BLITZER: But you must be in support -- you must be quietly in favor of Bush given what John Kerry has said about Saudi Arabia including at the Democratic Convention.

AL-JUBEIR: Well, not everything that you see is actually what it is. This is, after all, the political funny season in the United States and things are said that really have no long-term...

BLITZER: So John Kerry's condemnation of some of the actions of Saudi Arabia mean nothing?

AL-JUBEIR: If he knew better I think he wouldn't say them. He's saying them for political purposes in order to rally a crowd or whatever. But we don't take these things personal. We're very thick- skinned. We know that what is said in campaigns does not translate into action on somebody in the White House.

The truckers who traverse Iraq's long, desolate stretches of highway say that outside the three northern provinces under Kurdish control, much of the countryside has become a no man's land where criminals collude with police to rob and occasionally kill truckers.

"Once, I gave them all the money I had," said Karim Amin, a grizzled 60-year-old trucker who has been robbed three times driving between Baghdad and Kut in southern Iraq.

"They said, 'That's not all you have. You've got money inside the car.' So they searched the car and found nothing. And they were so angry they nearly beat me to death."

Under Saddam Hussein, the biggest headaches truckers faced were corrupt police officers who collected bribes at checkpoints. Now, truckers say they toss and turn at night for fear that bandits will steal their vehicles or leave them dead on the side of the road the next day.

Each of Iraq's roads poses its own special peril. Each band of criminals has its unique appetite for loot.

Nelson's city hall was immediately flooded with angry phone calls, e-mails and letters, most of them from furious Americans vowing never to set foot here again.

''If you think a monument to yellow belly cowards is going to somehow give a sense of respectfulness to these shameful Americans, who turned their backs on their country, you are sadly mistaken,'' one angry American wrote in an e-mail to city hall. ''I for one will never visit your town and spend a thin dime ever again, if this thing is built.''

POLICE arrested four men in London under Britain's anti-terrorist law, as a newspaper claimed it had infiltrated a gang trying to buy radioactive material for a "dirty bomb".

The News of the World said it had co-operated with police after it infiltrated a gang that claimed to be looking for radioactive material on behalf of a Saudi described as sympathetic to "the Muslim cause".

The Saudi, whose name was not disclosed, was reportedly willing to pay £300,000 (756,000) in cash for a kilogram of "highly powerful radioactive material" from Russia known as Red Mercury.

Some good news!
A group of Iraqi citizens in Al Karkh/ Khidr Al Yas arrested 6 Syrian terrorists after placing a land mine at the gate of Bab Al Mu’a dam bridge from Al Karkh side.

According to New Sabah newspaper, after a road side bomb exploded missing an American convoy that was patrolling in the area, a group of citizens who happened to be there noticed a bunch of young men who looked foreigners (turned out to be Syrians) that were gathering near the place and that looked suspicious. The citizens found their atittude very suspicious and they were not from the area, so they jumped on them and kicked them until some of them started to bleed and then turned them on to the American forces. Eyewitnesses said that the citizens were shouting "Terrorists. You are targeting our children and families. You are killing our youths"

This incident that took place near Haifa street comes after many attacks that terrorist Arabs were accused of carrying against American forces and Iraqi police stations.

FROM THE COINER OF THE PHRASE "AXIS OF WEASELS"

It was meant to obscure the growing din of the Take the Money Enron scandal, a scam in which Bush's own Axis of Weasels is deeply implicated.

And by the way it took the right-wing press a year to co-opt and misuse a term I coined after last year's SUA inanity:
Axis of Weasels

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in Palestine!.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China.Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N. Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of Palestine! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.
(Condi picks up the phone.) Condi: Rice, here.
George: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you get chinese food in the Middle East?

A Saudi court sentenced a university professor to five years in prison Sunday on charges of sowing dissent after he compared U.S. killings of Iraqi civilians to Osama bin Laden's terror attacks.

Saeed bin Mubarak al-Zaeer, a 57-year-old university professor, was sentenced by the court in the capital Riyadh. The sentencing took place without the presence of a lawyer representing al-Zaeer.

