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Tremayne Durham still wants his money back. Three years ago Durham killed one man and held another hostage in an unsuccessful attempt to get back $18,000 he thought he was due. He is now serving a life sentence in the Oregon State Penitentiary, but he hasn't given up trying to collect. Today, he's using the courts instead of a .357 magnum -- and so far, he's having more success. Durham has filed suit in Multnomah County Circuit Court against Rob Chambers, whom he paid nearly $18,000 to build a soft-serve ice-cream truck in December 2005. Durham changed his mind a...

Bauer is a freelance journalist and photographer based in the Middle East who has reported from Iraq, Syria, Sudan's Darfur region and Yemen, according to his Web site. He grew up in Minnesota and graduated from the University of California-Berkeley with a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, the site said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An American linguistics student traveling in northern Iraq didn't go on an ill-fated hiking trip because he had a cold—a twist of fate that prevented him from mistakenly wandering into Iran where his three friends were reportedly detained. The Swiss Embassy in Tehran was working Sunday to learn more about the Americans' fate through its contacts with the Iranian Foreign Ministry, spokeswoman Nadine Olivieri said. Switzerland represents U.S. interests in Iran. Shon Meckfessel sat out the hike because he had a cold, his grandmother, Irene Meckfessel, told The Associated Press from her home in Carmichael, Calif....

WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department says it's aware of Iranian media reports that three American citizens have been detained in Iran. Spokesman Robert Wood says the U.S. has asked the Swiss, who represent American interests in Iran, to confirm the reports with Iranian authorities and arrange for diplomatic access to the three, if the reports are true. The Americans reportedly were detained Friday after crossing into Iran's Kurdistan province—when they failed to heed warnings from Iranian border guards.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has identified the American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured. The Defense Department said in a statement Sunday that the soldier is Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Ketchum, Idaho. The statement also says his status is now classified as missing-captured, rather than whereabouts unknown. In a video posted online by the Taliban on Saturday, he's heard saying he's "scared I won't be able to go home." Before the Pentagon released Bergdahl's identity, two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated...

A Taliban commander in southeastern Afghanistan today said that a captured U.S. soldier was being held unharmed by insurgents, but warned he would be killed if efforts were made to find him. The soldier has been missing in Paktika province since late June, just before thousands of U.S. Marines began a major new offensive. The U.S. military has said he was presumed captured. Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin said the group's leadership would decide the soldier's fate, but accused U.S. soldiers of harassing and arresting Afghans in Paktika and neighbouring Ghazni province. 'They have put pressure on the people in these...

SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut advertising executive who police say is holding his ex-wife hostage has told a reporter he wants a priest brought in to give the woman her last rites.Richard Shenkman said in a phone call Tuesday to a reporter with The Day of New London that he will release his ex-wife from his South Windsor home if police meet several demands.One demand was to provide a priest to give Nancy Tyler her last rites. A priest is at the scene.Police say the 60-year-old Shenkman kidnapped his ex-wife in Hartford from a parking ramp this morning.Shenkman's...

STOCKTON, Calif. — A teenager who ran from a Northern California home wearing a shackle on his ankle endured frequent beatings, sometimes in front of other children, that worsened over the year he spent there, according to grand jury testimony made public Friday. ...snip...The boy told the grand jury in March that Ramirez and Lau beat him for infractions such as forgetting to water the lawn or not cleaning the bathroom properly, the court documents said. He said they initially hit him with their hands, but that eventually escalated to belts, a mallet, a hammer and an aluminum baseball bat.

Iranian tyrants first arrested Saberi on a charge of buying wine, then changed it to not having the proper press credentials, and finally to spying. Make no mistake, Saberi’s situation is not one of “arrest” or “conviction,” this is a terrorist nation which has grabbed another American and is holding her hostage. But Roxana is not the only American journalist (and woman of color) who is held hostage by a terrorist nation. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were kidnapped by North Korean forces and have been held by that terrorist nation since March. Taking Iran’s cue, and seeing a typically...

