WHEN The United States formally ended its eight-and-a-half year military adventure in Iraq on Thursday with a flag-lowering ceremony in Baghdad presided over by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, hardly anyone here seemed to notice, let alone mark the occasion in a special manner.

Similarly, earlier this week, when US President Barack Obama hosted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at the White House to discuss – apparently rather inconclusively – the future strategic relationship between the two countries, hardly anyone paid attention.

Hundreds of people gathered last Thursday outside the US military base where evidence against Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified information to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, is being presented before a military judge for the first time since his arrest.

AN US ARMY intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in May 2010 by US military police in Iraq when a government informant reported him to law enforcement after he allegedly confessed to leaking to the public scores of classified information containing evidence of corruption and war crimes.

Although the climate change conference in Durban ended in another failed attempt by countries to agree to the necessary reductions in carbon emissions, conference members did agree to talk about a new global treaty to reduce emissions.

AFTER two weeks and an additional 29 hours of intense and even bitter negotiations, the 193 nations participating in the United Nations climate talks agreed to a complex and technical set of documents called the “Durban Platform.” These include the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, a formal structure for a Green Climate Fund (GCF), new market mechanisms, and more.

THE CHAIRMAN of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, said Friday that he believes that sanctions and diplomacy are the right strategy to deal with Iran’s nuclear programme and that the United States “is doing everything we can to accomplish the stated objective without resorting to military force”.

At a forum organised by the Atlantic Council, Dempsey said he agreed with remarks made last week by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta that a massive attack on Iran’s nuclear installations would retard the programme only briefly and that other measures were preferable to a new war in the Middle East.

The White House is gambling that a lengthy investigation into the attack that killed 25 Pakistani troops will defuse popular Pakistani anger and that the final report will allow the Obama administration to commence a more aggressive policy toward Pakistan in 2012.

President Barack Obama has sided with US military and Department of Defense (DOD) officials in rejecting a proposal by the US Ambassador to Pakistan for a US apology for last weekend’s attack on two Pakistani border posts, and approving an investigation into the attack that won’t be completed until 23 December at the earliest.

The attack on Pakistani border posts along the border with Afghanistan, carried out with helicopters from Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), has elicited a barrage of protests among the Pakistani population against Nato, which most people equate with the US.

“Enough is enough. Pakistan should respond aggressively to these unprovoked and unwarranted Nato air strikes,” says local shopkeeper Muhammad Omar. Public anger is boiling over as the Pakistani government takes tough action to cut supplies and other support to Nato forces in Afghanistan.

As several countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) elect bodies to write new constitutions, women are looking to expand their rights through legislation.

TUNISIA’S newly elected constituent assembly has begun a year-long process of writing a new constitution, and women’s rights advocates greeted the inaugural meeting with protests to demand that their rights be guaranteed in the future constitution.

Following the IAEA’s damning new report on Iran’s nuclear programme, a former inspector of the IAEA has rejected claims regarding an alleged nuclear testing chamber.

A FORMER inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

This year’s Arab Public Opinion Survey reveals that China is the most preferred superpower, Erdoğan is the most popular leader, and Israel is the most feared country in the Middle East.

A MAJOR new survey of public opinion in five Arab countries was released in Washington on Monday. The 2011 edition of the annual “Arab Public Opinion Survey” was conducted by Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution.

The issue of property destruction and vandalism divides opinion within the Occupy Oakland movement.

ON 2 NOVEMBER, the day of Occupy Oakland’s General Strike, the streets were filled with chants and music and the sounds of people speaking in the many tongues of Oakland residents.

The day was mostly peaceful. But in the afternoon, black-clad protesters wearing bandanas shattered bank windows and spray-painted storefronts, and late in the evening they built bonfires in the streets and tried to occupy an empty building.