Al-Zaeer was detained by security forces in April after he appeared on the Al-Jazeera television station and made comments comparing the killing of civilians in terror attacks by bin Laden's al-Qaida group with Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. forces or Palestinians killed by Israelis.

. . .while Fox News channel and the Italian state channel RAI have been barred. . .

Arnold Beichman, a Hoover Institution research fellow. . .

The minimum wage bill would have raised California's minimum wage from $6.75 to $7.25 Jan. 1 and to $7.75 on Jan. 1, 2006. The federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.

Bill supporters said the minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation, but Schwarzenegger said the legislation would have discouraged economic growth.

"Now is not the time to create barriers to our economic recovery or reverse the momentum we have generated," he said in a veto message. "I want to create more jobs and make every California job more secure."

Terrorism is a technical term. It describes a modus operandi, a tactic. We side with security professionals who define terrorism as the deliberate targeting of civilians in pursuit of a political goal.

New U.S. Department of Defence documents, obtained by The Globe and Mail, say that Mr. Khadr, who will turn 18 this weekend, is a trained al-Qaeda operative who planted land mines intended to blow up U.S. vehicles. This is said to have happened right before his capture during a firefight in July, 2002, in which he is believed to have killed an American soldier.

"Circa June, 2002, the detainee conducted a surveillance mission where he went to an airport near Khost to collect information on U.S. convoy movements," the documents say. "On July 20, 2002, detainee planted 10 mines against U.S. forces in the mountain region between Khost and Ghardez. This region is a choke point where U.S. convoys would travel."

The documents further say that Mr. Khadr has admitted working as a translator to co-ordinate al-Qaeda land-mine missions and "acknowledged that these land-mine missions are acts of terrorism and that participating in them would make him a terrorist."

The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt.

The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units.

The world's oldest news agency, Reuters, says it will complain to CanWest Global's newspaper chain about its use of the word "terrorist" when editing stories dealing with the Middle East.

Papers owned by CanWest Publications, Canada's largest newspaper chain, have been altering words and phrases in some newswire copy stories dealing with the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thereby changing their meaning.

"This is another troubling example of clear bias by CanWest publications like the National Post and the Ottawa Citizen in applying different standards towards Arabs and Muslims when reporting," said NCCAR Executive Director Mazen Chouaib.

"We have complained repeatedly that there is a perceived anti-Arab agenda with these publications and we hope that this will force them to change their methods and expose to Canadians the validity of our point of view."

Arab and Muslim advocacy groups, undeniably upset about the way their communities have become identified with terrorism, have had a choice: they could denounce the horrendous acts being carried out in their name, or they could whine about people daring to say Hamas, Hezbollah and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are something more sinister than advocacy groups.

Marine Cpl. Travis Friedrichsen, a sandy-haired 21-year-old from Denison, Iowa, used to take Tootsie Rolls and lollipops out of care packages from home and give them to Iraqi children. Not anymore.

"My whole opinion of the people here has changed. There aren't any good people," said Friedrichsen, who says his first instinct now is to scan even youngsters' hands for weapons.

Subtle hostility extends to Iraqi adults, and evidence of betrayal among some of the country's officials is causing some American troops to have second thoughts.

"We're out here giving our lives for these people," said Sgt. Jesse Jordan, 25, of Grove Hill, Ala. "You'd think they'd show some gratitude. Instead, they don't seem to care."

A man gave a Nazi salute, shouted out "White Power," and called a stranger "Jew-boy" just moments before knocking him down outside a St. Louis diner and stomping on his head with work boots, jurors were told Wednesday.

The man on trial, Kevin A. Johnson, "spewed out these racial slurs" in a burst of hatred toward the victim, Michael Schnelle, said Assistant Circuit Attorney Robert Craddick in opening statements at Johnson's murder trial.

The injuries were inflicted about 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 1, 2002, and Schnelle died of his injuries the next day, Craddick said.

Serial Republican Victim complains for the THIRD straight presidential election of being assaulted and has his family assist.

