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The U.S. Congress may be more favorable to allowing millions of illegal aliens in the United States to obtain legal status through three-year work permits, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday. "Now that the campaign is behind us and 9/11 is also three years behind us and we have done a lot with respect to securing our borders ... I sense that there could be a more favorable environment," Powell told reporters as he flew to Mexico City for talks expected to focus on the issue. "It's always a difficult issue before the Congress," Powell said, noting that...

WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (AFP) - The United States on Friday defended its decision to formally recognize the "Republic of Macedonia" as the name for the former Yugoslav republic and did little to ease Greek fury at the move as it warned US citizens in Greece of possible violent reaction. The State Department said the move, made Wednesday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, would not change and reiterated that it was not done to spite Athens but to reward Skopje for its commitment to multiethnic democracy and its backing for the war on terrorism, including in Iraq. "The question of...

Well, it's time to clean out Foggy Bottom. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a.4Cgi42vYDY&refer=top_world_news

WASHINGTON – The State Department will ask the Chinese government about a former senior Chinese official who was quoted as accusing President Bush of trying to "rule over the whole world." The quotes in the China Daily, an English language state newspaper, were attributed to Qian Qichen, a former vice premier and former foreign minister. A Chinese embassy spokesman cast doubt on the authenticity of the lengthy commentary, saying Qian was not interviewed by the China Daily nor did he write an article for the newspaper. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Monday the purported comments were not consistent with...

The Bush administration is now demanding that the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, bring her prosecutions to an end. Washington is insisting that war crimes cases relating to the Balkan wars of the 1990s be tried either in domestic courts or be given an amnesty. This shift not only marks a dramatic change in U.S. policy toward the ICTY, but more importantly, it is a fatal blow to the power and credibility of Mrs. Del Ponte. In a recent interview, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton told me Washington...

Anti-communist analyst note: [As the presidential candidate John Kerry already twice stated in his "honest" responses during the presidential debates he wants our nuclear research stopped and he wants to send money to Russia to "protect the 'former' Soviet era nuclear weapons" from being 'lost' or 'stolen' by Russian Mafia. Please consider the following article in that light of the fact even though it has been written 10 years ago - it was as important then as it is today.Published with permission given by Inside Story Communications. HM note]. The Plot To Hijack the CIA Is nuclear terrorism about to...

George W Bush RNC GOPAll three sites are inaccesible right now due to a pssoble DOS attack. DUmmies have been getting quite desperate lately, maybe they snapped?

The United States does not want a "visa war" with Europe, US officials said Monday as they reaffirmed plans to further open access to EU travellers not currently covered by a US visa-free program. US officials met their EU counterparts in Brussels to discuss extending the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which currently allows nationals from 15 mostly western European members of the 25-member bloc to enter the United States without a visa. The issue of American visas has soured relations between Washington and many of its allies -- in particular Poland, which has been a strong supporter of the US-led...

It was in the spring of 2003 when David J. Dunford, a 29-year foreign service officer, concluded that President Bush's war in Iraq was a failure. He could feel it. He could hear it. Dunford could see the troubles that continue to vex American forces and planners in Iraq. For several months after the March 2003 invasion, he served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, the U.S.-created agency that governed Iraq after Saddam Hussein's fall. "I predicted it would go badly," said Dunford, a retired ambassador who is supporting Sen. John Kerry for president. Dunford is one of nearly...

IS THE ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA BIASEDagainst conservatives? Dan Rather remains in the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News despite his involvement in recent news stories based on dishonest reporting, fabricated documents and even Internet gossip falsely alleging that President George W. Bush secretly intends to begin the military conscription of students. These stories were obviously designed to damage Mr. Bush in the final weeks before a national election. And now ABC News has left in place its Political Director Mark Halperin. ABC has done this despite the network’s acknowledgement that Halperin wrote a memo that to many seems to direct...

