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Park Place, Boardwalk, and a hidden map with a secret escape route? For Allied POWs during World War II, Monopoly® games came equipped with real-life "get out of jail free" cards. During World War II, the British secret service hatched a master plan to smuggle escape gear to captured Allied soldiers inside Germany. Their secret weapon? Monopoly boxes. The original notion was simple enough: Find a way to sneak useful items into prison camps in an unassuming form. But the idea to use Monopoly came from a series of happy coincidences, all of which started with maps. Smooth as silk...

Men of Valor Part II First Mission [1] [Inside Basra Palace: Telic 9]To interpret events in al Basra, context is critical. When we invited the British to join us in this war in 2003, the U.S., with the bulk of troops and assets, was the senior partner. In essence, we were the driver of a bus filled with several dozen partners: Poland, Australia, Japan, Georgia, Korea, Albania and so on. Although several key countries had opted to stay home, no nation stepped up to the task like Great Britain, taking responsibility for southern Iraq. But they could not have not...

The British commander in southern Iraq confirmed yesterday that UK officials have been holding talks with supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army in the hope they would be drawn into the political process. Major General Graham Binns said the security situation in Basra province - to be handed over to Iraqi forces next month - was improving and attacks against British and Iraqi forces had fallen by 90% since British troops withdrew from their last base in the centre of the city in September. Confirming the talks with the Mahdi army, first reported in the Guardian, Binns...

Map reading proves tough test for Britons http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL0616568420070806 http://tinyurl.com/yoyfhc Mon Aug 6, 2007 8:51AM BST London (Reuters) - As many as 11 million British motorists are unable to read a basic road map, according to a survey released on Monday. The poll revealed over three quarters of drivers were unable to identify the motorway map symbol, while only one percent of motorists would pass the Cub Scout Map Reader badge test. "It's pretty embarrassing the majority of Cub Scouts have better map-reading skills than the majority of the adult population," said Colin Batabyal, head of underwriting and business development at...

LONDON - In a bunker beneath London's bustling Piccadilly Circus, guards monitoring a grid of closed-circuit televisions spot something unusual. A suspicious package has been left behind amid the crush of tourists. Moments later, a Hare Krishna picks up the abandoned cooler, which is filled with religious documents - not a bomb. Civil libertarians warn of the damage to personal privacy. But polls show broad public acceptance, even if the cameras more often capture a couple in loving embrace than a terrorist about to wreak havoc. Britain has more than four million closed-circuit security cameras, more than any other Western...

Organizers of the modified-car excursion across Europe insisted that ModBall 2007 was "neither a rally nor a race." The German police on Monday afternoon, however, begged to differ. And the inaugural event, with its 77 cars and 143 participants -- most of them from Britain -- was shut down on just the second of a planned seven legs across Europe. The German autobahn police began getting reports on Monday afternoon of cars racing south near Düsseldorf. Drivers reported several cars -- each with similar stickers and numbers -- bombing down the highway with little regard for life and limb, some...

Basra, Iraq“Yeah, breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck, you got a copy on me Big Ben? C’mon.” “Ah yeah, ten-four Big Ben, for sure, for sure. By golly it’s clean clear to Flagtown. C’mon.” “Yeah, it’s a big ten-four there Big Ben. Yeah, we definitely got the front door good buddy. Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy.” A young British soldier named Simon expected to be driving logistics trucks into Iraq, and so adopted the dusty old hit “Convoy” as his fight-song and personal anthem. A man doesn’t have to wait long to hear Simon...

An ex-steward on the Navy frigate at the centre of the Iran kidnap drama is to be court-martialled following a fight involving lesbians, Sky News has learned. The incident involves HMS Cornwall, the ship that saw 15 crew members taken hostage by Iranian forces in March. Although exact details are still unclear, it is known it took place off the ship in Denmark in 2006. It led to the unnamed ex-servicewoman being charged with assaulting two other female crew members. None of those involved is 26-year-old Faye Turney, who was paraded on Iranian TV after being taken hostage on March...

Our friends at (Fraters Libertas) put Time to shame with this graphic comment on the descent of the Brits.The photoshop credit belongs to Derek Brigham at Freedom Dogs. The subhead quote is from (Mark Steyn's column).

Good morning loyal reader peeps. Yooge News: Iranian President Mammoo Abdingmadineja announced he is releasing the British sailors as a "gift" to honor the Easter holiday and birth, or hatching, of the Profit Mohammed (peace be up on him). Myself being a devout Muslim at one time, I understand the significance behind Mammoo's generous act, but will explain it to you readers who are not familiar with the customs of traditional Islam: The Wholly Koran (peace be up on it) teaches us that Allah (peace be up on him) was having his yearly Easter egg hunt in Paradise with the...

