Free Republic

Michelle Obama’s thesis: Racial divide. Institutionalized racism. Oh brother. Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide. Michelle Obama's senior year thesis at Princeton University, obtained from the campaign by Politico, shows a document written by a young woman grappling with a society in which a black Princeton alumnus might only be allowed to remain "on the periphery." Read the full thesis here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. “My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‘blackness’ than ever before,” the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. “I have found that at...

Secy of State Brad Johnson of Montana delivered a letter to the Washington Times about possible outcomes of the Heller decision. Second Amendment an individual right The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide D.C. v. Heller, the first case in more than 60 years in which the court will confront the meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although Heller is about the constitutionality of the D.C. handgun ban, the court's decision will have an impact far beyond the District ("Promises breached," Op-Ed, Thursday). The court must decide in Heller whether the Second Amendment secures a right for...

A Newsnight survey found that a clear 61 per cent of English voters think they should have their own parliament and that this proposition was supported by a majority of Scottish voters. Another poll revealed that a greater proportion of English voters wanted independence for England than did Scottish voters for Scotland. The English question is the great giant in British politics that is now beginning to awake from slumber induced by the first devolution of power to Scotland. "English votes for English issues" is fed by a number of specific grievances that increasingly grate with English taxpayers. • Frail...

Belgium, it is business as usual. Trains run, the prime minister greets visiting foreign leaders, social security benefits are paid and the country’s famed bureaucracy functions unabated. If everything seems normal, it is – bar one glitch. Belgium has no new government, 101 days after a general election. Since it won independence in 1830, the country has had trouble keeping itself together. Now, concerns are growing that the Franco-phone Walloons of the south and the Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north will finally split. While Belgium bears few visible scars of political impasse, disagreements over state reform have left negotiators unable...

Commencement weekend is hard to plan at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university now has so many separate identity-group graduations that scheduling them not to conflict with one another is a challenge. The women’s studies graduation and the Chicana/Chicano studies graduation are both set for 10 AM Saturday. The broader Hispanic graduation, “Raza,” is in near-conflict with the black graduation, which starts just an hour later. Planning was easier before a new crop of ethnic groups pushed for inclusion. Students of Asian heritage were once content with the Asian–Pacific Islanders ceremony. But now there are separate Filipino and...

There has been a mass exodus of Hindi-speaking migrants (All pics by Subhamoy Bhattacharjee) Hindi-speaking migrants have started fleeing India's north-eastern state of Assam again after a week of massacres and bomb attacks left nine dead and more than 20 injured. Separatists of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) were blamed for the nearly 10 explosions in the third week of May, when attacks on migrants resumed in the northern districts of Dibrugarh and Sibsagar after a lull of three months. Then followed a spate of bombings stretching from the far northern district of Tinsukia to the western...

Quebec results good for Canada Shift in power may lead to interesting political times across the nation Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: Sunday, April 01, 2007 Friday afternoon, the co-hosts of a weekly political digest show on a Montreal radio station called to ask me what Albertans thought of the results of Monday's Quebec election. I couldn't say what Albertans' reaction was, but this Albertan's thought was: It's too early to tell, but things look interesting and positive. The National Assembly is now split roughly into thirds. The Liberals have 48 seats, a loss of 28 from 2003....

None of the three parties is likely to be able to govern on its own Canadians in the mainly French-speaking Quebec province are electing a new government in a tight three-way race. The poll has again raised the prospect of independence from Canada, with the nationalist Parti Quebecois (PQ) vowing to hold a vote on the issue if elected. It is seeking to regain power from the federalist Liberal Party and Premier Jean Charest who is seeking a new term. But both parties are facing a strong challenge from a new conservative group, the Action Democratique (ADQ). The ADQ...

Islamic militants today shot dead four Buddhists in two separate attacks in Thailand's mainly Muslim south, where an insurgency has raged for more than two years... In one attack, two teenagers in Islamic students' dress and riding a motorcycle, shot and killed three Buddhists in Yala... “The militants exploited the fact that the men were shopping at a grocery store and could not defend themselves, even though they had a gun,” police Colonel Somsak Wannawak said. Earlier a militant shot dead a Buddhist man in Pattani province while he was riding a bus... More than 1400 people have died in...

PRAGUE, July 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has ordered the Abkhaz government in exile to move from Tbilisi to the Kodori Gorge. The move is a bold step toward restoring central control over the breakaway province. The Kodori Gorge, a remote mountain valley in the northeast of Abkhazia, is the only part of the province still controlled by the Georgian authorities. Most of Abkhazia has been ruled independently of Tbilisi since achieving de facto independence in 1993.

