Free Republic

PRETORIA (Reuters) - South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma pledged on Thursday to address growing poverty among whites, trying to broaden his support ahead of next year's election. After winning leadership of the African National Congress last year, Zuma is the clear front-runner to succeed President Thabo Mbeki when he steps down in 2009 but faces a tougher battle to keep the ANC's sweeping parliamentary majority. Zuma, who already wields tremendous influence as the head of the ruling party, has lobbied the government to do more to fight poverty and unemployment. While blacks are the biggest beneficiaries of anti-poverty...

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Master Sgt. Cirildo Valencio, U.S. Army, of Carrizo Springs, Texas. He will be buried on Aug. 4 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Representatives from the Army met with Valencio’s next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process on behalf of the Secretary of the Army. Valencio was assigned to Company L, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st...

Sen. John McCain will have his own international summit -- of a sort -- tomorrow when he meets with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is the keynote speaker at a three-day seminar at the Aspen Institute in Colorado that will bring together scholars, teachers and others to explore Tibet's history and culture. McCain already had a speech scheduled in Denver, and will then fly to Aspen for a private meeting with the leader.

CONCORD – A federal judge dismissed Thursday a Nashua man's legal challenge that Republican presidential nominee-to-be Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was ineligible because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.

John McCain's vice presidential running mate selection should be put in perspective. In a presidential campaign, there are only a handful of occasions when a running mate has news value: the day of the announcement and the few days following; the nominee's convention speech debut; the joint kickoff rally; and the televised debate with the counterpart running mate. Otherwise, by mid-September John McCain's VP choice will be consigned to secondary media markets in critical electoral states, along with tours through solid red states for fund raising, party-building and local-candidate support. National television and cable networks will include the vice presidential...

(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that homosexuals should be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military. Homosexual conduct is currently prohibited by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and is cause for removal from the service. Under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy instituted by President Clinton in 1993, however, the military does not ask recruits if they are homosexual, and homosexuals may serve as long as they do not talk their orientation or engage in conduct prohibited by the UCMJ. According to a February 2005 study by the Government...

Protestors Blame War For Pain At The Pump Citizen Action of New York chanted "No more war" Thursday afternoon in front of an Exxon station in Binghamton. The group believes the war in Iraq is the reason for high gas prices. But would an abrupt end to the war cause a quick drop in prices at the pump? That's what the protestors believe. "They're dependent on the Middle East but at the same time if they stop having wars with the Middle East then we won't have to pay so much," said a concerned Binghamton resident. Members of Citizen Action...

58 years later, records unsealed in Rosenberg spy case After 58 years, historians and journalists will have a chance to examine the secret grand jury testimony of witnesses in the espionage case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The couple was investigated in 1950, tried in 1951 for conspiracy to commit espionage and convicted and sentenced to death in 1953. Cold War scholars are hoping the grand jury transcripts will shed light on some nagging questions about the case -- primarily, just how strong the case was against Ethel Rosenberg. The National Security Archive, the American Historical Association, the Georgetown University...

Abraham didn't exist? The Exodus didn't happen? The Bible's Buried Secrets, a new PBS documentary, is likely to cause a furor. "It challenges the Bible's stories if you want to read them literally, and that will disturb many people," says archaeologist William Dever, who specializes in Israel's history. "But it explains how and why these stories ever came to be told in the first place, and how and why they were written down." The Nova program will premiere Nov. 18. PBS presented a clip and a panel discussion at the summer tour of the Television Critics Association. The program says...

I'm optimistic that in this election we are choosing between two good and uniquely qualified individuals seeking the job with a least a more inherent civility, let alone grasp of history, than we've experienced in the last eight years. This can only be a good thing. I like John McCain. I wouldn't walk across the street to shake George Bush's hand, but I'd walk a country mile, barefoot, to shake McCain's.

