Free Republic

If, after listening to the opening minutes of the DNC is any indication ....

The UK is not in danger of an Islamic takeover, according to Steve Bell, the National Director of Christian mission agency Interserve, who is an expert on Muslims issues. Speaking at this year's Keswick Convention, a meeting of conservative evangelical Christians in the north of England, Steve Bell, the National Director of Interserve, pointed out that 'Muslim fertility rates are dropping noticeably in Europe, and dramatically in the Middle East and North Africa. Fundamentalism thrives in communities with large extended families and poverty and this pattern is diminishing among Europe's Muslim communities. A sub-replacement birthrate was one of the causes...

NEW YORK, July 11 (Reuters) - Any U.S. government takeover of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae (FNM.N) and Freddie Mac (FRE.N) would not in and of itself trigger a downgrade of the United States' 'AAA' sovereign credit rating, a Standard & Poor's analyst told Reuters on Friday.

An engineer and energy authority says the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) led by Saudi Arabia wants to drive the world into an economic depression with the eventual goal of establishing a worldwide Islamic caliphate Dr. Robert Zubrin has a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering and is president of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace engineering firm. He recently published Energy Victory: Win the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil. He believes the OPEC cartel has consciously decided to restrict the production of oil in the face of growing world demand, and that this year the U.S. is going to...

KBR Corp. said today it would buy BE&K, the 48th largest general construction contractor in the country with 9,000 worldwide employees, for $550 million. KBR, the nation's fourth largest general contractor, was spun off last year as its own publicly traded company from Houston-based Halliburton Corp., the largest contractor for military services in Iraq.

While visiting Memphis, Tenn., last week to honour the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., Hillary Clinton recounted a heart-rending story about the moment 40 years ago she learned the civil rights leader had been assassinated. "I remember hearing about it and just feeling such despair. I walked into my dorm room and took my book bag and hurled it across the room," she said. "It felt like everything had been shattered, like we would never be able to put the pieces together again." As she spoke, the former first lady's voice lowered to a near-whisper and cracked with sadness....

BLAINE, Minn. – Ron Paul supporters shook things up in at least three of Minnesota's congressional district conventions yesterday when they captured nearly all of the national delegates and alternates for the Republican National Convention this fall. There was controversy at Minnesota's 6th Congressional District Convention. The district covers part of the Twin Cities metro area and extends to the west and into nearby St. Cloud, Minn. Paul supporters were accused of dirty tricks. "They hijacked the convention," said Jeff Johnson who serves as Minnesota's Senate District 15 co-chairman. Two out of three national delegates elected were Ron Paul supporters...

US Treasury cautions China over sovereign wealth fund by P. Parameswaran Thu Feb 7, 5:31 PM ET The US Treasury cautioned China Thursday against using profits derived from its cash-flush sovereign investment fund to delay currency reform, as the fund's maneuvers came under Congressional scrutiny. The China Investment Corporation Ltd. (CIC), launched in September with 200 billion dollars capital, wants to boost investment returns on China's massive foreign reserves and manage reform of domestic financial institutions. "China should not use the earnings of its sovereign wealth fund to delay the continued increase in the flexibility of China's currency," US Treasury's...

CRETEIL, France -- ...200 Muslim worshipers crowded into a former carpentry workshop here for noon prayers. The men knelt on red carpets in a first-floor hall, the women squeezed into the tiny office upstairs....But next June, Creteil's Muslims are scheduled to move into a new, $7.4 million mosque with room for more than 2,500 worshipers. The nearly finished building, with its 81-foot minaret, stands on a knoll overlooking the town's picturesque lake, within sight of city hall... The mosque will make Creteil something of an exception in Europe. From London to Cologne to Marseille, governments and residents are fighting the...

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday his government will nationalize Venezuela's privately owned hospitals and clinics if they fail to reduce health care costs. "If the owners of the private clinics don't want to obey the laws, then the private clinics will be nationalized," Chavez said in a nationally televised speech. "They will become part of the public health service." Venezuela has a two-tiered health system in which wealthier, insured patients often can afford prompter, better treatment at private hospitals. "This is the evil of capitalism," Chavez said of the health care costs at private clinics. "We have...

Beverage Daily is fueling speculation that Anheuser-Busch might be targeted for a takeover. This adds to an earlier report by the New York Post that Hedge fund manager and activist shareholder William Ackman reportedly wants to invest in an iconic company, i.e., Anheuser-Busch. So far, Ackman has raised $2 billion “to invest in an unnamed company with a market capitalization of $30 billion to $40 billion with three divisions.” A-B could fit the bill. As a result of all the buzz, call options traded on A-B have increased to a new high and A-B’s common stock is also rising.

