"An increasing presence of the People's Republic of China in the region is an emerging dynamic that must not be ignored," U.S. Southern Command Commander Gen Bantz Craddock told a House of Representatives Armed Services Committee hearing.

A top U.N. envoy will tell President Bashar Assad that Syria will face political and economic isolation if he does not completely and quickly withdraw from Lebanon, U.N. and U.S. officials said yesterday.

The death in November of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has set the stage for renewed movement in the creation of a Palestinian state.

Two eczema creams -- Novartis AG's Elidel and Fujisawa Healthcare, Inc.'s Protopic, must carry a strong warning of cancer risk, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday. Research shows the creams are absorbed into the body and can cause cancer, the FDA said. The creams will carry a "black box" warning -- the strongest warning carried on medicines.

In the opinion of many legal experts, the US government broke international law when it waged war on Iraq without explicit UN backing. Unrepentant, it has reserved the right to take similar action again, unilaterally if need be. But another key pillar of global jurisprudence - laws concerning individual liberty, dignity and human rights - is proving harder for Washington to ignore: like a sheriff with a posse of deputies, international law is slowly catching up with the Bush administration.

The resolution reads in part that "in the absence of agreements on the timeframe for Russia's withdrawal from the bases by May 15, 2005, Georgia must demand that the Russian Federation should terminate its military presence in Georgia by January 1, 2006 -RNIA Novosti RU

Pakistan said on Thursday that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan had transferred nuclear centrifuges to Iran without the Pakistani government's knowledge.This is the first time that a senior government official had stated the nature of transferred nuclear technology -Daily Times PK

Britain was expected to release eight terror suspects, regarded by the government as among the most dangerous in the country, as politicians continued to squabble on Friday over new terror legislation.They were arrested under powerful anti-terror legislation which Britain passed in the wake of Sept. 11.That legislation is due to expire on Sunday and politicians are locked in a bitter battle over new laws to replace it.Prime Minister Tony Blair is trying to ram a bill through pa left and right -- many from within Blair's Labour Party -- say it is badly drafted or draconian

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, launched a fierce attack on Britain and the United States yesterday for weakening human rights in the name of the war on terror.He proposed a UN special envoy to monitor whether governments' counter-terrorism measures conformed to international human rights law -Guardian UK

President Bush has decided to join European allies in offering economic incentives to persuade Iran to abandon any effort to build nuclear weapons, a sharp shift in policy for a government that had long refused to bargain for Tehran's cooperation,senior administration officials said yesterday.By agreeing to try incentives first, U.S. officials believe they will later gain European support for taking the matter to the U.N. Security Council if talks fail -Washington Post

Analysts say the Communist government in Beijing has carefully stage-managed Mr. Tung's resignation to improve the image of the territory's pro-Beijing government and defuse the tensions that have been escalating for years -Globe & Mail CA

Syrian troops may be stacking the ubiquitous portraits of their leader, President Bashar Assad, on trucks for the trip home from Beirut, but Damascus isn't ready to close up shop in Lebanon just yet.Analysts here point out that the reaffirmed protocols of the ominously named Syrian-Lebanese Treaty of Fraternity and Cooperation Tuesday between Assad and Lahoud welded together the larger state and its vassal in formal bonds that might make separating even harder in the future -Jerusalem Post IL

A 52 page report coming out of Dubai on the world's gold is a warning shot that is being heard all over the world - except in America's living rooms where mindless trash like 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Survivor' trump any excursion into reality.This report also covers the unsustainable paper dollar standard.For those who don't know what that means, in a nutshell:America's debauched currency is standing on the cliff -Devvy Kidd/NewsWithViews

United States Department of Defense, Detainees Investigations, has posted the March 10th Church Report as a PDF file link here, as well as the links to final reports from earlier investigations

Senators expressed dismay yesterday that no senior military or civilian Pentagon officials have been held accountable for the policy and command failures that led to detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Navy admiral who wrote the most recent review of U.S. detention policies was largely unable to say where that accountability should lie -Washington Post

North Korea could produce long-range missiles capable of hitting the west coast of the United States within the next decade, the chief of U.S. troops in South Korea said Tuesday.

There’s an old saying: if it looks like an elephant, walks like an elephant, and has "I’m an elephant" tattooed to its rump, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of its not being a duck-billed platypus. Judging from recent activity, it’s high time the real estate market got itself an "I’m a bubble" tattoo, despite the desperate assurances of Alan "I didn’t know it was a bubble" Greenspan.

America's roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, dams, rail lines, and waste treatment systems are failing to keep up with the heavy demands made of them, and will take a total investment of $1.6 trillion dollars over five years to bring up to acceptable levels. This bleak report card on the nation's infrastructure was issued Wednesday by the people who build and repair these structures, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Israeli company Palsen Sasa has won a contract to armor US military vehicles in Iraq, company sources said Tuesday.