There have been numerous calls in recent days for Michael Savage, who hosts "The Michael Savage Show" for Talk Radio Network (the "Network"), to be fired or suspended for his brief 84 seconds of commentary concerning autism during the July 16th broadcast of the Show. Promptly after the Network's management learned of the comments in issue, the Network commenced an investigation into the particulars and the circumstances of those comments. This investigation began with the Network's CEO, Mark Masters, personally contacting Dr. Savage to address the concerns and obtain an explanation of the comments directly from Dr. Savage. In that...

IMF welcomes US rescue plan for Fannie, FreddiePosted: 25 July 2008 0152 hrs WASHINGTON : The International Monetary Fund on Thursday welcomed the US government's plans to aid mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and ease the housing crisis. "The announced measures on Fannie and Freddie go in the right direction and are consistent with approaches that the Fund has supported," IMF spokesman David Hawley said at a news conference. "And we agree that public sector intervention is warranted, accompanied by improved supervision." His comments in response to a question came a day after a wide-ranging housing rescue...

when the sweeping changes that he insists will curb his powers and reinvigorate parliament were passed by a single vote Deputies and senators from both houses of parliament gasped when the outcome was announced at the gilded chateau of Versailles, with 539 votes for and 357 against the constitutional bill, which required a three-fifths majority to go through. Only one opposition Socialist voted in favour of the reform - the former culture minister, Jacques Lang, whose support proved decisive. Mr Sarkozy said he was "delighted" by the vote. "It is democracy that has won," said the President on his way...

Advanced S-300 on way to Iran July 24, 2008 The Jerusalem Post Yaakov Katz Iran is likely to begin receiving advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems by the end of the year, defense officials said Wednesday. The S-300 is one of the best multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time. Iran has already procured several S-300 systems to protect its nuclear facilities although reports have differed as to whether the systems have already been supplied by Russia. The systems will likely...

Terrified workers at a mining compound in one of Russia's most isolated regions are refusing to go to work after a pack of giant bears attacked and ate two of their colleagues. At least 30 of the hungry animals have been seen prowling close to the mines in northern Kamchatka in search of food, where the mangled remains of the two workers, both guards, were found last week. The co-workers at the compound in the Olyotorsky district are trapped and frightened: the gruesome discovery has left them too scared to venture out. A team of snipers, with orders to shoot...

The latest chain e-mail smear against Barack Obama: He "blew off" troops at an Afghan base to shoot hoops for a publicity photo. The letter was apparently written by a Utah Army National Guard intelligence officer in a linguist unit at Bagram Airfield who claimed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was rude to G.I.s. "As the soldiers where [sic] lined up to shake his hand he blew them off," wrote the Task Force Wasatch "battle captain." But angry Army brass debunked the Obama-bashing soldier's allegations, which went viral Thursday over the Web and on military blogs such as Blackfive. The...

Iraq banned from Beijing Olympics Seven Iraqi athletes from five different sports qualified for the Olympics Athletes from Iraq have been banned from taking part at this summer's Beijing Games, the International Olympic Committee has announced...

Let me state for the record, I have no favorite in this race. I'm not a political partisan. I view the two candidates as well matched in one respect: they are each equally and fatally flawed, albeit in very different ways. That said, it's troubling to stand by and watch major media outlets drool over one candidate while ignoring the other. The media love Obama, for the moment at least, because he's young, hip and of color. They are bored by McCain for the opposite reasons. One man once described himself to me as being "boringly male and embarrassingly white."...

The best thing about democracy is that elected officials are expected to care about voters’ wellbeing and to be willing to provide help when voters are in need. But New York City Councilperson John Liu Democrat did not seem to care when he shut out some of his constituents who came to complain about attacks and death threats from pro-communist mobs that occurred in Liu’s district...Falun Gong practitioners contacted Liu shortly after the attacks started, only to be rebuffed again and again. Meanwhile, they found Liu’s door was wide open to their attackers. Besides meeting with the attackers, Liu also...