MUSLIMS are outraged that prospective citizens will have to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia's values system. Australia's peak Muslim body said the proposed citizenship question -- revealed in the Herald Sun -- was disturbing and potentially divisive. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said the "Abrahamic tradition" or "universal values" would be less divisive ways of describing the nation's moral base. Dr Ali said use of the term Judeo-Christian was the result of "WWII guilt", and before 1945 Australia would have been called only Christian. "That question must be rephrased," he said. Dr...

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- News Corp. has made an unsolicited $5 billion bid to buy Dow Jones & Co. - an offer that could prove tough for the Bancroft family that controls the publisher of The Wall Street Journal to turn down, industry analysts said Tuesday. Nonetheless, some members of the family indicated late Tuesday that they would, in fact, oppose the deal, raising the possibility that other companies could bid for Dow Jones."

How to Survive Really Hard Times In the old days, folks were accustomed to periodically having to live through hard times. They knew how to survive the hard times with the least amount of wear and tear on their families. Nowadays, most folks dont know what hard times really are. Even those folks who think they have it hard right now can usually still depend on some type of government handout or charity assistance, and therefore they dont truly know what hard times really are. My definition of hard times is when things aint what they use to be and...

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

LOS ANGELES - A judge on Thursday struck down a law granting Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa partial control of the nation's second-largest school district. The law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, violated the state constitution by interfering with the governing authority of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, Superior Court Judge Dzintra I. Janavs ruled. "The statute makes drastic changes in the local governance of the LAUSD giving the mayor a role that is unprecedented in California," she wrote. A coalition of parents, students and administrators sued in October, contending the law takes too much power away from the...

NKorean army to take over if Kim dies without heir: report Tue Dec 19, 2:23 AM ET North Korea's powerful army is likely to seize power should leader Kim Jong-Il die without having a successor firmly in place, according to a report commissioned by South Korea's parliament. The research paper, seen Tuesday, said that even though the army could step in after his death, Kim is not likely to face a coup during his lifetime. "If Kim Jong-Il dies, the highest possibility is that the military may take power," said the 100-page report commissioned by the parliament's intelligence committee. Under...

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday his government's forces would be able to take over security command from U.S. troops by June 2007 -- a move which could allow the United States to start withdrawing. "I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007," Maliki told ABC television after meeting President Bush in Jordan. Bush offered him strong backing in their talks and said Iraqi forces would be trained more quickly to take over but rejected suggestions he was seeking a...

Iranians defiant at U.S. hostage anniversary By Alireza Ronaghi Sat Nov 4, 4:11 AM ET TEHRAN (Reuters) - Thousands of Iranians on Saturday chanted "Death to America" outside the former U.S. embassy which students stormed on this day in 1979, renewing Iran's defiance at a time when it faces possible sanctions for its nuclear work. ADVERTISEMENT Iran sees itself as being victimized by an aggressive United States bent on controlling the Middle East and exacting revenge against Tehran's Islamic leaders for overthrowing the U.S.-backed shah 27-years-ago. Washington wants the United Nations Security Council to toughen a draft resolution drawn up...

A Democratic Takeover, By the Numbers For free marketeers, these data should offer a cautionary tale. By Deroy Murdock Hypothetically, if Democrats win Congress, don’t expect a mild left turn. Watch the U.S. Capitol spin nearly 180 degrees. Congress’s current Republican leadership — their haplessness and profligacy aside — generally features senators and representatives with solidly conservative vote records. Conversely, minority leaders and ranking Democrats on congressional committees are among their party’s staunchest liberals. A Democratic victory on Capitol Hill naturally would involve a jump to the left. But the Democrats could steer the ship of state hard aport, tossing...

While reading the BBC's coverage of the Union of Islamic Courts' (UIC) takeover of Somalia -- what I see as the beginning of Taliban II -- I was struck with the carefully constructed wording of the British news organization's language. Their writers tiptoe around Islamist expansionism, yet are critical of dhimmi fears of Muslim radicalism -- e.g., from the West and Ethiopia. First, I stumbled upon a BBC report on refugees fleeing the UIC's advances into villages near the Kenyan border: UN officials report a big rise in the number of Somali refugees crossing into Kenya to escape instability at...