SEEKONK, Mass. -- Shane Murphy, the second-in-command aboard the American merchant ship seized by pirates, lashed out at Rush Limbaugh for the talk show host's racial characterization in discussing the rescue of the ship's captain by the Navy. In commenting on the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips by the Navy Seals who shot and killed the three Somali pirates who were holding him captive, Limbaugh generated controversy when he called the pirates "black teenagers." "There you have it, three teenagers shot on the high seas at the order of President Obama," said Limbaugh according to a transcript of an April...

<p>The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.</p> <p>The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.</p>

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.

We received a desperate plea yesterday from inside Iran on behalf of Roxana Saberi, the 31-year-old Iranian-American journalist convicted in Iran of espionage. Her fiance, award-winning Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, wrote, "It is with tears in my eyes that I say she is innocent and guiltless."

When the game of Chatrang arrived in Sassanid Persia from India, it quickly developed into what became present-day chess. Not only did the Persian exclamations “Shah!” and “Shah Mat” (”check!” and “check mate!”) enter the chess lexicon but, most important, the game became part and parcel of the education of nobility at the Persian court. Chess is deeply ingrained in Iranian culture — certainly also in how Iran plays diplomacy with the world.

<p>CNN) -- Passengers were reportedly taken hostage on a charter flight at a Jamaican airport.</p> <p>They were boarding the CanJet flight from Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay to Halifax, Canada, late Sunday when the security breach occurred, said Elizabeth Scotton, a spokeswoman for the company that manages the airport.</p>

The crew of the Maersk Alabama spoke with the media after news broke that Captain Richard Phillips had been rescued from the Somali pirates that attempted to overtake the cargo ship. From aboard the Maersk Alabama, the crew answered questions and issued details on what went down between the crew and the pirates. "We want to clarify something right now," Second-In-Command Shane Murphy said. "We never lose control of this ship. We never took it back from them. They never had this ship. They had Captain Phillips, but they never had this ship. This is our ship." "We've been under...

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2009 – The captain of the Maersk-Alabama cargo ship held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia was in “imminent danger” when U.S. military snipers shot and killed his three pirate captors, a U.S. Navy commander said today. Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, provided preliminary details of the rescue mission that freed Capt. Richard Phillips today during a news conference. Off the Somali coast, U.S. special operations snipers held positions at the rear of the USS Bainbridge, which was towing an 18-foot lifeboat that held Phillips and three...

Reports indicate that pirates holding American Cargo Ship Captain Richard Phillips hostage, fired on sailors from the USS Bainbridge who had approached the pirates' lifeboat in a small vessel attempting to communicate with them. Having been fired on, the sailors reportedly retreated back to the Bainbridge, not wanting to cause harm to Captain Phillips. This standoff is now in it's fourth day. The pirates are demanding $2 million ransom and safe passage in exchange for Phillips. . . . . . (Watch Video)

This story comes from Bloomberg -- which we cannot excerpt. However, we can provide our own summary of the general gist of the article which is that one of the pirates has claimed both sides have agreed to a prisoner exchange -- our captain for four of their outlaws. The article goes on to warn that as of right now, this is by no means a done deal. You can read the article HERE.

The U.S. Navy negotiated on Thursday with Somali pirates who held an American ship captain hostage in a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean, their first such seizure of a U.S. citizen. The gunmen briefly hijacked the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama freighter Wednesday, but the 20 American crew retook control after a confrontation far out at sea where pirates have captured five other vessels in a week. Four gang members were holding the captain, Richard Phillips, on the ship's lifeboat after he apparently volunteered to be a hostage for the sake of his crew. The Bainbridge, a U.S. warship, arrived on the...

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - [snip] Obama was asked to comment on the situation several times by reporters at a White House event on refinancing for homeowners. Obama, however, stuck closely to the script and replied that he wanted to remain focused on housing.

NAIROBI, Kenya – FBI hostage negotiators joined U.S. Navy efforts Thursday to free an American ship captain held captive on a lifeboat by Somali pirates. A U.S. destroyer and a spy plane kept close watch in the high-seas standoff near the Horn of Africa. The pirates took Capt. Richard Phillips hostage Wednesday after they hijacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama, then fled the cargo ship as the vessel's crew overpowered them. It was the first such attack on American sailors in about 200 years.

