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Senator John McCain now favors complete repeal of Obamacare, after months of rejecting it as “not rational” and a “false premise” by Senate Republicans. This flip-flop really set off Glenn Beck, who went into a lengthy diatribe Thursday against “the lousy senator from Arizona,” who he called either a “dirtbag weasel” or a “weasel dirtbag.” Beck relentlessly mocked the “mavericky maverick” for trashing people like Ted Cruz when they wanted complete repeal, only to turn around and embrace it when the political winds shifted. Beck asked, “He’s not a wacko bird saying we should repeal this thing, is he?” He...

(Reuters) - Europe's top officials warned against a military response in Syria on Thursday, aligning themselves more closely with Russian President Vladimir Putin than President Barack Obama in how best to respond to the chemical attack in the Syrian civil war. While describing the August 21 attack near Damascus, in which an estimated 1,400 people died, as "abhorrent" and a crime against humanity, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said a military strike would not help resolve the crisis. "There is no military solution to the Syrian conflict," Van Rompuy told reporters ahead of a summit of the Group of...

Zardari took 'massive secret commissions' for securing French submarine deal: Report 2011-01-15 16:00:00 Official Pakistani documents, detailing how President Asif Ali Zardari benefited from massive, secret payments connected to the sale of French submarines to Pakistan, have been seized as evidence by a Paris magistrate investigating a suspected widespread scam surrounding the deal. The documents, published by Mediapart, show that the payments to Zardari and others took place on the fringes of the sale of three Agosta-class submarines by the French defence contractor, the DCN, to Pakistan in the 1990s. The French sale, which succeeded against rival offers by Swedish...

AFP - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was expected in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian leaders on his first major foreign visit since the killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host Zardari for talks on Thursday at the Kremlin where officials from the two countries were also expected to sign agreements on cooperation in agriculture, aviation and energy, a spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy in Moscow told AFP. "Economics will be the focus of the visit," said the spokesman, Raja Abdul Qayyum. The three-day visit to Russia will be Zardari's first...

A statement issued by the European Union on Tuesday seemed to suggest it supports Palestinian Authority Arabs’ rights to throw stones during non-violent protests. The statement, released on Tuesday by the spokesperson of Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, criticized Israel for convicting PA Arab Bassem Tamimi of dispatching stone-throwers and protesting illegally. An Israeli court convicted Tamimi on Sunday, according to an AFP report. The 45-year-old was charged with soliciting stone-throwing based on evidence that he directed such incidents from the roof-tops. He was arrested on March 24, 2011, AFP reported,...

The European Union told Iran on Monday it must suspend uranium enrichment, a few days after the Islamic state ruled out doing just that, as Tehran and the West engaged in diplomatic shadow-boxing ahead of nuclear talks this month. The United States called on Iran to take "urgent practical steps" to build confidence during negotiations with world powers on Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington and its allies suspect is a bid to develop an atomic bomb capability. Iran, attending an international conference in Vienna alongside its Western foes, for its part accused the United States of supporting Israel's atomic activities....

Laura Rozen’s account of the behind-the-scenes action during the Iranian nuclear talks in Istanbul undermines the notion that President Obama is in control of the P5+1 diplomatic process that he fiercely defended during the weekend. As Rozen’s reporting makes clear, it is the European Union’s Catherine Ashton who was clearly in charge of the affair, and as long as that fierce critic of Israel is calling the shots, it’s unlikely the Iranians will surrender their nuclear ambitions. Indeed, by championing Iran’s right to nuclear development, which could be ultimately used for military purposes, Ashton may be steering the negotiations toward...

THE HAGUE\BERLIN – A Dutch public broadcasting network last month offered its viewers a board game featuring Israeli settlers who use “Jewish stinginess” and “the Anne Frank card” to colonize the West Bank. Organizations combating anti-Semitism have called on the Dutch government to persuade the network, VPRO, to halt the downloading of the board game.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is demonstrating an appalling ignorance on the Iranian nuclear issue and the threat it poses to world security. In fact, several times during the recent GOP debates he blamed the animosity against the U.S. in the Middle East on America's foreign policy. Paul recently argued on "Fox News Sunday" that sanctions should be removed altogether to get Iran to act differently and that the U.S. response to Iran's nuclear pursuit was an "overreaction." He added that Iran does not pose a threat to either the U.S. or the region. The congressman from Texas insists that...

