Free Republic

American soldiers in the Philippines will be encouraged to go on tours of museums instead of touring local brothels. Authorities fear a huge influx of GI's for exercises will encourage prostitution. They want the US Army to encourage its squaddies to visit sites of cultural and historical significance on guided tours instead. A contingent of 660 American Special Forces troops are destined for the Philippines. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the military to come up with strict guidelines concerning the rest and recreation of American military forces taking part in the war games. The Philippines Daily Inquirer says she wants ...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's army, feared for its troops and artillery massed close to South Korea and its arsenal of ballistic missiles, boasts an even more powerful weapon: songs of devotion to leader Kim Jong-il. ``These songs are more powerful than any nuclear weapon which the imperialists describe as 'all-mighty','' North Korea's communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Friday. Kim, the 59-year-old inspiration for the hymns, ``is the great brilliant commander who has led our army and people to victory with his unique policy on music, something unprecedented in history,'' the daily said in an editorial. In the communist ...

A new study shows babies born with a condition known as 'micropenis' are happier as adults if they're raised as males and not as females. Micropenis occurs when the penis fails to grow for the final two-thirds of the embryo's development. Parents can be offered the option of either male hormone therapy for their child or surgery followed by female hormone therapy. A new follow-up study of both males and female adults found that though both identified with the sex their parents chose for them, the men were happier overall. A new study shows babies born with a condition known ...

The man convicted of carrying out the Lockerbie bombing has told his appeal he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. William Taylor QC said Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi's conviction was not one that a "reasonable" jury could have reached in an ordinary trial if directed properly. Al Megrahi is currently serving a life sentence at Camp Zeist after being found guilty of mass murder last January at the end of a marathon trial at a specially-convened Scottish court. The case was heard by a panel of three judges who issued an 82-page document giving detailed reasons for ...

A Lottery winner says he's had 10 proposals of marriage since scooping £10 million. Malcolm Wilkins lives with his brother and unblocks toilets for the local council. He's not had a girlfriend for 15 years. But he says he's been inundated with offers of marriage from women after his fortune was revealed five days ago. The 41-year-old from Woodley, near Reading in Berkshire, says all the gold diggers can get lost. "I've had ten offers of marriage since revealing that I've won," he told The Mirror. "I don't know who they were from, but the phone has been ringing and ...

Line dancers are being banned from some country music events in East Anglia. Purists say the dances are not traditional enough. One local country music DJ says they make people look stupid and as if they were on army parade. The bans are reported to be the latest in a growing divide between line dancers and fans of 'pure' country music in the area. A promotional poster for an event being held at Needham Market Football Club carries a warning to potential visitors: "Sorry, No Line Dancing Allowed." Vic Stemp, who DJs at the regular events, says a number of ...

HUNDREDS of readers yesterday praised The Sun for revealing the truth about Camp X-Ray. Our front page story told how al-Qa’ida prisoners at the US camp in Cuba are NOT being mistreated in any way — a fact backed up by British diplomats. As they praised our level-headed reporting, readers blasted the pathetic bleatings of whinging left wing newspapers. We got it right when we reported that no gags, no shackles and no blindfolds are being used in the camp. The Sun’s story was even featured on the influential Drudge Report website — sparking a flood of emails from ...

IT all sounds so reasonable, so unthreatening. This is no Mugabe-style land grab. This is about freeing a downtrodden peasantry from centuries of drudgery and despotism. Or so its proponents tell us. The trouble is that "it" is very definitely not reasonable and most definitely is threatening, because "it" is Scottish land reform - the three-pronged attack on property-holding by the Labour/Lib Dem coalition that runs devolved Scotland. Hailed by the ostensibly moderate Donald Dewar as changing for ever the nature of land tenure in Scotland, the Land Reform Bill - or, as it might more accurately be called, the ...

A blind teenager robbed twice within three weeks says she's upset no-one tried to help her. Kimberley Lappin says the attacks near her Sheffield (England) home have shattered her confidence. In the second attack, she was robbed of £4 at knife-point. She says five people walked past without helping. The mugger put what she thought was a knife to her throat and demanded her money before walking off. The 17-year-old told Ananova she asked one passing middle-aged man for help. "I told him I'd just been mugged, but he just said, 'What do you want me to do about it?' ...

Online retailing giant Amazon turned its first ever net profit in the last three months of 2001, exceeding its own targets and the most optimistic predictions of analysts. The retailer had been expected to announce only a so-called "pro forma" profit, an unreliable measure that excludes all but the most basic adjustments. In fact, it made $5m net of all expenses during the quarter, compared with a loss of $545m a year earlier. The news will cheer hi-tech investors, many of whom have long believed that Amazon had a workable model for making money out of e-commerce. Over 2001 as ...

