Free Republic

The United Nations General Assembly's first committee, which deals with disarmament, global challenges, and threats to peace that affect the international community, voted 152-5, on Friday, on a resolution concerning "the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East". The resolution states that Israel must dispose of all its nuclear weapons and place its nuclear sites under the International Atomic Energy Agency's purview. The resolution, which is submitted every year to the UNGA in New York, was submitted by Egypt and sponsored by the Palestinian Authority and 19 counties including Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. Canada, Israel,...

Many of Europe's governments may be skeptical about America's ambitious ballistic missile defense development program but their publics are not. A new study sponsored by advocates of BMD found that more than two-thirds of Europeans want NATO to deploy such systems to protect them. Some 71 percent of Europeans favor the deployment of a NATO missile defense capability able to protect the continent from attack by missiles bearing weapons of mass destruction, according to a poll that was jointly sponsored by the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies and Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, the two organizations announced in Rome...

Award for Pole Criticized THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Monday criticized the honors bestowed on the former Polish head of state Wojciech Jaruzelski during celebrations in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Jaruzelski was among six former heads of state who received a medal of honor from President Vladimir Putin, CTK news agency reported. "Jaruzelski is - despite his merit in defeating Nazism - a different symbol for our citizens," Klaus said in a statement. "As Poland's Defense minister he was a symbol of...

Newcomers Reflect on a Year in the EU By ANDREA DUDIKOVA, Associated Press Writer ZAHORSKA VES, Slovakia - Day in and out, Frantisek Danihel steers his ferry back and forth over the slow-moving Morava River, linking what were two separate worlds only a year ago — the European Union and its aspiring members. On a formal level, the barriers dissolved on May 1, 2004, when Slovakia and nine other mostly former communist nations joined what they had long viewed as an exclusive Western club. Yet opinions are mixed among EU newcomers about how much they have gained from membership and...