The Indonesian government has charged a local unit of Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., the world's largest gold miner, with damaging the environment at its mine near Manado in eastern North Sulawesi province. The government also charged Newmont of Indonesia's president, Richard Ness. "He was aware of what was happening," Robert Ilat, spokesman for the North Sulawesi prosecutor's office, told a district court.

A coalition of 14 media organizations and public interest groups organized by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have filed an amicus brief in federal court in New York urging the release of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos. The coalition, which includes CBS, NBC and the New York Times, supports a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Pentagon, which has been pending since October 2003.

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Dear WW4 REPORT Readers:

Our fund-raising drive has been forced to go into extra innings due to considerably underwhelming results. We really want to know that our readers care about what we do, so please—either send something, or answer the exit poll or otherwise send us feedback. To provide some incentive, and apropos of our story this issue on the politics of the Srebrenica massacre ten years later, we are offering free to anyone who sends ten dollars or more a copy of War at the Crossroads: An Historical Guide Through the Balkan Labyrinth by Bill Weinberg and Dorie Wilsnack. Printed in pamphlet form with maps and drawings by the great Belgrade political cartoonist Miro Stefanovic, this primer covers the history of the once-and-future Yugoslavia from before the Roman Empire to the Kosovo crisis and NATO intervention of 1999—all in concise, easy-to-read form. This was a limited-run edition, and a sure-shot for collector's itemhood. Don't miss this great opportunity!

Saudi religious leaders, tribal chiefs and government officials gathered in Riyadh to formally declare their loyalty to the new monarch King Abdullah, on the heels of foreign dignitaries including French President Jacques Chirac, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, and Britain's Prince Charles. Regional Saudi leaders waited their turn to file by the new king, shake his hand, and swear their allegiance. King Abdullah made brief remarks, telling his audience that he will continue the policies of his late predecessor and half-brother King Fahd, who died Aug 1. (VOA, Aug. 3) Although this is the first formal change in the throne in 23 years, he has been the kingdom's effective ruler for 10 years. Foreign press accounts have emphasized that he is seen as a reformer, and is related by marriage to US ally King Hussein of Jordan. (AP, Aug. 1) But the Israeli security-oriented website DEBKA noted last June, when the Iraq interim regime took over, that then-Prince Abdullah has marital ties to a powerful trans-border Arab tribe that the new interim president was also a member of—and has played a critical role in Iraqi politics.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has filed suit against the city to keep police from searching the bags of passengers entering the subway. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, claims the two-week old policy violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and prohibitions against unlawful searches and seizures—while doing almost nothing to shield the city from terrorism.

In an Aug. 1 statement, Amnesty International expresses concern about the recent arrest and detention of six human rights defenders in Western Sahara, and reports that two of them had been tortured. Some of those arrested are former "disappeared", others are former prisoners of conscience.

Reuters: The plot in the Pentagon analyst/AIPAC scandal is about to thicken:

U.S. prosecutors plan to announce additional charges on Thursday against a Defense Department analyst accused of illegally disclosing classified defense information, and to charge two former officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, government sources said.

The additional charges involve Lawrence Franklin, a Pentagon analyst already accused of giving the information to two former employees of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the two sources said.

They said prosectors planned to announce charges against Steve Rosen, formerly AIPAC's policy director, and Keith Weissman, formerly its senior analyst.

Shooter was IDF deserter from W. Bank settlement
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and Agencies

A Jewish Israeli man in Israel Defense Forces uniform opened fire on bus passengers in a Druze neighborhood of the Israeli Arab town of Shfaram Thursday afternoon. Four people and the gunman were killed and 12 wounded, two of them moderately.

Security forces said the shooting was apparently a Jewish terror attack and that the attacker was a newly religious man, an IDF deserter, from the West Bank settlement of Tapuah. Security forces said the gunman, Eran Tzuberi, 19, was a member of the outlawed right-wing extremist Kach movement. Tzuberi, who went AWOL a year ago, recently moved to the West Bank from Rishon Letzion.