Free Republic

AMERICAN proposals to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian security forces with additional guns and fighters have alarmed other Western nations, who argue that it is tantamount to supporting one faction in a potential civil war.Fearing the strength of Hamas in Gaza, some US officials have urged that the moderate President Abbas should be given “deterrent capability” so that his Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority forces can confront the Islamist group if talks on a national unity government fail. The divisions have led to a stand-off over the past month, with US officials saying that the unity government proposal had “no legs”. Other members...

Four face charges of torturing boys Police say pair burned, starved, forced to sleep in closet BY JASON WOMACK The Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney's Office filed criminal charges on Monday against four people who police said systematically tortured, beat and starved two boys. Police said the boys' stepmother and father - 37-year-old Melissa D. Lively and 40-year-old Steve A. Lively - routinely burned the boys with a battery charger, forced them to sleep in a closet and fed them habanero peppers. They each face four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Each charge carries a maximum punishment...

Milwaukee police arrested 14,000 people, snagged 200 guns and grabbed 37 pounds of cocaine - all in just three months this summer. Despite such seemingly impressive numbers, crime continues to surge, fueled by what Police Chief Nannette Hegerty calls a "societal crisis" unfolding in neighborhoods gripped by unstable families, few jobs, rampant drug use, teen pregnancy, and topped with a significant dose of anger and hopelessness, the chief said. Faced with such challenges, police can't do it all, she said. "This is a problem bigger than law enforcement," Hegerty said Wednesday. "I think we have a societal crisis." More evidence...

HANINE, Lebanon (AFP) - Strawberry jam, bullets and a lock of human hair. These are among the mundane and macabre war trophies displayed at a makeshift roadside museum in this southern Lebanese village. Somebody has laid the items out neatly on the cement driveway in front of a garage. A fence made from two rows of string is designed to keep people from getting too close. A yellow flag of the Hezbollah Shiite militia flies over one corner of the display, and Hezbollah posters are stuck to a wall above a collection of seized Israeli food: cans of tuna and...

We've deluded ourselves into believing in the myth of the noble and peaceful primitive Nicholas Wade's Before The Dawn is one of those books full of eye-catching details. For example, did you know the Inuit have the largest brains of any modern humans? Something to do with the cold climate. Presumably, if this global warming hooey ever takes off, their brains will be shrinking with the ice caps. But the passage that really stopped me short was this: "Both Keeley and LeBlanc believe that for a variety of reasons anthropologists and their fellow archaeologists have seriously underreported the prevalence of...

OAXACA DE JUAREZ, Mexico Some striking teachers in Mexico today hijacked and burned buses and blocked highways in Oaxaca state. It's the latest in their month-long battle with the state government _ clashes that some fear could disrupt voting in the July presidential election. Some teachers had machetes and guns during their protest. The teachers blocked the roadways in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a march in support of Oaxaca state Governor Ulises Ruiz -- and continued to call for his ouster. The governor last week ordered police to force the protesters out of the central square in Oaxaca City,...

Militants cut off villagers’ noses and tongues in Held Kashmir JAMMU: Suspected Islamist militants killed a villager in Indian-held Kashmir by slitting his throat and cut off the tongues and noses of four others, accusing them of being police informers, authorities said on Friday. The attackers also beat up seven other villagers and set several houses ablaze late on Wednesday in a remote village near Mahore town, 65 kilometres northeast of Jammu city. “These foreign militants are ruthless,” he said, referring to insurgents that India says are Islamists crossing into its part of administered Kashmir from Pakistan, and sometimes even...

Masked Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades gunmen on Tuesday publicly executed a Palestinian man and woman they suspected of having spied for Israel. The man was shot dead in the main street of a refugee camp, with a large crowd looking on. The woman was later shot to death by her relatives in the courtyard of the West Bank's largest hospital

WASHINGTON, Apr. 10, 2006 (AP) The Bush administration may severely restrict the movements of Venezuela's ambassador if pro-government activists in Venezuela engage in any more "thuggish" activities against U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield, a spokesman said Monday. There have been four incidents of harassment directed at Brownfield in recent weeks, including one last Friday when his convoy was pelted with eggs, tomatoes and other food. The convoy was also pummeled by motorcyclists during a miles-long chase through Caracas. "If we see an incident like this again, I think that there are going to be serious diplomatic consequences between our two countries....

