Free Republic

SENATOR Hillary Rodham Clinton’s victory last week in the Pennsylvania presidential primary bought Mrs. Clinton time, but it’s what might fill the time that troubles Democrats: an increasingly sharp dialogue between core Democratic constituencies — blacks and a wide swath of women. Will either of those constituencies leave their grievances at home come November? Will large numbers stay home altogether if their history-making candidate loses the nomination? The reassurances, and the warnings, are flying. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have all promised a resolution shortly after the...

Rift between UK diplomats and Army in Basra By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 1:13am GMT 29/03/2008 British forces are facing increasing pressure to intervene in fighting in southern Iraq after government efforts to defeat Shi'ite militias in Basra ground to a halt. Signs of a rift were growing among British officials as diplomats said that UK forces "stand ready to support" Iraqi soldiers as and when requested, contradicting military statements that UK forces would be confined to "niche" roles. Fighting in Basra, Baghdad and the central town of Kut has claimed at least 100 lives this week...

Gazprom-Ukraine rift threatens EU gas supply By Adrian Blomfield in Kiev Last Updated: 2:03am BST 03/10/2007 Fears of a new energy crisis in Europe were mounting after Russia threatened to cut gas supplies to Ukraine just two days after an election that could see a pro-Western government formed in Kiev. Europe receives 80pc of Russian gas imports through pipelines that cross Ukraine The warning, which brought fresh accusations that Russia was using its natural resources to bully its neighbours, raised the prospect of a repeat of a gas dispute between the two countries last year that led to substantial energy...

Deadly fever spreads Kenya panic Butchers now display health certificates Panic has gripped parts of Kenya after 53 people died in the past week of Rift Valley Fever, with the disease spreading to densely populated areas. Medical officials say 148 people have died since the outbreak began in December. Infections are now being confirmed in central Kenya. The fever is common in livestock but is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes and consuming infected animal products. The last epidemic in Kenya was reported during the El Nino floods in 1998. The government has, however, moved to allay fears that the disease...

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign appears to be getting more and more love from California voters, he's not getting nearly as much from some Republicans. Just take the California Republican Assembly, a group that supports GOP conservatives. It has recently launched a Web site - www.cravictoryteam.com - to help Republican activists get materials and data to communicate with GOP voters. But one name - Schwarzenegger's - is missing from the site's list of "our candidates." And the same name is missing on the endorsed list of candidates on the CRA's own Web site. Otherwise, every statewide Republican candidate is on...

Rift over disarming Hezbollah The guns were supposed to fall silent in Israel and Lebanon early today, ending a month of combat that has killed more than 900 people. But troubling signs emerged yesterday as to how Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel would interpret and implement the United Nations-brokered truce, raising the possibility of a continuation of major fighting. Amid internal feuding, the Lebanese cabinet postponed a meeting to vote on implementing the ceasefire. Although officials were reluctant to publicly describe the disagreements, a rift appeared to be developing over the disarmament of Hezbollah, which the resolution demands. Interior Minister Ahmed...

/begin my translationN. Korea: Paralysis of Strategic Decision-making How high-level N. Korean defectors see 'N. Korean missile launches'Kim Jong-il's impulsive decision.... nobody can objectThe sentiment,  "Chinese also need to suffer," is rising   Cho Myong-chol, former professor of Kim Il-sung University Ignoring Chinese plea and going ahead with missile launches, flatly denouncing UN resolution on N. Korea, and loudly threatening to launch additional missiles, these recent actions of N. Korean leadership generate a lot of questions. How do former high-level figures, now defectors in S. Korea, who lived under N. Korean system, see the reason (behind the actions) and the psychological situation of N....

CAIRO, Egypt - When terrorists blew themselves up in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula this week, the radical Palestinian group Hamas quickly joined Arab governments and Western leaders in condemning a "criminal attack against all human values." Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood called the bombings "aggression on human souls created by God." The denunciations were unexpectedly harsh from the Islamic fundamentalist groups — Hamas has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings, and the Brotherhood is determined to impose an Islamic government — but experts agree that radical Muslim organizations want to distance themselves from al-Qaida. The widening rift largely has not...

Tories move to heal White House rift By Alec Russell in Washington and George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 16/02/2006) The Tories will today seek to end an extraordinary rift with their natural allies in the White House with a staunch statement of support for President George W Bush over the need to stop Iran having a nuclear weapon. At the start of a two-day visit to repair relations, Liam Fox, the Conservative defence spokesman, will tell a Washington think-tank that Britain remains America's "most reliable and effective ally". Dr Fox: coming to America In a speech to the Heritage Foundation,...

