Afghanistan postponed its parliamentary elections once again today, moving the date from May to September. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the announcement, apparently inadvertently, during a news conference with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.

"Oh, did I make news?" Ms. Rice asked with a smile after mentioning the September date in opening remarks. Moments later, President Karzai confirmed the changed date and blamed slower than expected election preparations. It was the third postponement of parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for last June.

At least 108 people have died in U.S. custody in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and at least 26 have been investigated as criminal homicides involving possible abuse, according to government data. The figure, far higher than any previously disclosed, includes cases investigated by the Army, Navy, CIA and Justice Department.

About 65,000 prisoners have been taken during the U.S.-led wars; most have been freed. The Pentagon has never provided comprehensive information on how many prisoners taken during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have died.

President Bush nominated Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a leading administration neoconservative, as the new president of the World Bank on Wednesday, the second time this month Bush had moved to attempt to reshape an international institution.

Coming more than a week after he nominated State Department official John R. Bolton as U.N. ambassador, the choice of Wolfowitz was widely seen as part of a broader effort by Bush to bring key multinational institutions more in line with U.S. foreign policy goals.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday that he aimed to begin withdrawing Italy's 3,000 troops from Iraq by September, in a signal that the domestic cost of loyalty to the United States over the war was growing too high.

Italy has the fourth largest contingent of foreign troops in Iraq, its soldiers acting largely as peacekeepers near the southern city of Nasiriya.

Talks on forming Iraq?s government were at an impasse on Monday over Kurdish demands on the ethnically-divided city of Kirkuk and their peshmerga fighters, as violent attacks killed at least eight people.

With the historic first session of the country?s new parliament just two days away, Kurdish chieftain Jalal Talabani said negotiations with Iraq?s election-winning Shia list had fallen into deadlock.

Iraq's national assembly has not met yet, but fighting between the two biggest parties has halted the formation of a government, exacerbating ethnic tensions and testing Iraqis' faith in their fledgling democracy.

In the deadliest single incident involving U.S. troops in Iraq, 31 Marines were killed Wednesday after their helicopter crashed in the western desert area of Iraq, military officials told NBC News.

There were apparently no survivors among the Marines, who were mostly from the 1st Marine Division and were on board a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter that crashed near Ar Rutbah, officials said. Most of the Marines are believed to have been based in Camp Pendleton in Calif.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Thursday that Iran was at the top of the administration's list of world trouble spots and expressed concern that Israel "might well decide to act first" to eliminate any nuclear threat from Tehran.

"You look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list," Cheney said in an interview aired on MSNBC on the day that George W. Bush was sworn in for a second four-year term as president.

Palestinian security forces were poised to deploy on Friday across the northern Gaza Strip to prevent attacks on Israelis, paving the way for a resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian security sources said paramilitary police would fan out in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya as well as other parts of the northern and central Gaza Strip to prevent militants firing rockets and mortars at the Jewish state.

President Bush's long-stalled plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling cleared a major hurdle on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when the Senate voted to include the proposal in its budget, a maneuver that smoothes the way for Congress to approve drilling later this year.

By a vote of 51 to 49, Republicans defeated an effort by Democrats to eliminate the drilling language from the budget.

President Bush expressed crucial support on Wednesday for Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, who is facing growing inquiries here and his home state, Texas, over accusations of illegal fund-raising and improper ties to lobbyists.

"I have confidence in Tom DeLay's leadership and I have confidence in Tom DeLay," Mr. Bush said at a news conference at the White House that touched on domestic issues like increasing gasoline prices and overhauling Social Security.

The Congressional Budget Office is predicting the government will accumulate another $855 billion in deficits over the next decade, excluding the costs of President Bush's Social Security plan and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report, described by a congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity, was being released today, the same day administration officials were expected to describe Bush's new request for $80 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

President Bush delivered one of the more muscular, foreign-policy-dominated inaugural addresses in recent American history, using the speech to put leaders overseas on notice that he will be aggressive about spreading democracy and promoting human rights during his second term.

But with the nation embroiled in an increasingly unpopular war, he did not talk specifically about it, declining to mention the word "Iraq." While the war's costs mount, the president pointedly did not ask the country for sacrifices to win the victory he promises. All he asked for was more patience. In a country still divided over the Bush presidency and Iraq, Bush said little about healing in his speech yesterday.

US President George W Bush was sworn in for a second term in office on Thursday. And, thousands of well-heeled Republicans celebrated their victory at inaugural balls around Washington.

"I'm looking forward to putting my heart and soul to make this country as promising a place as it can be and the world as peaceful a place as it can possibly be," said Mr Bush at one of nine inaugural balls he and first lady Laura Bush visited before returning to the White House.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell plans to step down from the job he?s held for four years, two agency officials said Friday.

Powell, who maintained a light regulatory hand as the nation?s chief media watchdog but collected some of the largest indecency fines against U.S. broadcasters, planned to issue a statement Friday but was not expected to hold a formal news conference, these officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Campaigners called for Beardslee to be given a chance to reform
California has executed a triple murderer in the first death sentence to be served in three years, and the first under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Donald Beardslee, sentenced to death for two 1981 killings, was given a lethal injection shortly after midnight (0800 GMT) at San Quentin State Prison.

A Michigan man upset over custody of his child threatened to blow up his van a block from the White House, prompting a 4 1/2-hour standoff with police, authorities say.

The matter ended peacefully Tuesday night after police used a robot to deliver a telephone to the man and talked him into surrendering.

