Free Republic

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch accused an Israeli army investigation on Wednesday of ignoring evidence that challenges its decision to clear the military of blame for a blast that killed seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach. The deaths on June 9, a day of heavy Israeli shelling designed to stop militants firing rockets from Gaza, drew international condemnation and prompted the ruling Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to call off a 16-month-old truce. Major-General Meir Califi, who led the army investigation, dismissed the accusations by the U.S.-based rights watchdog, which has carried out its own inquiry into the explosion that...

Separatist fervour hits northern Ontario Residents would rather be Manitobans Mention secession in Canada, and the mind turns to Quebec, and perhaps the restive western provinces. Now add to that list the inhabitants of the northwestern part of Ontario, in the heart of the country. But rather than yearning to leave Canada, they want to leave their province and join Manitoba next door. If they get their way, Ontario would lose 60 per cent of its area, though just two per cent of its people. The ambivalent loyalty of these Ontarians has deep roots. When Canada became a confederation in...

The Home Office is to investigate allegations that immigration officials operated a "sex for visas" scam and ignored vital security checks. Anthony Pamnani, a former administration officer at the Lunar House immigration processing centre in Croydon, south London, told The Sun newspaper that women were helped to stay in the UK in return for sex. He also alleged that security checks were lax, making it easier for potential terrorists to sneak into the country. According to the newspaper, Mr Pamnani, 23, alleged that attractive women applicants were seen first at the centre, which deals with 300,000 visa and asylum applications...

More than a decade after promising to end the practice, the University of California has given several top administrators lengthy paid leaves when they stepped down. In the past 13 months alone, at least three senior managers have received paid furloughs at their executive salaries before returning to teaching. Former UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl received a 13 1/2-month leave at $315,600 a year. Former Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Directory Charles Shank is finishing a yearlong leave, during which he has earned $336,000. And Wednesday, UC said former Provost M.R.C. Greenwood had begun a 15-month leave with a $301,840 annual...

UN ignored corruption findings, claims Bolton By Philip Sherwell in New York (Filed: 06/11/2005) Senior United Nations officials are ignoring the scathing reports into their handling of the corruption-ridden Iraqi oil-for-food programme, according to John Bolton, the outspoken American ambassador to the UN. John Bolton: ‘Corruption didn't arise out of thin air’ He accused them of living in a "bubble" as they disregard the damning findings of the Volcker commission established by Kofi Annan, the secretary general. The inquiry criticised the UN and Mr Annan for their failings in running a scheme from which Saddam Hussein skimmed off an estimated...

Last week, BT, a large British telecommunications company, announced what was billed as the world’s first hybrid telephone. The phone connects to a landline in the same way that a cordless telephone does. But it can be taken away from its base and used as a mobile phone. Cellular charges will only apply if the phone is away from its base. It wasn’t that long ago when the proliferation of cell phones gave rise to the fear that it would only be a matter of time before we ran out of telephone numbers. As mobile phones became cheaper and smaller,...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - City officials here have opened an investigation into why authorities apparently ignored numerous complaints about a full-scale drug den being operated out of the apartment of an elderly woman who suffered from dementia. Six alleged gang members took over the 84-year-old woman's apartment for months, even eating her free senior meals, police said after their arrests last week. The woman's second-floor apartment in the city's Mission District was littered with drugs and crack pipes. "This is one of the most egregious cases of elder abuse that I have ever seen," Trent Rhorer, executive director of the...

'WASHINGTON - Sen. John F. Kerry's brash offer to meet privately with former foe President Bush [related, bio] to discuss foreign policy before Bush's meetings abroad next week with key European leaders has apparently fallen on deaf ears at the White House. ``We've offered to have Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) meet with President Bush to discuss his trip to Iraq, if the White House is interested,'' Kerry spokesman David Wade said yesterday. ``There are many areas where genuine bipartisanship would make a difference in leading our country forward, whether in national security or children's health care.'' The White House declined comment...

I have been searching online in google a few hours searching for a quote. I have tried quite a few cobinations of words and I'm not even lukewarm to finding what I am looking for. I beleive the quote I'm looking for goes something like this: "the chruches are empty, the priests are ignored, the sacrements are forsaken and . . ." I'm working on a paper and I just can't seem to get the right key words to find this thing. I know someone on FR will know this quote and someone probably knows who said it too.

MADRID, Spain (AP) - The Spanish government deliberately ignored a mosque known for fundamentalist preachings and frequented by suspects in the Madrid train bombings because the facility was financed by Saudi Arabia, an academic expert testified Wednesday. Spanish authorities knew for years the city's largest mosque, the Islamic Cultural Center, adhered to the Wahabi fundamentalist movement sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Islam expert Jesus Nunez told a commission investigating the March 11 bombings. Authorities did nothing to monitor the mosque because Saudi Arabia provides Spain with oil, Nunez said. "Until now the West in general - and Spain as part of...

Did you happen to see the video of Hillary having Thanksgiving dinner with "her" troops in Afganistan? It was worth 10,000 words and a perfect expose' of who she is and what the troops think about her.The food was in front of them...remember, this was Thanksgiving dinner... Hillary, with her eyes wide and bulging as they usually are when she is feigning excitement and interest in the "little" people around her, begins stuffing her face immediately. By glaring contrast the solder on her right is... WITHOUT QUESTION... giving thanks with his head bowed in prayer.This, in microcosm,IS the person of...

A massive Russian jet capable of releasing more than 10,000 gallons of water in a single dump could help solve California's wildfire crisis, but the federal government continues to resist it, asserts two U.S. congressmen. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said at a news conference yesterday the Russian government repeatedly has offered the Ilyushin-76 'Waterbomber' – reportedly capable of dousing a fire the size of 10 football fields – to the U.S. Forest Service for its use but has been rebuffed each time. Rohrabacher spokesman Aaron Lewis told WorldNetDaily the federal government's response amid wildfires that have...

UN ignored because Annan is black - Mandela September 30 2002 at 04:33PM Jakarta, Indonesia - Former South African President Nelson Mandela on Monday intensified his criticism of United States policy on Iraq, and alleged that race was a factor in countries questioning the United Nations. "No country, however powerful it may be, is entitled to act outside the United Nations," he told local Trans TV on his arrival at Jakarta's Sukarno Hatta Airport for a four-day trip. "The United Nations is here to promote peace in the world and any country that acts outside the United Nations is making...