President Bush's soaring rhetoric yesterday that the United States will promote the growth of democratic movements and institutions worldwide is at odds with the administration's increasingly close relations with repressive governments in every corner of the world. Some of the administration's allies in the war against terrorism -- including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan -- are ranked by the State Department as among the worst human rights abusers. The president has proudly proclaimed his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while remaining largely silent about Putin's dismantling of democratic institutions in the past four years. The administration, eager to enlist China as an ally in the effort to restrain North Korea's nuclear ambitions, has played down human rights concerns there, as well.

As President George W. Bush celebrates his second inaugural Thursday, he can look out on a Eurasia that is already radically changing from his first term: A powerful new friend is taking power in Ukraine, but a vastly more powerful old friend in Russia may be turning into an enemy.

A strange sentence in a UPI report suggests that TV news networks covering the inauguration dubbed out the jeers of protesters. The UPI report states, "Both groups were in areas that required a ticket to gain admission but were still some distance from the podium where Bush was speaking."..."The interruption was not immediately seen on television, but the jeering could be heard as poorly timed applause for portions of Bush's speech."...Bush has slipped up on two seperate occasions when addressing the media and let it be known that White House press conferences are scripted.

It's the same MO every time, hype up a faked terror threat before a major event to make everyone paranoid and make the police more likely to be abusive, and then quietly admit there was no evidence for it in the first place.—PrisonPlanet.com

"We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages, when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty, when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" -- they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. "

News reports exploded this week on the retirement of Carnivore, an FBI monitoring tool designed to be installed at an ISP to monitor criminal activity. The reality is that Carnivore was "retired" two years ago, replaced by backdoors, sweeping legal changes, and less accountability.

Excerpts along with Pastor Chuck Baldwin’s abbreviated comments. "I really wish I could be optimistic about President Bush's second term. I cannot. I'm afraid that unborn babies will yet be undefended. Furthermore, I fear this president is leading America into a federal police state at home and into an era of military expansionism overseas. I pray I'm wrong."

Israel is fearing a double-cross by Moscow on arms deals that could make Syria a more serious strategic missile threat to the Jewish state, reports Joseph Farah.

An analysis of recent census data indicates that the presence of illegal aliens in California is costing the state's taxpayers more than $10.5 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. The report, written by the Federation of American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, states that even if the tax contributions of illegal aliens are subtracted, state government outlays still amount to nearly $9 billion a year.

Investigators are testing oil wiped from the coated bodies of birds to try to determine the origin of a mysterious oil spill somewhere along a 90-mile stretch of the Southern California coast.

India was 1 of only 3 nations where a majority said the world was safer because of his reelection, according to a new poll.

In recent speeches, Iranian political leader Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards Gen. Shabani praised the culture of martyrdom and jihad and urged students to become martyrs themselves in order to resist enemies, particularly the United States.-WorldNetDaily

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a government advocacy watchdog agency, has noticed Chertoff’s advancement from Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice to Secretary of Homeland Security nominee over the past four years. “It’s an exceptional rise to power,” said Fitton.Whether or not Chertoff had prior knowledge of Elamir’s alleged connections to Diaa Mohsen and bin Laden is unknown. Calls to Chertoff’s office were not returned.Senate confirmations hearings for Chertoff have yet to be scheduled, according to the office of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs -University Star

Torture destroys the soul of the torturer even as it destroys the body of his victim. The boundary between humane treatment of prisoners and torture is perhaps the clearest boundary in existence between civilization and barbarism. Whether the elected representatives of the people of the United States are now ready to cross that line is the deepest question before the Senate as it votes on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales -Jonathan Schell

FBI agents in Iowa are focusing on people who may be quietly involved in terrorist networks.Randy VanGent, an FBI senior resident agent from Waterloo, said "facilitators" or people involved in fund-raising networks are more likely to be found than active terrorists -Globe and Gazette

That Kim Jong-il is the fundamental impediment to regional peace and national development in North Korea should be obvious. But bundling his bouffant and even a fraction of his pleasure team off to an undisclosed location in order for him to live out his days is reprehensible at the most basic human level. That he must go is without question. That his exit should be painless and impermanent would be a grave injustice to all who suffered and died under his rule -David Scofield/Asia Times

The inclusion of Khan in the cabinet - provided that the former militia leader concentrates on his current job - can be viewed as the successful conclusion of one of Karzai's most daring maneuvers. Of course, Khan did not choose to be part of Karzai's cabinet; he simply had no better options -Amin Tarzi/Asia Times

