Free Republic

KABUL, Afghanistan—Afghan police and foreign forces killed around 40 suspected Taliban fighters, many in the region where the insurgents recently released a group of South Korean church workers they had been holding, authorities said Saturday. Police attacked a group of Taliban late Friday who were planning to strike security forces in the central Afghan province of Ghazni, killing 18 of them and arresting six others, said provincial police Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadai. "It was a successful operation," he said. Taliban militants had been holding 19 South Koreans in Ghazni district for the past six weeks, but released them this week...

The troubled GDF-Suez merger highlights the extent of French state ownership ONE of the first things Nicolas Sarkozy did upon taking office as president of France in May was to visit the headquarters of Airbus, in Toulouse. His aim was to broker a deal with Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, to simplify the odd bicephalic leadership structure at Airbus's parent company, EADS. This push from Mr Sarzoky led to a more sensible regime, with a Frenchman running EADS and a German at the controls of Airbus. After a holiday in America, Mr Sarkozy was this week keen to display his determination...

BBC NEWS / HEALTH Medical notes Friday, 31 August 2007, 23:02 GMT 00:02 UK Confusion over diabetes testing Diabetics could be giving up vital home blood sugar checks because they believe they are of no use, says a researcher. Psychologist Dr Elizabeth Peel interviewed type 2 diabetes patients, and found that many were confused over what to do with the results. Writing in the British Medical Journal, she said that some doctors simply ignored detailed records kept by diabetics, compounding the problem. Charity Diabetes UK called for more support for patients. "Well I'm filling out this book, nobody ever...

For the second year in a row, Angela Merkel, the first woman to become chancellor of Germany, ranks No. 1 on our list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women. She continued to impress the world with her cool leadership at two back-to-back summits. First, she stuck to her principles, getting G-8 leaders to agree to significant cuts in carbon emissions, among other things. Merkel later corralled European Union countries into an agreement on a treaty to replace the E.U. constitution. Meanwhile, China's vice premier, Wu Yi (No. 2), continues to help lead a government that oversees an economy whose...

In the Eighties there was an old joke about the “easy” girl that you managed to get to come home with you. She was nicknamed “Fedex”, because she “absolutely, positively, had to be there overnight.” Lord knows what the subsequent consequences of that liason might be.. Today, highlighted by the Larry Craig scandal, we have a new phenomenon to deal with that has far more serious potential to affect public health. We have FEDSEX. FEDSEX is inadvertently built on the Fedex distribution model, namely the hub and spoke system, if you'll pardon the pun... Fedex determined many years ago that...

August 31, 2007, 5:00 a.m. Don’t Bomb, Bomb IranFor now, we should avoid a smoking Tehran. By Victor Davis Hanson There’s been ever more talk on Iran. President Bush — worried about both Americans being killed by Iranian mines in Iraq, and Tehran’s progress toward uranium enrichment — is ratcheting up the rhetoric. But so mirabile dictu is French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He suddenly, in the eleventh hour of the crisis, reminds the world that bombing Iran is still very possible (and he doesn’t specify by whom): An Iran with nuclear arms is, to me, unacceptable, and I am...

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's presidential office denied a Taliban claim on Saturday that it had paid a ransom of more than $20 million for the release of 19 Christian missionaries held hostage in Afghanistan. "We deny any payment for the release of South Korean hostages," said an official at the presidential Blue House.

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo., Aug. 31 -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke Friday said that the central bank will take action to prevent problems in the financial markets from disrupting the U.S. economy, if necessary. In the speech here, Bernanke laid out his thinking on the troubled credit markets publicly for the first time. Continued...============================================================== The good news is we're doomed! It is absurd and stupid to bet against the U.S. economy -- which is precisely why liberals are betting against the U.S. economy. Liberals have been cheerleading recession for years -- beginning right at the end of the Clinton...

Teachers are my heroes. As I searched my heart and my options back during my high school days, I decided I wanted to be a teacher. No particular academic subject fired this ambition… I simply felt a desire to affect positively the minds and direction of a lot of young people while I lived on this planet. So I figured I'd teach English, a happy middle of the road subject, and try to be a good role model like the many teachers who were influencing me. Singing, acting, TV, and other pursuits interrupted those plans, but never dulled my admiration...

Few people saw it coming. Many are still oblivious. But it is here, and growing – administrative government. What made America great was the creation of a government designed to exercise only the power granted to it by the people who are governed. The Declaration of Independence says it quite clearly: "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This means that elected representatives make the laws and levy taxes to hire administrators who administer the laws. This ingenious separation of powers makes it possible for the people who are governed to un-elect...

WASHINGTON -- Many of the Democratic congressmen who ousted Republicans in marginal House districts last year privately express concern about the impact on their re-election prospects if Hillary Clinton is nominated for president. Because of the strong possibility that Sen. Clinton indeed will be the party's candidate, these congressmen will not openly express their fears. But they dread her impact from the top of the ticket. Clinton's opponents don't raise the question in public. But there is such underground talk in Iowa, the state opening the battle for convention delegates, questioning her "electability."