(2007-04-04) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today declared 15 British sailors and marines, held hostage since March 23, to be “forgiven for their trespasses in the spirit of Easter.” “If Jesus Christ could forgive those who nailed him to the cross,” said Mr. Ahmadinejad, “I can show mercy by granting pardon to these transgressors during the week we celebrate the death and resurrection of the Messiah.” A spokesman for the Iranian leader played down rumors that Mr. Ahhamdinejad may be the second coming of the Christ. “He’s just a simple, gracious, wise and merciful leader,” said the unnamed spokesman. “and...

LONDON — Britain examined options Sunday for new dialogue with Tehran over the seized crew of 15 sailors and marines, as a poll suggested most Britons back the government's goal of resolving the standoff through diplomacy. Government and defense officials refused to discuss a report that claimed a Royal Navy captain or commodore would be sent to Tehran as a special envoy to negotiate the return of the personnel. The official would deliver an assurance that British naval crews would never deliberately enter Iranian waters without permission, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported. Britain's Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense said...

Blair to Iran: free captives in days Correspondents in London and New York March 27, 2007 BRITAIN'S crisis with Iran deepened yesterday as Tony Blair warned Tehran it has only a few days to release 15 captured British sailors and marines, as a US commander in the Gulf criticised the British for not opening fire on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who seized them. marines were operating in Iraqi waters as they searched for smugglers at sea. She asked that British diplomats be allowed to meet the captured sailors, and demanded their safe return. In Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Condoleezza...

FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran off the coast of Iraq could be charged with spying and held until the US releases five Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized by US forces in Iraq earlier this year. Reports yesterday said a website run by associates of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had reported that the arrested Britons would be put before a court and indicted. Referring to them as "insurgents", the site said: "If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since,...

While the world wonders about the attack on and abduction of 15 British sailors by Iranian forces earlier this month, US News & World Report published the details of an attack by Iranian forces on Iraqi and American troops last September: As the British government demanded the immediate release of 15 of its sailors whose boats were seized by Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf on Friday, U.S. News has learned that this is not the first showdown that coalition forces have had with the Iranian military. According to a U.S. Army report out of Iraq obtained by U.S....

VISITORS to the Oval Office last week remarked that they had rarely seen President George W Bush more energised than he has been in considering what to do next in Iraq. General Peter Schoomacher, the US army chief, told friends he was impressed by the president’s seriousness of purpose. “He was very different in private to the man you see on television,” he said. Stephen Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, came away with the same impression: “Bush is often accused of being incurious and disengaged but he was very curious and engaged. He was probing...

A project to collect DNA samples from half a million Britons to unpick the genetic basis of killer diseases including cancer got the go-ahead on Tuesday, marking the start of the world's biggest medical experiment. A team of international scientific and medical experts said the success of a local three-month pilot phase, involving 3,800 participants around Manchester, meant the UK Biobank project could now be rolled out nationwide from the end of 2006. Over the next four years, blood and urine samples will be collected from volunteers aged 40 to 69, to help scientists unravel the genetic foundations of common...

Staying slim as a Pole Shocked by chubby Brits, Dorota Bawolek explains why Polish women don’t get fat One of the first things that strikes people who come to the UK from Poland is how chubby everyone is. On the contrary, what is often noticed about the Polish influx — and there are a lot of us now, 350,000 registered workers since May 2004 — is how fit and healthy we are. My English friends at university in Birmingham often ask me how I stay so slim, but I’m not obsessed with dieting and have never considered myself fit. I...

LONDON - A crude wooden sign carries an uneven scrawled epitaph: "He died as he lived. Brave and fearless, a true British hero." In 1916, British soldiers erected the simple tribute to a singular British hero in the French town of Becordel-Becourt to mark the grave of artillery officer Alan Lloyd, one of 125,000 soldiers from Britain and the Commonwealth killed during one of the most vicious conflicts of World War I. British war veterans were gathering near that memorial for the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on Saturday. The Battle of the Somme raged across northern...

If the US is going to wait until the time is right before withdrawing, we could be in for another hundred years war 'Quandary for the Democrats," said the newsreader early yesterday morning on the World Service (the BBC radio channel that covers foreign news). The quandary for those Democrats on Capitol Hill is whether they should continue to support the war in Iraq or insist on early withdrawal, in which case they know that the Republicans will accuse them of defeatism and cowardice, if not downright treason. But this is in truth a quandary for all of us in...