Free Republic

A new study shows Christianity on the decline in the wealthy West, with Islam surging. What Would Jesus Say? It’s not what you think. A study released by the Pew Forum last week demonstrates that the future of the religious world is rapidly and dramatically changing. Differences in fertility rates and the high incidence of conversion make Islam the world’s fastest-growing religion. And, if current rates continue, by 2070 Islam could be the world’s largest. Between now and 2050 the number of Muslims is projected to rise to 2.8 billion, a 35 percent increase. While India will continue to be...

A poor, agrarian, landlocked country in South America with a nearly 100 percent Christian population is hardly the place one would expect to become a hotbed of Islamic extremism in the Western Hemisphere. But a recent report by the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says it's so. .... One Muslim leader named in the OSC report is Mahmud Amer Abusharar, founder of the Centro Islamico Boliviano (CIB) in Santa Cruz. Abusharar emigrated from the Palestinian territories in 1974 and claims to have built Bolivia’s first mosque in 1994 so that he would...

The announcement by U.S. authorities of the arrest of three men and the search for another man, all implicated (allegedly by legal perspective) in a plot to kill thousands of people in and around the JFK International Airport leaves us with at least seven quick lessons... 1) This is an operation (successful or not) that implicated at least three countries in three subcontinents:... 2) The second lesson is that the Caribbean and South America have indeed became staging grounds for jihadi groups (al Qaeda, other Salafists and Iranian-led groups) to organize, recruit and act... 3) More specifically, attention must be...

Police on Thursday recovered a small part of the fortune in cash that disappeared from a small plane after it crashed in northeastern Brazil, according to news reports. The twin-engine plane was carrying $2.6 million worth of Brazilian reals when it crashed Wednesday afternoon near the city of Salvador, some 750 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro in Bahia state, killing all four people aboard, officials said. Police say they suspect locals made off with the bags of cash before rescuers arrived on the scene. But on Thursday, according to the Web sites of O Globo and Estado de S....

Many people were protesting against the war in Iraq Hundreds of demonstrators have rioted outside the US embassy in Mexico City, in the latest protest against President George W Bush's tour of Latin America.Protesters burned US flags and threw stones at police guarding the building. Tear gas was used to disperse the crowds. Several people were injured, including a number of police officers. The violence came hours after Mr Bush pledged to reform controversial immigration laws, during two-day talks with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Mr Bush made the announcement on Tuesday at the start of talks with Mr Calderon....

Mr Bush will speak about social justice and equality President George W Bush is in Guatemala for a one-day visit, after a stop in Colombia where he pledged his personal support to its fight against drugs. He will discuss security, trade and immigration with Guatemala's president. This is the fourth stop in Mr Bush's tour of Latin America, which has seen protests at every stage. Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has used a parallel tour of the region to speak out against what he calls the interference of the "American empire". Mr Chavez started his tour last week in Argentina,...

Troops have been deployed to boost police presence in Bogota US President George W Bush has arrived in Colombia as part of his five-nation Latin American tour.He will meet President Alvaro Uribe in a display of support for efforts to combat that country's insurgency. Colombia is one of the largest recipients of US aid to help fight a long-running war against left-wing guerrillas and drug traffickers. The visit is being overshadowed by a political scandal, which has raised questions about US support in Congress. The scandal has linked a number of President Uribe's government politicians to right-wing paramilitaries. Some...

Thousands of protesters greeted Mr Bush's arrival US President George Bush has met his Uruguayan counterpart, Tabare Vazquez, as part of his five-nation Latin American tour to promote trade.Mr Bush arrived in Montevideo from Brazil - where he signed a deal to develop alternative fuel sources. Uruguay is keen to sign free trade deals with the US, even if it means leaving the Mercosur trade bloc. The tour attracted protests in Brazil and about 5,000 protesters gathered in Uruguay for Mr Bush's visit. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is conducting his own tour of the region and addressed 40,000 anti-Bush...

!-- S IIMA --> Chavez attacked Bush in front of the Buenos Aires crowd It was the kind of situation that the Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, loves - 40,000 flag-waving supporters joining him in hurling insults at the US President, George W Bush.He was at a football stadium in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, leading what he called an anti-imperialist rally to coincide with Mr Bush's arrival in neighbouring Uruguay. Most of the crowd were members of trade unions, left-wing and human rights organisations, those who already supported Mr Chavez and what he calls his brand of socialism for...

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center Washington, D.C. Thank you all. (Applause.) Please be seated -- si ntese. Buenas tardes. Gracias por la bienevenida. For those of you not from Texas, that means, good afternoon. (Laughter.) And thank you for the welcome. I'm honored to be back again with the men and women of the Hispanic Chamber. I appreciate your hospitality. I'm pleased to report the economy of the United States is strong, and one of the reasons why is because the entrepreneurial spirit of America is strong. And the entrepreneurial spirit of America is represented in this room....

