Free Republic

The White House on Tuesday canceled President Joe Biden’s planned trips to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia, which were to have taken place next week on his way home from the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima, Japan. The cancellation, ostensibly necessary so that Biden could return to Washington to participate in debt ceiling negotiations, rattled observers who warned Biden was squandering valuable credibility in the Indo-Pacific region.

Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers – expenses that are infuriating the party's major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress. Most recently, donors grumbled when Steele hired renowned chef Wolfgang Puck's local crew to cater the RNC's Christmas party inside the trendy Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and then moved its annual winter meeting from Washington to Hawaii. For some major GOP donors, both decisions were symbolic of the kind of...

US President Barack Obama faced a host of personnel problems this week, as two top appointees bowed out because of unpaid income taxes and another pick distressed some in the Jewish community. Slideshow: Pictures of the week Samantha Power, a Harvard University genocide expert and former Obama campaign adviser, has been appointed to the the National Security Council's multilateral institutions office. She has been criticized in the past for making statements critical of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. In one clip making the rounds courtesy of YouTube, Power accuses Israel of "major human rights abuses," though she distinguishes...

SOUTHFIELD. Leaders want radio station to stop airing comments by priest they say defame Muhammad. Muslims and interfaith leaders in Metro Detroit are asking a local radio station owner to discontinue broadcasts in which, they say, a Coptic priest has repeatedly defamed the Prophet Muhammad over the past year. In an Arabic-language broadcast Wednesday on WNZK 680/690 AM, the Rev. Zakariah Boutros said the Muslim prophet Muhammad had engaged in necrophilia and gay sex, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations. Boutros has previously come under fire from area Muslims, who say he disparages Islam. The controversial, American-based priest...

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban attacks on telecom towers have prompted cell phone companies to shut down service across southern Afghanistan, angering a quarter million customers who have no other telephones. Even some Taliban fighters now regret the disruptions and are demanding that service be restored by the companies. The communication blackout follows a campaign by the Taliban, which said the U.S. and NATO were using the fighters' cell phone signals to track them at night and launch pinpoint attacks. About 10 towers have been attacked since the warning late last month — seven of them seriously — causing almost $2...

BETHLEHEM Mayor Victor Batarseh yesterday attacked Israel and angered members of Australia's Jewish community within hours of arriving in Sydney - just as Australian immigration officials in the Middle East warned would occur if he was granted a visa. Dr Batarseh told The Australian Israel's construction of a security wall was about grabbing Palestinian land, not stopping suicide bombers. "If you want peace, you build bridges of love and understanding between people, you don't build walls of hatred," he said. Dr Batarseh is the leader of a five-person delegation from Bethlehem that arrived in Australia on Saturday to sign a...

Pentagon Guantanamo List Angers Nations Thursday April 20, 2006 11:01 PM By PAUL GARWOOD Associated Press Writer KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A chorus of complaints against the Bush administration erupted Thursday after the Pentagon released a previously secret list of the names and nationalities of 558 people held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. Britain said its citizen should be freed after being held for years without charges. Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation commission vowed to send a delegation to the prison to make sure Afghans are not being mistreated. China demanded custody of a group of Muslim separatists...

'Official' history angers teachers By Kim Willsher in Paris (Filed: 11/12/2005) Teachers in France have accused their government of using the tactics of dictators by enacting a law that imposes an "official history" of their country, requiring them to highlight the "positive aspects" of the French empire. They claim the legislation ignores the torture, slavery and massacres "that sometimes went as far as genocide" and sometimes accompanied French colonialism. The law aims to protect the reputations of "pieds noirs" - French people born in Algeria - and "harkis", Algerians loyal to France who were allowed to settle in the country...

Some locals are unhappy that the council has spent money helping motorists to get a better view of the Cardrona Valley's infamous bra fence. Several hundred bras have been pinned to the fence near Wanaka in recent years, but community board chairman Bill Gordon says people are unhappy the Queenstown Lakes Council used road funding to build a layby alongside the fence. He says a lot of residents think the fence has become tatty and the novelty has worn off. Mr Gordon says the layby cost up to $8,000 and the money could have been spent more wisely.

Jackson 'Avenue of Hearts' angers locals 10.06.05 By Andrew Gumbel A fan wears a t-shirt proclaiming Michael Jackson's innocence. Picture / Reuters Michael Jackson's neighbours have had it. They've put up with months of hoopla surrounding the court proceedings in Santa Maria, in the heart of central California wine country, and they've put up with the fans plying the narrow road to Neverland. But now the jury has retired, passions on both sides are growing as surely as the tension over the looming verdict. The results have not always been pretty. Every day this week, the fans have erected an...

ANGERS, France (AP) - This town in western France, known for its medieval castle and Cointreau liqueur, now has a new, more sordid reputation - as the home of a pedophilia ring where parents allegedly raped, abused and pimped children and even babies. Sixty-six people have gone on trial this week, but some residents still apparently refuse to accept that such crimes could be perpetrated in their midst. "I've heard people say to me, 'But you know, these children were used to it.' It's the horror of horror," said Deputy Mayor Michelle Moreau. The trial's second day Friday was devoted...

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney called himself "a pretty angry father" on Thursday after Sen. John Kerry mentioned their gay daughter during the final presidential debate - comments Kerry said were meant to be positive about families with gay children. The vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, called Kerry "not a good man" and his remarks about daughter Mary Cheney "a cheap and tawdry political trick." Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of vice presidential candidate John Edwards, suggested in a radio interview that Mrs. Cheney might feel "a certain degree of shame" because her daughter is a...

<p>Part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $99.1 billion budget proposal unveiled Friday calls for shifting $1.3 billion in property taxes from cities and counties to help pay the state's bill to schools.</p> <p>Even in conservative south Sacramento County, the governor's proposal elicited howls from local officials.</p>

WASHINGTON - The California recall is fueling outrage among liberal activists nationwide, helping to fire up the Democratic Party's base earlier than usual heading into a presidential election, political organizers and analysts said. Democrats are hoping that the recall will boost their chances at the polls in 2004, given that an angry party base has proven to be a potent political force in the past. Two Democratic presidential candidates - Howard Dean and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham - have already taken the opportunity to appear with Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and denounce the recall. A third, Sen. John Kerry, did...

Arafat's choice as PM angers Israel by refusing to crack down on Hamas By Eric Silver in Jerusalem and Said Ghazali in the West Bank 09 September 2003 Peace looked as remote as ever yesterday as Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian Prime Minister designate, appeared to be on a collision course with Israel, even before he began putting together his cabinet. Mr Qureia, popularly known as Abu Ala, has specified from the start that he will not crack down on Hamas and other armed groups, and that he will avoid confrontation with Yasser Arafat, whose refusal to yield control of key...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) won't be meeting with a group of business owners who want him to change his position opposing repeal of the federal death tax. Daschle's Aberdeen, South Dakota staff refused to schedule a meeting for the senator with the group of business owners from across South Dakota during the August recess. Dick Patten, Executive Director of the American Family Business Institute was surprised by Daschle's unwillingness to even discuss the issue. He told Talon News, "Many of these people have supported Daschle in the past, but are now reconsidering." Patten pointed out that...