IRAQ: Another Face, Another Raid

It could be called perhaps just another raid.

RIGHTS-IRAQ: 50,000 Dead, But Who’s Counting?

After famously telling reporters that they "don't do body counts", Pentagon officials now say that they have in fact been keeping a record of civilian casualties in Iraq for one year. And while that number remains classified, independent estimates suggest that at least 50,000 people have died in the country since the 2003 invasion.

MEDIA-IRAQ: Independence Carries a Heavy Price

On Jun. 28, IPS reporter Alaa Hassan was ambushed and shot six times as he drove to work in Baghdad, bringing to 75 the number of reporters who have been killed while working in the country since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

POETRY-COLOMBIA: “I Am Iraq”

The shout "I am Iraq!" was heard echoing through the streets and plazas of this northwestern Colombian city during the 16th International Poetry Festival of Medellín - founded here as a fight against fear. The Colombian armed conflict, which has dragged on for decades, was added in late 2001 to the U.S.-led "war on terror", which Iraq has also been living since March 2003.

POLITICS-US: Requiem for Bush’s Unipolar Dream?

A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority - both at home and abroad - at their lowest ebb.

IRAQ: A Story Left Incomplete

Alaa Hassan never did live to see publication of the last story he had filed. It got caught for a while, as stories sometimes are, in that no man's land between what a correspondent could reasonably get, and what an editor would really like.

IRAQ: A Story IPS Never Wanted to Tell

IPS contributor Alaa Hassan was killed on his way to work last Wednesday. He was 35 years old. He is survived by his mother, five brothers, five sisters and his wife who is pregnant with their first child.

IRAQ: IPS Reporter Shot and Killed in Baghdad

Iraqi journalist Alaa Hassan, who reported for the international news agency IPS (Inter Press Service), was shot and killed in Baghdad.

POLITICS: Israel Fears High Price for U.S. Strike on Iran

Israel has seldom been as quiet on Iran as in the last three months.

POLITICS: You Can’t Eat Peace

Against the backdrop of war and escalating violence in various parts of the world, participants at a five-day peace forum here urged a total ban on biological and nuclear weapons as well as the creation of a ministry that would be exclusively devoted to cultivating peace in all the countries of the world.

POLITICS-US: “Decent Respect” Might Help Image Woes Abroad

It was in 1776 that a group of British colonists living along the Atlantic seaboard of North America felt compelled to offer a public justification for their "Declaration of Independence" from their mother country out of "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind".

IRAQ: To Leave, Somehow

More than three years after the invasion, Iraqis seem increasingly to want to leave the country. Reports come pouring in about Iraqi refugees overwhelming Syria, Jordan and other nations in the region.

RIGHTS: Pentagon Resists Ban on “Degrading Treatment”

As new reports detail further abuse by the U.S. military of its prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a behind-the-scenes battle is being fought between the U.S. departments of state and defence about whether a key section of the Geneva Conventions should be included in new rules governing Army interrogation techniques.

DEATH PENALTY-IRAQ: Saddam’s Execution Likely, Fair Trial Less So

The trial of Iraq's former president Saddam Hussein has been wracked with controversy and spectacle. Now entering its final phase, the question for all Iraqis and the world is whether he will be executed for the deaths of 148 Shiites, killed in Dujail in 1982, as requested by prosecutors.

IRAQ: Rebuilding Not Yet Reality for Fallujah

One and a half years after the November 2004 U.S. military assault on Fallujah, residents tell of ongoing suffering, lack of jobs, little reconstruction and continuing violence.

MEDIA-IRAQ: Still Seeking Answers in U.S. Checkpoint Shooting

If one were to ask Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena why she chose to report from Afghanistan, Algeria, Somalia and Iraq prior to February 2005, despite the many perils that face reporters in war zones and areas of conflict, her response would probably be similar to the one she gave to journalist Amy Goodman of the radio news show Democracy Now!.

POLITICS: A Thaw in Egypt-Iran Relations?

The recent visit to the Egyptian capital by a high-level Iranian official has reignited speculation about the state of Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic relations, officially frozen since 1979. Ali Larijani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, is the highest ranking Iranian official to visit Egypt in the last 27 years.

WORLD REFUGEE DAY-JORDAN: Kurds Stuck in No-Man’s Land

A small stretch of desert, sandwiched between the borders of Jordan and Iraq, is a "no-man's land", created by the Iraqi government's decision to cede part of its western frontier to Jordan. It has become a place where refugees from the war in Iraq bide their time, desperate for resettlement.

IRAQ: Residents Struggle to Survive, In and Out of Ramadi

As the threat of a giant U.S. military operation in Ramadi lingers and sporadic clashes plague the city daily, residents struggle to cope, both inside and outside the sealed city.

IRAQ*: Basra Begins to Fall Apart

Basra in the south of Iraq is beginning to splinter under increasing violence and sectarian divisions.

U.S.: Bush Hitches Republicans’ Political Star to Iraq

With less than six months before the mid-term Congressional elections, U.S. President George W. Bush and his top aides are gambling heavily - some would say recklessly - that Iraq will not be the political liability for Republicans that most pundits have believed it would be.