US-MIDEAST:Light At End of Tunnel Elusive Despite Obama's Efforts
   Analysis by Jim Lobe on 02/09/2010 15.01.44 GMT
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (IPS) - President Barack Obama will try this week to underline his progress in extricating the United States from the morass his predecessor's "global war on terror" in the Greater Middle East.... (continue)

Media Didn't Buy Petraeus Command's Story of Low Taliban Morale
    on 02/09/2010 14.56.02 GMT
Gareth Porter* WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (IPS) - In an effort to introduce a story of "progress" into media coverage, Gen. David Petraeuss command claimed last week that the Taliban is suffering from reduced morale in Marjah and elsewhere, despite evidence that the population of Marjah still believes the Taliban controls that district.... (continue)

AFGHANISTAN:Ouster of Contractors Throws U.S. Strategy in Doubt
    on 24/08/2010 21.08.02 GMT
William Fisher NEW YORK, Aug 24 (IPS) - Charging that U.S. private security contractors are "mafia- like groups" being financed by U.S. taxpayers to carry out "terrorist activities" with the support of the U.S. government, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered a four- month phaseout of all private security companies in his embattled country.... (continue)

Q&A:Mousavi's Revelations Would Destroy the Govt's Legitimacy
    on 24/08/2010 17.46.18 GMT
Omid Memarian interviews ABOLHASSAN BANISADR, Iran's first post-Revolution president... (continue)

Obama Plays Down Plan for Post-2011 Iraq Troop Presence
    on 23/08/2010 17.01.32 GMT
Gareth Porter* WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (IPS) - When the Barack Obama administration unveiled its plan last week for an improvised State Department-controlled army of contractors to replace all U.S. combat troops in Iraq by the end of 2011, critics associated with the U.S. command attacked the transition plan, insisting that the United States must continue to assume that U.S. combat forces should and can remain in Iraq indefinitely.... (continue)

Brazil Aims for World's "Most Perfect" Population Census
    on 23/08/2010 16.39.32 GMT
Thalif Deen RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 23 (IPS) - Come Dec. 31, about 68 countries are expected to complete the arduous task of taking an accurate head count of the number of people living within their geographical borders.... (continue)

AFGHANISTAN:Task Force 42 and Task Force 121, the Other Secret Killers û Part 3
    on 23/08/2010 11.48.56 GMT
Pratap Chatterjee*... (continue)

AFGHANISTAN:Task Force 373, the Secret Killers û Part 1
    on 23/08/2010 11.44.12 GMT
Pratap Chatterjee*... (continue)

Q&A:"Women Are the First to Cook and the Last to Eat"
    on 20/08/2010 01.14.52 GMT
Kumari Karandawala interviews activists from the new INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S ALLIANCE... (continue)

Need and Risks Never Higher for Humanitarian Work
    on 18/08/2010 23.46.20 GMT
Megan Iacobini de Fazio... (continue)

US:Standing Up for Homeless Vets at Stand Downs
    on 18/08/2010 16.47.14 GMT
Aaron Glantz* PLEASANTON, California, Aug 18 (IPS) - More than 400 homeless veterans from across northern California relaxed in comfort at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton.... (continue)

Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Attack on Iran
   Analysis by Gareth Porter* on 13/08/2010 16.29.08 GMT
WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (IPS) - Pro-Israeli journalist Jeffrey Goldberg's article in "The Atlantic" magazine was evidently aimed at showing why the Barack Obama administration should worry that it risks an attack by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran in the coming months unless it takes a much more menacing line toward Iran's nuclear programme.... (continue)

IRAN:Eyes on the Skies Over Bushehr Nuclear Reactor
   Analysis by Marsha B. Cohen on 07/08/2010 00.05.10 GMT
MIAMI, Aug 6 (IPS) - Iran's light water nuclear power plant at Bushehr is preparing to go "live" - again.... (continue)

