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<p>Naples — Photographs that depict Italian sunbathers relaxing at the beach despite the nearby presence of the bodies of two Gypsy girls who had drowned, have raised questions about Italian attitudes toward the Roma minority, The U.K. Guardian reported.</p> <p>The incident took place outside of Naples on Saturday. At about 1 p.m., four Gypsy teens, who had reportedly been begging beachgoers, decided to go into the water, despite apparently not being able to swim. The girls were hit by an unusually large wave, resulting in an attempted rescue by life-savers from a nearby beach. Two of the girls were saved. The other two, aged 14 and 16, could not be reached in time, The Guardian reported.</p>

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2007 – A Maryland group is using its favorite game to positively affect combat-wounded veterans who served in Afghanistan or Iraq. Members of the Salute Military Golf Association believe the rehabilitative benefits of golf can improve the mental and physical condition of wounded servicemembers returning from combat, Jim Estes, the group’s founder, said on the organization’s Web site. “The SMGA believes that every (servicemember) matters and should be given the opportunity to learn and improve his or her golf knowledge and skill,” he said. “The SMGA will provide a venue and mentoring to this end.” Earlier...

Bodies dragged through Mogadishu Ethiopian reinforcements were sent into the battle zone Somali insurgents have dragged the bodies of two dead Ethiopian soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu after a day of heavy battles. Residents say hundreds of people trailed after them, pelting the corpses with stones, chanting "God is Great". Similar scenes were witnessed after Somali militiamen shot down two US Black Hawk helicopters in 1993. Thousands of Somalis have been killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced, by renewed fighting in the capital. The BBC's Mohamed Olad Hassan says clashes in the Huriwa neighbourhood in north-eastern Mogadishu were sparked...

Controversy has followed an exhibit of preserved, plasticized human bodies around the world. Now, a group of Ohio State University students and faculty members is raising questions about "Bodies … The Exhibition" during its six-month stay in Columbus. Like others, the OSU group is challenging whether the bodies are those of people who died of natural causes, as the exhibit's owners insist, or whether they are those of political prisoners who died in Chinese prisons. Premier Exhibitions, the Atlanta company that brought an exhibit of Titanic artifacts to COSI Columbus in 2005, says it's under suspicion because the bodies came...

AUSTIN -- Authorities found the bodies of four people in a home northwest of Austin Sunday evening, a sheriff's spokesman said. Travis County Sheriff's spokesman Roger Wade said the cause of death had not been determined but was believed to be "homicide times four."

BAGHDAD - Police in Ramadi uncovered 17 decomposing corpses buried beneath two schoolyards in a district that until recently was under the control of al-Qaida fighters. At least 85 people were killed or found dead across the country Tuesday. The adult bodies were discovered in the Anbar provincial capital after students and teachers returned to the schools a week ago and noticed an increasingly putrid odor and stray dogs digging in the area, Police Maj. Laith al-Dulaimi said. He said one body had not yet been recovered from a separate burial site behind one of the schools because authorities feared...

MEXICO CITY - Police found 17 bodies stuffed in cars or dumped on streets in garbage bags across Mexico on Monday in the latest wave of violence apparently triggered by warring drug gangs. In the resort city of Cancun, the bodies of three men and two women were found in an SUV with their heads covered in tape and their hands bound behind their backs, Quintana Roo state police said. Police spokesman Antonio Coral said he could not immediately confirm the cause of death. Mexico City police found more three bodies in an SUV parked in a middle-class neighborhood in...

A human kidney stolen from an exhibit of preserved bodies and organs was recovered after two months, thanks to an anonymous tip, police said.Police interviewed and released a 26-year-old Tacoma man about the case and were waiting for prosecutors to decide whether to bring charges, Officer Jeffery R. Kappel said. Police declined to say why the kidney was taken or where it had been kept. (snip)The kidney was part of an interactive area where visitors can touch some body parts.

FORT HUACHUCA — The bodies of an elderly couple were found Friday afternoon in a remote area of Huachuca Canyon on this Southern Arizona Army post. A hiker found the bodies near a vehicle, said Maj. Matt Garner, the fort’s spokesman. While no foul play is suspected, an investigation by the FBI and the Army’s Criminal Investigation Detachment on the fort is continuing, the major said. The couple had no apparent military ties, Garner said. However, the normal process for the members of the public without a military vehicle sticker is to access the fort by stopping at one of...

