Free Republic

Welcome bear hug By Arnon Regular Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that he would be willing to meet with Hamas leaders did not come as a complete surprise to Hamas, which is currently on a drive to obtain international legitimacy for its future government. Within 24 hours after Hamas won the Palestinian elections, its leaders had identified the Russian-Chinese axis, as well as a few European countries, as the place to concentrate its efforts to soften the stringent conditions for acceptance by the international community that are currently being set by the United States, Israel, Egypt and Jordan. Nevertheless, even...

Franco Frattini has called for a wider debate on totalitarian symbols The European Commission has rejected calls for a proposed Europe-wide ban on Nazi symbols to be extended to cover Communist Party symbols as well.EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini said it would not be appropriate to include the red star and the hammer and sickle in a draft EU law on racism. But he called for a wider debate on the use of totalitarian symbols. A group of MEPs from the former communist bloc had urged a ban on Soviet symbols alongside Nazi ones. In a letter to the...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — President Bush is expected to propose a health care initiative in his State of the Union address to help the uninsured and the underinsured, White House advisers said on Friday. It was unclear how much the initiative, to be announced in the address on Tuesday, would cost at a time when Mr. Bush is under pressure because of a growing budget deficit. But White House officials have made clear that they do not want to cede the politically potent issue of health care to the Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom have made health care a...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — President Bush is expected to propose a health care initiative in his State of the Union address to help the uninsured and the underinsured, White House advisers said on Friday. It was unclear how much the initiative, to be announced in the address on Tuesday, would cost at a time when Mr. Bush is under pressure because of a growing budget deficit. But White House officials have made clear that they do not want to cede the politically potent issue of health care to the Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom have made health care a...

TALLINN, Estonia (Reuters) -- Residents of Vandra in rural Estonia got a blast from the past as they received voting cards for an upcoming EU referendum in Soviet-era envelopes complete with hammer and sickle, the post office said Thursday. National post office Eesti Post apologized for any upset caused by local officials using envelopes from a huge stockpile left from before the Baltic country regained independence in 1991, which also carried the acronym CCCP and other Soviet symbols. "It's not our practice to use envelopes from Soviet times," Eesti Post spokeswoman Inge Rumessen said. "We banned them long ago."

Iraqis snap up property Families, factions move into regime's buildings or boot out Palestinians 05/03/2003 By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News BAGHDAD, Iraq – Available now, rent-free: four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment, Tigris riverfront with view of presidential palace, some minor door lock repairs necessary. Inquire within. Perhaps not since Americans settled public lands using the Homestead Act of 1862 has the world witnessed the transfer of so much real estate to so many people in such a short amount of time as in the three weeks since the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government. Across Baghdad and the...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - It would not be Washington's first choice, but the long-banned Iraq Communist Party on Sunday won the race to publish the first newspaper in Baghdad since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The eight-page "People's Path" was handed out for free, snapped up eagerly by passers-by hungry for any kind of news after the U.S. invasion eradicated state-run media. "Collapse of a Dictator" read the headline under the hammer and sickle on the front page, followed by an article railing against the abuses of Saddam's "bloody, terrorist reign." "With the dictatorship's collapse, all the wishes of the vast...