News Release The Zionist Organization of America Jacob & Libby Goodman ZOA House Phone: 212-481-1500 4 East 34th St. New York, NY 10016 Fax: 212-481-1515 e-mail: email@zoa.org Web Site: www.zoa.org --------------------------------------------------------- February 10, 2004 Contact: (212-481-1500) ZOA Files Suit In Federal District Court Against The State Department Last October, the ZOA's Center for Law and Justice (ZOA-CLJ) filed suit in the federal district court in Washington, D.C. on behalf of an American couple living in Jerusalem, alleging that Secretary of State Colin Powell and the State Department violated federal law by refusing to recognize their infant son's birthplace as Israel...

This article is by Roger Cohen, David E. Sanger and Steven R. Weisman. Jorge Castañeda, Mexico's former foreign minister, has two distinct images of George W. Bush: the charmer intent on reinventing Mexican-American ties and the chastiser impatient with Mexico as the promise of a new relationship soured. The change came with the Sept. 11 attacks. "My sense is that Bush lost and never regained the gift he had shown for making you feel at ease," said Mr. Castañeda, who left office last year. "He became aloof, brusque, and on occasion abrasive." The brusqueness had a clear message: the United...

A controversial resolution on independence for Serbia's southern province of Kosovo has been withdrawn from the US Congress House International Relations Committee. The resolution had been proposed by Committee Chairman Henry Hyde and deputy Tom Lantosh. B92 learnt this morning from the office of the Serbian president that it was withdrawn after the State Department intervened.

United Nations - CIA-Iraq chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, whose report cast doubt on Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, was blocked from reaching that same conclusion in 1999-2000 by the Clinton White House. Before officially joining the CIA weapons hunt earlier this year, Duelfer spent more than 8 years hunting WMD at the United Nations, first for the noted Swede Rolf Ekeus, than the flamboyant Aussie Richard Butler. Butler, known for his repeated clashes with Iraq officials, was eventually forced out of his U.N. job by the French and Russian ambassadors in June...

Many Helped Iraq Evade U.N. Sanctions On Weapons By Craig Whitlock and Glenn Frankel Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A01 BERLIN, Oct. 7 -- As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training. Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company...

Senior US diplomats have told leaders in Belgrade that failure to hand over top war crimes suspects will further deepen Serbia-Montenegro's isolation. The UN tribunal in The Hague is demanding, in particular, the transfer of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic for crimes during Bosnia's civil war. President Boris Tadic promised to supply "clear answers" within days. Belgrade has previously said it does not know the whereabouts of Mr Mladic and Mr Karadzic. Marc Grossman, a US undersecretary of state, and Richard Prosper, the US roving ambassador for war crimes, met both the Serbia-Montenegrin president and Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic. Mr...

WHAT SHOULD WE DO IN IRAQ? The U.S. presidential election will likely be won or lost over the war and its aftermath. If the United States fails in Iraq--if it is driven out by violence, and the country descends into internecine strife--then former ambassador (and current Kerry adviser) Richard Holbrooke may well be right: Iraq will be "a mess worse than Vietnam." It's a good bet that few people in the administration, as in the country at large, think the counterinsurgency is going well. It is quite striking to listen to President Bush's speeches about Iraq--about its centrality to the...

A former high-ranking State Department official who is one of the nation's leading experts on China passed documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents and was charged yesterday with concealing a trip to Taiwan, court papers say. Donald W. Keyser, who was elevated to principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs this year, made the trip last year, according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. Keyser, 61, who advised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on China issues, met with one of the agents in Taipei last September during an official trip to China...

THE WORLD AFTER 9/11 : The Muslim Brotherhood In America In Search Of Friends Among The Foes U.S. Hopes to Work With Diverse Group By John Mintz and Douglas Farah Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, September 11, 2004; Page A01 When U.S. immigration officers in New York City whisked away Ishaq Farhan as he stepped off an incoming international flight in May 2000, his Jordanian diplomatic passport was no help to him. Federal agents questioned him for hours before barring his entry into the country. Then they made him pay for the flight back to Jordan. The U.S. Embassy in...