Free Republic 3rd Qtr 2025 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $2,910
3%  
Woo hoo!! 3rd Qtr 2025 FReepathon is now underway!!

Keyword: ianaikman

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Central Asia's tallest Lenin statue taken down

    06/08/2025 6:09:38 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 20 replies
    BBC ^ | 06/08/2025 | Danny Aeberhard , Ian Aikman
    Kyrgyzstan has taken down a huge statue of the revolutionary Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, which was thought to be the tallest in Central Asia. First erected when Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union, the 23m-tall monument towered over the city of Osh for 50 years before it was quietly removed this week. Photos emerged on Saturday showing the communist revolutionary - who features prominently in Soviet iconography - lying on his back on the ground, having been lowered by crane. A statement from City Hall in Osh - the landlocked nation's second-largest city after the capital, Bishkek - said...
  • Body of Thai hostage recovered from Gaza, Israel says

    06/07/2025 8:00:05 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 7 replies
    bbc ^ | 06/07/2025 | Barbara Plett Usher , Ian Aikman
    Israel has retrieved the body of a Thai national taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack in October 2023, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz says. He said the body of Nattapong Pinta was retrieved during a special operation in the Rafah area of southern Gaza on Friday. The 35-year-old was working as an agricultural labourer in southern Israel when he was kidnapped. Mr Nattapong is likely to have been killed during his first months of captivity, an Israeli military official said. Before the operation, it was not known whether he was dead or alive. It comes after the Israeli army recovered...