Free Republic

SEATTLE (AP) — President Barack Obama sounded a nostalgic personal note Sunday night and offered a rare self-assessment while criticizing congressional Republicans as an "impediment" to governing during the start of a West Coast fundraising tour for the Democratic Party.

Melbourne, June 9: A paraplegic man was recently denied a church marriage by a bishop in Italy because he was impotent, say reports. The 26-year-old man ultimately had to go for a civil marriage on Saturday in Viterbo. "No bishop, no priest can celebrate a wedding when he knows of admitted impotence as it is a motive for annulment (of the marriage),'' the Australian quoted Salvatore de Ciuco, spokesman for Bishop Lorenzo Chiarinelli of Viterbo in central Italy, as telling SkyTG24 television. The groom has been paraplegic since he was involved in a car accident, said the television report. His...

Analysis: Mideast held back by cheap fuel WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 Faced with high international oil and gas prices, some Middle Eastern countries are struggling to squirm out from under hugely popular, but economically crushing, energy subsidies. Nations across the region, from Iran to Egypt, have for years been burdened with fuel subsidies that sap national budgets, cut into economic investment in other sectors and interrupt serious reforms. Oil price increases have been a double-edged sword in the region, bolstering national budgets to permit continued subsidies, but also allowing the oil-rich countries to put off economic reforms, which could lead to...

"I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future." So spoke President Bush just two days after his re-election, just exactly as news reports were leaking Yasser Arafat's demise.The combination of Mr. Bush's stunning new mandate and Mr. Arafat's near-death condition will lead, I predict, to a quick revival of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy after months of relative doldrums and to massive dangers to Israel.The doldrums will cease because the Bush administration views Mr. Arafat as the...