Free Republic

ALMATY - Alarmed by the antics of a fictional TV reporter who portrays their country as a nation of horse urine-drinking misogynists, Kazakh authorities have invited the comedian who plays the character to come and see the truth for himself. Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakh first deputy foreign minister and a powerful son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, asked comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to visit the vast, oil-rich steppe nation and meet normal human beings rather than the larger-than-life lunatics shown by Cohen's TV reporter Borat. "His trip could yield a lot of discoveries -- that women not only travel inside buses but...

INDUS, Minn. (AP) - A school principal has resigned and could face felony firearm charges after he shot and killed two orphaned kittens on school property last month. Wade Pilloud, who resigned as principal of the K-12 Indus school, 40 miles west of International Falls, said he shot the kittens to spare them from starving to death after their mother was killed in an animal trap. Pilloud said the shooting, which occurred on school grounds, endangered no one. ``I have bred cats, and I currently own two myself,'' he wrote Friday in an e-mail to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. ``I...

US comic actor Chevy Chase has spoken out against the situation in Iraq and called comments by Britain's most senior soldier about withdrawing from the country "amazing" as he prepared to appear in the return of The Secret Policeman's Ball. The charity gig in aid of Amnesty International returns on Saturday, 27 years after it first began, featuring stars including Chase, Eddie Izzard, Russell Brand and Al Murray. Chase, 63, is working with Austin Powers and Buffy The Vampire Slayer star Seth Green on a sketch for the show, in which they play guards at Guantanamo prison. The legendary event...

Jack the Ripper's suspected true identity will be revealed later, more than 100 years after his gruesome series of murders terrified London. The killer was never caught and there have been countless investigations, books, articles, plays, films and musicals based on the murders. Now, documents from the original investigation have been discovered by a descendant of the officer in charge of the case in 1888. The papers from Chief Inspector Donald Swanson shed new light on the notorious case and are said to contain the name of the person suspected of the crimes. They are being loaned to Scotland Yard's...

MIGUEL ALEMAN, Mexico - Hit men, pistols tucked in their pants and walkie-talkies strapped to their belts, move freely in this city of sorghum farmers and cattle ranchers, dropping off their ostrich-skin boots with shoeshine boys in the city's plaza and stopping at local bars for a beer. The openness with which they operate — in Miguel Aleman and countless other towns across Mexico — reflects the drug cartels' grip on this nation of nearly 100 million people, and the power they have gained as the top supplier for Americans' $65 billion illegal drug habit. Mexico's drug gangs have been...

A Baptist minister sent a raider packing by pouring a hot cup of tea over him as he ransacked the vestry. Rev Roy Merrin, 66, had spotted a figure through the window of his office and shouted "Who's there?" Newcastle Crown Court heard. Lee Mullholland, 27, rushed past Mr Merrin at Grange Road Baptist Church, Jarrow, South Tynside. Tony Davis, prosecuting, said: "The reverend threw a cup of tea at the intruder in order to hinder his progress." But the burglar left a fingerprint behind, and was arrested by police. Mullholland, of Hebburn, South Tyneside, who is already serving 27...

Israel's Netanyahu gives fiery interview JERUSALEM (Reuters) - No stranger to the burning issues of the day, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu was really fired up during a radio interview on Sunday. "Can't you smell the smoke?" an Army Radio reporter suddenly asked Netanyahu, the finance minister, as they spoke about a recent controversial decision to replace Israel's army chief. "What do you mean?" Netanyahu, well known in Israel for his penchant for cigars, shot back. "Your cigar is on fire. The one inside your suit jacket. Minister Netanyahu, you are burning up," the reporter replied, his voice rising in urgency in...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The fight against AIDS owes a lot to funding allotted by U.S. President George W. Bush, the head of the United Nations AIDS programme has been quoted as saying. "You know, they don't like to hear this in Europe but actually we owe a lot to U.S. President George W. Bush," Peter Piot, in charge of UNAIDS, the U.N. lead agency on HIV/AIDS, told Belgian daily De Morgen in an interview on Saturday. Bush is travelling to Europe on Sunday for summits with NATO and the European Union. "In his 2003 State of the Union he (Bush)...

A father-of-five has been given an Antisocial Behaviour Order (Asbo) banning him from any more stormy rows with his new wife. But Mike McNulty, 38, escaped being banned from the house he shares with Mandi and their children, after the council dropped a proposal to exclude him from the family home. Instead he was ordered not to get involved in any more drunken rows with his wife of five months at their home in Moston, Manchester. The city council dropped a clause in their application for an Asbo banning him from their three bedroom council terrace home and street where...

In the spirit of Christmas - we ARE allies after all... 1) Our military operations are more succesful when we're fighting alongside eachother (WW2, Iraq1, Iraq2, Peace in Northern Ireland). 2) If it wasn't for you we'd be speaking German; if it wasn't for us you'd be speaking French. 3) You put a man on the moon; we put a civilised man on most of the earth. 4) Of the 3,000+ that died on 9/11 - 67 were Brits. We fight these islamofascist bastards together as a result. 5) 200 years ago you politely told us to bugger off. So...

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Films about euthanasia, abortion and the hardships of immigrant life have bagged the top prizes at the 17th European Film Awards. "Gegen Die Wand" ("Head-On"), about a young Turkish woman in Germany who escapes her strict Muslim home through a difficult marriage with an older man, won the best film award in the competition dubbed the "European Oscars" on Saturday. Spaniard Javier Bardem won the best actor prize for his role as a paralysed man who fought for three decades for the right to die in "Mar Adentro" ("The Sea Inside"), a true story. Britain's Imelda Staunton...

LONDON (Reuters) - A group of Christian protesters in Scotland has called on police to prosecute a theatre company for blasphemy because it is putting on a play about a gay Jesus. "If there is a blasphemy like this, Christians have to stand up," said Stephen Green of Christian Voice who protested outside a theatre showing Terence McNally's controversial play "Corpus Christi" at St Andrews University. "Jesus Christ is being portrayed here as a foul-mouthed, drunken, promiscuous homosexual and that is an insult to my faith," Green told BBC Radio. But the play's director, Zsuzsi Lyndsay, defended the production: "He...

BELFAST (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush has joined efforts to break a deadlock in the Northern Ireland peace process, telephoning Protestant leader Ian Paisley as negotiations ground on in London and Belfast. Paisley, the 78-year-old hardliner who could decide whether the talks succeed or fail, said he had spoken to Bush on Friday as rival Protestant and Catholic politicians studied an Anglo-Irish plan to revive home rule in the province. Britain and Ireland are trying to push Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) into agreeing to share power with the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) political ally Sinn Fein --...

Hostages urge France to lift veil ban DUBAI (Reuters) - Militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq have given France another 24 hours to agree to their demands and scrap a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools, Al Jazeera reports. The Arabic TV station on Monday showed a tape of the two journalists urging the French people to hold protests to persuade their government to retract the headscarf law or they might be killed. The kidnappers gave the French government one more day to overturn the ban after a previous 48-hour deadline expired on Monday, Al Jazeera said, quoting...