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The best evidence last week’s Democratic convention succeeded in accomplishing what Team Kerry set out to do is the Republican reaction, which is to insist the Boston infomercial was a false representation of both the party and the nominee.
To a certain extent, that’s true - although as a progressive, I would argue it’s not nearly as true as the conservative chattering class would have it. No matter how left-wing the delegates on the floor were on the hot-button issues (this was almost an (…)

By Edmund Blair
Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile once better connected in Washington’s corridors of power than the backstreets of Baghdad, is building new, unexpected alliances.
The U.S. administration may have spurned its one-time ally, but Chalabi has found a new voice defending Iraq’s downtrodden Shi’ites and speaks in respectful terms about one of Washington’s fiercest critics — Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"(Sadr) is a man who has a strong influence on a very (…)

By John Malkin
Musicians of all persuasion - from punk rock to hip hop to jam band - are fighting apathy and encouraging fans to vote.
"If every Deadhead in the state of Florida had voted in the last election, it would be a very different world today," reflects Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead.
Weir, of course, is referring to Bush’s slim 537-vote margin of victory in Florida in the 2000 election. And his point is applicable not only to Deadheads but punk rockers, folkies, indie rockers, (…)

After the strongest speech he has ever given, the Democrat candidate is starting to convince America he can oust George Bush. Paul Harris reports from Boston
The fireworks exploded in the night sky and illuminated John Kerry dancing on the stage next to Boston harbour. It was way past midnight and he had delivered the most important speech of his life.
The man who would be president punched the air and gleefully pointed at the colourful explosions like a teenager. As the theme from Star (…)

By Robert Fisk
The war is a fraud. I’m not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa’ida which didn’t exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I’m talking about the new lies.
For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America’s puppet government in Baghdad but we are (…)

By Azizullah Khan
QUETTA: Five army soldiers and a civilian were killed when three unidentified gunmen attacked a vehicle in Khuzdar on Sunday.
Khuzdar, 300 kilometres southwest of Quetta, is the second major city of Balochistan. .../...
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_2-8-2004_pg1_1

Radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his army of devotees blamed for campaign of intimidation
Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
First came the warning: a sheet of paper stuck to the door of Na’aman Khalil’s shop ordering him to close his off-licence. ’You are corrupting the people of the Earth and you should stop,’ said the message, signed by a group calling itself the Monotheistic Movement of Jihad.
Five days later, a parcel of explosives detonated just outside the building, smashing the (…)

In Two Vital States, President and Challenger Nearly Cross Paths
By Dan Balz and David S. Broder
GREENSBURG Pa., President Bush and John F. Kerry dueled over the economy as they campaigned Saturday in two of the nation’s most jobs-sensitive states, intensifying their fight for control over a dozen-and-a-half battlegrounds likely to decide the election.
In Ohio, which has lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs, Bush defended his record and said with another four years, he would (…)

By Dafna Linzer in Washington
In a significant shift of US policy, the Bush Administration has announced that it will oppose provisions for inspections and verification as part of an international treaty to ban production of nuclear weapons materials.
For several years the US and others have been pursuing the treaty, which would ban new production by any state of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons.
At an arms control meeting in Geneva last week the US told other (…)

By Carl Bloice
It was, as French trade unions have said in no uncertain terms, blackmail. In mid-July the 820 workers at the Robert Bosch plant voted to accept a new contract that increases their work week by one hour - with no increase in pay - cuts bonuses and freezes their salaries for three years. The company, Bosch France, a subsidiary of the German Bosch parent, had placed an ultimatum to the employees: accept the proposal or a slated new production line will be relocated in the (…)