Free Republic

NORTH Korea's military has detained a female US broadcast journalist working along its northern border, a South Korean newspaper said. Munhwa Ilbo, quoting a diplomatic source in Seoul, said the journalist surnamed Ming was detained on Tuesday along the Yalu river, which marks the border with China. It said US and North Korean authorities are holding talks about her release. A US embassy spokesman in Seoul referred inquiries to the State Department. "It is not known yet exactly where this journalist was working, what activities she was involved in and how she came to be detained,'' the afternoon newspaper quoted...

NORTH Korea plans to stage its rocket launch between April 4-8, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reports It quoted South Korean intelligence sources as saying the North has informed the International Maritime Organisation of the planned dates. The North's official media reported earlier it had informed the IMO of the upcoming launch, which it says is aimed at putting a satellite into orbit. It gave no date. The North gave the IMO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation and other world bodies "necessary information for the safe navigation of planes and ships" as part of preparations for launching "an experimental communications...

SARAH Palin's teenage Bristol has broken off her engagement to Levi Johnston two months after the birth of their child. The 18-year-old daughter of the Alaskan Governor told the Associated Press (AP) she was "devastated" by the split. "Unfortunately, my family has seen many people say and do many things to 'cash in' on the Palin name," she said in a statement. "Sometimes that greed clouds good judgment and the truth." Mr Johnston, 19, told AP the pair had mutually decided to end their relationship. Bristol Palin's pregnancy was announced last summer days after her mother was named John McCain's...

NEARLY 85,000 people have signed an online petition calling for part of the White House lawn to be turned into a vegetable patch, the plan's germinator said today. "The idea is for the Obama family to plant an organic vegetable garden on part of the White House lawn, with the cultivated vegies going to the White House kitchen and any overflow going to feed those in need," Roger Doiron, said, adding the idea had sprouted last year. If the Obamas were to plant a garden on the White House grounds, it would have the "inspirational potential" to spawn millions of...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that Congress needs to "keep the door open" to a another stimulus package -- raising the question of how much the government could eventually spend on top of the $787 billion already allocated to rescue the country from dire economic straits. "The word of the day is confidence. Confidence in our markets, confidence in lending, confidence in our financial institutions," Pelosi said before suggesting the need for another rescue package during a press conference Tuesday following a meeting with top economists. Mark Zandi, chief economist and founder of Moody's Economy, took a more definitive...

TALKING with Taliban moderates in Afghanistan is a tactic "worth exploring", US Vice President Joe Biden says. "It's worth exploring. The idea of what concessions would be made is well beyond the scope of my being able to answer,'' said Mr Biden at NATO headquarters in Brussels today. "I do think it's worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state,'' he said. Mr Biden said that while the US-led forces were not winning the war in Afghanistan, neither was the conflict lost. "We are not now...

A CHINESE man who beheaded and hacked a Canadian bus passenger to pieces has been found not guilty of murder on mental grounds. Vince Weiguang Li, 40, who had been charged with murdering 22-year-old Tim McLean on a Canadian Greyhound bus on July 30, 2008, has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Li had repeatedly stabbed Mr McLean, who had been asleep on the seat next to him, sawn off his head, removed his internal organs, pocketed his nose, tongue and an ear, and taunted police and bystanders with the severed head. Police said in court documents Li "appeared to smell,...

President Obama intends to repeal a Bush administration rule that has become a flash point in the debate over a doctor's right not to perform abortions. The regulation, instituted in the last days of the Bush administration, strengthened job protections for doctors and nurses who refuse to provide a medial service because of moral qualms. A Health and Human Services official said Friday the administration will publish notice of its plans early next week, opening a 30-day comment period for advocates on both sides, medical groups and the public. But Republicans are already voicing strong opposition. "I will do nothing...

WASHINGTON will become only the second US state to allow assisted suicide as its new "death with dignity" law takes effect. Under a ballot measure passed during November elections, physicians in the northwest state will be allowed to write prescriptions for lethal doses of drugs for terminally ill patients who have less than six months to live. Only one other US state - Oregon - has similar legislation, although a court in Montana recently ruled that terminally ill patients had the right to seek physician-assisted suicide. Supporters of the new Washington legislation, made possible by a 2006 US Supreme Court...

THE US military could have kicked in doors to raid a suspected terrorist cell in the United States without a warrant under a Bush-era legal memo the Justice Department made public. The memo, from October23, 2001, also said constitutional free-speech protections and a prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure could take a back seat to military needs in fighting terrorism inside the country. It was one of nine previously undisclosed memos and legal opinions which shed light on former U.S. President George W. Bush's legal guidance as he launched a war against terrorism after the September 11 attacks. "The government's...

