Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Corzine on List of Top Obama 2012 Campaign Bundlers

Democratic former New Jersey governor and head of the collapsed investment firm MF Global Jon Corzine features on a list of top fundraisers for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, one of 61 “bundlers” who raised at least half a million dollars each. Read

Asked About Plight of Syrian Christians, State Dept. Erroneously Blames Regime

Christians are under threat in Syria, but the Obama administration appears unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge, the source of the danger facing the minority. Read

‘We Stand With You,’ Clinton Tells Syrian People Ahead of Security Council Meeting

“We stand with you,’ Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a message to Syrian protesters as she prepared to join her British and French colleagues and the head of the Arab League in a concerted push Tuesday to secure a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime. Read

Friday, January 27, 2012

Panetta Admits There Are ‘Risks’ Associated With Military Cutbacks

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended plans for a “leaner” U.S. military – including the shedding of 100,000 soldiers and Marines within five years – while acknowledging that the proposed cut-back budget will raise the level of risk for the U.S. and its allies. Read

Euthanasia ‘Must Always Be Prohibited,’ European Body Says

Anti-euthanasia activists are praising the passage by a leading European governmental body of a resolution stating clearly that euthanasia “must always be prohibited.” Read

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Obama’s SOTU Audience Continues to Shrink; Smaller Than Bush’s and Clinton’s Three Years In

President Obama has attracted an increasingly smaller U.S. television audience to each year’s State of the Union address, with the estimated 37.75 million people who watched his speech on Tuesday not much bigger than President Bush’s smallest SOTU audience – 37.51 million in his final year in office. Read

U.N. Oversight Body Running Out of Time on Pledge to Post Audits by Month’s End

The key United Nations oversight body has less than a week to begin posting its audits on its Web site, in line with a commitment made by its head and endorsed by the General Assembly in a resolution last month. Making the audits publicly accessible in this way reportedly faces resistance from some developing countries. Read

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

PLO to Pursue U.N. Recognition, But U.S. Says ‘No Shortcut’ to Statehood

Undeterred by last year’s failure, Palestinian leaders plan to push ahead with their bid for U.N. recognition in 2012, but the U.S. government believes that its chances are, if anything, reduced by the new makeup of the U.N. Security Council. Read

Obama Touts ‘Renewal’ of American Global Leadership in State of the Union

President Obama dedicated about one-tenth of his State of the Union address Tuesday to foreign affairs, using that section of the election-year speech to underscore his administration’s assertion that “America is back.” The comment was an implied criticism of his Republican predecessor’s policies abroad. Read

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Egypt’s New Parliament Convenes Amid Concerns About Islamist Domination

Egypt’s newly elected post-Mubarak parliament held its inaugural session on Monday, a meeting characterized at times by boisterous scenes as the Muslim Brotherhood cemented its dominance of the legislature even as it pledged to promote democracy. Read

Iranians Renew Threats to Close Key Oil Route After E.U. Embargo Decision

Just days after Iran appeared to be backing away from a warning that it would close a strategic Persian Gulf waterway, two senior Iranian lawmakers renewed the threat, following a European Union decision Monday to impose an oil embargo on the Islamic republic. Read

Monday, January 23, 2012

Obama Administration Pledges to Keep Abusers Off U.N. Human Rights Council

The Obama administration will step up efforts to prevent the election of human rights-abusing nations onto the United Nations’ top human rights agency, a senior U.S. diplomat has pledged. Read

Educate Yourself on Islam, CAIR Tells Santorum

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it will send Rick Santorum a copy of the Qur’an this week to help the Republican presidential candidate to “educate himself about Islam” after he was quoted as implying that Muslims do not worship the Judeo-Christian God. Read

Friday, January 20, 2012

Obama Claims Success in Bringing Int’l Community Together to Isolate Iran

President Obama in a new interview says his administration has brought together the international community to stand against an “isolated” Iran. But continuing resistance by Tehran’s most powerful partners and its biggest oil customers calls the president’s assertion into question. Read

Nothing ‘Anti-Muslim’ About Gingrich’s Comments on Shari’a, Says Anti-Islamist Muslim Activist