India appears ready to blame its nuclear-armed rival Pakistan for an attack on the US cultural center in Calcutta that claimed five lives. Five police were killed and 20 other people were injured when assailants armed with automatic weapons fired on the American Centre. The gunmen escaped and Indian officials said a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group had claimed responsibility. Home Minister Lal K Advani, head of security for India, said the group has ties to Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. "The immediate response that I got was that it is a group connected with the ISI," he told a ...

A Romanian claims he's immune to electric shocks and is 2,000-times more resistant to electricity than normal. The man from Buzau says he can touch wires charged with 380 volts and feel just a slight itch. Journalists from a Romanian daily paper say they've seen his trick, but independent experts haven't yet confirmed his claims. Constantin Craiu says he discovered his gift while he was fixing an electric device. "It was an accident. I was working with a colleague of mine on an electric board and at a certain point I told him to restart the electricity. He told me ...

In a recent article, I opined that antiwar activists need to educate ourselves and others on the history of empires. I suggested that we might be less given to shock and surprise at every predictable move of the US Empire if we read histories of Rome, for example. History has saddled the US state with pretending to be the heir to the American Revolution, an insurrection that was, in part, an anti-imperial rebellion. This is awkward for the US government and its minions of the mass media, as the USA is obviously a rampaging empire. When faced with such a ...

A US judge is agreeing to consider a petition which challenges the detention of the 'unlawful combatants' at Guantanamo Naval Base. It was filed at a US District Court in Los Angeles and is the first court challenge of the imprisonment of suspected al-Qaida members. The document demands the American government brings them before a court and define the charges against them. The action is backed by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and other civil rights advocates. The judge will have to decide whether a US District Court, which typically is restricted to a geographical area, has jurisdiction over prisoners ...

Female baboons' cries during sex are longer and livelier when their partner is a higher-ranking male, researchers have discovered. One possible explanation for the baboon behaviour is that the female is trying to avoid being harassed by other potential suitors while she is mating with a choice male, says lead researcher Stuart Semple of the Institute of Zoology in London. However, the reason for the spirited shouting may be purely physical. The females could simply be more stimulated by larger, dominant males, says Semple. Primatologist Alan Dixson of the San Diego Zoological Society says that socially successful males could have ...

A female teacher seduced three of her young pupils at a New Year's Eve party, a court has heard. Amy Gehring, a Canadian national living in Hampton, south west London, is alleged to have seduced a 15-year-old boy while drunk on Malibu. The 25-year-old is accused of having sex in an alleyway with a boy as she walked him home from school and also of having sex with his younger 14-year-old brother. Gehring denies five counts of indecent assault between November 19 and January 2001. The boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were all pupils at a school ...

Israeli forces have tightened their encirclement around the Ramallah headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, following the first attack on civilians inside Israel in a month. Tanks have rumbled forward to positions within 30 metres of Mr Arafat's offices, meeting with a shower of stones thrown by dozens of local Palestinian protesters. One of the demonstrators, 22-year-old Hani Odeh, was shot by Israeli troops. He died in hospital from bullet wounds to his head and neck, officials said. Earlier, Israeli jets had reduced a Palestinian security headquarters to rubble in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, killing one policeman and ...

Noam Chomsky – the mere mention of his name drives the War Party wild. The voluble rightist David Horowitz has written himself into a frothy-mouthed frenzy denouncing "Mullah" Chomsky, and the web-artists over at Frontpagemag.com have had a field day fitting poor Noam with turbans and running screaming headlines about the "Ayatollah of the Left." When my buddies the warbloggers want to really insult somebody – say, Ted Rall – they just call him a "Chomskyite," which is the equivalent of being called a Trotskyite at the height of the Moscow Purge Trials. To hear the right-wing pundits and their ...

An exhibition of designs for a new World Trade Centre has opened in New York. The New World Trade Centre: Design Proposals exhibition will run until February 17 at the city's Max Protetch Gallery. The designs include a futuristic idea from practising New York architect, Hani Rashid. More than 50 designs are on display. They include sketches, renderings, and multimedia projects created by established and emerging architects. Mr Rashid is Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University and has taught at Harvard.

Two men have been charged with involvement with the al-Qaeda terror group, as anti-terror police arrested 11 other men in Leicester. The two Algerians were arrested in Leicestershire in an earlier phase of an operation which continued on Thursday with raids on a number of addresses in the city. A 37-year-old man has been charged with directing al-Qaeda, inciting an act of terrorism overseas, membership of al-Qaeda, a proscribed organisation, and four charges relating to the financing of terrorism. A 30-year-old man has been charged with membership of al-Qaeda, four charges relating to the financing of terrorism, possession of an ...