Free Republic

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The boy recognised by the Chinese government as the Panchen Lama - the second highest spiritual leader in Tibet - has returned to the capital, Lhasa. It is believed to be only his second visit to Tibet since his controversial selection four years ago. The state-run Xinhua news agency said nine-year old Gyaincain Norbu was given a warm welcome by Buddhist leaders in a ceremony on Thursday. It did not say if he would remain in Lhasa. The news agency said the boy was "in good health under the care ...

This is the second in a series of articles previewing Election 2000, its candidates, and its issues. Both George Bushes made a big leap last week. I’m not really sure who took the bigger risk – the 75 year-old ex-president, George Herbert Walker Chaz Phillipe Enrique Gonzalez etc, who jumped out of a plane, or the young governor, simply W., who finally came out of the presidential closet. If George W. Bush wins the presidency next year, make no mistake, it will be one of the oddest victories since, well, nothing is as weird as Jessie “the Body.” But it ...

MEDIA: THE INFORMATION ABOMINATION By: Norman Liebmann Bill Clinton, our national virus, is now a worldwide plague, having spread his infection to Asia, and death and destruction to Europe. The "mugging" of Yugoslavia ends as all Clinton's enterprises end - in dishonor. It is as if the stadium crew who clean up the litter after the game declared themselves the winners of the Super Bowl. The Clinton clan may now embroider its escutcheon with the legend, "To the victor belongs the garbage." Clinton's conquest carries with it as much military glory as the German subjugation of the Warsaw Ghetto. The ...

There is really no way around it; tighter gun controls increase crime. When Britain banned guns, crime went up, including the instances where criminals would enter a home while the occupants were home. This crime increase has sustained to the present day, and it's now acknowledged that Britain's gun ban, while disarming the law-abiding citizen, hasn't reduced the number of firearms held by criminals one bit. The same thing happened in Jamaica. As part of the attempt to revive tourism ("Come Back To Jamaica"), the government tried to project a crime free image by banning guns. The law-abiding citizens ...

NEW YORK -- While the conflict in Kosovo has unfolded, diplomats have quietly been trying to address problems in another trouble spot: Iraq. A new proposal making the rounds at the United Nations would allow suspension of some economic sanctions against Iraq if the country opens itself to inspection by a new UN agency. The new agency, the United Nations Commission on Inspection and Monitoring (UNCIM), would, according to a proposal being circulated by British and Dutch diplomats, take over all "assets, liabilities, staff and archives" of the controversial United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). Iraq insisted that UNSCOM inspectors ...

When no victor can be crowned on the Balkan battlefields, the least one can do is pretend there is one. At least, that's what Secretary of State Madeleine Albright decided to do on Monday's Wall Street Journal editorial pages. While Americans were reading Monday that "the alliance succeeded because its cause was right," Slobodan Milosevic was being greeted by the deafening applause of over 100,000 citizens in Vojvodina, Serbia with chants of: "Progress only with you, Slobo." Even as Mrs. Albright cautiously mused that ". . . it appears that the conflict between Belgrade and NATO over Kosovo is finally ...

BACK IN BELGRADE THERE'S NO LOVE IN THE RUINS A Serbian peasant approached an American pilot standing next to his crashed F-117. "How much did this plane cost?" the peasant asked. "A billion dollars," the pilot said. "You're doing this the hard way," the peasant replied. "If you just tossed a billion dollars over the country, we'd kill each other and save you all this work." BELGRADE--The joke carries the sting of truth. Serbs have never felt as poor as they do now. Things were bad enough before the bombing. Now they are critical. And without aid from the West, ...

Germans detain 25 KLA rebels after finding dead in police station 1.42 p.m. ET (1743 GMT) June 18, 1999 By Melissa Eddy, Associated Press PRIZREN, Yugoslavia (AP) — German soldiers detained 25 ethnic Albanian rebels today after finding one elderly man dead and more than 15 others hurt in a police station that had been under control of the Kosovo Liberation Army since early this week. Most of the victims seemed to be ethnic Albanians or Gypsies between the ages of 50 and 60, said Lt. Col. Dietmar Jeserich, a spokesman for the German army serving in the Kosovo peace ...

A Serious Study Of The How And Why Behind The Soviet Military's Death Spiral By William E. Odom. Yale University Press. 523 pages; tables; charts; maps; abbreviations list; notes; bibliography; index; $35. By Maj. Gen. Edward B. Atkeson, U.S. Army retired This book had to be written, and no one could have done it better. William E. Odom has brought us the story of the silent cataclysm of our age and done it with great professionalism. The reader will find much more here than a simple chronicle of colossal events. The Collapse of the Soviet Military is a comprehensive examination ...

The Dresden Enterprise, June 16,1999 ROBERT GLEN COE GIVEN NEW EXECUTION DATE A new execution date has been set for convicted child killer, Robert Glen Coe, who was scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, June 15, 1999. The change of date reportedly came about because the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet ruled on an appeal filed on behalf of Coe. Since the execution cannot take place until the nation's highest court decides whether or not to review the case, a new execution date has been set for October 19, 1999. Defense attorneys have reportedly filed a writ of certiorari, ...

