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An American ‘martyr’ is being hailed in the Sunni Triangle for restoring peace to a town where soldiers now fight only water leaks The police station in Tameen, a district of Ramadi, occupies a wreck of a building – its roof shattered by shells, its windows blown out, its walls pockmarked by shrapnel. That is not unusual in Iraq. What makes this station extraordinary is that a city in the heart of the infamous Sunni Triangle, a city that once led the antiAmerican insurgency, has named it after a US soldier – Captain Travis Patriquin. The honour is well-deserved. Captain...

cream always rises to the top.

KANDAHAR -- Journalists travelling with the Canadian Forces will be required to wear military dog tags to identify them if they are injured or killed, Canada's top commander here said Monday. The new policy is part of a series of measures designed to remind the media of the risks of operating in this war-ravaged country. "We're not trying to restrain the freedom of movement of the media or their access to convoys, but we want to be assured that they understand the nature of the beast," said Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, Canada's top-ranking officer in Afghanistan. Over a dozen journalists from...

"To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character." -- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 34, 4 January 1788) “I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” -- Thomas Jefferson

Yobs who stoned pensioner guilty Friday, 31st August 2007, 14:46 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A gang of hoodies, aged between 10 and 13, who stoned a pensioner triggering a fatal heart attack, were today (Fri) found guilty of causing his death. The tracksuit wearing yobs threw stones and lumps of wood at 67-year old Ernest Norton, who was playing cricket with his son James, hitting the pensioner on the head. The five boys were part of a larger gang of 15 yobs who began abusing Mr Norton and his son at a tennis court in Erith, south east London. When the engineering draftsman...

30 Aug 2007, 0135 hrs IST,Debajyoti Chakraborty,TNN RANIGANJ (WB): He was tall, dark, handsome and wild at heart. She was city bred, not all that coy. And it was love at first sight. A huge tusker, straight out of the jungle, raided a circus in the wee hours of Wednesday, freed a female elephant and eloped with her to make a cosy home by a pond in Raiganj. This tale of untamed love has yet another bizarre twist: a second female elephant, said to be "very attached" to the one that fled the circus, has broken down and is grieving...

August 31 Evangelism: Coming Home And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. --John 14:3 Some years ago one of our national Christian brothers from the land of Thailand gave his testimony in my hearing. He told what it had meant in his life and for his future when the missionaries came with the good news of the gospel of Christ. He described the godly life of one of the early missionaries and then said: "He is in the Father's...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying. "We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al Qaeda is off balance at the very least," General David Petraeus told the Australian in an interview after briefing Australia's defense minister, Brendan Nelson, in Baghdad. Petraeus and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before...

WASHINGTON - Offering federal aid for strapped mortgage holders, the White House outlined proposals Friday to help borrowers hard hit by credit problems and the housing slump. The initiatives, to be formally unveiled by President Bush, were intended to help homeowners with risky mortgages keep their homes. Bush also was to discuss efforts to prevent these kinds of problems from arising in the future. It was the administration's first efforts to deal with an expected wave of mortgage defaults fueled by the subprime-mortgage crisis. White House press secretary Tony Snow said he could not provide an estimate of how much...

A professor whose views on the Holocaust irked critics plans to risk arrest by showing up on the first day of classes next week at DePaul University after officials canceled his courses, took away his office and put him on leave. The private Chicago Catholic university recently informed professor Norman Finkelstein that his three courses were canceled after a dispute over tenure that drew charges of anti-Semitism against him. Critics find issue with Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, who believes that some Jews have exploited the Holocaust. Finkelstein is the author of five books, including "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections...

AIKEN, S.C. - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney focused Friday on stopping illegal immigration and keeping Washington out of increased health care coverage. During a morning campaign stop in Aiken, Romney said he doesn't want the federal government to take over providing health care for the nation's uninsured. "Don't have 'Hillary Care,'" Romney said, referring to his favorite Democrat target, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The former Massachusetts governor said he doesn't want to "have the guys who ran the Katrina cleanup" in charge of health care. He said he'd leave it up to states to design their own...

