Free Republic

(IsraelNN.com) Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's coalition partners are preventing him from going as far as he would like to in peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, US President Barack Obama said Thursday. Obama was speaking at a town hall meeting in Tampa, Florida. Answering a question on the subject, he explained to the audience that the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority are both being held back by more extremist elements in their nations.

Any commemoration in the Knesset of the anniversary of Rabbi Meir Kahane's assassination would be harmful to the peace process, the US Embassy told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday. The American comments came after the Post obtained a series of e-mails in which an embassy official told Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin's office that the possibility of such a ceremony was "something that Senator [George] Mitchell and his team are following with concern." Following a Post report describing Rivlin's denial that he had allowed MK Michael Ben-Ari to commemorate Kahane in the Knesset plenum, the US administration contacted Rivlin's office to keep...

Twice in the past two days, SEPTA officials have alerted police to men taking pictures on the Broad Street subway line in South Philadelphia. On Wednesday, a SEPTA cashier told officers about a man taking pictures at the Lombard-South station, but the man, after being questioned by the cashier about his activities, left before officers arrived.

Saturday, 05 August 2006 Engineer officers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division conduct a quality assurance and quality control inspection as part of a construction project. Department of Defense photo by Maj. David Smith Story by Jane Morse WASHINGTON -- Despite some progress, violence and corruption continue to thwart reconstruction efforts in Iraq, says Stuart Bowen, the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. “Reversing the deteriorating security situation,”is the chief challenge facing efforts to rebuild Iraq, Bowen told the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs during a Wednesday hearing. Repeated violence and incessant danger continue...

Twice victimized September 3, 2005 GLOBE EDITORIAL IN DISASTER movies, people flee. In real disasters, thousands of people have nowhere to go. In the land of SUVs, they don't have cars or enough cash for a bus ticket. Just as the need for levee repairs was forgotten, the poor in New Orleans were long overlooked, ignored until Hurricane Katrina left them stranded in a drowned city and awash on national television. The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, knew that poverty would hinder the evacuation of the city's 445,000 people. He asked churches, relatives, and friends to help poorer residents...

President Bush's second-term plans to reshape Social Security, immigration laws and other domestic programs are facing a stiff challenge from a group that was reliably accommodating in the president's first four years: congressional Republicans. After essentially rubber-stamping much of Bush's first-term agenda, many House and Senate Republicans plan to assert themselves more forcefully to put their mark on domestic policy in the new year, according to several lawmakers. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has privately criticized White House handling of the recent intelligence bill and Bush's plan to postpone tax reform until 2006 or later. Rep. Thomas M. Davis...