Free Republic

INTELLIGENCE agents from Prague to Swansea are uncovering a trail of clues that point to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq having a hand in al-Qaeda’s terrorist missions. Iraqi ministers have spent the week protesting Baghdad’s innocence to the United Nations, but will not say why some of its diplomats who met Mohammed Atta, one of the suspected September 11 hijackers, disappeared from their European posts after that date. Nor will Baghdad explain why Saddam’s agents were spotted at various times this year with Atta in Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic. Many in the Pentagon are sure Saddam ...

Regular readers of my column know that after tax season is over my wife and I take off for a while and typically travel the world. We do not do tours or cruises as we want to be in amongst the locals to touch and feel what is going on wherever we are visiting. This year our trip was to Spain and Croatia with short stops in Milan and London. We also spent some time in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. We started in Spain, a wonderful country we had not visited since 1987. There are many areas to visit...

What do you get if you take the blades off a wind turbine? A better wind turbine. That sounds like a joke, but that’s actually more or less the model of a new wind turbine prototype. Instead of blades that turn in the breeze, the turbine is just a hollow straw that sticks up 40 feet from the ground and vibrates like a guitar string when the wind thrums by. The Spanish engineers who founded Vortex Bladeless in 2010 said they were inspired by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster (maybe not the best pitch for clean energy to a disaster-wary...

Basques can now safely visit Iceland without the threat of being killed on sight. P In a small town on the western coast of Iceland last week, authorities finally revoked a 400-year-old order that allowed Basques to be killed on sight. For the last four centuries people hailing from the Basque Country could have been legally hunted down and killed had they dared to step foot in Iceland. But last week, authorities finally repealed an order issued 400 years ago that led to the massacre of 32 Basque whalers. It came about after three Basque whaling vessels entered a fjord...

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spain has again seized an American treasure-hunting ship over a dispute with its owners over who has rights to millions of dollars worth of booty recovered from the sea, officials said. Spain seized the "Odyssey Explorer" -- owned by Odyssey Marine Exploration based Tampa, Florida -- as it sailed out of port in the British colony of Gibraltar on Tuesday. Armed Spanish government vessels were waiting for the Explorer when it reached 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) off Gibraltar's shore and entered what Spain considers its territorial waters. The vessels forced the Explorer to dock at Spain's...

In 2011 archaeologists happened upon a stunningly well-preserved shipwreck off the coast of Panama. The wreckage, a mere 40 feet underwater, was untouched by looters and still carrying a full load of tools and weapons. Now, after years of work, scientists finally know the ship's story.

Elite special forces are some of the best-trained and most formidable units a country can boast. They go where other soldiers fear to tread, scoping out potential threats, taking out strategic targets, and conducting daring rescue missions. These really are the best of the best. Although it's extremely difficult to rank these forces relative to one another, there are some units that rise above the rest in their track record and the fear they instill in their adversaries. These soldiers have been through rigorous training exercises designed to weed out those who can't hit their exacting standards. In a world...

ROME - A bullfight, an act of bravado, a brush with death. A newly discovered story by the young Ernest Hemingway has all the elements to delight fans and scholars — but it can't be published. The late writer's estate hasn't approved publication of the 1924 piece, a gory, over-the-top parody about a bullfight in the Spanish city of Pamplona, the manuscript's owner, Donald Stewart, told The Associated Press on Monday. People who have seen the story say it's no masterpiece. But it could give important clues about Hemingway's first attempts at trying on different literary styles — especially because...

EARLY one morning, 50 years ago today, while his wife, Mary, slept upstairs, Ernest Hemingway went into the vestibule of his Ketchum, Idaho, house, selected his favorite shotgun from the rack, inserted shells into its chambers and ended his life. There were many differing explanations at the time: that he had terminal cancer or money problems, that it was an accident, that he’d quarreled with Mary. None were true. As his friends knew, he’d been suffering from depression and paranoia for the last year of his life. Ernest and I were friends for 14 years. I dramatized many of his...

It may seem improbable to consider that St. John of the Cross, the Spanish Civil War, and JRR Tolkien have anything in common. However, all three share one important connection: the South African poet Roy Campbell, and therein lies a tale of intrigue, bravery and faith. This remarkable narrative is set against the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s. There was much unrest in Spain leading up to the elections of February 1936, as ordinary Spaniards from various factions sought to oust the Republican junta. This tension evolved into full-blown riots that swept through the entire...