Sixty bodies have been found scattered across the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police there have said. A car bomb has also exploded near a Sunni mosque in a southern district of the city, killing 11 people. The bomb attack comes a day after 10 people were killed in a car bombing at a market in the capital. It also coincides with the release of new figures indicating that an estimated 300,000 Iraqis have fled their homes due to sectarian violence. Attacks have increased between Iraq's majority Shia Muslims and the Sunni minority, who dominated the country until the fall of Saddam...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2006 – Iraqi national police detained eight suspected terrorists and seized a weapons cache in western Baghdad Sept. 26, U.S. military officials reported. Policemen from 3rd Battalion, 5th Brigade, 2nd National Police Division, were attacked by terrorists using small-arms fire from the Al Kur Mosque and requested assistance from Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers from 5th Battalion, 1st Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, and 8th Squadron, 10th Calvary Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. The soldiers set up a cordon while the Iraqi police entered the mosque. Inside the mosque, the police discovered two hostages and...

Two Russian immigrants looking to amass $50 million concocted a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme that ended with the bodies of five people dumped in a Northern California reservoir, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday. The trial of Iouri Mikhel and Jurijus Kadamovas opened with Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan DeWitt telling jurors the two men oversaw a crew who kidnapped and later killed the victims regardless of whether ransoms were paid. "No matter how much they (victims) cooperated or how much money was paid for their release, they were killed," DeWitt said. "The defendants did not want to leave witnesses alive." Mikhel, 41, and...

A warehouse in downtown New Orleans has become the focus of a heated post-Katrina debate. In the warehouse, which is in sight of the Superdome, are more than 100 caskets. Those caskets contain the bodies of Katrina victims who were either never identified or never claimed by their families. The state had planned to bury the victims at a special site 60 miles away but Mayor Ray Nagin nixed the idea. Nagin wants the bodies buried in New Orleans. Problem is it could take at least a year to raise the million dollars needed to build a cemetery and memorial....

Forensic experts have excavated over 1,000 bodies from a mass grave in the village of Kamenica in eastern Bosnia.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2006 – The bodies of two soldiers missing after an Aug. 8 helicopter crash in Iraq’s Anbar province have been recovered, U.S. officials announced today. Both soldiers died as a result of the accident. “Our thoughts are with the families of the soldiers,” Marine spokesman Maj. Riccoh Player said. The U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the 82nd Aviation Ambulance Company, in direct support of 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, went down with six servicemembers on board during an area familiarization flight. The remaining four servicemembers, two Army and two Navy, are in stable condition. Aircraft recovery efforts...

Bog bodies found were society's elite 19:45pm 20th June 2006 Research into Iron Age bog bodies discovered in the midlands of Ireland has revealed they were elite members of society who may have met violent deaths as part of kingship rituals. As the bodies discovered in 2003 went on display at the National Museum of Ireland, Eamonn Kelly, the keeper of Irish antiquities, said they were placed along significant boundaries of ancient kingdoms linking them to sovereignty and kingship rituals during the Iron Age. "The bodies fit in, in that they are also offerings, they are offerings to the territorial...

A senior Iraqi military official said Tuesday the bodies of two missing U.S. soldiers have been found near the town where they went missing, but the U.S. military said it could not confirm the report. Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed said the bodies were found on a street near a power plant in the town of Youssifiyah, just south of Baghdad. U.S. Maj. Doug Powell said he could not confirm the report. The two men went missing Friday after an attack that killed one of their comrades. Earlier Tuesday, a parked minivan exploded in a busy outdoor market in a Baghdad...

Baghdad morgue struggles to cope with flow of bodies By Oliver Poole in Baghdad (Filed: 05/05/2006) The month after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra was the bloodiest in Baghdad's modern history, with 1,294 bodies arriving at the city's morgue. Ninety per cent had been shot, said the facility's deputy director, Dr Qaiss Hassan, as official figures were released of the carnage that came after the destruction of the revered Shia holy site on Feb 22. A coffin arrives at the morgue There was a wave of tit-for-tat sectarian killings as Shia mobs rampaged through the Iraqi capital,...

Eight bodies found at Canada farm The bodies of eight men have been found in several vehicles in woodland on a farm in Canada, police say. The grim discovery was made by a farmer on his land in Elgin County, Ontario. Police have launched a murder hunt and say it is possible more bodies will be found. They say all the men were white but have given few other details. "We are not in a position to release any information about the persons, the motive or the cause of death," said Ontario Police Sergeant Dave Rektor. The farm is near...

WASHINGTON, April 2, 2006 – Military officials in Iraq today confirmed the death of two helicopter pilots from Multinational Division Baghdad whose AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter crashed southwest of Baghdad yesterday, and provided details on recent operations. The Apache crew's remains were recovered following aircraft recovery operations at the crash site, officials said. The crew was conducting a combat air patrol when the helicopter went down "due to possible hostile fire" west of Yousifiyah, officials reported. The names of the soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. In other news, Iraqi and U.S. soldiers killed four terrorists,...