"Global Trends 2015" Terrorism-Related Excerpts -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following items are terrorism-related items from the National Intelligence Council's "Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts" report (December 2000). Transnational Terrorism (page 50) States with poor governance; ethnic, cultural, or religious tensions; weak economies; and porous borders will be prime breeding grounds for terrorism. In such states, domestic groups will challenge the entrenched government, and transnational networks seeking safehavens. At the same time, the trend away from state-supported political terrorism and toward more diverse, free-wheeling, transnational networks—enabled by information technology—will continue. Some of the states that actively sponsor...

Tehran & Damascus Move to Lebanon Lebanon-born Walid Phares is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Author of the recent book Future Jihad, he was also one of the architects of 2004’s United Nations resolution 1559, which called for the disarming of Hezbollah. NRO editor Kathryn Lopez recently talked to Phares about what’s going on in the Mideast, what happened to the Cedar Revolution, and this war we’re all in. Kathryn Jean Lopez: What is “Future Jihad”? Are we seeing it in the Mideast now? Walid Phares: “Future Jihad,” which has already begun, refers to...

Just over one month ago, the Crystal Ball argued that a larger wave than currently existed at the time would have to build in order for Republicans to lose their congressional majorities. At the time, the race-by-race rather than national dynamic of competitive races pointed more towards a "micro-wave" than a "macro-wave" for out-of-power Democrats. But now, with a quarter of time elapsed between that pulse-reading and the election, surer signs are emerging that something more substantial than a "micro-wave" is heating up this summer. Historical trends and big picture indicators--generic congressional ballot tests and approval ratings of President Bush's...

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had raised nearly $1.1 million by the end of June to fund his campaign to wrest control of the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to finance reports filed Friday. The largest contribution by far came from A. Jerrold Perenchio, chairman of Los Angeles-based Univision Communications, who gave $500,000. Altogether, Villaraigosa's campaign to promote restructuring of the nation's second-largest school district received $1,075,000 from 10 donors by the end of last month. Three donors gave $100,000 apiece: shopping center operator Westfield Group; Chicago-based AP Properties Ltd.; and David I. Fisher, chief investment officer of Capital Group Investment...

OAXACA, Mexico - Protesters have taken over the center of folkloric Oaxaca, making tourists show identification at makeshift checkpoints, smashing the windows of quaint hotels and spray-painting revolutionary slogans. Police are nowhere in sight. It's not the tranquil cultural gem beloved by tourists from the United States and Europe. A month of protests to try to oust the governor have forced authorities to cancel many events, including the Guelaguetza dance festival. Most tourists are staying away, costing the city millions of dollars. The protests follow other eruptions of civil unrest and class conflict that have plagued President Vicente Fox as...

Senator Lindsey Graham often plays the contrarian, the conservative Republican willing to poke a stick in the eye of the White House. Mr. Graham advocates using the existing court-martial system as the basis for trying suspects, a position that has drawn fire from many other Republicans. Last year, against the wishes of the Bush administration, he was one of the key forces in helping pass a ban on torture. While some other Republicans argue that terrorists do not deserve legal or human rights, Mr. Graham has insisted that only a system grounded in the fundamental rights of the military code...

The rich smell of Indian spices wafted along the road. Voices babbled in Urdu and Sylheti, a Bangladeshi dialect that my own family speak. Thick-bearded men in robes strolled the streets and youngsters wore their jeans rolled above the ankle after leaving the mosque, as Muslim custom requires. I felt both at home and in a foreign land. This could almost be an Asian city, I thought, rather than Beeston, the suburb of Leeds where two of the July 7 bombers had lived. I had come to gauge the mood of the community after the 7/7 attacks, which struck London...

The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution by David Kennedy Houck First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have petitioned to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when it comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner associations, and other groups enforce Islamic law? Such questions are no longer theoretical. While Muslim organizations first established enclaves in Europe,[1]...

MINNEAPOLIS - The mayor and police chief of Minneapolis say Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should stop wearing vests that read "police," saying the practice undermines public trust in local law enforcement. Mayor R.T. Rybak and Police Chief Tim Dolan said in a letter Thursday to the local ICE supervisor, Mark Cangemi, that ICE agents should wear visible identification that would clearly show they are not city police officers. Currently, they said, ICE agents conducting raids often wear vests that simply say "police" with nothing else to distinguish themselves from Minneapolis Police Department officers. The local ICE office issued a...

Venezuela and Mexico are among the potential strategic partners for joint operations in the fields that used to be developed by oil corporation Oxy. The corporate agreement to drill oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon was made null and void, the Ecuadorian Government disclosed Tuesday. "There is the possibility of forming a strategic alliance with a state company, as set forth in the regulations," Ecuadorian Minister of Energy Iván Rodríguez said. Additionally, there is the possibility of "contracting directly a state company of a foreign country to reinforce technically Petroproducción. The subsidiary of state oil company Petroecuador will be responsible for...

