Free Republic

Daniels Closer to 2012 Bid, But Has He Overcome Abortion Truce? Indianapolis, IN -- Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels appears closer than ever to indicating he will seek the Republican nomination for president, but, for pro-life voters, one key question remains about his talk of an abortion truce. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/13/daniels-closer-to-2012-bid-but-has-he-overcome-abortion-truce/

Rick Santorum Chides Daniels on Abortion-Social Issues Truce Washington, DC -- In an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, potential Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum slammed Mitch Daniels, also a potential GOP hopeful, on his abortion-social issues truce. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/02/04/rick-santorum-chides-daniels-on-abortion-social-issues-truce/

Somalia's president marked the beginning of Ramadan Saturday by calling for a truce with Islamic militants and talks to end the country's bloodshed. President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told VOA Saturday he believes peace and stability are attainable through dialogue, and he called on militants to lay down their weapons. Somalia's fragile transitional government is engaged in a fierce battle to regain large parts of the country from Islamist militants led by the al-Shabab group. In the capital of Mogadishu, heavy fighting between government forces and insurgents has killed at least 100 people since Thursday, many of them civilians. Residents...

Hamas officials in Cairo have proposed a year-long truce with Israel and an opening of the crossings into the Gaza Strip, in the latest round of diplomatic meetings to build on a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Hamas official Ayman Taha told reporters in Cairo on Sunday that his delegation was briefed by the Egyptians on an Israeli proposal for a year-and-a-half long truce with only partial opening of the border, which they rejected. Instead, Taha says the group made a counter offer of a year with open borders, which they now must discuss with their leadership in Damascus.

The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip lashed out at rival militants after two Qassam rockets were fired at southern Israel yesterday, causing no injuries but further straining the shaky truce between Israel and Hamas that went into effect last Thursday morning. In view of the continued rocket fire, Israel will keep the crossings into the Gaza Strip closed today, for the third straight day. The Fatah-affiliated group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for yesterday's rocket fire and demanded that the cease-fire be extended into the West Bank. In a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency Maan, Hamas...

Ceasefire seems shakier than ever as Palestinians launch three Qassam rockets from Gaza. House damaged in Sderot, two women suffer from shock. Olmert: This is a blatant violation of ceasefire. Islamic Jihad vowed reprisal earlier for IDF operation in West Bank Shmulik Hadad Published: 06.24.08, 15:53 / Israel News Ceasefire shattered? Residents of Israel's south were rattled to hear the 'Color Red' rocket alert sirens blare throughout their towns twice on Tuesday afternoon as Palestinian terror groups launched three Qassam rockets from Gaza. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. One of the rockers landed in the backyard of...

Joint IDF, Shin Bet operation to arrest senior commander from Jenin ends with his death. Army says imminent terror attack thwarted. Though ceasefire limited to Gaza, Islamic Jihad has warned attacks on its people in West Bank would bring Qassam reprisals A senior commander of the Islamic Jihad and an additional gunman belonging to the group were killed in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the West Bank city of Nablus. The two were killed in an exchange of fire with IDF and Shin Bet forces who had entered the city to arrest several wanted Palestinians. Troops belonging to...

• Hamas regards the temporary cease-fire as a tahdiya and not a hudna. A tahdiya – “a period of calm” – is used by Hamas to describe a simple cease-fire. A hudna implies recognition of the other party’s actual existence, without acknowledging its legitimacy.

While media attention has been focused on the Palestinian track where no progress has been made and no real pressure applied, serious work has been going on with Syria. You will recall that the Iraq Study Group under Baker recommended in November ’06, that the US should engage Syria and Iran about Iraq without preconditions. While Bash and Rice rejected the recommendations publicly, they went about following them. The Annapolis Conference held one year later was part of that new dialogue. Syria was induced to attend because, there was added to the agenda, under the title “Comprehensive Peace”, the Syrian...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Gaza's Hamas rulers on Tuesday said they have reached a long-awaited cease-fire with Israel meant to end months of Palestinian assaults on Israeli border towns and bruising Israeli retaliation. The announcement came shortly after Egypt, which has been trying to broker the truce for months, said the cease-fire would go into effect on Thursday. Israel refused to confirm a deal, but said a "new reality" would take hold if Palestinian attacks end. In a last-minute jolt, Israeli aircraft attacked three targets in the southern Gaza Strip. One of the airstrikes destroyed a car, killing...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli leaders decided Wednesday against mounting a major attack on militants in the Gaza Strip, saying they would give Egypt more time to broker a truce with the territory's Hamas rulers. But with bloodshed on both sides, including the death of a 6-year-old Gaza girl, the government said it would push ahead with preparations for a possible invasion and keep attacking Palestinian militants to try to stop daily rocket and mortar barrages on southern Israel. Israeli aircraft fired a missile at militants in northern Gaza, but it hit a house instead, killing 6-year-old Hadeel al-Smari in the...

Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas, has said their organization would be willing to offer Israel a 10-year truce if Israel were to remove itself from the lands it seized during the 1967 Middle East War. Mashaal has said he made the offer on Saturday while speaking with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and while the Hamas leader hinted that a Palestinian state would be limited to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem there was no outright declaration that they would recognize Israel. During Carter’s talk with Mashaal the Hamas leader said his organization would...

(Too short to excerpt) NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) — Iraqi Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday threatened to end the ceasefire of his feared Mahdi Army militia which he announced last August. "The Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) is hand in hand with the Iraqi people to achieve security, stability and liberation. If it is of interest to lift the ceasefire to achieve the aims and goals, it will be announced in a separate statement," Sadr said in a communique released by his office.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Officials in Iran confirmed for the first time Saturday that the country played an important role in brokering a recent truce between the Iraqi government and anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.Iran's Shiite government helped end the clashes between Iraqi government troops and al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia for the sake of Shiite unity, said a senior Iranian official who deals with Iraq."It is in Iran's best interests to see unity among Shiite factions," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki heads a Shiite-dominated government in...

NAJAF, Iraq (Agencies): Influential members within the movement loyal to Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have told him they do not want his Mehdi Army militia to extend a ceasefire when it expires this month, Sadr’s spokesman said on Monday. The US military says the Shi’ite cleric’s announcement on Aug. 29 to freeze the activities of the feared Mehdi Army for six months has been vital to cutting violence. A return to hostilities could seriously jeopardise those security gains. Sadr has been gauging the mood among senior figures and five main committees had reported back with their views on the truce,...

Group calls for end to Christmas Culture wars The outrage by some people over department stores using the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is a distraction from real moral and social issues, according to a group of concerned Catholics and evangelical Christians. The group has called for a “cease-fire in the Christmas culture wars,” and challenged conservative talk-show host Bill O’Reilly and others who have lashed out against a so-called secular “War on Christmas.” In an “Open Letter to Christmas Culture Warriors” published as an advertisement in the New York Post, Washington Times and the National Catholic Reporter,...

During World War I, in the winter of 1914,the battlefields of Flanders, one of the most unusual events in all of human history took place. The Germans had been in a fierce battle with the British and French. Both sides were dug in, safe in muddy, man-made trenches six to eight feet deep that seemed to stretch forever. All of a sudden, German troops began to put small Christmas trees, lit with candles, outside of their trenches. Then, they began to sing songs. Across the way, in the "no man's land" between them, came songs from the British and French...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — The Philippines government and separatist rebels have struck a deal on creating a Muslim homeland in the country's south which is expected to lead to a peace accord next year, officials said Thursday. The agreement on the extent of territory to be handed over had been a major stumbling block in the peace talks that opened when a ceasefire was forged with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2001. The two sides did not disclose the new borders agreed after two days of talks here, but Malaysian officials said the territory would be greater than...

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, witnesses and military officials said. According to Reuters, they said the 19-year-old member of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was shot dead in an exchange of fire with troops in Jenin refugee camp. After dark Saturday, Israeli troops entered Nablus in an arrest operation. In the center of the city, soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian in his shop and seriously wounded another Palestinian, witnesses and rescue workers said. In another incident, Israeli troops fired at rock throwers, injuring two of them in the legs, witnesses said. Meanwhile, Hamas...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese leaders vowed on Thursday to stamp out an Islamist militant group that has been fighting the army at a camp in the north of the country. Relief workers planned aid deliveries to thousands of Palestinians forced from a refugee camp by fighting between the army and militant group Fatah al-Islam as a fragile truce held. "We will not surrender to terrorism," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said in a televised speech to his nation, referring to Fatah al-Islam and three bomb attacks in Lebanon this week. "We will work on uprooting terrorism and finishing it off." Dozens...