Free Republic

£2.8m railway ransom By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris (Filed: 04/03/2004) A terrorist group is blackmailing the French government, threatening to explode 10 bombs it says are already planted beneath railway lines throughout France unless it receives a £2.8 million ransom. French gendarmes patrol railway lines after bomb threats The group, which calls itself AZF after a chemical factory that exploded in Toulouse in September 2001 killing 31 people, has been in contact with the interior ministry since December when it sent its first letter. As a demonstration of intent, on Feb 21 the group directed the police to a...

Barack Obama's real thinking about Israel and the Middle East continues to be an enigma. The words he chose in an address to AIPAC create a different impression than the composition of his foreign policy advisory team. Several advisors have evidenced a history of suspicion and worse toward Israel. One of his advisors in particular, Robert Malley, clearly warrants attention, as does the reasoning that led him to being chosen by Barack Obama. A little family history may be in order to understand the genesis of Robert Malley's views. Normally, one should be reluctant in exploring a person's family background...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Audiotapes purported to be from Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant aired on Arabic TV stations Tuesday, one taunting President Bush and threatening more attacks on the United States, the second criticizing France's decision to ban Islamic headscarves in schools. Portions of separate audiotapes attributed to Ayman al-Zawahri were broadcast a few hours apart on Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, competing pan-Arab satellite channels based in the Persian Gulf. Officials at both stations said they had aired only excerpts judged newsworthy. The two stations said they had received different tapes. In Al-Jazeera's tape, the voice believed to be...

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia (AP) - A chat with a Buddhist monk. An encounter with a gift horse named Montana. A peek inside a yurt, the traditional felt tent home. A word with Mongolian veterans of the war in Iraq. No outpost is too distant, no audience too small for U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, globe-trotting to bolster support for Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider fight against terrorism. The roaming Rumsfeld dropped in Saturday for an official visit with senior leaders of this once communist nation of about 2.7 million, home of the legendary horseman-warrior, Genghis Khan. Rumsfeld wound up...

The son of Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, lobbied for business contacts at gatherings of UN officials on behalf of a company in the same year as it won an oil-for-food programme deal, it has emerged. The second disclosure in a week about Kojo Annan's role with the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection Services, which secured the $4.8 million (£2.46 million) UN contract to monitor goods entering and leaving Iraq in 1998, has raised embarrassing questions for his father. The details were revealed in Cotecna company documents handed over under subpoena to US congressional scrutineers who are investigating the oil-for-food...