Financial Times (FT)

First, the US is, and will remain for some time to come, the world's only superpower. This status is usually accompanied by currency supremacy. [more]

[The] comments come a day after Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, said that Iraqi elections cannot be held if the country's current instability persists. [more]

"Two rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army — took up arms against the Sudanese government in February 2003, demanding a greater share of power and wealth in Africa's largest nation. Violence in Darfur has since made more than 1m homeless and killed an estimated 30,000 people." [more]

The High Court ruling coincided with a report from Amnesty International claiming British forces had shot and killed 37 Iraqi civilians when they were under no apparent threat. [more]

"The left-wing opposition has sought to turn the regional elections, in theory based on local issues, into an anti-government vote, allowing them to recoup some of the ground lost in the 2002 polls./ Opposition parties believe they have profited from the knock-on effect of of last Sunday's surprise Socialist victory in Spain." [more]

"Most stocks bought by senators had shown little movement before the purchase. But after the stock was bought, it outperformed the market by 28.6 per cent on average in the following calender year." [more]

"For the second consecutive day, Baghdad's Green Zone, a secure area that houses the headquarters of the US-led coalition, was the target of a bomb attack." [more]

"A powerful Shia Muslim movement warned US troops on Friday not to enter Baghdad's largest Shia neighbourhood after a gun battle there on Thursday night killed two US soldiers and two Iraqis." [more]

"Despite a 22-month military campaign against the Taliban, the militant group has staged a series of increasingly audacious and brutal attacks on military and civilian targets that has alarmed the government of President Hamid Karzai and frustrated US officials. Afghan officials have been troubled by the resurgent group's ability to muster increasingly large forces in the remote hills that straddle the Afghan-Pakistani border, and Kabul's and Washington's patience with Islamabad has worn thin." [more]

"The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are to pull their staff out of Iraq after the devastating bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Some countries that had been considering sending peacekeeping troops to Iraq might heighten their reluctance after the bomb blast." [more]

"Saudis who have gone to Iraq have established links with sympathetic Iraqis in the northern area between Baghdad, Mosul and Tikrit, where they have hidden in safe-houses." [more]

"Questions were growing on Monday over the funding and composition of the 30,000 additional international troops the US expects to see deployed in Iraq by September." [more]

"Aid agencies urged the warring parties to reinstate the truce and warned of serious humanitarian problems as thousands fled the centre of the capital to seek refuge in the embassy of the US, with which Liberia has close historical links." [more]

"Violence [has] served notice that an aggressive weapons confiscation campaign, begun throughout Iraq on June 15, could have serious consequences in the conservative rural Shi'a areas." [more]

"US Justice Department officials on Monday defended their decision to detain for months more than 750 illegal immigrants in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and said similar powers were still being used to hold suspected terrorists." [more]

"Eleven days on, America's war to 'liberate' Iraq means only inexplicable grief to these poor Shia Muslims from the suburb of Shu'la in north-east Baghdad." [more]

"The apparent lack of rebellion in Basra is a disappointment for the coalition, which had hoped to take the predominantly Shia Muslim city without a fight and — with the help of humanitarian aid — make it an example of the benefits of occupation." [more]

"The US on Sunday dismissed millions of anti-war protesters around the world and European-led efforts to delay a conflict with Iraq, saying they strengthened Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, and made war more rather than less likely." [more]

"All registrants are fingerprinted and photographed. Government-issued documentation is reviewed and questions of a 'law enforcement nature' may be asked, according to the INS." [more]

"In a separate interview with Svenska Dagbladet, the Swedish newspaper, Mr Ekeus said that he had learnt after he left his position that the US had placed two of its own agents in the group of inspectors." [more]

"European and Russian leaders on Tuesday insisted that Yassir Arafat was the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, while the US softened its stance, saying Mr Arafat could maintain a figurehead position." [more]

"The last National Guard soldiers are pulling out of US airports this week ... [while] security breaches continue." [more]

"British officials are privately criticising what they consider a lack of understanding by the US administration of the need to engage in social and economic reconstruction in Afghanistan. 'The Americans seem to be operating like Swat squads, with one thought in their heads: "Let's go in and kill those 'ragheads'", as they call the enemy,' one UK military source said. The sources say official UK and US briefings have understated the civilian deaths caused by US bombing as well as the human rights violations committed by Afghans claiming the support of the US." [more]

"The offensive is a fresh reminder that the US's military role in Afghanistan is not over yet. It raises new concerns about the fragility of Afghanistan's peace. And it underlines the continued need for concerted US attention to prevent a country ravaged by 20 years of bloodshed from falling back into the sort of chaos that turned it into a terrorist haven." [more]