RIGHTS: Iraq Exodus Ends Four-Year Decline in Refugees

An exodus of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis escaping growing violence in their homeland last year increased the total number of refugees around the world to some 12 million, according to the World Refugee Survey 2006 released here Wednesday by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

IRAQ: Priceless Assyrian Relics Used for Target Practice

Home to some of the most significant standing monuments of ancient Assyria, the Khinnis site in northern Iraq is a historical and cultural hallmark in desperate need of protection, warn Mesopotamian archaeologists and Assyriologists.

POLITICS: U.S. Image Abroad Takes a New Turn South

Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the image of the United States in Europe and the Islamic world has resumed its post-war slide, according to the latest in a series of surveys of public opinion in 14 countries released here Tuesday by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (PGAP).

POLITICS-US: “New American Century” Project Ends with a Whimper

Is the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which did so much to promote the invasion of Iraq and an Israel-centred "global war on terror", closing down?

IRAQ: Another U.S. Cover-Up Surfaces

In the wake of the Haditha massacre, reports of another atrocity have surfaced in which U.S. troops killed two women in Samarra, and then attempted to hide evidence of their responsibility.

SOUTH PACIFIC: Fijian Deaths in Iraq Revive Mercenaries’ Issue

The deaths of three Fijian security guards in a bomb blast in Iraq has revived concerns over private security agencies hiring former Fijian soldiers cheaply to work in the war-torn country and elsewhere.

POLITICS-US: Bush Finally Gets Good News on Iraq

U.S. President George W. Bush got his first good news in months from Iraq with Thursday's announcement that U.S. forces had killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and that the key security portfolios in the new Iraqi government have finally been filled.

IRAQ: Zarqawi Killing May Not End Violence

Iraqis seem divided over the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

POLITICS: Iraq’s Chairing of U.N. Rights Committee Faulted

The 191-member General Assembly is expected to elect Iraq as chair of a key U.N. committee dealing with human rights and social development.

IRAQ: Morgue Tells the Updated Story

Baghdad's central morgue received more than a thousand bodies each month this year, a doctor has revealed. The body count here gives a more accurate picture of the story in Baghdad than any official statistics.

IRAQ: ‘U.S. Military Hides Many More Hadithas’

An Iraqi doctor who was in Haditha during a deadly U.S. raid last year says there are many more stories like that in Haditha that are yet untold.

IRAQ: Ramadi Becomes Another Fallujah

These days, Ramadi is nearly impossible to enter. Against the backdrop of the Haditha massacre, IPS has received reports of civilians killed by snipers, and homes occupied with American snipers on their roof, while families were detained downstairs.

IRAQ: Multiply Haditha By Thousands

The Iraqi government has decided to launch its own investigation into the killing of 24 people by U.S. Marines in the western town Haditha last November.

IRAQ: Kurds Join In, With an Eye on Independence

Sipping tea at a café in Arbil, Moayed Rafiq, 25, watches news of a car bombing in Baghdad on an Arab television channel. Others around him also watch, quietly.

IRAQ: Badr Groups Move from Troubled Past to Uncertain Future

It could be instructive to recall that the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its armed wing, the Badr Corps, arose from a conference of Iraqi opposition parties called in Iran in 1982.

POLITICS-US/IRAN: Khamenei in Control and Ready to “Haggle”

For months, the U.S. news media, the attention of pundits and elected officials have been riveted on the aims of ultra-conservative Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

POLITICS-US: Massacre Story Mars Memorial Day

Monday's observance of Memorial Day, the annual commemoration of U.S. soldiers who died in the service of their country, has taken place at a particularly difficult moment for both the U.S. armed forces and the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

IRAQ: Guns Becoming as Important as Food

Guns have come to be seen in Iraq as a need second only to food.

IRAQ: Basra Begins to Fall Apart

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

POLITICS-US: Bush Democracy Doctrine, 2003(?)-2006, R.I.P.

Less than 18 months after U.S. President George W. Bush declared in his 2005 Inaugural Address his unequivocal commitment to the "ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world", tyrants, particularly in the Islamic world, are taking heart.

RIGHTS: War Provoking Terror, Amnesty Says

The war on terror is provoking more terror, Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan told IPS in an interview Tuesday at the launch of the human rights group's 2005 annual report.