The Belgian Bishops have opened their churches to illegal immigrants in order to pressurize the Belgian authorities to allow the immigrants to stay in the country. Most of the immigrant squatters in the churches are Muslims. They display banners in the church showing the name of Allah (picture taken in the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Brussels). The Belgian Bishops are so ignorant that they do not see what is going on: their churches are being turned into mosques before their very eyes. The Muslim squatters hold Islamic prayer services in the church. The altar has been moved...

The McDonald's at 24th and Mission streets shut its doors for the day. At Monterey Bay Bouquet, a Watsonville floral wholesaler, 90 percent of production workers stayed off the job to attend rallies. In San Jose, employees of the Lincoln Glen Manor nursing facility came to work but sported red, white and blue armbands as a way to show support for immigrants.

Where your legal status and your legal tender meet. On Monday May 1st, while Latino activists are encouraging other Latinos to walk out on their jobs and boycott spending in any Southland businesses, we want you to do the exact opposite. SPEND, SPEND, AND SPEND! To reward you and your financial patriotism, KFI AM 640 and the John and Ken show will be reimbursing you for your legal citizen-spending spree. On Monday May 1st, fax or email a copy of a receipt for something you purchased on May 1st 2006 and it will go into a drawing. Twice an hour...

Any guest-worker program approved by Congress for the nation's 11 million illegal aliens would spawn a new wave of cheap-labor illegals that already-overwhelmed federal authorities are unprepared to handle, law-enforcement authorities and immigration officials say. A former high-ranking U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) official said the federal government does not have an adequate post-legalization enforcement program to prevent an expected flood of fraudulent identity documents or sanction employers who hire the new illegals. "The new illegal aliens will be cheaper than the guest workers, and there will be nobody in the government to check up on them," said the...

RUPERT Murdoch's News Corporation has acceded to shareholder pressure to allow a vote on its poison pill takeover defence plan, potentially giving US rival John Malone a chance to increase his stake in the media giant. The agreement is part of a proposed legal settlement with a dozen institutional investors, including six Australian superannuation funds and US, Dutch and British pension funds.

Europe's botched civilization, perverted by socialism and lost faith, seems to have lost the will, the passion to sustain itself. If it continues to practice today's multiculturalist leftism, Europe's demographic doom will be sealed. Some harbingers: In Brussels, Belgium, the most popular name for baby boys is now Mohammad. Sustaining the population of a nation requires that on average each couple gives birth to 2.1 children. The average European couple now has fewer than 1.4 babies, compared to 3.6 babies born to the average Muslim immigrant couple in Europe. Across Western Europe 16 to 20 percent of babies are being...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Boston Scientific Corp. announced Wednesday it was acquiring Guidant Corp. for about $27.2 billion in cash and stock, ending a nearly two-month bidding war against rival Johnson & Johnson for the heart device maker. Natick, Mass.-based Boston Scientific and J&J have been competing to buy Guidant since early December, hoping for a stake in the fast-growing $10.3 billion cardiac rhythm management market. The battle between the two companies raged despite months of recalls and safety warnings by Guidant about defects in its pacemakers and defibrillators. Last week, Guidant's board said Boston Scientific's $80-per-share offer was favorable to...

Weapons of Disruption C 2006 Frederick J. Cowie, Ph.D. Whereas we have no masses, it certainly would be seriously challenging to deliver a "weapon of mass destruction" in the vast majority of geographical areas in the American West, as well as in many areas in the East and South. For instance, Montana is approximately the size of Germany, yet the population hovers only around a million (we have one representative in the House). There is no "metropolitan" area anywhere around, though Spokane is about three hundred miles away. Wyoming has more sheep than people. Utah has Salt Lake City and...

CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuela's energy minister said the government was preparing to take over an oil operation of US-based ExxonMobil and Spain's Repsol on January 1 if the US firm refuses to accept new terms for foreign oil companies. "Of course we will take control of it," Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez, who also serves as president of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela, told reporter in response to a question on the Quiamare-La Ceiba oil field. If ExxonMobil fails to agree to the new joint-venture plan by January 1, Ramirez said "we will enter unfortunately into the judicial arena." Ramirez noted that...