The NHL board of governors has given unanimous support to a player lockout, The Canadian Press has learned.

A source said the decision was taken Wednesday morning at a board meeting in New York. The league scheduled a news conference for 2:30 p.m. EDT to deliver the news.

With the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire at midnight Wednesday, the decision means the NHL season is officially on ice.

A little-noticed but chilling scene at Opa-locka Airport outside Miami last month demonstrates that the Bush administration's commitment to fighting international terrorism can be overtaken by presidential politics--even if that means admitting known terrorists onto U.S. soil.

That's what happened when outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso inexplicably pardoned four Cuban exiles convicted of "endangering public safety" for their role in an assassination plot against Fidel Castro during a 2000 international summit in Panama.

After their release, three of the four immediately flew via private jet to Miami, where they were greeted with a cheering fiesta organized by the hard-line anti-Castro community. Federal officials briefly interviewed the pardoned men--all holders of U.S. passports--and then let them go their way.

The terrorist backgrounds of Posada's three comrades-in-arms are as well documented as their leader's. Guillermo Novo once fired a bazooka at the U.N. building; in February 1979, he was convicted and sentenced to 40 years for conspiracy in the 1976 assassination of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, in Washington. (His conviction was subsequently vacated on a legal technicality.) Gaspar Jimenez was convicted and imprisoned in Mexico in 1977 for murdering a Cuban consulate official; he was released by authorities in 1983. Pedro Remon received a 10-year sentence in 1986 for conspiring to kill Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations in 1980. These are violent men. Panamanian prosecutors said they had planned to detonate 33 pounds of explosives while Castro was speaking at a university in Panama. Had they not been intercepted by the authorities, the blast not only would have killed the Cuban president but quite possibly hundreds of others gathered to hear him speak during the inter-American summit.

For a small but powerful minority in the Cuban American community, the Posada gang are freedom fighters.

THE GERMAN PRESS is beginning to notice that Iraq isn't a quagmire after all: "The Americans have eliminated all taxes and import customs for eight months, more than a half million cars have rolled into the country since the war ended. Under Saddam it was a strictly regulated matter and to get a car one needed a lot of money along with good connections."

'We used to be able to use banks and bank transfers. Now it is harder,' Abu Mujahed said. 'Often sympathisers buy cars in Saudi Arabia or Jordan and we get them driven to Baghdad or Basra and we sell them. A supporter in the UK has recently sent an Opel pick-up.

A few days ago, a new poll showed that a majority of Canadians do not see their country as a potential terror target.

A majority of Canadians think Canada won't be a likely target for terrorists in the next two years, a poll released yesterday revealed.

We can bury our heads in the sand and keep believing these people won't do anything to inoffensive, friendly Canada, or we can do all we can to stop them. It's our choice.

The first U.S. military intelligence soldier to be court-martialed over the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was sentenced Saturday to eight months in jail, a reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge.

Specialist Armin Cruz, 24, had pleaded guilty to maltreatment and conspiracy to maltreat detainees at the prison near Baghdad on the night of October 25, 2003. The court martial accepted his guilty plea.

From: Robert McClelland
To: malkin@comcast.net
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004
Subject: Congratulations

Dear Michelle Malkin

I just wanted to congratulate you on the fine work you are doing and for becoming the darling diva of fine white Christian organizations like Stormfront who love your columns on immigration and your passioned defense of internment. You should consider this quite an honour since it's not often these people become so enamored of someone who is not a white Christian just like they are. That your words can so easily make them brush aside their prejudices speaks volumes about the validity of your work.

But don't take my word for it, just read the praise of one of Stormfront's members who goes by the name of SkinsFan65.

"Michelle Malkin is a Filipino American whose frequent syndicated columns, media presence and books are great for the anti-immigration cause I believe in...."

How can you not beam with pride knowing that your work is being used to further the good cause of the fine upstanding white Christian folks at Stormfront. Surely this makes all the laboured hours spent researching your work worth it.

