June 3 – A rumbling explosion just let off near my hotel. This not too long after getting back from Adhamiya where I was talking to witnesses at the scene of yet another car bomb; the third in as many days here in Baghdad. At the scene in Adhamiya the scorched,...
With the notable exceptions of China and India, a majority of people in 19 key countries are pessimistic about the world's current direction, says a just-released survey, which found a high correlation between that feeling and the belief that U.S. influence is...
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - When U.S. President George W. Bush desperately sought UN assistance last month to organise elections in Iraq and help form a new interim government, some senior UN officials bragged the United States was crawling back to the world body on bended...
GENEVA (IPS) - A new report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concludes that "grave violations" – even potential war crimes – have occurred since the U.S.-led forces have occupied Iraq, leaving "a stain upon the effort to bring freedom" to that...
ARBIL, Iraq, (IPS) - Fruit and vegetable vendors push their carts around a street market in Arbil, the seat of governance of Iraqi Kurdistan. The city is very different from Baghdad. Kurdish is spoken here, and written large on shop windows. Also, there is no visible...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Our allegiances to our allies and friends change constantly. For a decade, exiled Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi was our chosen leader-to-be in a new Iraq. Championed by Pentagon neocons and objected to by the State...
A coalition of civil-rights and veterans groups charged in a New York court Wednesday that the U.S. Defense Department is withholding records about the abuse of detainees in military custody as part of the Bush administration's "war against terrorism." The federal...
While the original pretext offered to the Australian people for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was the presence of weapons of mass destruction and their certain use against Western targets, the justification has now moved from the pragmatic to the ideological. As...
After a brief, frenetic political battle between the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, both parties on Tuesday named Sheikh Ghazi Al-Yawar president of Iraq's newly formed interim government. Yesterday UN representative...
A U.S.-based company with close links to members of the Iraqi Governing Council has been re-awarded a lucrative supply deal by the U.S. Army. Virginia-based Nour USA was originally granted a $327 million contract to supply the new Iraqi military and Civil Defense...