Iran Benefits from Arab Disillusion with Obama
    on 06/08/2010 00.00.18 GMT
Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (IPS) - U.S. President Barack Obama has suffered a sharp drop in popularity in the Arab world over the past year, and Iran may be reaping the benefits, according to a major new survey of public opinion in five Arab countries released here Thursday.... (continue)

QA:"The World Needs a New Social Contract"
    on 04/08/2010 23.08.40 GMT
Clarinha Glock interviews Argentine Nobel Peace Prize-winner ADOLFO PÉREZ ESQUIVEL... (continue)

IRAQ:'Were Not Living, Just Not Dying'
    on 04/08/2010 09.32.30 GMT
Jake Hess SULEYMANIYA, Iraq, Aug 4 (IPS) - Compared to most internally displaced Kurds in northern Iraq, Shamal Qadir is almost lucky. Since the Turkish army devastated his village, Kuzine, in a bombing raid Jul. 1, he's been living in a schoolhouse, where room temperatures are comfortable and basic amenities are accessible.... (continue)

New Hardships Intensify Debate Over Iran-Iraq War
   Analysis by Farideh Farhi* on 04/08/2010 00.32.40 GMT
HONOLULU, Hawaii, U.S., Aug 3 (IPS) - Ongoing factional disputes and mounting international sanctions have ignited heated debates among Iran's elites about another critical period in the country's post- revolutionary history - the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.... (continue)

Obama Drops 2009 Pledge to Withdraw Combat Troops from Iraq
    on 03/08/2010 16.43.58 GMT
Gareth Porter* WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (IPS) - Seventeen months after President Barack Obama pledged to withdraw all combat brigades from Iraq by Sep. 1, 2010, he quietly abandoned that pledge Monday, admitting implicitly that such combat brigades would remain until the end of 2011.... (continue)

Despite Iraq Withdrawal, Greater Mideast Not Looking Good
   Analysis by Jim Lobe* on 03/08/2010 08.15.16 GMT
WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (IPS) - While President Barack Obama Monday touted the continuing U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq as a key marker in the success of his regional policies, the latest news from the Greater Middle East, as well as a new public opinion survey, is far less encouraging.... (continue)

Families of Dead U.S. Vets Accuse Insurer of Massive Scam
    on 31/07/2010 18.01.28 GMT
Aaron Glantz* SAN FRANCISCO, California, Jul 31 (IPS) - Prudential cheated the families of dead U.S. soldiers and Marines out of more than 100 million dollars in interest on their life-insurance policies, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in a Massachusetts federal court.... (continue)

Obama's Afghanistan Strategy Increasingly Under Siege
   Analysis by Jim Lobe* on 27/07/2010 03.57.22 GMT
WASHINGTON, Jul 26 (IPS) - Monday's release by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of classified documents detailing the travails of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Pakistan's secret support for the Taliban from 2004 through 2009 comes amid a growing crisis of confidence here in the nearly nine-year-old war.... (continue)

Leaked Reports Make Afghan War Policy More Vulnerable
   Analysis by Gareth Porter* on 27/07/2010 02.48.46 GMT
WASHINGTON, Jul 26 (IPS) - The 92,000 reports on the war in Afghanistan made public by the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks, and reported Monday by the Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel, offer no major revelations that are entirely new, as did the Pentagon Papers to which they are inevitably being compared.... (continue)

Regional Powers Step Into the Middle East Pot
   Analysis by Jacques N. Couvas on 26/07/2010 09.37.14 GMT
ANKARA, Jul 26 (IPS) - The strained diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel since June have unveiled intensive jockeying between regional powers for influence in the Middle East peace process.... (continue)

BURMA:Loophole Gives Junta Room to Go Nuclear in Secrecy
    on 21/07/2010 16.18.44 GMT
Marwaan Macan-Markar... (continue)

MIDEAST:Israel's Next War Could Be Lebanon: Analyst
    on 20/07/2010 00.25.22 GMT
Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Jul 19 (IPS) - While speculation over a possible Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities intensifies, at least one influential analyst here is calling on Washington to focus more on the likelihood of a new war breaking out between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and how to prevent or contain it.... (continue)

