Free Republic

Listen carefully and you can hear Pres. Obama’s internal dialogue: “who is the soon-to-be-former advance man who roped me into this?” Morning Joe interrupted its panel’s banter today to bring live coverage of Pres. Obama participating in a wreath-laying ceremony in Moscow at the tomb of Russia’s unknown soldier. There was PBO, forced to walk at an unnaturally slow place, stuck behind a goose-stepping Russian soldier even younger and more fresh-faced than he. Comic relief was provided by a portly fellow shambling along screen right carrying a briefcase [the Russian nuclear "football" perhaps?] View video here.

Senior administrator officials tell Fox President Obama received up-to-the minute briefings on ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya's attempt to land Sunday in the capital of Tegucigalpa. Officials had no direct comment late Sunday on the tense standoff, in which military troops loyal to new Honduran President Roberto Micheletti cut off access to airport runways and threatened to arrest Zelaya if he landed. Zelaya, flying in a plane supplied by Venezuela, abandoned efforts to land, flying instead to neighboring El Salvador. The White House sent word to Zelaya on Saturday that it would be a "mistake" for him to return to...

"Suddenly another voice spoke, low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment. Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell....

BEIJING — The Chinese state news agency reported Monday that at least 140 people were killed and 816 injured when rioters clashed with the police in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese. Related Times Topics: Uighurs The casualty toll, if confirmed, would make this the deadliest outbreak of violence in China in many years. The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital of the vast, restive desert region of Xinjiang, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or...

Mullen Advises 'Measured' Approach to Gay Policy The nation's top military officer said Sunday he has advised President Barack Obama to move "in a measured way" in changing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military. Obama as a candidate pledged to end the ban. As president, he has not said when or how he will take steps to do so, drawing criticism from gay rights activists and others. The president has pointed out that Congress in 1993 made into law a policy begun by President Bill Clinton. "It's very clear what President...

Suspicious N. Korean freighter yet to reach home: official By Sam Kim SEOUL, July 6 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean freighter suspected of carrying weapons banned under a U.N. resolution has yet to enter North Korean waters, a South Korean official said Monday. "It has not yet entered North Korea. (The journey) will likely end within the day," South Korean defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said in a briefing.

140 slain as Chinese riot police, Muslims clash in northwestern city Eight hundred people are injured and hundreds are reported arrested in Urumqi. The Uighur demonstrators were protesting against racial discrimination. By Barbara Demick July 6, 2009 Firefighters are seen dousing a bus in Urumqi, the main city in Xinjiang, where China's ethnic Uighur minority is concentrated. Eight hundred people were injured and hundreds held as demonstrations against racial discrimination erupted into street violence. (Shen Qiao / New China News Agency / July 5, 2009) Reporting from Beijing - China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the...

More than 100 people have been killed and 800 injured in a riot which broke out in the ethnically sensitive far-Western Chinese province of Xinjiang. The death-toll, which stands at 129, marks a major escalation in the casualty figures from the disturbance which broke out on Sunday night after police tried to disperse a demonstration by members of the Uighur Muslim minority in the provincial capital, Urumqi. Initial reports said that just three people had been killed in running battles with police that left burned-out cars and buses and several smashed shop-fronts. Xinhua, the state-operated news service, did not provide...

A leftist candidate backed by an array of political parties successfully staved off his far-right opponent in a mayoral race Sunday that the National Front had hope would start its comeback. Other parties, from communists to President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservatives, rallied behind Daniel Duquenne whom voters designated the new mayor of Henin-Beaumont, a former mining town in northern France, in a runoff race. The victor was sprayed with tear gas minutes after the results were announced, a police officer said by telephone, confirming reports on France-Info radio and the French TV station iTele. Duquenne was not injured and the aggressor...

The top Russian military commander, the Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Defense Minister Army-General Nikolai Makarov during the Paris air show this week said: "Georgia is saber-rattling and preparing weapons to resolve its territorial problems by any means." Makarov accused NATO of supporting Georgian aggressive intentions and E.U. observers of ignoring Georgian rearmament and war preparations. Makarov stated that the Russian army and the FSB Border Guards in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are preparing together with local forces and forming new military infrastructure. He confirmed that the defense ministry will permanently station "somewhat less combat troops in...

