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PHOENIX - Gov. Janet Napolitano isn't going to ask President Bush to bring Arizona's National Guard troops back from the Middle East. The governor said Wednesday that she read the request that was delivered to her office Monday by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan said Arizona could find itself at a disadvantage during wildfires if its troops are busy battling insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Napolitano said she doesn't intend to do that. "The deployments from Arizona have been managed in such a fashion that I have never felt that we were left with inadequate resources here," ........

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The hundreds of people who guard the pope and the Vatican have created a seamless web of tight security with reasonable public access for the millions of pilgrims who flock yearly to Vatican City. Following the tradition of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI takes a long ride, weaving in and around thousands of people in an open-air jeep every time his weekly general audience is held in St. Peter's Square. While the jeep is flanked by a picket of stern-faced plainclothesmen, the pope passes just an arm's length from jubilant crowds straining against waist-high wooden security...

Schoolgirls riot at tourist spot By NIGEL ADLAM 17sep05 HUNDREDS of people watched in horror as a mob of schoolgirls rioted at Darwin's biggest tourist attraction. Most of the youngsters were in their teens. But several witnesses said a few were as young as six. About 20 girls threw sticks and stones, and even pulled out a street bollard, as they fought with security guards. Fighting between rival gangs of boys and girls has been escalating at Mindil Beach markets (pictured). Market manager Tim Robinson said four guards were beaten. Security and market managers are to hold a crisis meeting...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29, 2005 – The National Guard's solid response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that the Guard is still fully capable of responding to stateside emergencies while supporting the war in terror overseas, the chief of the National Guard Bureau told the American Forces Press Service today. Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum described the thousands of Army and Air National Guard troops called to active duty in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and other states to support hurricane operations as a testament to the Guard's ability to carry out its federal and state missions simultaneously. Guard members along the Gulf...

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), created in May 1979 as an ideological force to defend Iran’s fledgling Islamic regime, now stands poised to strengthen its political and military clout. In a recent meeting with IRGC high commanders, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei discussed important changes in the IRGC’s role, the most significant being the creation of a center tasked with formulating the corps’ strategic policies. The center will also prepare a long-term program for increasing the IRGC’s autonomy vis-a-vis the traditional military establishment. The IRGC is thus on the verge of being transformed from a junior player in the...

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria has complained that U.S. and Iraqi troops have mistakenly fired on its border guards even as they've tried to stop militants from infiltrating into Iraq. The guards have been fired on "not only by infiltrators, but by U.S. and Iraqi forces," the government said the letter distributed to diplomatic mission chiefs in Damascus and seen Friday by The Associated Press. The letter also said that it needs more U.S. help with the financing of night vision equipment to block the militants from crossing from Syria to Iraq. It cited "about 100 armed clashes, some of which...

After speaking with soldiers, sailors, and civilians who collectively staff the Joint Task Force - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on my recent visit to that base, I left convinced that abuse definitely exists at the detention facilities. But not the slander and hyperbole about alleged mistreatment of the unlawful combatants confined there that we've all heard. There is far more serious abuse: the relentless, merciless attacks on American servicemen and women by these same terrorist thugs. Many of the orange jumpsuit-clad detainees fight their captors at every opportunity. They attack guards whenever the soldiers enter their cells, trying to reach up...

MOSCOW (AP) - A Muslim cleric formerly held at Guantanamo Bay prison said Tuesday that U.S. guards there regularly desecrated the Quran by putting it into a toilet, although he added he never witnessed it himself. Airat Vakhitov, who described himself as a former imam of a mosque in Tatarstan, a majority Muslim republic in southern Russia, is one of seven men released from Guantanamo in 2004 and returned to Russia. He and the six others were held in Russia for three months, then released a year ago. Vakhitov said at a news conference organized by the state RIA-Novosti news...

Eight Guards Fired Weeks After Inmate Was Beaten to DeathBy Brian Witte Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 10, 2005 BALTIMORE (AP) - Eight guards were fired Friday in the beating death of an inmate during an altercation last month at a crowded, long-troubled jail. State officials would not say exactly what role the guards had in the death of Raymond Smoot or why the fight broke out. The case is under investigation, and no charges have been filed. "This department does not and will not tolerate unnecessary or excessive use of force," said Mary Ann Saar, Maryland secretary of public...

First, Newsweek pulled a Dan Rather on us, running a fabricated story just because they wanted it to be true. They told the world that an American guard at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center had ripped pages from a prisoner's Koran and flushed it down a toilet. As a result, innocent people died when practitioners of Islam rioted in protest in Afghanistan. Oops, said Newsweek, it seems we can't back up our story. Oh well, it's probably true; we just can't prove it. (Isn't it convenient for Newsweek that the media now have "Deep Throat" to talk about so...

