| IRAQ: Nature Adds to Occupation Blows | more |
BAQUBA, May 15 (IPS) - Farmers in the Diyala province in Iraq have been
hit by just about every crisis possible. First the security
disaster dried up supplies and markets, then lack of electricity
cut irrigation, and now comes a drying up of water resources.
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| POLITICS: Bogus Claim, al-Maliki Stall U.S. Plan on Iran Arms | more |
WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - Early this month, the George W. Bush
administration's plan to create a new crescendo of
accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite
militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.
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| US/IRAQ: Tangled Web of Allegiances Leads Back to Tehran | more |
WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - If politics makes strange bedfellows, then the
relationship between Iran, the United States and the Islamic
Supreme Council of Iraq is the strangest ménage à trois in
international relations today.
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| IRAQ: Food Crisis Hits Fallujah | more |
FALLUJAH, May 12 (IPS) - Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new
wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S.
sentiment in Fallujah.
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| IRAN: Can P5+1 Offer Break the Nuclear Stalemate? | more |
WASHINGTON, May 9 (IPS) - The P5+1 -- the permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council and Germany -- will present Tehran with a secret
incentive package in the next few days to convince Iran to
suspend its enrichment programme and enter negotiations.
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| IRAQ: Running Out of Water in Rising Heat | more |
BAQUBA, May 9 (IPS) - Water supply is drying out in what was once the
agriculturally rich Diyala province north of
Baghdad. Baquba,
the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for
drinking and
for irrigation.
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| POLITICS-US: Lawmakers Seek Probe of "Media Generals" | more |
NEW YORK, May 8 (IPS) - As U.S. television networks continue their silence
about their use of retired military officers to "sell"
progress in Iraq, members of the U.S. House of Representatives
are calling on the Defence Department Inspector General to
investigate the Pentagon-sponsored public relations effort.
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| US/IRAQ: Pressure to Cut Costs, Troops Strains "Surge" | more |
WASHINGTON, May 7 (IPS) - Growing impatience in Congress over the enormous
costs being racked up by the Iraq war, as well as the
Pentagon's belief that it needs more troops in Afghanistan
to fight insurgents there, is putting the vaunted success of the
George W. Bush administration's "surge" strategy to
the test.
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| RIGHTS-US: Abuse Claims Mount Against Pentagon, Contractors | more |
NEW YORK, May 7 (IPS) - As human rights groups demanded the release of a
report on a long-running investigation of the role of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the unlawful interrogations of
detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, new torture
claims were leveled at two U.S. military contractors by a former
Abu Ghraib "ghost" detainee who was wrongly imprisoned
and later released without charge.
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| POLITICS-US: Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change after 9/11 | more |
WASHINGTON, May 5 (IPS) - Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official
military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime
by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria
and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a
document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for
Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the
Iraq war decisions.
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| US/IRAQ: "Divide and Rule" Strategy Called Shortsighted | more |
WASHINGTON, May 3 (IPS) - Five years since U.S. president George W.
Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech,
critics say the administration has yet to show a credible way to
actually "accomplish" the mission that could see a
peaceful Iraq and a return home of U.S. troops.
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| IRAQ: Refugees Look to Europe | more |
DAMASCUS, May 2 (IPS) - "I'll go to any country," says Zirgon
Tomas al-Aya, a 60-year-old Iraqi standing outside the UN Refugee
Agency headquarters in Damascus.
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| IRAQ: Corruption Eats Into Food Rations | more |
FALLUJAH, May 2 (IPS) - Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now
face a cutting down of their monthly
food ration ? much of it
already eaten away by official corruption.
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| RIGHTS-US: Vets Await Verdict in Class Action Lawsuit | more |
SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 (IPS) - Arturo Gonzalez delivered his closing arguments
inside a packed courtroom on the 17th floor of the Federal
Building in downtown San Francisco.
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| POLITICS-US: Economy High in Public's Foreign Policy Worries | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 30 (IPS) - The price of oil and other international economic
issues are rapidly taking centre stage among the dominant foreign
policy concerns of the U.S. public, which has also become
increasingly sceptical about the effectiveness of military action
to further Washington's interests abroad, according to a
major new survey released Wednesday by the influential Foreign
Affairs journal.
