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by Big News Network
In an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on France, the American Board of Rabbis has demanded a worldwide ban on French products.
The New York-based association which promotes Jewish unity abroad voted unanimously to call on Jewish people around the world to boycott everything French: goods, services, and even the language.
The board is outraged at France’s providing hospital treatment for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who it describes as a ’master (…)

by Joshua Breitbart
Ohio voter groups have called for a statewide walkout and protest in Columbus as the US presidential election hinges on thousands of provisional ballots and claims of disenfranchisement.
After a day of huge turnout and widespread reports of voting irregularities [1 | 2 | 3] the polls closed in Ohio with a margin of fewer than 150,000 votes separating Bush and Kerry out of more than 5 million cast. Polls stayed open late into the night to accommodate people who waited (…)

by Toledo League of Pissed Off Voters People from across Northwest Ohio are invited hit the streets of the Capital-Columbus this Wednesday to protest disenfranchisement and prevent another stolen election. The November 3 Columbus demonstration is planned for noon at the Columbus Statehouse and at 5p.m. at the Columbus Federal Building.
Join with NW Ohio Groups to demand “Democracy Not Disenfranchisement” in Ohio.
November 3 events are being planned in dozens of cities across the (…)

by MichiganIMC An early rundown of reports that we’ve received from Michigan and Ohio on voting irregularities, including poll challengers, voting machine malfunctions, ID-checking, and intimidation.
Detroit: A Volunteer working with Moses and People For the American Way (Detroit) as a poll watcher has called in to explain his experiences with "poll challengers." Challengers are affiliated with a group or party, and in Detroit there has been a high presence of Republican challengers. In (…)

by Gene Messick
"For bin Laden, the Bush Administration’s massive ignorance about Islam and what drives al-Qaeda has worked greatly to his advantage. Bush cannot imagine how to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, other than promise them "democracy". He will have to continue blowing up a major portion of Iraq before it can be made "secure" for elections."
Why did Osama bin Laden emerge from two years of silence on the eve of American’s closest 2004 elections? Was it just to play a (…)

by Naomi Klein
Less than twenty-four hours after The Nation disclosed that former Secretary of State James Baker and the Carlyle Group were involved in a secret deal to profit from Iraq’s debt to Kuwait, NBC was reporting that the deal was "dead." At The Nation, we started to get calls congratulating us on costing the Carlyle Group $1 billion, the sum the company would have received in an investment from the government of Kuwait in exchange for helping to extract $27 billion of unpaid (…)

By Pepe Escobar
"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the Earth in defense of our great nation." - George W Bush in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack
It all boils down to Iraq. Will the majority of Americans reject George W Bush because of his defining moment - launching an indefensible preemptive war?
No matter what happens on election day - or days or weeks if the multibillion-dollar special again goes to the Supreme Court - the fact is that at least half of the (…)

Civilian Deaths Have Been Caused By Iraq War’s Violence
by Evan Augustine Peterson III
"...if the USA’s population suffered the proportional equivalent of 130,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, there would be 1,608,750 American civilian deaths. What if the entire population of a city the size of San Diego had been slaughtered over nineteen months after some hostile nation invaded US soil?"
"...it is clear that whatever planning did take place was grievously in error. The invasion of Iraq, the (…)

by RAWYA RAGEH
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Its name means "the Arab one," but that didn’t spare Al-Arabiya television from attack by insurgents who perceive it as pro-Western.
The Saudi-owned satellite station lost five Iraqi employees when a car bomb exploded Saturday at its Baghdad bureau. It was one of several recent operations - militant groups have also kidnapped women and killed Muslims - that are drawing criticism as "un-Islamic."
"Such operations are 100 percent wrong," said Adel Zeyada, (…)

By Alister Doyle
OSLO, Norway - Although saved recently with Russian help, the Kyoto pact on global warming offers too little to arrest climate change and governments should adopt more radical solutions, the top U.N. climate expert said.
"My feeling is that we will probably need to do more than most people are talking about" to combat climate change, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He welcomed ratification of the (…)