REGNUM: What parallels can be set between Kosovo and South Ossetia deriving from a possibility that Kosovo independence can be recognized? Of course, analogies can be set between the Kosovo variant and our situation, if we put Georgia on the place of Serbia and South Ossetians instead of Albanians. Each conflict is backed by forces of more powerful states. Well, it is clear that the US stands behind Kosovo, and Russia stands behind us. But in our case it is more comprehendible and grounded, as we used to live in a single country. It is natural that Russia has its...

GENEVA, February 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Sukhumi will view the possible international recognition of independent Kosovo as another argument in favor of the international recognition of independent Abkhazia, Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba hinted in an interview with Itar-Tass. The minister led the Abkhaz delegation to the Geneva meeting of the Friends to Georgia Group. “Certainly, we need a precedent. Although, I must say that there have been a lot of precedents,” he said. “Many countries have recently come into being, and many will, because this is a natural historical process. It was and will be this way. It would be...

I wrote last week that it would take Canada's Liberal Party about two months to live down the disclosure by the Gomery inquiry that its Montreal members had siphoned many millions of dollars in government money into the party's coffers and into their own pockets. I was wrong. It took less than a week. Three days after the Gomery Report documented the party's lavish looting of the funds in the government's "sponsorship program," a poll showed that the party's national support had slipped from 38 percent to 31 percent, only a single percentage point over the Conservatives, who had risen...

China warns of Xinjiang 'danger' China's top security official has warned of a new crackdown on "separatism" in the remote north-western region of Xinjiang. Some Uighurs resent an influx of Chinese settlers to the region The warning came ahead of ceremonies planned for 1 October to mark half-a-century of Chinese control. Luo Gan said officers should remain "prepared for danger". Xinjiang is home to a large population of Muslim Uighurs, some of whom want an independent homeland in the region they call East Turkestan. Many resent the recent and large-scale influx into the region of Han Chinese settlers, though there...

Uighurs to Declare War against Chinese Government (Uighur Jihad against China)/begin my translationUighurs to Declare War against Chinese Government09/30/05 The members of 'East Turkestan Liberation Organization(ETLO)' making the declaration via a video (from BBC) 'East Turkestan Liberation Organization(ETLO)', a radical Uighur organization, declared publicly war against Chinese government for the first time, via videotaped statements, BBC reported on Sept. 30th (in its Chinese edition.)According to BBC, 'East Turkestan Information Center' located in Munich, Germany, provided the link to the web site containing this video(made by Tianshan branch of ETLO), and apparently it was announced via overseas Wanwei free server, fhreactor.com.In...

HONG KONG, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The leader of a rebel group in India's northeast challenged the world's biggest democracy to live up to its name and let the people of the troubled state of Manipur choose for themselves if they want independence. Sanayaima, chairman of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), said there was no room for peace talks with New Delhi without U.N. mediation, nor any middle ground short of a plebiscite on the restoration of Manipur's "sovereignty". The UNLF was established in 1964 and has been waging an armed struggle since 1990 for independence for nearly two...

The prime minister of Canada had to reassure his nation this week that the woman he has chosen to act as the pinnacle symbol of Canadian unity does not in fact favor breaking up the country. Whether she had at one time espoused this, he did not say. He could nevertheless unreservedly declare to Canadians that now that she has been offered the job of governor general of Canada (with a household and travel budget that runs around $20 million a year) she finds herself – in her own words – "proud to be Canadian" with "the greatest respect for...

The events of recent months show very clearly that the question of withdrawal of the two Russian military bases stationed in Georgia has become a priority of Tbilisi's foreign and internal policy for 2005. Since the two states concerned have deeply divergent positions on the subject, and since Tbilisi has been using uncompromising rhetoric, tension in the Russian-Georgian relations may rise further in the nearest future. Unwanted basesPresently, Russia has two military bases in Georgia (excluding Abkhazia): one in Batumi in the south-western part of the country, and the other in Akhalkalaki in the south. According to the commitments which...

Assimilation, once the goal of every American immigrant, need not be a thing of the past. Our national motto, E Pluribus Unum (From Many, One), was the brainchild of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin in 1776 to complement the unity of colonies into a nation, later the United States of America. E Pluribus Unum still appears on every US coin. Once upon a time, the national motto was also appropriate for America’s immigration policy. We even referred to America as the ‘Great Melting Pot.’ From many immigrants, came many American citizens. That was then, this in now. Not...

During the holiday season, many people are so busy rushing around worrying about buying gifts, getting the best deal and running over anyone in their path that they tend to forget what they are celebrating. On Thursday, UNO hosted its ninth annual Kwanzaa luncheon in the Milo Bail Student Center Ballroom. Keynote speaker Saidi J. Liwaru stressed the importance of Kwanzaa as an African American holiday as well as a Pan-African holiday. Kwanzaa is a time for knowing one's roots while bettering one's culture. Liwaru is the host of the Real Solutions television program. He said that the timing of...