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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Palestinian parliament overwhelming approved the Hamas Cabinet on Tuesday, setting the stage for the new administration to take office amid threats by Western nations to cut off aid if the Islamic militant group doesn't change its violent ways. Hamas legislators broke into chants of "God is great" immediately after the 71-36 vote in favor of the new Cabinet. Two parliamentarians abstained. Lawmakers in Gaza City swarmed Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh to congratulate him. The Gaza session was hooked up via video link to a simultaneous session in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where...

And as far as the U.S. effort is concerned, it seems there is almost nothing the White House, the Pentagon, or for that matter any American rifleman on the ground can do that is good enough to garner so much as a one-line "attaboy" from many of our country’s largest newspapers and television news networks. Let’s look at last Thursday, March 16, the day the Iraqi National Assembly opened in Baghdad and a high-profile "air assault" northeast of Samarra, as an example:

ALARM - Opening of the inaugural session of the new Iraqi Parliament BAGHDAD - the Iraqi Parliament elected on December 15 opened Thursday its first session in Baghdad in the medium of imposing safety measures, according to correspondents' of AFP.

Brazil is poised in the next several weeks to produce large quantities of enriched uranium... ...Contrasting Iran’s nuclear programs with Brazil, White House spokesman Scott McCllellan stated “I think a difference here… that I would point out—if you’re talking about Brazil versus Iran—is one of trust. Iran has shown that they can’t be trusted with nuclear technology because they have hidden their activities for some two decades; they failed to comply with their international obligations.” Trust is a strange choice of words in a world of increasing nuclear proliferation while Brazil’s cooperation with IAEA still remains ‘non-intrusive.’ Brazil has not...

The government of Hugo Chavez will receive representatives of Hamas "with pleasure" should they visit Venezuela on a forthcoming tour of South America. Vladimir Putin has announced he will host a meeting with the Palestinian terrorist group/political party next month in Moscow. "We have never considered Hamas a terrorist organization," says the Russian president. The ostensible reason Russia and Venezuela give for meeting with Hamas is its victory in last month's legislative elections, which gave it a majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament. We agree that the results of those elections must be "respected," in the narrow sense that...

Canadians gave Conservative Stephen Harper a victory, but no mandate, in Monday's election. The voters gave his party 124 seats in Parliament, 31 short of a majority, meaning a coalition government with the inevitable compromises. The outcome seemed less voter enchantment with Harper and his agenda than weariness with the Liberal Party, grown stale and corruption-prone after 13 years in office. However, if not a sharp turn to the right for Canada, Harper's election does have it edging in that direction. He campaigned on cutting taxes, getting tough on crime, turning more power over to the provinces, replacing government-funded day...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinians cast ballots amid tight security Wednesday in their first parliament election in a decade — a cliffhanger vote on whether to pursue peace or confrontation with Israel. The battle between the ruling Fatah Party and its Islamic Hamas rival was sure to tilt the balance of a Middle East torn between reform and traditionalism. But concerns over lawlessness, corruption and unemployment also weighed on voters' minds. Both Hamas and Fatah were confident of victory, but pollsters said the race was too close to call. Despite the bitter rivalry, both parties said they would consider...

LONDON (Reuters) - A lost whale that strayed up the Thames in central London was gently lifted onto a barge on Saturday as crowds lined the river banks to watch a unique rescue operation that has captivated world attention. Spontaneous applause erupted as the 15-foot (5-metre) adolescent northern bottle-nosed whale -- the first whale since records began in 1913 to have been seen so far upstream -- was laid on the padded deck to begin its journey to the sea. "The most critical part of the operation seems to have been passed smoothly," said Tony Woodley of British Divers Marine...

Last week’s hounding of Ruth Kelly, the education secretary, was politically obscene. Welcome to the new government of Britain. If the Salem witches or the McCarthy hearings were ever to come to London I have no doubt the media and parliament would be jostling to cast the first stone. Kelly’s defence of her action in the Reeve affair was perfectly reasonable. There is in Whitehall a central list of 4,200 people convicted of a variety of crimes, List 99. Local authorities are warned that these people should never be employed near children. While mistakes can be made, as in the...

