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SAN FRANCISCO -- Monkeys waving white flags joined protesters outside the district office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco today to speak out against the Democratic leader's support for measures that organizers say undercuts the mission of the troops in Iraq.

We must win back Muslim voters says HainMay 16 2007 by Tomos Livingstone, Western Mail LABOUR needs to change tack on foreign policy to win back voters who deserted the party over the Iraq war, Peter Hain said last night. Welsh Secretary Mr Hain said “hundreds of thousands” of Muslims had been lost to Labour as a result of the worsening situation in Iraq. The Neath MP has in the past criticised the failings of US foreign policy under President Bush, but has rarely made a direct link between the invasion of Iraq and a waning of support for the...

President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday that defending human rights and action on global warming would be priorities for French diplomacy. Sarkozy also pledged in his inaugural address after taking over from Jacques Chirac as France’s 23rd president to support the welfare state in Europe, create a Mediterranean Union and bolster development in Africa. “I will fight for a Europe that protects because the European ideal is to protect the citizens of Europe,” he said after taking office during a formal ceremony at the Elysee presidential palace. “I will fight for a Mediterranean Union. By turning its back on the...

"All political careers end in failure," a British statesman once wisely said. Judging by the wreckage of the famous political career that ended this week, he was even wiser than he knew. With the election of a new president of France on Sunday, the lengthy professional life of Jacques Chirac—French president for 12 years, mayor of Paris for 18 years, twice French prime minister for a total of four years—comes to a grinding halt, apparently to the great relief of his compatriots. ... Ponder closely, for example, what Chirac has had to say about Africa, where his country has enormous...

Address to the Virginia Convention 23 March 1775 by Patrick Henry No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment...

KING Two dozen Kiowa and Blackhawk helicopters from Fort Lewis landed at Aberdeen Tuesday to be loaded on a ship. ABERDEEN, Wash. - The city of Aberdeen is bracing for a weekend of war protests. Demonstrators are arriving at the Port of Grays Harbor, the site of a massive deployment of equipment to Iraq. Hoping to avoid a repeat of intense protests at the ports of Olympia and Tacoma, police are cracking down before the Aberdeen protests even start. They're limiting where protesters can go and how they can get there. Only residents with city-issued permits can park anywhere...

The French dislike themselves even more than the Americans dislike them, according to an opinion poll published on Friday. The survey of six nations, carried out for the International Herald Tribune daily and France 24 TV station, said 44 percent of French people thought badly of themselves against 38 percent of U.S. respondents who had a negative view of the French. Only 14 percent of Germans, 25 percent of Italians, 29 percent of Spaniards and 33 percent of Britons had a negative view of the French, according to the Harris/Novatris poll, which questioned more than 1,000 people in each country....

In an interview on CBS News' Face the Nation this morning, Rep. John Murtha ('Rat-PA) raised the specter of impeaching President Bush over his refusal to accede to demands by the majority Congressional Democrats to end the war in Iraq.Murtha mentioned impeachment as one of the options to "influence the president" in the current debate on the Iraq war funding bill approved on sharply partisan votes by the House and Senate this week that would mandate an end to active U.S. involvement in Iraq by April 2008.When pressed by Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer whether Murtha was calling for...

WASHINGTON - A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war. The 51-46 vote was largely along party lines, and like House passage of the same bill a day earlier, fell far short of the two-thirds margin needed to overturn the president's threatened veto. Neverthe less, the legislation is the first binding challenge on the war that Democrats have managed to send to Bush since they reclaimed control of both houses of Congress in January.

From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume: —On Harry Reid and Iraq— MORT KONDRACKE: But, you know, you have a dynamic going where everybody is ratcheting up their rhetoric and ratcheting up their position or making it more [confrontational], and I wonder whether there’s going to be a deal reached here. If there’s not a deal reached, the troops don’t get their money. If troops don’t get their money then they begin hurting as of a certain point. And I got to say, you know, if al Qaeda is watching American television, watching what’s going on in the United...

74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session House Bill 3539 Sponsored by Representatives HUNT, ROBLAN; Representatives BEYER, BOONE, CANNON, CLEM, D EDWARDS, GELSER, KOTEK, READ, RILEY SUMMARY The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's brief statement of the essential features of the measure as introduced. Requires employer to provide reasonable accommodation to religious observance or practices of employee unless providing accommodation would impose undue hardship on employer. Requires employer to permit employee to use certain leave...

London - The British navy has suspended all boarding operations of cargo vessels in the northern Gulf while a complete review of the practice is under way following the capture - and release - of 15 navy personnel by Iran, it was confirmed Friday. The head of the British Navy, Admiral Jonathon Band, said in a BBC interview that the boarding operations of merchant vessels suspected of illegal cargo had been suspended while a "complete review" of the incident which led to the sailors being seized is carried out.

London, April 6 (Prensa Latina) The British Navy suspended its maneuvers Friday in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian authorities captured 15 soldiers of the European country for entering their territorial waters. The chief of the Royal Navy, Adm. Jonathon Band, considered it necessary to suspend the drills for the moment, and called for reviewing British patrol regulations.

A YEMENI was killed today in clashes with police as workers at a gas export terminal in southern Yemen protested at a French engineer's alleged desecration of the Koran, a local official said. "One worker was killed and others were arrested following clashes with police who intervened" to contain the protest at the terminal being built by the French company Total in Balhaf port, he said, requesting anonymity. "After a fight between a French engineer and another who is Yemeni, the Frenchman - to enrage the Yemeni - threw a Koran on the floor in an offensive way," the official...

The Time for Action on Iraq By Dennis J Kucinich Al-Jazeerah, March 14, 2007 Democratic leaders are poised to give President Bush another $120 billion to expand the war into Iran Democratic leaders are poised to give President Bush another $120 billion ($120,000,000,000) for the war, more than enough money to keep out troops in Iraq through the end of his term and enough money to expand the war into Iran. Democratic leaders want to fund the war while saying they oppose the war. They are promising to use the war as a campaign issue against Republicans in 2008. We...

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday. The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers’ acquittal at the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Democratic-controlled House issued a symbolic rejection of President Bush's decision to deploy more troops to Iraq on Friday, opening an an epic confrontation between Congress and commander in chief over an unpopular war that has taken the lives of more than 3,100 U.S. troops. The vote on the nonbinding measure was 246-182.

These Colors Do.

Paris is less attractive for international financial companies than London partly because of French attitudes to business, according to a leading US investment banker. “London made it very attractive for people to come there and work there, and I think in France, quite frankly, attitudes exist that cause people to shy away from that part of the world in terms of being a financial centre,” ... Mr Perella pointed to concerns about “raids” on international companies by the French tax authorities. “There have been a lot of stories ...of raids into people’s homes and offices to seize their computers to...