" By current leakage, their plan will consist of explicit government insurance for certain bad assets and explicit purchases of other bad assets to be held by a so-called bad bank. For the months or years, then, that it takes to put the plan into effect, the market will have to speculate anew about how each bank's assets will be valued for bailout purposes."

PITHIVIERS, France: Workers at a factory operated by the U.S. company 3M released on Thursday the French manager they had held hostage for more than 24 hours after a deal was reached on terms for employees who will be laid off. The manager, Luc Rousselet, was barricaded in an office Tuesday evening and workers refused to let him out until he agreed to more favorable terms for 110 employees who will be let go. "A framework of an agreement allowing for the end of the current crisis on the 3M site in Pithiviers was signed today," a union representative said....

An AIG report to the Treasury Department last month warned that if the government didn't come to its rescue again, its collapse would trigger a "chain reaction of enormous proportion" that would "potentially bankrupt or bring down the entire system" and make it impossible for AIG to repay the billions it already owed the U.S. government. Four days later, AIG was given $30 billion in federal aid on top of the $130 billion it had already received.

Hundreds halted at border after NKorea cuts phone lines 4 hours ago SEOUL (AFP) — More than 700 South Koreans were blocked from travelling to a joint industrial complex in North Korea on Monday after Pyongyang cut its last communication channel with Seoul, officials said. Seoul's unification ministry said 726 people were unable to travel to the Kaesong complex just north of the border. The North said early Monday that it would cut off military phone lines with the South, the last remaining communications channel, in protest at a joint US-South Korean military exercise which started Monday. It ordered its...

In 1979, Iran violated international law by invading the American embassy and holding American citizens hostage. The same country that recently practiced piracy on the high seas against the United Kingdom has kidnapped an American citizen, Roxana Saberi. The excuse that Iran used for this latest act of criminal savagery was that Ms. Saberi attempted to buy a bottle of wine in Iran, where alcohol is illegal. "She said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her." We wonder why the individual who sold...

The City of Salem has warned people away from Bridge, Lathrop, Barton and Webb Streets via reverse 911 and local access cable. I can see helicopters and can hear sirens. NOTHING on the local news TV or radio stations and it has been going on for over an hour.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – A Pakistani militant group linked to Al-Qaeda claimed Saturday it beheaded a Polish engineer kidnapped last year to pressure Islamabad to release detained insurgents. A spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) told AFP by telephone that its men decapitated Piotr Stanczak early Saturday after the Pakistani government failed to meet the group's demands by a Friday midnight deadline. No Pakistani government comment regarding the group's claim was immediately available, while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his country received "informal confirmation" of the engineer's death. A spokesman for the Polish embassy in Islamabad, Piotr Adamkiewicz told AFP: "We...

I have been confirmed to be on the Pat Dollard radio show on the Internet tonight: www.patdollard.com TONIGHT at 2300 ( 11 pm for you civilians) The topic will be Iran, past politics and events and how they relate to today's world and the terror threat My website that I created to honor the men and mission to rescue the hostages in Iran April 24-25, 1980 was discovered by the show's producer and I was invited to be interviewed. Http://www.rescueattempt.com All are invited to listen and to call in if you so desire: 1-646-652-2357.

NOTE: The following text is a quote: https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=94759 YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Yemen Kidnapping Alert CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Middle East / N. Africa - Yemen 16 Dec 2008 Printer Friendly Email Article RELATED REPORTS 12 Dec 2008 WARDEN MESSAGE: YEMEN ALERT FOR WESTERN HOTELS 8 Dec 2008 WARDEN MESSAGE: CONTINUED THREATS, YEMEN 18 Sep 2008 WARDEN MESSAGE: YEMEN AUTHORIZED DEPARTURE 17 Sep 2008 U.S. EMBASSY SANA'A ATTACKED 17 Sep 2008 WARDEN MESSAGE: U.S. EMBASSY SANA'A ATTACK U.S. Embassy Sana’a issued the following Warden Message on December 16: The U.S. Embassy...

