contributions

By Zeeshan Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, said to be a top al Qaeda operative and one of the world’s most wanted men, was in custody in Pakistan on Friday for his suspected role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Ghailani and 13 others were seized after a 14-hour gunbattle with security forces at the weekend in the city of Gujarat, about 175 km (110 miles) southeast of the capital Islamabad, Pakistan Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said. (…)

By DEVLIN BARRETT
The Bush administration is moving quickly to enact some of the changes suggested by the Sept. 11 commission, with presidential approval expected by early next week.
Aides are finishing draft versions of executive orders on intelligence to present to President Bush, who is expected to adopt some or all of them soon, a senior administration official said.
The White House, pressed by victims’ families and by Democrat John Kerry, is eager to show it is moving on the (…)

Hail, the Conquering War Criminal Comes!
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
In his senior year at Yale in 1966 John Kerry enlisted in the US Navy, with his actual induction scheduled for the summer, after his graduation. Already notorious among his contemporaries for his political ambition, he’d maneuvered himself into the top slot at the Yale political union, while also winning admission to Skull and Bones.
While Bush, two years behind Kerry, was seeking commercial (…)

By TERESA HAMPTON & WILLIAM D. McTAVISH
A sullen President George W. Bush is withdrawing more and more from aides and senior staff, retreating into a private, paranoid world where only the ardent loyalists are welcome.
Cabinet officials, senior White House aides and leaders on Capitol Hill complain privately about the increasing lack of "face time" with the President and campaign advisors are worried the depressed President may not be up to the rigors of a tough re-election campaign. (…)

By Beth Henry
Editor’s note: Axis of Logic participated in and covered the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism) march on the DNC in Boston on July 25, 2004. See Axis of Logic’s comprehensive report, with interviews and full audio-visual coverage.
"LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO!"
"Why did they grab him?"
"I have no idea."
In all fairness, the line of BPD officers who stood between us and the man who had been pulled out of the July 25 march in Boston displayed (…)

By David Rennie in Boston
America’s allies expecting a shift in United States foreign policy from a President John Kerry should think again, his top advisers said yesterday.
Instead, members of Mr Kerry’s inner circle could promise only "stark contrasts" of personality and style between President George W Bush and their candidate, who they vowed would be a "hands-on, engaged, diplomat-in-chief".
Rand Beers, the national security adviser to the Kerry campaign, opened a high-level (…)

by Sandra Haurant and Agencies
British consumers borrowed at a rate of around £1m every four minutes in June, getting themselves £11.23bn deeper in debt and taking the total amount of borrowing to more than £1 trillion, the Bank of England said today.
The total covers a combination of mortgages, personal loans, overdrafts, hire purchase agreements and on credit and store cards.
British household debt is now equal to the total amount owed by Africa, Asia and Latin America to (…)

Dozens of casualties have been reported in clashes between Iraqi resistance fighters and US forces in the city of Falluja as an air strike destroys a home, according to Aljazeera’s correspondent in the area.
Aljazeera reported that renewed fighting broke out in the eastern entrance to the city with the Industrial Zone coming under heavy shelling from US mechanised divisions.
A house in the Shuhada’a district of the city was also destroyed when it came under US aerial bombardment, Reuters (…)

A frontier too far It survived Soviet occupation, civil war, the Taliban and US-led invasion. But after 24 years of aid work, Médecins sans Frontières has been forced by the American military to flee Afghanistan
By Nick Meo in Kabul
Aid workers who remained in Afghanistan throughout the years of Soviet occupation, tribal anarchy and Taliban rule are preparing to flee the country because US military tactics have made it too dangerous to operate there.
A grim shadow was cast over the (…)

By ROBIN TONER and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Senator John Edwards, summoning all his skills as a trial lawyer and a populist, made an impassioned case for Senator John Kerry on Wednesday, hailing him as a battle-tested veteran ready to be commander in chief and a man who could restore economic hope and opportunity.
"Hope is on the way," Mr. Edwards declared to a cheering Democratic National Convention.
The heart of Mr. Edwards’s speech was the theme he sounded throughout his primary (…)