Free Republic

Thailand's Prime Ministerial Reality Show hits the air THAKSIN TV Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is spending this week in a tent in one of the poorest provinces of Thailand in front of 40 cameras and 100 production crew. Cameras will be rolling 24 hours a day and the results will be shown on channel 16 all week. "Backstage Show: The Prime Minister'' is being filmed in Roi Et, 310 miles northeast of Bangkok. It is a rural area that has suffered from drought and diminishing crop returns. Thaksin's popularity ratings have been slipping recently, reaching a low of 58.2 percent...

Ask Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez What do you want to ask Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez? Mr Chavez has been criticised by the United States for being Fidel Castro's ally and promoting left-wing causes in Latin America. Since coming to power in 1998 he has split the country between those who say he has become increasingly autocratic, and those who say he speaks for the poor. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil producer and a key member of Opec, supplying 15% of US oil imports. Is President Chavez the voice of the poor? Or is he an autocrat? Is he...

'Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," President George Bush told the world after September 11 2001, and he has made it clear ever since that he means it. But in that black and white universe, where do you put Josh Rushing? Rushing is a blue-eyed son of Texas, a marine for all his adult life whose clean-cut friendly charm made him the ideal public face for the US military during the Iraq invasion. But he has now joined the Arab television channel al-Jazeera as an "on-screen personality", a move which, in the eyes of many...

Dame Eugenia Charles, the former Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica who died on Tuesday aged 86, led her island nation for 15 years, during which she became known as the "Iron Lady of the Caribbean" for her steely determination to put her country on the path to stability and prosperity and for her outspoken stance on controversial issues. She attracted international attention in 1983 when, as chairman of the Organisation of East Caribbean States, she persuaded President Ronald Reagan to send American troops to Grenada, Dominica's neighbour and fellow Commonwealth member, to crush a military coup by Cuban-backed...

A law banning magic mushrooms and making them a class A drug has come into force. The Drugs Act 2005 ends the situation in which fresh magic mushrooms were legal but those which were dried or prepared for use were not. Sellers have condemned the move, saying mushrooms are not harmful and accusing ministers of a knee-jerk reaction. But the Home Office said the drug was harmful to some users and added the move clarified the existing law. Home Office Minister Paul Goggins said in a statement: "Magic mushrooms are a powerful hallucinogen and can cause real harm, especially to...

Undercover group of commentators working for the government will post on blogs and Internet bulletin boards as 'ordinary netizens' The Times of India Friday, May 20, 2005 Beijing -- China has formed a special force of undercover online commentators to try to sway public opinion on controversial issues on the Internet, a newspaper said on Thursday. China has struggled to gain control over the Internet as more and more people gain access to obtain information beyond official sources. The country has nearly 100 million Internet users, according to official figures, and the figure is rising. A special force of online...

http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=9 E-mail: hq@aut.org.uk Telephone: 020 7670 9700 | Fax: 020 7670 9799 Association of University Teachers Egmont House 25-31 Tavistock Place London WC1H 9UT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your boycott will only do damage to the reputation of British Academia. Should you want to makea point to Israeli Institutions I suggest you gather a petition or write a letter. Censoring Academics for alleged censorship seems hypocritical. Two wrongs do not make a right. Why only target Israel for the boycott? What about Saudi Arabia, where Jews and Christians are not allowed to practice their religion? What about Zimbabwe, Iran and many other nations...

Former Tory prime minister John Major has received England's highest award for chivalry - the Order of the Garter. The 62-year-old former Huntingdon MP becomes a Knight of the Garter - an honour given personally by the Queen - and will be known as Sir John. He said: "I am absolutely thrilled, honoured and delighted." Sir Winston Churchill's daughter, Lady Soames, 82, and former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Lord Bingham, 71, also enter the order. The official ceremony will take place at Windsor Castle in June. Ceremonial garter There are 25 full members of the order, including...

Norway's biggest church, the (Lutheran) Church of Norway, has apologized to the nation's Romanies—once known as gypsies—for its ill treatment of their people in the past. The apology was made November 16 at the church's general synod after being approved in a unanimous vote by church representatives. It was then accepted by national representatives of the Romany people who attended the synod. The apology states: "The general synod 2000 apologizes and asks the Romanies for forgiveness for the injustices and infringements [of their rights] committed against their people by the church." The number of Romanies in this Scandinavian nation is...

The first soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross in more than two decades launched a campaign today to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Private Johnson Beharry received the highest award that can be bestowed on British and Commonwealth forces in March after single-handedly saving 30 colleagues by guiding them through an ambush in Iraq. Today, in his first public appearance since being given the VC, he raised the green and yellow preparatory pennant onboard HMS Albion, signalling the start of The Royal British Legion campaign. A flare was then fired from the...