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – An American anti-kidnapping expert who was himself abducted last week in northern Mexico was likely snatched by drug traffickers seeking to protect their turf, police said on Tuesday. Gunmen hauled Felix Batista into a white SUV outside a restaurant last week in the relatively safe industrial city of Saltillo in Coahuila state, where he was giving seminars on security to police and business people. Batista, a Cuban-American from Miami who is credited with negotiating the release of people abducted by Colombian rebels, was snatched when he stepped outside the restaurant after answering a cell phone call,...

MUMBAI, India – Indian news reports say five hostages have been killed in the Mumbai headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group. Two Americans were also confirmed dead in the Mumbai attacks that began Wednesday night. A spokeswoman with the Synchronicity Foundation in Virginia said Friday that Alan Scherr and his 13-year-old daughter were killed while they were in a cafe in Mumbai. In Jerusalem, the Israeli rescue service said five hostages and two gunmen were killed at the center.

An American engineer held hostage by Islamic militants in Afghanistan was freed in a daring nighttime raid by a Special Operations team last month, a rare move in a country where hostages often pay ransoms — or don't come home at all. A team of about 30 special operators composed mostly of Navy SEALs flew into the mountains outside Kabul on October 14 to retrieve the 61-year-old American businessman, killing his captors and returning him to safety after nearly two months in captivity, according to an account in the Army Times. -snip-

The nobody-does-this-better-than-we-do part. From the ORP [Objective Rally Point], an assault force of seven operators — all or almost all SEALs, according to the special operations officer — crept toward the objective. Swift and sure. One of the commandos tossed a pebble against the hut’s tin door — a traditional way visitors announce their arrival in rural Afghanistan. The rattle of the stone against the door failed to rouse the guards. “They were both zipped up inside their sleeping bags, sleeping,” one behind the hostage on the floor of the darkened hut and the other outside, the engineer said. But...

Hundreds of thousands of Iranian students took to the streets across the country on Monday to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, which occurred on November 4, 1979. In Tehran, students converged on the former U.S. embassy, which is also called the Den of Spies. The rallies were held on November 3 because that is the date of the anniversary in the Iranian calendar, which is shifted one day every four years from the date in the Western calendar because the leap years of the two calendars occur on different days. Iran has been...

BOGOTA, Colombia — A 62-year-old lawmaker held captive eight years by leftist rebels walked to freedom in a western Colombia jungle on Sunday along with the young guerrilla commander who had been his jailer. President Alvaro Uribe said the rebel and his girlfriend would be rewarded with asylum in France.

KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S. Special Forces soldiers freed a kidnapped American working for the Army Corps of Engineers during a nighttime mission last week — a rare hostage rescue in a country where ransom abductions have become increasingly common. The American, who had been working on U.S. government-funded infrastructure projects, was abducted in mid-August and had been held just 30 miles west of Kabul with no public notice of his abduction. The dangerous mission to free the U.S. contractor killed several insurgents, U.S. officials told The Associated Press. Taliban militants have kidnapped several international aid workers and journalists in recent...

via translation - ALERT - An Afghan consul kidnapped in Pakistan, his driver killed PESHAWAR (Pakistan) - The Consul General of Afghanistan in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan, was kidnapped Monday by unidentified attackers who killed his driver in an ambush, announced the Afghan consulate.

(IsraelNN.com) A Nigerian group threatened to break off negotiations for the release of kidnapped Israeli businessman on Thursday night, using the excuse that Israel National News had referred to its members as "terrorists" in a story published earlier Thursday. The group, the "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta" (MEND), denied responsibility for kidnapping the 60-year-old Israeli businessman who was working in Nigeria but offered assistance in negotiations for his release. According to a report in Reuters, MEND, which is comprised of indigenous gunmen, said Thursday evening that the Israeli hostage "has been located and seems to be a...

