With a number of senior posts, including Feith's, still unfilled, however, it remains too soon to conclude that a Bush's second term will tack to the center -Jim lobe/TomPaine.com

The standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs is threatening to destabilize relations between the United States and China, experts at an international conference in Seoul warned Monday.

Russia plans to install next generation air defense and powerful tactical missile systems later this year, strongly upgrading the country's defenses, Interfax reported Friday.

Iran's Parliament is currently studying proposals on the construction of 20 new nuclear power plants and rejects American and European concerns Tehran is secretly building a nuclear arsenal, said a parliamentary leader.

Most Americans will never again experience a domestic act of terrorism except from their own police state, predicts Paul Craig Roberts.

While verbal warfare between Washington and Tehran is nothing new, international pundits point to a number of recent developments, large and small, that suggest rhetorical bombshells could give way to the real thing.

Triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an explosive sometimes used by terrorists, does not burn when it detonates. Instead, its molecules simply fall apart. The chemist who has discovered this is so concerned by its implications that he has decided to abandon this line of research.

The Bush administration is investigating whether China illegally converted Boeing commercial jetliners into a military surveillance aircraft in violation of U.S. export laws -Bill Gertz/Washington Times

King Gyanendra dismissed Nepal's government on Tuesday and declared a state of emergency, taking control of the Himalayan kingdom for the second time in three years. He denied his takeover was a coup, although soldiers surrounded the houses of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and other government leaders.

Congress has given the Pentagon important new authority to fight terrorism by authorizing Special Operations forces for the first time to spend money to pay informants and recruit foreign paramilitary fighters.

A group of hardline officials known as "nuclear hawks" is being promoted in a shake-up of the Bush administration's arms control and non-proliferation teams, according to officials close to the administration.The latest appointment, announced by President George W. Bush on Monday, saw Jack Crouch, the ambassador to Romania, become deputy national security adviser -Financial Times UK

The Senate on Monday confirmed Samuel Bodman, deputy secretary of the Treasury and former chairman of chemical maker Cabot Corp., as the next secretary of energy

As a PLO leader in the 1960's, Mr Abbas would have been an old acquaintance of Soviet Moscow's, a good military comrade, who could be relied upon in the struggle against the Americans -BBC

A key report on war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region is triggering an intense diplomatic battle between the United States and Europe on how to prosecute perpetrators of pillage, slaughter and rape.A U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry reported on Monday that the Sudanese government and its militia allies committed major crimes under international law, setting the stage for Sudan officials and rebels to be prosecuted as war criminals

The latest attack in a wave of drug war violence crawling across northern Mexico struck after midnight Friday in southern Sonora. The assault came a day after government officials tried to minimize a U.S. State Department warning for Americans traveling south of the border -Arizona Daily Star

There are a lot of people in this country who don't believe the United Nations is a threat to American sovereignty and independence.Many on Capitol Hill will tell you that there is not a single word in a single U.N. document that says the U.N. will control land in this country.Technically, that's true -Tom DeWeese/NewsWithViews

One thing is obvious to any observant American, particularly those who lived in a far different American mindset forty or more years ago and who could depend on the Constitution to protect them. This isn't our America -Dorothy A. Seese/NewsWithViews

The high turnout in the Iraqi election has strengthened President George Bush's hand at home and abroad, administration officials and the president's supporters said yesterday -Julian Borger/Guardian UK

President Bush, pressed by Democrats for an exit strategy from Iraq, will not give a timetable for a U.S.withdrawal but stress in his State of the Union speech the need to train Iraqi forces to take over security, the White House said on Monday

A Florida parent stands accused of child abuse for using a Taser gun to subdue his unruly teenage son. Yet dozens of schoolchildren nationwide (including Florida) have been "Tasered" by schoolyard police without abuse charges being filed. Why? Because of a tacit understanding that children are the State's property, to be treated as the State sees fit.

The strength and influence of the Project for the New American Century makes the letter they released on January 28 all the more disturbing. It is titled "Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces," and basically calls for a draft without using the word…PNAC has gotten everything it has wanted in the last three years. Parents of draft-age children should fear this new call.

Is the US going to attack Iran? Last week, Tony Blair and Jack Straw denied it. Are they lying?