Free Republic

Nine days after registering his presidential exploratory committee last November, Rudolph Giuliani appeared in Singapore to help a Las Vegas developer make a pitch for a $3.5 billion casino resort. Though the bid ultimately failed, and there was nothing illegal about the involvement, it drew Giuliani into a complex partnership with the family of a controversial Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime by the U.S. government. ... Giuliani's public involvement in the gaming bid began at a September 2006 news conference in Singapore...

by Richard Lawrence Poe Monday, November 5, 2007 Permanent LinkMore Columns FOUR YEARS ago, leftist billionaire George Soros vowed to bring down President Bush, but failed. Now he is making another power play, this time in Europe. Soros knows Europe better than he does America. He may get what he wants this time; a reversal of his 2002 criminal conviction for insider trading. On January 29, 2002, a French court convicted Soros of illegal trades in connection with a takeover attempt on a French bank. Soros appealed his conviction twice without success. Now he awaits his fourth trial at...

Democrats demand CIA detainee documents By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer 53 minutes ago A Senate Democrat who will chair its Judiciary Committee next year asked the Justice Department to release newly acknowledged documents setting U.S. policy on how suspects in the war on terrorism are detained and interrogated. "The American people deserve to have detailed and accurate information about the role of the Bush administration in developing the interrogation policies and practices that have engendered such deep criticism and concern at home and around the world," Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., wrote Attorney General Alberto Gonzales....

BERLIN (Reuters) - The head of an organization of former Russian spies was quoted as saying on Thursday Moscow abandoned its policy of assassinating enemies long ago, and that Alexander Litvinenko was probably murdered by criminals. Former KGB agent Valentin Velichko said fellow former agent Litvinenko, who died in London on November 23 from radiation poisoning, was a traitor but was not killed by Moscow. "That was long ago. It belonged to the days of Stalin," Velichko, head of the Veterans of Foreign Intelligence, told Die Welt newspaper in an interview. Millions died under the rule of dictator Josef Stalin.

US authorities are to examine Roman Abramovich’s ties to the Kremlin as part of a national security review of a $2.3bn (£1.18bn) bid for Oregon Steel by a company controlled by the Russian billionaire. Experts in Washington say the US government panel that reviews foreign deals will scrutinise the proposed takeover, announced last month, more closely if Mr Abramovich is found to be acting with the backing of the Russian government. Mr Abramovich is believed to be close to Vladimir Putin, Russian president. The Russian steel company, Evraz, is controlled by Mr Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, group director. Evraz and...

One of the things that protestors in South Korea know is that the local riot police have ample experience with demonstrators. While a viable democracy, South Korea has seen out-of-control street riots in its turbulent past. Now authorities across the political spectrum are unwilling to allow anyone to go too far. Peaceful demonstrations? Sure, but don’t press your luck. While American demonstrators – including the most violent – are accustomed to being treated with kid gloves; in South Korea the gloves are off. This is something that career protestors Cindy “Peace Mom” Sheehan and Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin might want...

Reporting confrontation between PFP and students in Oaxaca The cordon of federal agents fell back about 200 meters and they returned to the starting point, the terminus of University Avenue Jorge Octavio Ochoa, Alejandro Torres & David Aponte/Correspondents El Universal (Mexico City) Oaxaca City, Oaxaca Thursday 2 November 2006 11:20 a.m.   A confrontation between students of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (UABJO) and elements of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) is being reported. The uniformed officers are being practically bombarded by a rain of stones, sticks, molotov cocktails, and fireworks, from the interior [of the University] to...

OAXACA, Mexico — Gunmen shot dead a local leader of Mexico's largest leftist party in the southern state of Oaxaca where at least nine people were killed in political violence last year, police said today. Democratic Revolution Party official Fructuoso Pedro Garcia was shot with nine bullets in the main square of Santo Domingo Morelos, a seaside town about 150 miles south of Oaxaca's colonial state capital, said state police commander Alberto Guzman. The killing occurred last Wednesday, three days after Garcia announced he would run for mayor of Santo Domingo Morelos. Guzman said the killing appeared to be for...

Some of you may have read an article by Stephan Hayes of the Weekly Standard where he wrote about terrorist operations planed by Saddam regime in May 1999 to be conducted in Europe and elsewhere. The code name of the terrorist operations was called “Blessed July”. The operations were planned by Uday Saddam Hussein who was in charge of Saddam Feedeyeens and they called him as well the Supervisor or the Commander as you will read in the translation below. This Iraqi document ISGZ-2004-01894 is yet another powerful proof that Saddam regime was heavily involved with terrorism and President...

A North Korean freighter, MV-Omranili, which was on its way to Iran 'found itself' in Indian waters after an 'engine failure' and has been detained in Mumbai. The Coast Guard, the Bombay Port Trust, the Indian Navy and the Mumbai Customs have formed separate teams to inspect the freighter and find out if it is carrying any arms or ammunition and the reason behind its voyage to Iran. Coming close on the heels of the nuclear tests conducted by North Korea recently, the ?straying? of the vessel into Indian waters and its subsequent detention assumes significance. Speaking on condition of...

