By 8 in the morning it was hot, and Chief Warrant Officer Scott Henry, the custodian of the Baghdad Angler's Club and School of Fly Fishing, sat in the shadow of a palace pillar. More palaces were all around the lake, and directly across from him was al Faw Palace, bigger and uglier than the rest.
U.S.-RUSSIA RELATIONS
In the aftermath of last month's war between Russia and U.S.-backed Georgia, Kremlin-watchers in Moscow are worried that Russia and America are closer to direct confrontation than at any point since the end of the Cold War.
PAKISTAN
The Bush administration may be relieved, but some Pakistanis fear the worst when Pakistan's parliament meets Saturday for the almost certain election of Asif Ali Zardari as president, succeeding the ousted former military leader Pervez Musharraf.
Some residents of picturesque Los Palacios, in the western province of Pinar del Río, have already rebaptized their town in the wake of Hurricane Gustav: They now call it The Ruins.
TROPICAL STORM HANNA
Tropical Storm Hanna is on a wobbly path about 600 miles east-southeast of Miami, but forecasters said it could become a hurricane by Thursday somewhere off the central coast of Florida.
PAKISTAN
The Pakistani government has called off a military assault on Islamic extremists based in its tribal border area with Afghanistan, an offensive which had appeared to bolster relations with Washington.
CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Summer vacation in Baghdad is boring. It's dangerous. It's 127 degrees outside, and there is nothing to do. It is getting to the point where reasonable people wish school would start again.
IRAQ
U.S. forces have arrested a deputy of Ahmad Chalabi, who was once the Bush administration's favorite Iraqi politician, and implicated him in bombings that killed Americans and Iraqis, Chalabi and Iraqi government officials said Thursday.
IRAQ
At least 25 people were killed and 45 injured Tuesday morning when a car bomber detonated his vehicle at a police recruitment center in Jalula, northeast of Baqouba in Diyala province, Iraqi police said.
PAKISTAN
Gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying the top U.S. diplomat in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday. But consul-general Lynne Tracy was unhurt, as were the other two U.S. consular employees.
Poland's prime minister has requested an investigation into allegations there were secret prisons in the country used by the CIA to hold and question terror suspects between 2001 and 2004.
GEORGIA
Russia's parliament voted unanimously Monday to recognize the independence of two Georgian breakaway regions that its military invaded earlier this month, intensifying the Kremlin's showdown with the United States.
CONFLICT IN IRAQ
The 15-year-old girl had the chubby cheeks of a child who hadn't lost her baby fat when she was arrested Sunday by an alert policeman. Around her chest was a vest packed with explosives. The policeman chained her to the bars of a window, stripped off her dress, found the vest and deactivated the bomb. Had he not intervened, Rania would have been this year's 31st suicide bomber in Iraq.
PAKISTAN
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pulled his party out of Pakistan's coalition government and joined the opposition Monday, a blow to chances for political stability in the nuclear-armed country.
IRAQ
Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Monday there would be no security agreement between the United States and Iraq without an unconditional timetable for withdrawal -- a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which insists that the timing for troop departure would be based on conditions on the ground.
Taliban insurgents once derided as a ragtag rabble unable to match U.S. troops have transformed into a fighting force -- one advanced enough to mount massive conventional attacks and claim American lives at a record pace.
A U.S. Navy destroyer delivered 55 tons of humanitarian aid for war-weary Georgia on Sunday as residents staged a second day of protests against Russian forces still occupying the country.
No matter what happens to America's offshore military prison, this much is clear: This Navy base will remain open for years to come, and so probably will the McDonald's, the Taco Bell and the golf course.
This was a sleepy Navy outpost before the U.S. began using it to hold prisoners in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks -- and it may soon become one again.
Hundreds of thousands of mourners, weeping and chanting for justice, thronged the mausoleum of Pakistan's most famous political dynasty in a raw outpouring of grief for Benazir Bhutto.
