contributions

By JAMES JEFFERSON
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that rising consumption and decreasing domestic production have led to high gasoline prices but also blamed his Democratic opponents and their opposition to the Bush administration’s energy policies.
The Bush-Cheney campaign accuses Senate Democrats of blocking a Bush energy plan that would increase petroleum drilling and energy conservation and provide new tax breaks and other incentives to spur exploration (…)

By Erik Stetson
MANCHESTER, N.H. About 165 New Hampshire-based reservists were reunited with their families after an hour-long welcome home ceremony Wednesday.
The ceremony for the Londonderry-based 94th Military Police Company capped an often-delayed deployment that stretched nearly into an 18th month.
’’It just feels like a dream right now,’’ said Spc. Jared Brewer, a driver from Windham, Maine. ’’I just want someone to pinch me so I can wake up.’’
The company deployed in December (…)

by Zachary Coilehttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/04/MNGUO82C7B1.DTL
Two members of the Sept. 11 commission criticized President Bush’s proposal to create a national intelligence director, telling Congress on Tuesday that the White House plan fails to give the new spy chief the executive powers needed to revamp the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Without the power to set budgets and hire and fire senior managers, the new intelligence czar will lack (…)

By Andrew Buncombe
The Bush administration was forced into the embarrassing admission yesterday that "new" intelligence about al-Qa’ida’s plans to attack US financial institutions - information that led to an official alert and a slew of fresh security measures - was up to four years old and predated the 11 September attacks.
Intelligence officials were forced into retreat just a day after they had said fresh and "alarmingly" specific information indicated terrorists were planning (…)

By Robert Scheer
The Republicans have tried to turn John Kerry’s military service against him with repeated derogatory references to his 1971 testimony on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But this negative tactic could backfire. If voters were actually to read what the young war hero said 33 years ago, most would come away with increased respect for Kerry’s prescience, his patriotism and his willingness to speak truth to power. (…)

An American academic and writer has pleaded guilty to smuggling artefacts stolen from the Iraqi National Museum into the United States.
Author of The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People, Joseph Braude also admitted lying to customs officials at Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday.
Changing his plea on the second day of testimony in his trial at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, he confessed to bringing back three 4000-year-old marble and alabaster stone (…)

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Halliburton Co. and other U.S. contractors are being paid at least $1.9 billion from Iraqi funds under an arrangement set by the U.S.-led occupation authority, according to a review of documents and interviews with government agencies, companies and auditors.
Most of the money is for two controversial deals that originally had been financed with money approved by the U.S. Congress, but later shifted to Iraqi funds that were governed by fewer restrictions and less (…)

To China Daily Censors:
Again thank you for allowing me to express my individual point of view to your readers. It is a step in the right direction towards freedom of expression. I don’t blame you a bit for the selective censorship of posts that could cause gross misinterpretation from others.
The Chinese government has a great responsibility to keep its people in balance and in check. From the numerous emails and other personal correspondence that I have received I have found it not in (…)

Straw and MI5 share the blame for the degradation of Guantánamo
by Victoria Brittain
The dossier by the three young men from Tipton reported by the Guardian today, with its graphic images of torture in Guantánamo Bay, reveals the horror of what has been suffered, and is still being suffered in that lawless place, by British citizens and residents, with the complicity of MI5 and the Foreign Office. This is a dossier that highlights the lies and incompetence of MI5 and Foreign Office (…)

By HILLARY ROSNER
Last summer, on the site of 35 former hat factories where toxic mercury was once used to cure pelts, city officials in Danbury, Conn., deployed a futuristic weapon: 160 Eastern cottonwoods.
Dr. Richard Meagher, a professor of genetics at the University of Georgia, genetically engineered the trees to extract mercury from the soil, store it without being harmed, convert it to a less toxic form of mercury and release it into the air.
It was one of two dozen proposals Dr. (…)