From The Times UK
By Richard Beeston and James Bone

Iran failed yesterday to comply with a United Nations deadline to halt its uranium enrichment work, increasing tensions between the country and the international community.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reported that Iran had continued its controversial enrichment work beyond yesterday’s deadline.

Washington is reported to have drawn up a three-tier sanctions menu that would begin with limited measures to ban the sale of nuclear equipment to Iran, block travel by Iranian officials and seize their foreign assets. If Iran did not comply, the sanctions would be widened and could lead to a ban on commercial flights and an embargo of financial institutions.

President Bush said that Iran must pay a price for defying the international community. We have made our choice. We will continue to work with our allies to find a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran’s defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

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Oliver Burkeman

Zachary Guiles knew he was being provocative when he showed up for school two years ago in a T-shirt that accused George Bush of being a war-mongering draft-dodger, a drunkard and a drug addict. What the 13-year-old may not have realised was that he would provoke a major free-speech battle that culminated this week in a court victory.

An appeals court in New York found that Zachary’s constitutional rights were violated when officials at his Vermont school made him stick duct tape over parts of the T-shirt. The shirt also said the president was undertaking a “world domination tour” and showed a picture of his head superimposed on a chicken’s body, along with cocaine, a razor blade and a martini glass. Zachary was suspended for a day, but continued to wear the T-shirt to school, complete with duct tape.

The T-shirt “uses harsh rhetoric and imagery to express disagreement with the president’s policies and to impugn his character”, the court ruled, but the images “are not plainly offensive as a matter of law”.

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From The Nation
By Nicholas von Hoffman

God and/or the cosmos may be infinite, but nothing else is. Hence it is a lead-pipe certainty that human beings are going to run out of oil. The only question is when.

There is no agreement on this, but forty years from now is often cited as the moment when the world’s pipelines will go gurgle, gurgle, glug and nothing will come out except a gasping sound. More likely, there will still be some oil around in 2046, but you and I will not be able to afford it.

As the end of oil approaches, the price of this commodity, which was once sold for 10 cents a barrel, will approximate the current price of beluga caviar. Beluga, of course, comes from the roe of the sturgeon, a fish once abundant in the Caspian Sea. Thanks to the unbridled appetite of caviar lovers, and those who catch and sell it, the fish has all but disappeared. But even if its admirers had shown some self-restraint, it would not have mattered because the Caspian Sea itself is in the process of vanishing, thanks to all manner of environmental rape and pillaging.

It follows that long after the gas stations of America close down and the cars that once filled up at them have been converted to garden pergolas and jungle gyms for the wee ones, a few absurdly rich people will still have some oil or gasoline. It will have become so expensive by then that they will keep it in their wine cellars next to their bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild. Thus, in the strictest sense we will never, as simple-minded optimists insist, run out of oil.

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From The Guardian UK
By Matt Weaver

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California, today made a clear break with the White House when he announced an agreement for a state-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Schwarzenegger said he hoped the legislation – approved by the Californian Senate last night – would become “an example for other states and nations to follow” in the fight against climate change.

Californian senators voted 23-14 in favour of the plan after weeks of tough negotiations. It is now expected to be backed by California’s Democrat-controlled Assembly. The move is in sharp contrast to George Bush’s inaction on climate change, notably his refusal to sign up to binding targets in the Kyoto protocol.

In the past, Mr Schwarzenegger has accused the US president of failing to demonstrate leadership on climate change. Last month, Tony Blair broke with his usual loyalty to the Bush administration by signing a statement of intent with California that could open the way for a new transatlantic carbon trading agreement aimed at cutting emissions.

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From The Seattle Times
By Froma Harrop

A year after Katrina did her worst, the ravaging of New Orleans continues. Nowadays, the destructive force is not nature’s fury or even small-time looters. It is a kind of upscale plunder that is robbing the city of its historical heritage, piece by piece. Organized criminals are invading deserted homes and tearing out their architectural features: Victorian shutters, wrought iron fences, cornices, brackets, old doors and other antique features.

I bring this up because the people who buy these valuable old building parts tend to be educated and law-abiding. In other words, us. We can help New Orleans — and the cause of historic preservation – by asking questions, such as: Where did those fabulous cypress baseboards come from?