Bodies of 23 Found in Baghdad Wednesday, March 08, 2006 BAGHDAD, — At least 23 bodies — many of them hanged — were found dumped in parts of Baghdad, while a string of explosions killed at least four people in the Iraqi capital, police said Wednesday. An American military patrol investigating a report of a suspicious vehicle found 18 bodies late Tuesday in an abandoned minibus in west Baghdad, Iraqi police and U.S. forces said. The victims — all men — had been handcuffed, blindfolded and either hanged or shot to death, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. At least two...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2006 – Coalition forces found dead bodies, killed several insurgents and detained one other, and discovered numerous weapons caches throughout Iraq this week, U.S. military officials in Iraq reported today. Coalition forces found seven murdered bodies at the Rustimiyah sewage plant today. All the bodies showed evidence of torture, officials said. The bodies were taken to the local police station. Officials provided no other details. While conducting an air-insertion mission in Baghdad today, Task Force Ironhorse soldiers killed several insurgents, detained one and discovered a significant weapons cache. Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, received small-arms...

Iron Age 'bog bodies' unveiled Bog bodies have been found throughout north-west Europe Archaeologists have unveiled two Iron Age "bog bodies" which were found in the Republic of Ireland. The bodies, which are both male and have been dated to more than 2,000 years ago, probably belong to the victims of a ritual sacrifice. In common with other bog bodies, they show signs of having been tortured before their deaths. Details of the finds are outlined in a BBC Timewatch documentary to be screened on 20 January. "My belief is that these burials are offerings to the gods of fertility...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2005 – The decision by U.S. soldiers to burn the bodies of two enemy Afghan fighters was an act of poor judgment, but not a violation of the laws of war, U.S. officials have determined. Officials also determined that using the act to incite Taliban fighters by announcing it over psychological operations loudspeakers was a separate act. In all, four soldiers have received administrative punishment in the two incidents. "Based on the criminal investigation, there was no evidence to substantiate the allegation of desecration or any violation of the Law of War," according to an executive summary...

La. Gov. Blamed for Slow Removal of Bodies By LARA JAKES JORDAN Associated Press Writer Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, left, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, background center, and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco leave a meeting where they addressed the immediate, post-hurricane priorities for the New Orleans hospitality industry, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2005, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Cheryl Gerber) WASHINGTON — Bodies of people killed by Hurricane Katrina went uncollected for more than a week in the New Orleans area as the federal government waited for Louisiana's governor to decide what to do with them, according to memos released Thursday...

So if you're a soldier, fighting a battle against the 2nd tier perpetrators of 9/11, and you've got a couple of dead Taliban on your hands, what do you do? Spend hours digging 6-foot deep graves with your E-tool? I don't think so. They burned the bodies. And the headline? Stench Prompted U.S. Troops to Burn Corpses The desecration of Taliban dead prompts outrage in Afghanistan Yes, those Afghans are angry, because bodies are only to be burned in hell, they say. Yes, those Afghans are angry, because the evil Americans have desecrated the dead. They're angry, and you know...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US soldiers burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters in Afghanistan because villagers had not claimed them a day after they were killed and the bodies "were bloated and they stank," a US magazine reported, citing soldiers who were present at the incident. Australian television reported on Wednesday that soldiers had burned the bodies of two suspected Taliban militants and afterwards used the incident to insult villagers and try to provoke them into attacking US-led coalition troops. The incident has prompted a US military investigation into the alleged desecration of the corpses, which is in violation of...

It’s Geneva Conventions Time ! CNN – and any newsreader who can find a microphone and camera – is about to have a cow ! Oooh ! Ooooh !! Oooooh !!! (Newsreader looks shocked ) The Geneva Conventions have been violated (newsreader looks stern) by American Troops - (newsreader frowns) In Afghanistan !!! (Newsreader bites lip,pretends to look reluctant.) Let’s go to the video ! (Studio camera catches newsreader’s triumphant smile just before tape begins.) Let’s see what all the fuss – and newsroom joy – is about , okay ? On October 1st, troops who were part of a...

It’s Geneva Conventions Time ! CNN – and any newsreader who can find a microphone and camera – is about to have a cow ! Oooh ! Ooooh !! Oooooh !!! (Newsreader looks shocked ) The Geneva Conventions have been violated (newsreader looks stern) by American Troops - (newsreader frowns) In Afghanistan !!! (Newsreader bites lip,pretends to look reluctant.) Let’s go to the video ! (Studio camera catches newsreader’s triumphant smile just before tape begins.) Let’s see what all the fuss – and newsroom joy – is about , okay ? On October 1st, troops who were part of a...

