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The state board that investigates lawyer misconduct says it is on record pace for disciplining Minnesota attorneys this year. The Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board says the number of sanctions, ranging from public reprimands to disbarments, is up and it is only spring. If the trend continues, it could lead to the highest number of sanctions leveled against Minnesota lawyers in over five years. St. Paul, Minn. — Many of the complaints the Lawyer's Board investigates get dismissed. Those include a large number filed by clients upset simply because their attorney lost. Every year, however, there a few attorneys the board...

Here's what I believe to be true regarding some of the most important issues facing America today, and what most politicians apparently don't. IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT I'm going to be as blunt as I can be with respect to the illegal alien problem in this country, while refraining from using the profane terms that routinely leap to my mind every time I think about our government's unrelenting failure to address this issue in any responsible way. To get right to the point, any person in this country who doesn't support (A) doing whatever is necessary to stop illegals from entering...

<p>In this document ISGZ-2004-028179 there is a report by the Assistant of the Iraqi Intelligence Director to his boss “The Director” dated January/23/2003 regarding the visit of one German and one Frenchman to Iraq and these two guys talk about their strong relation with the top government officials in both France and Germany. In this letter the German that German Chancellor Schroeder was totally opposed to the idea of the war in Iraq and it his opposition to the possible war that made him win the German elections held in 2002. Also there is an important part of the letter where it mention the visit of German Chancellor to meet with the Chinese Prime minister and that the Chinese PM told Schroeder “about the information that was obtained by the Chinese intelligence and it says that Iraq has moved his mass of destruction weapon to Syria and the German Chancellor told him that the German intelligence did not indicate this. And after two days the US state secretary went to Damascus to check on this with the Syrian government that in turn denied this news.” Also in the letter it show the fear of the French to join the war because of the heavy losses that will suffer..</p>

Tue Mar 14, 9:22 AM ET NEW YORK - The New York Times is investigating questions raised about the identity of a man who said in a Page 1 profile that he is the Abu Ghraib prisoner whose hooded image became an icon of abuse by American captors. The online magazine Salon.com challenged the man's identity, based on an examination of 280 Abu Ghraib pictures it has been studying for weeks and on an interview with an official of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command. The official says the man the Times profiled Saturday, Ali Shalal Qaissi, is not the detainee...

Russia and China have rejected proposals from the United States and other veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council for a statement demanding that Iran clear up suspicions about its nuclear program, diplomats said Monday. The dispute raises the threat of an impasse in the Security Council and means that the U.S., Britain and France may not get their wish for strong action by the powerful U.N. body. They believe such a text could further isolate Iran and help compel it to abandon uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a civilian nuclear reactor or fissile material for...

The British, French and German ambassadors to Washington said that the United States must close its Guantanamo "war on terror" detention camp which the French envoy called "an embarrassment." The ambassadors stepped up international pressure on US authorities after a report by UN human rights experts called for the camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be shut as soon as possible. "Guantanamo is an embarrassment, and so it has to be solved one way or the other," French ambassador Jean-David Levitte during an appearance by the three envoys on CNN television. The German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger was equally outspoken....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia and China have too much riding on commercial relations with Iran to help the West in curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions, a U.S. senator said on Tuesday, calling for tough measures with Moscow and Beijing. "The two countries that are sending the wrong signals today are Russia and China," said Kansas Republican Sam Brownback. "Part of the problem is Iran ... has effectively bought U.N. Security Council vetoes from China and, very likely, Russia," Brownback, a potential presidential contender in 2008, said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. Experts at a symposium at the...

MOSCOW, February 14 (RIA Novosti) - The visit by Hamas representatives to Russia will offer the new Palestinian leadership an opportunity to return to the norms outlined by the United Nations, the French prime minister said Tuesday. "I want Hamas to realize that it is being given a chance to follow the way defined by UN resolutions," Dominique de Villepin said live on Ekho Moskvy radio during his official visit to the Russian capital. The premier laid out the conditions that had to be met by Hamas in order to begin talks: giving up any kind of violence, acknowledging Israel's...

Dairy giant Fonterra is distancing itself from Danish products caught up in widespread Muslim protests and trade boycotts after the publication of cartoons of Mohammed. Denmark was the first country to publish controversial caricatures of the Muslim prophet last September and the country has been hardest hit by the backlash. Fonterra is remaining tight-lipped about any impact the publication of the cartoons in New Zealand might have had on its business, but Middle East reports say that some emails and fliers wrongly list Fonterra products as coming from Denmark. Fonterra has published an ad in Middle East newspapers highlighting that...

