spy Probe Scans Neo Con-Israel Ties

The burgeoning scandal over claims that a Pentagon official passed highly classified secrets to a Zionist lobby group appears to be part of a much broader set of FBI and Pentagon investigations of close collaboration between prominent U.S. neo-conservatives and Israel dating back some 30 years.

IRAQ: U.S. Keeps Winning Battles, Losing Wars

Once again, U.S. armed forces appear on the verge of winning a decisive military victory in Iraq - this time in the holy city of Najaf. And once again, they appear closer to losing the larger wars for a stable and friendly Iraq and for an Islamic world that will cease producing anti-U.S. terrorism.

IRAQ: Insurgency Gets Some Editorial Support

The latest round of fighting in Iraq is the first real test for the country's new government after it took over from the U.S. and British-led occupation authority in the last days of June. The initial relative calm that greeted the handover has been slowly disintegrating across the country. The opposition against the new authorities has been powerful from the start.

IRAQ: U.N. Absence Could Jeopardise Fair Elections – Official

The United Nations, which is supposed to prepare the groundwork for nation-wide elections in Iraq next January, is unlikely to send an electoral team to supervise the polls unless its workers are heavily protected in the violence-prone country, according to a report released Monday.

ECONOMY: Egypt Cashes in on Gulf Arab Tourists

Each summer as the temperature soars, well-off Egyptians abandon their dusty capital and head to a string of villas and beach resorts on the breezy Mediterranean coast. Filling the void are thousands of Gulf Arab tourists who flock to Cairo to escape the even more oppressive heat of the Arabian Peninsula. They come with one just one goal - to have a certain kind of fun.

POLITICS-U.S.: Hegemony Yes, Empire No in a Kerry Foreign Policy

If one were to reduce U.S. foreign policy under John Kerry - should he defeat President George W Bush in the November elections - to a four-word motto, it would probably be, ''Hegemony Yes, Empire No''.

IRAQ: Allawi Looks for a Good Neighbour

After years of hostility and recent tension over foreign fighters sneaking into Iraq, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi ended a visit to Syria with a declaration that diplomatic relations between the two countries would be restored soon.

POLITICS: Iraq War Straining U.S.-Turkey Ties

While the image of the United States has sunk to an all-time low in the Arab world, the Iraq war has also had a devastating impact on U.S. ties to another predominantly Muslim power and one of Washington's closest and most strategically situated Cold War allies, Turkey, say experts just returned from the region.