For years these topics were only whispered about in backroom meetings by these white Christians who were never taken seriously by anyone. But now, with your aid, they can hold their heads up high and discuss these subjects out in the open amongst their peers like you and all your followers. You have done them a great service by moving their views into the mainstream and for that I'm quite certain they would be willing to make you an honourary member despite your non-white Christian heritage.

Once again, congratulations on your success and keep up the good work. The white Christians at Stormfront are depending on you.

Sincerely,
Robert McClelland

Canada is giving the United Nations $1-million to investigate human-rights abuses in Darfur even though Ottawa is still not ready to call the atrocities committed in that region of western Sudan a genocide.

The Canadian contribution will help the UN to determine the extent of the human-rights abuses and identify who is responsible, International Co-operation Minister Aileen Carroll said yesterday.

We honour the 24 Canadians who died (or are missing and presumed to have died) in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.A., according to families and the official list of Canadian victims as released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Arczynski, Mike * Bailey, Garnet
Barkway, David * Basnicki, Ken
Collison, Joe * Connolly, Cindy
Dack, Arron * Egan, Christine
Egan, Michael * Elmarry, Albert
Ewart, Meredith * Feidelberg, Peter
Filipov, Alexander * Gerhardt, Ralph
Lee, Stuart * Ludvigsen, Mark
Mascarenhas, Bernard * McArthur, Colin
Pelletier, Mike * Robson, Donald
Santos, Rufino * Tomasevic, Vladimir
Vincelli, Chantal * Williams, Debbie
These 18 men and 6 women, aged 29 to 70, were born in cities and towns from all across Canada. Most of them lived in New York and worked or were visiting in the World Trade Center. Two were passengers in the aircraft that hit the buildings.

What really rocks, though, is that this whole to-do has forced bloggers to do a lot of research about antique typewriters. Next thing you know, they'll have to learn about "leaving the house" or "taking notes". . .

Dan Rather and CBS must suffer extreme consequences for continuing to stonewall the American public on the putative Bush memos. Because for decades CBS has had one of the most important licenses in American broadcasting, they have special responsibility to the people of this nation. The puerile defense offered by Dan Rather this evening on the CBS News (transcripts here) is an insult to the citizens of this country and potential liability to the two-party system as we know it. The extraordinary personal selfishness of Rather at a time national crisis is beyond comprehension. If this continues much longer, Viacom better consider dumping CBS fast.

Let me save everyone a whole lot of time. They are genuine. How do I know? Because the internet is currently awash in wingnuts claiming the memos are fakes. Ergo, they are for real. Q.E.D.

Some people may feel that I'm just being flip here. Is that so, some people? Tell me: how rich would you be right now if, every time something was posted on a right-wing message board, or everytime Drudge had an exclusive, or any time Rush Limbaugh revealed a secret truth that the liberal media won't tell you, you called up your bookie and put down $20 even money on "bullshit"? The correct answer is: "pretty fucking rich". The correct answer is: "I would never, never lose." So, if anyone doubts my methodology, I have a crisp new $20 bill that just told me that I'm 100% right and you're just too dumb to see it. If any of you champs out there think me and Andrew Jackson are both wrong, well then, today's your lucky day, because we're paying 2:1. If you need us, we'll be on the couch playing ESPN NHL 2K5. Peace.

And my Microsoft Word version, typed in 2004, is an exact match for the documents trumpeted by CBS News as "authentic".

Indicators measure the nation's unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says it misses the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay.

"That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago," Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. "Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay."

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards responded that Cheney's comments show how "out of touch" he and President Bush are with the economy.

"If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking," Edwards said in a statement.

The military has lost key evidence in its investigation into the death of an Iraqi man beaten by Marine prison guards, throwing into doubt the status of a court-martial of one of the guards.

The missing evidence includes bones taken from the throat and chest of Nagem Hatab, attorneys said Thursday at a hearing for Maj. Clarke Paulus.

Military officials on Tuesday dropped criminal charges against a soldier accused of forcing an Iraqi civilian to jump to his death from a bridge over the Tigris River.

