Free Republic

Thousands of students from Saudi Arabia are enrolling on college campuses across the United States this semester under a new educational exchange program brokered by President Bush and Saudi King Abdullah. The program will quintuple the number of Saudi students and scholars here by the academic year's end. And big, public universities from Florida to the Kansas plains are in a fierce competition for their tuition dollars. The kingdom's royal family — which is paying full scholarships for most of the 15,000 students — says the program will help stem unrest at home by schooling the country's brightest in the...

This afternoon Ahmad Batebi, was arrested in front of his home in Tehran by plain clothes secret service agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of the Islamic Republic of Iran.At 5 pm on Saturday evening, as Batebi and his wife Somaya, exited their apartment building they were accosted by several agents, forcing Batebi and Somaya back inside for interrogation and inspection of their home.Somaya Batebi said that the agents spent 3 hours inspecting their apartment and finally gathered and confiscated Batebi’s personal property, including his computer, cellular phone, CD’s, several files and family photo albums.In a phone...