Free Republic

Sunflower seeds, which for many centuries were so popular among villagers in Russia being traditionally cracked in village parties with songs accompanied by accordion, suddenly have turned out to be harmful. City authorities of Ryazan have even forbidden the selling ofsunflower seeds in the streets of the city. At the moment, epidemic specialists together with law-enforcement bodies carry out everyday raids searching for old women selling sunflower seeds. According to sanitary inspector Zhanna Yushina, namely through sunflower seeds a different kind of infection is being spread that is dangerous for the citizens’ health. Moreover, doctors seriously state the old women ...

KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s ruling Taliban on Monday accused the United States of bombing a hospital and using chemical weapons as Britain signaled it might soon send in troops. The Afghan capital, Kabul, spent its first bomb-free night of the two-week U.S.-led military campaign to capture Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), but the Taliban said at least 50 patients were killed when bombs hit the hospital in the eastern city of Herat. ``During last night's raids on the 100-bed Herat hospital between 50 to 70 people were killed,'' information ministry official Abdul Hanan Himat ...

For Afghan Fighters, a Tangled Web of Loyalties KHALOZAI, Afghanistan, Sept. 24 -- The commander of the rebel post strode into his communications center after a night of shelling, in this case an 8-by-8-foot hovel with an assault rifle hanging from the mud wall and a Japanese two-way radio hooked up to a Japanese car battery.

A FORMER head of Pakistan’s powerful Intelligence agency said yesterday that the Pakistan Army would rise up and revolt together with civilians if the Government supported attacks on Afghanistan, in the loudest sign so far of the pressures on President Musharraf. General Hamid Gul, the former head of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), who was in charge of the covert operation in Afghanistan but is now one of the most vocal critics of his former CIA allies, has turned on General Musharraf for taking sides against the Taleban. “The decision to support America under pressure is one of the military ...

When Yuri Kirilchenko's boss saw the first jetliner explode into a World Trade Center tower, he told the Russian radio reporter to get down there, and fast. Kirilchenko, who works for the New York City bureau of ITAR-Tass -- the quasi-state information agency of Russia -- ran out of his Rockefeller Plaza office, cell phone in hand.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) Tuesday reaffirmed his commitment to a cease-fire and said he had ordered his security forces not to fire on Israeli troops even in self-defense. ``This morning, I again instructed all leaders of the security forces to work intensively on a cease-fire... and to abstain even in self-defense in response to Israeli attacks,'' Arafat told reporters in Palestinian-ruled Gaza. Arafat said Monday in a Jewish New Year's message to the Israeli people that he had ordered Palestinian forces to abide by a cease-fire he had declared in June. But this ...

Introducing Auction for America At the request of the State of New York, Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, eBay is pleased to announce Auction for America. Auction for America is a joint effort between eBay, the eBay community and eBay partners. eBay will waive all listing and final value fees, by crediting the seller for all Auction for America listings. Billpoint – with the support of Visa®, MasterCard® and the Discover Card® - will waive all fees including standard seller credit card processing fees. To help ensure the success of this effort, eBay and its ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Twenty British police officers have been injured in a violent riot sparked by racial tension in a northwest English town, police said on Sunday. Saturday night fights between rival white and Asian groups in Oldham, near Manchester quickly escalated into a violent standoff of up to 500 youths throwing stones and petrol bombs at charging riot police after cars were set on fire, pubs firebombed and gunshots reported. ``The latest news is we have 200 Asian youths surrounded by police vehicles with petrol bombs being thrown at the police vehicles,'' a spokeswoman for the Greater Manchester police ...

SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) travels to troubled postwar Kosovo and Bosnia on Friday after promising Washington's support for Macedonia, the latest country in the region to be torn by ethnic conflict. Powell joined a meeting of Balkan foreign ministers in the Macedonian capital on Thursday designed to show support for the former Yugoslav republic in its efforts to defuse a separatist rebellion by ethnic Albanian guerrillas. ``It is my first visit to the region and I gave to all of my colleagues a solid expression of support from President Bush (news ...

The ethnic Albanian rebels fighting in the hills of Macedonia are the paramilitary wing of an Albanian Mafia exporting drugs and trafficking humans to Europe and even further. That's according to research by a leading criminologist in France, Xavier Raufer. He says the home base of Albanian refugees from the Kosovo conflict is in these areas. This diaspora has secured a safe power base for the mafia to efficiently carry out its smuggling and human trafficking. Xavier Raufer is the author of a book entitled 'The Albanian Mafia". In his view, there's no way to distinguish Albanian guerrillas from local ...

