Free Republic

Canada's sole surviving WWI vet celebrates 107th birthday By: James Stevenson 570 News (Kitchener, Ontario) July 18, 2007 - 17:52 SPOKANE, Wash. (CP) - Canada's last known surviving veteran of the First World War is celebrating his 107th birthday with a slice of cake and plenty of humble pie. John (Jack) Babcock says the reason he's getting so much attention is not for what he accomplished in the war, but because he is the last one standing. Still, he says, he doesn't mind the visitors - particularly the female ones. Surrounded by family and reporters at his home in...

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes. The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the...