| IRAQ: Elections Bring Joy and Uncertainty | more |
WASHINGTON, Mar 8 (IPS) - The holding of Iraq's third parliamentary
elections on Sunday has generated a sense of satisfaction in
Washington, but there is a feeling of anxiety about how the
post-election negotiation process to form a new government might
proceed.
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| IRAQ: Secular Candidates Have Their Best Chance | more |
WASHINGTON, Mar 6 (IPS) - As Iraqis go to the polls on Sunday, a key question
in the minds of many in Iraq and Washington is whether secular
candidates can continue their recent rise and possibly come out
as winners.
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| IRAQ: Are Kurds' Days of Kingmaking Over? | more |
WASHINGTON, Mar 2 (IPS) - In the run-up to Iraq's parliamentary
elections next week, the once-united Kurds are not only suffering
deep fissures but are expected to lose their privileged kingmaker
position after the polls.
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| U.S.: Blackwater's Migraines Multiply | more |
NEW YORK, Feb 28 (IPS) - Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the
security firm formerly known as Blackwater ? once the darling of
the military-industrial community.
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| JORDAN: Where Iraqi Women Are Also Fathers | more |
AMMAN, Feb 28 (IPS) - Back in Najaf, Iraq, Khayzaran and her family lived
in a well-kept house. They had two cars and a small orchard. Her
children, two girls and three boys, attended school and came home
to modest feasts.
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| Q&A: UN Chief in Iraq Cautiously Optimistic About Elections | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (IPS) - The improving security situation in Iraq in the
recent years has meant more space for the United Nations to play
an active role in the country's development in various
sectors.
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| IRAQ: 'Disgraced Soldier' Fights Trauma With Documentary | more |
LONDON, Feb 19 (IPS) - A new documentary ?Diary of a Disgraced Soldier?
follows the dismissal from the British army of an Iraq war
veteran and his battle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
linked to his videographing the brutalising of Iraqi youth by
fellow servicemen.
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| POLITICS: U.S. Ambassador Accuses Iran of Role in Iraq Election Ban | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (IPS) - Reiterating accusations of Iranian interference in
Iraq's internal affairs, the U.S.
ambassador to Iraq said
Wednesday that he was in "100 percent agreement" with
remarks by the top U.S. commander in Iraq regarding Iran's
involvement in a
highly controversial decision that eventually
barred over 140 candidates from
running in Iraq's
parliamentary elections next month.
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| RIGHTS: Mideast and North Africa Cited for Press Abuses | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 16 (IPS) - A report by the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) on press freedom around the world in 2009
depicts an especially gloomy situation in the Middle East and
North Africa, where authorities continue to use repressive
measures to muzzle journalists.
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| IRAQ: Govt Expels Former Blackwater Contractors | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (IPS) - The Iraqi government has ordered hundreds of
private security contractors who previously worked for Blackwater
Worldwide or its subsidiaries to leave the country within seven
days or risk arrest for visa violations, Iraq's interior
minister said Wednesday.
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| U.S.: Court-Martial for Soldier Who Wrote Angry Song about Stop-Loss | more |
MARFA, Texas, Feb 10 (IPS) - Army Specialist and Iraq war veteran Marc Hall was
incarcerated by the U.S. Army in Georgia for recording a song
that expresses his anger over the Army's stop-loss policy.
Now he waits to be shipped to Iraq to face a court martial.
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| AFGHANISTAN: Iraq Lessons Ignored at Kabul Power Plant | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (IPS) - A diesel-fueled power plant, nearing completion
just outside Kabul, demonstrates that the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) and its contractors have failed
to learn lessons from identical mistakes in Iraq, despite clearly
signposted advice from oversight agencies.
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| IRAQ: Allegations of Fraud Scheme at Agility of Kuwait ? Part 2 | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (IPS) - The Sultan family of Kuwait runs a variety of
businesses alleged to be at the heart of a scheme to overcharge
the U.S. military by as much as a billion dollars over the last
seven years. The company is currently scheduled to face criminal
arraignment on Feb. 8 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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| U.S.: Obama Calls for More Development, Counterinsurgency Aid | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (IPS) - U.S. President Barack Obama Monday called on
Congress to approve major increases over the coming months in
global health, development, and counterinsurgency assistance as
part of a record 3.8-trillion-dollar 2011 federal budget.
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| IRAQ: Agility Attempts to Vault Fraud Charges - Part 1 | more |
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (IPS) - Agility, a Kuwait-based multi-billion-dollar
logistics company spawned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is
scheduled be arraigned on Feb. 8 on criminal charges of
overbilling U.S. taxpayers for food supply contracts in the Iraq
war zone that were worth more than 8.5 billion dollars.
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| IRAQ: Kurdish Leader Voices Indirect Support for Mutlak | more |
WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (IPS) - The president of Iraq's Kurdistan region,
Massoud Barzani, has expressed indirect support for the removal
of Salih al-Mutlak and possibly other Sunni Arab politicians from
a list of candidates banned from running in the March
parliamentary elections.