The burial of the so-called Red Lady, dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic, was discovered in El Mirón cave (Cantabria) in 2010. The Journal of Archaeological Science has devoted a special edition to all the studies conducted at this unique burial site, because there are hardly any Palaeolithic tombs like this one which is intact and which has not been contaminated. One study is the research led by the UPV/EHU's Ikerbasque lecturer Mª José Iriarte, who analysed the remains of fossilised pollen dating back more than 16,000 years ago and which appeared on the tomb. "They put whole flowers on...

In looking over the history of the past 500 years, four nations stand out for having completely and massively altered world civilization in a way that no others have, before or after: England, Spain, France, and Portugal. No other empires even come close. The Muslim conquests were landbound except for island hopping. Chinese and Mongolian conquests were landbound. Even in ancient times, Greek, Roman, and Persian conquests were essentially land operations, except for river fording. Yes, they all had navies, but were not defined by them. What separates the English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish was that these nations had vast...

In looking over the history of the past 500 years, four nations stand out for having completely and massively altered world civilization in a way that no others have, before or after: England, Spain, France, and Portugal. No other empires even come close. The Muslim conquests were landbound except for island hopping. Chinese and Mongolian conquests were landbound. Even in ancient times, Greek, Roman, and Persian conquests were essentially land operations, except for river fording. Yes, they all had navies, but were not defined by them. What separates the English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish was that these nations had vast...

At 8.45 on the morning of 15 April 136 BC, Babylon was plunged into darkness when the Moon passed in front of the Sun. An astrologer, who recorded the details in cuneiform characters on a clay tablet, wrote: "At 24 degrees after sunrise-a solar eclipse. When it began on the southwest side, Venus, Mercury and the normal stars were visible. Jupiter and Mars, which were in their period of disappearance, became visible. The Sun threw off the shadow from southwest to northeast." If present-day astronomers use a computer to run the movements of the Earth, Moon and Sun backwards...

Considering the Crusades in the Context of the Current Conflict with Radical Islamists By: Msgr. Charles PopeRecent and persistent attacks by radical Muslims, especially the most recent beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians, have many asking what can or should be done to end such atrocities. Military actions by numerous countries, including our own, are already underway. Most feel quite justified in these actions and many are calling for more concerted efforts to eliminate ISIS and related zealots who seem to know no pity, no reason, and no limits. I do not write here to opine on the need for...

Monday’s bloodshed began around 9:30 a.m., after the unidentified student arrived late for his 8 a.m. class. When the teen was chastised by his teacher for not being on time, the boy snapped — pulling out the crossbow and firing it at her head. He then set his sights on his classmates, striking the teacher’s daughter, who was also a student.

A large international conference of Holocaust deniers recently took place in the heart of London, Britain's Daily Mail reported on Saturday. "This is the biggest and most significant meeting of Holocaust deniers that Britain has ever seen. It is a very worrying development," the paper quoted Gerry Gable, an expert on the extreme Right who aided the news outlet's undercover investigation of the event, as saying. The event was held under a veil of secrecy at London's Grosvenor Hotel in a room draped with the Union Flag. A spokesman for the hotel said the room booking was made online and...

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrives in Cuba today (23 March) in a bid to spur sensitive talks aimed at normalizing ties with the Communist island state. The visit comes as previously icy relations between Cuba and the West are thawing, following the dramatic rapprochement between Havana and Washington over the last few months. […] In 2014, the EU launched its normalization process with the Americas’ only communist nation to encourage the country to pursue reforms allowing for private initiatives without having to change the one-party political system. The negotiating sessions earlier this month, initially scheduled for January, had...

Sixteen EU states have said products made by Israeli settlers should be marked in shops so that European consumers can decide whether to boycott them. The group - which includes France, Italy, Spain, and the UK - made the appeal in a letter to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini on Monday (13 April). They said “EU-wide guideline on the labelling of settlement produce/products … is an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution”.

Spain’s Socialist leader, Pedro Sánchez, has apologized after he accidentally voted for a law requiring girls under 18 to obtain parental consent for abortions. The law, introduced by the governing People’s Party and long opposed by the Socialists, was promised by the conservative PP last autumn after it abandoned its controversial attempt to reverse the country’s abortion laws. The legislation being proposed then would have turned Spain into one of the toughest places in Europe to obtain an abortion. […] On Wednesday, as social media poked fun at the opposition leader’s blunder, likening him to Homer Simpson at the control...