Newt Gingrich’s stance on Islamic law (shari’a) is not “anti-Muslim” as charged by some Islamic critics, an American Muslim activist said Thursday. Read

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Gingrich’s Aversion to Shari’a Stems From His Concern About ‘Stealth Jihad’

Newt Gingrich’s comments on shari’a, which drew Muslim objections Wednesday, are in line with his view that Islamists who use violence, and those who employ “stealth,” are both committed to the same goal – the radical imposition of Islamic law. Read

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

State Dept. Lauds Turkey After Perry’s Criticism, But Is Mum on Its Troubling Policies

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry raised hackles with his harsh criticism of the Turkish government this week, but in defending Turkey, the Obama administration was silent on the troubling policies its Islamist-leaning leaders have pursued in recent years. Read

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Ahmadinejad Says His Latin American Visit Bolstered Campaign Against ‘Global Hegemony’

Fresh from his visit to four leftist allies in Latin America, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said this week that Iran and the countries he visited are part of the same front campaigning against “global hegemony, injustice, and unilateralism.” Read

U.S. and Israel Postpone Joint Missile-Defense Exercise--As Iran Boasts of 'Islamic Awakening'

Amid speculation over the reasons for delaying the largest-ever joint United States-Israel missile defense exercise, originally scheduled for the spring, senior Iranian officials appear to be relishing the international spotlight resulting from the regime’s belligerent actions and statements. Read

Friday, January 06, 2012

South Africa Calls for U.N. Probe Into NATO’s Libya Mission

Assuming the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council this month, South Africa has called for a U.N. investigation into NATO’s air campaign in Libya, complaining that it had exceeded its mandate by moving from enforcing a no-fly zone to promoting the downfall of the Gaddafi regime. Read

China Urged to Respond to U.S. Defense Cuts by Strengthening Long-Range Strike Capabilities

China should respond to Washington’s new “leaner, meaner” national defense strategy by “unit[ing] with all possible forces” and “strengthen[ing] its long-range strike abilities” to deter the United States, a Chinese state media outlet said Friday. Read

Thursday, January 05, 2012

New Leader, New Year, But Same Belligerence From North Korea

South Korea’s conservative president is a “pro-U.S. fascist maniac,” Japan is “the laughing stock of the world,” and American “aggressor forces [are] the main obstacle to peace in the Korean peninsula.” Read

Nine of the Top Ten Religious Persecutors Are Islamic in Advocacy Group’s Annual Rankings

North Korea tops a list of the world’s worst religious persecutors for the tenth consecutive year, but Islamic states dominate the rankings, accounting for nine of the top ten and 38 of the full 50-country list released Wednesday. Read

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Administration Mum on Taliban’s Call for Release of Guantanamo Detainees

The State Department Tuesday declined to comment on the Taliban’s call for the release of its members being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, shortly after the Afghan group announced publicly for the first time that it has made such a request as part of a reconciliation initiative. Read

Terrorists Warn Christians to Leave Nigeria’s Muslim North

As a three-day ultimatum by al-Qaeda-affiliated radicals for Nigerian southerners – mostly Christians – to leave the country’s predominantly Muslim north ran out Wednesday, police played down the threat while some politicians differed over how the government should respond. Read

Iowa: Romney 30,015; Santorum 30,007

Mitt Romney won the Iowa Republican caucuses overnight, edging out Rick Santorum in a dramatic contest that saw the two presidential hopefuls run virtually neck-and-neck all night. In the end, Romney took the race by eight votes. Read

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Bachmann Predicts Iran Will be ‘One of the Largest Issues of This Campaign’

Ten days of naval war games, missile tests, claims of progress in its nuclear program and repeated threats to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz have pushed Iran far up the agenda for Republican presidential hopefuls on the eve of Tuesday’s caucus in Iowa. Read

As European Carbon Tax on Airlines Takes Off, Higher Air Fares Loom

As the European Union on Sunday began charging all airlines entering European airspace for their carbon emissions, the German carrier Lufthansa became the first to warn that ticket prices will inevitably rise as a result. Read