contributions

20,000 campaigners expected to discuss challenges posed by globalisation and neo-liberalism
by Tania Branigan
Padmanabhan Krishna Murthy had only just arrived in London, but yesterday afternoon he had one matter on his mind: how to find Marx’s grave in Highgate cemetery.
Its inscription - "Workers of all lands unite" - seemed an apt summary of the reason for his latest trip. The Indian trade union leader is one of hundreds of overseas delegates who have arrived in London for the third (…)

by Naomi Klein
When President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James Baker III as his envoy on Iraq’s debt on December 5, 2003, he called Baker’s job "a noble mission." At the time, there was widespread concern about whether Baker’s extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission, which is to meet with heads of state and persuade them to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq. Of particular concern was his relationship with merchant bank and defense (…)

According to James Howard Kunstler in a new video entitled, "The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream," when the world’s oil supply runs out, American suburbs are doomed. Without gas, suburbs will become "the slums of the future."
That’s a dreary thought.
Bush is always telling us that Al Qaeda is about to jump our bones.
Now this futurist is telling us that suburbia is doomed.
Where is the good news?
Who in corporate America is telling us stuff (…)

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
If we’re having no trouble bringing enough needed new troops into the military, why is the Pentagon forcing soldiers to stay past their contracted terms, leaving us with a battlefield potentially sprinkled with demoralized and disgruntled fighters?
The U. S. House of Representatives voted 402-2 this week to defeat a bill to reinstate the military draft. The Republican Party insists that this vote ought to end any speculation that the president has any plans to (…)

As Oprah Slaps Bush With 30 states poised to smack down women’s rights again, the one true savior emerges
By Mark Morford
So there she was, the nation’s most powerful and popular public female, kicking butt on a recent installment of her insanely beloved TV show with the help of celeb guests (Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, P. Diddy, Christina Aguilera) and galvanizing stunned women across the nation to participate in this election, or else.
There was Oprah, doing what she does so (…)

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Two separate official investigations are under way into the fatal shooting of a 13-year-old girl in Gaza by the Israeli army after soldiers testified that their company commander "emptied his magazine" at her after she had been shot and was presumed dead.
The army has already admitted that the killing of Iman al-Hams in the town of Rafah a week ago was a mistake and that her bag, which it says soldiers thought carried explosives, contained school books. (…)

By Erik Kirschbaum
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany said Wednesday it could not rule out sending troops to Iraq, dropping its firm refusal to consider any deployment to the country whose invasion last year it staunchly opposed.
Defense Minister Peter Struck said in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper that Germany might deploy troops if conditions in the country, now riven by insurgency, changed.
"At present I rule out the deployment of German troops in Iraq," Struck told the (…)

By Ed Blazina, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Members of the Islamic community are expressing concern about an FBI plan to interview 44 Pittsburgh area residents who might have information about a possible pre-election terrorist attack at the same time immigration officials are cracking down on immigration violators.
The FBI and U.S. attorney’s office met with local Islamic leaders at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh Oct. 4. Local mosques notified members about the interviews over the weekend. (…)

Human Rights Watch listed on Monday the names of 11 senior al-Qaeda suspects it said were held by the CIA in secret locations overseas, where some had reportedly been tortured.
The suspects were detained with no notification to their families, no Red Cross access and, in some cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held, the New York-based watchdog said in a 46-page report.
"’Disappearances’ were a trademark abuse of Latin American military dictatorships in their ’dirty war’ (…)

After two years, one war and at least 16,000 deaths, the Government finally admits it
By Marie Woolf
Tony Blair’s claim that Iraq was within 45 minutes of launching weapons of mass destruction a central plank of his case for war fell apart yesterday as the Foreign Secretary formally withdrew the infamous claim and revealed MI6 had abandoned its source for the bogus intelligence.
In a humiliating climbdown, Jack Straw told MPs in a special Commons statement that MI6 has severed ties (…)