contributions

by Lisa Ashkenaz Croke
While the latest reports investigating the widely condemned events at Abu Ghraib prison attempt to close the book on the Pentagon’s culpability with a somber critique, new evidence gathered for a class action lawsuit filed against two U.S.-based private contractors could prove that the scandal at Abu Ghraib was far from an isolated series of incidents perpetrated by a few rowdy "bad apples" working the night shift during Ramadan.
An attorney representing former (…)

Echoes of Silence Managua www.echoesofsilence.net (505) 252 4645//(505) 852 9510 ______________
As Reagan Dies, Sandino Sings on
25 Years on, Sandinismo - and a Song - Come Full Circle
January, 1986. In the northern hills of Nicaragua, surrounded by Ronald Reagan’s murderous Contras, a group of some 300 peace activists from all over the world find their path into Honduras blocked. The US and Honduran mililitaries are conducting joint exercises - no way through for anyone who believes (…)

NEW YORK : Thousands of people demanding social reforms protested in New York, as the Republican National Convention got under way.
"It’s a shame that in the richest country in the world twelve million children are hungry every night," cried an activist from a small platform in front of United Nations headquarters, galvanizing a crowd of protesters under the watchful eye of police clad in riot gear.
Pacifists, anarchists, union members, defenders of the poor and others, several thousands (…)

By Robert McFadden
A roaring three-kilometre river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan in the city’s largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried US President George Bush and demanded regime change in Washington.
On a sweltering August Sunday, the huge throng of protesters marched past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican national convention, and denounced President Bush as a misfit who had plunged America into (…)

In the largest protest ever held during a political convention, more than 500,000 people from all over the United States marched past Madison Square Garden, site of the Republican National Convention, to express their opposition to the Bush agenda and the war against Iraq. "This march brought together people from every sector of society and every possible background, because we all understood that we had to shine a spotlight on the issues that the Republicans won’t bring to the stage at (…)

At the moment George Bush is receiving his well-scripted coronation on Thursday evening, September 2, the streets around Madison Square Garden will be filled by people who stand together against the Iraq war, the colonial occupations of Haiti and Palestine, and the U.S. strategy of endless war and intervention.
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition received the permit for this demonstration that will begin on Thursday, September 2 at 7 pm at 31st St. and 8th Avenue.
The demonstration is also (…)

By Osha Neumann
Sunday’s protest is what the doctor ordered: a public message written in large numbers.
We couldn’t have a rally in the Great Meadow of Central Park because 250,000 people would ruin the grass, and because we didn’t come to court early enough to say pretty please can we have our rights - that’s what the judge ruled when United for Peace and Justice, the organizer of today’s mammoth demonstration asked him to rule that the city must give us a permit. So that’s why (…)

By Matthew Thompson, Higher Education Reporter
A nationalist group targeting university campuses with anti-foreigner propaganda is linked to the local branch of an American neo-Nazi organisation.
The Patriotic Youth League’s "Australian unis for Australian students" campaign at the University of Newcastle has coincided with racist incidents against African students and the posting of US neo-Nazi leaflets on campus.
The group’s founder, Stuart McBeth, 23, who has been running the (…)

Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9-11 Attacks and “Consciously Failed” To Act; 66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals
On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or (…)

by Craig S. Smith NYT
PARIS The police have arrested a Jewish man in connection with an arson attack on a Jewish community center here last week, suggesting that the attack was not the neo-Nazi act it was originally believed to have been.
If the man, 52, is found guilty of setting fire to the ground-floor center, it will be the third case in a month in which apparently anti-Semitic acts have turned out to be the work of disturbed individuals seeking attention rather than of committed (…)