A school teacher killed in a shooting in Montgomery Village on Saturday was the cousin of Maryland Lieutenant Governor Anthony G. Brown, an official statement revealed today. Lt. Gov. Brown announced that he would be leaving the Democratic National Convention in Denver to return home and support his family in the wake of cousin Cathy Brown's shooting. Lt. Gov. Brown's statement adds that, "I leave my fellow delegates with a heavy heart and I ask that everyone keep my family in their prayers." Cathy Brown was an elementary school teacher. It was reported on Sunday that she and a campus...

More than 130 Georgian civilians are being held captive by South Ossetian authorities in the regional capital, Tskhinvali, after being rounded up and herded into a single room in the interior ministry headquarters here, the Guardian has learned. The prisoners, who were plucked off the streets according to their nationality soon after hostilities broke out 10 days ago, are being kept indefinitely in the hope of exchanging them for Ossetian civilians allegedly abducted by Georgian soldiers during the conflict. One interior ministry official confirmed the plan, saying: "We hope there will be an exchange soon." The 131 "hostages" are being...

After six years in captivity Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian hostage, was rescued by Colombian special forces. Her first action was to arrange to go to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paris. In an interview earlier this month she spoke to Pèlerin magazine about her faith and how it saw her through her ordeal. Mrs Betancourt's first gesture on being rescued was the sign of the cross. "Why? Because without Him at my side I would never have managed to survive the pain," she said. She went on to say that "being a hostage places you in a situation...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez thanking him for the "tireless efforts that helped" release last week several hostages held by the Colombian guerrillas, including Ingrid Betancourt. "As we celebrate the release of Ingrid Betancourt and other 14 hostages, I thank you again for your tireless efforts that helped the hostages of Colombia to come back to freedom and the love of their beloved ones," said the French president, as quoted on Tuesday in a press release from the Venezuelan government. Early this year, Chávez welcome six hostages in Venezuela, who were unilaterally...

FORT SAM HOUSTON - In his first public remarks since he and two other American hostages were freed in Colombia, a US defense contractor on Monday branded their captors as terrorists and praised the Colombian army for a daring rescue. Keith Stansell, one of three US defense contractors freed on July 2 after five years as a rebel-held hostage in Colombia, holds his twin 5-year-old sons at a news conference at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, July 7, 2008. [Agencies] American defense contractor Marc Gonsalves appeared with fellow hostages Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes at a...

The recently freed Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt has urged an end to the Colombian government's "vocabulary of hate" against her former captors. Ms Betancourt, a former presidential candidate, was held hostage for six years by Marxist Farc rebels. But, while praising President Alvaro Uribe's work towards her release, she said it was time to end "extremist" language towards the Farc. Ms Betancourt is in Paris, where she flew after her release on Wednesday. "I think we have reached a point where we must change this radical, extremist vocabulary of hate of very strong words that intimately wound the human being,"...

BOGOTA, COLUMBIA - THE daring rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages will be made into a movie by a Colombian director, a Hollywood production company and RCN-TV, the television channel said on Sunday. 'They still have to choose a language for the script ... (and) whether the film will be shot in Colombia or France,' an RCN News said in a report. It said the film will be directed by Colombia's Simon Brand and produced 'jointly by a Hollywood production company and under RCN-Cine supervision.' The report did not say when the shooting might start. A former presidential...

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French marines shoot children in bungled hostage display By Our Foreign Staff Last Updated: 11:39PM BST 29/06/2008 Seventeen people have been injured, including a child left in a critical condition, after French soldiers fired live bullets instead of blanks during an open day display. Troops stand outside the barracks near Carcassone Fifteen civilians and two soldiers were injured in the incident which involved a demonstration by members of a marines parachute regiment of hostage liberation exercises. Four of the 17 were seriously injured, with two described as critical, following "incomprehensible" scenes at the barracks near Carcassone, in the country's south-west....

The following account of history is taken from the website THE HOSTAGE RESCUE ATTEMPT. I was one of the Marines off Iran for this event and created this website for all to remember the events of the day, the history of the events leading up to this fateful day, and most importantly, to remember the lives of the men who died in this valiant attempt to rescue 52 Americans held hostage illegally by the nation of IranFrom a History Channel Account. Note: the link is dead now The Iran hostage crisis began November 4, 1979, when a mob of Iranians...