President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke yesterday pledged to help homeowners and businesses hurt by the spreading credit crunch, but said they will not offer a bailout for speculators and lenders who lost money because of poor judgment. In speeches that were scheduled separately but featured the same conservative philosophy of limited government assistance and noninterference in markets, the two leaders sought to reassure people caught up in stressed housing and credit situations that some help is on the way. Mr. Bernanke said the Fed, for its part, stands ready to cut interest rates if the deepening...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — A top fundraiser for presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton turned himself in yesterday in California, where he had been a fugitive for more than 15 years. Judge H. James Ellis ordered Norman Hsu handcuffed and jailed on $2 million bail. The judge declined Hsu's request to immediately reduce the bail by half, instead scheduling a Sept. 5 hearing to consider the request. Hsu — a benefactor of Democratic causes and candidates — pleaded no contest in 1991 to a felony count of grand theft, admitting he had defrauded investors of $1 million in a...

Norman Hsu, a prominent Democratic donor who had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for candidates, turned himself in to the authorities yesterday in California, where there was a 15-year-old warrant for his arrest in a fraud case. Mr. Hsu was promptly handcuffed and jailed, the latest twist in a fast-moving political event in which candidates in the presidential campaign as well as in state and local races, have rushed to return money from Mr. Hsu because of his criminal past. After posting $2 million for bail, Mr. Hsu was released and told to appear next Wednesday at a bail-reduction...

Special ReportThe 100 Most Powerful Women08.30.07, 6:00 PM ET Rank Name Occupation Country 1 Angela Merkel Chancellor Germany 2 Wu Yi Vice premier China 3 Ho Ching Chief executive, Temasek Holdings Singapore 4 Condoleezza Rice Secretary of State U.S. 5 Indra K. Nooyi Chairman, chief executive, PepsiCo U.S. 6 Sonia Gandhi President, Congress Party India 7 Cynthia Carroll Chief executive, Anglo American U.K. 8 Patricia A. Woertz Chairman, Archer Daniels Midland U.S. 9 Irene Rosenfeld Chairman, chief executive, Kraft Foods U.S. 10 Patricia Russo Chief executive, Alcatel-Lucent U.S. 11 Michèle Alliot-Marie Minister for the Interior and overseas territories France 12...

Brian DePalma was born on SEPTEMBER 11, 1940. Brian DePalma has decided to do what most liberals are afraid to do and that is to tell the truth about who they are and what they believe. Liberals hate the American soldier. Liberals hope for more dead troops if it results in their gaining power. Liberals will lie repeatedly in order to get their way. Liberals pretend to support the troops as they call their performance in Iraq a failure. Liberals only find value in reporting on troops in Iraq when their either DIE or 'SCREW UP'. The Daily DEAD FAILURE...

US First Lady Laura Bush has urged UN chief Ban Ki-moon to condemn Burma's crackdown on pro-democracy protestors. In a rare political intervention, she also called on the UN Security Council to act to prevent further violence. Her direct intervention shows growing frustration in the White House with the UN's muted response to problem. President George W Bush has already called for the release of all political prisoners and urged the Burmese government to "stop its intimidation". Rebuke The White House issued a statement confirming that Laura Bush had telephoned the UN secretary general to express her deep concern over...

Iraqis Citizens Begin to Take Defense of Iraq into Their Own Hands. U.S. Army Pfc. Emmanuel Ramanan, in background, looks on as Cpl. Ganem Najim of the Iraqi army’s 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, 11th Infantry Division, discusses firing techniques with the first 30 members of Adhamiyah’s Critical Infrastructure Guard Force, in Baghdad. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael Pryor The Daily Terrorist Roundup Iraq: Marriages split al Qaeda alliance (Interesting) How life returned to the streets in a showpiece city that drove out al-Qaeda (Must Read) Iraq militants killed by own missile (oopsie!) Iraq says 72 gunmen arrested in...

TUCSON — Two ideologically opposite groups planned news conferences Thursday in downtown Tucson to get out their messages about border politics. In the morning, one of those groups, the human rights defender Border Action Network launched a new campaign to document abuses and violations of civil rights in border communities. “The U.S. Constitution applies to everyone ... regardless of legal status,” said Jennifer Allen, executive director of Border Action Network. Another group — the nonprofit anti-illegal-immigration organization known as American Border Patrol — postponed its afternoon news conference, in which it had planned to release the results of an aerial...

Earlier this summer a concerned crew member of a Washington State ferry boat snapped pictures of two men who had raised suspicions on several ferry rides by asking questions about structural details and entering areas of the boats that are off limits. Now, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation released two photographs of the men to the public with the goal of identifying them, a debate has erupted over alleged racial profiling, one ferry was shut down briefly this week and the men, while suddenly familiar faces, remain unidentified. "We have some promising leads that have come in since we...