contributions

US presidential candidate John Kerry has insisted that Washington maintains its troops in Iraq, a policy stance similar to George Bush’s, despite considerable clamour in the Democratic Party for an accelerated US military pullout.
Kerry said he will try and secure greater financial and military backing from the international community for Iraq, in a speech formally accepting the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday.
Although Kerry has made a determined effort to define himself (…)

by Katrina vanden Heuvel
Inside the Fleet Center this week, few speakers have engaged the fierce antiwar views of the vast majority of delegates.
Instead, activists and delegates flocked to panels and forums around Boston in order to debate and discuss the war, the occupation and what is to be done. On Wednesday afternoon, the Campaign for America’s Future and The Nation co-sponsored a debate on "Iraq, The US and the World." Agreed: the debacle in Iraq has left America more isolated, (…)

The Sudanese government rejected a Security Council resolution threatening to impose sanctions on Khartoum in 30 days if it does not prosecute and disarm militias in the Darfur region.
"Sudan announces its rejection of the Security Council’s misguided resolution," Information Minister al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik said in a statement.
The UN Security Council on Friday passed a resolution warning Sudan to rein in what it called the Janjaweed militias - who the US previously blamed for violence (…)

Pakistani Prime Minister-in-waiting Shaukat Aziz Friday escaped unhurt in an apparent suicide bomb attack in an election rally, which killed six people and injured 25 others, private GEO television reported.
The attack happened after Aziz, now finance minister, attended an elections rally in the town of Fateh Jang, about 50 kilometers southwest of the capital in eastern Punjab province, ruling Pakistan Muslim League Secretary General Mushahid Hussain said.
He described the attack (…)

London - The British government expressed "regret and sympathy" for the deaths of Iraqi civilians, but argued in court that it would be impossible to apply domestic and European human rights laws in the chaos of Iraq.
The government began presenting its case on Thursday in opposition to families of six Iraqis allegedly slain by British troops, who have gone to the High Court seeking to force an independent investigation.
The families’ lawyers say the European Convention on Human Rights, (…)

With Kerry at the helm, the left might focus on the real issues again
by Naomi Klein
Last month, I reluctantly joined the Anybody But Bush camp. It was "Bush in a Box" that finally got me, a gag gift my brother gave my father on his 66th birthday. Bush in a Box is a cardboard cut-out of President 43 with a set of adhesive speech balloons featuring the usual tired Bushisms: "Is our children learning?" "They misunderestimated me" - standard-issue Bush-bashing schlock, on sale at Wal-Mart, (…)

By Roger Martin and Blair Speedy
THE Federal Court has delivered a major win to the union movement by declaring employers cannot use federal workplace contracts to lock out union officials who have legitimate rights of entry under state legislation, even on non-union sites.
The court ruled yesterday that even on sites where all workers were employed under federal workplace contracts, state union officials were free to exercise their rights under state laws.
Those rights extend to the (…)

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
Saying "America can do better," John Kerry has taken the reins of the Democratic Party with a promise to restore U.S. global leadership and ask "hard questions" before taking the country to war.
"We need to be looked up to and not just feared," the Massachusetts senator said on Thursday in accepting the Democratic nomination to face President George W. Bush. "In these dangerous days there is a right way and a wrong way to be strong."
In a (…)

Pakistan has told the U.S. that it captured a wanted al-Qaeda suspect who may have been involved in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, a Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman said.
The FBI is looking into the matter, agency spokeswoman Donna Spiser said in Washington.
The suspect is Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who is on the U.S.’s most wanted terrorists’’ list.
Ghailani was among seven people named by the U.S. in May as part of an (…)

By Marjorie Cohn
The families of the people killed in the September 11 attacks had to fight tooth and nail for a commission to investigate why their loved ones died. George W. Bush opposed an investigation, but finally relented in the face of public pressure. He then dragged his feet when asked to provide information to the commission.
Four days before the start of the Democratic National Convention, the 9/11 Commission released its 567-page report, replete with recommendations for (…)