Free Republic

Baghdad -- Apparently in response to a blanket e-mail campaign by the U.S. military urging dissent and defections, the Iraqi government shut down -- at least temporarily -- all Internet access and the country's two e-mail servers. Although no official explanation was given, e-mail service stopped midafternoon on Friday. Some service was resumed Saturday morning. CNN reported Friday that the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies were sending e-mails from disguised sources encouraging dissent and military defections. Messages also reportedly warned against carrying out any order from President Saddam Hussein to use chemical or germ weapons against U.S. or allied...

Here are sequence photos of the mass defection last week by freedom-seeking North Koreans in Beijing at the Spanish Embassy. They stormed the gates and entered. A standoff pursued. China's intention was to return the defectors to their ally, Communist North Korea which would be tantamount to certain torture and execution. The hunkered-down defectors' unified reply from within the Spanish Embassy: "Better Dead Than Red!" (They threatened suicide if they could not be granted onward passage to South Korea and freedom.) China has since expelled the group to The Philippines, and finally they arrived in South Korea yesterday as very...