Petraeus: Iraq 'Challenges' to Last for Years  —  Conditions in Iraq will not improve sufficiently by September to justify a drawdown of U.S. military forces, the top commander in Iraq said yesterday.  —  Asked whether he thought the job assigned to an additional 30,000 troops deployed …

Fatah: Help us get Hamas out of W. Bank  —  Fatah leaders have appealed to Israel to halt security measures against Fatah gunmen in the West Bank and promised to continue their massive crackdown on Hamas there, Palestinian Authority officials here said on Sunday.

Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban  —  UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday.  —  "The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis …

Ludicrous lawsuits  —  I WAS once sued in state court by a disgruntled reader who accused me of calling him a "crackpot."  Fortunately, the suit went nowhere; the plaintiff's nutty, hand-scrawled complaint was apparently all the court needed to dismiss the case.

The Great American Pants Suit  —  A judge pins a $67 million value on a pair of trousers—his own.  —  When attorney Roy Pearson filed suit demanding $67 million from the Chung family, whose Washington dry cleaners had mishandled his pair of trousers, he must have felt he was sitting pretty.

The Democrats' Democracy Problem  —  Democrats today have a problem with democracy.  We have lost our voice on the issue of promoting democracy abroad — which means that what was once a core Democratic foreign policy idea is being ceded to the GOP.  —  In 1995, democracy promotion …

Who Is The Scariest GOP Presidential Candidate?  —  The Carpetbagger wants to know: … Tancredo might indeed be the scariest but the institutional GOP probably hates him just about as much as the left does these days so it's not really much of a threat.  Personally I find "Double Gitmo" …

Iraqi Journalist Found Dead as Security Lags  —  The body of the political editor of a government-financed newspaper was found Sunday in the main Baghdad mortuary.  —  The editor, Falieh Mijthab, 48, was kidnapped three days ago by armed men in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad as he drove to Al-Sabah …

End Looms for Iraq Arms Inspection Unit  —  The search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction appears close to an official conclusion, several years after their absence became a foregone one.  —  The United States and Britain have circulated a new proposal to the members …

Sink the pink  —  Pink mobiles, pink BBQs, pink planes ... A single colour is infantilising half the population  —  Before I tell you about the Pink Junkies (that growing tribe of otherwise sentient women who can't resist pink) I should admit that I'm not a very 'pink' person.

US-led airstrike kills 7 afghan children  —  KABUL, Afghanistan - Seven children were killed in a U.S.-led coalition airstrike targeting suspected al-Qaida militants in eastern Afghanistan, a coalition statement said Monday.  The strike came hours after the deadliest insurgent attack since the Taliban fell in 2001.

2 rockets land in Kiryat Shmona  —  Two rockets fired at northern town of Kiryat Shmona Sunday afternoon; no injuries reported, one rocket hits car.  Hizbullah denies responsibility, Palestinian group may be behind attack.  IDF: Rockets launched from area close to UN outposts

Autism Debate Strains a Family and Its Charity  —  A year after their grandson Christian received a diagnosis of autism in 2004, Bob Wright, then chairman of NBC/Universal, and his wife, Suzanne, founded Autism Speaks, a mega-charity dedicated to curing the dreaded neurological disorder …

Little Relief on Ward 53  —  At Walter Reed, Care for Soldiers Struggling With War's Mental Trauma Is Undermined by Doctor Shortages and Unfocused Methods  —  On the military plane that crossed the ocean at night, the wounded lay in stretchers stacked three high.

Jonathan Alter believes Dems are struggling in the political debate over war policy, in part because they're not nearly as good as Republicans at coming up with bumper-sticker slogans. … To help Dems along, Alter suggests "strategic redeployment" isn't muscular enough when it comes to sloganeering …

Bias at the Beeb - official  —  There are some things you do not need an official report to tell you - that John Prescott thinks he is a babe magnet, that President Mugabe is not entirely in favour of white farmers and that Al-Qaeda takes a pretty dim view of the West.