Free Republic

In the bookstore I run, I used to carry lectures on CD by Anwar al-Awlaki. That's the pre-radical al-Awlaki, who recorded lectures about prophets and the hereafter and Islam in general. Now, that al-Awlaki is gone and has been replaced by a terrorist who publicly justifies killing American civilians. ...I was most worried about what the public, the authorities, and other Muslims would think. On the other hand, by removing the CDs I was censoring, and censorship is, generally speaking, a bad thing. I asked a retired bookseller friend what she thought... She recalled that when her store was open...

Horrifying new details of how Daniel Pearl, the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter, met his death have emerged from the interrogation of new suspects by Pakistani police. Pearl, who was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002, knew for several hours that he was about to be killed, but resisted repeated attempts to sedate him, police now believe. He was fully aware of what was happening when the Arab extremists who took control during his final days cut his throat, according to information gleaned from Pakistani militants now in police custody. Shocking video film of Pearl's murder, seen around the world...

Political bickering, poor governance and economic woes - with foreign debt of $53.7b - weigh down the country THERE'S much about Beirut that recalls Singapore: the greenery, the lively, urban lifestyle, good schools and eating places, a colourful port, low crime. But look again. One in four passers-by is not Lebanese, but Syrian - about a million of them in a nation of barely four million native Lebanese. Some 30,000 Syrian troops man roadblocks. Other Syrians work as labourers in the booming construction business. Some beg. And some - installed in Lebanon's intelligence service - help monitor the movements of...