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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 02, 2006 CONTACT: Brendan Daly/Jennifer Crider 202-226-7616 Pelosi Statement on Speaker’s Comments Regarding Foley Matter Washington, D.C. –House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on Speaker Hastert's press conference on the Republican cover up of the inappropriate e-mails Mark Foley sent to an underage former House Page: “Speaker Hastert again failed to answer the question that every mother and father in America is asking: how could Republican Leaders choose partisan politics over protecting children? “Republican Leaders admitted to knowing about Mr. Foley’s abhorrent behavior for six months to a year and failed to protect...

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader has claimed that a radical Algerian Islamist group had joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France, it has emerged. Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared a video on a website on the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks. In the tape, he issued a warning of new attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf. Although France's government opposed the US-led war in Iraq, French officials believe the country is still a target for Islamist militants. In the video, Zawahiri says: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching...

BOSTON —Sen. John Kerry is calling on Democrats to rally around his plan to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by next July and redeploy some to Afghanistan. The Massachusetts Democrat gave a speech this morning at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. On the eve of Congressional mid-term elections, Kerry says Democrats must propose a new direction to defeat terrorism. He said Bush “pretends again and again” that Iraq is the central front on the war on terror, but Kerry said it isn’t and “never has been.” Kerry says the military commitment in Iraq weakens the United States’ ability to respond...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 30, 2006 CONTACT: Brendan Daly 202-226-7616 Pelosi Statement on Rumsfeld Remarks Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today in response to Secretary Rumsfeld’s remarks he made yesterday to the American Legion convention in Salt Lake City: "Secretary Rumsfeld's efforts to smear critics of the Bush Administration's Iraq policy are a pathetic attempt to shift the public's attention from his repeated failure to manage the conduct of the war competently. If Mr. Rumsfeld is so concerned with comparisons to World War II, he should explain why our troops have now been...

A French United Nations vehicle drives past a poster of Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, August 26, 2006. French troops have begun arriving in Lebanon to join an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force tasked with maintaining a truce between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (LEBANON)

PARIS (Reuters) - France is considering providing only a symbolic force for the United Nations contingent in Lebanon, and not the thousands of troops UN officials had hoped, Le Monde newspaper said on Thursday. If true, such a move could seriously delay the UN mission, seen as vital to securing peace between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas, or even scupper the whole operation. Quoting U.N. and diplomatic sources, Le Monde said France might send just a dozen officers and around 200 personnel from an engineering division for the beefed-up UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). President Jacques Chirac's office said the...