Free Republic

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah will likely become the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee early next year. From that perch, he’ll oversee the GOP’s tax-writing policy in the upper chamber. Before then, however, Hatch is keeping busy: In coming weeks, he will be one of the leading figures in the battle over extending Bush-era tax rates, which are set to expire at the end of the year. As he looks ahead, Hatch predicts that there could be a “reasonable compromise” with Democrats and the White House. He urges the president to “come in good faith” to the negotiating...

PARIS (AP) — The French Senate, pushed into an early vote, approved on Friday a hotly contested bill raising the retirement age to 62, hours after riot police forced the reopening of a strategic refinery to help halt growing fuel shortages amid nationwide strikes and protests. In tense balloting after 140 hours of debate, the Senate voted 177-153 for the pension reform. The measure is expected to win final formal approval by both houses of parliament next week. President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government, keen to get the measure passed and quell increasingly radicalized protests, cut short the debate and voting...

As the ongoing strikes in France against austerity continue, and see increasingly more participation, the latest development is all too familiar to all those who travelled through Athens in the summer: huge lines for gas. About 1,000 gas stations across France have run out of fuel because strikers had blocked access to oil refineries and depots, Alexandre de Benoist, a Union of Independent Oil Importers official, told CNN on Monday. It gets worse: per the AP, the head of France's petroleum industry body said fuel reserves were "enough to keep us going for a few weeks." Jean-Louis Schilansky, president of...

Because higher education is largely paid for by taxing those who labor, the average French citizen does not enter the workforce until he is 22 to 25. That is, the care and feeding of the first 22 to 25 years of an average Frenchman’s life are paid for by somebody other than himself; first his parent or parents, then working citizens. After he himself begins working, this homme moyen expects to cease laboring at age 60. The care and feeding for remaining years of his life, which will total roughly between 20 to even 30 or more years, will be...

More than three million people took to the streets of France in protest at pension reforms, with distant echoes of May 1968 as students and schoolchildren swelled numbers to record highs.

MILLIONS of commuters in London endured a grim journey to work today after staff on the Underground train network walked out for the second time in a month, sparking calls for tougher strike laws. People were forced to walk or cycle in heavy rain, squeeze on to packed buses or brave heavy traffic by driving as only 30 per cent of the Tube trains were running in the morning rush hour, according to operator London Underground. The strike follows a walkout in early September as part of a dispute between trade unions and London Underground managers over the planned axing...

Public transit ground to a halt across France and on the London Tube on Tuesday, with tourists and commuters bearing the brunt of a wave of discontent over government austerity measures. French unions challenged unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy with a major nationwide strike over plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, shutting down trains, planes, buses, subways, post offices and schools.

Greece’s olive-clad hillsides and turquoise sea gleam as enticingly as ever under the hot August sun. But the country’s image as a relaxed Mediterranean destination has been taking a beating. Thousands of tourists were stuck beside the hotel pool last week because of a truckers’ strike that shut down petrol stations across the country. The strikes also triggered a wave of last-minute cancellations by Greeks in advance of the August break – the busiest period of the tourist season. “The strike’s been suspended – but the cancellations still stand. It’s turning out to be a very difficult season,” said Yannis...

NEW YORK (AP) - In a ruling with potentially far-reaching implications for the patenting of human genes, a judge on Monday struck down a company's patents on two genes linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The decision by U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet challenging whether anyone can hold patents on human genes was expected to have broad implications for the biotechnology industry and genetics-based medical research.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US government for the first time has offered a legal justification of its drone strikes against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, citing the right to "self-defense" under international law. The CIA attacks by unmanned aircraft in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere have sharply increased under President Barack Obama's administration but have remained shrouded in secrecy, with some human rights groups charging the bombing raids amount to illegal assassinations. Broaching a subject that has been off-limits for official comment, State Department legal advisor Harold Koh laid out the legal argument for the strikes in a speech late Thursday, referring...

Taxi drivers parked their cabs and walked off the job for 24 hours on Friday in the latest protest against the Greek government's EU-driven austerity programme, which protesters said would hurt only the poor. Some Athens filling stations began to run out of petrol as another strike by customs officials, which began on Tuesday, was extended until at least mid-next week. Long queues formed at petrol stations that still had fuel.

