POLITICS-US: Watching the Watchdogs

For the past few years, U.S. citizens have lived with an increasingly secretive government.

POLITICS-US: Welcome to RightWorld

It's always difficult to play defence and offence at the same time, but when the geo-political ground is shifting beneath one's feet and damaging leaks are spurting out of the White House and Downing Street plumbing like Fourth of July fireworks, it's more difficult than usual.

BRITAIN: Iraqi Shadow Seen Over Train Attacks

An Iraqi connection was conspicuously missing from the first statements British Prime Minister Tony Blair made on the bomb blasts in London Thursday last week. But new developments suggest a powerful link between the British invasion and occupation of Iraq and the bomb attacks.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Smuggler Jailed But Iraqi Boat People Wrangle Rages On

The sentencing of a former Baghdad goldsmith for helping organise a people-smuggling operation that ended in tragedy has not quelled controversy over the Australian government's role in the October 2001 drowning of 353 Iraqi asylum-seekers on their way to this country from Indonesia.

POLITICS: "Islamic Extremism" Alienates Most in Muslim World

Concerns about "Islamic extremism" and disapproval over violence motivated by it are growing in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries, according to a major new survey that also found declining support for Osama bin Laden in most of the Islamic world, with the exception of Jordan and Pakistan.

RIGHTS-US: Abuse Probes End With Single Reprimand

The U.S. Army general widely considered the architect of abusive prisoner interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and detention centres in Afghanistan used "creative" and "aggressive" tactics, but did not practice torture or violate law or Pentagon policy, the head of the U.S. Southern Command has determined.

IRAQ: No, This Certainly Is Not Switzerland

It should have been a little more than an hour's drive south from Baghdad. But it took an hour just to exit the checkpoints, with U.S. military hummers intermittently veering into oncoming traffic.

POLITICS-US: "Bush’s Brain" Besieged

Battered by sagging poll numbers, new doubts in the aftermath of the London bombings about the effectiveness of its war on terrorism, and no let-up in the bad news out of Iraq, the White House has found itself this week embroiled in yet another controversy, one that threatens the credibility, if not the tenure, of the man widely known as Pres. George W. Bush's "brain."

/ARTS WEEKLY/-IRAQ: Book Checks Hearts and Minds, Won or Lost

When journalist Aaron Glantz drove into Iraq from Jordan in a battered orange and white checkered taxi on Apr. 29, 2003, he was surprised to find most of the civilian neighbourhoods in Baghdad relatively unscathed by the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

POLITICS-US: "Coddling" at GITMO, or Just Humane Treatment?

Many people will remember Janice Karpinsky, the U.S. Army Reserve brigadier general who was reprimanded and demoted for failing to stop the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

POLITICS-US: Familiar Debate Resumes in Wake of London Bombings

Thursday's London bombings that killed at least 49 people have rekindled a familiar debate in this country on the question first posed after the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon: "Why do they hate us?"

G8 SUMMIT: Middle East Gets Money and Advice

A three-billion-dollar offer to rebuild the Palestinian economy marked the strongest part of a G8 push at its summit to bring the Middle East around to its way.

POLITICS: Spectres of Militarism, Nationalism Dog Independence Day

As U.S. citizens mark their annual celebration of patriotism, the Fourth of July holiday, they might do well to also ponder the spectre of two other "isms" that threaten the Republic's durability and strength raised by two important books published over the past year.

POLITICS-US: Bush’s Iraq Speech Falls Flat

Despite a strong delivery, solemn demeanour, and a respectful military audience, U.S. President George W. Bush's effort to rally the nation behind his Iraq strategy through a prime-time televised speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina offered nothing new to reassure a restive public that the situation was coming under control.

U.S./IRAQ: Report Finds "Appalling Level of Fraud and Greed"

As a Congressional committee heard testimony last week that billions of Iraqi dollars - held in trust by the U.S. government - still cannot be accounted for, the inspector general charged with tracking the funds said he has referred three contractors to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecutions for fraud.

RIGHTS-US: Terror Policies Draw Outrage at Home and Abroad

The George W. Bush administration's policies on indefinite detention and "extraordinary rendition" are coming under heavy fire from a number of institutions and organisations, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, and members of the U.S. Congress itself.

IRAQ: More Evidence Indicts U.S.

New evidence on U.S. war crimes and violations of international law was presented at the concluding session of the World Tribunal on Iraq at hearings in Istanbul Sunday.

POLITICS: U.S. Image Abroad Still Sinking

Two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Washington's image in Europe, Canada and much of the Islamic world remains broadly negative, according to the latest in a series of surveys of public opinion in 16 countries sponsored by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (PGAP).

RIGHTS: UN Experts Cite Credible Reports of Torture at Guantanamo

Four U.N. human rights experts said Thursday that they will investigate all aspects of detention at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, where some 500 prisoners are being held without charges, despite the U.S. government's failure to respond to repeated requests to allow a visit there.

IRAQ: Leaders Join in Symbolic Support

The European Union and the United States called for worldwide help for Iraq Wednesday as tensions rose in the war-torn country.

IRAQ: Despite Regime Change, Kuwait Debts Keep Mounting

International social justice groups are calling on the United Nations to stop paying out millions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenues to Kuwaiti businesses and individuals as war reparations for Saddam Hussein's invasion of that country 15 years ago.