Last week the Associated Press released a photo of a fatally wounded Marine in Afghanistan. The photo caused a big stir, especially since the soldier's family and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made multiple pleas for the A.P. not to run it. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff ...

On September 6th Israel launched secret air strikes against Syria. Or did they? Over three weeks later none of the governments reportedly involved, Israel, the U.S. or Syria, have officially confirmed the action, much less the details. Keith Richburg, foreign editor of The Washington Post, explains how hard it is ...

The war in Iraq was temporarily displaced from the headlines this week by speculation about a U.S. invasion of Iran – speculation triggered by Seymour Hersh’s latest jaw-dropper in the New Yorker. While many have wondered about the true intentions of President Bush, others couldn’t help but question those of ...

According to the Washington Post, Iraq's majority Shiite party has ordered the Health Ministry to stop counting execution-style shootings, and tally only deaths by bombing and other insurgent attacks. If true, it explains why the Post's recent numbers diverge so dramatically with those of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari. Post ...

The cable news crawl has raised the question; is Iraq on the brink of civil war? Members of the Bush administration say no. The Iraqi Defense Minister has said that if civil war breaks out, it will never end. The Washington Post cited a body count of 1,300 directly related ...

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the most difficult to cover and controversial-when-you-do stories out there. Media watchdog groups are common on both sides of the divide, waiting for news organizations to use a word or image that appears to favor the other side. What about the Israeli and Palestinian ...

Even before Syria pulled its last soldier out of Lebanon, Gebran Tueni had been an outspoken critic of the occupation. This week, Tueni was killed by a car bomb, becoming the third prominent journalist in Lebanon to be targeted for assassination since Syria's withdrawal. Michael Young, opinion editor for Beirut's ...

The trial of Saddam Hussein was back in session this week. Here we saw brief excerpts of courtroom theatrics. But in Baghdad, viewers followed the trial's every twist and turn on TVs throughout the city. Brooke talks to L.A. Times correspondent Borzou Daragahi about the spectacle of the Saddam trial ...