Free Republic

'Long-lost treasure' has a painful punch-line February 17 2003 at 10:16AM San Francisco - It turns out that one of the American West's enduring mysteries - a tale of 16th century sea-borne explorers and a perplexing brass plaque - was a 1930s joke-gone-wrong sprung on an influential University of California professor by a group of friends. Historians believed the hoax for decades, but tests in the late 1970s proved that the small brass plate with old English inscriptions was not in fact the one left by Sir Francis Drake when he sheltered just north of San Francisco in 1579. One...

Putin tells army to take tougher line in Chechnya By Julius Strauss in Moscow (Filed: 29/10/2002) President Vladimir Putin ordered his generals yesterday to draw up new measures to deal with the Chechen threat hours after the rebel republic's leader offered unconditional talks. President Putin: 'Russia will never give in to blackmail' After Russia observed a minute's silence in memory of the Moscow theatre siege victims, Mr Putin addressed the nation. He said: "Russia will never make any deals with terrorists and will never give in to blackmail. "If anyone tries to use such methods against our country Russia will...

CIA Says Iraq Drawing a Line on Attacking U.S. Tue Oct 8, 9:31 PM ET By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA said the probability of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein initiating an attack without provocation on the United States in the foreseeable future was "very low," according to a letter made public on Tuesday. But if he was attacked, the likelihood that Saddam would respond with biological or chemical weapons was "pretty high." The letter, dated Oct. 7, was signed by Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin on behalf of CIA Director George Tenet and sent to Senate Intelligence Committee...

Powell backs British line over Saddam By David Rennie, Charles Clover and Andy McSmith (Filed: 02/09/2002) Colin Powell, the Bush administration's leading sceptic over a war with Iraq, tried to ease tensions between American hawks and European allies yesterday by declaring that the US supported the return of United Nations weapons inspectors. Breaking months of near-silence on the argument that has raged in Washington all summer, the secretary of state also signalled that it was time to release intelligence on Iraq's development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. His comments, a rebuke to hawks who are against the return of...

Patrick McGovern "The site is very rich archeologically, has been excavated for the last 50 years by the University of Pennsylvania Museum. It has a large palace area with rooms, some of which are thought to have been kitchens for making the food for the palace, with jars of barley and other goods. Also, it has a whole series of tombs in which the burial was done in a special wooden chamber beneath a very large mound. It's almost as if you cut it yesterday and put the structure together. It is the earliest intact human building made of...