IRAQ: Praying, Not Playing

In the struggle now just to stay alive, everyone has forgotten that Iraq has lost, among other things, its tradition in sports. Some of its best sportsmen are now refugees.

US/IRAQ: Soldier Refuses Tour, Citing “Stomach-Churning Horrors”

A U.S. Army soldier who served as a military journalist in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Philippines announced Thursday his intent to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.

IRAQ: Nature Adds to Occupation Blows

Farmers in the Diyala province in Iraq have been hit by just about every crisis possible. First the security disaster dried up supplies and markets, then lack of electricity cut irrigation, and now comes a drying up of water resources.

POLITICS: Bogus Claim, al-Maliki Stall U.S. Plan on Iran Arms

Early this month, the George W. Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

US/IRAQ: Tangled Web of Allegiances Leads Back to Tehran

If politics makes strange bedfellows, then the relationship between Iran, the United States and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is the strangest ménage à trois in international relations today.

IRAQ: Food Crisis Hits Fallujah

Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S. sentiment in Fallujah.

IRAN: Can P5+1 Offer Break the Nuclear Stalemate?

The P5+1 - the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany - will present Tehran with a secret incentive package in the next few days to convince Iran to suspend its enrichment programme and enter negotiations.

IRAQ: Running Out of Water in Rising Heat

Water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation.

POLITICS-US: Lawmakers Seek Probe of “Media Generals”

As U.S. television networks continue their silence about their use of retired military officers to "sell" progress in Iraq, members of the U.S. House of Representatives are calling on the Defence Department Inspector General to investigate the Pentagon-sponsored public relations effort.

US/IRAQ: Pressure to Cut Costs, Troops Strains “Surge”

Growing impatience in Congress over the enormous costs being racked up by the Iraq war, as well as the Pentagon's belief that it needs more troops in Afghanistan to fight insurgents there, is putting the vaunted success of the George W. Bush administration's "surge" strategy to the test.

RIGHTS-US: Abuse Claims Mount Against Pentagon, Contractors

As human rights groups demanded the release of a report on a long-running investigation of the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the unlawful interrogations of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, new torture claims were leveled at two U.S. military contractors by a former Abu Ghraib "ghost" detainee who was wrongly imprisoned and later released without charge.

POLITICS-US: Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change after 9/11

Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

US/IRAQ: “Divide and Rule” Strategy Called Shortsighted

Five years since U.S. president George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, critics say the administration has yet to show a credible way to actually "accomplish" the mission that could see a peaceful Iraq and a return home of U.S. troops.

IRAQ: Refugees Look to Europe

"I'll go to any country," says Zirgon Tomas al-Aya, a 60-year-old Iraqi standing outside the UN Refugee Agency headquarters in Damascus.

IRAQ: Corruption Eats Into Food Rations

Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration – much of it already eaten away by official corruption.

RIGHTS-US: Vets Await Verdict in Class Action Lawsuit

Arturo Gonzalez delivered his closing arguments inside a packed courtroom on the 17th floor of the Federal Building in downtown San Francisco.

POLITICS-US: Economy High in Public’s Foreign Policy Worries

The price of oil and other international economic issues are rapidly taking centre stage among the dominant foreign policy concerns of the U.S. public, which has also become increasingly sceptical about the effectiveness of military action to further Washington's interests abroad, according to a major new survey released Wednesday by the influential Foreign Affairs journal.

BULGARIA: Two Iraqis Did Make It

Bulgaria, sometimes considered a safe haven for Iraqi asylum seekers, has denied refugee status to all but two applicants from Iraq since December last year. Bulgaria's move contributes to blocking land access to Europe for Iraqis fleeing violence.

IRAQ: Poverty Gets the Survivors

More than a million Iraqis were lucky enough to flee into Syria. But in this relatively safe haven, there is no getting away from poverty.

POLITICS-US: Petraeus Promotion Frees Cheney to Threaten Iran

The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond.

POLITICS-US: Taking on the Two-Party Monopoly

"Politics in the U.S. is at a crisis level," Green Party presidential hopeful Cynthia McKinney told IPS during a rare sit-down interview. "Disillusionment, lack of participation, and establishment of false choice - what is one to do? For me, I can't give up hope. I said yes when the Green Party said 'okay, now you want to do it?'."