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By Michael Georgy
Sat Aug 21
NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. forces launched a fresh assault on Shi’ite rebels in the embattled Iraqi city of Najaf on Sunday after talks on transferring control of the mosque at the center of a two-week siege ran into difficulties.
A U.S. military AC-130 gunship unleashed rapid cannon and howitzer fire on positions held by rebels loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Reuters witness said.
The attack lit up the area with white flashes and were followed by (…)

Come and listen to my story ’bout a boy named Bush. His IQ was zero and his head was up his tush. He drank like a fish while he motored all about. But it didn’t really matter ’cuz his daddy bailed him out.
DUI, that is. Criminal record. Cover-up.
Well, the first thing you know young Georgie goes to Yale. He can’t spell his name but they never let him fail. He spends all his time hangin’ out with student folk. And that’s when he learns how to snort a line of coke.
Blow, that is. White (…)

By JOHN RABY
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A man who heckled President Bush (news - web sites) at a political rally was fired from his job at an advertising and design company for offending a client who provided tickets to the event.
The fired graphic designer said Saturday he won’t try to get his job back.
"I’m mad less about losing the job - I’m more mad about the reasons," said Glen Hiller, 35, of Berkeley Springs. "All I did was show up and voice my opinion."
Hiller was ushered out of (…)

By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK - After declining in the post-Cold War era of the early 1990s, global military spending is on the rise again - threatening to break the US$1 trillion barrier this year, according to a group of United Nations-appointed military experts.
The 16-member group estimates that military spending will rise to nearly $950 billion by the end of 2004, up from $900 billion in 2003. By contrast, rich nations spend $50 billion to $60 billion on development aid each year.
The (…)

Some 3,800 neo-Nazis gathered today for a march in memory of Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, in the Bavarian town where he is buried, police said.
The march in Wunsiedel was met by several hundred counter-demonstrators, who at one point halted it by staging a sit-down blockade. Although no clashes were reported, police said they detained 110 people - 74 of them neo-Nazis.
Marchers were detained for displaying outlawed Nazi symbols and for carrying weapons or pepper spray, police (…)

A series of grenade blasts has rocked an opposition party rally in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka, killing at least 13 people.
There were seven or eight explosions at the Awami League headquarters, as leader Sheikh Hasina addressed a crowd .../...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3586384.stm

By Louise Witt
Errol Morris, the documentary filmmaker who produced Apple Computer’s well-known series of ads about discontented PC users who switched to Macs, had a similar idea on how to reach undecided voters. His new advertising campaign features Republicans who voted for President Bush in 2000 explaining why they now intend to vote for Sen. John Kerry.
Scheduled to run during the Republican National Convention later this month, MoveOn.org’s political action committee, MoveOnPAC, (…)

By MARY DALRYMPLE, Associated Press Writer
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Saturday night urged President Bush to "stand up and stop" what he called personal attacks on him over his combat record in Vietnam.
At a fundraiser, attended by about 750 people, Kerry said the attacks by a group of Vietnam veterans and former Swift Boat commanders have intensified "because in the last months they have seen me climbing in America’s understanding that I know (…)

Eyewitnesses in Najaf are reporting that explosions have rocked the old section of the city, as US AC-130 gunships strike at al-Mahdi Army defences.
There were no immediate figures on casualties in the attack early on Sunday morning.
The attacks may signal that US occupation forces are readying for a fresh assault on al-Mahdi Army positions as negotiations between Muqtada al-Sadr aides and those representing Grand Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani over control of the Imam Ali mosque are bogged (…)

Abu Ghraib interrogators involved in earlier Afghanistan probe
By ELISE ACKERMAN
WASHINGTON - Army investigators believe that some of the military interrogators who were implicated in the abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were involved in earlier deaths and abuses of detainees held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Yet even as investigators were uncovering troubling evidence of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, orders were cut to transfer the military intelligence company (…)