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Party school magazine lambasts Chinese blockbusters as "ugly", "bloodthirty" Zhang Yimou's blockbuster "Curse of the Golden Flower" is back in the headlines after a Party school magazine criticized the film as "ugly" and "bloodthirsty". The violence depicted in China's homemade blockbusters transgresses "the moral limits of Chinese art," said a signed article in the Study Times, a periodical published by the Party School of the CPC Central Committee. "Watching the 'Curse of the Golden Flower' makes one feel nauseous. This is a bloodthirsty movie," said the article, under the byline of Tao Dongfeng. The author fired off several salvoes at...

Lieberman Defends 1998 Rebuke of Clinton Saturday September 9, 2006 3:46 AM By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN Associated Press Writer STRATFORD, Conn. (AP) - Sen. Joe Lieberman defended his reprimand of former President Clinton for his involvement with a White House intern, dismissing rival Ned Lamont's claim that he turned the 1998 rebuke into a spectacle. ``It was important for someone who was a Democrat to stand up and call on him publicly to accept more responsibility for what he had done,'' Lieberman said Friday. ``In that case, I stood up and did what I believed was right for our country.'' In...

France leads rebuke of Iran By Harry Mount in New York (Filed: 02/09/2006) France led the international condemnation of Iran's nuclear ambitions yesterday, giving the clearest indication to date that it could side with an American push to impose sanctions. The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, went further than ever before in his criticism of Iran's refusal to suspend its nuclear programme, though he said he still hoped for a negotiated solution to the row. "We cannot accept that Iran should be able to resume its activities in the nuclear field," said Mr de Villepin. "The door must always...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney defended himself on Thursday against accusations by a leading Republican senator that he worked to thwart Senate plans to make telephone executives testify at a hearing about a U.S. domestic spying program. A day after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter rebuked Cheney for trying to head off subpoenas of the phone company executives, Cheney acknowledged that he had spoken to Senate leaders and members of Specter's committee. He said in a letter to Specter that he acted when the administration became concerned about a "compulsory process to force testimony" in a matter...

Morales and Chávez rebuked at EU summit Friday May 12, 2006The Guardian (UK) EU leaders today rounded on Bolivia and Venezuela for challenging free market policies at a summit of European and Latin American leaders in Vienna. Wolfgang Schuessel, the Austrian chancellor and the event's host, told the two countries open markets were key to promoting economic growth and prosperity. "There are always two possibilities in life. Either you want to open your markets or you don't want to open your markets - it's your choice," he said. "But the reality is ... open market societies are better in their...

You may have heard about the decision late last month by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upholding the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments display in Mercer County, Kentucky (American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky v. Mercer County). In that decision, the court issued a stunning defeat to the ACLU, writing: “The ACLU’s argument contains…fundamental flaws. First, the ACLU makes repeated reference to “the separation of church and state.” This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.” The court went on to note that the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Washington Post's ombudsman rebuked journalist Bob Woodward on Sunday for withholding what he knew about the CIA leak probe from his editor and for making public statements that were dismissive of the investigation without disclosing his own involvement. One of the best-known investigative reporters in the United States, Woodward revealed last week that he testified under oath to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that a senior Bush administration official told him in mid-June 2003 about CIA operative Valerie Plame's position at the agency. Fitzgerald announced a few days later in court papers that his two-year criminal investigation...

VATICAN CITY, JUL 26, 2005 (VIS) - Yesterday evening, Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls released the following declaration to journalists: "Concerning the Israeli reaction to the fact that the Holy Father, in his Angelus of Sunday July 24, did not also mention Israel alongside other countries, it should be noted that Benedict XVI's words specifically referred to the attacks of 'these days.' "It is surprising that the Holy Father's intention should have been thus groundlessly misinterpreted, it being well known that in numerous interventions the Church, the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs, and most recently Pope Benedict XVI,...

Saturday, July 23, 2005 12:03 a.m. EDT Gitmo Troops Rebuke Ted Kennedy During his inspection tour of Guantanamo Bay this week, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy got an earful from U.S. troops running the facility, who blasted Kennedy for his anti-war statements and similar comments by other Democrats. Soldiers from Kennedy's home state gave him "a piece of their mind," Pentagon officials told the Washington Times Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough. One official said that Kennedy "got a stiff reaction from those home-state soldiers. ... The troops down there expressed their disdain for that kind of commentary, especially comparisons to the...

By his statements equating American treatment of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay with the behavior of the evil regimes of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Senator Richard Durbin has dishonored the United States and the entire U.S. Senate. Only by a vote to censure Senator Durbin for his conduct can the U.S. Senate restore its dignity and defend American honor....This moral equivalence isn’t just utterly false; it endangers the lives of our young men and women in the military because it arms every radical Islamist with the official-record words of a Senate leader to justify their...