Group says it mistakenly attributed statement to parliamentary nomineeIn a correction, a group that claimed a Canadian parliamentary candidate declared to supporters his nomination by the Liberal party was a victory for Islam says the statement actually was made by an accompanying town council member. The Canadian Coalition for Democracies, or CCD, issued an apology, saying it wanted to set the record straight, but pointed out the candidate, Omar Alghabra, did not disavow the statements. The group originally said Alghabra, who won the Liberal Party nomination for a parliamentary seat in Ontario, Canada, declared in a speech earlier this month,...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 2005 – With Vice President Richard B. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, in front-row seats, Afghan President Hamid Karzai opened the first session of his country's new parliament today in Kabul, Afghanistan. "This gathering represents the assumption of full sovereignty by the great people of Afghanistan," said Karzai during his address before the assembly. "Establishment of the parliament completed the main pillar of the government of Afghanistan in light of the constitution." During his hour-long speech to the first elected legislature since 1969, Karzai said "Afghanistan and the United States share common views on combating terrorism." "Terrorism...

First meeting of the Afghan Parliament since thirty years KABUL - the Afghan Parliament held Monday its first session since nearly thirty years at the time of one ceremony to which the American vice-president Dick Cheney assisted. The meeting inuagurale of the Parliament begin with a reading from Coran, while a strong safety device had assembled to Kabul to prevent any operation of the militants of Ancien Régime of the talibans, reversed four years ago.

The Swedish parliament ceased all bilateral contacts with the Iranian parliament Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The move follows a letter Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin sent asking parliaments worldwide to express their support for Israel. The letter, which was sent to more than 80 parliaments, called for an international response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call in October to "wipe Israel off the map." "In recent years Iran has not merely settled for verbal attacks on Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people. It has been unrelenting in its efforts to achieve nuclear military capability and has funded, supplied and...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Paul Martin's lead in the polls evaporated as the country headed into an election campaign, according to the latest survey released on Tuesday. Three other polls released on Monday and Tuesday showed a lead of five to six percentage points for Martin's Liberals over the Conservative Party, led by Stephen Harper. But the Ipsos-Reid poll showing a tie was the most recent, taken on Monday night after the opposition parties brought down the minority government in a confidence vote over Liberal corruption, triggering a January 23 election. Taken for CanWest/Global News, the Ipsos-Reid poll put...

While the Radio Equalizer isn't sure how much liberal talk radio gloating has yet begun over Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's guilty plea on bribery charges and subsequent resignation today, they might first look north. To Canada, that is, where the Liberal Party government has just fallen after losing a punishing, historic no-confidence vote in Ottawa's Parliament. There, an entire collection of rogue characters often called the Librano$, led by Prime Minister Paul Martin, have finally been held accountable for their sleazy "Sponsorship" funding scandal. From the CBC: ...snip...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's minority Liberal government will likely retain power in an election expected in late January, but the opposition Conservatives have narrowed the gap in public support, according to a new poll on Monday. The Pollara poll, provided to Reuters, put Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals at 36 percent support, unchanged from a Pollara poll two weeks earlier. The Conservatives were at 31 percent, up three percentage points. The small New Democratic Party lost four points to 16 percent. In Quebec, the separatist Bloc Quebecois held an imposing lead of 60 percent to the Liberals' 29 percent. Pollara...

A Monarchy in Danger Freedom Today Magazine The United Kingdom By William John Hagan New Labour has become the greatest threat to the future of the British Monarchy since Oliver Cromwell. The only people to blame for this current state of affairs are those most loyal to the Crown who have somehow failed to confront the issue of public antipathy, illogically hoping that the problem would just disappear. It won’t, as long as today’s incarnation of British Labour controls Parliament. I will say this only once: what works for the United States will not work for the United Kingdom. However,...

OTTAWA, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The leaders of Canada's three opposition parties met on Sunday to decide how and when to try to bring down the 16-month-old minority Liberal government and force an election, possibly as soon as next month. Following a change in heart by the New Democratic Party, which said on Monday that it would no longer be able to support the Liberals, the heads of the three parties met in Conservative leader Stephen Harper's office in Parliament. They kept reporters away from the meeting, but were understood to be discussing whether to bring the government down before...

It is vitally important for those outside the United Kingdom to understand both the implications and the complexities of the defeat by Tony Blair’s government of the gravely important Anti-Terror Bill in Parliament today. What is crucial for the world to know is that 72 percent of the British public in various polls this week said they wanted the 90 day rule passed. Shockingly, Parliament – including many opposition Conservatives – defied the British people and voted against the Bill at a time when ordinary citizens are fearful of further Jihadist attacks and of a nationwide Intifada akin to the...

LONDON, November 10 (IranMania) - Several teachers who were laid off in the southern province of Fars joined protests by hundreds of workers from the western province of Qazvin against their dismissal and poor working conditions, ISNA reported. The protesters had gathered in front of the Parliament in downtown Tehran demanding to meet Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel. They chanted slogans and held up banners reading, ?God is Great, God is Great, Justice, Justice and We're Hungry, according to ISNA. Even the heavy rain failed to disperse the protesters, who were holding plastic bags to protect themselves from the rain. The...