There's a clear disconnect here. China's power generating market is expanding at an annual rate of 15% - one of the fastest growth rates in the world - but most Western investors are upping sticks and quitting the sector. A number of big names, including leading US electricity generators American Electric Power and Mirant, have already left, and many more are beating a retreat -Asia Times

China has resumed diplomatic ties with the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada.Foreign minister Li Zhaoxing and his Grenadian counterpart Elvin Nimrod signed a joint communique in Beijing yesterday(Note: China stipulated that Grenada break ties with Taiwan as a condition) -EastDay CN

Washington has refused to allow an Australian terrorism suspect due to be freed from the Guantanamo prison in Cuba to be flown across the United States because Canberra will not shackle him, an Australian official said on Thursday.The United States has agreed under pressure from its ally to free Mamdouh Habib, who has been held at the U.S. naval base for almost three years as an "enemy combatant" on suspicion he helped al Qaeda. Washington has brought no charges against the Australian but says it still regards him as a "threat."

Officials scrambled to put together a short-notice inauguration for President-elect Viktor Yushchenko, while his vanquished foe vowed to pursue his opposition with renewed vigor.Parliament set Yushchenko's inauguration for Sunday in a decision that came just hours after he cleared the last of the legal obstacles that had arisen since the Dec. 26 election, including a complicated appeal filed in the Supreme Court by loser Viktor Yanukovych.

Israel's top rabbis have issued a religious ruling forbidding Jews from entering Jerusalem's Temple Mount compound, a rabbi said Tuesday, a decision that could ease tensions at the disputed holy site.The mount, known to Muslims as Haram a Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israeli's attorney general has decided to indict the son of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on charges of raising illegal mcontributions for his father's primary election campaign, an Israeli television station reported Thursday.It said the indictment would allege that Sharon established illegal fictitious companies to funnel cash to his father's primary election campaign in 1999

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has selected Adm. William J. Fallon to succeed Adm. Thomas Fargo as commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, The New York Times reported.In August, the White House chose Air Force Gen. Gregory S. Martin to succeed Fargo, who was to retire this month. But two months later, Martin asked that his nomination be withdrawn after pointed questioning during a Senate confirmation hearing

The U.S. government should be given access to telephone records of two New York Times reporters who used confidential sources in articles about Islamic charities, a federal prosecutor argued.The records were necessary to determine who leaked national security information, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan -NewsDay

Until something curbs these tendencies, the Republican Party will continue to represent a threat to liberty. Whether the Democrats will see their chance and become once again, at least in relative terms, the party of peace, freedom, frugality, and normalcy is hard to say. Even if the left will forever loathe capitalism and the market economy, it can come to recognize that the state which tramples on property at home will trample on everyone's liberties, at home and everywhere -Lew Rockwell

You wouldn't expect to find a purveyor of illicit B.C. Brown among a blue-chip delegation of business leaders trailing Prime Minister Paul Martin to China's halls of power.But then, ginseng growers and their $100-million industry may be Canada's best kept secret. Getting legal access to a Chinese market that currently smuggles in about 95 per cent of Canada's crop is the top priority for Jody Whitehead of the Associated Ginseng Growers of British Columbia, and his plight illustrates the hurdles Canadian businesses face in exploiting the booming Chinese economy -CBC News CA

More than 2.5 million Muslims began a sacred stoning ritual on Thursday, praising new measures aimed at averting deadly stampedes that have marred the haj pilgrimage in the past.Last year, 250 people were crushed to death at Mena's Jamarat Bridge, where the millions of pilgrims must stand to stone three pillars in a symbolic casting-out of the devil and rejection of temptation

Some 210,000 public sector workers marched through French cities on Thursday in widening protests over pay, reforms and job cuts that have sent a sharp warning to President Jacques Chirac's conservative government.On the third day of protests, some schools closed because of a one-day strike by teachers, and a stoppage by air traffic controllers grounded flights at Bordeaux in western France.The protests followed a warning strike by rail workers that severely disrupted rail traffic across France on Wednesday and protests by energy and postal workers earlier this week

Voicing displeasure with the Bush administration over prisoner abuse and the Iraq war, Senate Democrats on Wednesday delayed the expected confirmations of Atty. Gen.-designate Alberto R. Gonzales and Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice. Republicans had hoped in particular that Rice, whose nomination was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, would be confirmed and sworn in today in time for President Bush's inauguration

Iran has warned the United States that an attack on its territory would be madness.Speaking in Uganda while on a state visit,Iran's President Mohammad Khatami said Iran is fully prepared to defend its interests.This comes after US President George W Bush refused to rule out the option of military strikes on Iran and US Vice President Dick Cheney identified Iran as being at the top of the administration's list of world trouble spots -ABC News AU