Free Republic

LONDON (AFP) – The euro on Tuesday slid below 1.45 dollars for the first time since February as the market anticipated lower interest rates in the eurozone and stronger growth in the United States, analysts said. In early London trade, the European single currency dropped to 1.4467 dollars, the lowest point since February 12. It rose from this level to trade at 1.4524 dollars in late European trade, compared with 1.4606 dollars late on Monday in London. Elsewhere, the yen fell slightly after Monday's abrupt resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. The pound meanwhile struck a record low versus...

British fear US commander is beating the drum for Iran strikes By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 1:53am BST 05/04/2008 British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government. A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia...

President Hugo Chavez ordered the nationalization of Venezuela's cement industry, saying his government cannot allow businesses to continue exporting raw materials needed to help tackle a domestic housing shortage. Speaking during a nationally televised address Thursday, Chavez said the affected cement companies, which include Mexico's Cemex SAB, France's Lafarge SA and Switzerland's Holcim Ltd, will be paid fair compensation in the state takeover. "We are going to prepare a plan to modernize these cement plants," he said. Chavez, who says he is leading Venezuela toward "21st century socialism," said the nationalization would take place in the "short term," but did...

(IsraelNN.com) Iran's fundamentalist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unleashed a fresh round of threats Wednesday against Israel, calling the only Jewish country in the world a "filthy microbe" and a "savage animal." Speaking to an Islamist rally in the southern city of Bandar Abbas that was broadcast on national television, Ahmadinejad told supporters "World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region." The attack was the latest in a recent flurry of Iranian threats against Israel. In recent weeks two leading Iranian generals have...

12/20/2007 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- With the help of volunteers from around the base, the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing flight safety office reduced the number of bird strikes on aircraft by 30 percent here in November. They accomplished this through the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard program, which uses awareness and proactivity to reduce the number of bird-strike threats against aviation assets. "We are here preserving the Air Force's combat capabilities," said Master Sgt. Brian Saunders, a flight safety office member." Last year alone $42 million in damage was done to Air Force aircraft from bird strikes." Helping...

President Sarkozy of France is on the verge of a breakthrough in his ambitious plan to wean his country off the restrictive working practices he believes stand in the way of national prosperity. Yesterday, the strike of rail and subway workers that has crippled France for nine days was clearly crumbling, as workers began returning to work in large numbers and union branches conceded that support for the dispute is collapsing. "We think a dynamic of return to work has begun," Julie Vion, a spokeswoman for France's state-owned railroad network, SNCF, said. Union leaders began to concede defeat yesterday. "We...

In a showdown over pension reform, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to wrestle power from the unions and establish himself as the steward of the country's long-overdue modernization process. Meanwhile, as fears grow over possible job cuts and rising prices, new strikes could be on the horizon. Four million flyers have been printed, the slogans have been approved and strategists are already contemplating the march routes and rally locations. At the headquarters of the country's ruling party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), in Paris's 8th Arrondissement, plans are underway for a confrontation "with the France of the...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to maintain his controversial economic reforms despite a second week of crippling industrial action. He said the reforms were overdue and that they were necessary "to confront the challenges set by the world". Hundreds of thousands of civil servants joined striking transport and energy workers on Tuesday over the proposals. Adopting a defiant stance, he said French voters gave him a mandate to carry out economic reforms when they elected him. "This clean break I promised to the French during the election campaign. The French approved it," the president said in a speech to...

Why Nicolas Sarkozy cannot afford to yield to French strikers THE effervescent French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has been on the road a lot recently—in Morocco, Chad, America, Russia and Germany, among other places. There has been much approving commentary about how French foreign policy has been freed of the reflexive anti-Americanism it so often bore under Mr Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac. Yet for the future of his country, and of his presidency, Mr Sarkozy's foreign policy is not what counts most. A far bigger test confronted Mr Sarkozy at home this week, as his much-vaunted economic reforms provoked a string...

President Nicolas Sarkozy has been called France's Energizer Bunny, a hyperactive head of state criticized for doing the jobs of his ministers, hogging the airwaves and refusing to rest or reflect. But as major nationwide transit strikes dragged on for the sixth day Monday and as public-sector workers were poised to walk out Tuesday, Sarkozy is hunkered down somewhere in the Élysée Palace, gambling that a stealth, low-key approach to his first domestic crisis six months into his presidency will succeed. There has been no nationwide address, no carefully calibrated television interview by a friendly questioner. Instead, Sarkozy's prime minister...