GLASGOW (Reuters) - Britain's ruling Labour Party lost a parliamentary seat in one of its traditional strongholds, a stinging electoral setback for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, results showed on Friday. Defeat in Thursday's poll in the Glasgow East constituency, which Labour won with a huge 13,500 majority at the 2005 election, will fuel Labour discontent with Brown's leadership and could lead to moves to oust him, some analysts believe. The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) scored a dramatic victory by a slim 365-vote margin as voters in Britain's third-largest city turned against Labour in droves. The result, following a series...

Misplaced Priorities A sweating Harry Reid thinks he's putting Tom Coburn on the hot seat. By David Freddoso While the top priority of most Americans — including a growing number of moderate Congressional Democrats — is legislative action on domestic oil exploration, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) wants the world’s greatest deliberative body to set aside concerns over skyrocketing energy prices to deal with such pressing issues as interstate pet-monkey sales, a botanical garden in Maryland, and the establishment of a committee to encourage celebration of the War of 1812 bicentennial. Reid’s cloture motion on a 35-bill package...

Barack Obama and his team agree: At 46 years old, with no military service or foreign policy experience, having only spent three years as a United States senator, he is master of the universe.Susan Rice, Obama's senior foreign policy advisor, informed the German news magazine Der Spiegel in an interview published today that her candidate "bows to nobody in understanding this world."Rice prefaced this conceit by relating his world travels: "Senator Obama has travelled to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia many times before. He lived in Asia."This evening ABC News Nightline will broadcast an interview with Obama...

MOSUL, IRAQ: The Battle for Mosul over the past several years has worked as a microcosm for the larger Iraqi conflict, with Coalition and Iraqi forces successfully imposing its will only after Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups held large parts of the city and region for long periods. Control over the city of 1.9 million people and the surrounding Ninewa province have been lost to Coalition and government forces twice since 2003. Only a successful security operation in May has brought attacks to their lowest recorded levels since the conflict began. Operation “Lion’s Roar” in May involved 5,000 Coalition...

<p>Obama, all his advisers, and the fawning MSM are clueless.</p> <p>As mistakes go, I would say this is the ultimate. A prepared speech (not an off-the-teleprompter gaffe), announced days in advance to the world. How is a mistake this huge possible? There is no chance he misread (misspoke), otherwise, there would be no mention of Belfast in that portion of the speech.</p>

Beginning with getting wrong the bio of his father, Barack Obama Sr. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama Jr. gave a speech in Berlin tonight and let me count the factual errors. The first factual error to leap out was this: At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning - his dream - required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life. Um no....

Birds falling from sky in west Amanda O'Brien | July 23, 2008 BIRDS are again dropping dead from the sky in Western Australia, sparking fears of a threat to public health, just seven months after more than 5000 birds died from lead poisoning in the regional town of Esperance. Almost 200 seagulls have been found dead in two days in the popular beachside suburbs of Woodman Point and Henderson, south of Perth, sending baffled authorities into a tailspin. Autopsies have failed to explain the mystery.

BALAD, Iraq – Iraqi Special Operations Forces detained eight suspected members of the Islamic State of Iraq, a front organization for al-Qaeda in Iraq, in Mosul July 22.The ISOF conducted the operation to disrupt an active improvised explosive device cell in Mosul that operates in an area reportedly known to support criminals. Two other suspected terrorists were detained during the operation.-30-

This now available from the U.S. State Department: "2009 Mosques of America Wall Calendar: Limited Edition for Ramadan." "Yep, you read that correctly. It's 'perfect for Muslim outreach efforts," according to a commentary at the Gates of Vienna blog. "Where's the ACLU on this one?" Screen capture of State Department's offering of "Mosques of America" calendar The product was being advertised by "Global Publishing Solutions," a division of the U.S. State Department, until bloggers started talking about it. Officials then apparently hid the page behind the security of a password-protected wall. However, the page is still viewable in a Google...

Posted on Sun, Jun. 01, 2008 A boy's passport to the world Six-year-old Cameron Hasson's world just got a little larger. The amateur radio license he recently earned puts him in touch with folks from all over. He's a bona fide “ham” – probably the youngest in North Carolina and maybe the U.S., according to his instructor, Joe Hullender with the Gastonia Area Amateur Radio Club. All that talk going on out in radio land – endless conversations about the weather and gas prices and whatever – Cameron takes it all in. The world has opened up. He feels more...

