POLITICS-US: Public Wants “New Approach” on Foreign Policy

More than 70 percent of the U.S. public, including nearly half of self-identified Republicans, say they prefer candidates for Congress in the Nov. 7 mid-term elections who will pursue a "new approach" to U.S. foreign policy, according to a new survey released here Friday by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

IRAQ: Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad

Death squads from the Ministry of Interior posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever in the capital, emerging evidence shows.

POLITICS-US: Poll Finds Growing Anxiety About World Affairs

Five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the U.S. public has become increasingly anxious about world events and the role that their country is playing in them, according to the latest "Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy" survey released here Wednesday by a non-partisan group, Public Agenda, and Foreign Affairs journal.

POLITICS: Iraqi Endgame Approaching, Bush Ready or Not

If Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki were inclined to bet his life on President George W. Bush's latest assurances that there will be no timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, he should probably give it a second thought.

POLITICS-US: Democrats to Seize At Least Half of Congress

Less than four weeks before the Nov. 7 mid-term elections, most political professionals from both major parties believe the Democrats not only will end the 12-year Republican reign in the House of Representatives, but also have a roughly even chance of taking back the Senate which they lost in 2002.

IRAQ: Little Brother Poses a Problem

The signs have been emerging thicker and faster of late that the British want to pull out of Iraq altogether, but on Friday a British general set a timeline, and Prime Minister Tony Blair as good as agreed.

DEATH PENALTY-IRAQ: Increase in Executions Condemned

International human rights organisations are increasingly worried about the recent rise in executions and people sentenced to death in Iraq.

IRAQ: Resistance Growing Up at School

The bomb went off just outside the school as the IPS correspondent stood speaking to children and teachers within.

POLITICS: The Baker Saviour?

For the many, many foreign policy experts who have reached an advanced state of despair over the ever-plunging image and influence of the United States after nearly six years of the presidency of George W. Bush, the name James Baker III has an almost talismanic quality.

IRAQ: Occupation May Have Killed 655,000

About 655,000 have died as a consequence of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the leading medical journal The Lancet reports.

HEALTH-US: Iraq Brings Wounds That Deepen With Time

A new report in this month's issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry finds that while a high percentage of soldiers returning from Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, many do not show symptoms right away.

IRAQ: An Unknown City Erupts

The little known city of Baquba is emerging as one of the hotbeds of resistance in Iraq, with clashes breaking out every day.

POLITICS-US/MIDEAST: “Strategic Consensus” Redux?

President George W. Bush and his peripatetic secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, may believe that they have broken with 60 years of U.S. policy in order to "transform" the Middle East, but to long-time regional observers, their latest initiatives look painfully familiar.

POLITICS-US: More Dissention in the Ranks

A U.S. soldier who went AWOL - absent without leave - over his opposition to the war in Iraq was incarcerated at the U.S. military's Mannheim prison in Germany Tuesday, pending an appeal in Washington this November..

POLITICS-US: War on Terror Returning to Its Cradle

Five years after the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was putting the final touches on a brilliant campaign plan to oust the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies from power, Afghanistan is back in the headlines here, and the news isn't good.

IRAQ: New Militias Push Govt Back Further

Reports of the setting up of U.S.-backed Sunni militias have brought new uncertainty to deepening chaos within Iraq.

IRAQ: Kirkuk Fearful of Future

The security situation in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk has further deteriorated over the past few weeks after the Iraqi government formed a committee assigned to "normalise the situation".

POLITICS-US: Hundreds Arrested in Week of Anti-War Actions

Demonstrations, marches, rallies, vigils and prayer meetings continue to take place in dozens of cities across the United States this week as part of a nationwide campaign aiming to force the administration of President George W. Bush and Congress to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

POLITICS: Iraqis Weary of Violence, U.S. Presence

Iraqis - especially the majority Shiites - are increasingly angry and frustrated about their situation and impatient for U.S. troops to leave, but most do not believe their country will fall apart, according to a major new poll released here Wednesday by the University of Maryland's Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

POLITICS-US: Elite Project Proposes Bipartisan Grand Strategy

After two years of consultations with more than 400 members of the U.S. foreign policy elite, a project headed by two leading international relations academics is calling for the adoption of a new U.S. grand strategy designed to address multiple threats and strengthen Washington's commitment to a reformed and reinvigorated multilateral order.

FINANCE: U.S. Warned on War Spending and Deficits

One of the world's most exclusive business clubs warned the United States Tuesday that its open-ended national security and war expenditures, along with tax cuts that led to large budget deficits, could affect the country's status as a powerful economic force.