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Romanians go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new president. They will also be chosing a new parliament. Eighteen million people are eligible to vote in this election in a country still plagued by rampant corruption and where the gap between rich and poor is growing as fast as the economy. To prove its determination to organise a fair vote and avoid a crisis like the one which is unfolding in neighbouring Ukraine, Romania has said rival parties could organise parallel vote counting. The European watchdog the OSCE will also be overseeing the election. It is going to be...

Power Struggle Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged in a decisive battle for Ukraine yesterday at the Russia–EU summit in the Dutch city of The Hague. In the opinion of special Kommersant correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov, by the end of the press conference all of its participants had lost their taste for life except the Russian president. The Russian president's advance plane with part of the delegation and journalists took off from Moscow for The Hague a little before the “main flight”. There had been fine weather in Amsterdam and The Hague the day before. The sun was shining (this is important)....

Ukraine’s richest, most powerful people have stayed out of the spotlight during the five days of what’s being called the Ukrainian opposition’s “Orange Revolution.” That’s no surprise, as opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has been calling them “bandits” during rallies, and saying they belong in jail after robbing the Ukrainian nation of its riches and suppressing democracy. Many believe that if the opposition takes control of the government, Ukraine’s so-called “oligarchs” – who backed the candidacy of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych - could be tried for stealing state property, election fraud, and other crimes. This group includes Presidential Administration head Viktor...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Wedged between troubled Ukraine and the West, Poland has plunged into the disputed Ukrainian presidential election in an attempt to mediate - a sign of anxiety over the prospect of instability and rising Russian influence so close to home. President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Nov. 25 that he would head to Kyiv at the request of Ukraine's President, Leonid Kuchma, to help broker talks between the government and the opposition led by Viktor Yushchenko, who says he was robbed of victory by a Moscow-favored candidate in the Nov. 21 runoff vote. "I have been asked by Kuchma...

The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, has had a secret meeting with the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, the BBC has learned. Hamas is on the list of banned terror groups for both the EU and Washington. In an interview with the BBC, Mr Solana said that he had had the meeting some months ago, without saying with whom it was.

As President Vladimir Putin and the new European Commission chiefs gather for a summit on Thursday in The Hague, disagreements over the Ukrainian election cast a dark cloud over their first meeting. Putin may have been planning to cash in the chips Russia earned by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol -- indeed, welcoming Russia's support for the environmental treaty was at the top of a to-do list for the summit as recently as Monday, according to an EU press release. Instead, it looks more likely Moscow will be playing defense. Russia's relationship with Europe -- and with America -- was already...

All the papers report this morning that the mayor of Amsterdam and a Dutch-Moroccan alderman were on the hit list of two suspected terrorists arrested in The Hague last week. The same two men were already suspected of targeting other public representatives, namely Geert Wilders and Ayan Hirsi Ali, two members of parliament known for their open criticism of Islam. Triumph for terror The Somali-born Hirsi Ali collaborated with Theo van Gogh on a controversial film just before he was murdered two weeks ago. She is now under such tight police protection that "she can no longer do her work...

HARARE- - Zimbabwe has become al-Qaeda’s newest hub amid reports that the embattled country has now become a sanctuary harboring militant Islamist groups and a territorial medium to smuggle people, arms, material and contraband, Zimdaily exclusively reveals today. Zimbabwe, which borders South Africa to the south, Mozambique to the East and lies close to the neighboring territory of Angola to the west has been offering an attractive operational theater on account of its modern and largely western character. An intelligence document leaked to Zimdaily and authorerd by Andrew Holt, an independent, US-based terrorism and security agent states that Zimbabwe had...

The following came from a Marine in Iraq. E-mail addresses and names have been removed. Good Morning Everybody. The following is an email from my son regarding the NBC report (with embedded reporter Kevin Sites), concerning the Marine who is being investigated for "murdering" the insurgent in Fallaja. I will be sending his mail to every news program's email I can find. I find it sickening that this Kevin Sites is even allowed to be embedded with our Marines, as this isn't the first report I've heard from him that took on a decidely unfriendly tone. My son also gave...

[FBIS Translated Excerpt] I met Condoleezza Rice several years ago, before politics had totally stolen her from university work and when she was still a frequent speaker at international conferences dealing also with the kind of topics that I know best: freedom of worship that is under threat in so many countries around the world, and the slow spread of democracy. I was always struck by the encyclopedic knowledge of this political scientist whose original field of study was the Soviet Union but who was capable of citing the dates and histories also of obscure political movements in the remotest...