TETOVO, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian troops shelled guerrilla positions in the mountains of northwest Macedonia on Saturday, the fourth day of a conflict that threatens to ignite a new Balkan war. The empty streets of Tetovo echoed to mortar and shell blasts from the fighting on wooded slopes only one to two km (a mile) from the center of the city. Plumes of smoke rose from the mountainsides. Ethnic Albanian guerrillas, clinging to their positions, answered the bombardment with machinegun and rifle fire. The strategy of the rebel force is seen by its many critics as one of fomenting war ...

MACEDONIA: HELP NEEDED URGENTLY BEFORE THE BALKANS FLARES UP IN DESPERATE NEW SITUATION As this article goes to press, the situation in northern Macedonia takes on proportions which the world’s press has not yet fully understood: a calamity is near unless something drastic is done… and done fast. The Albanian extremists are fighting on three fronts in northern and western Macedonia, they are installed in the hills around Tetovo , 20 kilometres from Skopje, the capital, where there are between 150,000 and 200,000 residents. The ex-Minister of Internal Affairs in Macedonia stated that groups of Albanians are organising themselves in ...

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Germany's foreign minister visits Macedonia on Friday to offer support to its multi-ethnic government as the West begins to voice fears that insurgency by ethnic Albanian guerrillas could herald a new Bosnia or Kosovo. Troops battled the rebels with mortars and machineguns for a second day on Thursday on the outskirts of Tetovo, Macedonia's second city and the place where its one-third Albanian minority are concentrated. Condemnation of the guerrillas poured in from all corners of the international community -- but disagreements about how to tackle the problem showed that even the experience of a decade of ...

Albanian separatists in the South Serbia signed an agreement to cease fire, which may put an end to the clashes with the governmental troops. Ethnic Albanians signed the agreement in their base not far from Kosovo in the presence of representatives of NATO. Serb party has signed the agreement as well. NATO representative in Balkans greeted the cease-fire as a considerable step forward, which will help to both parties to consolidate confidence in each other. The agreement is temporary. It provides for billeting of Serb army and police forces in the small sector of the buffer zone, serving as a ...

The Yugoslav army is expected to enter so-called “buffer zone” later today – a 5km strip on the border with Kosovo. Earlier, law and order have been kept there by international peacekeepers and Yugoslav militiamen. As a result, the zone has turned into a base of Albanian militants who would carry out raids upon Serbia and Macedonia. The entrenched separatists are estimated to have up to 1m guns on their hands. Armoured vehicles and artillery is expected to go into the zone. The militants have already commented on this information saying they will fight to the end. Flocks of refugees ...

MERDARE, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - NATO (news - web sites), ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serbian officials all signed agreements on Monday aimed at bringing peace to Serbia's Presevo Valley but question marks hung over the viability of the deals. The rebels signed a cease-fire accord with Belgrade but said it would be valid only for a week. They also cautioned they could not guarantee the safety of Serb forces set to enter part of a buffer zone in the volatile region bordering Kosovo. Belgrade officials and NATO sealed a deal governing the deployment of Yugoslav Army and Serbian police units in ...

Belgrade welcomes NATO decision to allow Yugoslav forces access to a troubled section of the Kosovo buffer zone By Miroslav Filipovic in Belgrade (BCR No. 225, 9-March-01) The Serbian government has hailed as a victory NATO's decision this week to allow Yugoslav forces back into a small section of the security zone set up around Kosovo after the 1999 conflict. But sources close to the Yugoslav army say they have serious reservations about the operation. A NATO official said Yugoslav troops are to be allowed to re-enter a five-kilometre (three- mile) wide section of the buffer zone, but only along ...

KONCUL, Yugoslavia — Albanian civilians are being targeted by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian guerrillas, who are adopting increasingly ruthless tactics to expand their influence into Serbia proper and Macedonia. A small group of Western reporters also came under fire Saturday during a visit to Oslare, a village near the Kosovo-Serbian border surrounded by fields of wheat and red peppers, which had been shelled that morning from rebel positions in wooded hills nearby. As the reporters approached an Albanian farmhouse on the outskirts of the village, three mortar shells exploded within about 10 yards of them, sending them scrambling behind a ...

Thursday, December 7 3:27 AM SGT Dutch "Liberator" fighting for ethnic Albanian rebels against Serbs CAR, Yugoslavia, Dec 6 (AFP) - He goes by the Albanian name of Qlirim, meaning "Liberator", but behind the pseudonym is a 39-year-old Dutchman who as a sniper has joined the ranks of ethnic Albanian guerrillas operating in the southern Serbian near the administrative border with Kosovo. According to commander Plaku of the self-proclaimed Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB), Qlirim is the only foreigner serving with the group. "Its great luck for us to have Qlirim, he has a great deal of ...

Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895? Probably Not...Take a Look: This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal. 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895 Examination Graduation Questions of Saline County, Kansas April 13, 1895 J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent. Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.) Reading and Penmanship - The Examination will be oral and the ...