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Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraq’s "dictatorial" interim government to resign and said he and his fighters would remain in Najaf until death or victory, his spokesman said.
The spokesman quoted al-Sadr as telling supporters at Imam Ali Mosque on Friday: "I advise the dictatorial, agent government to resign... the whole Iraqi people demands the resignation of the government... they replaced Saddam with a government worse than him."
Earlier, al-Sadr laid down a list of conditions (…)

It repeats itself: the main hospital has been closed down by US troops and is being used for military operations, ambulances are being prevented, again by US troops, from moving around the town, which is being pounded from the air while the US and the Iraqi militias, disparate armed groups, fight in the streets and US soldiers drive around with loudspeakers, ordering civilians to leave or be killed.
It could be Falluja in April; this time it’s Najaf. I hear that Kut has been bombed, the (…)

The US attack on Najaf has been condemned by Arab and non-Arab organisations who say the level of aggression is unacceptable and that the consequences could be serious.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) issued a statement received by Aljazeera condemning what it described as "the US aggression against Najaf".
"The US occupation forces must withdraw from Najaf and the whole country (Iraq)" said the statement.
"Withdrawal from Iraq is the first step in ending Iraq’s disaster." (…)

By Carl F. Worden
I am stunned to learn John Kerry has announced that he would have voted to give the president the authority to attack Iraq even if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found there. That announcement will do nothing less than cause some rabid anti-war Kerry supporters to cast their votes for renegade Ralph Nader, while giving aid and support to his incumbent opponent in the upcoming presidential debates.
Tell me it isn’t so: Is John Kerry as stupid and (…)

by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Where did the Bush regime go wrong?
Somewhere along the line, once, George W. Bush and his clique of elitist super-rich entrepreneurs who dictate White House policy, must have had political objectives, must have believed that they could do good for America and for the world. What has ensued is a systematic abuse of power, a systematic disregard for international law and a systematic outrage of human rights. Where did the Bush regime get it wrong?
The recent (…)

A Department Of Peace?
BY WALTER CRONKITE King Features Syndicate
With this nation embroiled in what threatens to be an interminable "War on Terrorism," an idea put forward last year by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has, for me, considerable appeal. Kucinich, who was the one candidate in the Democratic primaries to unfailingly promote the party’s traditional Franklin Roosevelt liberalism, proposed the establishment of a Department of Peace.
Now he has introduced in the House HR (…)

Some members of groups funded by the National Endowment for Democracy have ties to the 2002 coup leaders. Venezuela votes Sunday.
By Ken Silverstein And Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writers
CARACAS, Venezuela - As this bitterly divided nation approaches a vote Sunday on whether to recall populist President Hugo Chavez, he and his supporters are accusing Washington of interfering in Venezuela’s affairs by providing about $2 million to opposition groups.
Grants from the National (…)

by LARA JAKES JORDAN
The father of an American man beheaded in Iraq accused the Bush administration and his local congressman of trying to cancel a long-awaited meeting that was supposed to answer questions surrounding his son’s death.
Within hours of the complaint Thursday, federal officials said the meeting was back on.
Michael Berg, an anti-war activist, said the government is dragging its feet on the investigation into the death of Nicholas Berg, 26, whose grisly slaying was (…)

by Eric Alterman
The far right’s decades-long campaign to falsely brand PBS a leftist conspiracy—one that apparently included giving shows to such commies as William F. Buckley, Louis Rukeyser, Ben Wattenberg and Fortune magazine—has really hit pay dirt this year, first in creating a show around CNN’s conservative talking head Tucker Carlson, and now, far more egregiously, in creating a program for the extremist editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.
Crossfire co-host Tucker Carlson (…)

President Bush praised John Kerry’s military service as honorable on Thursday but declined to condemn ads from Vietnam veterans who questioned the Massachusetts senator’s military record.
"Senator Kerry is justifiably proud of his record in Vietnam and he should be," Bush said on the CNN television talk show, "Larry King Live." He referred to Kerry’s Vietnam tour as "noble service."
A group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has accused Kerry of misrepresenting his Vietnam War (…)