Free Republic

Clinton Nearly Derails WTO Meeting "Cut the legs right from under us": U.S. official SEATTLE - Bill Clinton, the U.S. president, has nearly managed to derail the already shaky launch of global trade talks here by calling for sanctions on countries that fail to follow international labour standards. "There is bit of a crisis," said Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's Minister of International Trade. "Let's just say we had to do some damage control today." Mr. Clinton threw the poorer countries in the World Trade Organization into a major flap during his visit after he called for sanctions Wednesday and then yesterday ...

I figured that, with all the rubber bullets being fired on Seattle residents and visitors this week, there would be some listed on eBay. Sure enough: Here's eBay Item #212301112, from "Miscelleneous:General" category: TEAR GAS CANISTER FROM WTO SEATTLE PROTEST 99 This is a authentic Tear Gas canister that was thrown at me by Seattle WTO Riot Control Stormtroopers near my home in Capital Hill, Seattle, WA in the evening of 11/31/99. Riot Police chased local residents of Capitol Hill and shot tear gas tubes and pepper spray bombs into non-violent on-lookers. I was actually chased in my own neighborhood ...

Hillary Taps Campaign Chief By Eileen A. Murphy -- ABCNEWS.com N E W Y O R K, Dec. 3 — Putting one of the final pieces in place as she heads past the point of no return, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has named a campaign manager to run her race for the Senate. As first reported by ABCNEWS on Dec. 18, Mrs. Clinton has decided to tap veteran New York political operative Bill de Blasio to head up her campaign to succeed retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The campaign made the move official today in a prepared statement released ...

Business leaders, GOP air differences on flag The Confederate flag came between old friends Thursday when two top officials from the state Chamber of Commerce visited the House Republican Caucus to discuss their differences over the status of the banner that flies above the State House. By the time it was over, the chamber officials were left with a clear message: The Republican leadership is solidly behind the flag and just as solidly opposed to NAACP sanctions. And although emotions ran high among the flag's staunchest defenders, they kept the discussion civil, if decidedly pointed. Lawmakers clapped politely at the ...

Bhopal's residents mourn on anniversary of industrial disaster 12.08 p.m. ET (1721 GMT) December 3, 1999 BHOPAL, India (AP) — Bhopal residents prayed in mosques and temples Friday for the thousands killed when a deadly gas leaked from a fertilizer plant 15 years ago in the world's worst industrial accident. But there was also much anger at the closed plant's U.S.-based corporate parent, Union Carbide Corp., and its former chairman Warren Anderson. Protesters said Friday the company hadn't done enough to help the families of the 13,164 the state said died from inhaling methyl isocyanate gas. Bhopal was awash in ...

Issue 211 -- 01.12.1999 Jasna Babic describes how the life experiences and changes of Franjo Tudjman determined his rule. Photos: Nacional archives The Man who Ruled Croatia for 10 Years For his family and the HDZ elite, Tudjman created a communistic heaven in which they received everything they wished for. The rest of Croatia, however was pushed into brutal capitalism and poverty. While Franjo Tudjman was President of the Republic of Croatia, it became an independent, internationally recognized country. This is a fact which, beyond any doubt, will remain written in the Croatian history books and in historical memory. However, ...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - This was the moment that Governor George W. Bush's dwindling band of opponents had been girding and gunning for, and when it finally came in a shiny Manchester television studio last night, there were few surprises, few missteps, few sparks of drama, and, probably, few altered votes. But as the end of the beginning of the campaign approaches and the holiday hiatus beckons, the architecture of the Republican race now seems fixed. Indeed, last night's 90-minute session buttressed the foundation that has been laid in hundreds of luncheon speeches, thousands of dollars' worth of television ads ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A whopping $510,000 in reserved TV spots just before next month's Iowa caucuses catapults Bill Bradley dangerously close to the legal spending limit there. For good measure, the presidential candidate who's made campaign finance reform a central tenet of his campaign, also placed a $55,000 marker for ad time on nearby Illinois TV — a way of reaching Iowa viewers without counting fully towards Iowa limits. The airtime orders that Bradley placed Thursday underscore the creativity of candidates who accept federal matching funds and then are bound by convoluted spending rules. Although the money is not spent ...

(CNSNews.com) - The search for President Clinton's legacy may have ended Friday with news from the Labor Department that the US economic recovery has produced 20 million new American jobs during President Clinton's term. "It is the greatest job growth of any administration in our history," said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart. While the White House seized upon that news with great fanfare, a spokesman for George W. Bush's presidential campaign, Scott McClellan, told CNSNews.com, "The Clinton-Gore administration no more invented prosperity than they invented the Internet." Full Story

It's time to put up or shut up. I have seen all the rants.....GWB is a Socialist......GWB is a Liberal......GWB=NWO......AD NAUSEUM. I would like one of you Bush haters to give credible, documented proof of any of the following: 1. GWB is a Socialist. 2. GWB is a Liberal. 3. GWB desires a one-world government. (NWO) 4. GWB has been involved in illegal activities. I want hard evidence, not half-assed comments about how he supports NAFTA or WTO or that he supported or signed into law some government program. I want to see multiple instances where these nasty labels can ...

