Looks like every day there is a military-style raid somewhere in the US. One of the more recent ones, in Detroit involves the raid of an art gallery, where people had gathered to listen to music, have some drinks and dance.

US President George W Bush has landed in Slovenia at the start of what is expected to be his last European tour, with economic concerns a key issue. 

He will attend the annual US-European Union summit, where he is expected to push for a strong US dollar and action on high fuel prices. 

Wonderful – the people we're liberating are our enemies, because of the extended occupation – now there's a good reason to support the troops and extend the occupation. I guess Congress thought so too.  

Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict with Iran, according to a former George W Bush administration official. 

US interrogators of terrorist suspects were instructed to destroy handwritten notes that might have exposed harsh or even illegal questioning methods at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a lawyer for one of the prisoners said. 

Iraq will not allow its territory to be used to attack Iran, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said during a visit to Tehran. 

He was speaking after meeting Iran's foreign minister and is later due to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

Can you imagine the outcry if an Australian city council rejected a proposal to build a Jewish school? You don’t need to imagine. Anyone who dares to utter a single word against it will be labelled “anti-Semitic”. Australian politicians from the Prime Minister and his herd to the herd of the Opposition would be outraged by such an “Un-Australian” decision. However, when an application for an Islamic school was rejected, the support for bigotry was unanimous.

Wall Street suffered its worst losses in more than two months on Friday after crude oil prices spiked over $138, an increase of nearly $11, and the unemployment rate rose more than expected. 

All 30 of the stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrials took a hit as the index dropped nearly 400 points on fears that high energy prices will extend and deepen an economic slowdown. 

President Bush and top administration officials repeatedly exaggerated what they knew about Iraq's weapons and its ties to terrorist groups as the White House pressed its case for war against Iraq, the Senate intelligence committee said yesterday in a long-awaited report.  

As the prospective presidential nominees ponder choosing their running-mates, the spectre of Vice President Dick Cheney looms large. 

from Crikey ….. 

Hetty Johnston's strange bedfellows 

Bernard Keane writes: 

An Australian doctors' group is pushing to have former prime minister John Howard charged with war crimes for sending troops to Iraq. 

The Medical Association for the Prevention of War said the war was illegal because it was not backed by the United Nations. 

The Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, hit back after an outcry against the Government's controversial planning reforms - which passed through the Legislative Assembly at 2am yesterday - by calling the state's peak local government bodies 'dumb'.

In response, the president of the Shires Association of NSW, Bruce Miller, said sections of the Government were 'malicious and dishonest'. 

France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, reveals today that she fell in love with the President for his good looks and his 'five or six brains'. 

In a book containing Mme Bruni-Sarkozy's first extensive interviews on her high-profile, whirlwind, power romance, the pop singer says her attraction to the President at a 'blind date' was 'immediate'. 

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.