Free Republic

Every president needs to escape what former President Harry Truman called the "great white jail" and what former President Andrew Jackson referred to as "dignified slavery." But for President Obama and some of his more recent predecessors, getting out of the White House has come at a cost. The on-going BP oil spill and unemployment numbers that are still at 9.5%, have made Obama and his vacations a target. The crisis in the Gulf has dogged Mr. Obama during two long weekend trips away from Washington - one to Asheville, N.C., and another back to his Chicago home for Memorial...

Perils of multiculturalism (Filed: 25/10/2005) The race relations industry became established in Britain to educate whites out of prejudice towards the ethnic minorities. Whether or not it has been successful, it faces a new challenge today. The riots in the Lozells district of Birmingham have shown that ethnic minorities themselves can engage in racial hatred when the occasion arises. The black and Asian communities there are largely insulated from each other and primed for hostility. That the troubles appear to have been stimulated by a claim on a black website that a black girl had been gang-raped by Asians shows...

Submariners in peril are saved by the 'brotherhood of the sea' By Nick Allen and Caroline Davies (Filed: 08/08/2005) Seven Russian submariners who were trapped for three days on the icy Pacific Ocean floor emerged dazed but elated yesterday after a Royal Navy-led rescue team freed them hours before their oxygen ran out. Looking shaken, the sailors climbed unaided from their stricken Priz AS-28 submersible as it resurfaced once the cables and fishing nets ensnaring it were cut by a diving robot operated by a British team flown out from Scotland. The crew of the Priz AS-28 submersible breath again...

As leaders of the NATO military alliance head for a summit at which new measures against shipborne terrorism will be on the agenda, there are worries that world trade may be disrupted by new anti-terror rules for ports and ships that are about to come into forceGet article backgroundA QUARTER of the world’s entire maritime trade, including about half of all seaborne oil shipments, passes through the Malacca strait in South-East Asia, which at one point narrows to as little as one and a half nautical miles. The strait and the seas around it are infested with well-organised, armed and...