Free Republic

BRUSSELS, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Record cold temperatures this winter could create a bigger hole in the ozone layer over parts of northern Europe, leading to damaging ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer, the European Commission said on Monday. Scientists had confirmed record low temperatures in the Arctic high atmosphere and determined that the ozone layer, which is made up of oxygen and protects the earth from UV radiation, faced a greater risk because of the cold, it said. "First signs of ozone loss have already been detected," the EU executive said in a statement. "Should further cooling of...

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The two top Democrats in the U.S. Congress challenged President George W. Bush on Monday to draft an "exit strategy" in Iraq and work with them in his drive to revamp the Social Security retirement program. With Bush set to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, Democrats made a political pre-emptive strike or, as they put it, a "pre-buttal," in a joint appearance of their own at the National Press Club. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, hailed as "a milestone" Sunday's Iraqi...

BRUSSELS, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Iraq war opponents France, Germany and Russia on Monday hailed elections in the country as a success and, in a sign of warming transatlantic ties, pledged to back U.S. efforts to restore stability. In a greater than expected turnout, up to 8 million Iraqis cast ballots on Sunday, braving suicide bombs and mortar attacks by insurgents that killed 35 people. Despite their concerns over the low turnout among minority Sunnis, European Union officials joined Washington in declaring the poll a success, three weeks before a Feb. 22 summit with President George W. Bush meant to...

BAGHDAD, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces detained more than 200 suspected insurgents, including four Arab foreigners, in a crackdown that helped reduce attacks during Sunday's election, the interior minister said on Monday. "What happened yesterday was the result of the security plans put in place by the Interior Ministry and Iraq's security forces for the election," Falah al-Naqib told reporters. He said 129 suspects had been rounded up near Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown in the Sunni region north of Baghdad, out of a total of 202 detained nationwide. The detainees included two Saudis, an Egyptian and a Yemeni,...

ROME, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Arab countries should "get out of the Middle Ages" and follow the example of Iraq which has held its first multi-party election in decades, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Monday. "This vote can lead to a positive contagion in all the other Arab countries where there is authoritarianism, where the condition of women is a condition of non-freedom, of non-dignity, where many more steps have to be taken to get out of the Middle Ages, to leave behind forms of government that certainly are not democratic," he said. Berlusconi, who made his comments...

(CNSNews.com) - Media in the Arab-Muslim world reacted mostly positively to Iraq's weekend election, focusing on the higher-than-expected turnout and the courage of voters who braved very real risks to cast their ballots. A common focus of the coverage was Iraqi voters' "defiance" of terrorists such as al-Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who vowed to disrupt Sunday's voting. Some papers also expressed concern about the future of Iraq's Sunni minority. In neighboring Shi'ite Iran, the government supported the poll in the expectation that Iraq's Shi'ite majority would take a leading role in future Iraqi governments after years of oppression under...

Sen. John Kerry [related, bio] yesterday described the elections in Iraq as ``significant'' and ``important'' but said they should not be ``overhyped.''       ``It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote,'' the Massachusetts Democrat said in an interview on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''      Although the Bush administration has said the mere fact that elections take place is a huge sign of progress, Sen. Kerry said the next step is more important.      ``What the administration does in these next few days will decide the outcome of Iraq. And this...

(Editor's note: What follows is the text of statement by President Bush on the Iraqi elections. The White House Press Office released the statement at 1 p.m. EST Sunday.) Today the people of Iraq have spoken to the world, and the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East. In great numbers, and under great risk, Iraqis have shown their commitment to democracy. By participating in free elections, the Iraqi people have firmly rejected the anti- democratic ideology of the terrorists. They have refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins. And they have...

When a veteran cop bit into his dinner from a Bronx McDonald's, he realized he was given a decidedly un-Happy Meal - his Big Mac was stuffed with shards of glass. As the K-9 unit cop was rushed to the hospital with cuts to his mouth and throat and a broken tooth, a cop-hating fast-food cook was arrested, police said yesterday. "Tampering with food in a case like this is an assault as sure as an attack with a knife or a gun," said an outraged Patrick Lynch, head of the Patrolman's Benevolent Association. The 39-year-old cop, a 17-year veteran...

Bombs, a boycott and threats of a bloodbath didn't scare Iraqis away from their first free elections in half a century, which ended yesterday with an impressively large turnout and surprisingly few casualties. Joyful voters dressed in their best clothes, danced in the streets and proudly showed off ink-stained fingers that proved they had cast their ballots. The elderly and wounded hobbled to polling sites on crutches and stood in long lines for the vote, which President Bush proclaimed a "resounding success." "I would have crawled here if I had to," Samir Hassan, 32, who lost his leg to a...