A national strike by thousands of rain-forest Indians is spawning accusations of a proxy war involving Venezuela and an emboldened peasant movement seeking to undermine Peru's pro-U.S. president. For more than two months, thousands of natives have been protesting land reforms issued by President Alan Garcia. The laws -- required by a U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement -- open vast tracts of rain forest to private energy and agriculture investment. In April, natives angered by the new laws donned war paint and grabbed spears, overran roads and rivers, seized control of jungle oil facilities and blocked rural airports. Mr. Garcia initially...

"Iran said Sunday it has released a British-Greek journalist detained for two weeks during its postelection crackdown..."

US pressures IAI to drop bid on fighter jets to India By YAAKOV KATZ Under pressure from the Pentagon, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has been forced to back out of a joint partnership with a Swedish aerospace company to compete in a multi-billion dollar tender to sell new multi-role fighter jets to the Indian Air Force. The deal, estimated at a whopping $12 billion for over 120 new aircraft, is being fought over by Lockheed Martin's F-16, Boeing's F-18/Hornet, Russia's MiG-35 and BAE's Eurofighter. IAI was asked by Saab, manufacturer of the Gripen fighter jet, to jointly develop an advanced...

35 Years After by Ari Bussel While in Israel, I was invited to visit the old cemetery of Tsfat. Major restoration work is taking place there, alongside a hillside spread with stones. Underneath are hundreds of graves. Over the centuries, their tombstones became rubble, washed away by rain, exposing some of the graves underneath. This was my opportunity to learn that all tombstones in a Jewish cemetery face East, thus all headrests are aligned, row after row, toward Jerusalem. A separate section of the cemetery is the final resting place of a group of school children murdered 35 years ago...

On Monday July 6, President Barack Obama is expected in Moscow for a summit to discuss nuclear arms control, Iran, Afghanistan the post-Soviet space and other issues. It has been announced that Obama will spend most of July 6 in formal as well as informal talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. There will be a joint press conference and a late night dinner with spouses (RIA Novosti, July 1). The two presidents will concentrate on discussing a progress report from the Russian and American negotiating teams that are working on preparing a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) (Interfax,...

WASHINGTON – Colin Powell says the U.S. took too long to strengthen its forces in Iraq after Baghdad fell early in the war. Powell, the nation's top military officer under President George H.W. Bush and secretary of state for President George W. Bush, said the decision to use a lighter force to defeat the Iraqi army was correct. But he said in a television interview broadcast Sunday that the younger Bush's administration should have realized the initial success in 2003 was only the start of a longer fight.

SEOUL, July 6 (AP) - (Kyodo)—South Korea's Defense Ministry said Monday that North Korea's missile launches conducted on Saturday showed an improvement in accuracy. "We are aware accuracy has been improved (in the North's missile launches," ministry spokesman Won Tae Jae told a press briefing. Won said North Korea's missiles launches have had "somewhat big margins of error" in terms of landing at intended points so far. "Much improvement has been made this time in that regard," Won said, declining to go into details. North Korea fired seven missiles into the Sea of Japan in defiance of a U.N. Security...

Two groups on campus, Anns Race Alternatives (ARA) and Students Against Militarism (SAM), work within these mental limits to foster awareness and practical action necesary to counter the growing threat of war. Though the emphasis of the two p:roups differ, they share an aversion to current government policy. These groups, visualizing the possibilities of destruction and grasping the tendencies of distorted national priorities, are throwing their weight into shifting America off the dead-end track. The Reagan administration's stalling at the Geneva talks on nuclear weapons has thus already caused severe tension and could ultimately bring about a dangerous rift between...

MOSCOW -- With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

BEIJING, July 6 (AP) - (Kyodo)—"A number of civilians and one armed police officer" died in violence in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on Sunday, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Monday. Some ordinary people and armed police officers were also injured, and many motor vehicles and shops were smashed and burned, Xinhua quoted sources with the regional government as saying.

