contributions

There have been 1,363 coalition deaths, 1,217 Americans, 74 Britons, seven Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 19 Italians, one Latvian, 13 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and nine Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of November 18, 2004. (Graphical breakdown of casualties).
The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose families have been notified of their deaths by each country’s (…)

by THOMAS WALKOM
When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa - probably later this year - should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?
It’s an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under Canada’s Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.
This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada’s ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. While never tested, it lays out sweeping (…)

by Justin Raimondo
Like another empire founded on ideological hubris, and stained with the bloodof countless victims, this one engages in periodic political purges: when one faction is vanquished, mass firings occur in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. We don’t send them to the gulag - at least, not yet - instead we set them up for public pillorying, firings, and, in some cases, show trials. Such is the fate of the CIA in the post-election triumph of the Bushies.
The news that (…)

’Stinking Evidence’ of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida by Thom Hartmann
There was something odd about the poll tapes.
A "poll tape" is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read all the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by the polling officials present in that precinct/location, (…)

http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1118-14.htm
UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds ’Smoke Alarm’ for Florida E-Vote Count Statistical Analysis - the Sole Method for Tracking E-Voting - Shows Irregularities May Have Awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or More Excess Votes to Bush in Florida Research Team Calls for Investigation BERKELEY, CA — November 18 — Today the University of California’s Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to (…)

By Sonny Inbaraj
Bangkok
Global biodiversity is shrinking at an unprecedented rate and the prognosis given by one of the world’s leading conservation bodies, at the opening of a major environment conference here, is alarming.
Over 15,000 animal and plant species face extinction, reveals the World Conservation Union or IUCN in its ’2004 Red List of Threatened Species’.
One in three amphibians and almost half of all freshwater turtles are threatened, on top of the one in eight birds (…)

By Robert Fisk
Beirut - Who killed Margaret Hassan?
After the grief, the astonishment, heartbreak, anger and fury over the apparent murder of such a good and saintly woman, that is the question her friends - and, quite possibly, the Iraqi insurgents - will be asking.
This Anglo-Irish woman held an Iraqi passport. She had lived in Iraq for 30 years, she had dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need.
She hated the United Nations sanctions and opposed the Anglo-American (…)

by Nicholas von Hoffman
A little disunity, please. Let’s get divisive, gang. No national healing-raw wounds, anger and resentment. This is the moment for accusations and recriminations.
As per the routine used by countless other defeated politicians, John Kerry wrapped up a quavering call for unity and oneness inside his tardy concession speech. "In the days ahead, we must find common cause. We must join in common effort," quoth the fallen leader of the failed effort. Yeah, yeah, yeah, (…)

Republicans in the US House of Representatives have changed their own rules to allow their powerful Majority Leader Tom DeLay to keep his post even if he is indicted in connection with illegal fund-raising activities.
In a closed-door session, they approved the rule change in a voice vote to allow a leader or chairman to keep his post after an indictment. The leadership would then make recommendations, based on whether the indictment was deemed legitimate or politically-motivated.
Three (…)

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
The United Nations top human rights official on Tuesday denounced the killing of civilians and injured people in Fallujah, saying violators of international humanitarian law must be brought to justice.
Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, spoke in general terms and did not specifically mention insurgents’ attacks against hostages or a U.S. military report that it is investigating the videotaped fatal shooting of a wounded man by a U.S. (…)