Free Republic

HUE, Vietnam (AFP) - A dissident Roman Catholic priest in Vietnam was jailed for eight years Friday, yelling defiance to the last as the court convicted him of spreading propaganda against the communist state. Pro-democracy activist Father Nguyen Van Ly, 60, was found guilty and sentenced together with four other advocates of multi-party democracy in a swift, half-day trial in the central city of Hue. The priest -- who has been jailed three times since the 1970s for a total of 14 years -- was dragged into the courtroom in handcuffs and shouted angrily as a police officer hastily covered...

SOME old soldiers don’t even fade away. They keep on fighting, trapped in their own past as the world around them changes, ghosts of a long-dead war. “I have the duty to liberate my country!” shouted Ly Tong, wearing bright yellow prison pajamas, through a double screen of wire mesh at Bangkok’s central jail. “The only thing that matters is, the Communists still control my country,” he shouted over the hubbub in the caged visiting area recently. “I’m a pilot. This is what I can do.” His country is Vietnam and the Communists have controlled it since 1975, when they...

[img]http://vietnamhonnuoc.tripod.com/LyTong.jpg[/img] BANGKOK: Some old soldiers do not even fade away. They keep on fighting, trapped in their own past as the world around them changes, ghosts of a long- dead war. "I have the duty to liberate my country!" said Ly Tong, wearing bright yellow prison pajamas, through a double screen of wire mesh at Bangkok's central prison. "The only thing that matters is, the Communists still control my country. I'm a pilot. This is what I can do." His country is Vietnam, and the Communists have controlled it since 1975, when they defeated the South Vietnamese Army that Tong...

<p>FRANKFORT, Ky. — Democrat Ben Chandler brought his fund-raising almost to par with Republican Ernie Fletcher's last month, but Fletcher has almost $1 million more in the bank as the candidates for governor prepare to spend on television ads.</p> <p>Both candidates raised more than $1 million last month, a prime competitive month for fund raising. Chandler, the state attorney general, was playing catch-up, while Fletcher, the 6th District congressman, could spend all his time in Kentucky because Congress was in recess.</p>