Free Republic

Storm gathers over Pakistan "coup" memo Anita Joshua Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani is reported to have tendered his resignation on Wednesday (American time) following allegations that he had submitted a memo on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari to former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen to pre-empt a possible coup in the wake of the May 2 operation against al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. However, several hours after news broke of the resignation offer made during the night (Pakistani time), there was no word from the Government on whether it had been accepted or not....

Libya's vast oil reserves have enabled it to invest more than $70bn (£43bn) around the world – making it a major shareholder in companies such as the Financial Times, Fiat and Juventus football club. The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the crisis-stricken country's main financial vehicle, spent £224m on a 3% stake in Pearson, the education group behind the Financial Times, last June.The LIA recently set up a hedge fund in London and has bought a host of properties in the UK, paying £155m for Portman House, a 146,550 square foot retail complex on Oxford Street, and £120m for an office...

The United States may have created a Frankenstein in the Palestinian Authority, which human rights groups fear is using U.S.-trained forces to build a police state. “I feel real concern that we are reaching the level of a police state,” according to Ramallah-based human rights group director Shawan Jabarin, quoted by the Financial Times. The United States has taken pride in its training PA ”policemen,” avoiding use of the words "armed forces" in order not to violate Oslo agreements. General Keith Dayton, who recently stepped down as director of the training program in the PA, has said the forces have...

Former President George W. Bush is denying a report that he once said he would have endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 if the Democrat had asked. “This is ridiculous and untrue,” Bush spokesman David Sherzer told POLITICO. “President Bush proudly supported John McCain in the election and voted for him.” A blog post on the website of the Financial Times claimed Tuesday that Bush made the remarks during an Oval Office meeting with British dignitaries, including former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “I probably won’t even vote for the guy,” the FT reports Bush having said of McCain. “I had to...

The Qatari emir has said the U.S. will not be allowed to use its military base in the tiny Gulf state in a military conflict with Iran, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. "According to the agreement between us and the US, they have to ask us, and with Iran, we will not accept this," emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani told the Financial Times, adding that the superpower can sometimes take the wrong decision. In a rare public policy statement over the media, the emir, whose country is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, said the sanctions against...

President Obama's highly publicized revival of the left's Cold War mantra of creating a nuclear free world by creating complex arms agreements provided an excellent cover for the testing of a far more practical and immediate strategic policy change. When the White House wanted to launch a policy trial balloon in the past it would drift a few suggestions in the direction of the Washington Post or the New York Times. The Obama administration under the guidance of chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, however, has introduced a little misdirection into that old political device. For Obama the new water carrier...

US presidential elections involve a fabulous expense of time, effort and money. Doubtless it is all too much – but, by the end, nobody can complain that the candidates have been too little scrutinised. We have learnt a lot about Barack Obama and John McCain during this campaign. In our view, it is enough to be confident that Mr Obama is the right choice. ... Mr Obama is most disappointing on trade. He pandered to protectionists during the primaries, and has not rowed back. He may be sincere, which is troubling. Should he win the election, a Democratic Congress will...

The Belgian government stepped in for the second time in 24 hours to rescue a bank as it led a €6.4bn ($9.2bn, £5bn) cash injection for Dexia, the world’s biggest lender to local governments. Axel Miller, chief executive and Pierre Richard, chairman, are to step down once replacements are found at the bank, which is quoted on the Brussels and Paris stock exchanges. The government in Brussels announced early on Tuesday that Belgium and Belgian stakeholders in Dexia, including three regions and three institutional shareholders, would invest €3bn in the bank. The French government would contribute €1bn while French state-controlled...

It was the loudest and most prolonged cheer since Barack Obama appeared on the podium last week in Denver. Very few people had heard of Sarah Palin when Mr Obama delivered his acceptance speech eight days ago. One vice-presidential announcement, several news cycles and countless debates about sexism later, Ms Palin had been catapulted into starring role at a rejuvenated Republican Convention. Given the fluid nature of this presidential race, most analysts say it is much too early to pronounce whether Ms Palin's widely praised acceptance speech was the "game changer" that some Republicans claimed on Wednesday night. But in...

Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, grabbed European headlines on Thursday with the focus either on her ideology or her gender. “The Republicans hope to have found their Obama,” opined Le Monde, the left-of-centre French daily, following the mother of five’s rousing speech to the Republican convention on Wednesday. In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung greeted ”the rage from Wasilla [her home town]” as a woman who presented ”herself as a ”herself as a pugnacious and self-confident politician” The French media provided full coverage of the pregnancy of her teenage daughter (treatment they would be reluctant to apply to their...