Republican activists and elected officials downplayed divisions over Gov. Schwarzenegger at a meeting in Riverside Saturday and predicted that the party would eventually unite behind him. Some conservatives are urging the state GOP to withdraw its endorsement of Schwarzenegger at next month's state party convention in San Jose. Among other things, they are upset with Schwarzenegger's appointment of longtime Democratic activist Susan Kennedy as chief of staff and his proposal for $222 billion in bonds to pay for highways, schools and waterworks. But during a speech to the California Congress of Republicans at the Mission Inn, former U.S. Treasurer Rosario...

US moves Okinawa air base to heal rift By Colin Joyce in Tokyo (Filed: 27/10/2005) The United States agreed yesterday to move an air base into another military site on the Japanese island of Okinawa in a climbdown aimed at reducing friction between the US military and locals. Okinawans, whose small, southern island houses more than half the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan, have long protested about the disruption to daily life caused by the heavy military presence. The Futenma air base will now be relocated to Camp Schwab Washington and Tokyo agreed to move the Futenma air base...

Democrats split over position on Iraq war Leaders want to stay the course, voters call for exit strategy By Peter Baker and Shailagh Murray Updated: 10:48 p.m. ET Aug. 21, 2005 WASHINGTON - Democrats say a long-standing rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want to challenge President Bush aggressively to withdraw troops. Amid rising casualties and falling public support for the war, Democrats of all stripes have grown more vocal this...

Maoist rebels in Nepal, who have been fighting for a communist republic for the past 10 years, have admitted to a rift in their ranks. Rebel leader Prachanda has said that he had serious differences with Baburam Bhattarai, the second most powerful person in the rebel movement. Nepal's state-owned media had reported recently that Mr Bhattarai and his wife, Hisila Yami, had been expelled. The rebels have denied the reports, and ruled out a split in the party. But in an e-mail statement, Prachanda has listed a number of serious differences with Mr Bhattarai. He also appeared to confirm that...

U.S. & Europe, Inc. EAST LANSING, Michigan The main purpose behind President George W. Bush's visit to Europe is said to be mending fences with European allies. Beyond the waxing and waning of rhetoric, however, the health of the alliance was never in doubt. Alarmist analyses about the health of the trans-Atlantic alliance, so popular in the wake of the Iraq war, underestimated the ties that bind the affluent, industrialized, and powerful countries of the global North. They failed to recognize - or deliberately ignored - the common grand design that underpins the North Atlantic "Concert," the major industrialized democracies...

Michael Aguirre's relationship with the San Diego City Council began eroding his first day as city attorney when he said a financial crisis won't end until "a new generation of leadership takes hold of our city government." If that line was a jab at current leadership, Aguirre's action last week was an assault. He accused all but two council members of breaking federal securities laws in a report dropped Wednesday an hour after City Hall closed. Tensions between Aguirre and the City Council escalated quickly from his Dec. 6 inaugural speech to heated exchanges he had two weeks later with...

British-US rift on how to deal with Sudan 'cleansing' By Adrian Blomfield in Nairobi (Filed: 31/05/2004) Britain has said it will not support calls for military intervention in Sudan despite warnings that a government campaign of ethnic cleansing against black Muslims in Darfur could cause 350,000 deaths in the next few months. Alan Goulty, Tony Blair's special envoy to Sudan, said he also opposed sanctions against Khartoum. The comments are likely to widen a foreign policy rift between Britain and America, the two most important western players in Sudan. United States officials are convinced that sanctions are the only way...

This ought to be a moment of great triumph for Europe and America together. Instead there is mutual disenchantment. On May 1 the European Union accepted 10 countries—most of them remnants of the Soviet empire—into membership. The EU is now a massive free-trade area and loose political union with 25 countries, 455 million people and an $11.6 trillion economy. After World War II, farsighted Europeans and Americans promoted European unification to end a history of ruinous continental wars. The vision has succeeded spectacularly, and yet there's no common celebration.

The veneer of unity in the conservative movement's support for the Bush administration is wearing thin. That was plain at the 31st annual Conservative Political Action Conference the other day in suburban Washington. Although most attendees still enthusiastically back the Bush-Cheney ticket, a number of widening fissures continue to be ignored or sloughed off by the White House. They could cause real problems for the president's re-election campaign. While it wasn't a presidential election year, 1998 may offer the best historic parallels for the 2004 vote. I think about the lessons of 1998 often. Although I won my third term...

Schröder meeting with Powell fails to heal Iraq rift By Tony Paterson, in Berlin 17 May 2003 The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, failed to repair the "poisoned" relationship between Berlin and Washington when he met the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, yesterday during the first visit to Germany by a top US government official since the fallout between the two countries over the Iraq war. George Bush has not spoken to Mr Schröder since Germany's decision to oppose armed intervention in Iraq. The row was exacerbated by Germany's former justice minister, who compared the US President to Adolf Hitler....

