International Herald Tribune

Retailers are calling it the Coat Crisis of 2006, a fashion fiasco measured in racks of unsold fur-lined shearlings at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and hooded wool peacoats at the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris. By Michael Barbaro

Ponders whether states' case vs. EPA is legally justified. By John Donnelly

As recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, we watch with stunned disbelief as the fighting in Lebanon and Israel spins out of control, while the humanitarian crisis in Gaza apparently has slipped from public consciousness. By Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams

European Union lawmakers on Monday sharply criticized Turkey for its slow pace of reform and warned that failure to make progress in a dispute over Cyprus risked bringing entry negotiations to a halt. By Dan Bilefsky

During the Cold War, it proved possible to reach many significant agreements on disarmament. Why does it seem so impossible now, when the great powers no longer feel threatened by one another? By Hans Blix

One of the passages in Bob Dylan's "Chronicles, Volume One" is about time he spent in New Orleans in the late 1980s. It was written before the city was devastated by the storm Katrina. By Bob Dylan

After more than 38 years of its oppressive military occupation of the Gaza Strip, Israel will soon begin evacuating the few thousand settlers who have been denying freedom to more than a million Palestinians there. By Hind Khoury

The polar bear has become the new poster animal for environmentalists, and I can understand why. When it comes to "charismatic megafauna" - the term used by marketing experts at conservation groups - the bear is a giant improvement over the giant panda. By John Tierney

Scientists met in Britain recently to discuss what level of greenhouse gas concentrations constitutes "dangerous interference" with the global climate. Instead we should be focusing on what are safe levels. By Thomas E. Lovejoy and Lee Hannah

This month, the International Rescue Committee estimated that there have been 3.8 million deaths in the six-year conflict. This is the largest war toll anywhere since World War II, and with 31,000 people still dying every month, no end is in sight. By Adam Hochschild

Many think this should mean the death of a multicultural EU as well. And while European leaders will most likely say yes to Turkey on Thursday or Friday in Brussels, it will be a reluctant yes, reflecting the views of a growing number of EU citizens. By Graham Bowley

Foreign money has been pouring into Turkey at a rapid pace, fueling an economic expansion that has many investors and analysts praising the country's policies and reforms.

Oct. 7, the European Union's executive commission officially recommended that the 25-member bloc start talks with Turkey on eventual membership in the EU. As Europe debates the merits of Turkey's admission, it faces a defining moment.

With uncertainties increasing about supplies of natural gas and oil, nuclear energy is making a powerful global comeback, prompting concerns about atomic terrorism in the post-Sept. 11 era.

My fellow Nobel Peace laureate, the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is now spending her ninth year in detention. No one has been allowed to see her in the last seven months. Fears grow for her personal security.

We did not expect President George W. Bush to come before the United Nations in the middle of his re-election campaign and acknowledge the serious mistakes his administration has made on Iraq.

Once upon a time the U.S. secretary of state went to the UN Security Council and cried, "Wolf!" He said that the evil Saddam Hussein had been building weapons of mass destruction and posed an immediate threat to the United States and the world.

The pictures of the Russian children being carried out of the school in Beslan, their naked bodies splattered with blood, filled me with sorrow and anger. No excuse exists for the slaughtering of innocent civilians.

Despite a dramatic flare-up of violence in Iraq that has produced a long list of American military casualties and even longer lists of Iraqi casualties in scores of daily bombings, reaction in the United States seems muted and the Kerry campaign appears to have derived little gain from the issue.

Nearly 25 years after Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, a chance for justice has finally appeared.

Poll finds him preferred around world

Neocons Have Iran In Their Sights

The Bush administration is driving American credibility as a Middle East peacemaker to a new low with its support for a major expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

While unexpected, the decision by the Bush administration last month to oppose inspections and verification as part of the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty is not surprising.

Northern Europe may have missed out on a heat wave this July, but other parts of the hemisphere have sweltered. From Canada to California, Japan to China, Romania to Spain, temperatures reached into the high 30s and 40s Celsius, in some cases breaking records.

When a journalist attempts to follow the trail of power, political and business interests are prone to make life very uncomfortable, often at the cost of life itself.

Watching Europe and America trample like rogue elephants over the interests of developing countries at the crucial World Trade Organization talks now under way in Geneva confirms the proverb's enduring wisdom.

When the International Court of Justice in The Hague announced its ruling against Israel in the case of the "security fence," I was in the company of 23 Palestinians and Israelis who had mounted a hunger strike in Jerusalem to protest the Israeli wall.

The human catastrophe that the Sudanese government has engineered in Sudan's western province of Darfur is worsening daily. The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrew Natsios, recently declared, "If we get relief in, we could lose a third of a million.

We are altering our life support system and potentially pushing the planet into a far less hospitable state.