The Israel Defense Forces launched a series of air strikes overnight Thursday against targets in the Gaza Strip, hours after a Qassam rocket fired from the Strip hit southern Israel. One Palestinian was killed, two were wounded and several others were feared trapped inside the ruins, medics said. Explosions rocked Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah, sending flames shooting into the air.

MIR ALI, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike killed three people Saturday in a northwest Pakistani tribal region where militants focused on fighting the West in Afghanistan are concentrated, two Pakistani intelligence officials said. The missile strike was apparently the latest in a lengthy campaign of such attacks by the U.S., which rarely discusses the covert program but has in the past said it has taken out several top al-Qaida operatives. Pakistan publicly opposes the strikes but is believed to secretly aid them. Saturday's strike occurred in the Babar Raghzai area of North Waziristan and also wounded two people,...

SAN'A, Yemen – Yemen's military hit suspected al-Qaida hideouts Thursday and targeted a gathering of top militant leaders, possibly killing a radical cleric linked to the U.S. Army major accused of the Fort Hood mass shooting, in strikes carried out with U.S. intelligence help, officials said. At least 30 militants were believed to be killed in the second such strike in a week. Pentagon officials could not confirm Thursday whether U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed in the strike. Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico and attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, before moving in 2002 to...

MIR ALI, Pakistan (AP) – Two suspected U.S. missile strikes, one using multiple drones, killed 17 people in a Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border Thursday, local intelligence officials said. The officials said the second, bloodier attack involved five drones and 10 missiles – an unusually intense bombardment. The missiles rained on North Waziristan, considered a safe haven for many militants including groups determined to push the U.S. and NATO out of Afghanistan. The strikes in North Waziristan are especially sensitive because they risk angering Afghan-focused militant groups who have agreed to be neutral as Islamabad cracks down on...

Swine flu strikes isolated North Korea By HYUNGJIN KIM, Associated Press Writer - 1 hour 58 minutes ago SEOUL, South Korea – Swine flu has struck isolated North Korea, the regime acknowledged Wednesday, although it was unclear whether there were any fatalities from the virus that has been circling the globe for months. North Korea made its first acknowledgment of an H1N1 outbreak with a short dispatch in state media citing nine confirmed cases in northwestern Sinuiju on the Chinese border and in Pyongyang, the capital. The official Korean Central News Agency reported that a quarantine system to prevent the...

Remember how unions are for “the little guy”? Remember how unions can’t wait to take to the street with obnoxious signs and thug behavior to strong-arm some business or another to their will? It’s all about the workers, dontcha know? Well, unless those workers that want to strike happen to be a union’s headquarters staff, that is. In that case union bosses frown on any striking going on. As LaborReport.com notes, this hilariously hypocritical situation has, indeed, happened inside Teamsters headquarters (known as the “marble palace” for its opulence) in Washington D.C. The HQ staffer’s union has announced that they...

Whatever the outcome of Iran's presidential election tomorrow, negotiations will not soon -- if ever -- put an end to its nuclear threat. And given Iran's determination to achieve deliverable nuclear weapons, speculation about a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear program will not only persist but grow. So what would such an attack look like? Obviously, Israel would need to consider many factors -- such as its timing and scope, Iran's increasing air defenses, the dispersion and hardening of its nuclear facilities, the potential international political costs, and Iran's "unpredictability." While not as menacingly irrational as North Korea, Iran's...

WASHINGTON - Sometimes even unions have union problems. Dozens of employees of the Service Employees International Union picketed their own union Friday over its decision to lay off about 75 workers. The staffers marched outside SEIU headquarters in Washington as they yelled into bullhorns, passed out flyers and chanted, "Justice for all, not just some." "This union is supposed to be at the forefront of the progressive movement, but it can't seem to follow its own ideology," said Malcolm Harris, president of the Union of Union Representatives, which represents 210 SEIU organizers and field staff around the country. (Excerpt,,,)

The nationwide strikes in France over the government's handling of the financial crisis are provoking strong, and diverse, reactions among French observers. The action is attracting sympathy from many in the left-wing press, but is being met with weariness and unease on the right. France's eight largest union federations called the strikes, dissatisfied with the 2.65bn euros of additional public spending pledged by the government following the last day of industrial action on 29 January. The unions are calling for the government to do more to prevent private sector lay-offs and to halt to its own plans to reduce the...