contributions

By Timothy Heritage
French politicians and Jewish leaders denounced on Monday a call by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for French Jews to emigrate immediately to Israel to escape what he called the "wildest anti-Semitism".
Sharon made his remarks in a speech to visiting Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, despite acknowledging efforts to fight anti-Semitism led by President Jacques Chirac. His comments have soured the atmosphere as France tries to build ties with Israel.
Attempts by (…)

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Iraq’s interim prime minister issued a decree allowing a controversial newspaper to reopen after U.S. officials closed it in March, setting off months of fighting between U.S. forces and militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
Meanwhile, after a two-month absence, al-Sadr showed up in Najaf in an unannounced visit to the Imam Ali shrine, one of Shiism’s holiest sites. With all the pomp of a rock star, the mercurial cleric was ushered into the (…)

ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) — Democratic vice presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards vowed Sunday to get out the vote in the Sunshine State, site of the controversial 2000 presidential election recount.
"We will get voters registered, we will get voters mobilized, we will get voters to the polls!" Edwards said during a campaign stop at Orlando’s St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church. "We’re going to make sure that all those voters that go to the polls and cast their votes, that [their] (…)

By Dan Ephron
JERUSALEM — Palestinian demonstrators burned government offices and traded gunfire with security officers in the Gaza Strip yesterday on the third day of demonstrations against what the protesters see as corruption and cronyism in Yasser Arafat’s administration.
The violence, which appeared to reflect the breakdown of law and order and a power struggle ahead of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, spread from Gaza City south to Khan Yunis and Rafah, two of the Strip’s poorest (…)

Shireen M Mazari
With a new interim government in place in Iraq, a clearer picture is emerging of the US global strategy of regime change embodied in its Pre-emptive Doctrine. For many of us who have been rather naïve in assuming that the US, under Bush, is simply a superpower that bludgeons itself through to impose its wishes, there is now a clearer indication of a covert aspect to the pre-emptive doctrine that is far more insidious and sinister in its design and ends. It seems to have (…)

The Guardian
While this country was digesting the findings of Lord Butler’s report on intelligence findings in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, a more damning account of intelligence failings in Iraq was being unveiled in Washington - failings that occurred since the war, under the aegis of the occupiers, and involving billions of dollars. Last week’s report by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board on Iraq, responsible for overseeing the nearly $20bn of funds accruing to the (…)

by Bryan Bender
WASHINGTON — Nearly as many US soldiers lost their lives in Iraq in the first half of July as in all of June, even as Iraqi insurgents seem to have shifted focus from attacking US targets to aiming instead at Iraqi security forces and government officials.
The relatively high rate of US military casualties has dimmed hope that the handover of power to the Iraqi government would help stabilize the country and reduce pressure on US soldiers.
June was substantially less (…)

By Tom Allard
The former British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, has urged the International Committee for the Red Cross to investigate witness claims that the new Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, shot dead six insurgents last month.
Revelations of the accounts of the killings by chief Herald correspondent Paul McGeough at the weekend and the refusal of US authorities to deny them outright sparked concerns around the world.
The Herald reported that two independent witnesses alleged Dr (…)

by Ahmed Janabi
Monday 19 July 2004 - Fallujans are staging a sit-in to demand compensation for property destroyed during last April’s US military offensive.
Carrying banners reading: "Rebuild our houses from our oil revenues", demonstrators say they will not end their sit-in until their demands are met.
They acknowledged that some aid has reached the town, but they told Aljazeera’s correspondent it is "nothing in comparison to the cost of the damage already inflicted by US warplanes". (…)

By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The US media has surprisingly failed to pick up the shocking disclosure by Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s leading newspaper, that the Irqai Prime Minister Iyad Allawi personally executed six suspected insurgents in a Baghdad police station.
The story by award-winning Australian journalist Paul McGeough said that the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the Iraqi PM. Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those (…)