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has held a series of meetings in Washington with leading Democrats and Republicans on the issue of US immigration reform. Senior Republican Senator John McCain said he was still committed to a comprehensive deal. He said he hoped Congress would address the issue early next year. Senator McCain also said he was particularly anxious to resolve the difficulties facing up to 50,000 undocumented Irish in the US.

Limbaugh: 'We Need Segregated Buses' Politics | Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 11:06:51 am PDT A lot of lefty blogs are calling for a boycott of Rush Limbaugh after he indulged in blatant, ugly race baiting. I’m not joining that call, because I don’t believe boycotts are a good thing, in general. People like Rush Limbaugh should be allowed to say this kind of stuff; it makes it easier to see what they’re really advocating, and who really supports it. I searched, and found not a single right wing blog denouncing this vile rant. As far as I can tell,...

A tiny baby stoat was given mouth-to-mouth and a heart massage by a member of the public after a passer-by discovered it drowning in a water butt, it has emerged. The lifeless baby stoat, the size of a human thumb, was found in the trough next to its sibling in wasteland near Marham, Norfolk. The pair, since named Blears and Brown after the beleaguered Prime Minister and his former Communities Secretary, were found by an unnamed employee at Anglian Water on May 29.'

US Senator John Kerry on Saturday met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Syria's SANA news agency reported. Kerry, a former presidential candidate who now chairs the Senate foreign relations committee, is the latest US legislator to visit Damascus this week. His talks with Assad were set to focus on Syria's support for Iran and regional groups, including the Shiite Hizbullah movement in Lebanon. "We want Syria to respect the political independence of Lebanon, we want Syria to help in the process of resolving issues with Hezbollah and with the Palestinians," Kerry said on Wednesday in Lebanon. "We want Syria to help......

UNITED NATIONS -- There are no "Obama 2008" buttons, banners or T-shirts visible here at U.N. headquarters, but it might be difficult to find a sliver of territory in the United States more enthusiastic over the prospect of the Illinois senator winning the White House. An informal survey of more than two dozen U.N. staff members and foreign delegates showed that the overwhelming majority would prefer that Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, saying they think that the Democrat would usher in a new agenda of multilateralism after an era marked by Republican disdain for the world body. Obama supporters...

Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY), June 3, 2008: "we must treat Russia as an equal partner when it comes to policy in the Caspian Sea region, recognizing Russia's traditional role in the region... we must offer to make Russia whole if it joins in our Iranian boycott... we should tell Mr. Putin we will cease building the ineffective antinuclear missile defense sites in Eastern Europe in return for him joining the boycott... The antimissile system strengthens the relationship between Eastern Europe and NATO, with real troops and equipment on the ground. It mocks Mr. Putin's dream of eventually restoring Russian...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran and China's Sinopec could, as early as Sunday, sign a long-awaited final multi-billion-dollar agreement for the development of the Yadavaran onshore oilfield, the Iranian oil minister said. "Iran could probably sign a contract this evening with China's Sinopec to develop Yadavaran," Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference. "If not today, it will be in two weeks' time. We are still in talks," the oil minister said. In late October 2004, Iran and Sinopec inked an initial agreement to develop Yadavaran in southwestern Iran, which is estimated to hold more than...

November 11, 2007: The increasing use of industrial espionage by Russia and China is hurting counter-terrorism efforts in the West. Increasingly, these two countries are being caught engages in major spying efforts in Europe, Japan and North America, there is tremendous pressure to divert resources from counter-terror work to deal with it. The increased spying has also hurt the exchange of terrorist related intelligence with Russia and China. Britain has cut off all cooperation for the moment, mainly because of an expatriate Russian who was believed murdered by Russian agents.

Does anyone have a list of companies/countries doing business with Iraq?

PARIS (AFP) — A top US diplomat said Wednesday he regretted the French-bashing that took place in the United States over France's refusal to join the US-led war in Iraq. Nicholas Burns, number three in the US State Department, called a decision to rename French fries as freedom fries in the US Congress foolish and he welcomed a new closeness between France and the United States. "I surely hope that those Americans who renamed French fries into freedom fries, and those Americans who poured perfectly good French wines down American drains, I hope that they realise what foolishness that was,"...

A leading Democratic lawmaker lashed out at the former leaders of Germany and France, calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a `political prostitute.' Germany denounced the remarks by Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as an insult to its people. Lantos' comments about Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac, both opponents of the Iraq war, came in a speech Tuesday at the dedication of a monument to victims of communism... "I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," Lantos said to applause. He said when...