If ABC hoped to generate a little bit more buzz for "Monday Night Football" and Desperate Housewives, its steamy intro to the Dallas-Philadelphia game sure did the trick. Two days after the network aired the segment featuring Eagles star receiver Terrell Owens and actress Nicollette Sheridan, coaches and players were still talking about it. Reaction ranged from amusement to anger. Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy found it racially offensive. "To me that's the first thing I thought of as an African-American," Dungy said Wednesday. "I think it's stereotypical in looking at the players, and on the heels of the Kobe...

BERLIN - There is growing alarm in Germany over the torching of mosques, churches and schools in the Netherlands following the brutal killing of Islam-critical film director Theo van Gogh. With 3.4 million Muslims comprising 4 percent of Germany's population, the question was put this way by a banner headline in the conservative Bild newspaper: "Is the hate going to come here?" asked the biggest selling tabloid. The Berliner Zeitung, a left-leaning paper in the German capital where about 200,000 mainly Turkish Muslims live, claims to know the answer: "The feelings of hated against the majority Christian society are growing."

This is the second part [1] in a series of reports on Islamist websites, focusing on those with Internet Service Providers (ISP's) in the West. [2] For the benefit of the readerand to facilitateunderstanding of what the websites contain, we have added an example from the contents of each website. It should be noted that a large number of Islamist websites are often hacked or shut down, but re-appear on other servers, sometimes under new domain names, or they just disappear. All details are valid as of publication date. www.members.lycos.co.uk/abugaith1 Affiliation: Website of Al-Qa'ida spokesman Sheikh Suleiman Abu Gheith, originally...

The streets of Rotterdam are silent apart from a whistling wind. Flickering neon signs advertising Halal butchers and falafel bars punctuate the grey facades of the tower blocks. Splintered glass from a broken window that no one has bothered to repair is slowly trampled into the autumn leaves. In the distance, a mosque's minarets pierce the fog and drizzle. Almost half the population of Rotterdam is of non-Dutch origin and the city is studded by grim ghettoes. Fifteen-year-old Rafih Bourdin has hunched his shoulders up against the cold. His head is wrapped in a red bandana and covered by a...

NAIROBI, 12 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday it was temporarily withdrawing some international staff from South Darfur in western Sudan because authorities there had prevented the staff from performing their duties. Jean-Marie Fakhouri, UNHCR's operations director for Sudan said the staff had been restricted to Nyala for nearly three weeks. The orders came from Sudanese officials following an incident on 20 October when UNHCR officials and other UN colleagues intervened to stop the involuntary relocation of internally displaced persons (IDPs), he said. Sudanese authorities responded by restricting UNHCR...

Faisal al Yafai talks to Britain's most radical Islamic group, banned across the Middle East, about faith, defiance and the future. The east London hall echoes to the sound of the speaker's voice: "They want us to redefine Islam to fit the agenda of the west," he intones, and the audience murmurs. "Islam is going to be political, no matter how hard they try. Islam itself is political. Allah has not remained silent when it comes to political matters."

I thought at this time of strife and battles, when so many of OUR best are doing our work, that I'd take this time to post a Salute to our young and old men and women. By linking the Medals and Ribbons pages of the a US Army US Marines USAF1976toPresent USNavy1976 to Present USCG1976to Present

THE HAGUE Two facts about last week's Islamic fundamentalist attack on free speech in the Netherlands: the European Union did not come publicly storming to shout its solidarity with the Dutch, and the Dutch government shied away from demanding its partners stand and say this was all of Europe's horror crime. .

Fatwa The TELEGRAAF announces in one article that Van Gogh was murdered after the proclamation of a fatwa. "There is increasing evidence that a high-ranking mullah gave his blessing to Van Gogh's murder. The deeply religious killer needed such a blessing, because the murder was committed during Ramadan." However, TROUW quotes a leading French expert on Islam, Gilles Kepel, who says, "A fatwa is not necessary. The assailant acts on his own initiative in the expectation that the community will consider him a saint." Keppel expresses concern about the situation in the Netherlands and says, "The future of Islam will...

UNITED NATIONS - Warning that Darfur is descending into anarchy, the top U.N. envoy to Sudan urged the Security Council Thursday to quickly deploy African troops to deter violence and speed up peace talks to prevent warlords from taking control of the vast western region. Jan Pronk repeatedly stressed the need to move swiftly, saying the 20-month conflict in Darfur is changing, with the government not in control of its own forces and a leadership crisis within rebel movements. He accused the government and especially the rebels of violating an April cease-fire agreement and seeking more territory in Darfur, which...