THOUSANDS of government supporters were gathering in Paris today to vent their fury over a public transport strike and to cheer on President Nicolas Sarkozy’s economic reforms. After days of transport chaos and deadlock over one of the key reforms, the railway workers’ strike seemed set to continue even though the number involved is decreasing each day. A separate protest by students is also dragging on. The government has taken comfort from widespread anger at the disruption to public transport. Reports of strikers obstructing railway lines to prevent trains leaving stations have provoked indignation. . . . Sarkozy insists that...

Europe of today is an economy running at half speed. Despite being in possession of all the technological and financial know-how accessible to man and despite being home to many of the richest countries on Earth as well as the leading world currency, the Globe's financial capital and a population of 500 million inhabitants, Europe at large remains an economical failure. It seems Paris needs to be liberated again. As a European, I give my full support to Sarkozy! The article: "France has endured a second day of travel chaos as transport unions continued to strike against President Nicolas Sarkozy's...

France faced travel chaos on Wednesday as transport unions broadened a nationwide strike against a pensions reform that President Nicolas Sarkozy says is needed to shore up state accounts. Workers at rail operator SNCF went on strike on Tuesday evening and were joined on Wednesday by Paris transport workers and staff at power and gas utilities EdF and GdF -- the second time they have all downed tools in a month. The open-ended stoppage poses the biggest challenge to Sarkozy since he came to power six months ago pledging a deep-seated reform of the economy. Only a handful of trains...

France is bracing for several days of transport chaos from Tuesday evening, as railway workers launch an open-ended strike against plans introduced by President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform their pensions privileges. The national rail network faces major disruption from 8.00 pm (1900 GMT), and on Wednesday morning the shutdown will hit most metro and suburban commuter lines into Paris. A similar 24-hour strike on October 18 was followed by a large majority of railway-workers, who have vowed this time to roll the action over to the following days if the government does not back down. Energy workers, who also enjoy...

President Sarkozy faces his “Thatcher moment” this week as transport workers open a barrage of public sector strikes aimed at breaking his drive to purge France of its old economic ills...

In a week characterized by important labor stoppages, Chrysler workers went out on strike in Michigan, British postal workers returned to work while threatening further walkouts, and registered nurses started a 48-hour strike in Northern California. "Job actions by employees are commonplace, yet we never see similar protests by the individuals who create jobs in the first place," said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute. "In her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, published 50 years ago this week, Rand's fictional hero, John Galt, gave voice to the undeserved suffering of businessmen when he said: "There is only one...

~ Employees of France's national rail network called a strike for Oct. 17 to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's push to do away with their special privileges in the pension system. The CGT, Sud, CFTC, FO and CGC unions plan to take part in the strike, the CGT union announced Wednesday. Three other unions have decided to consult with members before making a decision. The strike will begin Oct. 16 at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) and will continue the following day. Unions left open the possibility that it could last beyond that. Sarkozy said this week that he wanted to do...

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy says he wants to go "much further in loosening up the 35-hour" working week. Mr Sarkozy also said he wanted to tighten up competition between firms to make consumer prices fall. In a speech to the employers' organisation Medaf, he said he was not planning to sit around waiting for international growth to improve.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday that talk of U.S. military strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan only hurts the fight against terrorism, and his troops bombarded militant hideouts in their strongest response yet to a month of anti-government attacks. Ten suspected militants were killed. The assault by artillery and helicopter gunships "knocked out" two compounds in Daygan village in the tribal belt near the border with Afghanistan that were being used as staging posts for attacks on security forces, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the army's top spokesman. Ten militants were killed and at least seven were...

Pennsylvania State Sen. Robert J. Mellow has re-introduced legislation to outlaw school strikes. It's a timely issue considering Pennsylvania leads the nation in teacher strikes. Pennsylvania is the "teacher-strike capital" of the United States, according to the Bucks County-based Web site, www.stopteacherstrikes.org Each year, tens of thousands of Pennsylvania children are forced out of school by striking teachers, who also happens to be among the highest paid in the nation (Pennsylvania's average teacher salary ranking No. 4 in the nation adjusted for cost of living, according to the Web site.) Teachers also enjoy pension plans and health coverage far more...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- A strategic thinker who called all the correct diplomatic and military plays preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom now sees diplomatic failure and air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. The war on Iran, he says, started a year ago when the United States began conducting secret recon missions inside Iran. Sam Gardiner, 67, has taught strategy at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. The retired Air Force colonel recently published as a Century Foundation Report "The End of the 'Summer of Diplomacy': Assessing the U.S. Military Option on Iran." President Bush and...

Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commanding general, 25th Infantry Division, greets the Iraqi Army division commanders for the first time as he takes charge of Multi-National Division - North at Contingency Operating Base Speicher. Department of Defense photo by Army Spc. Michael Pfaff, 133rd MPAD. TIKRIT --Following a year marked by noteworthy successes in growing the size and capabilities of the Iraqi security forces, rebuilding Iraq and providing security for a vast region of the country, the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division on Wednesday transferred control of Multi-National Division North to the Army’s 25th Infantry Division. “Our mission here is...

British general takes command and promises ruthless strikes on Taliban · 18,000-strong force ready for first land operations · Nato troops take charge of most of Afghanistan Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday August 1, 2006 The Guardian (UK) A British general yesterday took command of an expanded Nato force in Afghanistan, vowing to "strike ruthlessly" against the Taliban as the west's military alliance prepared to conduct land combat operations for the first time in its 57-year history. Lieutenant General David Richards, commander of Nato's international security assistance force, Isaf, based in Kabul, took over a multinational force in southern Afghanistan where British,...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — The U.N.'s top humanitarian official on Sunday denounced the Israeli airstrikes that have devastated Beirut and southern Lebanon, saying civilians were paying a "disproportionate price" in the attacks targeting Hezbollah strongholds. Jan Egeland inspected the destruction in south Beirut — a predominantly Shiite area that has suffered the brunt of the bombings. Israeli strikes hit the neighborhood hours before Egeland's arrival and six more missiles pounded it later, the first daytime attack there in days. "It's terrible. I see a lot of children wounded, homeless, suffering. This is a war where civilians pay a disproportionate price...

WASHINGTON, June 4, 2006 – A suicide car bomber attacked a coalition convoy this morning in downtown Kandahar City in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, killing four Afghan civilians and wounding 12 others, military officials reported. Officials said a man driving a sport utility vehicle waited in an alley and pulled out as the convoy passed. The attacker detonated the explosives between two convoy vehicles, killing himself and causing slight damage to the convoy vehicles, but harming 16 Afghans civilians. Coalition forces and Afghan police responded to the scene of the blast, rendering first aid and evacuating the injured. "This is another...

Monsoon gloom strikes South Asia 24 May 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition. "A POPULATION of a billion and a half depends on this rain," says Veerabhadran Ramanathan. Unfortunately, the South Asia monsoon that brings this rain may be losing strength thanks to global warming and the brown haze of pollution that hangs over the Indian Ocean. This wasn't supposed to happen. If global warming was heating the Indian Ocean uniformly, then the result ought to be increased evaporation and higher monsoon rainfall over south Asia. Instead, rainfall over India has decreased by 5 to 8 per cent since the...

USA Citizens Day - July 1st Immigration Control Rally Nationwide Rally on Saturday, July 1st, at noon, at your City HallMay 1st - Million of Illegal Aliens Marched in our StreetsTwelve million illegal aliens demonstrated their political power, and declared May 1st to be A Day Without Undocumented Workers ( illegal aliens ). They boycotted the USA, all US businesses and institutions. Millions of them marched in our streets, carried Mexican flags, shouted "Si se puede!", and demanded new laws from our Congress. July 1st - U.S. Citizens Nationwide Rally for Immigration ControlRally to stop our continuous invasion by...

Tsunami risk of asteroid strikes revealed 18:18 12 May 2006 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht The researchers modelled the asteroid impact believed to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs – this frame shows tsunami wave heights 4 hours after the impact of the 10-kilomtre-wide asteroid (Image: Steve Ward)Related Articles Tsunamis triggered by asteroid impacts cause a disaster similar to the 2004 Asian tsunami once every 6000 years on average, according to the first detailed analysis of their effects. Researchers have assumed that tsunamis would make ocean impacts more deadly than those on land. But Steve Chesley at the...

SINGAPORE, May 3 (Reuters) - Oil rose to almost $75 a barrel on Wednesday, near record highs as mounting tension over Iran's nuclear plan compounded worries of global supply disruptions amid forecast of falling fuel stocks in the United States. U.S. light, sweet crude traded up 34 cents at $74.95 a barrel by 0331 GMT, extending a rally for a fourth successive day after a jump of 91 cents on Tuesday. Prices were within striking distance of their all-time peak of $75.35 a barrel on April 24. IPE Brent crude matched Tuesday's record of $74.97 a barrel, but was later...