A protest against Hamas rule by Fatah followers turned violent Friday when Hamas men started forcefully dispersing the crowd, firing in the air and beating demonstrators and reporters. Five people were hurt in the clashes, including two French reporters, according to doctors and witnesses. The Associated Press reported the beating of one journalist by Hamas supporters. He was not seriously hurt. The violence started at the end of a Fatah prayer meeting held to protest against Hamas, which seized control of the Strip over two months ago. After the Fatah supporters finished prayers, Hamas men started firing into the air...

Two women wore the bunny costumes. "Our whole body is painted white literally from head to toe. We have on white panties, pasties and we have bunny ears complete with a cottontail and heels," said Meggan Anderson. Meggan Anderson said there's a purpose to the costume. "We hope to accomplish and persuade PetSmart to stop selling rabbits," Anderson said. "There's so many dying in shelters. You know, they're the third most surrendered animals next to dogs and cats. Every bunny that PetSmart sells is one in a shelter that dies." About 11 Peta members carried signs saying "No Bunny Likes...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a widely anticipated speech, reinterated that central bank will "act as needed" to keep the credit crisis from spreading but will not bail out investors who made poor decisions. "The committee continues to monitor the situation and will act as needed to limit the adverse effects on the broader economy that may arise from the disruptions in financial markets," Bernanke said in a speech at the Fed's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But the central bank is not ready to shield investors whose actions have resulted in financial losses, he said. "It is...

I’m going to come right out and say it, I’m no big fan of labor unions. By raising the cost of labor through thuggery and intimidation, they hurt both the companies they’re contracted to and the workers they claim to be trying to help in the first place. Don’t believe me? Try asking the employees of American Motors or Pan-Am Airlines. What?! Those companies went out of business over 20 years ago? Gee, I wonder how something like that could have happened. But even with my lack of reverence for the current state of the labor movement, I will still...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to appear in San Diego today to promote a universal health care proposal whose faint prospects seemed to improve yesterday. Schwarzenegger, who barely mentioned health care during his first term in office, has become a tireless champion for an ambitious plan to overhaul the state's health care system and cover California's estimated 6.5 million uninsured residents. But time is quickly running out. The Legislature is scheduled to adjourn Sept. 14. After clashing this week, Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, said yesterday that they had made progress in working out the...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police have detained a 45-year-old municipal worker for stealing a bridge. The 5-meter span metal bridge disappeared from a river crossing in the Ryazan region, east of Moscow. Police said they tracked it down to the man, who had used his work truck to remove it and then chopped it up and sold it for scrap. In a statement, Ryazan region police called it "the bulkiest theft of the year."

HUNTINGTON, Ind. (Our Sunday Visitor) – “Why does the secular media often get faith wrong?” That’s the question asked all too often when Catholic happenings make news in the secular press. Our Sunday Visitor Case in point: Pope Benedict XVI’s freeing of the traditional Latin Mass last July. No sooner did the news break than did errors in reporting start making their way into the living rooms of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Some of those errors were small — misnaming the missal that would be used — and some were great — passing off the decision as nothing more than...

SAN FRANCISCO, (AP) -- After the signature effigy of the Burning Man festival went up in flames four days ahead of schedule, festival-goers vowed to rebuild the 40-foot icon by Saturday's planned climax. But not everyone was disappointed by Tuesday's incineration. The alleged torching of the wood-and-neon figure by a San Francisco performance artist has cast light on the disillusionment of many who feel the annual celebration of radical self-expression has lost touch with its spontaneous, subversive roots. "People have been trying to set that thing on fire for years," said Hugh D'Andrade, a San Francisco artist who attended the...

It's been a rocky start for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and now the departure of its top scientist illustrates the difficulty it has had coming to terms with issues of politics, compensation and governance. Voters approved Proposition 71 in 2004, creating the institute and authorizing it to pump nearly $300 million a year in bond money into the state's research laboratories. The institute first had to break free of two years of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality. Then in April, President Zach Hall abruptly announced his resignation after a stormy meeting with the group that oversees the agency, the...