While the situation in New Orleans is especially grievous, the theft of architectural detailing is a nationwide problem. The creeps are ripping the soul out of old buildings, cemeteries and wherever humankind has bestowed the love of crafted plaster, woodwork or decorative metalwork.

And while the problem plagues all of New Orleans, the Holy Cross neighborhood is suffering the most direct attack. Taking up a third of the Lower 9th Ward, Holy Cross remains uninhabited and, therefore, largely unprotected. This working-class area, two-thirds African American, is home to a rich collection of shotgun houses, bungalows and Creole cottages — many dating back to the mid-19th century. Some of their owners may not even know what they have. In any case, they are not there to guard their properties.

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From Crooks and Liars
By Jamie Holly

Olbermann delivered this commentary with fire and passion while highlighting how Rumsfeld’s comments echoes other times in our world’s history when anyone who questioned the administration was coined as a traitor, unpatriotic, communist or any other colorful term. Luckily we pulled out of those times and we will pull out of these times.

Remember – Rumsfeld did not just call the Democrats out yesterday, he called out a majority of this country. This wasn’t only a partisan attack, but more so an attack against the majority of Americans.

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From The BBC News

President George W Bush has said victory in Iraq is essential to the US winning the “war on terror” against the Islamist groups ranged against it. The US would not leave Iraq until victory was achieved, he told military veterans in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And he warned Iran of “consequences” if it continued to defy the international community over its nuclear programme. The speech is one of a series in which Mr Bush is defending his security strategy as mid-term polls approach.

“The war we fight today is more than a military conflict,” Mr Bush said. “It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century.”

‘Twisted view of Islam’

He said those who brought down the World Trade Center in New York five years ago were united with car bombers in Baghdad, Hezbollah militants who shot rockets into Israel, and terrorists who had recently attempted to bring down flights between Britain and the US.

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From The Nation
By Ross C. Anderson

As President Bush visited Salt Lake City August 30 to promote his policies in Iraq and the “war on terror,” Salt Lake City Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson delivered this address at a peace rally outside City Hall that drew more than 2,500 people. Watch the video here, via CBS affiliate KUTV, Salt Lake City.

A patriot is a person who loves his or her country. Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation–and for our world?

And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation’s leaders tell us the truth? Let’s hear it: “Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!”

Let no one deny we are patriots. We love our country, we hold dear the values upon which our nation was founded, and we are distressed at what our President, his Administration, and our Congress are doing to, and in the name of, our great nation.

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

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From Information Clearing House
By Michael S. Rozeff

Have the President and his men accomplished their objectives in Iraq? Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia or the region. However, since he was contained before the war, little has been gained on that score. Oil is no more secure than before. In fact, Iran threatens to disrupt supply. Oil prices have risen sharply. The U.S. has not yet restored Iraq’s oil production, and issues relating to restoring the oil infrastructure and adjudicating old oil contracts remain unresolved.

Iran has become a larger and bolder threat to other countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia. It has a higher degree of influence over some factions in Iraq. Iran’s oil revenues are up. Iraq’s economy is in tatters. The U.S. is tied down in Iraq, and U.S. forces are vulnerable to attack. The shape of political things to come in Iraq is highly uncertain. To an unknown extent, the U.S. has strengthened the hand of Muslim jihadists although al-Qaeda will be little welcomed in Iraq once the U.S. withdraws. None of this was in the Iraq war blueprint.

Iraq is not a threat to Israel at present, but it was not a severe threat to Israel before the war began. Iran is now a greater threat, but Israel’s nuclear weapons deter Iran.

Democracy was a tertiary objective, but we can’t take the Bush administration seriously about this one. Assuming this was important and is supposed to mean a friendly government with a parliament, periodic elections, parties, campaigns, and all the standard democratic socialist bells and whistles, this hasn’t happened. The country is having a civil war.

Read more Why?

From The BBC News

At least 43 people have been killed and 112 wounded in a series of rocket and bomb attacks in Baghdad. The blasts occurred in predominantly Christian and Shia areas of the Iraqi capital. They come one day after a deadly strike in a busy market.

The attacks include a car bomb at a popular market, while mortar rounds, a roadside bomb and a bomb in a building have also been reported. The dead and wounded have been taken to four hospitals, local officials said.

The attacks came shortly before the nightly curfew, security officials said. “Buildings have been flattened,” a police officer told the Reuters news agency.

He added a final death toll was unlikely to be known until daylight. “There are still people trapped,” he said.

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