IRAN: Europe Has Six Days to Resolve Suspension Dilemma

After months of bickering over arbitrary deadlines, the Iranian government delivered its long-awaited response to the P5+1 package punctually on the eve of its self-imposed deadline Tuesday.

POLITICS: Bush Ensured Iran Offer Would Be Rejected

Even before Iran gave its formal counter-offer to ambassadors of the P5+1 countries (the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) Tuesday, the George W. Bush administration had already begun the process of organising sanctions against Iran.

MIDEAST: Will Israel Defy the U.N. Again?

A cartoon in a U.S. news magazine many moons ago showed a Palestinian family huddled together in a refugee camp, as U.S.-supplied Israeli fighter jets kept bombarding the makeshift shelters in an orgy of destruction.

POLITICS-US: Hard-line Neo-Cons Assail Israel for Timidity

While much of the world has criticised Israel for carrying out a "disproportionate" war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, hard-line neo-conservatives have attacked the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for timidity.

MIDEAST: Veteran Policy-Makers Fear Disaster in U.S. Course

Alarms are definitely on the rise here.

POLITICS-US: Neo-Conservatives’ “Favourite Democrat” Falls

Tuesday's defeat in Connecticut's primary election of President George W. Bush's "favourite Democrat", Sen. Joe Lieberman, by a little-known anti-war candidate marks a major setback to neo-conservative hopes of maintaining bipartisan support for the administration's aggressive foreign policies, particularly in the Middle East.

POLITICS: U.S. Gets as Much as it Gives to the U.N.

The United States, which pays 22 percent of the U.N.'s regular annual budget of 1.8 billion dollars, has arrogantly demanded a dominant voice in management and administration - primarily because it is the biggest single financial contributor to the world body.

MIDEAST: U.S. to Supply Food with One Hand, Arms with Other

As Israel's bombing of Lebanon continues unabated into its fourth consecutive week, the United States says it stands ready to provide food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to the thousands of internally displaced Lebanese caught in the crossfire.

CUBA: Fidel’s Brother at the Helm, But No Change in U.S. Policy for Now

Uncertain about the condition of long-time U.S. nemesis, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the administration of President George W. Bush said Tuesday it would not alter its policy toward the Caribbean nation with which it has had no regular diplomatic communications for most of the past six years.

MIDEAST: U.N. Inaction on Lebanon Under Heavy Fire

As the Israelis continue to defy the international community and refuse to agree to a ceasefire in the three-week old bombing of Lebanon, a hamstrung United Nations has come under heavy fire for merely watching the death and destruction from the sidelines.

MIDEAST: Republican Realists Call for Major Course Change

Some of the Republican Party's most venerable foreign policy strategists are calling urgently for a major course change in U.S. policy in the Middle East, but neither the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush nor Republicans in Congress appear inclined to pay much heed.

POLITICS: U.N. Sanctions on Iran Recede Further

Russia and China, two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have dismissed media speculation that they had reached an informal deal with the United States and its European allies on threats to impose sanctions on Iran.

POLITICS: Lebanon, False Note in Rice’s Piano Diplomacy

The sole discordance to United States top diplomat Condoleezza Rice's virtuoso piano performance for Asia's foreign ministers, on Thursday night, was the chorus of ''Get Out Rice'' and ''Stop the Genocide in Lebanon'' chanted by demonstrators outside the hall.

POLITICS-US: Mideast Figures High in Battle Over Bolton

One year after Democrats succeeded in blocking Senate confirmation of John Bolton as Washington's ambassador to the United Nations, the White House has once again thrown down the gauntlet, demanding that its least diplomatic diplomat be confirmed in the post for the balance of President George W. Bush's term.

MIDEAST: Backing for Israel Stymies Larger US Aims in Region

Washington's strong backing - hedged by occasional calls for restraint - for Israel's 10-day-old military campaign in Lebanon has won it very few friends in the Arab world, despite recent criticism of Hezbollah by pro-U.S. governments in the region, according to a range of regional and foreign policy experts.

POLITICS: UN Paralysed Over Israeli Attacks on Lebanon

As Israel continues to unleash its deadly firepower on a hapless Lebanon for a second week running, the United Nations remains paralysed and unable to take any action because of an indisputable fact of international politics: the unrestrained U.S. support for an intransigent Israel.

POLITICS-US: Mideast Conflict Boosts Chances of Iran-US Showdown

The week-old Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is likely to boost the chances of U.S. military action against Iran, according to a number of regional experts who see a broad consensus among the U.S. political elite that the ongoing hostilities are part of a broader offensive being waged by Tehran against Washington across the region.

POLITICS: Energised Neo-Cons Say Israel’s Fight Is Washington’s

Seeing a major opportunity to regain influence lost as a result of setbacks in Iraq, prominent neo-conservatives are calling for unconditional U.S. support for Israel's military offensives in Gaza and Lebanon and "regime change" in Syria and Iran, as well as possible U.S. attacks on Tehran's nuclear facilities in retaliation for its support of Hezbollah.

/REPEAT/POLITICS-US: Cowboy Diplomacy Is Not Dead Yet

"We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it."

POLITICS-MIDEAST: Bush Faces Major Choice Amid Escalation

The sudden opening Wednesday by Lebanon's Hezbollah militia of a second front in Israel's ongoing campaign against Hamas militants in Gaza presents the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush with an escalating crisis that, until now, it has preferred to ignore.

RIGHTS-US: Pentagon Switch on Geneva Elicits Hope, Scepticism

Tuesday's announcement by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush that detainees held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere will be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions has provoked both hope and scepticism from human rights activists.