Free Republic

2117 GMT, 990624 Yugoslavia – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees special envoy Dennis McNamara said June 24 that the agency will soon begin the formal repatriation process for returning Kosovars, after having initially been caught off guard by the sheer size of the initial wave. According to UNHCR, communications with KFOR and the KLA have led to the identification of Pristina, Prizren and Urosevac as secure areas where repatriation can be carried out safely. McNamara also stated that the evacuation of refugees from Macedonian camps to other countries around the globe will stop in early July. Estimates indicate that ...

At last, something for Hillary Clinton to be grateful to Ken Starr for. By listing her as a prospective witness in the income-tax evasion trial of Webb Hubbell, scheduled to begin Aug. 9 in Washington for a five-week run, the infamous Clinton nemesis has given the first lady the good and sufficient reason she needs to return to her duties at home. Miss Hillary, who is not necessarily the brightest bulb in the socket illuminating how politics works (it was she who designed the deny-everything strategy for Whitewater, Travelgate and Thong-pantygate), has to fish or cut bait soon and ...

Truth In Media By Bob Djurdjevic KLA Rampage Continues as KFOR Looks On KOSOVO, June 24 - The KLA rampage against the Serb civilians is continuing with the NATO KFOR troops basically looking on and doing little else, the TiM sources within the Serb Orthodox Christian church report from Kosovo. Albanian terrorists have abducted at gun point at least 140 Serbs in Kosovo during last 12 days, our sources say. Most of the kidnapped Serbs are men (36 to 40 in age) from the territory of the Glogovac municipality. All the citizens of the village of Slivovo escaped to the ...

Despite alarming evidence of extensive, long-term Chinese Communist spying involving U.S. nuclear, missile and guidance system secrets at our national lab at Los Alamos, N.M., too little has been said and done to stop the leaks and crack down on those responsible. Spies are a constant in international relations. We all know that. That's why special security measures have to be taken. But when there were warnings -- years ago -- that spies were at work at Los Alamos, why were those in charge of security so slow about passing the warnings up the proper channels to safeguard American ...

Security watchdogs tell of reprisals By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY WASHINGTON - Intelligence and security specialists for the Energy and Defense departments told Congress Thursday that they were punished for reporting China, Russia and other sensitive nations were obtaining U.S. weapons technology. Five witnesses, including an Energy Department security director, said they were cut out of important work, placed on leave or given poor performance reviews for suggesting that Clinton administration policies allowed technology and information with military applications to fall into the wrong hands. No administration officials were asked by the House Committee on Government Reform to respond to ...

Cell phones have come under fire for distracting drivers and causing accidents. Now they pose another danger: gas pump explosions. In case you cell-phone users missed the news story, here's some potentially life-saving advice: Don't talk on your cell-phone while pumping gas. There has already been at least one awful incident reported where gas fumes ignited an explosion while a man was talking on his mobile phone -- seriously burning him and damaging his car. Thankfully, the blast wasn't as bad as it might have been. In a worst case scenario, it could have blown up other pumps, setting ...

DENVER (June 25, 1999 1:08 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - The Colorado father who murdered his three young daughters Wednesday told the girls to wait in his truck while he went to buy the gun he used to kill them, authorities said. William Palsuich, the man who sold the gun to Simon Gonzales, did everything legally, including running a background check on him before selling him a 9 millimeter handgun for $346, police said. Gonzales used the gun to kill his daughters Leslie, 7; Katheryn, 8 and Rebecca, 10 and then drove to a police station in Castle Rock, 20 ...

Media Portray Gore Hobbled by Baggage and Running Out of Points Behind Bush In the picture painted by the press, Vice President Gore's White House campaign is hardly off to a great start. Interviewers have pressed him on his view of President Clinton's affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. Commentators have ridiculed his shouted oratory, with the Chicago Tribune's James Warren likening him to a "Baptist minister on amphetamines." And no report on Gore is complete without noting the early horse-race polls that show him trailing Texas Gov. George W. Bush by double-digit margins. "You're on the defense immediately," said ...

When Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic Ocean solo, he didn't have radar. He didn't even have a front window. All he could do was peer through a periscope or thrust his head out the side of the plane. That sounds much like the Republican majority in Congress trying to steer its way to re-election. The GOP had a good strategy, but abandoned the plan just when it should have been giving it emphasis. With elections approaching, a 10 percent tax cut should be hailed, not shunned. But, peering through the periscope, all the Republicans can see is liberal criticism. ...

Inside Cover has learned that production on Spike Lee's U.S. Navy recruitment ads continued until last week, nearly a month after the New York Post revealed that the controversial film director said of National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston: "Shoot him -- with a .44-caliber Bulldog." On Wednesday, Lt. Cmdr. Karen Jefferies, spokeswoman for the Navy Recruiting Command, explained that the first of Lee's six spots has appeared in approximately 10,000 movie theaters already this summer. The other five ads are still being edited and have not yet been approved by the Navy for release. Filming for the last commercial ...