WASHINGTON - Capping his week-long return to the spotlight, a defensive John Kerry appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday to explain his election loss - and was hit with yet more questions about Vietnam. Kerry ultimately chalked up the results to 9/11, saying it was hard for people to forsake their President after such a national trauma. But host Tim Russert's lengthy grilling about details of a mission on the Cambodian border 36 years ago showed how well Kerry's opponents undercut his valorous record, and how badly Kerry fought back. "I believe that 9/11 was the central deciding issue...

PONTEFICATIONS MICHAEL MOORE AND HIS AGITPROP FILM FAHRENHEIT 9/11 were nowhere to be found on the lists of Academy Awards nominees released last week. And despite his commercial success, the Writers Guild omitted Moore from consideration for its first list of documentary writing award nominees. The only award Moore received was from a gun rights group highlighting his hypocrisy after a bodyguard for this maker of the 2003 Academy Award-winning anti-gun Bowling for Columbine got arrested in New York City for carrying a handgun not licensed there. Hypocrisy is nothing new for Michael Moore, nor the Hollywood Left. But Hollywood makes...

<p>When a family of Egyptian immigrants was murdered in Jersey City recently, the media’s response was to wring its hands about anti-Muslim bias. But the truth is more complicated, and reveals the media’s own bias--against America.</p> <p>Anti-Muslim bias had nothing to do the killing of the Armanious family; they were Coptic Christians. It wasn’t the religion of the victims that concerned the press; it was the religion of the suspected murderers.</p>

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan congratulated Iraqis on their election on Sunday and offered U.N. help in future votes and the writing of a constitution. Annan, currently at the African Union summit in Nigeria, released a statement saying the "success of the election augurs well for the transition process." U.N. election specialists had help train Iraqis for the vote, which elects a Transitional National Assembly that will draft a permanent constitution to be approved in a referendum. "It is important to ensure that all individuals, groups and parties who, for whatever reason, were unable or unwilling...

Howard Dean's surprise rival for Democratic National Committee chief could be youthful Southern political operative Donnie Fowler, 37, DNC sources said last night.[snip] One insider suggested that Dean's endorsement Friday from Bill Clinton's aide Harold Ickes may have backfired, just as his endorsement from Al Gore did in Dean's losing 2004 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Could someone please tell Teddy Kennedy and the other malcontents on Capitol Hill that we chose our leader last November, it isn't John Kerry and it sure isn't Kennedy and the other partisans who are busy working against our nation's best interests ("Condi's Inquisitors," Editorial, Jan. 20). Our military presence in Iraq will be over when it is safe to withdraw. We gave President Bush the job of leading the country, and we don't need a self-appointed whiner like Kennedy second-guessing him and making self-aggrandizing demands at this very serious time in our history. The country needs the cooperation...

IS Mary Mapes, the only CBS News staffer fired in the wake of Memogate, about to spill her guts on ABC? Sources say that Mapes — Dan Rather's longtime producer who obtained the bogus National Guard memos — has been wooed by rival ABC stars Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. Mapes is said to be leaning toward Sawyer. The Mapes interview, timed to air before before Rather retires from his evening news anchor chair on March 9, will be helpful to Mike Walker, the venerable gossip columnist for the National Enquirer. Walker has a book, "Rather Dumb: A Top...

The sea of purple index fingers, stretching from one end of liberated Iraq to another, told the story. Like the orange flags and banners that so recently swept Viktor Yushchenko into the presidency of Ukraine, following a stolen election and an attempt to poison him, those purple fingers — marking an Iraqi who braved terrorist violence to come out to the polls and cast a vote — will forever serve as a symbol of Iraq's march to freedom. [snip]They waited patiently on line, sharing chocolates and juice with each other, clapping and cheering as they waited. [snip] "I cannot...

IT was the blue badge of courage — Iraqis defied evil and danced through the Valley of the Shadow of Death to cast their ballots and then wave the purple ink-stained fingers that proved they'd voted. The sheer joy recalled the fall of the Berlin Wall, some said, but the Germans dancing around that wall didn't have to face down evil because communism had already fallen, while Iraqis knew they risked death — and more than 30 were killed. "The people have won . . . Take a look today to meet the model of courage and human desire...

HE DIED too soon. On the eve of Iraq's historic free election, Francis Obaji was laid to rest in the frigid ground of Arlington National Cemetery. Ten days earlier, on Jan. 19, Francis was killed in an enemy ambush in Baghdad. Ten days. [snip] At the mere suggestion that his son's passing might be for naught, Francis' heartbroken father, Cyril, did something extraordinary. He looked up from his tears. And he laughed. "Not at all," he said with a smile. "He died for freedom," Francis' uncle, Kingsley Obaji, told me unwaveringly. "He died doing what he believed in," said...