Four Kennedy High School students were charged Thursday in an assault on a Kennedy senior who was pummeled in the school auditorium in front of scores of students and who, witnesses said, was attacked with feces later found strewn across the auditorium floor. Teachers and students were horrified by the incident, which left the victim, an 18-year-old honor student, with a broken nose, two black eyes, abrasions on both eyes and a swollen cheek, according to his father. "For these [attackers] to do what they did is beyond disgusting,'' said one teacher who asked for anonymity. "No kid should go...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The lifeguards find bare breasts distracting. That's one of the reasons officials at the Ann Arbor, Mich., YMCA said they've banned breast-feeding at the pool. But nursing moms counter that's no excuse. The breast-feeding mothers plan a nurse-in at the Y Saturday to protest the ban. However, Krista Dragun, one of the protest organizers, said they'll be nursing their babies in the lobby, not the pool area. She said they want the Y to adopt a more mother-baby friendly policy for the pool. Y officials note there's no eating or drinking allowed at the pool for...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Police say they will seek murder charges against the attackers who beat a sleeping homeless man to death and are suspected in two similar attacks in the city a few hours later. The first attack was caught on a university surveillance video before dawn Thursday. Police were looking for two to four young men. "It's senseless. If you look at these kids, it was almost like it was fun and games for them," Officer Scott Russell said. Norris Gaynor, 45, who was later attacked as he slept near the Broward Center for Performing Arts, died from...

Palestinian gunmen, members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, bulldoze barricade on border, disrupt traffic on frontier, storm government offices after police arrest local leader on suspicion of involvement in kidnapping of three Britons last week Palestinians swarmed across the Gaza Strip's frontier with Egypt after gunmen bulldozed through protective barricades on Wednesday, prompting Egyptian border police to fire warning shots, witnesses said. Gunmen disrupted traffic on the frontier and stormed government offices on Wednesday in growing unrest ahead of elections later this month. The gunmen, members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, went on...

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Palestinans celebrated the first day of the "liberation" of Gaza, scavenging through abandoned settlements for booty and taking joyous dips in the once off-limit Mediterranean sea. If idyllic beach scenes paid testament to the Palestinian people's desire for normalcy, the grim scenes of men looting the settlement rubble revealed the dark side of the Gaza Strip as Israel ended its 38-year occupation. The day also had a tragic twist for five people who flocked to the seaside, drowning in the waters that were for so long forbidden to them. The minute Israeli troops started...

In an apparent Sept. 11 communiqué broadcast on ABC News, an al Qaeda operative threatens new attacks against cities in the US and Australia. "Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, God willing. At this time, don't count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion," the tape warns. "We are Muslims. We love peace, but peace on our terms, peace as laid down by Islam, not the so-called peace of occupiers and dictators." In response to the threats against their city, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the city's police department released a statement this morning. They admitted to...

Police Need Your Help In Capturing Beating Suspects August 24, 2005 Video : KOMO 4 NEWS Police say the three brutally beat two soldiers just home from the war in Iraq outside a Pioneer Square club, but it was caught on videotape. SEATTLE - Two soldiers who just returned from a year in Iraq were badly beaten in an attack outside Pioneer Square. But believe it or not, someone caught the beating on videotape. Now, police are asking for your help identifying the suspects. The brutality of it all was captured on tape outside of Larry's Nightclub on First and...

US forces kill human 'shield' child in Iraq US forces have shot dead a child which they say was being used as a human "shield" during an exchange of gunfire near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. More than 20 people have also reportedly been killed in gun battles, drive-by shootings and suicide bombings elsewhere in the country. A statement said US forces came under attack as they were carrying out operations in Tal Afar, a volatile town west of Mosul that has seen frequent violence in recent months. "An Iraqi child was killed as terrorists and multi-national forces exchanged...

It was as plain as black and white. It was a hate crime. When 30 black teenagers from Marine Park Middle School, most of them girls, chased five white girls from St. Edmund's off a Marine Park basketball court and across a Brooklyn street - punching, kicking, slapping, pulling hair and screaming, "honky bitches," "black power" and "white crackers" - it was a racial attack. It was about hate. Police officers who responded to the scene on March 30, at approximately 4 p.m., arrested five blacks. They were charged with simple assault. Two of the white girls were treated at...

Nationally syndicated radio show host Michael Savage is smiling - thanks to Clear Channel. The mega-sized radio company has signed Savage to a mulit-million dollar, multi-year contract to continue as the afternoon drive time host at its San Francisco Bay area station KNEW (910 AM). Savage is already the #1 most listened-to host during the 3 to 6 p.m. drive time slot. The announcement of Savage's deal will be made in the next few days, but it is already causing ripples in the hot San Francisco market. The terms of the deal won't be disclosed, but will make Savage among...