DEVELOPMENT: Frustration Builds in Iraq, Afghanistan

Despite increased funding to reconstruct the war-ravaged nations of Iraq and Afghanistan, a lack of security and severely damaged infrastructure are crippling rebuilding efforts in the two countries, two former diplomats said at a discussion in New York Tuesday.

POLITICS-US: State Elections Add to Republican Gloom

In a new setback to U.S. President George W. Bush's political standing that is certain to fuel the growing disarray within the ruling Republican Party, voters in two politically important states - Virginia and New Jersey - elected Democrats as governors in Tuesday's off-year elections.

POLITICS: India’s Foreign Minister Skids on ‘Oil-for-Food’ Scam

Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, known for his staunch opposition to the invasion of Iraq, was compelled to stand down Monday for allegedly benefiting illegally from the United Nations' 'oil-for-food' scheme.

POLITICS-US: Cheney Under Siege

Has U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney become so much of an albatross around his boss' neck that he will have to go?

POLITICS-IRAQ: Witnesses Describe Ballot Fraud in Nineveh

Reports compiled by the U.S. military in Iraq from its informants and by non-governmental organisations from independent Iraqi sources provide the first detailed picture of a campaign of ballot fraud by Kurdish authorities in Nineveh province, the key to the outcome of the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum.

RIGHTS-US: Report on Covert Prisons Abroad Spurs UN, EU Probes

Pressure mounted on the George W. Bush administration Thursday to provide details of secret prisons abroad reportedly run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where terror suspects are held incommunicado in dark, sometimes underground cells.

POLITICS-US: Cheney Circles the Wagons

With his closest aide for the past five years facing arraignment in federal court Thursday on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be hunkering down with a familiar cast of faces.

PERU: Veteran Soldiers, Police Recruited for Iraq by U.S. Contractors

"Piraña", a former Peruvian army sergeant who fought the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) Maoist guerrillas in the jungles of Peru in the 1990s, decided at the last minute not to travel to Iraq with around 200 former members of the military and police recruited by the U.S.-based private security firm Triple Canopy.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Reports of Sunni Enthusiasm May Be Premature

The George W. Bush administration is citing the formation of a coalition of Sunni political organisations to run candidates in Iraq's December parliamentary elections, and high Sunni turnout in the recent referendum, as evidence that its policy of attracting Sunnis away from the insurgency is working.

POLITICS-US: A Formidable Hawk Goes Down

Losing I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, perhaps the most influential national security official without a formal cabinet rank, marks a serious blow to the George W. Bush administration and particularly to the hawks who led the drive to war in Iraq.

POLITICS-US: Cheney’s Top Aide Indicted in CIA Leak Case

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and top national security aide resigned Friday, hours before a grand jury formally indicted him on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice following a 22-month probe into the public disclosure of the identity of a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative.

MIDEAST: UN Flounders Amid Growing Troubles

The Lebanese Hezbollah movement used an annual anti-Israel rally Friday to send a defiant message to the international community. It was some indication how difficult it is for the UN to deal with the crises in the Middle East.

POLITICS: Major Firms Named in Iraq Oil for Food Scandal

Some of the world's richest nations have come under fire from a leading corruption watchdog group for failing to take action against the companies that illegally profited from a United Nations-sponsored humanitarian programme in Iraq.

HUMAN RIGHTS-US: Dozens of Abu Ghraibs

U.S. human rights groups have denounced before the U.N. Human Rights Committee that there are perhaps dozens of secret detention centres around the world where Washington is holding an unknown number of prisoners as part of its "war on terror".

POLITICS-US: Frustrated Scowcroft Assails Neo-Cons, Cheney

One week after a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell issued a blistering attack on foreign policy-making in the George W. Bush administration, Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser under Bush's father, assailed neo-conservatives who persuaded the president to go to war in Iraq.

IRAQ: Two Years Later, U.S. Still Can’t Keep the Lights On

The reconstruction of Iraq is failing rapidly despite repeated claims of progress by the George W. Bush administration, according to a number of U.S. officials and reports released here this week.

RIGHTS-US: Serious Lapses Taint Probes of Detainee Deaths

Despite repeated vows by the Pentagon to fully investigate the deaths of all detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and elsewhere in the "war on terror", a major human rights group has found a pattern of "grossly inadequate and flawed investigations" that have made it difficult or impossible to hold perpetrators accountable.

MEDIA: Iraq is Deadliest Beat For Reporters Since WWII

In its annual survey of press freedom around the world, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) once again ranked North Korea in last place of the 167 countries evaluated, closely preceded by Eritrea and Turkmenistan.

CORRUPTION-FRANCE: Oil for Food for Money on the Side

The French judiciary is investigating several corruption cases involving former high-ranking public officials.

POLITICS-US: Powell Aide Blasts Rice, Cheney- Rumsfeld ‘Cabal’

As top officials in the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office await possible criminal indictments for their efforts to discredit a whistleblower, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Wednesday, accused a ''cabal'' led by Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld of hijacking U.S. foreign policy by circumventing or ignoring formal decision-making channels.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Vote Figures for Crucial Province Don’t Add Up

The early vote totals from Nineveh province, which suggested an overwhelming majority in favour of Iraq's draft constitution that assured its passage by national referendum, now appear to have been highly misleading.