Strikes on Iran too risky, says US general By Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 02/05/2006) Military action against Iran would be fraught with risk and would have repercussions across the region, a leading American general conceded. "Any action militarily is very complicated," Lt Gen Victor Renuart, the director of planning for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Daily Telegraph. Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush and Condoleezza Rice in Washington yesterday "And any action by any country will have second-order effects, and that is a strong case to continue the diplomatic process and make it work." His comments are a rare...

Iran's recent declaration that it has successfully enriched uranium is bound to further increase tensions between Tehran and the United States. But the Iranian government also has an internal crisis on its hands. The country's high level of poverty has triggered a series of intense social struggles.

Although they still claim to be the last best hope for public education, the influence of teachers’ unions has wanted so much that criticism of the association’s and federations has spread beyond conservative and Republican groups to the school boards and superintendents that they once made and broke. “There is a teacher I have hired and I don’t know if he’s with us on our team,” Baltimore Talent Development High School principal Jeffrey Robinson said at a recent meeting at the National Academies of Science. “I know the unions have their rules and something must be done about the unions.”...

(CNN) -- Pakistani helicopter gunships converged Wednesday night on a suspected terrorist compound near the Afghan border, killing "a number" of militants, including some foreigners, according to a military statement read on Pakistani television.

by Edward Hudgins, Executive Director, The Objectivist Center & Atlas Society. ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org We can always count on the French to show us how holding the wrong moral values and following the wrong economic policies will produce a comedie that becomes tres tragique. Hundreds of thousands of students have been taking to the streets from Paris to Lyon demonstrating and rioting against a new labor law that will allow employers to dismiss without cause employees 26 years old or younger within the first two years of being hired. France has some of Europe's most stringent laws restricting the freedom of employers...

The government minister in charge of labour issues planned to meet with representatives for industrial workers and employers Tuesday evening, in the hopes of averting a major strike.National mediator Svein Longva is having trouble getting industrial employers and workers to come to terms.National mediator Svein Longva deemed it necessary to bring the government into the conflict, after talks broke down late Monday between union Fellesforbundet and the employers' group (Norsk Industri).Core issues involve early retirement, use of foreign workers at lower pay, and salary levels. The employers, for example, aren't willing to guarantee that they'll preserve early retirement programs, known...

FRENCH rail and air services face disruption today when students and unions stage a day of protests in an attempt to deliver a death blow to a labour reform that was rushed into law by Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister. The Government and protesters see the one-day show of force as a test that could decide not just the fate of the youth employment law but also of M de Villepin’s ambition to run for the succession to President Chirac in elections next spring. Police expect at least half a million people to march in some 200 protests around...

FRANCE is bracing for a "black Tuesday" of strikes and demonstrations against the government's contested youth jobs contract, amid warnings of a growing risk of violence. An alliance of trade unions and student organisations has called for a fifth day of nationwide protests in its campaign against Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's First Employment Contract (CPE), which makes it easier for employers to hire and fire under 26 year-olds. Public transport is expected to be badly hit across the country, with only one metro train in two operating in the capital. Airport authorities have warned passengers to expect delays and...

FRANCE faces a week of chaos with a strike set to paralyse a nation already shaken by furious protests against new employment laws. And criminal gangs from Paris have begun a spate of crimes in the centre of the city while police are occupied with the protest marches. Horrified Parisians have found themselves the victims of robberies and violence even in some of the smartest areas of the city and some of the best-known tourist spots. Britons have been warned by the Foreign Office to avoid Paris because of the risk of violence. Student leaders yesterday snubbed an invitation to...

Al Qaeda's Zawahri calls for strikes against West By Firouz Sedarat Sat Mar 4, 11:20 PM ET DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims to attack the West in an audio tape posted on the Internet on Saturday, urging similar strikes as those against New York, London and Madrid in recent years. In a video of his remarks aired by Al Jazeera television, Zawahri also urged the Islamist militant group Hamas not to recognize peace deals signed by the Palestinian Authority with Israel. He also called on Muslims to boycott countries where satirical cartoons of...

Bird flu strikes fear into Italy's shoppers By Hilary Clarke (Filed: 14/02/2006) Poultry sales in Italy have plunged by more than 50 per cent after bird flu was discovered in a wild swan in Sicily last Friday. Amid the panic, one driver for a battery chicken farm who had lost his job killed his wife and daughter before cutting his own throat. Police believe Claudio Robello, 48, of Grezzano, near Verona, was tipped over the edge by being laid off because of falling sales. He killed his 44-year-old wife and 10-year-old daughter with a knife and hammer in a frenzied...

