U.S. Snooping Makes It a Neighbourhood Pariah

As the first formal probe by an international rights body into allegations of U.S. mass surveillance began here Monday, privacy advocates from throughout the Americas accused Washington of violating international covenants and endangering civil society.

U.S. Jews Less Hawkish on Iran

Despite renewed calls in Congress for increasing pressure on Iran, support for a U.S. attack against the Islamic Republic has declined markedly over the past year, according to the latest in an annual series of polls carried out by the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

U.N. Will Censure Illegal Spying, But Not U.S.

When the 193-member General Assembly adopts a resolution next month censuring the illegal electronic surveillance of governments and world leaders by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the U.N.’s highest policy-making body will spare the United States from public condemnation despite its culpability in widespread wiretapping.

U.S. Spying Worldwide May Come Under U.N. Scrutiny

When Clare Short, Britain's former minister for international development, revealed that British intelligence agents had spied on former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan by bugging his office just before the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the U.N. chief was furious that his discussions with world leaders had been compromised.

Four Years after a Tamil Defeat, the Diaspora Regroups

Seated at a desk piled high with court documents and yellowed newspapers, Visvanathan Rudrakumaran remembers leaving Sri Lanka and coming to New York for the first time, three decades ago.

Pakistan Drone Story Ignored Military Opposition to Strikes

The Washington Post on Thursday reported what it presented as new evidence of a secret agreement under which Pakistani officials have long been privately supporting the U.S. drone war in the country even as they publicly criticised it.

OP-ED: The World Without U.S.

In his 2007 bestseller The World Without Us, journalist Alan Weisman describes a planet that regenerates itself after the disappearance of human beings. Skyscrapers crumble and bridges collapse into rivers, but the primeval forests take over and the buffalo return to roam.

For U.S. in the Mideast, the Ice Is Getting Thinner

New and unexpected strains in Washington’s ties with two of its closest Middle Eastern allies -- Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- have underlined the difficult challenges the administration of President Barack Obama faces in navigating its way in the region’s increasingly treacherous and turbulent waters.

OP-ED: The End of the Beginning

The talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries last week bring to mind Winston Churchill’s 1942 description of World War II: “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

The United States of Drought

As the planet heats up and larger populations demand larger water supplies, the United States will be left high and dry if it fails to address a worsening water shortage.

The U.S.’s 64-Square-Foot “Torture Chambers”

He has not had human contact or a good night’s sleep in nearly three decades. Every single day, he wakes to the sound of metal doors clanging open and a pair of disembodied hands pushing a tray of food through a slot into his 64-square-foot cell.

Iran Hawks Down but Not Out After Geneva Talks

Hopeful statements emerging from this week’s talks between Iran and the great powers have clearly set back foes of any détente between Washington and Tehran, but they are far from giving up the fight.

Fractured Opposition Could Derail Syria Talks

Despite U.S. and Western pressure on the opposition to take part in U.N.-sponsored talks aimed at halting the two-and-a-half-year-old Syrian civil war, most experts here believe the rebels are unlikely to show up any time soon. And even if they do, the results will be unlikely to change much of anything on the ground.

U.S. Reforms “Open Floodgates” on Arms Exports

On Tuesday, the largest deregulation in the history of U.S. arms exports took place as part of the Barack Obama administration’s export reform initiative.

OP-ED: Collapsism

U.S policymakers indulge in a variety of child’s play called collapsism. They close their eyes when they want a particularly despised adversary to go away. And poof! Kim Jong Eun’s North Korea eventually disappears. Raul Castro’s Cuba eventually vanishes.

Iran Nuclear Deal May Have its Beginnings in Geneva

Talks between Iran and world powers known as the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear programme wrapped up here Wednesday with expressions of encouragement and hope, a commitment to reconvene in just three weeks, and several welcomed “firsts”.

Geneva Talks Open amid High Hopes in Iran

Iran offered a new proposal in much-anticipated talks over its nuclear programme here Tuesday in a meeting with the P5+1 negotiating team comprising the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, plus Germany.

BOOKS: Containing Iran Is the “Least Bad Policy” for U.S.

The day that the much-heralded new round of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 world powers opens might seem like the wrong day to pick up Unthinkable, Kenneth Pollack’s new exploration of what to do if talks fail.

Iran Talks to Resume Amid Guarded Optimism

Almost exactly four months after the election of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, talks over the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear programme will resume here on Tuesday.

U.S. Govt Shutdown Dashes Immigrant Dreams

Early on the morning of Oct. 1, Tapia* left her home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, took the subway into Manhattan and headed to the federal courthouse on Varick Street.

Israeli Claim of Iranian ICBM Exploits Biased U.S. Intel

In an effort to provoke any possible opposition in U.S. political circles to a nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has returned to exploiting an old claim that Iran is building intercontinental ballistic missiles that could hit the United States.