Rupert Cornwell

In a last ditch - and almost certainly unsuccessful - bid to fend off international criticism of his climate change policies, President George Bush has called on 15 of the world's biggest polluting countries, including China and India, to agree on a target for reducing greenhouse gasses by the end o

Even now, the ads on television, radio and the internet continue: "Is your credit bad? Don't worry, we'll provide the loan for the home of your dreams ..."

The offer of a ceasefire by one of the main Sunni insurgent groups will be received with interest in Washington.

The White House has dashed hopes of a dramatic shift in climate change policy by George Bush, but says the President will lay out his strategy to combat global warming in next week's State of the Union address.

President George Bush is forced to release a secret US intelligence report that says the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism An MoD think-tank, aided by MI6, says the Iraq war has served as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the Muslim world Former foreign secretary Jack Straw te

The killing of 24 civilians in Haditha has reminded America of another massacre that tarnished its reputation 38 years ago.

It has taken more than three years, tens of thousands of Iraqi and American lives, and $200bn (£115bn) of treasure - all to achieve a chaos verging on open civil war. But, finally, the neo-conservatives who sold the United States on this disastrous war are starting to utter three small words.

Lobbyist's guilty plea set to expose bribery scandal at the heart of US political system. By Rupert Cornwell

The storm-battered Gulf of Mexico is preparing for the latest onslaught as Hurricane Wilma gathers force in the Caribbean, its sights set on the Yucatan peninsula and western Cuba before probably aiming for southern Florida at the weekend.

Tom DeLay's indictment and resignation as House majority leader has sent tremors through the White House and the Republican establishment here, raising fears that the party's 11-year grip on the House could be ended by the congressional mid-term elections in November 2006.

A semi-submerged New Orleans had in effect ceased to function last night, as America struggled to come to grips with the devastating onslaught of Hurricane Katrina.

For the Bush administration, global warming and climate change have so far been the great unmentionables, topics that interfered with the march towards the promised land of the perfect free market.

North Korea yesterday sharply raised the stakes in its nuclear confrontation with the United States and its allies, publicly stating that it possessed nuclear weapons and announcing that it was indefinitely pulling out of negotiations aimed at resolving the crisis.

The Inuit peoples of the Arctic have launched a dramatic legal action against America. The charge? That US emissions of greenhouse gases have made their very survival impossible

The report that confirmed Iraq had no WMD, Rumsfeld's denial that Saddam and al-Qa'ida were linked, and ex-proconsul Bremer's complaint of lack of manpower may irrevocably have tipped the campaign Kerry's way. Is it three strikes and out for President Bush?

In Washington, the Iraqi PM is applauded by Congress and fêted by George Bush. In Liverpool, Ken Bigley's mother is rushed to hospital after pleading for son's

The US has made clear that the transfer of sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government on 30 June will be a limited affair, and that ultimate authority will reside at a gigantic new US embassy in Baghdad and with the military occupation force.

The surviving Democratic candidates may right now be fighting each other - but George Bush's handlers are suddenly so nervous about his re-election prospects that the interview-shy President will make a rare, hastily arranged appearance today on a leading Sunday talk show.

This surely is the hour of John Kenneth Galbraith, grand old man of American economics. But those who travel to the leafy suburbs of Boston in the expectation of a giant and gloating "I told you so" will come away disappointed.

Two months ago today, terrorist attacks on the US set an unprecedented challenge to two world leaders, and thrust on to the global stage the man assumed to have been behind the atrocities. We assess the performances on which the outcome of the conflict depends