ON THE KOSOVO-SERBIA BORDER -- The last Serbian soldier to leave Kosovo on the main road north from Pristina to Belgrade last Sunday evening was a pleasant, smartly dressed young lad with an AK-47 assault rifle, a Makarov pistol, a switchblade and a very big knife. Before walking across to the border into Serbia in the fading twilight to join other soldiers lolling by a column of freshly painted T-55 tanks flying the Yugoslav and Serbian tricolors, the young Serb assured me confidently in broken Russian that he would be back in Kosovo before too long because Kosovo was ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - Energy Secretary Bill Richardson sought to reassure Asian-American scientists at the Los Alamos weapons complex Thursday that their loyalty is not in question, but he got the most heated feedback on another subject - polygraph testing. Richardson, making his first visit to the weapons research lab since the Chinese espionage furor erupted in March, met in a packed auditorium with about 600 workers, including Asian-Americans, to hear their grievances. Later, he held a similar session at the Sandia lab near Albuquerque. ''Talk to me candidly, don't sugarcoat it,'' he urged the scientists. Some of ...

Cyberattacks spur talk of 3rd DOD network New network would support e-commerce and public access to DOD Web sites BY BOB BREWIN (antenna@fcw.com) AND DANIEL VERTON (dan_verton@fcw.com) As part of a strategy to defend its unclassified networks against relentless cyberattacks, the Pentagon may establish a new network to handle electronic commerce and other interactions with the public while cutting off all other existing connections to the Internet. The proposal follows an increase in the rate of cyberattacks -- many stemming from the Kosovo conflict -- on the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET), through which the department transmits unclassified information, ...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Beirut was blacked out and residents in northern Israel huddled in bomb shelters today during the heaviest fighting between Israel and Lebanon in three years. The attacks killed seven Lebanese and two Israelis. The Israeli airstrikes against Lebanon's infrastructure also wounded 57 people since they began Thursday. Israeli jets and helicopters hit two power substations outside the capital, Beirut; guerrilla targets in the eastern city of Baalbek, a stronghold of the Hezbollah militants; and bridges on Lebanon's main coastal road. The Israeli army said in a statement that its planes carried out the bombings in ...

Home-educated, high school graduates, like their peers in "traditional" schools, often face a challenge when choosing which college to attend. But this decision making process will involve a new choice for the nations 1.5 million children educated at home, as development of the first college designed especially for home-schoolers breaks ground today.Patrick Henry College, named after the Virginia patriot who himself had been home-schooled, will be built on 44 acres of land located in the Loudoun County town of Purcellville, Va. The town, populated by approximately 2,500, is located one hour from Washington. The college will begin with 100 students ...

Republican Strategic Analysis (Part III) by Ed Goeas The Tarrance Group The Battle for the White House [Note: In this latest Battleground survey we took a look at the two parties’ presidential front-runners. This was not in an effort to pre-determine the outcome of the Presidential Primary process, but because they are the clear front-runners in the public polls. Both are well known (both have over 95% name awareness) and we feel comparisons between the two garner the best analysis of where the two parties stand in the presidential contest.] Unlike the Congressional generic ballot that has the two parties ...

Republican Strategic Analysis (Part II) by Ed Goeas The Tarrance Group Control of Congress Republicans are suffering through the closest margin of control of the U.S. House of Representatives this century. It has been tough trying to develop and manage a legislative agenda with no votes to spare, especially with a President who is quite capable of using the "bully pulpit" to frame the political landscape to suit his purposes. Yet, Republicans know that if they hold on to control through the 2000 election cycle then the next round of re-districting is likely to add another 15-18 Republican congressional seats ...

Republican Strategic Analysis (Part I) By Ed Goeas The Tarrance Group Bill Clinton – Legacy or Liability? With the frontrunners for both the Republican and Democratic Parties now officially in the Presidential race, election 2000 can now be declared under way. While each and every election cycle bears its own unique importance, the election of 2000 promises to be one of the more significant for both parties in over a decade. Not only is the White House up for grabs, with no incumbent running for the first time in twelve years, but majority control of the U. S. House of ...

In the wake of the Supreme Court's end-of-term decisions issued this week, we can't help but think of the message we've heard over and over again through the years from mayors and governors, CEOs and small businesspeople who visit our offices. Deliver us from Washington, they plead. Give us back the freedom to make the decisions about what's best for our own communities and businesses. Indeed, the biggest shift in American society over the past 50 years has to be the gradual federalization of so many aspects of life. Today Washington has its nose in almost every nook and ...

China Seeks Smart Sperm Donors SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- Wanted: Healthy men under 60 willing to make donations to a sperm bank. Only college professors need apply. At the new ``Notables' Sperm Bank'' in southwestern China donors must have academic qualifications at least equal to an associate professor. The bank is run by the state family planning agency in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported late Thursday. It has received lots of phone calls and applications from prospective donors, mainly intellectuals, Xinhua cited the facility's manager, Huang Ping, as saying. The report did not say ...