War-crimes sleuths due in Kosovo today. UN aid rolled yesterday. Don't expect blue helmets of peacekeepers. UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. -- For the United Nations, the Kosovo experience is proving to be something of a shakedown run - and it could leave behind a road map for the world body's role in the next century. Its successes in the Balkans conflict included easing refugee flows and providing a backbone for the West's promise of consequences by waving the gavel of its war-crimes tribunal. The tribunal's first team of investigators will head to Kosovo today to begin gathering evidence of atrocities in ...

Continued Standoff in Kosovo May Cause Russia to Force the Issue Stratfor.com NATO currently holds the upper hand in negotiations with Russia over a role for Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo. Every day that passes with the dispute unresolved represents a little more of Kosovo under NATO control. Sure, Russia holds the strategic Slatina airbase, but the token Russian force can not both hold the base and establish a broader presence in Kosovo. NATO, not Russian, forces are overseeing the return of Kosovar Albanians and the spreading presence of the KLA. NATO, not Russian, forces are securing the sites of alleged ...

Peacekeepers aim to make province safe, but Serbs flee region following violence. SVETA TROJICA MONASTERY, YUGOSLAVIA--After taking refuge in the Kosovar capital of Pristina for a few days, three frightened Serbian Orthodox nuns steered their four-wheel drive up a steep gravel path to their isolated hilltop monastery on Tuesday. The sight that confronted them brought tears to their eyes. Thick smoke billowed from the church door, and only four chimneys of the main building remained standing. A fire still raged in one part of the complex. Under the peace agreement, Serbian police and military vacated the area around Prizren, in ...

Ann Coulter(who needs no introduction), will be one of Paula Zahn's guests tonight on The Fox Report.The show will air on the Fox News Channel at 7:00 PM EDT.Be sure to catch Miz Coulter in a Geraldo-free environment.

He may keep wartime powers to curb rising dissent over the loss of Kosovo. Serb refugees on move. BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA -- While most news about Kosovo focuses on the changes in the province, the rest of Yugoslavia is taking its own twists and turns, too. Opposition leaders have charged that the Yugoslav government of Slobodan Milosevic is trying to make permanent the draconian laws that were enacted nearly three months ago when NATO attacked Yugoslavia. The laws severely restrict news media and allow police to search citizens and their belongings at will. In addition, the laws prohibit men between the ...

PRIZREN, YUGOSLAVIA -- With the withdrawal of Serbian forces nearly complete, NATO is confronting the next critical phase of its Kosovo peacekeeping operation: disarming ethnic Albanian rebels. Emerging from Kosovo's forested hills and bases in Albania, jubilant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters have swept into towns and villages on the heels of their retreating foes. In Prizren, they have moved into the Yugoslav Army's officers club and the police headquarters and patrol the streets in full view of German peacekeepers. But this will soon change. Once the Serbian pullout is over – the deadline is Sunday - and the standoff ...

While the world focused on Kosovo, the simmering conflict between North and South Korea erupted this week into a deadly naval skirmish in disputed waters of the Yellow Sea. South Korean warships sank one North Korean vessel and heavily damaged another before Pyongyang's ships retreated Tuesday, ending an eight-day standoff in contested crab-fishing waters. Some 30 North Korean sailors perished and seven South Korean sailors were wounded in the shootout. It was, among other things, a warning for Americans that their military forces are stretched thin around the globe--bogged down in Yugoslavia and Iraq. Few U.S. warships were available to ...

For information and discussion only. Not for commercial use. PRIZREN, Yugoslavia (AP) - German soldiers detained 25 ethnic Albanian rebels today after finding one elderly man dead and more than 15 others hurt in a police station that had been under control of the Kosovo Liberation Army since early this week. Most of the victims seemed to be ethnic Albanians or Gypsies between the ages of 50 and 60, said Lt. Col. Dietmar Jeserich, a spokesman for the German army serving in the Kosovo peace force in the region. During the Kosovo conflict that started February 1998 and ended ...

Detroit News June 17, 1999 If Clinton Won Kosovo War, Why Did He Invoke A New Draft? By Now that the Kosovo War — or "conflict" as the White House insisted on calling it before it was settled — is over, some killjoys are bound to interrupt the continuous gloat coming from Bill Clinton’s friends and actually count the costs of the operation . It will be harder to calculate the ways our own military has been degraded by the Clinton/Madeleine Albright adventure. The financial costs of depleting our cruise missile stores, stretching an Air Force already scrambling for spare ...

  1715 GMT, 990618 – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that as of June 18, two-thirds of the ethnic Albanian refugees sheltered at the Kukes, Albania camp have left for the return trip home. UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville said between 11,000 and 12,000 refugees still remain. 1703 GMT, 990618 – Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev has told reporters in Helsinki that talks with the U.S. delegation have "firmly established that the Russian peacekeeping force activities in Kosovo will be fully under political and military control of Russia." 1655 GMT, 990618 – Though delayed by several hours, a meeting ...