SUGAR LAND — In case their Plantation Bend neighbors had any questions about how Doug and Wendy McKain feel about Barack Obama, the bumper sticker on their pickup could be a clue. But when Chynethia Gragg spotted the sticker — depicting someone urinating on the name "Obama" — Sugar Land police say, she stopped to express her disapproval, and that's when things got ugly. Gragg, 35, has been charged with making a terroristic threat after confronting the McKains, telling them the sticker was racist, police said. Gragg declined to comment, and her attorney, Roy Smith, said he would have to...

HONOLULU -- Federal officials said they netted 43 illegal aliens in an immigration raid on O`ahu. (snip) Agents said the aliens were employed by a company called The Farms which does agricultural work. The 43 men were all citizens of Mexico.

For nearly two years, the South Florida middle school art teacher forced the boy to have sex in a classroom supply closet. Sometimes, Aaron Mohanlal would call in sick to work, take the boy to his home for sex and drop the seventh-grader back off at school at the end of the day. To keep the abuse secret, Mohanlal bought the 13-year-old a cell phone and created nicknames for their genitalia. When police arrested him, the teacher was caught on hidden video trying to destroy letters threatening the boy if he ever told. Last summer, a Broward County jury convicted...

Sen. John McCain pulled slightly ahead of Sen. Barack Obama in a new poll of likely Colorado voters, erasing a five-point lead the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee had a month ago. If the election were held today, 46 percent in Colorado would pick the Republican nominee versus 44 percent for Obama, according to the poll released today by Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University with the Wall Street Journal and Washingtonpost.com. Though the margin is a statistical tie, McCain has gained since June, according to the survey. Obama led in Colorado 49 percent to McCain's 44 percent a month ago. "Sen. Barack Obama's...

Deputy Assembly Speaker Neil Cohen is being investigated for alleged possession of child pornography, according to two of his Democratic colleagues who said they brought the matter to the attention of law enforcement. In a joint statement, Sen. Raymond Lesniak and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (both D-Union) confirmed they alerted authorities to the possibility Cohen (D-Union) had child pornography on his computers. "As the facts became apparent in our office, we notified the appropriate agency and will continue to assist in any way possible," Lesniak and Cryan said. "While it was our proactive steps that led to the investigation to this...

He does not include these little persons in his claims to care about the poor and his concern for the immigrants. Yet, they are, in the words of a great treasure of our age, the late “Mother” now “Blessed” Teresa of Calcutta, the “poorest of the poor”. These little boys and girls are being evicted from their first home every day by the thousands. No, they are actually being killed, burned, and dismembered, in a war on the womb being waged with surgical strikes and chemical weapons. And, he supports it all, calling this evil a “right”. Frankly, I can...

What nice things oil buys.

Updated Want to score one of the tickets to Senator Barack Obama’s speech next month accepting the Democratic nomination in Denver? You won’t have to pay, but you may have to work for it, according to the Obama campaign. In an interview with The Denver Post, the deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand indicated that the price of admission to the speech would be a pledge to volunteer and recruit new voters on behalf of Mr. Obama.“We’re going to ask those 80,000 people in that stadium to march out of there and go with very specific instructions and goals to register...

