Free Republic

A ship bound for Syria from North Korea and detained in Cyprus on an Interpol alert for suspected arms smuggling was carrying an air defense system, Cypriot authorities said. The shipment was billed as weather-observation equipment on the freight manifest of the Panamanian-flagged Grigorio 1. The ship was carrying 18 truck-mounted mobile radar systems and three command vehicles. "The radars on the 18 trucks appear to be part of an air defense system," a police spokeswoman said.

Two top nuclear scientists of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) are currently in Taliban custody. The two were working at PAEC’s facility in North West Frontier Province. Zee News investigations reveal that the two scientists were kidnapped about six months ago. To avoid international embarrassment Pakistan Government has kept this information under wraps. According to information available with Zee News, nuclear scientists have been kidnapped by Taliban at the behest of Al-Qaeda.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said Iran bore no hatred towards the United States as he held talks with American Christians in a rare official contact with visitors from Tehran's arch enemy. State television showed Ahmadinejad meeting with a dozen American representatives from various Christian orders who are in Iran for a week-long visit to promote peace and dialogue between the foes. "The Iranian nation does not have any feeling of hatred and opposition towards the American people and we believe that all people are respectful and given the common grounds people have, they could achieve peace and justice," Ahmadinejad...

The publication of Hubris is filled with irony for David Corn, Washington editor of the left-wing Nation magazine. He was present at the creation of the Valerie Plame "scandal," which the enemies of George W. Bush hoped could bring down a president. Nobody was more responsible for bloating this episode. Yet Corn is coauthor of a book that has had the effect of killing the story. Thanks to Corn's intrepid coauthor, Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, Hubris definitively revealed then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as my source that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked for the CIA and suggested her...

A Jewish advocacy group is urging the Bush administration to deny a visa to former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who has lecture dates in New York and Washington next week. In a letter to President Bush, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said allowing Khatami to enter the United States rewards the Iranian leadership for their "policy of confrontation and hated towards the United States and her allies."Khatami has been invited to speak at a U.N. conference in New York. After that, on Sept. 7, he's scheduled to discuss the role of Christians, Muslims...