The claim that Jews have a secret plan to rule the world was popularized by a 100-year-old book called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The book allegedly was a transcript of a secret conference of Jewish leaders. While the notion of a Jewish conspiracy has long been discounted, the idea refuses to go away. A new book seeks to debunk the myth once and for all. "The Lie That Wouldn't Die" reveals that the man behind "The Protocols" was a Russian secret agent who plagiarized the text from a book of imaginary dialogues written nearly half a century...

The U.N.-affiliated International Organization for Migration says tens-of-thousands of impoverished elderly Gypsy Holocaust survivors in Eastern and Central Europe are in desperate need of aid. The International Organization for Migration estimates about 145,000 Gypsy Holocaust survivors living in eastern and central Europe are in need of aid. Since 2002, IOM and other agencies have provided basic assistance, such as food, firewood, coal, and hygiene articles to 64,000 Gypsies, also known as Roma. IOM Roma Expert Delbert Field says funds for these programs are running out. "We found many more survivors than our donors had expected," he said. "We found that...

Romany Children Boycott School In Slovenia 4 April 2005 -- More than 80 Romany children boycotted school in Ljubljana today to protest what they call a government plan to segregate them from ethnic Slovene children in school. Slovenia's government proposed separating the children as of today from their ethnic Slovene peers in the Novo Mesto primary school. In all, 86 Roma failed to turn up to classes today, with their parents demanding the plan be scrapped. Roma represent less than 1 percent of Slovenia's 2 million population.

Vandals desecrate Rabin's grave David Ben Gurion's grave was sprayed with the word Hitler Former Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin's grave has been defaced, the latest in a series of attacks police believe may be linked to ultra-nationalist Jews. The slogan "murderous dog" in Hebrew was sprayed on his tomb in Jerusalem as well as that of his wife Leah. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a right-wing Jew opposed to the Oslo peace accord with the Palestinians. The graves of Zionist pioneer Theodor Herzl and the first Israeli PM David Ben Gurion were defaced last week. Jerusalem police have formed...

Shunned victims of the 'forgotten Holocaust' by David Altheer A service in memory of the thousands of Gypsies who died at the hands of the Nazis HARASSED to such an extent that they have become an election issue, and harried by the tabloid press, the Gypsies have found a haven in the centre of London. No, they are not about to seek retrospective planning permission for a trailer camp in Hyde Park, but they have been invited to St James’s Church, Piccadilly, to hold their Holocaust memorial service. Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the 60th anniversary of the liberation...

Lebanon has withdrawn from this year's Eurovision Song Contest, after refusing to show the Israeli entry on Lebanese TV channel Tele-liban. The channel told the European Broadcasting Union that Lebanon's legislation made it nearly impossible to broadcast the Israeli performance. This puts in breach of contest rules, which state all countries taking part must show the entire event. Lebanon was due to take part for the first time in the contest this year. Lebanon would have been represented by singer Aline Lahoud representing it in the semi-final in Kiev on 19 May. Participation Eurovision's executive supervisor Svante Stockselius said: "When...

This is on in the UK tomorrow night. Is it a good film to watch? I am fed up of weasting my time on inferior films.

Paul Schaefer - a former Nazi medic, Baptist preacher and alleged cult leader - has finally been captured in Argentina after eight years on the run. His arrest means Schaefer is likely to face jail for the sexual abuse of young boys, for which he was convicted in absentia in November last year after fleeing Chile. But Schaefer also faces charges of child sex abuse in Germany that go back to the late 1950s. Schaefer, who is in his 80s, has been denounced by former followers and by human rights campaigners. For them, his capture signals the end to decades...

By Ian MacWilliam BBC News, Tajikistan The Pamir mountains in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan were once the remotest frontier of the Russian Empire. But the last Russian forces left this region on the northern borders of Afghanistan in December, and the inhabitants have been facing their first winter without any Russian assistance for the first time in more than a century. Tajikistan still retains strong Russian influences The Pamirs have been busy building new ties with the outside world, but many people still regret the end of the Russian presence, and fear it could lead to an influx...

The Italians have Michelangelo, the French Molière and the Germans Beethoven. But, according to an Italian survey, the British - the beer-swilling, tabloid-reading, supposedly sports-crazy British - are more cultured than any of them. They go to more concerts, films, plays, galleries and libraries than almost anyone in Europe. They even manage to visit more ruins and monuments than the Italians. But the one area where they lag behind the other major nations of Europe is sport. More French, Italians and Spanish than British go to a course or stadium. But the British are sportier than the Germans and, proportionately,...