The editors of The Dominion Post and The Press have apologised for the offence caused after they published pictures of the prophet Mohammed. A group of 17 news executives and religious leaders met in Wellington this afternoon over the fall-out from the publication of caricatures first published in Denmark. The two newspaper editors told the meeting they did not set out to insult or offend Muslims, and both have apologised. However, they have not resiled from the decision to publish the cartoons in the first place. Federation of Islamic Associations president Javad Khan says the meeting has opened up dialogue...

The Prime Minister has spoken out about the Mohammad cartoon controversy, saying she does not think it is a freedom of the press issue. Helen Clark says the New Zealand press is free, and politicians do not dictate what it can and cannot print. She says it is a question of judgement. She does not think the publication of the cartoons does anything to bring communities together in New Zealand or around the world. Helen Clark says the New Zealand government's position is very strongly in favour of respecting all religions and working to bring communities together, not drive them...

New Zealand diplomats in the Islamic world have been warned to take precautions against possible threats to staff and property following the publication here of controversial cartoons of Mohammed. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials have reacted "with concern" to the publication of the images, and were yesterday monitoring Muslim reaction for signs of retaliation against New Zealanders overseas or our trade interests. Yesterday The Dominion Post ran the 12 caricatures, originally published by a Danish newspaper in September. Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst said the publication was a test of Islamic tolerance. The Press ran two of the...

BERLIN, Dec. 28 -- A former German ambassador to Washington and four members of his family were reported missing and apparently kidnapped Wednesday while vacationing in a remote part of Yemen. It was the latest in a string of tourist abductions in the Arabian desert. Juergen Chrobog, ambassador from 1995 to 2001, his wife and three adult sons were declared missing by the German Foreign Ministry. In Yemen, government officials said the family had been taken hostage by tribesmen who regularly seize Western tourists as bargaining chips in dealings with the government, according to news service reports from Sanaa, the...

OLD politicians never die, they just fade into boardrooms. The passage of Gerhard Schröder from public office accords with the dictum, except that he stubbornly refuses to fade. The former Chancellor of Germany took just a fortnight’s leave on quitting office before accepting his post at NorthEuropean Gas Pipeline, a company that will lay a pipe the length of the Baltic Sea. Barely enough time to do a round of after-dinner speeches, let alone write his memoirs, before he was appointed head of the supervisory board of Gazprom’s European venture. To make matters worse, Herr Schröder’s eager acceptance of a...

Gerhard Schroeder, who less than a month ago was Germany's chancellor, has agreed to become chairman of the company that is building a gas pipeline from Russia, across the Baltic Sea to Germany, and on through Western Europe. In many countries, Schroeder would now be charged with the crime of conflict of interest. His apparent ethical lapse is magnified by the fact that, at this very moment, Russia is threatening to cut off Ukraine's gas supplies if that country does not give in to the pricing demands of the Kremlin's state-owned gas behemoth, Gazprom. Russia's strategic task is obvious: cutting...

OTTAWA and VANCOUVER — The United States launched an exceptional mid-campaign rebuke yesterday of the Liberal government's constant criticism of the Bush administration, bringing the high level of tensions between the world's two biggest trading partners to the forefront of the Canadian election. "It may be smart election-year politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it is a slippery slope, and all of us should hope that it doesn't have a long-term impact on the relationship," the U.S. ambassador to Ottawa, David Wilkins, said in a tough speech to the...

<p>The former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will be the chairman of the supervisory board of the pipeline-syndicate NEGP Company, said the boss of the Russian corporate group GAZPROM Alexej Miller during a celebration for the start of construction of the new pipeline through the Balic Sea in Babajewo.</p>

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced that there is “very serious” evidence of Syria's involvement in the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri on February 14 of this year. A UN commission investigation of the assassination uncovered that evidence. Washington has prepared a resolution to introduce in the UN Security Council on the imposition of international sanctions against Syria. Besides, the assassination of Hariri, Syria is accused to financing Palestinian and Iraqi extremists. Russia, which considers Syria its main ally in the Middle East, is determined to prevent the passage of...

ANKARA [MENL] -- Turkey has resumed its normal level of natural gas imports from Iran. Turkey's state-owned Botas said the gas flow from Iran returned to normal within days of a pipeline explosion. The explosion, which took place on Oct. 3, was said to have stemmed from a leak. On Oct. 5, Botas said the leak was repaired. In a statement, the company said gas imports have returned to "previous levels before the disruptions." During the last nine months of 2004, the value of gas exports to Turkey reached $2.7 billion, industry sources said. They said the Iranian-Turkish gas pipeline...

MADRID, Spain (AP) A judge has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and one other, a court official said Wednesday. Judge Santiago Pedraz issued the warrant for Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp, all from the U.S. 3rd Infantry. Jose Couso, who worked for the Spanish television network Telecinco, died April 8, 2003, after a U.S. army tank crew fired a shell on Hotel Palestine in Baghdad where several journalists were staying to cover the war....