Defence attorneys have disputed the circumstances of Hassoun's death after he and his cousin were picked up for being out after curfew. They said investigators bungled the case by not exhuming the body and doing an autopsy.

Investigators acknowledged they never saw the body, saying they relied on the word of relatives and a video made by the victim's family that shows a corpse in a coffin.

Free speech is one thing, but Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says he'll be tougher on loose-lipped caucus members who trample party principles.

Outbursts on abortion, same-sex rights and bilingualism played into Liberal hands during the June election campaign, Harper acknowledged Wednesday in an interview. Those mistakes won't happen again, he vowed.

"In a campaign, the whole issue is about what the party's running on. You expect members, if they're going to be on the team, to be on the team. Some of what happened last time can't be repeated, and it won't be repeated."

Harper will be "a more severe judge" of those whose public musings stray from the party platform, he said. He didn't offer details.

Leviticus 24:19-21
19 "If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him. 21 "Thus the one who kills an animal shall make it good, but the one who kills a man shall be put to death.

Then he sends his son Jesus, his messenger, who taught us how we are to treat others today in the new covenant:

Matthew 5:38-48
38 "You have heard that it was said, "AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' 39 "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41 "Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you

What a Flip Flopper! One day it's stone the adulterous bitch, the next day its love the poor sinning woman. How could anyone vote for such a flip flopper?

South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb said today he may vote against George W. Bush in the Electoral College, even if the president carries West Virginia's popular vote.

Robb, long known as a maverick Republican, said he is considering using his position as one of the state's five Republican electors to protest what he believes are misguided policies of the current administration.

There is no provision in the West Virginia code that controls what an elector does at the Electoral College or provides any punishment for faithless electors.

There have been eight electors in American history who have chosen to go against the popular vote in their home states, including Margarette Leach of Huntington, who declined to vote for Michael Dukakis in 1988, even though Dukakis carried West Virginia.

Canadians are outraged by reports of the barbaric acts of terrorism today in North Ossetia and by the unbelievable cruelty of hostage-takers firing on fleeing children.

I wish to extend my deepest condolences and sympathies on behalf of all Canadians to the many families victimized by these terrible acts. While we are relieved that many of the hostages appear to have been returned to safety, we are deeply saddened by reports of innocent children and adults who have been injured or killed.

Paul Martin: "unbelievable"

This is how the prime minister described the siege of the school in Beslan, Russia, that saw Chechen and Arab terrorists indiscriminately kill babies and children last week.

What happened close to the Chechen border may be "unbelievable" in Paul Martin’s world, but to those of us who live in the real world, it was anything but.

The press, however, generally shies away from the word terrorist, preferring euphemisms. Take the assault that led to the deaths of some 400 people, many of them children, in Beslan, Russia, on September 3. Journalists have delved deep into their thesauruses, finding at least twenty euphemisms for terrorists:

Assailants--National Public Radio.
Attackers--the Economist.
Bombers--the Guardian.
Captors--the Associated Press.
Commandos--Agence France-Presse refers to the terrorists both as "membres du commando" and "commando."
Criminals--the Times (London).
Extremists--United Press International.
Fighters--the Washington Post.
Group--the Australian.
Guerrillas--in a New York Post editorial.
Gunmen--Reuters.
Hostage-takers--the Los Angeles Times.
Insurgents--in a New York Times headline.
Kidnappers--the Observer (London).
Militants--the Chicago Tribune.
Perpetrators--the New York Times.
Radicals--the BBC.
Rebels--in a Sydney Morning Herald headline.
Separatists--the Christian Science Monitor.

And my favorite:

Activists--the Pakistan Times.

Watch this ABC news video of a young Republican supporter kicking a female protester inside Madison Square Garden as she was lying on the ground being held by three secret service agents. The protesters were arrested. The young Republican was not. A search is on for his identity. Have you seen him?

A member of a Christian group has been fired after allegedly punching several veterans marching for presidential candidate John Kerry in Monday's Harvest Festival parade in Windsor, Colo.

Russell Laughlin, 40, of Nunn, was a member of the northern Colorado FamilyLife Marriage Conference and was walking ahead of 175 members of Veterans for Kerry.

Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. More than one thousand of America’s sons and daughters have made the ultimate sacrifice. Our nation honors their service and joins with their families and loved ones in mourning their loss. We must never forget the price they have paid. And we must meet our sacred obligation to all our troops to do all we can to make the right decisions in Iraq so that we can bring them home as soon as possible.

Harper blamed the continuing border closure on U.S. protectionist trade policies and deteriorating Canada-U.S. relations, saying he doesn't think it will open this year.

"This is strictly a political problem. It has nothing to do with the safety of Canadian beef," said Harper. "The American actions are blatantly protectionist."

Amnesty International and medical experts from seven countries have sent an open letter to the heads of government in China, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Iran, Sudan and the USA urging them to stop using the death penalty against children.

The letter has been signed by 17 medical experts with outstanding credentials in the field of child and adolescent psychology, psychiatry and social development.

International standards prohibit the execution of child offenders--people who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime. These standards include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the American Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The relevant standards are respected by the overwhelming majority of the 80 countries which still retain and use the death penalty.

Thailand: 423 troops leaving early on Aug. 31 instead of Sept. 20; 20 withdrawn on Aug. 10.

Norway: 10 currently in Iraq; 140 withdrawn on June 30. Cited reason: growing domestic opposition and peacekeepers needed elsewhere, such as Afghanistan.

Dominican Republic: 302 withdrawn on May 4. Cited reason: growing domestic opposition.

Honduras: 370 withdrawn on May 12. Cited reason: Troops were sent for reconstruction, not combat.

Nicaragua: 115 withdrawn on Feb. 4. Cited reason: lack of funds.

Philippines: 51 withdrawn on July 19. Cited reason: to save lives of hostages.

Singapore: 160 withdrawn on April 4. Cited reason: completed humanitarian mission.

Spain: 1,300 withdrawn on May 4. Cited reason: new government fulfilled campaign pledge.

The two men [William Sullivan and George Reissfelder] had been convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery during a $20,000 payroll holdup at the Railway Express Agency at Boston's South Station in 1966. Witnesses identified Reissfelder as being at the scene of the crime.

But for the 15 years of his incarceration, Reissfelder insisted that he did not commit the murder.

He served seven years of a life term in Walpole state prison before he was granted a one-day furlough, and then failed to return to the prison. Three years later, a Florida police officer was trying to arrest him for writing a bad check when Reissfelder pulled a gun and it went off.

No one was injured, but Reissfelder pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder because he was already facing a life term in Massachusetts and he had been told the sentences would run concurrently, according to Kerry.

In 1982, Kerry assisted his partner Roanne Sragow in obtaining a new trial for George Reissfelder, who had been wrongfully convicted as the 1967 murder accomplice of an infamous Boston criminal named William "Silky" Sullivan. Reissfelder was serving a life sentence, and in 1980, with the help of a so-called "jailhouse lawyer," a judge decided to appoint Sragow to challenge Reissfelder's conviction. Kerry and Sragow discovered that the convicted murderer, Silky Sullivan, while dying of leukemia in prison, confessed to a priest that Reissfelder was innocent. Kerry and Sragow obtained an affidavit from the priest, confirming that Sullivan confessed that Reissfelder was innocent. With this evidence, and the testimony of a Boston detective who believed that others and not Reissfelder were involved, Kerry and Sragow convinced the judge. Judge Andrew R. Linscott granted a new trial, the district attorney decided against filing new charges, and Reissfelder was subsequently released.

The other defendant, George Reissfelder, was arrested in a more roundabout way. Then twenty-six years old, Reissfelder already had a substantial criminal record--an armed robbery when he was seventeen, bad-check charges, and domestic violence against his wife. On the night of the murder of Michael Shaw, Reissfelder told his girlfriend that he was planning an armed robbery in South Boston. This information alarmed the girlfriend, who told her father of the plan, and he went to the police. Even though South Station is not in South Boston, the tie was close enough for the police, and they rousted Reissfelder the following afternoon. They found a gun, which tests later showed had not been fired, but which a witness said looked like one that had been brandished during the South Station murder, and Reissfelder was charged as Sullivan’s accomplice. Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for both men.

One night during the trial, in July of 1967, a lawyer from Reissfelder’s defense team, John Costello, met the head of homicide investigations for the Boston Police Department. The officer made an astonishing revelation: he knew Reissfelder was innocent. "He told me, ‘We know your guy wasn’t there,’" Costello said recently. "They didn’t want to lose the conviction of Sullivan, because they knew he was the right guy, by admitting they had the wrong guy with Reissfelder." The authorities apparently figured that if they admitted they were wrong about Reissfelder, the jury might think they were wrong about Sullivan, too. "It was a death-penalty case," Costello went on, "and they were thinking this way. It was unbelievable." Costello brought the officer’s admission to the attention of the judge, but the officer denied making the statement, and the trial continued.

Canadians who casually insult the United States are putting jobs and the long-term economic health of this country at risk, Industry Minister David Emerson says.

Asked about Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish's recent gibe about American "idiots," Emerson said, "I think we need to have a national discussion so that we eliminate any doubt from people's minds that we have a very, very important stake in our relationship with the United States."

"And if we value our communities and our jobs and the jobs for our kids and our grandkids, we better come to terms with that."

FBI counterintelligence agents are investigating whether several Pentagon officials leaked classified information to Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to a law enforcement official and other people familiar with the case.

Pentagon civilians in the office in which analyst Larry A. Franklin worked lobbied for a hawkish policy toward Iran and tried to have those views inserted into a highly classified presidential document that's a focus of an FBI espionage investigation, current and former U.S. officials said.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Franklin shared the document with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israel lobby, in an attempt to enlist Israeli support for their proposals.

The Turkish government hinted Sept. 1 that it may send troops into Iraq to fight Turkish Kurd rebels there.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters here that Turkey would do "whatever its security required."

"The United States is not yet in a position to launch a military operation against the [rebel group] PKK," Gul said in an apparent sign of growing Turkish impatience with the United States. "We shall not proceed by relying on another country. We know how to deal with our enemy."

When Dr Thomas Butler noticed vials of plague bacteria were missing from his Texas university lab, he did the right thing and informed the FBI - only to find himself the prime suspect in a bio-terrorism investigation. Now he's in jail, but his fate was sealed by paranoia and prejudice.

Ashcroft immediately briefed the President on the missing plague. It did not matter that the FBI soon came to the conclusion that the vials had probably been destroyed accidentally. These 30 containers of yersinia pestis were now a national emergency, and Dr Thomas Butler, who had written a paper in the 1970s that pioneered oral rehydration therapy for diarrhoea and who could thus, with no arrogance, claim to have saved millions of lives, was now Dr Plague, suspected bio-terrorist.

According to his lawyers he was offered a deal - plead guilty and get six months in jail. He wouldn't plead guilty, he said, because he wasn't guilty. So the prosecutors threw the book at him. "It's called count stacking," explains Turley. "They throw as many counts as they can at the jury and hope they'll split the difference."

They found him guilty on some contractual charges, but acquitted him on other charges relating to the same contract. "These are minor contractual disputes!" says Turley, still incredulous. "They could have been an internal university matter. We haven't found a single case in history like this. The government has taken civil university rules and criminalised them."

Two French journalists are in peril of their lives at the hands of thugs in Iraq. Ah-ha, says the Globe's man: a chance to teach the surrender monkeys some hard truths about life in the modern world. "France has been astonished to learn that it is in the same position as so many others," the editorialist writes.

It is always a bit pathetic when people who discovered terrorism on Sept. 11, 2001 think they're ahead of everyone else. Memo to the Globe: Islamic fundamentalists have been perpetrating murderous attacks against French citizens and on French soil for decades. France has resisted through a far more sophisticated and, in some cases, brutal use of its police, intelligence services, courts and legislatures than anything the Globe and Mail would have tolerated on Sept. 10.