SYDNEY, Australia - The U.S. military said Wednesday it was investigating a report carried on an Australian television network that claimed American soldiers in Afghanistan burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters and then used the action to taunt other Islamic militants. The SBS television network broadcast video footage that purportedly showed U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of the suspected Taliban fighters in the hills outside the southern village of Gonbaz, near the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. The network said the footage was taken by a freelance journalist, Stephen Dupont, who told The Associated Press he was embedded with...

Forty-five bodies have been found at a hospital that was evacuated more than a week ago after it was surrounded by floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, a state health official said Monday. http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/12/D8CISTF81.html

THE US military is to bar journalists and photographers from documenting the recovery of bodies left on the streets of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina. Lieutenant-General Russel Honore, the commander of the relief operation, said on Friday that while the military had allowed reporters covering the catastrophe free rein, it was now slamming the door shut out of respect for the possibly thousands of victims and their families. "We've had total access to everything we've done — the good, the bad and the ugly — but that operation (the recovery of corpses) will be conducted with dignity and respect for...

NEW ORLEANS - (KRT) - Ghastly new evidence of Hurricane Katrina's horror emerged Monday night when a sheriff reported the recovery of 22 bodies lashed together around a pole - a desperate, futile attempt to survive the storm. Sheriff Jack Stephens of St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans, said rescuers found the bodies tied with rope and wrapped around a pole in the tiny village of Violet along the eastern bank of the Mississippi River. The bodies were found soon after the storm in a flooded area of the village but still haven't been identified, he said. He...

THE bodies of 30 people, including two women, were discovered in a mass grave south of Baghdad today, and police have made several arrests in connection with the grisly find, security sources said. "A grave containing 30 mutilated bodies, of which two were women, was discovered at Awerij," about 20 km south of the Iraqi capital, said police lieutenant Muthanna al-Shumari. Shumari said the grave, located in Babylon province whose capital is Hilla, dated back around around six months. Iraqi forces conducted house searches in the region and arrested 13 suspects, including a Sudanese and an Egyptian, Shumari said, adding...

GLOBAL: UN deals with sexual abuse allegations against peacekeepers11 May 2005 17:56:16 GMT Source: IRIN JOHANNESBURG, 11 May (IRIN) - The United Nations has requested funds for hiring additional staff to beef up preventative measures aimed at tackling allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by some UN peacekeepers. In a report to the General Assembly this week, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that the number of claims of sexual abuse and exploitation lodged against UN peacekeepers last year was more than double the number reported in 2003. In March the UN released a report by Annan's special adviser on the issue,...

ZION, Ill. May 9, 2005 — The bodies of two young girls were found in a wooded area Monday morning, not long after two 8-year-olds were reported missing, authorities said. The girls were discovered by a resident walking through the area near Beulah Park in this town north of Chicago, Deputy Chief Clyde Watkins said. A bike path and a ravine run through the area. "We had a complaint of two missing eight-year-olds earlier," Watkins said. But he said authorities had not confirmed whether the dead children were the ones who had been reported missing. He said he couldn't comment...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi authorities on Saturday disputed reports that 15 headless bodies were found south of Baghdad earlier in the week. But Iraqi Defense Ministry and army officials who were the original sources for the reports insisted - when contacted again on Saturday - that the decapitated bodies had, in fact, been found. The Government Communications Directorate's Media Relations office said in an English-language announcement that "official sources in the ministries of Defense, Interior and Health deny the news that some of mass media reported regarding finding 15 bodies beheaded in Latifiya." An official in the Media Relations...

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Labourers digging on a construction site in northern Iraq uncovered human skulls and bones on Tuesday, which interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said were part of a mass grave believed to contain some 500 bodies. Allawi told Iraq's National Council in Baghdad that the grave was found near the city of Sulaimaniya in the autonomous Kurdish region in the northeast of the country, where Saddam Hussein's forces carried out atrocities in the late 1980s. "Today a mass grave was discovered in the city of Sulaimaniya, with the initial number of 500 martyrs," he said. Allawi...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

BESLAN, Russia - Soldiers shepherded children, many of them wounded and only in their underwear, away from a school where militants had taken hundreds of people hostage in southern Russia, as explosions and gunfire were heard from the area. The scene was chaotic and it wasn't clear what led to the latest gunfire or if a major assault underway to free the hundreds of hostages from the building. Armed soldiers were seen rushing toward the school, which was cordoned off and out of sight. The ITAR-Tass news agency said Russian troops had entered the school and were firing on militants...