WASHINGTON - Miami's Jesús Soto supports Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's vision of ''participatory democracy.'' Valerie Pusch of Chicago backs Chávez because of his policies on behalf of the poor. And they say so loudly, as heads of their local Bolivarian Circles -- among the dozen or so U.S. copies of the groups Chávez has set up throughout his country to mobilize Venezuelans on behalf of his socialist ``revolution.'' Even as Chávez attacks President Bush as his sworn nemesis, his government is running a strong campaign to curry favor with U.S. citizens through leftist grass-roots groups, paid lobbyists and public relations...

WASHINGTON -- Despite tense relations with Venezuela, President Bush says it might be OK for the South American nation to have a nuclear reactor for peaceful energy uses. Bush acknowledged he had not heard about Venezuela's request for a reactor when asked about it Tuesday in an interview with Latin American reporters in advance of his five-day trip to the region. But he didn't reject the idea, even though he has had numerous disputes with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As Chavez, Bush and leaders from 32 other nations in the Western Hemisphere prepare to gather Friday at the Summit of...

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox marked a new beginning in Sino-Mexican relations with both leaders signing agreements in the areas of bilateral trade, mining and energy. “The motive of my visit is to deepen the strategic association between Mexico and China,” president Hu Jintao told journalists gathered at the Presidential Palace. The trip to Mexico was the first for Hu Jintao since becoming head of state and was designed to promote further business and diplomatic cooperation. Earlier this year, Chinese vice-president Zeng Qinghong and Jin Qinglin, chairman of the...

AS Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hit town for this week's special U.N. session, Chavez's flunkies were renting buses and offering to reimburse activists willing to create a "spontaneous" welcome crowd for the populist anti-American. Tomorrow, Chavez will be the guest of Columbia University's president, Lee Bollinger. And he'll speak Saturday at St. Paul and St. Andrew Methodist Church on 86th Street; Jesse Jackson is set to appear alongside. ...... Chavez has boasted that his intentions back then were not just to topple the government, but also to execute President Perez. In 2002, as the families of his victims mourned the...

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - When nine Caribbean countries signed oil trading agreements with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, it was a marriage of convenience. Fragile Caribbean economies scored modest relief from rising fuel prices, while the leftist South American leader advanced his campaign to become a counterweight to U.S. influence in the region, analysts say. "A lot of what Chavez is doing right now is just bravado," said Vinay Jawahar of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. "But it's going to make the United States' life harder." Jawahar said Chavez is trying to increase his influence in the 34-nation Organization of American...

SANTIAGO, Chile - The Chilean candidate to head the Organization of American States won the race Friday after his U.S.-backed rival withdrew in a deal that included a Chilean vow to bolster democracy in Latin America, including Cuba. The agreement made Chile's Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza certain to win the post of secretary general when the OAS meets Monday in Washington, because of the withdrawal of Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez. The agreement, brokered on the side of a democracy conference taking place in Santiago, ended a stalemate that had threatened to divide the 34-member bloc along regional...

April 9, 2005China's Foray Into Latin AmericaBy Frederick W. Stakelbeck, Jr.Over forty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, America once again finds itself in the crosshairs of a determined, Cuban-based adversary possessing the capability to inflict incalculable damage to U.S. democracy efforts and regional stability. That adversary is China. For two decades, Soviet defense, economic and intelligence assistance allowed Fidel Castro’s Cuba to project its own brand of Stalinist totalitarianism throughout Latin America infesting countries such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Chile. Castro’s dream of leading a new Latin American empire ended abruptly in the early 1990’s with the...

In military terms, the Western Hemisphere is the strategic rear area of the United States. The U.S. needs a secure and prosperous hemisphere not only to ensure a peaceful neighborhood in which to live, but also to be able to project its power to the farthest reaches of the globe and win the War on Terror. What is happening in our neighborhood? Press reports indicate that a leftist-populist alliance is engulfing most of South America. Some Andean and Central American countries are sliding back from economic reforms and narcotics eradication, and the Caribbean remains irrationally hostile to the U.S. This...

Washington -- The United States has a very full agenda for the Western Hemisphere and will work multilaterally with its regional partners to strengthen democratic institutions and generate economic growth in the Americas, according to Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega. In a November 15 interview with the Washington File, Noriega outlined the United States' hemispheric priorities as the Bush administration prepares to enter its second term. He expounded on ongoing efforts in the hemisphere, including the implementation of Summit of the Americas mandates, the advancement of the hemispheric trade agenda, the reconstruction of the hurricane-ravaged...

MIAMI (AFP) - Florida has trademarked the phrase "The Gateway to the Americas" as part of its campaign to have Miami become the headquarters of a planned Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA.) The state, together with an group promoting the bid to host the future secretariat, have also registered "The Gateway of the Americas" as a trademark. "Our state is in fact both the gateway of and to the Americas, long recognized by multinational companies as the center for global commerce," said Jorge Arrizurieta, who heads Florida FTAA, which is seeking to have the body's secretariat located in...