Blair fears new Cold War over EU rift with US By Toby Helm, Chief Political Correspondent (Filed: 29/04/2003) Tony Blair issued a warning yesterday that the world would be plunged back into an era of insecurity and tension reminiscent of the Cold War unless Europe and America quickly repaired the transatlantic relationship. On the eve of talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, Mr Blair said there was a real danger that the advanced world would split into rival power blocs. "My fear is that if we do not deal with the world...

The split between the United States and many European countries over Iraq has revealed deeper divisions that may take years to heal. As the war against Iraq moves to its close, relations between the US and Europe have reached a new low. The disagreement over the role of the United Nations in rebuilding Iraq is likely to continue, and the bitterness in the United States against its betrayal by allies like France are not diminishing. Meanwhile, the standing of the United States among the European public has plummeted. And foreign policy experts say that the rift is deep, could be...

All we had to do was be a good friend (Canada noticeably absent from the list of U.S. allies thanked) Christie Blatchford National Post Thursday, March 27, 2003 George W. Bush delivered a speech yesterday at the U.S. military's central command headquarters in Florida. There was little unusual about it, except perhaps for the clear emotion Mr. Bush showed when he came to that point, as he has done repeatedly in the week since the war in Iraq began, to give thanks for America's allies. The British came first, of course -- their ground forces, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy....

Bush visit to Canada in doubt Official reason is war has altered his schedule: Officials in both governments say heckling, demonstrations would only worsen relations Sheldon Alberts, Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief, with files from Bill Curry and Robert Benzie National Post, with files from news services OTTAWA - The White House is considering cancelling a planned state visit to Ottawa by George W. Bush in May because of the war in Iraq and increasingly strained relations between the U.S. administration and the Chrétien government. Beth Poisson, press attache at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, said, "President Bush is a wartime...

Turkey's refusal to grant support to the United States in its war with Iraq has dealt a serious blow to ties between the two NATO allies that could linger for years. US officials and experts say miscalculations and mistakes - by Washington and Ankara - provoked the crisis, but the Turkish military bears particular blame. Turkey, its economy already shaky, stands to lose most if not all of a huge US assistance package including $US6billion ($10billion) in direct aid and up to $US24billion in loans that was to offset any negative consequences of war. Because of Ankara's decision, the US...

<p>Outgoing California Republican Party Chairman Shawn Steel ripped Assembly GOP leader Dave Cox on Friday for saying publicly that he would not support efforts to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.</p> <p>The controversy breathed new life into Cox's remark Tuesday to the Sacramento Press Club that he doesn't think the recall is a good idea and could distract from efforts to solve the state's massive budget crisis.</p>

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union (news - web sites) leaders seeking to close a deep rift over Iraq agreed that force should only be used as a last resort, but could not completely resolve their differences on the prospect of war. Painfully aware that their prolonged and acrimonious split is crippling the drive to give Europe a strong, united voice in world affairs, EU leaders held an emergency summit Monday and passed a joint declaration that was a balancing act between the two sides. France and Germany continued to oppose any imminent military action against Baghdad. French President Jacques Chirac...

BRUSSELS, Belgium - NATO (news - web sites) members were in top-level negotiations Saturday seeking to rapidly resolve a dispute over U.S.-proposed plans in case of war in Iraq that has produced the alliance's worst split in years. For the past month, Germany, France and Belgium have blocked a U.S. proposal for NATO to send early warning planes, missile defenses and anti-biochemical warfare units as a precaution to Turkey, the only NATO country bordering Iraq. The holdouts argued such a step could undercut efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis. The other 16 NATO allies said the...

Far more lies behind Europe's disarray than honest disagreement “THERE are moments in history when the judgment and resolve of free nations are put to the test. This is such a moment.” America's defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is quite right: this is such a moment. As protesters planned their marches in cities across Europe to oppose a war with Iraq, and as the United Nations Security Council awaited another report on Iraq's behaviour from Hans Blix, its chief weapons inspector, a huge international row still raged over what best to do. Dealing with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is straining...

Science - Reuters Scientists Probe Africa's Rift Valley Break-Up Sun Jan 12, 7:05 AM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo! ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Scientists studying Africa's slow-motion split along the Rift Valley have launched an experiment in Ethiopia to find out exactly why it is happening and whether a new ocean will form where the valley is now. Seventy-two U.S., European and Ethiopian scientists fanned out across the Horn of Africa country this weekend to conduct what they called Africa's largest ever seismic survey. The "volcanic Rift Valley...could eventually break off to form an ocean like...

Copenhagen - Denmark, the European Union's incoming president, plans talks with the United States to heal a rift on the Middle East, but said on Friday the peace process must continue. US President George W. Bush has set the removal of longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a condition for a peace settlement that includes a Palestinian state. Arafat is contesting elections set for January 2003. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said he meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday to discuss Bush's peace plan, which was received with reservations in Europe and among Arab allies of...