MEDIA-US: Massive Iraqi Death Toll Ignored by Tabloid Culture

The year is 1994. Pictures of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley cover the pages of prominent U.S. newspapers and magazines. Yet hidden from national view is the attempted elimination of the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda.

RIGHTS: Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” Stumbles in Syria

With media and diplomatic attention focused on the international incident ignited by a U.S. cross-border raid from Iraq into Syrian territory last weekend, the Syrian government quietly handed down 30-month prison terms to a group of democracy activists on Wednesday.

US-IRAQ: Detainees May Go From Frying Pan to Fire

An estimated 17,000 Iraqis detained in their own country by occupying U.S. forces may soon face transfer into an Iraqi government detention system where reports of abuse and torture are commonplace, says a leading human rights advocacy group.

POLITICS-US: Analysts Question Timing of Syria Raid

A cross-border raid into Syria by U.S. forces in Iraq, and a subsequent stonewalling by U.S. officials unwilling to divulge details, has led to rampant speculation among U.S. analysts about the origins and meaning of the attack.

Q&A: “Musharraf Should Be Tried for High Treason”

Sahibzada Anwar Hamid is the former vice president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan. One of three imprisoned leaders of the Pakistan Lawyers' Movement, the group whose advocacy for an independent judiciary against the interference of former Gen. Pervez Musharraf helped to oust the former military dictator from power.

RIGHTS-US: Next President Will Inherit Guantanamo Dilemma

Leading human rights groups reacted with outrage Tuesday to media reports that the administration of President George W. Bush has decided not to close the iconic prison at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

RIGHTS-US: Freedom Recedes for Uighurs at Guantanamo

Seventeen Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for seven years will now have to wait still longer to discover whether a U.S. appeals court will confirm or reverse a judge's earlier decision that they be immediately released into the United States.

RIGHTS-US: Muslim Charity to Get Its Day in Court

In what appears to be another stunning legal rebuke to President George W. Bush's policies in the "global war on terrorism", a federal judge has blocked the government from blacklisting a Muslim-oriented charity to give the group a chance to defend itself after its assets were frozen almost three years ago.

POLITICS: Afghan Peace Talks Widen US-UK Rift on War Policy

The beginning of political talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban revealed by press accounts this week is likely to deepen the rift that has just erupted in public between the United States and its British ally over the U.S. commitment to an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

RIGHTS-US: Judge Orders Release of Uighurs at Guantanamo

U.S. human rights and civil rights groups lauded a federal court decision Tuesday that orders the release of 17 Muslim minority Chinese men who have been held without charges for seven years at the infamous U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

RIGHTS: Rendition Victims "Missing" in Ethiopia

A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses the Ethiopian government of detaining at least 10 victims of unlawful rendition incommunicado and without charge since early 2007.

POLITICS-US: Bush Had No Plan to Catch Bin Laden after 9/11

New evidence from former U.S. officials reveals that the George W. Bush administration failed to adopt any plan to block the retreat of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the first weeks after 9/11.

POLITICS: U.S. War on al Qaeda Widely Viewed as a Bust

The U.S. is failing to rein in its primary target in the "global war on terror" - al Qaeda - according to a new poll of 23 countries across the globe.

POLITICS: Neo-cons, Ex-Israeli Diplomats Push Islamophobic Video

A group of hard-line U.S. neo-conservatives and former Israeli diplomats, among others, are behind the mass distribution, ahead of the November U.S. presidential election, of a controversial DVD that critics have denounced as Islamophobic.

MEXICO: Bloody Independence Eve Celebrations

If there ever was a tacit agreement between organised crime and the authorities in Mexico to respect certain boundaries, as some analysts argue, there is now no doubt that it has been breached. Several grenades exploded in Morelia during the country’s Independence Day celebrations, killing at least eight people and injuring 100.

POLITICS-US: The Most Secretive Govt Ever?

The administration of President George W. Bush continues to expand government secrecy across a broad array of agencies and actions - and at greatly increased cost to taxpayers, according to a coalition of groups that promote greater transparency.

BOOKS-US: "A Policy of Deliberate Cruelty"

Perhaps the most thorough and informative book about the George W. Bush administration's approval of the use of torture and "extraordinary renditions" of alleged terrorists to third countries has continued to stay on bestseller lists.

POLITICS-US: Intel Council Warned Against Raids in Pakistan

The National Intelligence Council, the U.S. intelligence community's focal point for estimating future developments, warned the George W. Bush administration last month that a decision to launch commando raids by U.S. troops against al Qaeda-related targets in Pakistan's North-West Frontier region would carry a high risk of further destabilising the Pakistani military and government, according to sources familiar with the intelligence community's response to the issue.

RIGHTS: Fighting the ‘War on Terror’

The "war on terror" in the aftermath of the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 has undermined human rights globally, according to activists and experts who attended a UN conference in Paris.

COLOMBIA: Oil Palms, Right Abuses Hand in Hand in Northwest

As of this week, there is one less human rights defender in the northwestern Colombian region of Bajo Atrato. Jimmy Jansasoy of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission was forced to flee the area, where oil palm plantations have encroached on the collectively-owned jungle territories of traditional black communities.

RIGHTS: Betancourt Wants Political Niche for Guerrillas

Resolution of the conflict in Colombia can only come through "dialogue and openness," says Ingrid Betancourt, the former presidential candidate held hostage by leftist guerrillas for more than six years before being rescued by the Colombian military in July.