US-IRAN:Mosque Blasts Denounced by Obama, Clinton
    on 17/07/2010 01.31.20 GMT
Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Jul 16 (IPS) - Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday denounced Thursday's suicide bomb attacks on a Shi'ite mosque in Sistan-va Baluchistan province in southeastern Iran by a Sunni extremist group that Tehran charges is being supported by Washington.... (continue)

Stirrings of a New Push for Military Option on Iran
   Analysis by Jim Lobe* on 10/07/2010 02.29.18 GMT
WASHINGTON, Jul 9 (IPS) - "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," explained then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card back in September 2002, in answer to queries about why the administration of George W. Bush had not launched its campaign to rally public opinion behind invading Iraq earlier in the summer.... (continue)

Britain to Probe Collaboration with CIA Renditions
    on 02/07/2010 00.50.04 GMT
William Fisher NEW YORK, Jul 1 (IPS) - Breaking from President Barack Obama's insistence on "moving forward, not backward" in investigating U.S. detainee torture, the British government appears poised to investigate its own complicity with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in "rendering" British citizens and residents and subjecting them to "enhanced interrogation" techniques.... (continue)

IOC Joins U.N. to Level the Playing Field for Women
    on 01/07/2010 16.19.12 GMT
Beatrice Paez UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 (IPS) - The sight of girls and boys playing cricket and skateboarding together in the streets of Afghanistan and Iraq may be unexpected to some, but it is a homegrown effort aimed at fostering gender equality.... (continue)

Unmanned Drones - Targeted Killing vs. "Collateral Murder"
    on 29/06/2010 18.11.48 GMT
Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 (IPS) - When a Pakistani-U.S. national pleaded guilty last week to a failed attempt to detonate explosives packed in a vehicle in the heart of New York City, he admitted that one of the reasons he targeted the busy Times Square neighbourhood was to "injure and kill" as many people as possible.... (continue)

Inspectors Call Afghan Police Tracking System a Failure
    on 29/06/2010 15.53.32 GMT
Pratap Chatterjee*... (continue)

MALAYSIA:Thousands of Refugees Living in Constant Fear of Arrest
    on 29/06/2010 06.13.42 GMT
Baradan Kuppusamy KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 (IPS) - As Rajoo, 27, makes tea at a rundown shed in Brickfields, a depressed suburb of the capital inhabited by hundreds of Tamil immigrants from Sri Lanka, he evinces no sign of anxiety and a deep yearning for something.... (continue)

US-AFGHANISTAN:What Now?
   Analysis by Jim Lobe* on 29/06/2010 01.10.26 GMT
WASHINGTON, Jun 28 (IPS) - Nearly a week after the abrupt demise of Washington's top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. strategy for reversing the flood of bad news that has been recently pouring out of that strife-torn country remains as unclear as ever.... (continue)

As Canada's Democracy Trembles, a New Global Architecture Emerges
    on 28/06/2010 12.54.32 GMT
Anthony Fenton TORONTO, Jun 28 (IPS) - Nearly 600 people were arrested as global leaders and elites met behind a fortified perimetre during the G8 and G20 Summits in Huntsville and Toronto this weekend.... (continue)

U.S. Congress Approves Strong Unilateral Sanctions on Iran
    on 25/06/2010 02.40.52 GMT
Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Jun 24 (IPS) - Escalating Washington's growing confrontation with Iran, both houses of Congress Thursday approved a sweeping unilateral sanctions package designed to pressure Tehran into curbing its nuclear programme.... (continue)

Not Everyone in Peru Is Winning "Championship" Against Poverty
    on 25/06/2010 00.27.26 GMT
Ángel Páez LIMA, Jun 24 (IPS) - The Peruvian government is taking advantage of the broadcasts of the World Cup football games in South Africa to air an ad touting a reduction in the poverty rate from 48 to 34 percent between 2005 and 2009 as an achievement of the administration of President Alan García.... (continue)