CAIRO — An important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment. A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate,...

DUBAI // Iranian protesters who gathered in Dubai last night were prevented by police from signing a petition against their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Officers told the 100-strong crowd they were forbidden from sending official petitions from UAE soil. The Iranians had gathered on the beach at Jumeirah Beach Residence to sign a green banner in protest at recent events in Iran. They had planned to send it to Paris, where it would join others from around the world in being hung from the top of the Eiffel Tower, along with the slogan “Ahmadinejad is not our president”. But protesters said...

BEIRUT: Days after officials in Washington announced that a US ambassador would soon be sent to Syria, reports have emerged of an upcoming Syrian-Saudi Arabian summit to be held in Damascus that could include Lebanon. Conventional wisdom holds that any improvement in Syrian-Saudi ties generally contributes to increased stability in Lebanon, and according to experts on Levantine politics, Lebanon may already be benefiting from those nations' thawing ties and a revamped US policy in the region. "Any relief or stabilization in the Syrian-Saudi relationship will be positively reflected in the Lebanese political life," Chafik Masri, an international law professor at...

The UN's top health official has opened a forum in Mexico on combating swine flu by saying that the spread of the virus worldwide is now unstoppable. World Health Organization head Margaret Chan added that the holding of the meeting in Cancun showed confidence in Mexico, which has been hard hit. The WHO says most H1N1 cases are mild, with many people recovering unaided. As the summit opened, the UK alone was projecting more than 100,000 new cases of H1N1 a day by the end of the summer. As the peak of the flu season approaches in South America, some...

The military intelligence officer was sitting in his office in northern Lebanon when the call came from his colleagues in Beqaa Valley. They were asking for his help in negotiating a truce between the Lebanese army and a loose alliance of families in Beqaa who dominate Lebanon’s multibillion dollar hashish trade after a crackdown on drug trafficking and carjacking had turned violent, with casualties on both sides. But the officer had no intention of getting involved. “I know these families, now that they have had martyrs, there is no talking to them,” he growled down the phone. “There is only...

Nearly 60 years since the Egyptian army overthrew the monarchy, some Egyptians may be looking to the army again for a successor to 81-year-old head of state and former air force chief Hosni Mubarak. On front of the podium where President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 while watching a military parade there is a huge frieze. The gilded triptych glorifies the military and places it at the heart of Egyptian society from the time of the Pharaohs. The central scene portrays soldiers, together with farmers, workers and students, carrying a plaque inscribed with 1952 - the year a group...

Ousted Zelaya fails to land in Honduras 05 Jul 2009 23:42:51 GMT Source: Reuters CARACAS, July 5 (Reuters) - The Honduran army thwarted an attempt by ousted President Manuel Zelaya to land at Tegucigalpa airport on Sunday by blocking the runway with military vehicles.

Suspected Muslim guerrillas detonated a bomb near a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines on Sunday, killing at least five people and wounding 46. The bomb exploded outside the Immaculate Conception cathedral in Cotabato city as churchgoers were attending Mass. Two people were killed instantly in the attack and three others, including a militiaman, later died in hospitals, military officials said. Among the wounded were six soldiers and militiamen who were in an army van that passed by the cathedral when the device, fashioned from a mortar round, exploded, Cotabato city Mayor Muslimin Sema said. The improvised explosive, which...

Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras ousted in a coup, is attempting to fly home from Washington and reclaim his office, sparking clashes between his supporters and the security forces which have led to at least one death. At least one person was killed and several were injured as soldiers opened fire and let off tear gas rounds after at least 10,000 supporters of the Leftist leader descended on the airport outside the capital, Tegucigalpa. As his supporters mobbed the airport, soldiers were deployed en masse. Violent confrontations then erupted along the perimeter fence. As demonstrators tried to rip down...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Honduras' exiled president flew toward home in a Venezuelan jet in a high-stakes attempt to return to power on Sunday, even as the interim government ordered the military to turn away the plane. "I am the commander of the armed forces, elected by the people, and I ask the armed forces to comply with the order to open the airport so that there is no problem in landing and embracing with my people," Manuel Zelaya said while en route. "Today I feel like I have sufficient spiritual strength, blessed with the blood of Christ, to be...

