contributions

By CONN HALLINAN
Behind a recent, highly controversial indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bush administration is maneuvering to revive military ties with the Indonesian Army (TNI), one of the world’s most oppressive institutions.
In late June, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft convinced a federal grand jury to indict Anthonuis Wamang for a 2002 ambush in West Papua that killed two Americans, an Indonesian, and wounded 12 others. The indictment identifies Wamang as a (…)

Livio Maitan: “My autobiographical balance sheet cannot be separated from the balance sheet of the political and cultural, national and international current which I joined in 1947 and in which I have been an active participant ever since."
Livio Maitain was born in Venice in April 1923. He graduated in Classics (lettere classiche) from the University of Padua.
He became politically active during the years of the Nazi occupation of Italy, and was subsequently a leading member of the (…)

By BASSEM MROUE
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi authorities are holding talks with tribal leaders in the western Anbar province and Baghdad’s tense Sadr City in hopes that militias will hand over their weapons in exchange for a U.S. troop pullback, Iraq’s vice president told The Associated Press.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s comments mark the first time that the government has offered detail on the talks first revealed by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. The talks are significant in part because they (…)

by Jason Burke
The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt.
The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units.
The news came amid another day of mayhem in Iraq, which saw a suicide bomber kill at least 23 people and injure 53 in the northern city of Kirkuk. The victims were (…)

By HILLEL ITALIE
When Kitty Kelley, the famously unauthorized biographer of the famous, sits down for an interview, she likes to get personal. She sets her chair next to yours, leans forward when speaking and occasionally underlines an argument with a tap on the knee.
And call her Kitty, please. Not Ms. Kelley.
Author of gossipy, controversial best sellers about Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra, the 62-year-old Kelley has spent the past 3 1/2 years getting as close as she can to the Bush (…)

Art and politics blur at your local concert venue, where artists from Ani DiFranco to Pearl Jam are making voter turnout their mission.
by Scott Thill
"I never really cared that much about who was president," says Fat Mike, NOFX bassist and founder of Punkvoter, a coalition of musicians, labels and activists out to effect regime change in the White House through a series of Rock Against Bush tours and record releases. "I didn’t think it really mattered. But everything changed for me (…)

by Sharon Waters
The mother of a South Brunswick man killed in Iraq was arrested yesterday after interrupting a speech by first lady Laura Bush during a campaign event in a Hamilton firehouse.
Sue Niederer wore a shirt with a photo of her son, Army Lt. Seth Dvorin, that read "President Bush You Killed My Son." Dvorin died in February, and Niederer said she asked the first lady why her daughters and the children of other politicians weren’t serving in Iraq.
"At that point, it became (…)

LONDON - Veteran peacenik, artist and musician Yoko Ono has given Mordechai Vanunu a peace prize founded in her late husband’s memory, an award she hopes will keep the Israeli nuclear whistleblower safe.
Vanunu was barred by Israel’s highest court in July from leaving the country, with judges ruling he remained a threat to national security despite serving 18 years in jail for leaking atomic secrets to a British newspaper.
Vanunu was abducted by Israeli agents and convicted of treason in (…)

A suicide car bomber killed at least eight people in an attack on a police checkpoint in Baghdad today, after a night of US air strikes around the rebel-held city of Fallujah that killed scores.
A government spokesman said the bomb had detonated beside a line of police vehicles set up to seal off routes to nearby Haifa Street, where US troops were pressing on with the battles they have been fighting all week to dislodge insurgents.
The Interior Ministry said five police had been killed (…)

Fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but left signs that he had idle programs he someday hoped to revive, the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq concludes in a draft report due out soon.
According to people familiar with the 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find that Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a (…)