House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s photo-op with Pope Benedict XVI turned sour when the Pontiff used the 15-minute meeting to reaffirm the teachings of the Catholic Church on the right to life and the duty to protect the unborn. No photo of Nancy Pelosi and the Pope will be forthcoming, since the meeting was closed to reporters and photographers. The two met in a small room in the Vatican just after the Pope's weekly public audience. Immediately after the meeting, the Holy See’s press office released a statement saying, "following the general audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Nancy Pelosi, Speaker...

WARPLANES raided a militant hideout in northwestern Afghanistan overnight, killing two rebel commanders and several fighters, the US-led military and a police official said. A rebel compound was targeted in the province of Badghis, a troubled region on the Turkmenistan border, the US-led force said in a statement. Mullah Dastagir, a key militant leader and several of his associates were killed in the "precision air strike", the statement said. Dastagir was responsible for several attacks on Afghan and international forces, including a deadly ambush last November, the statement added. "Dastagir was responsible for an increase in violence in Badghis over...

THE death toll from the Victoria fires catastrophe leapt to 173 overnight as authorities found bodies clustered together where people fleeing the flames or trying to save their homes had been overwhelmed. Twenty-four fires were still burning early this morning and towns remained under threat as authorities moved deeper into the ruins of those communities hit in the fire's first wave, when more than 700 homes were lost. The death toll from the bushfires is certain to rise further. Bushfire relief funds were receiving $1 million in donations per hour yesterday, with $15 million pledged by last night. Victorian Premier...

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd said arsonists in Victoria had committed mass murder as the death toll in Australia's worst ever bushfires rose to 108 this morning. The final toll was expected to rise further and fires were still burning out of control and putting towns at risk in the Beechworth and Yackandandah regions in the state's northeast. Amid speculation some of the fires were deliberately lit - and with reports yesterday that people were returning to relight blazes after fire crews had left an area - Mr Rudd said: "There are no words to describe it other than mass murder."...

A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame. Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks. In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets. "We arrested Samira Jassim, known as 'Um al-Mumenin', the mother of the believers, who was responsible...

PRESIDENT Barack Obama admitted "I screwed up" after his political soul mate and pick to lead health reform Tom Daschle withdrew in a storm over personal tax issues. On Mr Obama's worst day in the White House so far, he also lost another nominee - Nancy Killefer, who he had named as Government budget watchdog, and termed one of his most "important'' appointments - also over tax issues. The twin bombshells overshadowed Mr Obama's bid to showcase his economic stimulus plan in a flurry of television interviews and reflected the potential traps he has set for himself by promising a...

THE United States should hand Guantanamo back to Cuba, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says. US President Barack Obama "has to give the territory of Guantanamo to the Cubans," Chavez said yesterday as he attended the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo echoed the sentiment, saying: "Guantanamo is Cuban. It should go back to its roots." Obama has said he wants to close the United States' notorious military prison in Guantanamo within a year, and has reached out to countries around the world to take into detention the suspected Islamic extremists being held there. The United States,...

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. didn't get the vacant Illinois Senate seat. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't get the Democratic presidential nomination, taking the job of secretary of state as a consolation prize. And Caroline Kennedy and Andrew Cuomo lost out to an obscure two-term upstate congresswoman for the New York Senate seat once held by Mrs. Clinton. Whatever happened to American democracy's traditional deference to political dynasties? Call it Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton fatigue syndrome, or perhaps the new Obama meritocracy, but some of the most famous names in U.S. politics have come up empty-handed in recent days. "I don't know how much...

NEW Zealand's most celebrated centenarian, a rare reptile known as Henry, has discovered his charm and become a father for the first time at the age of 111. Henry the tuatara, a lizard-like creature of prehistoric origin, has become the father of 11 offspring over the past four days, staff at the Southland Museum in the southern city of Invercargill said today. Henry once had a reputation for aggression and was not interested in sex, but he turned his life around after a cancerous growth was removed from his bottom. He mated last March with Mildred, 31 years his junior,...

SAUDI authorities have rearrested nine Islamist militants, including former inmates of the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the interior ministry said. The ministry yesterday said the nine Saudi nationals had undergone a rehabilitation program for Islamist militants arrested in the kingdom and for returnees from the notorious US prison. "Since the start of the rehabilitation program, nine people, who had taken part in the program, have been rearrested," a ministry official told state news agency SPA. "Some of them had returned from Guantanamo," the official said. The comments come in the wake of reports that two...