Bloody end to Russia school siege Live BBC coverage Russian troops have stormed the school in North Ossetia where hundreds of children and adults have been held hostage since Wednesday. Witnesses report seeing dozens of bodies in the school gym, after hearing heavy gunfire and loud explosions throughout the morning. Ambulances rushed scores of casualties to nearby hospitals. Unconfirmed reports say that at least 10 people have been killed and up to 200 wounded. Several of the hostage takers are also reported to have died in exchanges of fire with troops as they tried to escape, Reuters reports. Some are...

BESLAN, Russia, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Up to 100 bodies were seen lying in the Russian school gymnasium after troops stormed the building to end a two-day siege, a British ITV News reporter said on Friday. Julian Manyon of ITV news said his cameraman got into the gym briefly and saw up to a hundred bodies. Manyon said, "There were a large number of corpses lying on the smouldering floor". He said it appeared explosive charges laid by the attackers had been detonated.

So where is Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army now? After taking serious losses against American and Iraqi forces and cynically hiding behind Shiite Islam’s most holy shrine in Najaf, these cowards have melted back into Iraqi society. Or have they? There are many questions to be answered regarding al-Sadr’s future, as he most certainly will oppose the growth of democracy in Iraq. Will al-Sadr and his thugs be held accountable for the violent crimes they committed in Najaf? During their reign of terror, they apparently held a kangaroo court. After Iraq’s top Shiite, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, pressured al-Sadr to...

Medici Project Turns Up Mystery Bodies By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery NewsGrand Duke Cosimo I July 21, 2004 — The project to exhume the remains of several members of the Medicis, the family that dominated the Florentine Renaissance, has taken a new turn this month as researchers discovered a secret crypt containing the mysterious bodies of seven children and an adult. The vaulted chamber was found under a stone floor behind the main altar of the Medici Chapels at Michelangelo's church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The researchers stumbled across it while searching for the final resting place of the last...

Wisconsin Police Identify Bodies Found on Lake Michigan Shore Melissa Trujillo/Associated Press Jun 20, 2004 PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Wis. (AP) - A father and two sons missing from Chicago for more than a month were identified Sunday as the bodies that washed ashore on Lake Michigan bound together by nylon rope and tied to bags filled with sand. "We consider these deaths to be very suspicious and this case is being handled by law enforcement as a homicide," said Pleasant Prairie Police Chief Brian J. Wagner. The victims were identified as Kevin L. Amde, 45; Davinci Amde, 6; and Tesla E....

Former Chief Rabbi Meir Lau said Wednesday that Judaism requires a maximum effort be made to return the body parts of fallen soldiers for burial in Israel. "Up to this day there is still a metal gate at the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and on the gate is not ingrained 'work sets you free' as it is in Auschwitz, but 'each to his fate'. This was the Nazis slogan. We have the opposite slogan: 'All Israel are responsible for one another.' "We are responsible for our sons, our daughters, and our brothers. There is no question here of...

REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN CONTRACTORS MUTILATED IN IRAQ

Police say situation could have been much worse Springfield,MO.Police continue ot investigate a shoot out that put two men in a local hospital--one in critical condition. Police say a fight over a woman Saturday morning in another part of Springfield led two men to this home in the 700 block of West Edgewood where they burst inside and started shooting at three other men. Police say several neighbors saw it happen--two men with guns drawn went into this house and started shooting. One of the three men inside the house was also armed. Sgt. Dave Zuhlke of the Springfield Police...

<p>CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - Mexican authorities have unearthed 11 bodies buried behind what appeared to be a drug trafficker's safe house near the U.S. border and were continuing the search Tuesday.</p> <p>The bodies were discovered between Friday and Monday by federal agents searching a house in Ciudad Juarez, the federal attorney general's office said Monday. Seven of those bodies were found Monday under the house's patio.</p>

Ferocious gun battle that left no bodies (Filed: 02/12/2003) Americans say 54 attackers died in the fiercest engagement since the war ended while Iraqis insist that eight civilians were killed by reckless US fire, writes Jack Fairweather Wrecked cars and bullet-riddled shopfronts testified to the battle. But in the streets of Samarra yesterday there was little evidence of what the Americans described as the biggest engagement since the end of the Iraqi war. Burned out cars following the fighting in Samarra, north of Baghdad US forces insisted they had killed 54 Iraqi attackers after two of their armoured convoys came...