Free Republic

Paris (AFP) - This week's three million copies of Charlie Hebdo, the first post-attack issue of the French satirical weekly, will defiantly feature caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, its lawyer said Monday. The special issue, to come out on Wednesday, will also be offered "in 16 languages" for readers around the world, one of its columnists, Patrick Pelloux, said. Charlie Hebdo's lawyer, Richard Malka, told French radio the upcoming publication will "obviously" lampoon Mohammed -- among other figures -- to show staff will "cede nothing" to extremists seeking to silence them. The two gunmen who slaughtered 12 people in their...

Reporting from Paris— The headquarters of a satirical French newspaper were damaged by fire early Wednesday as a controversial special edition poking fun at Islamic law in Libya and Tunisia was set to hit newsstands. A fire apparently sparked by one or two Molotov cocktails melted computers, destroyed archives, and burned the first two floors of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper's offices in Paris about 1 a.m., officials said. No injuries were reported, and authorities said they had no suspects as of Wednesday afternoon. The special issue, which the paper said was "guest edited" by the prophet Muhammad, covers the recent...

From the Sept.11 terrorist attacks in 2001 to the Iraq war and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the image of the United States as the invincible superpower has been weakening over the past few years, European analysts said.

PARIS (Reuters) - The CIA rejected as fantasy claims in a new book that it tried to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Osama bin Laden just two months before the September 11, 2001 airliner attacks against the United States. Richard Labeviere, author of "The Corridors of Terror," released on Thursday, says the CIA's Dubai station chief approached bin Laden while the al Qaeda leader was being treated for a serious kidney complaint in the United Arab Emirates. He said the meeting took place in the American Hospital in Dubai on July 12, barely eight weeks before al Qaeda militants slammed...

<p>The liberation efforts of British, American and Polish soldiers in Iraq appear to be extending beyond the natives to another suppressed group, the French media.</p> <p>The moment the diplomatic game ended at the United Nations and allied troops crossed the Kuwaiti border, France's legions of grands reporters were freed from the Orwellian group think gripping their homeland to cover a story straight. In many instances, they've done an admirable job.</p>