Free Republic

Funded-by-Americans, former Soviet Union Leader Mikhail Gorbachev thumbs his nose at American authority. On Wednesday, Gorbachev will award a prize, through the international foundation he founded and operates, to a man expelled from the United States only last September. The singer once known as Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, was nabbed and expelled from the U.S. after authorities diverted his London-to-Washington flight to Maine to remove him, on suspicion of ties to terrorism. On Wednesday, Islam, who converted to Islam in the 1970s, will be handed the Man for Peace award in Rome, where he’ll be feted by Gorbachev and...

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev honored the singer once known as Cat Stevens with a peace prize on Wednesday, praising him for charity work and for standing by his convictions despite personal hardships. Yusuf Islam was awarded the "Man for Peace" prize in Rome at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. He last made headlines in September, when he turned up on Washington's no-fly list for having suspected ties to terrorists -- a claim he has strongly denied. The "Peace Train" singer, who largely gave up music after converting to Islam in the late 1970s, mused...