RIGHTS: U.N. Experts Call for Probe of Coalition Abuses in Iraq

U.N. officials have joined the rising tide of criticism against U.S. and British soldiers alleged to have tortured and humiliated Iraqi detainees in a notorious Baghdad penitentiary.

IRAQ: Victory Rises Above a Mass Grave

A team of local volunteers wearing surgical masks lifts the rotting body of a middle-aged woman from a shallow grave in the front yard of a house. The house owner says the body lay there three weeks.

MIDEAST: Fundamentalist Violence is Spreading

The violence that has thus far mainly hit Iraq, Israel and the Palestinians is spreading now to other countries in the Middle East.

IRAQ: U.S. On the Brink

One year after President George W Bush declared the end of major combat in Iraq, the United States appears to be teetering on the brink of strategic defeat in its Mesopotamian adventure.

PRESS FREEDOM: World’s Media Bypassing Critical Stories, Says U.N.

On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, a top U.N. official took a pot-shot at the mainstream media for being so obsessed with Iraq that it has woefully neglected some of the world's other serious political, social and economic crises.

IRAQ: Prisoners Are At Least Survivors

The treatment of Iraqi prisoners apparent from the CBS pictures is not the American way of doing things, U.S. President George W. Bush declared Friday. But the indications on the ground in Iraq are that such treatment may not be the exception.

IRAQ: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

As the U.S. military continues to clash with Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army in the holy city Najaf, the mid-day call to prayer sounds in the poor, Shia neighbourhood Showle in Baghdad.

POLITICS-US: Congress Ignores ‘Dirty War’ Past of New Iraq Envoy

John Negroponte, the Bush administration's nominee to become Washington's first ambassador to Iraq since last year's invasion, was talking about how much ''sovereignty'' the country's new government will enjoy after Jun. 30, when U.S. military forces will remain in control of security.

POLITICS: U.N. Ambivalent Over its Ability to Salvage Iraq

As violence continues to escalate in Iraq, killing dozens of soldiers and hundreds of civilians, the United Nations remains ambivalent about its own ability to help salvage a country on the brink of disaster.

POLITICS: U.S., Iraqi Views of Occupation Converging

One year after President George W Bush declared an end to ''major hostilities'' in Iraq, public opinion there and in the United States is beginning to converge, as people in both countries increasingly agree that the U.S. invasion and occupation might not have been such a good idea after all.

SOCIETY-MIDEAST: Some of the Killing is for ‘Honour’

In a village on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah, residents take good care of the cemetery in memory of their loved ones. They plant flowers and put up marble tombstones marked with names and dates.

RIGHTS: Evidence Grows Against Depleted Uranium Weapons

Washington's insistence that depleted uranium (DU) munitions are not toxic has been undermined by revelations that four U.S. soldiers recently home from Iraq are suffering from radiation poisoning.

IRAQ: Companies Negotiate Remote Profits

As violence rocked Iraq in Fallujah and Najaf, major international companies gathered in London this week to figure ways of doing business in Iraq without getting their hands burnt.

IRAQ: U.S. May be Fighting on Two Fronts Too Many

When U.S. troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked the Mehdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the holy Shia city of Najaf, it is not clear who they killed.

IRAQ: After the Headlines Comes the Tent City

New families seem to arrive every hour at the Iraqi Red Crescent refugee camp in West Baghdad. The camp, the first tent city erected as a result of the U.S. assault on Fallujah first drew about 50 families, a small fraction of the tens of thousands of civilians forced to flee their homes.

IRAQ: Blair Confident Under Political Siege

For a leader riding what could turn out to be among history's costlier mistakes, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is not short of confidence.

IRAQ: U.S. Facing Opponents it Trained

A U.S. military helicopter flies over the municipal building in the predominantly Shia Baghdad neighbourhood Kadamiya. A U.S.- trained Iraqi soldier stands guard.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Starting From Square One, One Year Later

One year after invading U.S. and British forces consolidated their control over Iraq, the administration of President George W Bush appears to be back at Square One, if not in negative territory, over how to ensure that control in the short to medium term.

POLITICS-U.S.: Majority Still Believe in Iraq’s WMD, al-Qaeda Ties

U.S. public perceptions about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al-Qaeda and stocks of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) continues to lag far behind the testimony of experts, boosting chances that President George W Bush will be re-elected, according to a survey and analysis released Thursday.

IRAQ: Latin American Troops Paying Price of Occupation

Some 150 soldiers of Latin American descent have died in Iraq, and the total keeps rising, as has the tone of the activists who are demanding that the Latino troops "come home".

IRAQ-US: Washington Fails to Realign Oil Business

A year on, the invasion of Iraq has turned into a fiasco for long-term U.S. goals to ensure access to steady, secure supplies of inexpensive crude oil and to start playing a decisive role in oil markets at the expense of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).