Ihad been thinking for some time that more attention should be paid to Rush Limbaugh – not to what he says, because it is pretty much the same old rightwing bombast he has been selling for 25 years, but to what he has been urging his legion of 20m similarly inclined radio listeners to do. This is, wherever state laws allows, that they should register in a Democratic party primary and cast a vote for Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama, the front-runner to be the Democratic presidential nominee. He calls it “operation chaos” and he has been revelling in its...

Sean Hannity, the conservative Republican commentator who takes on such controversial issues as Hillary Clinton's legal work in a communist law firm, could be on his way out of the Fox News Channel as a result of Rupert Murdoch's decision to turn the company over to his liberal son James. James Murdoch, 34, who buys into global warming hysteria, has in recent days been labeled the "News Corporation Heir" and "Son King" because of changes in the company that have dramatically increased his power. The Fox News Channel is one part of Murdoch's News Corporation. While James Murdoch is based...

'Financial Times' Names Most Influential Journalists, With Some Surprises By Mark Fitzgerald Published: May 20, 2006 9:00 PM ET CHICAGO In its weekend edition Saturday, the Financial Times named New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman the nation's "most influential" commentator -- but the nation isn't the United States. In the U.S., the FT declared, Friedman is "runner-up" to the most influential commentator, the Washington Post's syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Friedman is the most influential commentator, the FT said, in India. New Delhi correspondent Jo Johnson said only three Indian English-language commentators can "come close" to claiming genuine national influence. "Strangely,...

On the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, the US capital’s historic protest venues were surprisingly serene on Sunday. Outside the White House tourists had their pictures taken next to a cardboard cut-out of the president, families enjoyed the sun on the Mall and several bored-looking policemen stood guard outside the vice-president’s DC home. Not a placard in sight or a chant to be heard. Americans may have turned decisively against the war in Iraq in recent months, but their change of heart has been largely expressed quietly to pollsters rather than in loud public protests. The micro-protests...

In the race for emissions regulation, journalists are in the lead. CNN and USA Today have already declared the global warming debate over, and they’re not alone. Media coverage leading up to the G-8 Summit, beginning July 6, has been based on the assumptions that human-caused global warming is occurring and it must be curbed. The Group of Eight major economic powers meets annually to discuss global issues and map out plans for the year. The United Kingdom took the rotating presidency of the G8 in January 2005, and Prime Minister Tony Blair has said Africa and climate change are...

<p>WASHINGTON — A senior Defense official placed under investigation by the FBI (news - web sites) on allegations that he tried to steer Iraqi reconstruction contracts toward friends has been removed from office, Pentagon (news - web sites) officials confirmed Friday.</p>

LAST YEAR at this time, the media were in full scandal mode over 16 words that President Bush had spoken nearly six months earlier. "The British government has learned," Bush had said in his State of the Union address in January, "that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." A furor erupted over that statement when a CIA consultant and ex-diplomat named Joseph Wilson, who had gone to Niger in 2002 to look into the matter, publicly claimed that the charge wasn't true. The White House agreed that the line shouldn't have been in Bush's speech, but...

When thieves stole a steel watch and two bottles of perfume from Niger's embassy on Via Antonio Baiamonti in Rome at the end of December 2000, they left behind many questions about their intentions. The identity of the thieves has not been established. But one theory is that they planned to steal headed notepaper and official stamps that would allow the forging of documents for the illicit sale of uranium from Niger's vast mines. The break-in is one of the murkier elements surrounding the claim - made by the US and UK governments in the lead-up to the Iraq war...

WASHINGTON — How fares the multination cover-up of the richest rip-off in world history? Obstruction of justice has never had it so good. Last month, after some badgering in this space and elsewhere, the House International Relations Committee announced it would look into the $5 billion kickback scandal in the United Nations' six-year Iraqi oil-for-food program, the largest humanitarian aid effort ever undertaken. Our State Department, eager for U.N. help in Iraq, wants no revelations of U.N. ineptitude and corruption. It waltzed the committee staff around. Senate Foreign Relations, however, not wanting to be upstaged by its House counterpart, called...

US capitalism is as dynamic as ever. Unfortunately most of that effort has recently been directed towards bilking as many ordinary citizens as is humanly possible.