British Army Pressured to Replace Hats By CARA NEW, Associated Press Writer Sat May 14, 7:26 AM ET LONDON - The British army's towering bearskin hats have been a well-known sight outside royal palaces for almost 200 years, but their days may be numbered. Animal rights activists are demanding the hats, made from the pelts of North American black bears, be replaced by artificial fur, and one protester plans to follow Queen Elizabeth II in a bear costume when she visits Canada next week. "It is time to confine bearskin to the history books, just as bearbaiting was confined to...

Officers using leave to work as Iraq guards By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg (Filed: 28/04/2005) The South African military has imposed restrictions on officers after it was revealed that dozens are using extended leave to moonlight as security guards in Iraq, where they can earn more than a year's salary in a month.The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) believes that mainly white serving officers are accumulating leave in order to make a lucrative tour of unofficial duty in Iraq's flourishing security industry. "Many South Africans return from Baghdad with stories of earning up to US $1,000 a day," said...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (Reuters) - The judge in the Michael Jackson molestation trial on Thursday barred prosecutors from calling an expert on domestic violence they hoped would explain the apparently erratic behavior of the accuser's mother for jurors. Judge Rodney Melville also said he would allow evidence showing that Jackson's then-13-year-old accuser and younger brother had masturbated while looking at the pop star's pornography, potentially bolstering defense claims that the boys had run wild at Neverland. Both rulings were setbacks for the prosecution, which is in the final stages of presenting its case to the jury of eight women and...

Three companies are racing to market a new form of technology for detecting concealed weapons, using physics borrowed from radio astronomy and manufacturing techniques from cellular phone makers. The technology, called millimeter wave, is a new category of sensing so unobtrusive that it seems like something out of "Star Trek." Unlike conventional systems such as metal detectors, which sense magnetic fields created by certain materials or objects, or X-ray machines, which pass rays through objects, millimeter wave sensors are passive and rely on detecting energy emitted by objects. The energy the sensors look for is in an unfamiliar part of...

After being jailed last summer in Union City, Shakita Perdue was stripped, strapped to a chair and left exposed to male prisoners and guards for hours, according to an investigation by jail officials of the incident. Now, she is suing those she says are responsible for $10 million. This week, Perdue, 28, filed the lawsuit in federal court against the city, the South Fulton County Municipal Regional Jail and Georgia Correctional Health, the firm that handled medical needs at the Union City-owned jail. She charges that her civil rights were abused by her jailers that night. "I had never been...

The recent events in Atlanta are yet another example of how feminism and affirmative action are failing society. For those who may have forgotten, an accused rapist named Brian Nichols was brought before a judge in an Atlanta courtroom, guarded by a deputy sheriff. In the courtroom, the accused, a 200 lb former college running back, overpowered his guard, a 5-foot tall female deputy, who was also a grandmother, relieved her of her side arm and killed 4 people, including the grandmother. Since this has transpired I have heard very little from the media about the advisability of having 100-lb....

An attorney for a U.S. Army soldier court-martialed in connection with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal says he's frustrated that he was not allowed in court to try to link the prison abuse to top-ranked military officials, including the incoming Fort Huachuca commander. Paul Bergrin, a New Jersey lawyer, said Monday that he will press his efforts to link the scandal with higher-ups to the Court of Military Review and, if necessary, the Court of Military Appeals. His client, Sgt. Javal S. Davis of Roselle, N.J., pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty, lying to investigators and battery last Tuesday as...

U.S. Guards Shoot Dead 4 Inmates in Iraq Prison Riot 51 minutes ago BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot dead four inmates during a riot at a military prison in southern Iraq and six other detainees were injured on Monday, the U.S. military said. The riot at Camp Bucca Theater Internment Facility erupted after a routine search for contraband in one of the camp's 10 compounds and spread to three other compounds, with detainees throwing rocks and fashioning weapons, the military said. U.S. guards opened fire after the rioting raged unabated for 45 minutes. The injuries were caused both by...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Would-be defectors were torn apart by shrapnel gun as they tried to escape to freedom FOUR ageing East German officers were condemned by a Berlin court yesterday for installing one of the Cold War’s most savage weapons — an automatically triggered shrapnel gun that tore apart would-be defectors as they tried to clamber across the Berlin Wall fortifications. The landmark ruling, almost certainly the last in a long series of trials against those who ordered, supervised and guarded the East German stretch of the Iron Curtain, came on the fifteenth anniversary of the tumbling of the Wall. But there was...