Free Republic

Gov. Cuomo says he understands the outrage over the weekend acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin. "We have a system and we follow the system and that's what we've done here," Cuomo said during an appearance on Long Island. "I think I share the outrage at the apparent travesty of justice, but that is the system that we have," Cuomo said. "I understand the outrage and the feeling that the system failed in this case."

AN insurgent rocket today narrowly missed the Baghdad building where UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were holding a press conference to announce that the security situation in Iraq was improving. Mr al-Maliki opened the meeting by announcing that Iraq had ?made huge strides on the road toward stability,? while Mr Ban, on his first trip to Iraq, was full of enthusiasm. ?The situation in Iraq has improved,? he said, adding that he was considering increasing the UN presence in the country. As he was speaking, an explosion rocked the Prime Minister?s office, deep in...

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed hope Thursday that the "active debate" in the U.S. administration and Congress on global warming will spur the United States to take a leadership role in combatting climate change. The U.N. chief was addressing a student conference on global warming that brought hundreds of high-schoolers from around the world to the U.N. General Assembly hall. One student asked what Ban thought about the rejection by President Bush's administration of the Kyoto protocol, a 1997 pact that requires 35 industrial nations to cut their global-warming gases by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels...

The Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into allegations that a number of major UK-based firms paid bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The firms being targeted include the drug giants GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly. The international oil traders and UK bridge-builders Mabey and Johnson are also to be investigated. They are on a long list of international companies accused in a UN report of paying kickbacks under the discredited oil-for-food sanctions regime, which enabled Saddam to illicitly amass an estimated $1.8bn. Ministers have agreed to fund the investigation with £22m over three years.