POLITICS-US: An Army Minus One

On Thursday, 22-year-old Army Specialist Mark Wilkerson turned himself in to Fort Hood in Texas, after being AWOL (Absent Without Leave) for more than 18 months.

POLITICS-US: Neo-Cons Denounce Khatami Visit as “Appeasement”

Next week's visit to the United States of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has been strongly denounced by hard-line neo-conservatives and other hawks here as "appeasement".

FINANCE-US: Executives Cash In on War and Oil Bonanza

Top oil and defence industry executives in the United States are raking in record personal profits on the backs of the U.S. wars following the terror attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 and sky-high oil prices, two think-tanks said Wednesday.

MIDEAST: Peace Groups Slam “Misguided” U.S. Policies

As a multinational peacekeeping force is slowly assembled at the United Nations to preserve the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, U.S. peace activists say the work toward a comprehensive settlement has only begun.

IRAQ: Kurds Want Genocide to Be Recognised

Fanning her grandchild in a cradle, Bahiya, 74, recalls "the most difficult time" of her life.

IRAQ: Ever Closer to Fears of Civil War

Hanan's family could never have thought three years ago of leaving Baghdad. They had lived for years in peace with their Shia neighbours in the ethnically mixed Shaab district. All that changed the morning they saw a letter in their courtyard giving them three days to leave.

IRAQ: To Many, Lebanon Appears as a Mirror Image

Iraqis are beginning to see striking similarities between Lebanese civilians and their own position three years ago.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Civilian Translators Thrust Into Combat Roles

Goran Habbeb had just left his house to get into his car with his brother and his seven-year-old daughter, Soleen, when the armed men opened fire. Taken by surprise because the men were dressed in police uniforms, he just managed to get the white Toyota Previa van into motion and escape.

MIDEAST: Veteran Policy-Makers Fear Disaster in U.S. Course

Alarms are definitely on the rise here.

POLITICS-US: Neo-Conservatives’ “Favourite Democrat” Falls

Tuesday's defeat in Connecticut's primary election of President George W. Bush's "favourite Democrat", Sen. Joe Lieberman, by a little-known anti-war candidate marks a major setback to neo-conservative hopes of maintaining bipartisan support for the administration's aggressive foreign policies, particularly in the Middle East.

IRAQ: Shias Going Their Own Way

Amid failed moves for a peace deal between the government and insurgents through a national reconciliation plan, the Shia majority in Iraq are pushing ahead for creating a federal region for themselves in the southern part of Iraq.

MIDEAST: U.S. Watches Dreams of Transformation Dissolve

Entering the fourth week of war between Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and Israel, the George W. Bush administration's ambitions to transform the Arab Middle East into a pro-Western, more democratic region are fading fast.

POLITICS-US: Kurdish “Thank You” a Republican Stunt?

Kurdish officials toured the United States last week to launch a massive advertising and public relations campaign thanking the United States for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and urging U.S. companies to invest in the region.

POLITICS: US Now a Bystander in Iraq’s Sectarian War

The United States has been reduced to the role of passive bystander as a new stage of sectarian civil war has begun in Iraq, marked by military units with heavy weaponry carrying out mass killings.

FINANCE-US: Cost of Terror War Hits 430 Billion

Washington's self-styled "global war on terror" has cost the country at least 430 billion dollars over the past five years in military and diplomatic efforts, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog arm of the U.S. Congress.

POLITICS-US: Back to Sunni Authoritarians?

After posing as the champion of democratic reform and the long oppressed Shia minority in the Arab world, the administration of President George W. Bush appears to be scurrying back to Washington's traditional policy of strong support for the region's Sunni-dominated, pro-U.S. authoritarian governments.

MEDIA-IRAQ: A Voice From the Most Dangerous Place on Earth

For IPS and those closely associated with slain reporter Alaa Hassan, Jun. 28 was a day unlike any other - for the first time since the beginning of the war in Iraq, IPS lost a reporter in the line of duty.

/REPEAT/POLITICS-US: Cowboy Diplomacy Is Not Dead Yet

"We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it."

MIDEAST: Israel Readies for Iran Showdown by Attacking Lebanon

As the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah persists, an Israeli strategy of enlarging the conflict seems to be crystallising.

RIGHTS-US: Pentagon Switch on Geneva Elicits Hope, Scepticism

Tuesday's announcement by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush that detainees held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere will be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions has provoked both hope and scepticism from human rights activists.

IRAQ: U.S. Democracy Crusade Falls by the Wayside

"America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof."