The standoff between President Bush and Cindy Sheehan is escalating again, with emotional appeals from both sides, each invoking sacrifices made by Americans after 9-11, the Washington Post reports Aug. 26. In a briefing for reporters after her return to Crawford, TX, Sheehan said she is planning an antiwar bus tour of the country next month, ending Sept. 24 in Washington, where she plans to set up a permanent vigil until Bush agrees to meet with her, as she has sought in Texas.

From New York Newsday:

Driver unknowingly crushes elderly woman in tragic case

BY JEROME BURDI and ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
STAFF WRITERS

August 27, 2005

An elderly woman who survived Auschwitz was killed Friday morning after she was run over by a truck turning a corner in Manhattan.

Leah Zimmerman, who was 86 and lived in Greenwich Village, died instantly, her head crushed by the 10-wheeleras it turned east onto West 14th Street, from Sixth Avenue.Edmund McMullen, 45, the truck driver, apparently did not see the woman, police said.

A forthcoming book by former FBI consultant claims al-Qaeda has acquired a stockpile of nuclear weapons, that some are already planted in major US cities, and the group is actively seeking more. Citing documents purportedly seized in Afghanistan, author Paul Williams says the terrorist organization is paying nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan to maintain its existing nuclear arsenal and assemble additional weapons.

The Economist writes in its Aug. 18-25 issue that last week, in a landmark speech in Diyarbakir, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish leader ever to admit that Turkey had mishandled the Kurdish rebellion in the country's east. Like all great nations, declared Erdogan, Turkey needed to face up to its past. He added that more democracy, not more repression, was the answer to the Kurds' longstanding grievances.

After more than 20 years in captivity, 404 prisoners of war have returned home to Morocco, the last of more than 2,400 freed by Western Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement. Two privately chartered planes carrying the prisoners, some of them more than 60 years old, landed in the southern city of Agadir. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the prisoners' release in Tindouf, southwest Algeria, followed US mediation. They were captured by the Polisario in the guerrilla war sparked by Rabat's 1975 annexation of the desert territory. The soldiers' return home could ease tension between Morocco and the Polisario's main backer Algeria, major players in a region where the West seeks stability and cooperation against Islamic militants.

From The New Standard, Aug. 24:

Responding to last month’s bombings in the London subway system, transit officials in New York City decided to hand one of the nation’s largest defense contractors $212 million to dramatically increase surveillance efforts throughout the metropolitan transportation system.

From ArtVoice of Buffalo, NY, online at MediaStudy:

I Raq and Roll Right into Fascism:
Donald Rumsfeld’s 9/11 Folly

by Michael I. Niman

Earlier this month, when Internet news reports quoted Donald Rumsfeld announcing that the Defense Department would use public funds to organize a pro-war rally on the fourth anniversary of the September 11 th attacks, many people assumed this to be an urban myth. It couldn’t be true. Rumsfeld’s supposed quest to defile the memory of 9/11 victims by pimping their tragic deaths to support an unrelated war represents a new low – even for the unabashed arrogance of the Bush administration. “Bad taste" is an understatement. This is like bringing home a hooker on your wedding anniversary. But lo and behold, this story is for real.

AP Aug. 24 reports that Iraq's southern marshlands—drained by Saddam Hussein—are showing signs of rebirth; former residents are returning, and hunting and fishing are reviving. A new U.N. report sums up the progress, saying satellite imagery shows the marshes have regained 40 percent of their former reach. However, life in the wetlands remains hard—with much poverty, little clean water and rampant sewage problems, local residents complain. Violence has kept many international aid groups from working to help restore the area. "The life is still too hard to get back to our normal life of breeding cows and buffaloes, planting and fishing," said Sabah Mushen Hussein, who left his home in the marshlands in 1993. He still works as a taxi driver in Basra to support his family.