Posted on May 31st, 2005 by Daniel Larison
Germany’s conservative opposition on Monday nominated Angela Merkel, a Protestant minister’s daughter from the formerly communist east, as its challenger to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, giving her the chance to become the country’s first female leader.
Merkel, 50, emerged as favorite to challenge Schroeder after the chancellor called for national elections to [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on May 31st, 2005 by Daniel Larison
Dinara Asanbaeva, academic supervisor at a political science academy sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the arrangement also made her doubt both men’s commitment to democracy.
“These leaders are just trying to divide up the benefits of the revolution between themselves,” she said. “It’s a change of the political elite but [...]
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Posted on May 31st, 2005 by Daniel Larison
U.S. senators said yesterday that the Uzbek government’s harsh response to an uprising will affect relations with Washington, adding their voices to calls for the Central Asian nation’s leadership to allow an international investigation into the bloodshed.
The visit by Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John E. Sununu [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on May 31st, 2005 by Daniel Larison
US troops outraged Iraq’s new government yesterday by arresting one of the country’s foremost Sunni leaders only to release him later and call the whole episode a mistake.
Firing stun grenades, American soldiers burst into the home of Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, head of the largest Sunni Arab political party, shortly after dawn. They forced a hood over [...]
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Posted on May 31st, 2005 by Daniel Larison
Insurgents determined to flout an Iraqi-led security offensive in Baghdad put on a bloody show of defiance with a dual suicide attack which left up to 30 people dead and more than 100 injured.
The attacks, carried out in the predominantly Shia town of Hillah, south of Baghdad, came on the second day of Operation Lightning, [...]
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Posted on May 30th, 2005 by Daniel Larison
There is a strange disconnect in America at the moment, with the press partly to blame but in the position to do something about it, or at least explain it. You may be surprised to learn that nearly 6 in 10 Americans feel the Iraq war is “not worth it,” according to a recent Gallup [...]
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Posted on May 30th, 2005 by Daniel Larison
The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file indictments against two former senior American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffers – Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman – and, according to sources familiar with the affair, the charges will be subsumed under the Espionage Act.
A Virginia grand jury is now examining the evidence in the [...]
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Posted on May 30th, 2005 by Daniel Larison
France has resoundingly rejected the proposed European Union constitution, plunging the EU into crisis and French politics into confusion.
The result of the referendum was a massive 56 per cent for the “no”, against 44 per cent for the “yes”, according to Dominique de Villepin, the Interior Minister. An unusually high turnout of 70 per [...]
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Posted on May 30th, 2005 by Daniel Larison
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the [...]
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Filed under: miscellaneous
Posted on May 27th, 2005 by Daniel Larison
Today’s New York Times (print edition) has a full-page advertisement on page 5 from the Council for the National Interest Foundation headlined:
AIPAC’s Agenda is Not America’s
The ad is well-done and makes excellent points, including: ISRAEL, STOP SPYING ON AMERICA! I cannot remember an explicit anti-AIPAC ad ever running in a mainstream paper.
The ad is signed [...]
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Filed under: politics