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| POLITICS: Iraqi Body Softens Stance on Banned Candidates | more |
WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (IPS) - A decision by Iraq's controversial
Accountability and Justice Commission (AJC) Monday to remove 59
candidates from a list of over 500 candidates banned from running
in the March parliamentary elections appears to be a sign that
the AJC is softening its stance following widespread domestic
opposition and a visit by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to
Baghdad last week.
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| U.S.: Suicide Rate Surged Among Veterans | more |
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (IPS) - Suicides among United States military veterans
ballooned by 26 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to new
statistics released by the Veterans Affairs (VA) department.
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| IRAQ: Will Elections Bring Stability, or More Turmoil? | more |
WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (IPS) - Iraq's upcoming parliamentary elections are
widely considered a barometre of the country's progress and
march toward stability, but they could also have a serious
destabilising impact, as the U.S. prepares for a major reduction
of its troops by August.
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| US: Whistleblower Psychiatrist Warns of Soldier on Soldier Violence | more |
MARFA, Texas, Dec 7 (IPS) - Kernan Manion, a psychiatrist who was hired last
January to treat Marines
returning from war who suffer from
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and
other acute mental
health problems borne from their deployments, fears more
soldier-on-soldier violence without radical changes in the
current soldier health
care system.
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| CORRUPTION: Afghanistan, Iraq Near Bottom of Transparency Index | more |
WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (IPS) - Despite billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and
other countries to improve governance in Afghanistan and Iraq,
the two countries remain among the world's most corrupt
nations, according to the latest edition of Transparency
International's (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
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| U.S.: Army Underreporting Suicides, Says GI Advocacy Group | more |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Nov 16 (IPS) - According to a soldiers' advocacy group at
Fort Hood, the U.S. base where an army psychiatrist has been
charged with killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a Nov. 5
rampage, the official suicide figures provided by the Army are
"definitely" too low.
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| RIGHTS: Iraqi Minorities Dying Over Turf War | more |
NEW YORK, Nov 11 (IPS) - Iraqi minority groups are caught up in a power
struggle between the country's Arab-dominated central
government and the Kurdish-controlled regional government over
the oil-rich Nineveh province - and they are paying with their
lives, according Human Rights Watch.
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| U.S.: "War Comes Home" with Ft. Hood Shootings | more |
PHOENIX, Arizona, Nov 6 (IPS) - While investigators probe for a motive behind the
mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas Thursday,
in which an army psychiatrist is suspected of killing 13 people,
military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident
"brings the war home".
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| U.S.: "War Comes Home" with Ft. Hood Shootings | more |
PHOENIX, Arizona, Nov 6 (IPS) - While investigators probe for a motive behind the
mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas Thursday,
in which an army psychiatrist is suspected of killing 13 people,
military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident
"brings the war home".
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| RIGHTS-US: Lawsuit Probes Role of Psychologists in Terror War | more |
NEW YORK, Nov 2 (IPS) - The state board responsible for licensing - and
disciplining - psychologists in Louisiana is accused of turning a
blind eye to serious allegations of abuse against one of its
members, including complicity in beatings, religious and sexual
humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his
service as a senior advisor on interrogations for the U.S.
military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
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| IRAQ: U.S. Diplomatic Adviser's Troubling Role in Oil Politics | more |
WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (IPS) - In 2003, U.S. diplomatist Peter Galbraith resigned
at the end of a distinguished, 24-year government career. Over
the years that followed, he worked as a contract-based adviser to
leaders in Iraq's Kurdish community, while also arguing
passionately in public media that Iraq's Kurds should be
given maximum independence from Baghdad - including full control
over any new sources of oil.
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| IRAQ: Stormy Times as U.S. Withdraws | more |
WASHINGTON, Sep 5 (IPS) - Political violence in Iraq killed 456 Iraqis in
August, the highest monthly death toll since July 2008. And with
the U.S. showing no sign it plans to reverse the troop withdrawal
that is now well underway, numerous struggles for power are
shaping up inside Iraq.
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| RIGHTS-US: CIA Probe Should Go Farther, Groups Say | more |
NEW YORK, Aug 25 (IPS) - Attorney General Eric Holder's decision Monday
to investigate whether interrogators from the Central
Intelligence Agency or its contractors violated any federal laws
in applying "enhanced interrogation techniques" to
detainees in U.S. custody overseas triggered immediate criticism
from human rights advocates and appeared to widen the partisan
divide between Republicans and Democrats.
|
| RIGHTS-US: Justice to Probe Detainee Abuses | more |
NEW YORK, Aug 24 (IPS) - The issue of detainee interrogation and abuse ?
lately eclipsed by the debate over U.S. health care reform ?
bubbled back to the surface Monday in a number of headline-making
developments.
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