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Argentina protests at Falklands link to EU By Seamus Mirodan in Buenos Aires (Filed: 30/04/2005) Argentina has voiced outrage at the inclusion of the Falkland Islands as British territory in the draft EU constitution. "We are perturbed, we reject this thoroughly, but it is not a new issue and we will have to fight about it for years to come," said foreign minister, Rafael Bielsa. Argentina has complained to Brussels and ordered its ambassadors in the 25 EU capitals to issue protests. London wants to see the Falklands permanently lodged in an annexe to the EU constitution as part of...

Tokyo governor to visit southern islets amid dispute with China Tokyo's governor plans to visit a rocky outcrop south of the Japanese capital next month amid questions from China about the validity of Japan's claim of sovereignty over the islets and the surrounding seas. China says Okinotorishima, a pair of islets about 1,730 kilometers (1,070 miles) southwest of Tokyo, are only rocks _ not an island governed by rules of sovereignty _ and therefore can't be used by Japan to extend its economic zone while preventing Beijing from exploiting natural resources in the surrounding Pacific Ocean area. Governor Shintaro Ishihara...

Thursday April 14, 7:23 PMJapan considers posting soldiers to protect embassies abroad in wake of China violenceJapan's foreign minister urged China on Thursday to denounce a recent spate of anti-Japanese riots, and said Tokyo is considering posting its own military personnel abroad to protect its embassies. Protesters last weekend threw stones and broke windows at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing in a flare-up over Japanese textbooks that critics say downplay Tokyo's wartime aggression. Chinese officials said Japan was to blame for the outbreak. But Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, who heads to Beijing for talks on Sunday, suggested in Parliament on...

China website highlights early DPRK-China tensions China-NK relations by Michael Rank If you're a Great Leader it can feel a little uncomfortable having another Great Leader on your doorstep, and a very interesting report in Chinese highlights intense rivalry between Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung in the 1950s and 60s. This short report says North Korea took part in “underground activities” against China's Korean minority after the Korean war in order to instill in them a “fatherland concept and ideology of the leader”, telling them their fatherland was the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and their leader was General Kim...

What We Propose. The Expansionist Party ("XP") advocates reannexation of the Philippines, a former U.S. colony, to the United States, but this time as up to three States of the Union: Luzon, Mindanao (the two largest islands, in the far north and south respectively) and the Visayas (the islands in between). We feel this is the only thing certain to secure both political and social democracy for the archipelago and set its people on the road to fairly distributed prosperity. We also believe the Philippines can help restore perspective and purpose to a U.S. that has lost sight of its...

OK girls and boys, please help me. I have two 10 year old cats living with me. A friend with a problem is asking me to take his two cats (five year olds) to live with mine in our house.I am begging you for any advice on this!I have two floors in the house, but you all know cats, the smell will be there. They will know. How is the best way to deal with this?The cats are coming here in about 36 hours.Please tell me what you may know on this matter!I've has cats all my 58 years, but...

"President Hu Jintao of China publicly urged Hong Kong's leader on Monday to improve his management of the semiautonomous Chinese territory, a comment widely seen as a rebuke," the New York Times reports.Hu said that "he believed that Hong Kong was 'moving in the right direction.' But he went on to warn Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's chief executive, that he should 'sum up experiences, identify shortcomings, sharpen administrative abilities and continue to raise the quality of governing.'" In "What Beijing needs to learn from Hong Kong," Cato China expert James Dorn writes: "Hong Kong's demand for limiting the reach of...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

US forces launch campaign to regain lost Sunni territory By Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad (Filed: 10/09/2004) American forces launched a multi-pronged offensive in Iraq's Sunni badlands yesterday, striking enemy positions in two towns that had fallen under insurgent control and claiming to have peacefully retaken a third. After months of creeping withdrawal from a growing number of towns in the north and west, the American military confirmed that major operations were under way to regain lost territory. Local residents sift through the rubble of houses destroyed as US forces target Fallujah A senior officer said American, supported by bombing raids,...

China demands Japan 'unconditionally' release activists The Chinese Foreign Ministry lodged a solemn representation Wednesday afternoon with Japan for illegally detaining seven Chinese citizens who landed on Diaoyu Island, a Chinese island in the East China Sea. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui Wednesday afternoon summoned Chikahito Harada, charge d'affaires of Japanese embassy in China, to lodge the representation. Zhang stated the stance of the Chinese government on the Diaoyu Island issue. He pointed out that Diaoyu Island and the attached islets have been a part of the Chinese territory since ancient times and China has indisputable sovereignty over these...

The US/UK forces have liberated more territory and freed more people from terror than ANY army in history! We are now 14 days after our forces crossed the border, 16 days after the first precision air strike on Hussein's bunker. Now, some 65% of Iraq has been freed from oppression and institutional terror, and only small pockets remain in downtown Baghdad and Basra; plus a few towns in the north. In only two weeks, with a loss of less than 100 Coalition soldiers and 4000 civilian casualties (the Iraq estimate), Bush and the US/UK armies have liberated 100,000 square miles...

Shas spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef reversed an earlier halachic ruling allowing territorial compromise if it would save lives. Rabbi Yosef has previously ruled: 'If the heads and commanders of the army, together with the government, state that pikuah nefesh [the saving of life] is involved; that if areas of Eretz Yisrael are not given back the danger exists of immediate war on the part of our Arab neighbors; and if the areas are returned to them the danger of war will be averted; and that there is a chance of permanent peace; then it seems that according to all opinions...