Free Republic

Billy Nungesser, president of New Orleans’ Plaquemines Parish, sensed that a chart showing 140 oil skimmers at work -- a chart given to him by BP and the Coast Guard -- was “somewhat inaccurate.” So, Nungesser asked to fly over the spill to verify the number. The flyover was cancelled three times before those officials admitted that just 31 of the 140 skimmers were actually deployed. The incident is detailed in a report released Thursday by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Republicans say the report provides evidence that the Obama administration misrepresented the assets devoted to...

Independent experts have pinpointed what they believe to be the Euphrates River site in Syria that was bombed by Israel last month, and satellite imagery of the area shows buildings under construction roughly similar in design to a North Korean reactor capable of producing nuclear material for one bomb a year, the experts say. Photographs of the site taken before the secret Sept. 6 airstrike depict an isolated compound that includes a tall, boxy structure similar to the type of building used to house a gas-graphite reactor. They also show what could have been a pumping station used to supply...

The Greek tourism minister is to hold emergency talks on the holiday island of Zakynthos on Monday amid outrage at the behaviour of British tourists. Photographs in the Greek and UK press have shown young drunken Britons having sex in bars and other public places. The island's MP, Dimitrios Varvarigos. has called for tourists committing acts of gross indecency to be put on trial and jailed for up to three years. Those who have gone home should be sent back to Greece for trial, he says. Bad reputation The photos splashed across papers last week were taken in the resort...