President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

After an extended hiatus by yours truly, the Editor, to rejuvinate and recharge my batteries, BrainThink.com is now back and new content will soon flow.

During last week's confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice stuck to the Bush administration script in stating that enough troops were sent to Iraq to accomplish the mission.

That would suggest that Iraq's current state of chaos, insecurity and violence was the goal of the administration.

If not, then someone, somewhere in the administration should admit that troop levels were insufficient to secure the nation.

Did anyone notice the irony during President Bush's inaugural address on Thursday that as Bush talked about freedom, security personnel were dragging away peaceful protesters?

Does this mean that the president's words -- "when you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you" -- do not apply to those who oppose him?

President Bush used the word "freedom" 27 times in his speech and "liberty" 15 times. It's not a surprise that the words "war," "Iraq," "Iran" and "terror" were not used at all. Then again, the hallmark of the Bush administration has been high-minded rhetoric and sordid deeds.

President Bush began his second term without uttering the words "Iraq," "Afghanistan," "Sept. 11" or "terrorism." But those omissions seemed to be precisely the point, allowing him to cast the crises and controversies of his first four years and the ones he welcomes in the next as a seamless struggle in defense of the nation's founding creed: freedom.

It is for historians to judge how well Mr. Bush's actions have fit, or may yet fulfill, his words. There remains a wide gulf between his eloquent aspirations and the realities on the ground, from Capitol Hill to the Middle East.

It's a wonder, really, that the words didn't fly right off the page. "Soaring" and "lofty" were the adjectives most often used by network chatterboxes in describing the Second Inaugural Address of George W. Bush, delivered yesterday from the West Front of the Capitol building.

Bush's capabilities as an orator fluctuate from speech to speech, and this time they were at low ebb. The delivery lacked heart and soul.

Let's try this again, slowly, for those who, like the president, seem to be having difficulty with reality. Social Security will not be bankrupt, will not be flat bust in 2042 or 2052 or even, as the president has also claimed, by 2018. According to the deliberately alarmist projections of the fund's trustees, it will have exhausted the trust fund in 2042. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Social Security will be able to rely on the trust fund until 2052 and after that will still be able to pay 81 percent of scheduled benefits.

We spent New Year at home (like last year). It was a very small family gathering and E. and I tried to make it as festive as possible, under the circumstances. We agreed, amongst ourselves in the area, to have the generator turned on from 10 pm until 2 am so we could ride out 2004 on a wave of electricity.

We sat watching celebrations from different parts of the world. Seeing the fireworks, lights, droves of laughing and singing people really emphasizes our current situation. It feels like we are kind of standing still while the world is passing us by. It really is difficult to believe that come April, two years will have passed on the war and occupation. On most days, an hour feels like ten and yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly difficult to get a good sense of passing time. I guess that is because we measure time with development and since things seem to be deteriorating in many ways, it feels almost as if we're going backwards, not forwards.

I have to make this fast.

No electricity for three days in a row (well, unless you count that glorious hour we got 3 days ago...). Generators on gasoline are hardly working at all. Generators on diesel fuel aren't faring much better- most will only work for 3 or 4 straight hours then they have to be turned off to rest.

Ok- what is the typical Iraqi Christmas wishlist (I won't list 'peace', 'security' and 'freedom' - Christmas miracles are exclusive to Charles Dickens), let's see...

Several nights ago, I stood alone watching the waning moon rise wide and orange on the eastern horizon, attempting to find any shred of beauty in this less than attractive situation. Still cold underneath my helmet and body armor, I leaned against the recently erected twelve foot cement barrier that now surrounds the building in which I reside. A thin plume of smoke curled off my stale cigarette. I found no beauty.

Well, after a short leave and a long vacation from writing, I find myself back here. I am finally starting to get something of my old rhythm back after a long time of catching up. Much happened in the short time I was gone. Strangely, when those I know went on leave, it seemed they were gone forever, but after feeling I was only away a little while, I see why that is. So much happens in a single week without you noticing it while you live here. So here I was, trying to catch up.

Many things I have to try and make sense of now. Different things I must struggle with. My time on leave, my encounters with Germans, returning to my unit. A lot of things building up and a lot of questions that need answers.

This video, taken near Al Qaqaa, Iraq by a television news team from Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, clearly shows evidence of now-missing explosives that became an important issue just before the 2004 Presidential election. This video appears to be proof that the explosives were indeed still in place when American forces invaded Iraq, directly contracting White House assertions that the explosives may have already been gone by the time US forces arrived.

A video tape of Osama bin Laden surfaced today, showing that the key figure behind the attacks of September 11th, 2001 is very much alive. This is the edited video from Al Jazeera's Arabic language website.

Operation Truth bills itself as a non-partisan group created to help Americans in uniform share stories of life on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to help veterans get the support they need.

This new television advertisement has been running during primetime to draw attention to their cause. It'll hit home pretty hard.

If you thought that the Bush nosepicking video wasn't enough, this gem of a video has surfaced in which an obviously agitated George W. Bush flips off someone in a studio control room and refers to it snidely as a "one finger victory salute".

The following is the text of President George W. Bush's second inaugural address, delivered in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2005.

The following is a transcript of the second day of hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. The hearing took place in Washington, D.C. on January 19, 2005.

The following is the transcript of the U.S. Senate hearing on the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. The hearing took place in Washington, D.C. on January 18, 2005.

The following is the transcript, as provided by the US Department of State, with Secretary of State Colin Powell. The interview was conducted by Juan Williams of National Public Radio (NPR) on January 11th, 2005.