Religious Jews have rioted in Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabbath for the second straight week. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets of Jerusalem, throwing stones and scuffling with police. The demonstrators were protesting the opening of a parking lot on the Sabbath to accommodate an influx of Israeli visitors from around the country to Jerusalem's Old City. Jewish religious law forbids driving on the Sabbath and the Orthodox accuse the secular government and public at large of desecrating the biblical holy day of rest. Some demonstrators chanted that "Sabbath desecrators will die." Riots first erupted last month when...

WASHINGTON, July 5, 2009 – Additional American troops in Afghanistan are making it possible to institute the new strategy in the country, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today. Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union program, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said Operation Khanjar, which means Strike of the Sword, will challenge the Taliban and al-Qaida in the Helmand River valley in southern Afghanistan. The area has been a terrorist safe haven and which has most of the opium poppy cultivation in the country. “This is really the most concentrated area for opium growing and we expect...

Capt. Dorothy Watkins and Spc. Joshua Watkins, both of Hazleton, Pa., are deployed to Camp Taji, a base camp north of Baghdad, with the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard. Photo by Jon Soles, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. TAJI — One Pennsylvania National Guard Soldier has two ways he can address Capt. Dorothy Watkins. He can call her ma'am or he can call her mom. Spc. Joshua Watkins and his mother, Capt. Watkins, are both serving here with the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division. The mother and son from Hazleton, Pa., are...

Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher (right) and Tennessee Titans head coach Jeff Fisher share some laughs with U.S. servicemembers during a National Football League coaches USO tour of Iraq, at Al Faw Palace, Baghdad, July 2. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Edwin L. Wriston, Joint Combat Camera Center – Iraq. KIRKUK — It was a long line for Soldiers and Airmen, but awaiting them at the end were legendary NFL coaches ready to sign photos, shirts or anything else you could scribble a signature on. The coaches, who included New York Giants’ Coach Tom Coughlin, Baltimore Ravens’...

'There were two days a couple of weeks ago when the call-ins stopped," says Menashe Amir, Israel Radio's Farsi broadcaster, whose shows have attracted millions of listeners in Iran for the past 50 years. "But then they resumed." The going-on-70-year-old, who officially retired five years ago, yet continues to transmit on a daily basis, attributes this to the courage of his former countrymen (Amir made aliya in 1959). In a September 2006 interview in these pages, Amir asserted that a majority of Iranians opposed their regime, yet were helpless in the face of the repression under which they were living....

After listening to the Democrats screech for the last two years about the rule of law, this Jake Tapper report should be surprising …. but it’s not. Apparently, Barack Obama finds treaty ratification a little too complicated, and so he figures he can just commit the US to nuclear disarmament and bypass Congressional oversight: With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role...

Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program. The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “This Week,” “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.” "Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview...

Barack Obama is on a mission to reset relations between the US and Russia with nuclear reduction at the cornerstone of his plan. US arms control experts predict the two sides could aim to reduce their arsenals to 1,500 nuclear warheads apiece. Mr Obama's plans continue what the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty began in 1991. It was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. In a rare interview with Sky News, the former Soviet Leader insisted further nuclear reduction is vital. He said: "If we don't get rid of nuclear weapons the 40 countries that are not members of the...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras' exiled president took off for home in a Venezuelan jet in a high-stakes attempt to return to power, even as the interim government told its military to turn away the plane. Zelaya won wide international support after his ouster a week ago by the military, but the only prominent escort aboard his plane was the U.N. General Assembly president after Latin American leaders backed out, citing security concerns. Honduras' civil aviation director said Zelaya's plane was being redirected to El Salvador.

Honduras says Nicaragua has troops moving on border 05 Jul 2009 20:20:26 GMT Source: Reuters TEGUCIGALPA, July 5 (Reuters) - Honduras' interim President Roberto Micheletti said on Sunday Nicaraguan troops were moving to the mutual frontier and urged Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to respect Honduran sovereignty. He gave no further details about troop movements in Nicaragua which shares a border with Honduras to the southeast of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa.

