contributions

By Alaa Habib
BASRA, Iraq - British forces freed two undercover soldiers from jail in Basra late on Monday after a day of rioting in the southern city sparked when the soldiers fired on an Iraqi police patrol.
An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said British forces stormed the jail using six tanks and that dozens of Iraqi prisoners escaped during the raid. But the Ministry of Defence said the release of the two soldiers was negotiated and it did not believe the prison had been stormed. (…)

CHAVEZ OFFERS GUARANTEED SUPPLY OF OIL FOR 150 YEARS
FREE FUEL TO US POOR DURING THE KATRINA CRISIS
CHAVEZ CONTROLS 300 BILLION BARREL RESERVE TO US 20 BILLION BARRELS
By Darryl Mason
In an interview with US network ABC, on September 16, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez claimed he had proof the Bush administration were ready to invade his country in an attempt to seize control of some 300 billion barrels of oil.
He warned the Bush administration to retreat from such aggression and (…)

With December’s Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in view, WTO members are speeding up negotiations to ensure a successful outcome. The collapse of the trade talks in Cancun still in mind, the WTO changed their negotiating strategy. Negotiators will seek to resolve major conflicting issues in Geneva during General Council meetings - thus avoiding the public scrutiny and popular pressures that contributed to previous deadlocks. Decisions would thus be taken in an even more opaque and (…)

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON Former CIA political analysts
It all quickly comes together traveling through the West Bank: the separation wall encircling Anata; the verdant natural spring in the Israeli settlement of Anatot — the spring, along with the mountains and wadis surrounding it and even the settlement’s very name, all stolen from Palestinians by Israel and its settlers; the wall encroaching on the small, heroic village of Bil’in; the Israeli trash and garbage heaps that loom (…)

Violence erupted in Basra this afternoon following the arrest of two British soldiers for allegedly killing one policeman and wounding another.
British troops fired on crowds throwing petrol bombs, burning furniture and tyres which set at least one tank on fire. Reuters witnesses said a British soldier was engulfed by flames as he scrambled out of the burning tank, being pelted with stones by the crowd. Two Iraqis were killed in the violence, an Interior Ministry official said. The (…)

By Pete Dolack
The New York City Police Department forcibly broke up this afternoon’s rally for Cindy Sheehan, moving in as Cindy was speaking at about 3 p.m. in Union Square.
Keywords: Government, War & Peace, Local, Activism, The New York City Police Department forcibly broke up this afternoon’s rally for Cindy Sheehan, moving in as Cindy was speaking at about 3 p.m. in Union Square. The rally had been underway for about an hour, and was about to conclude as Cindy spoke following (…)

by ask
I am seething with anger. So much that I am still trembling and having trouble formulating a basic sentence.
Just back from Camp Casey, New York which is at Union Square. Took an extended lunch break, as I had seen that Cindy Sheehan would make a speech there this afternoon at 2pm. A nice little crowd, Cindy was delayed - but there were plenty of people with issues on their minds in the mean time.
Then comes Cindy and within two minutes the police interrupts. They had been (…)

City’s Finest pulls move even Bush wouldn’t have tried
by Sarah Ferguson
Cindy Sheehan may be the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement. But that didn’t stop members of the New York Police Department from marching into the crowd of about 150 people gathered in Union Square Monday to hear her speak and yanking away the microphone.
The NYPD pulled the plug just as Sheehan was calling on the audience not to lose heart in the fight to end the war in Iraq.
"We get up every morning, and (…)

By MARC SANTORA
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, last night brought her campaign to end the war to New York, where she accused Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of not doing enough to challenge the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.
Speaking in front of more than 500 supporters in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Ms. Sheehan, speaking of Senator Clinton, said, "She knows that the war is a lie but she is waiting for the right time to say it."
Then, as the crowd (…)

By Jerry Isaacs
Over the last several years the top corporate executives at Northwest and Delta airlines negotiated retirement packages guaranteeing them millions in the event the companies declared bankruptcy and defaulted on their pension payments to employees. Both companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last Wednesday, in large measure to escape their pension obligations and seek the bankruptcy court’s backing for sweeping cuts in airline workers’ jobs, wages and benefits. (…)