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Skiers trying to make their way to and from French Alps resorts were plunged into chaos on Saturday night as 15,000 cars were trapped on the roads and emergency overnight centres were set up to shelter trapped tourists. Across the Savoie region, thousands of people were trapped in their cars, snowed in their chalets or stranded at airports as long-awaited snow finally dumped on the Alps - several feet, in some places.

By ROB KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer BANGKOK, Thailand - A German statesman, a Czech supermodel and a Swedish Olympic ski champion were among the vacationers whose search for peace and sun in tropical southern Asia was shattered by the tsunamis that spared neither rich nor poor. AP Photo   Petra Nemcova — who appeared on the cover of 2003 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue — was carried away with her boyfriend, the fashion photographer Simon Atlee, after a huge wave plowed into southern Thailand on Sunday. Nemcova's New York spokesman, Rob Shuter, said the model and her boyfriend had been vacationing...

There's only one real way to compare military strength, and thankfully the world hasn't had many opportunities lately. Despite the potential powder keg in the South China Sea, standoffs in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, inter-state warfare between the world's military powers has been all but banished from the global scene (for the time being, at least). For a simpler evaluation of military power, we turned to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors including overall military budget, available manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in...

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee released new information on Thursday that he claims is evidence that the Bush administration misled the nation in the run-up to the war in Iraq. In a speech on the Senate floor, retiring Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat, outlined a 2003 CIA cable that warns George W. Bush administration officials against making references to claims that Mohammad Atta — the man who led the Sept. 11 hijackers — met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Czech Republic before the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks. Levin claims Bush officials used the unconfirmed meeting...

<p>PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech Defense Ministry has signed a deal to deliver 14 military airplanes to the United States in an $11 million deal.</p>

Amongst the findings were shoes and photos hidden by Jewish prisoners of the Holocaust. PRAGUE - House owners rebuilding their attic in the Czech town of Terezinhave found photos, shoes and other possessions of Jews forced into a ghetto there under Nazi rule, a heritage project said on Thursday. Terezin (Theresienstadt), a fortress and garrison town built at the end of the 18th century, was used by the Nazis as a transit camp for Jews rounded up in Czechoslovakia and deported from elsewhere in Europe. They were held in the ghetto until they could be transported to camps farther east....

The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic looks very normal on the outside... (see pics at the link)

Representatives of Eurosceptic and far-right groups from Italy to Bulgaria gathered at the National Front party conference in Lyon at the weekend to warn France and Europe of a “neo-Ottoman” onslaught of Islam-preaching, benefit-stealing migrants. Digging through the history books, Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), warned that “Arab armies plundered Lyon in 725 and are now busy doing the same in Iraq and Syria”. Strache went on to blast Europe’s mainstream parties for, among other things, stoking “mass immigration, ideological terror, gay marriage and gender theory”. The Austrian far-right leader was one of seven foreign...

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czechs who helped bring about the "Velvet Revolution" that overthrew Kremlin-backed Communist rule are marking the 25th anniversary this week by accusing the country's present-day leaders of once again cosying up to Russia.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Spanish intelligence has intercepted messages passed between jihadists online discussing the weaponisation of the deadly Ebola virus for use against the West, while a blackmailer in Prague has threatened to unleash the virus unless the Czech Republic pay him one million bitcoin, a volume of online currency worth over £200 million. The national secretary of state for security in giving evidence to the Spanish Senate revealed online jihad propagandists had issued an edict to followers to kill Westerners by any means possible. Some of the methods suggested included “deadly chemical products from laboratories”, “poisonous injections” and “Ebola as a poisonous...

PRAGUE, Czech Republic – Blackmailers are threatening to spread Ebola in the Czech Republic unless Prague pays them a million euros' worth of the virtual Bitcoin currency, police said Monday, October 27. An e-mail allegedly from the blackmailers claiming they had "biological material" from an infected patient in Liberia was published by the country's top commercial TV station, TV Nova, on Monday. "An unknown perpetrator or perpetrators are blackmailing this state, threatening to spread the Ebola virus," the country's deputy police chief Zdenek Laube told reporters. "From the very beginning these culprits have been seeking to spread panic, which is...

