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Several civilians have been killed in US air strikes United States military aircraft were seen bombarding sectors of Falluja, Aljazeera’s correspondent in the city reported.
A number of houses in the al-Askari sector of the city were targeted early on Sunday morning, Aljazeera’s Hussain Dali reported.
He said the aerial bombardment was preceded by intense mortar shelling.
Medical sources in Falluja hospital told Aljazeera’s correspondent that a total of four dead and 23 wounded had (…)

by Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls
In the first minute of his July 29 Democratic National Convention (DNC) acceptance speech, John Kerry told us that the Democratic Party has "one simple purpose: to make America stronger at home and respected in the world." The Republicans have set the standard by which a US President will be judged, and listening to peace and social justice activists is not one of the desired qualities. Regardless of who gets elected, the two parties tell us, the next (…)

An Iraqi political group says more than 37,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 and October 2003.
The People’s Kifah, or Struggle against Hegemony, movement said in a statement that it carried out a detailed survey of Iraqi civilian fatalities during September and October 2003.
Their calculation included deaths only among the Iraqi civilian population, and did not count losses sustained by the Iraqi military and paramilitary forces.
The (…)

By DAVE LINDORFF
With the Democrats having nominated an admitted war criminal for president, and with our president and commander-in-chief having perpetrated, encouraged and overseen war crimes of historic scale, perhaps it’s no surprise that down on the ground, the little crimes of American servicemen and women are getting airbrushed away.
Still, in this law-and-order era of George Bush and John Ashcroft, when a majority of Americans still say it’s right and proper to have the state (…)

by Nagem Salam
Nagem Salam interviewed a former Abu Ghraib female detainee who was arrested by US forces on September 14, 2003 and detained in Ba’qouba, Tikrit, Abu Ghraib and the Tesfirat transfer station.
"I’m afraid to give my real name," she said to begin the interview. After being detained in her hometown of Ba’qubah on September 14, 2003 and held in three detention facilities for four months, she preferred to be called Umm Taha.
"The American’s picked me up for nothing, so what’s (…)

Soldiers who forced two Iraqi civilians off a bridge as punishment for missing curfew were told to cover up the incident, according to three Army commanders.
The Iraqis jumped into the Tigris River, where their family members say one of them drowned. The commanders, however, insisted no one died and said soldiers saw the civilians getting out of the water safely.
The commanders, under immunity, testified Friday on the third and final day of a hearing to determine whether three soldiers (…)

The Palestinian attorney general is looking into claims local firms sold cement to Israelis building a West Bank barrier that Palestinians condemn as a land grab, a lawmaker has said.
Hasan Khraisha on Saturday said the probe would look into suspicions that some Palestinian Authority officials and ministers have allowed Palestinian companies to make millions of dollars by selling 420,000 tonnes of cement to Israeli firms at high profit.
Khraisha, who says he received death threats to (…)

by Michael Uhl
In reading the Abu Ghraib articles Seymour Hersh wrote for the New Yorker in May (here, here, and here), what struck me about the revelations of abuse and torture was the similarity in detail to what I experienced in Vietnam 35 years ago. The one major difference has been the media’s willingness to embrace in 2004 a story that they shunned in 1970, when returning veterans attempted to inform the American public of widespread atrocities, including the routine killing and (…)

China will exert its utmost efforts with its utmost sincerity to resolve the Taiwan issue by peaceful means, but will never tolerate "the independence of Taiwan," Chinese President Hu Jintao stressed here Friday.
President Hu made the remark when he held a telephone conversation with US President George W. Bush.
China and the United States have maintained good relations, Hu said, noting that his country is willing to continue to maintain close contact and communication with the (…)

BY TOM HUNDLEY
WARSAW, Poland - (KRT) - Two months after the successful Allied D-Day landings at Normandy, the tide of the war had turned. Adolf Hitler’s armies were reeling. Rome had been liberated; the Americans were about to march into Paris.
In Warsaw, the mighty Soviet army had reached the east bank of the Vistula, the river that divides the Polish capital in half, and Moscow Radio was calling on Warsaw’s residents to rise up against the German occupiers.
The AK - Armia Krajowa or (…)