Dear Ms. Pelosi,We read with great disappointment the comments made on Tuesday by a member of the Senate Democratic Leadership.While speaking on the United States Senate floor, Senator Durbin chose to question the reputation of the thousands of brave men and women who are serving in our armed forces.As you know, thousands of young Americans have answered the call to serve following the horrible terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.At that time, we came together as the US Congress has never had before--Republicans and Democrats united against those who would do America harm. Our troops stood with our nation, and...

Allen: Durbin Should Ask Forgiveness for Remarks For Release: June 16, 2005 WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Senator George Allen (R-VA) today responded to the disparaging remarks made Tuesday by the Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Il) regarding the American military troops serving at Guantanamo Bay. Senator Durbin likened the actions of U.S. soldiers at the military base to those of "Nazis, Soviets, in their Gulags," and regimes that had "no concern for human beings." Allen said, "Senator Durbin's remarks were reprehensible. To compare our brave and honorable American troops to the Nazis and other brutal, murderous regimes is outrageous and...

The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman yesterday accused Sen. Richard J. Durbin of insulting American soldiers with a "grievous error in judgment" by comparing U.S. treatment of al Qaeda suspects to the crimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, and demanded that the Senate's No. 2 Democrat apologize. The rebuke followed a similar rebuke by the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who called Mr. Durbin "totally out of line." Republican lawmakers lined up to condemn the remarks as making the war on terror more dangerous for American troops. Some were particularly angry about the Al Jazeera...

Blair rebukes Chirac in row over British rebate By George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 10/06/2005) Tony Blair yesterday traded cross-Channel blows with Jacques Chirac, the French president, after deciding to toughen up his defence of the £3 billion-a-year rebate on Britain's contributions to the European Union's budget. In language reminiscent of the Anglo-French spats when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, Whitehall sources said Mr Blair was not prepared to take "lectures" from France and Luxembourg, which did much better than Britain out of the EU. Tony Blair: not prepared to take 'lectures' from France Mr Blair was stung into action...

Howard Dean's recent spate of verbal zingers has fellow Democrats wringing their hands, while generating a big shrug from the Democratic National Committee chairman himself. The latest flap came Monday when Dean said of the Republican Party, "It's pretty much a white, Christian party." The comment drew fire from Dean's GOP opponents, but it also rankled Democrats, who have been nervous ever since the outspoken former Vermont governor and presidential candidate won the DNC post. Although many admire Dean's fundraising and party-building skills, they worry about his penchant for red-hot rhetoric. Last week, Dean said of Republicans, "A lot of...

Rumsfeld Issues a Sharp Rebuke to China on Arms By THOM SHANKER Published: June 4, 2005 SINGAPORE, Saturday, June 4 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in an unusually blunt public critique of China, said Saturday that Beijing's military spending threatened the delicate security balance in Asia and called for an emphasis instead on political freedom and open markets.   Luis Enrique Ascui/Reuters Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at an Asian security conference dinner Friday night in Singapore with Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's prime minister from 1965 to 1990, who now serves as "minister mentor." In a keynote address at...

From combined dispatches CAIRO -- The condemnation of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda by the Islamic Commission of Spain on the first anniversary of the train bombings in Madrid that took 200 lives is making waves throughout the Muslim world. The Spanish commission's fatwa, or condemnation, follows other signs of the kind of public theological debate rarely seen in the Muslim world, openly challenging the dominance of Saudi Arabia's wealthy Wahhabi fanatics. One Islamic scholar even calls it a sign of "a counter-jihad." In a recent interview with the Qatari daily newspaper Al-Raya, for example, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the...

Members of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) Black Caucus have become seemingly desensitized to racial slurs. The Caucus did not even blink when the extreme Left’s new champion, Howard Dean, made prejudiced statements right before their very eyes. From Dean’s comments, it seems he believes that a Black person’s place is to be cleaning toilets at a hotel in which whites stay. According to the Washington Times, On Feb. 11, the day before he was elected party chief, Mr. Dean asked, at a meeting of the DNC Black Caucus, "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people...

My brother Chris was a 1985 graduate of the University of Colorado, the father of three young children and a compassionate, respectful and generous man. He stood in defense of our environment, volunteered his time and money in support of human rights, and gave unselfishly to help disadvantaged, vulnerable members of our society. He spoke openly against unjust government policies, and followed a private ethic of compassion. Chris was also a U.S. government Treasury bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald, and therefore by your definition was a "little Eichmann." At 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, you claim that my beautiful...

An Anglican Church commission rebuked the Episcopal Church USA yesterday for ordaining an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire and for blessing same-sex unions, and called for a moratorium on both practices "until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges." In a report issued in London, the commission asked the Episcopal Church to apologize for causing pain and division in the global Anglican Communion, the second largest church body in the world, with 77 million members in 164 countries. The report also calls for the bishops who consecrated the gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, to consider withdrawing from Anglican...