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| BULGARIA: Two Iraqis Did Make It | more |
SOFIA, Apr 28 (IPS) - Bulgaria, sometimes considered a safe haven for
Iraqi asylum seekers, has denied refugee status to all but two
applicants from Iraq since December last year. Bulgaria's
move contributes to blocking land access to Europe for Iraqis
fleeing violence.
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| IRAQ: Poverty Gets the Survivors | more |
DAMASCUS, Apr 26 (IPS) - More than a million Iraqis were lucky enough to
flee into Syria. But in this relatively safe haven, there is no
getting away from poverty.
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| POLITICS-US: Petraeus Promotion Frees Cheney to Threaten Iran | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 23 (IPS) - The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new
head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be
available to defend the George W. Bush administration's
policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of
Bush's term and possibly even beyond.
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| POLITICS-US: Taking on the Two-Party Monopoly | more |
ATLANTA, Apr 23 (IPS) - "Politics in the U.S. is at a crisis
level," Green Party presidential hopeful Cynthia McKinney
told IPS during a rare sit-down interview. "Disillusionment,
lack of participation, and establishment of false choice -- what
is one to do? For me, I can't give up hope. I said yes when
the Green Party said 'okay, now you want to do it?'."
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| RIGHTS-US: Vets' Lawsuit Opens Door on Suicides, Poor Care | more |
SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 22 (IPS) - The United States government does such a bad job of
caring for wounded war veterans, advocates told a federal judge
here Monday, that 18 veterans commit suicide every week.
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| IRAQ: Chaos Hardening Sectarian Fiefdoms | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (IPS) - There are an estimated 2.7 million Iraqis who have
been displaced within their own country. No house; no food; no
security. Who do they turn to for help? The international
community's humanitarian organisations? The occupying United
States government? The central Iraqi government based in Baghdad?
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| POLITICS: Petraeus Hid Maliki Resistance to US Troops in Basra | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (IPS) - In testimony before Congressional committees last
week, Gen. David Petraeus portrayed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki's late March offensive in Basra as a poorly
planned effort that departed from what U.S. officials had
expected.
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| POLITICS-US: McCain's Vietnam Lessons Unlearned? | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 16 (IPS) - Throughout a long career in politics, presumptive
Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has had his
foreign policy shaped by his and the United States'
experience in the Vietnam War.
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| POLITICS-US: Army "Rewards" Outspoken Antiwar Soldier | more |
SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 15 (IPS) - One of the leading voices of dissent inside the
U.S. Army has been promoted.
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| IRAQ: Five Years On, Fallujah in Tatters | more |
FALLUJAH, Apr 14 (IPS) - Fallujah remains a crippled city years after the
November 2004 U.S.-led assault.
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| IRAQ: From One Dictator to the Next | more |
BAGHDAD, Apr 12 (IPS) - Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam
Hussein was.
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| POLITICS-US/IRAQ: Stuck! | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 11 (IPS) - "Tell me how this ends," Gen. David
Petraeus, then commander of the 101st Airborne Division, asked a
Washington Post reporter during the "liberation" of Iraq
almost exactly five years ago.
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| US/IRAQ: Calm on the Surface, Simmering Beneath | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 10 (IPS) - With the head of the occupying forces in Iraq, Gen.
David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker
delivering a progress report to Congress this week, Iraq has been
thrust back into the U.S. public consciousness, along with all
the political divisions the issue engenders.
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| IRAQ: A Little Too Tense to Be Truce | more |
BAQUBA, Apr 8 (IPS) - As violence continues in Baghdad and southern Iraq,
it seems quiet on the
surface in Baquba, the volatile city 40km
north of Baghdad. But few believe truce
between the U.S.-backed
Awakening Groups and the government security forces
can last.
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| FINANCE: U.S. Lawmakers Invested in Iraq, Afghanistan Wars | more |
WASHINGTON, Apr 7 (IPS) - U.S. lawmakers have a financial interest in
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a review of their
accounts has revealed.
|