TROY, Mich. — A judge who sentenced three teenagers to probation for being drunk at their high school prom had them jailed after he saw them drinking and ridiculing him on a Web site one of them created. "I told them, 'If you think this gives me any pleasure, you're wrong,'" Oakland County District Judge Michael Martone said after sentencing the last of the girls, Amanda Senopole, to 10 days in jail last week. "You know, it's just a crying shame," Martone said. "I work my butt off trying to help kids like this, trying to figure out what works....

One of the principal elements of civil society is the rule of law. Society depends upon most people obeying the law most of the time, together with tough sanctions for violation. In this spirit, the full strength of any and all sanctions of the Taylor Law should be imposed upon the leadership of New York's illegally striking bus and subway workers. At the height of the holiday shopping season, the strike by bus and subway workers could not be a more ill-timedand antagonistic affront to its customers. Under New York's Taylor Law, enacted specifically because of a previous transit strike,...

Op-Ed Contributor Editors' Note: After this Op-Ed article went to press, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority revised its contract offer. Updated details can be found in this news story. THE Transport Workers Union, representing the city's nearly 34,000 subway and bus workers, is threatening to call a strike this Friday if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn't sign a contract to its liking. Such a strike would be illegal: public employees in New York State are forbidden from walking out on the job. And not only would a strike be illegal, it would be unjustified. The authority is a generous employer by...

This site is dedicated to making teacher strikes illegal in the State of Pennsylvania. If you are a Pennsylvania resident, please help us make Pennsylvania children our top legislative priority. No family in Pennsylvania is immune from the problem of teacher strikes.

BUCHAREST, Romania — The head of a European investigation into alleged secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe said Friday it was unlikely that there were large clandestine detention centers in the region. Dick Marty, the Swiss senator heading the investigation on behalf of the Council of Europe, said he did not believe a prison like the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was possible in the region. "But it is possible that there were detainees that stayed 10, 15 or 30 days," Marty told reporters, without referring to any country. "We do not have the full picture." Marty was in...

Today the President spoke to a group of Veterans at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania where he discussed the War on Terror and counter the useless lying democrats who have been very busy doing all they can to undermine the War, The President and our National Security. The Former Amphibious Automobile crash test dummy, Ted Kennedy, was quick to release a statement condemning the President for speaking out against them on Veterans Day. White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, responded to the fat Drunk from Massachusetts with this statement: "It is regrettable that Senator Kennedy has chosen Veteran's...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2005 – The millions of Iraqis who voted in their country's landmark Oct. 15, 2005, constitutional referendum have dealt a catastrophic blow to the worldwide al Qaeda terrorist network, which would like to subjugate them and the entire Middle East to a jihadist, terrorist tyranny, President Bush said today in his weekly radio address. "By casting their ballots," Bush said, "the Iraqi people deal a severe blow to the terrorists and send a clear message to the world: Iraqis will decide the future of their country through peaceful elections, not violent insurgency ... . "The terrorists," he...

PARIS - Tens of thousands of French transportation workers and teachers held a nationwide strike on Tuesday to protest the government's economic and labor policies, slowing the train and bus systems and closing schools throughout the country. Commuters were jammed into those trains and buses still running while many flights through Paris airports were canceled. Schools closed as almost 230,000 teachers stayed home, the Education Ministry said. So, too, did about 15 percent of postal workers, according to the mail service. Newspapers were not delivered in Paris.The national rail operator said all Paris stations were disrupted, with about two-thirds of...

WARDAK, Afghanistan (Army News Service, Aug. 19, 2005) – After several weeks of sizing each other up, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division’s Task Force Red Falcon met enemy forces in Eastern Ghazni province head on for the first time during Operation Neptune Aug. 8 through 12, resulting in the death of one militia member. The operation began with a dawn-breaking raid on a village suspected of harboring enemy militants, by two companies from the 82nd’s newly-arrived 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, as well as units from the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. They task force...

Which kind of intelligence failure is better — the kind that badly understates a threat, such as the one in London, or the kind that overstates a threat, such as the insistent warnings before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction? Even in the best intelligence services, failures are sometimes inevitable. Foresight will never be as sharp as hindsight. Only after the fact — after the Underground blows up, after 9/11, after the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons are nowhere to be found — is it clear what the picture looks like...