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said it had won 34 seats in the first phase of legislative elections, a major advance for the banned but tolerated Islamist group. ADVERTISEMENT Its candidates, campaigning under the banner "Islam is the solution" in the three-phase election, are aiming for an overall tally of between 50 and 70 seats in the 454-seat parliament. Spokesman Hassan el-Eryan said Wednesday that the movement had already doubled its representation in parliament, winning 20 percent of the seats being contested in the first round, following a run-off election on Tuesday. It held a total of 15 seats from the previous...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that likely will force him to step down as House majority leader. DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee. GOP congressional officials said the plan was for DeLay to temporarily relinquish his leadership post and Speaker Dennis Hastert will recommend that Rep....

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's largest retailer Tesco has sent an in-house team to the United States to consider a bid for Albertsons (ABS), the American grocery chain with 2,500 stores, the Business paper reported. Earlier this month, Albertsons said it had hired investments bankers to explore its options and would consider putting itself up for sale, with a price tag of $7.6 billion, as it grapples with intense competition from Wal-Mart Stores (WMT). Tesco, which reports half-year results this week, has yet to find a vehicle to enter the lucrative U.S. market and is using the team to identify takeover...

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) -- Nokia Corp. shares rose Monday after a report that Cisco Systems Inc. was interested in an acquisition in the wireless market and the Finnish mobile phone maker might be a target. Nokia shares were up 1.9 percent at 13.17 euros ($16.31) in early afternoon trading on the Helsinki exchange. The gains came after The Business newspaper in Britain reported Sunday that San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco is considering buying a wireless company, and that Nokia had been identified as the most likely target. The newspaper did not identify its sources, and Nokia declined to comment to The...

British keep out of Basra's lethal Islamic take-over By Oliver Poole (Filed: 15/07/2005) The bodies of young women began to appear in Basra six weeks ago. First there was a group of three, then two, and last week the corpses of six were found, each victim riddled by gunshots and left on the street to die in pools of blood. Protesters in Basra demonstrate against government attempts to arrest supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr The Iraqi police say they have no strong leads. But it is an open secret in the port city why they died. They worked as prostitutes and...

MOSCOW - Dutch beer giant Heineken is preparing to buy one of Russia's last major brewers under local control, the country's anti-monopoly watchdog said Thursday. Heineken filed for permission to buy St. Petersburg-based brewery Stepan Razin on June 24, said Irina Kashunina, spokeswoman for the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service. She declined to give further details. Heineken's request comes at a time when foreign brewing giants are moving swiftly to consolidate the remains of Russia's booming beer market.

BEIJING, June 29 (UPI) -- China expressed opposition to interference in a government-controlled oil company's bid for the U.S.-based oil company Unocal, state media said Wednesday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that China National Offshore Oil Corporation's $18.5 billion offer for Unocal was "normal commercial activity between enterprises." Liu said "economic cooperation between China and the U.S. serves the interests of both sides and commercial activities should not be interfered in or disturbed by political elements." There are growing concerns in Washington over the deal as some U.S. officials are uncomfortable with CNOOC, 70 percent owned by the Chinese...

BenQ to Aquire Siemens MobileDiscussPrintEmail Monday, June 13th 2005 @ 9:28 AM PDT By Ian Bell Staff Writer, Designtechnica News Your next Siemens phone could be say BenQ on it, as the struggling mobile division of Siemens, gets snatched up by BenQ. advertising With BenQ acquiring Siemens Mobile, the new company will be listed as the world's fourth largest cell phone maker with expected combine annual revenue of $10.9 billion USD. “Today marks the next step in bringing BenQ’s enjoyment philosophy to the worldwide market,” said K.Y. Lee, BenQ Chairman & CEO. “The acquisition of Siemens’ mobile handset business allows...

The Far East: Some may cry "sellout," but President Bush and the leader of Vietnam had good reasons to celebrate 10 years of normal relations in the aftermath of a bitter war. And one of those reasons is China. The U.S. and Vietnam are drawing closer for the same reasons that Victor Davis Hanson, in a column that ran on this page Thursday, cited for warmer ties between the U.S. and Japan. China's Wal-Mart earnings may be a generally good thing in helping build its private sector, but they're also strengthening that regime beyond its borders. Year after year of...

Warning to readers: The transcripts and photos from the following video clips contain very offensive statements. These are only a few examples of the angry racist slurs shouted at the Americans who dared to protest the monument in Baldwin Park, California. Overview Many in our government and the media deny the existence of the militant Mexican plans for the the reconquista of Aztlan. They say it is just another conspiracy theory. Others say it is only an idea supported by a few radical hispanics. What happened in Baldwin Park, is happening in cities across America. It is supported by all...