7 hours ago VATICAN CITY (AP) � Russia's president says Moscow plans to improve its ties with the Vatican. Tensions between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches over property disputes and other issues have so far made it impossible for any pope to visit Moscow. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Italian reporters in an interview ahead of the G-8 summit in Italy this week that relations between his country and the Vatican will "in all likelihood be developed further." He also said the possibility of diplomatic ties is under discussion. He declined to say if Pope Benedict XVI will...

German blogs, Jihad Watch & Atlas Shrugged are discussing the apparent Christian cross seen worn by Neda in an AP photo.

For decades, even centuries, the bane of Latin American democracy has been the military takeover. Democrats from Guatemala to Peru and from Argentina to Chile have fought valiantly to keep political power from falling into the uncompromising hands of the generals. And now, after an amazing number of years without military coups, we wake up and find one topping the news, in little Honduras in Central America. It happened in the night, of course. The elected president, a wealthy rancher named Manuel Zelaya, was ousted from his home Sunday in his pajamas and unostentatiously flown to neighboring Costa Rica. Of...

Twelve alleged Muslim radicals who were mostly arrested in Serbia's southern region of Sandzak have been jailed for plotting attacks on an imam and others. Their alleged leader, Senad Ramovic, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for terrorist offenses and illegal possession of arms and explosives. Eleven defendants got terms ranging from eight years to six months, two were acquitted and one faces retrial. All pleaded not guilty when their trial opened in Belgrade in January 2008. Most of the 15 defendants were arrested near Novi Pazar, Sandzak's main town, in 2007. Police displayed weapons said to have been...

Canadian soldier dies in Quebec hospital from injuries sustained in AfghanistanCLS NR–09.001 - July 5, 2009OTTAWA– A Canadian soldier who recently sustained serious injuries in Afghanistan passed away in a Quebec hospital yesterday. The deceased is Master-Corporal Charles-Philippe Michaud from the 2e Batallion, Royal 22e Régiment based at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, near Quebec City. At approximately 9:15 a.m. Kandahar time on June 23, 2009, Master-Corporal Michaud was seriously injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near his dismounted patrol in Panjwayi District, southwest of Kandahar City. Master-Corporal Michaud was evacuated by helicopter to the coalition medical facility at...

Vice President Joseph Biden told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an interview taped in Iraq on Saturday for "This Week" that the United States does not intend to slow its withdrawal plan in Iraq even if violence spikes after U.S. troops leave. Asked what happens "if the violence flares up again," the vice president replied, Well, that's going to be a tragic outcome for the Iraqi people. We made a commitment." Stephanopoulos then asked, "are we going to put our lives on the line again," if violence flares back up in Iraq, and Biden flatly said "no."

With all the wailing about Bush supposedly doing things his own way and not by the rule of law I wonder if those same people will have a problem with this: With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies...

Saudi Arabia would turn the other cheek and allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran, London’s Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Mossad chief Meir Dagan has told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Syria has hinted to the move. “The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israel air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source stated.

Military ordered to turn back Zelaya's jetBy WILL WEISSERT and NESTOR IKEDA – 1 hour ago TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduras' ousted President Manuel said he was getting on a flight home to reclaim his post on Sunday, accompanied by the U.N. General Assembly president and a group of journalists. The interim government said it ordered the military to prevent the landing of Zelaya's plane. If turned away, it will likely land in El Salvador, where a separate flight was headed with Latin American leaders who support Zelaya's reinstatement. Thousands of protesters were gathering in the capital of Honduras in...

When Pope Benedict XVI greets U.S. President Barack Obama at the Vatican on July 10, the symbolism and sheer star power of the encounter will keep the pundits chattering away. The photo op alone is worth a thousand words: The 82-year-old man in white, the world's most recognizable religious leader and head of its largest single denomination comes face-to-face with the charismatic first black President of the world's last superpower. And the scheduling efforts of both the Vatican and the White House suggest a shared appreciation of the symbolic weight the first encounter between Obama and Benedict could carry. It...