November 19. That's the date a bust of Vaclav Havel is to be dedicated in National Statuary Hall at this country's Capitol, and it's perfect timing -- for November 19 will also be the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution he led and embodied in his native Czechoslovakia. Oh, the euphoria of those days when the Cold War was drawing to a close and the Soviet Union with it, and one after the other its captive nations were breaking their chains -- none more peacefully, successfully and triumphantly than the one this playwright turned dissident led in his little country....

he ban on imports of selected food products to Russia has led to a fall of purchasing prices of summer apples and vegetables in the Czech Republic, according to a poll carried out by ČTK. According to Agriculture Ministry spokesman Hynek Jordán, retail chains have made use of the situation and have cut purchasing prices of apples as well as processed products, such as apple juice, by at least 20 percent. Apples, for instance, are being sold for about one half of last year's price. “Poland started placing apples on the market for almost zero prices to get rid of...

After World War I the third rate minds who brought us the conflict to begin with came up with another stupid idea: They decided to divide up former German, Austrian and Turkish empires into separate countries, like Czechoslovakia, and create makeshifts, like the Danzig Corridor. Germany lost territory to Poland to create a land corridor to Danzig that gave Poland access to the sea.Never mind that it cleaved a country in two. It was these territorial wedges-- wedges that diced up ethnicity-- that Hitler used to gain legitimacy in the eyes of Germans. By cutting up countries in defiance of...

US drones fired on an Islamic extremist mortar position in northern Iraq on Tuesday to protect Kurdish forces battling to rescue a group of Yazidi civilian refugees, the military said. The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the region's most powerful Sunni jihadist group, has driven thousands of members of the Yazidi minority from their homes and is besieging the refugees on an exposed mountain. Last week, the United States launched an air campaign to break the siege of Mount Sinjar, bring humanitarian relief to the Yazidis and support Kurdish troops protecting their capital Arbil. "US military...

The Infant of Prague Fr. William Saunders Q: My grandmother has always had a statue of Jesus as a child dressed up like a little king with a crown. She even has different outfits for him which are very elaborate. Can you tell me anything about this?From the description given in the question, the statue is one of the Infant of Prague. Devotion to the Holy Child Jesus is a long-standing tradition in our Catholic spirituality. The early Church Fathers, like St. Athanasius and St. Jerome, had a special devotion to the Holy Child Jesus. Some of the later great...

Navi Pillay said Tel Aviv's two-week onslaught on Gaza - which has cost more than 650 Palestinians lives - would be thoroughly investigated. Ms Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the attacks have destroyed houses and hospitals and killed civilians. "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. "Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated." According to Gaza officials, 475 houses have been destroyed and 2,644 damaged, while 46 schools, 56 mosques...

GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday launched an international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may have been committed by Israel during its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned the Israeli assault which it said had involved "disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks", including aerial bombing of civilian areas, collective punishment, and the killing of more than 650 Palestinians. At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against (the United States) with 17...

Police end investigation into Jamal al-Jamal's death in a mysterious explosion, say blast the result of explosives 'hidden in a book'. Czech Police have announced their decision to shelve the investigation into the blast that killed the Palestinian Authority ambassador to the Czech Republic, Jamal al-Jamal, after the investigators concluded that no crime or deliberated assassination was committed. The decision to call off the investigation was made in a joint statement issued by the Czech Police Spokeswoman, Andrea Zoulova, and the state attorney Jindra Janacova. According to the statement, the explosion in the Palestinian embassy at the beginning of January...

Prague, May 15 (ČTK) — The latest developments in Ukraine have stepped up the activities of Russian agents in the West, including the Czech Republic, which is an extremely interesting target for Russian spies, daily Lidové noviny (LN) writes today. "It is no secret that the Czech Republic is an extremely interesting destination for the Russian services," Karel Randák, former head of the Czech civilian counter-intelligence, is quoted as saying. "A large Russian community lives here, and there are interesting investment opportunities here," he added. "Whenever they succeed in proving we are not a firm link of the EU and NATO, it is a...