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.

CULTURE: UN Treaty Challenges “Planet Hollywood”

With the rest of the world poised to adopt a new United Nations treaty on cultural diversity, indications are that the United States is once again going to say no to multilateralism.

RIGHTS: UN Warns of Dwindling Respect for Rule of Law

Iraq's special war crimes tribunal, and the "anti-terror" measures pursued by its occupying powers, the United States and Britain, are under fire from the United Nations for undermining international human rights standards.

POLITICS-US: Condi May Be Bush’s Expediency Council

Just as the theocratic leadership in Iran is trying to rein in the aggressive nationalism of the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears to be restraining aggressive nationalists in Washington who want to escalate rising tensions with Iran and Syria.

POLITICS: Nobel Peace Prize Seen as Warning to Big Powers

The United Nations, which has taken a severe beating in recent months over charges of fraud, corruption and cronyism, received a morale booster Friday with news of a Nobel Peace Prize to one of its sister agencies.

POLITICS-US: Bush Raises the Stakes in Terror War

Despite fading public - and Republican - confidence in his performance in Iraq and the wider "war on terror", U.S. President George W. Bush Thursday raised the stakes by warning that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would lead to a takeover by al Qaeda and the subversion of its pro-western neighbours.

RIGHTS-US: White House Losing Ground on Prisoner Treatment

Despite strong opposition from the Pentagon and the White House, the Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate is coming under growing pressure to set specific standards for the "humane" treatment of detainees taken in Iraq and elsewhere in the George W. Bush administration's "war on terror".

POLITICS: Cuban Terror Case Erodes US Credibility, Critics Say

The decision Tuesday by a U.S. immigration judge in Texas to deny Venezuela's request to extradite Luis Posada Carriles, whom Caracas has dubbed "the Osama bin Laden of Latin America", was greeted with surprise and disappointment by Latin America activists and even some former U.S. officials.

POLITICS: China Crows Over N. Korea ‘Diplomatic Coup’

Despite snags in the North Korean nuclear deal, China considers the joint-agreement, at the end of six-party talks last week, a diplomatic coup that is in keeping with its emergence as a dominant political entity in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Can the US Military Presence Avert Civil War?

The growing spectre of a full-scale civil war in Iraq - and the likelihood that such a conflict will draw in neighbouring states - has intensified a summer-long debate here over whether and how to withdraw U.S. troops.

RIGHTS-US: Calls Mount for Prisoner Abuse Commission

New allegations of prisoner torture in Iraq are likely to add urgency to pending legislation that would create a 9/11-type commission to investigate detainee treatment and ensure that the U.S. operates within the law on interrogations.

POLITICS: India Ditches Iran and Non-alignment for West

By voting for a Western-sponsored resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meant to reprimand Iran, India has signalled the collapse of its long-standing policy of non- alignment.

POLITICS-US: Thousands Rally Against “Economic Apartheid”

At least 100,000 people from different parts of the U.S. and the world converged on Washington Saturday to demand an immediate end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and what they termed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank's "war on the poor".

RIGHTS-US/IRAQ: Whistleblowers Describe Routine, Severe Abuse

As a military jury in Texas considers the fate of Lynndie England, the low-ranking reservist pictured in the notorious photos of the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003, two sergeants and a captain in one of the U.S. Army's most decorated combat units have come forward with accounts of routine, systematic and often severe beatings committed against detainees at a base near Fallujah from 2003 through 2004.

POLITICS-US: FDR Revival?

Sixty years after his death, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the policies he pursued - both at home and abroad - during his record 12-year presidency appear to be enjoying something of a comeback.

POLITICS: North Korean Atomic Deal a ‘Diplomatic Coup’

Despite snags over the supply of a light-water reactor, Monday's atomic disarmament deal with North Korea represents a major diplomatic coup say observers in India,now an acknowledged nuclear player.

POLITICS-US: Uncertain Anniversary for Iraq War Champions

It was four years ago today that a little-known group called the "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) published an open letter to President George W. Bush advising him on how precisely he should carry out his brand-new "war on terrorism".

POLITICS: UN Human Rights Body to Scrutinise U.S. Abuses

The U.N. Human Rights Committee, scheduled to meet in Geneva next month, has written to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) calling for any available evidence of human rights abuses by the United States - particularly in the aftermath of its global war on terrorism.

POLITICS: Japan Wary of North Korean Nuclear Deal

A day-old nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea already threatens to come unstuck, with Japan joining other negotiating countries in disagreeing with a demand by Pyongyang for a light-water nuclear reactor for its civilian programme.

POLITICS: Iran Defiant As Sanctions Loom

While moves are afoot to bring United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions to bear on Iran for intransigence on its atomic programme, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is turning into a national hero and a symbol of defiance against the West.