James Bissett - Former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania There are those who believe the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia marks a turning point in the way the international community (or at least the nineteen NATO countries) can react to human rights violations or repression that take place within the borders of a sovereign state. In other words that the principle of state sovereignty can be over ruled in the name of humanitarian intervention. Apologists for the bombing argue the war in Kosovo was fought in the interests of human rights–not territory. The president of the Czech republic went ...

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Friday that Republican presidential front-runner Texas Gov. George W. Bush "meets the bar" to be president. At the same time, Kennedy told the Boston Herald he has not decided yet whether to endorse Vice President Al Gore in the Democratic presidential primary race. While criticizing Bush's record on health care, Kennedy suggested the governor run on his strong record of education reform. Kennedy also said Bush's failure to answer foreign policy questions from a Boston television station was insignificant. "The fact is, he's been a governor and there are foreign policy issues that ...

Is Christianity a 'hate crime'? 100,000 Southern Baptists determined to meet in Chicago, despite opposition By Frank York © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com Chicago's rebuff of the Southern Baptist Convention's plans to meet in the Windy City next summer, on the grounds that the large Christian group might foment "hate crimes" against minorities, is sounding alarm bells among Christians who fear that merely speaking openly about their core religious beliefs will soon be considered a crime. The Southern Baptist Convention -- with a membership of 15.8 million and representing more than 40,000 churches nationwide -- has been planning for two years next ...

Are we a nation of children? A 1992 presidential debate gave us one of the most depressing exchanges in recent political history. A man in the audience asked the assembled candidates – George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot – this question: "And I ask the three of you, how can we, as symbolically the children of the future president, expect the two of you, the three of you, to meet our needs . . ." The questioner looked as though he were at least in his thirties. He claimed he worked for a living. Pitifully, each of the ...

France Says Week Too Short for Iraq Oil Deal 10.58 a.m. ET (1610 GMT) December 3, 1999 PARIS — France said it would oppose a U.S. proposal due to be put to a U.N. Security Council vote Friday to prolong Iraq's oil-for-food program by just one week, and will push instead for a longer extension. "For us, seven days is insufficient for technical reasons. We need a more substantial period to allow Iraq to export its oil,'' Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret told a news briefing. "We are in favor of the usual six-month extension. Between one week and six ...

Behind the Headlines by Justin Raimondo Antiwar.com December 3, 1999 THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE – FIGHTING THE GLOBALIST MONSTER The Battle for Seattle was the opening salvo of a war for independence, a shot that will one day be remembered as having been heard around the world. That it caught the ruling elites with their pants down – heck, that it happened at all, in these anesthetized times – was a truly glorious victory. DON'T BELIEVE THE SPIN A victory – against what? Don't be fooled by the media "spin" being given out by CNN, Fox, and the networks, ...

Measures allow prosecution of green activists and hackers Wide powers allowing the police to arrest political and environmental activists are included in a bill published yesterday which lays down a new definition of terrorism designed to catch a broad range of domestic and foreign-based groups and individuals. Terrorism will be defined as the "use or threat, for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, of action which involves serious violence against any person or property". It will also cover threats to endanger life or commit acts causing a "serious risk to the health or safety of ...

December 3, 1999 A Slaying in Kosovo Followed Serb's Error By CARLOTTA GALL IS, Serbia -- He was a 62-year-old university professor, a former Fulbright scholar who had studied and taught at the University of California at Berkeley. But Sunday night he made a fatal error and drove his wife and mother-in-law across Kosovo's capital, Pristina, through crowds of ethnic Albanians celebrating a nationalist holiday. The Albanians spotted Dragoslav Basic and the two women as Serbs, blocked the car and began to set it on fire. When the family climbed out of the car, the crowd beat them. Then ...

When word got out over the radio that the city of Seattle had made scimpy preparations for feeding the cops who were working overtime - one report said that the cops were allotted a single sandwhich for the day - citizens around town donated money and ordered pizza delivered to the cops standing on the lines. The mayor showed up at one of these pizza ditributions, grabbed several boxes of pizza and gave them to the demonstrators.

Who do you think did the best job in Thursday's Republican presidential candidate debate? Gary Bauer George W. Bush Steve Forbes Orrin Hatch Alan Keyes John McCain It's a toss up Take the poll here.