Amidst UN reports that 1.6 million Iraqis have fled the country, with a further 1.5 million displaced, the health situation is worse than ever. Few aid organisations work in Iraq, and for one small NGO, rebuilding and re-equipping a Basra hospital gets more difficult every day. By John Reynolds
A 'Middle East federation' made up of Israel and its neighbours may be one way around the Palestinian crisis, Dr Jeff Halper tells David Shanks in the West Bank, because a sovereign Palestinian state is now not attainable. Photographs by David McKenna
Five years on, the world continues to shake in the aftermath
of 11 September. But Oliver Stone's World Trade Center reminds us that this one day was also about ordinary people trying to survive, says Colum McCann
Few seem to want to grapple with the reality that underlying the Middle East conflict is a terrible injustice in which the West was an accomplice to Zionist barbarism. Acknowledgement of this reality is obstructed by the inevitable retort that any questioning of the legitimacy of the state of Israel represents support for terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism and/or anti-Semitism. The facts don't matter.
Amid the pieties and solemnities surrounding the "commemoration" of the Battle of the Somme, there was not a single hint of outrage, the only appropriate response to what happened then and in the course of the First World War generally. Between 10 and 12 million people lost their lives in that war and another 20 million people were injured. It was the most barbaric war the world had known up to that time, and what was it about? Nothing. Nothing aside from the imperial ambitions of Germany, Russia and Britain.
As the Clintons launch themselves back into the limelight for Hillary Clinton's 2006 Senate campaign, rumours about new marital difficulties seem at odds with the couple's behaviour. Marion McKeone profiles the king and queen of American politics
The world's newest country is under foreign occupation once again. David Shanks, who reported from Timor before and since independence, explains the origins of the latest crisis
Several major US television stations and news networks are being investigated for broadcasting "fake" news segments produced by major corporations and the Bush administration.
Iran is not breaking the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but America and the European Union are. David Morrison outlines how Iran is not the problem and how the attempted actions by the UN are flawed
Anti-war activists plan to protest at the visit of Australian prime minister John Howard to Ireland this month. Howard, a strong supporter of the invasion of Iraq, will be addressing the Dáil as well as meeting the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the President, Mary McAleese, some Government ministers and a "large gathering of influential members of the Irish business community".