Let all decent human beings this day remember Werner Foerster, a New Jersey state trooper slain in 1973 - for tonight there will be a nauseating gathering to celebrate (yes, celebrate) the armed prison break that freed one of Foerster's convicted killers. An organization that should know better, the big public employee union SEIU Local 1199, has opened an auditorium at its headquarters to a group that lionizes fugitive Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, as a heroine whose "liberation" from prison 27 years ago it considers a bright moment in American history. Sponsors of the Hands Off Assata Campaign include...

Testimony in the trial of Chicago resident Muhammad Salah and Abdelhaleem al-Ashqar of Northern Virginia, continued yesterday. FBI Agents gave testimony focusing on items found in Ashqar's home during a search of his Oxford Mississippi residence on December 26, 1993, in addition to wiretaps of his phone and fax lines. Special Agent Bradley Benabidez testified that the FBI acquired over 2400 hours of audio during the year that they maintained a wiretap. Benabidez further described the December 1993 search of Ashqar’s home where a team of agents from the FBI photographed over 1600 documents. A few of those documents which...

The White House has been examining a proposal by James Baker to launch a Middle East peace effort without Israel. The peace effort would begin with a U.S.-organized conference, dubbed Madrid-2, and contain such U.S. adversaries as Iran and Syria. Officials said Madrid-2 would be promoted as a forum to discuss Iraq's future, but actually focus on Arab demands for Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the 1967 war. They said Israel would not be invited to the conference. “As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without...

Hamas met with a delegation of "important Democrats" who expressed interest in relations with the Palestinian terror group even if it doesn't recognize the right of Israel to exist, a Palestinian news website claimed today. Maannews quoted a source in the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority stating the terror group felt it important to meet with members of the Democratic Party since, the Hamas source said, the party will likely win 2008 presidential elections. Stacie Paxton, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, told WND the party was not aware of any meeting. Maannews is an independent Palestinian news website based in...

The Polonium Diversion At least a dozen people have been contaminated by the rare radioactive isotope Polonium 210. The list includes Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB who died from a dose of Polonium 210 in London on November 23rd; Andrei Lugovoi, a former colleague of Litvinenko in the KGB, who met with Litvinenko at the Pine bar of the Millennium Hotel in London the day he became ill, November 1st; Dmitry Lugovoi, Lugovoi’s business associate, who also attended that November 1st meetings; 7 employees of the Millennium Hotel; Mario Scaramella, an Italian security consultant, who dined with...

The British government sought on Tuesday to limit the information it would disclose at a planned inquest into the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former officer in the K.G.B. who succumbed to radiation poisoning in London more than six years ago. The coroner hearing the case said that it may now be postponed. “Due to the complexity of the investigation which necessarily precedes the hearings,” the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, said, “it may not be possible to adhere” to the planned May 1 start date for the hearings. The inquest would be the first — and probably the only...

Police fear that the murder of a former Kremlin spy may have been part of a double killing plot after a second man was taken to hospital last night with radiation poisoning. The Anti-Terror Group is examining whether the killers of Alexander Litvinenko also tried to poison Mario Scaramella, an Italian security expert who met the Russian exile on the day that he fell ill. Toxicologists confirmed yesterday that Mr Scaramella had also been contaminated by a “significant” amount of deadly polonium-210. The level leads them to suspect that it was more than he could have ingested from simple physical...

An assassin sprayed a deadly poison into Alexander Litvinenko's tea, the man who served the victim and his killer has revealed.In the first eyewitness account of the moment the former Russian spy was consigned to death, Norberto Andrade describes how, as he tried to serve drinks to Mr Litvinenko and the former KGB agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, he was deliberately distracted in order, he claims, to allow the killer to add radioactive polonium to a pot of green tea. Mr Andrade, 67, the head barman of the Pine Bar at the Millennium Hotel in London, says investigators later...

I ended the war in Iraq” is now a standard claim by President Obama. He makes the assertion in every debate and public appearance. The claim is wrong. It’s phony, and it’s made by a politician who tried relentlessly to block America’s most successful strategic operation of the war: the “surge.” On Feb. 5, 2007, and a few weeks later on Feb. 17, Sen. Obama voted against the surge. Among military analysts and historians, the surge of 20,000 additional troops into Iraq during the spring of 2007 is credited with reducing attacks on American troops and sectarian violence by 70...

Face of evil: MOHSEN RABBANI The Islamic Shiite cleric active in Latin America since the early 1990s. Responsible for the 1992 and 1994 anti-Jewish massacres in Argentina. Wanted in that country and by the Interpol for the crimes. Called for Israel to be "wiped off," in 1994. 'Chief' Islamic operator of Hezbollah - Quds activities of: Islamizaton --including 'recruting converts for Islam'-- and terror networks in Latin America, resides in Brazil. Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil - Pages 122-3Tom Diaz, Barbara Newman - Random House Digital, Inc., 2006 - History - 272 pagesThe man directly responsible for this cell-building...