MEXICO-US:Wall of Hate and Poverty Divides El Paso and Juárez
    on 24/06/2010 01.26.38 GMT
Daniela Pastrana CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico, Jun 23 (IPS) - "Sergio, your death will be avenged by the angry, organised people" reads graffiti under the Puente Negro railroad bridge connecting this border city with El Paso, Texas.... (continue)

Switch to Petraeus Betrays Afghan Policy Crisis
   Analysis by Gareth Porter* on 23/06/2010 23.17.46 GMT
WASHINGTON, Jun 23 (IPS) - Despite President Barack Obama's denial that his decision to fire Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan and replace him with Gen. David Petraeus signified any differences with McChrystal over war strategy, the decision obviously reflects a desire by Obama to find a way out of a deepening policy crisis in Afghanistan.... (continue)

U.S. Private Security in Afghanistan "Pay Off Warlords, Taliban"
    on 23/06/2010 16.09.32 GMT
Pratap Chatterjee*... (continue)

BOOKS-US:The More They Promise Changeà
    on 22/06/2010 14.07.32 GMT
Daniel Luban CHICAGO, Jun 22 (IPS) - A year and a half into the presidency of Barack Obama, any hopes that he would usher in a dramatic rethinking of U.S. foreign policy have been more or less definitively dashed.... (continue)

Hearings Reveal Lapses in Private Security in War Zones
    on 22/06/2010 02.52.02 GMT
Pratap Chatterjee*... (continue)

Fragile States Becoming More Fragile
    on 22/06/2010 00.51.00 GMT
Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Jun 21 (IPS) - Some of the world's weakest states are becoming ever more fragile, according to the 2010 edition of the annual "Failed States Index" (FSI) released here Monday by Foreign Policy magazine and the independent Fund for Peace (FFP).... (continue)

Surge of Think Tanks Blurs U.S. Policy Lines û Part 2
    on 18/06/2010 17.40.16 GMT
Michael Flynn* WASHINGTON, Jun 18 (IPS) - There has been a growing tendency in recent years for think tanks and military brass to jointly pursue policy objectives, some of which are opposed by the public or the White House.... (continue)

Obama Still Globally Popular, But Doubts Grow in Muslim World
    on 18/06/2010 00.13.28 GMT
Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Jun 17 (IPS) - While U.S. President Barack Obama has largely retained huge popularity among most of the world's publics, disillusionment with his leadership appears to have set in throughout much of the Islamic world, according to the latest annual survey of global public opinion by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre released here Thursday.... (continue)

Surge of Think Tanks Blurs U.S. Policy Lines û Part 1
    on 17/06/2010 18.57.46 GMT
Michael Flynn* WASHINGTON, Jun 17 (IPS) - In early May, Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, was awarded the American Enterprise Institute's Irving Kristol Award, which is given to individuals who have "made exceptional intellectual or practical contributions to improved government policy, social welfare, or political understanding".... (continue)

U.S.:Do Armed Contractors Belong in War Zones?
    on 16/06/2010 20.15.44 GMT
Pratap Chatterjee*... (continue)

Timing of Leak of Afghan Mineral Wealth Evokes Scepticism
    on 15/06/2010 01.14.28 GMT
Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Jun 14 (IPS) - The timing of the publication of a major New York Times story on the vast untapped mineral wealth that lies beneath Afghanistan's soil is raising major questions about the intent of the Pentagon, which released the information.... (continue)

MIDEAST:Most Palestinians in Lebanon Stay Unemployed
    on 14/06/2010 11.25.14 GMT
Mona Alami BEIRUT, Jun 14 (IPS) - Lebanon's record of segregating Palestinians is not much better than that of Israel. Since their exodus here, after the establishment of Israel in 1948, Palestinians have been systemically denied equal employment and social rights.... (continue)

McChrystal Faces "Iraq 2006 Moment" in Coming Months
   Analysis by Gareth Porter* on 13/06/2010 00.21.44 GMT
WASHINGTON, Jun 12 (IPS) - Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal confronts the spectre of a collapse of U.S. political support for the war in Afghanistan in coming months comparable to the one that occurred in the Iraq War in late 2006.... (continue)