US Vice-President Dick Cheney declared the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq a 'successful endeavour' during a visit to Baghdad, on the same day a woman suicide bomber killed 40 people. 

'If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavour ... and it has been well worth the effort,' Cheney, an architect of the invasion, said after meeting Iraqi leaders. 

America’s days as the world economic hegemon are winding down.  

The sad thing about this mess is that it was completely avoidable.  

from Crikey ….. 

Bear Stearns and the decline of American prestige 

Stephen Mayne writes: 

from Crikey ….. 

President Chickenhawk 

Jeff Sparrow writes: 

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice & Defence Secretary Robert Gates are due in Moscow today for talks with their Russian counterparts. 

The quite probable next president of the United States continues to demonstrate why we should all be very, very afraid.  

Did you ever lie awake worrying about the prospects of Dubya forgetting how to breathe one night and the world being subjected to the terrifying reality of President Cheney?  

With preparations begun for the first military-commissions trial for detainees at Guantanamo - six "high-level" prisoners who could get the death penalty - the customary attacks on the fairness of the proceedings there are mounting here and abroad.  

Adding to the discord is the refusal of Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser for the military commissions, to exclude any evidence against the defendants that has been extracted through waterboarding. 

Tony Blair is to lead a new international team to tackle the intractable problem of securing a global deal on climate change which would have the backing of China and America. 

The charge sheet is horrifying, inexorable and convincing. The multinational firm Monsanto, which sells 90 percent of genetically modified organisms (GMO), massively lies to many people and even the whole planet with great success - the power that money and the - apparently unlimited - support of the United States government bestows.  

Almost everything seems to be going wrong for the American economy at once. People are buying less, but most things are costing more. Mortgage rates are rising, the dollar is falling and prices of key commodities like oil are leaping from one record high to the next. 

The moral bankruptcy of our new cardboard cutout Prime Minister has been revealed to all those with eyes that see. 

Yesterday, slavishly abetted by the feeble & inept ‘leader’ of the opposition, Brendan Nelson, Kevin Rudd perpetrated one of the most shameful & immoral acts ever committed in our nation’s Parliament, casting a stain on our country & its people. 

Five years since the conflict in Darfur began, BBC News website's World Affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds asks why international concern has not been translated into effective intervention. 

The deep concern about Darfur felt internationally has not been matched by a similar determination to intervene. 

New South Wales Attorney-General John Hatzistergos says the Government is considering extending the life of special powers given to police during last year's APEC summit. 

A review of the APEC meeting, discussed in Cabinet yesterday, has concluded the event was conducted peacefully, largely due to the scale of the police operation and the powers available under the Act. 

Although Putin stressed continuity in foreign policy in his statements, Merkel's meeting later with Medvedev had a somewhat different character. The two met at his government residence, located near Putin's and bearing the German name of Mayendorf, or 'May Village.' 

McClatchy reports that an "exhaustive" Pentagon-sponsored review of "more than 600,000 Iraqi documents" captured after the 2003 invasion "has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network."