Free Republic

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain criticized his Democratic rivals on Tuesday for pledging to renegotiate a hemispheric trade treaty that Democrats blame for U.S. manufacturing job losses. At a town-hall meeting in St. Louis, the Arizona senator also called for the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress to approve a free-trade treaty with Colombia that is being stymied on Capitol Hill. "On trade, I'm a free trader," McCain told employees at Savvis Internet company, a session dominated by questions about the ailing U.S. economy. McCain, the likely Republican nominee to run in the November election, is spending the week...

SANTIAGO, Chile - President Hugo Chavez lashed back at Spain's king Sunday for telling him to "shut up" during a summit, suggesting the monarch knew in advance of a 2002 coup that briefly ousted the Venezuelan leader from power. Chavez claimed that Spain's ambassador had backed interim president Pedro Carmona and appeared at Venezuela's presidential palace during the two-day coup in 2002. He demanded to know how deeply King Juan Carlos had been involved. "Mr. King, did you know about the coup d'etat against Venezuela, against the democratic, legitimate government of Venezuela in 2002?" Chavez said before reporters in Santiago....

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday lashed out at rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, accusing her of dodging tough questions about Social Security. Obama, campaigning at a senior center in Des Moines, said all the presidential candidates need to talk honestly about Social Security instead of sidestepping the issue, but he singled out Clinton — the front-runner for the nomination — for special criticism. Obama's criticism of Clinton comes as she has been increasing her lead in national polls, leaving him and other Democratic candidates lagging far behind. Obama's campaign arranged for him to be introduced...

SAN DIEGO - Disgraced former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham lashed out at the reporter who uncovered the corruption scandal that sent him to prison, telling him in a letter that his "constant cruelty" had nearly destroyed Cunningham's life. The former Navy "Top Gun" pilot also blasted defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who helped implicate him to authorities. "Wade is the absolute devil," Cunningham wrote in the four-page, handwritten letter, excerpts of which were published Saturday on the San Diego Union-Tribune's Web site. Wade has pleaded guilty to giving Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes and is awaiting sentencing. His lawyer...

Imprisoned Journalist Bastani Rejects Conditional Pardon In a short message from Arak prison, Massoud Bastani the imprisoned journalist announced that he was not prepared to ask for a pardon for a crime that he had not committed, thus rejecting the condition for his release as requested by the judicial authorities. (snip) That was Dec. 2005. Now, it's been learned that Bastani has been Condemned to 74 Lashes .... "Now Bastani is waiting for the rest of his sentence, 74 lashes. His mother has offered to sell all her gold to save her son from this inhumane punishment. His wife is...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A San Francisco police officer injured at an anarchists' protest remained hospitalized Saturday as Mayor Gavin Newsom vowed to get tough on violent demonstrators. The unidentified officer suffered a gash to his head when was struck with an unknown object as he confronted protesters late Friday at Mission and 23rd Street, said police officer Maria Oropeza. A photo taken by a passer-by and aired on KRON 4 news shows an officer, his head and face covered in blood, kneeling on the ground and clutching his police radio. Cody Tarlow, 21, of Felton and Doritt Earnst, 31,...

SINGAPORE - A Myanmar man has been sentenced by a Singapore court to four years in prison and six lashes with a cane after posing as a stewardess to pick up men in nightclubs and then stealing from them, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

MONTEREY - Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante ripped into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Monterey on Friday, accusing the governor of playing presidential politics and engaging in hypocrisy on the use of steroids. Bustamante, the top elected Democrat in California who lost badly in the October 2003 recall election to Schwarzenegger, also took digs at the governor's height, his alleged sexual harassment on movie sets and his early days as an immigrant. A representative of the governor characterized Bustamante's comments as ``a nasty-gram.'' `Sour grapes' ``Our response is that it sounds like sour grapes from someone who is going to be a...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) on Wednesday called "outrageous and exaggerated" accusations that U.N. staff allowed corruption by Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime, and rejected conflict-of-interest charges involving his own son. In his strongest comments to date on the burgeoning U.N.-run oil-for-food scandal, Annan said U.N. officials were blamed for Saddam's smuggling of oil and a variety of other misdeeds that they had no way of controlling. "We had no mandate to stop oil smuggling," Annan told a news conference. "They were driving the trucks through northern Iraq (news - web sites)...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - Presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush Friday of treating California as "foreign territory" and said the Bush administration has worked against the state's interests.</p> <p>"Over and over again he has stood in the way of this state's progress, choosing special interests over California's interests," the Massachusetts Democrat told hundreds of delegates on the first day of the California Democratic Party convention at the Sacramento Convention Center.</p>