World

The Ireland-Palestinian Solidarity Campaign's (IPSC) unquestioning adherence to the Palestinian narrative as regards the Middle East conflict has led it to lend its support to a number of unsavoury characters over the course of its four-and-a-half year existence. For example, it generally defended the irredeemably corrupt arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat while it championed as his successor Marwan Barghouti, sentenced to five life terms for his murderous role in the second intifada.

The soft-drinks giant is struggling to gloss over some startling accusations, by Chris Connolly.

Over seven million people in East Africa are in need of urgent assistance following the onset of one of the worst droughts in the region in years. So far only one third of the aid needed has arrived. Chris Connolly reports

A new report examines the likely course and proliferating dangers of a United States attack on Iran

The EU and US are seeking UN action against Iran over its nuclear fuel programme, even though there is no evidence it is being used for weapons production. Furthermore, Israel has a programme for manufacturing actual nuclear devices, and Pakistan and India are allies of the EU and the US, despite having acquired nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And the EU itself is in breach of the treaty. By David Morrison

George Bush's dreary address to Congress on Iran, Katrina and energy underscored the failure of his Presidency. But any alternative administration is unlikely to be better, writes Vincent Browne

Bono's latest third-world fund-raising initiative – the launch of a new conscience driven brand called Product Red that will be attached to a range of clothing and financial products, with a small proportion of the profits being used to fund Aids treatment in Africa – got relatively little coverage in Ireland. Some of what appeared was of the usual predictable sneering variety.

'Bush's 'messianic mission' to bring democracy to Iraq has failed and the United States has tried, in every possible way, to prevent elections in Iraq. Noam Chomsky asks, whose side are we on – are we preventing democracy or are we on the side of the Iraqi people?

The documents which we publish in this issue of Village from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office disclose the complicity of both the British and American governments in the use of torture in Uzbekistan. The documents reveal a quite cynical disposition on the part of the British authorities, claiming that because the name of the tortured prisoner was not included in the documents related to his/her interrogation, torture could not be proved. The inference is that it was therefore OK to use information obtained under torture.

British Foreign Office documents reveal US and UK complicity in torture and raise further questions on the use of Shannon by the CIA. By David Shanks