contributions

Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11
By Dana Priest
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, (…)

Days of rioting in the bleaker suburbs of Paris have highlighted discontent among many French youths of North African origin.
As part of a series on French Muslims, the BBC News website’s Henri Astier looks at the issue of discrimination, a leading source of frustration in France’s unemployment-riddled ghettos.
Sadek recently quit his job delivering groceries near Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. He was tired of climbing stairs with heavy bags.
Sadek, 31, has a secondary school (…)

By Finlay Lewis
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina - President Bush pressed his free trade agenda yesterday at the opening session of a hemispheric summit in the face of a challenge by Venezuela’s leftist leader Hugo Chávez and street violence by anti-American protesters.
The disagreement between Bush and Chávez over trade unfolded against the backdrop of a peaceful demonstration that turned unruly by evening. About 1,000 rock-throwing protesters burned an American flag and threw a gasoline bomb (…)

by Jonathan Tasini
I’m going to spend a second day here on the Beast of Bentonville. If you want to know why the Democratic Party will continue to be the minority party in the country, look no further than the raft of Democratic operatives and elected representatives who do the bidding of Wal-Mart. At the end of this rant, I’ll propose a solution to cut off money to any of these Democrats who have ties to Wal-Mart.
Yesterday, I attended the screening of Robert Greenwald’s new film, (…)

By Phil Davison
If President Bush thought a weekend beach break in Argentina would get him away from his Washington woes, he is about to be proved wrong. Tens of thousands of South Americans are descending on Mar del Plata to protest against the US President.
Can you imagine one of the leaders at the G8 summit slipping out between sessions, through the security cordon, to join in a street demonstration of bearded anoraks against the summit’s most powerful participant, George Bush? (…)

By JOHN W. DEAN
In my last column, I tried to deflate expectations a bit about the likely consequences of the work of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald; to bring them down to the realistic level at which he was likely to proceed. I warned, for instance, that there might not be any indictments, and Fitzgerald might close up shop as the last days of the grand jury’s term elapsed. And I was certain he would only indict if he had a patently clear case.
Now, however, one indictment has been (…)

by Dave Zirin
What’s the sound of a good story smothered? Ask Sheryl Swoopes. Swoopes is the most prominent women’s basketball player of her generation: a five-time all-star, three-time Olympic gold medalist and the WNBA’s only three-time MVP. And in a tribute only corporate America could render, Swoopes is the only female player to have her own basketball shoe: Nike’s Air Swoopes.
The 34-year-old Houston Comet veteran just delivered what could be the most significant body blow to (…)

The Consequences of Covering Up : Washington Post withholds info on secret prisons at government request
On November 2, the Washington Post carried an explosive front-page story about secret Eastern European prisons set up by the CIA for the interrogation of terrorism suspects. While the Post article, by reporter Dana Priest, gave readers plenty of details, it also withheld the most crucial information—the location of these secret prisons—at the request of government officials.
According (…)

By Rupert Cornwell
President George Bush, his presidency foundering and his popularity at record lows at home, ran into new protests abroad yesterday at a Western hemisphere summit in Argentina - a gathering that is theoretically focussed on trade but which has so far only served to highlight the battered image of the US across Latin America.
Mr Bush went into the 34-nation meeting intent on promoting traditional US doctrines of free trade and liberal market economics, with the goal of a (…)

French police have arrested more than 250 people following fresh riots in and around Paris and other parts of France.
Nearly 900 cars were burnt on the ninth consecutive night of unrest in immigrant-dominated areas near Paris, despite a heavy police presence.
Nurseries and a school were burnt overnight and unrest spread to Nice, Lille, Marseille and Toulouse.
Hundreds of people have heard a call for calm at a rally in one of the Paris suburbs worst hit.
The mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois, (…)