Anyone who has spent any time in Detroit recently will tell you it is by all apparent indications a dying city. Crumbling buildings, widespread decay and a population in flight make for a depressing landscape. Detroit's fortunes have always been tied intimately to the fortunes of the U.S. auto industry. So it's hardly surprising that a look at Ford's and General Motors' balance sheets will show just as much decay and devastation as a trip through Detroit's worst slums. The only real question is, Which automaker will declare bankruptcy first? Let's start with GM. Instead of talking about its autos,...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Car maker Ford Motor Co (F.N) is drawing up plans to retool American plants to make small, fuel-efficient passenger cars that it mainly makes and sells in Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

GAINESVILLE, Mo. -- A man living in Ozark County is charged with second-degree murder after a shooting during a family outing Sunday near Mammoth. The victim was a man from Mountain Home, Ark. The shooting was next to Lick Creek near Mammoth, south of Gainesville, on private property near Big Rock swimming hole. A family of about 10 from Mountain Home was enjoying their Sunday, swimming and cooking hot dogs, when the owners came down to confront them. “There was an argument, push came to shove, a gun was drawn,” said Sheriff Raymond Pace. Pace says that's when Jesus Sesena-Murrieta,...

The new sheriff has a big task in front of her in terms of reforming a troubled and mismanaged department rocked by abuse and corruption scandals. Unfortunately, Sandra Hutchens – who was installed as sheriff Thursday in a small ceremony in the clerk's office – is about to take the wrong approach on an issue of serious concern to Orange County residents: gun rights.

Excerpt - GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, July 24 (Reuters) - A driver for Osama bin Laden was not told of any rights against self-incrimination under years of interrogation, FBI agents told the Guantanamo war crimes court on Thursday. "Our policy at the time was not to read Miranda rights," FBI special agent Robert Fuller said in testimony at the U.S. military commission trial of Salim Hamdan on charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Fuller was referring to the Miranda v. Arizona U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1966, which held that potential criminal suspects in custody...

The Real Barack Obama reports on the Obama campaign's plans to control the image of his Berlin rally:“Looks like the Germans figured out why Obama won’t allow anyone to bring anything into his big show,” Beethovenqueen writes. The Bild headline reads “Barack Obama bans protest signs in Berlin.” The article then goes on to say: Obamas Organisatoren wollen nichts dem Zufall überlassen. Auf Handzetteln, die seit Montag für die Rede im Berliner Bezirk Tiergarten ausgeteilt werden, heißt es: „Plakate oder Transparente sind nicht gestattet.“ Aus Sicherheitsgründen sollen die Besucher auch keine Taschen und Rucksäcke mitnehmen dürfen. Translation: Obama’s organization is...

FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens do exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

Some residents said Thursday they wish they could recall the mayor over comments he made about state Sen. Louise Lucas’ proposed hotel and conference center, while she said she is considering scaling back her project. Earlier this week, the City Council voted to deny Lucas the use of up to $50 million of federal enterprise zone bonds. The bank-backed bonds would have provided Lucas with lower-cost financing. During the meeting, Mayor James W. Holley called the Portsmouth Renaissance Hotel & Waterfront Conference Center a white hotel and said that Lucas’ project would have given the city a black hotel.

CONCORD – Democratic Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen's once imposing lead over U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu has all but vanished in recent months according to a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released today. Shaheen leads Sununu in this poll of likely voters, 46 percent to 42 percent, but the spread is within its margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent. Pollster Andrew Smith stressed the race remains wide open since only 22 percent said they had definitely decided upon a candidate. During a telephone interview, Smith said voters are starting to focus more on the choices...

Much of the attention on PRC’s aircraft carrier programme has been previously focused on the ex-Soviet Navy Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier Varyag, which was 70% competed when its construction stopped in 1992 and later bought by a Chinese company based in Macau for commercial purpose. The 67,500t vessel has been docked at the Dalian Shipyard in northern China since 2002, reportedly to be commissioned by the PLA Navy as a training carrier after its refurbishment finished. However, despite the completion of the hull restoration and removal of the scaffolding on the ship bridge in late 2006, the installation of weapons,...

Sources say the White House has tentatively signed off on a package of five judicial nominees proposed by Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Robert Casey that would fill all of the vacancies on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania bench and one of two openings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the deal goes through, the White House will first withdraw the nomination of Eastern District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter to the 3rd Circuit, replacing her with Eastern District Judge Paul S. Diamond. Pratter's nomination had been met with significant opposition and was ultimately doomed when Casey refused...

and he can't get out of it. Video at link