contributions

by CORKY SIEMASZKO
Demonstrators and cops struggled over control of the streets of New York yesterday on a day of chaos and defiance that ended with nearly 1,000 arrests.
It was madness as bands of rowdy demonstrators roamed by foot and bike to more than a dozen spots around Manhattan, bent on disrupting the Republican National Convention.
"Go home! Go home!" protesters taunted GOP delegates, while other cursed the visitors.
There was a melee outside the New York Public Library when (…)

By Peter Lavelle
Moscow, Russia, Aug. 31 (UPI) — A car exploded outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday killing at least 10 and injuring more than 50, leaving little doubt that the bomb was another terrorist act, one of many, in a wave that has gripped Russia this month.
With Chechen militants suspected in last week’s downing of two passenger airliners and the latest reports claiming a female Chechen suicide bomber may have set off the explosion after being turned away for the station, (…)

A fresh US air strike on the Iraqi town of Falluja has killed 17 people, including three children.
Police and medical sources said two houses were destroyed when a US fighter jet fired two missiles late on Wednesday at the town’s residential neighbourhood of Jebel, some 65km west of capital Baghdad.
The US occupation military said the strike targeted a safehouse used by followers of alleged al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Ambulances and civilian cars transferred the dead and (…)

US military convoys and Iraqi security forces have come under renewed attacks throughout Iraq, US sources have said.
A US military truck convoy has come under attack on a highway west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Aljazeera has learned.
One of the trucks was completely destroyed after a rocket-propelled grenade hit it.
An Iraqi civilian was killed and three others were injured when an explosive device detonated in Arkhita market in Karrada area in central Baghdad, medical sources told (…)

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Everyone wants to go to Baghdad; real men want to go to Tehran.”
That was the attitude in Washington two years ago, when Ahmad Chalabi was assuring everyone that Iraqis would greet us with flowers. More recently, some of us had a different slogan: “Everyone worries about Najaf; people who are really paying attention worry about Ramadi.”
Ever since the uprising in April, the Iraqi town of Fallujah has in effect been a small, nasty Islamic republic. But what about the (…)

By Eric Boehlert
The Republican campaign gets ready for shock waves, as the former Texas official who says he pulled strings to get George W. Bush into the Air National Guard finally goes public.
The campaign battle over Vietnam War records is still raging, but President Bush may soon be the one answering uncomfortable questions about his past service. Ben Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Texas, will finally break his silence and talk to the press about what role he played (…)

Tomgram: Return to Ground Zero (part 1)
The I[raq] of the Storm: Voices from the Convention floor
By Tom Engelhardt
Tuesday at Madison Square Garden was the Republican Convention’s "People of Compassion" program. It was the night when Conan the Barbarian turned into Kindergarten Cop; when the Bush daughters let us know their hamster didn’t make it either; when Laura attested to the President’s humanity; when "the value of adoption" was front and center; and when every patriotic tune (…)

Over 300 held hostage by armed Chechens
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow and Zurab Timchenko in Beslan
On a bright, festive opening day of school, the first sign of the brutality to come was a solitary balloon drifting skyward.
Diana Kubalova, 14, felt the first trickle of fear when the smaller children in the front row of the school parade let go of their party balloons out of shock.
"At this moment I saw people in masks," she said. "At first I thought it was all part of the celebrations (…)

A controversial law banning all religious symbols, including Islamic headscarves, from French state schools is to come into effect on Thursday.
The move comes as the lives of two French reporters, captured by Iraqi militants who want the ban scrapped, still hang in the balance.
The French government has refused to give in to the militants, who have threatened to kill the two.
But Paris is continuing a diplomatic effort to secure their release.
French Foreign Minister Alain Barnier (…)

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
NEW YORK - Republicans launched the sharpest attacks of their convention against Democrat John Kerry on Wednesday, with Vice President Dick Cheney saying November’s election would be a "defining moment" in the country’s long-term security.
Cheney said in published excerpts of his evening speech that President Bush’s first term had created "years of achievement," but there were vital differences between Bush and his Democratic challenger, (…)