Free Republic

MILITARY bases and navy ships will be turned into virtual fortresses under plans to beef-up security in the wake of a major terrorist plot. Taxi drivers and other members of the public will be banned from entering military bases without getting high-level clearance after an urgent review found Australia's frontline defence facilities were among the least protected in the world. The top-secret review also found Australia's top defence brass would be vulnerable to a terrorist strike and recommended their leafy military showpiece, at Duntroon in Canberra, be turned into a secure compound. Among sweeping reforms, the review calls for bases...

Mumbai: At least 15 people have been injured in gunfights between two groups in at least three places in Mumbai on Thursday night. Details are sketchy but it is believed that two gangs fired at each other at outside CST Railway Terminus, Hotel Oberoi and the popular Café Leopold restaurant in Mumbai. The first shooting took place near the CST police station

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

NEW YORK — A trade body representing more than 8,000 New York taxi drivers is threatening to call a strike over the city's plans to introduce satellite positioning systems in every yellow cab. Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, told AFP Wednesday that drivers considered the proposals put forward by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) infringed on their rights. "Taxi drivers sometimes use the cars in their private time. Why should they tell the TLC where they are going on a Sunday with their family? This is an invasion of privacy," she said....

The Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) holds a public hearing today on whether to penalize cabbies who refuse to transport fares on religious grounds. Some Muslim cabbies at the Twin Cities Airport are refusing to carry travelers who have alcohol with them or who have service dogs.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A local cab driver allegedly tried to run over two customers after a fight over religion became heated. The incident happened early Sunday morning on the Vanderbilt campus and left one man hospitalized and a cab driver arrested, said police Two students visiting from Ohio were coming from a bar downtown when they got into an argument with their driver over religion, said police. After they paid the driver he allegedly ran them down in a parking lot. Ibrihim Ahmned, of United Cab, was arrested and charged with assault, attempted homicide and theft. One of the passengers,...

Cabdriver Muhamed Mursal doesn't wear his Muslim beliefs on his sleeve, but he soon may broadcast them via a light on top of his cab. Mursal and hundreds of other Muslim cabdrivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport refuse to take travelers they know are carrying alcohol. No one is searching bags, but a Napa Valley wine box or a see-through bag from the duty-free store can be enough to leave a fare waiting for the next cab. Airport officials estimate that happens at least three times a day. Now, the airport and cab drivers have worked out a proposal that...

I would be raising hell if this happened to me. can't post link but not surprisingly the airport officials are folding.

New Yorkers looking for love in a notoriously lonely city have found an unlikely ally: a cab driver.Ahmed Ibrahim, inspired by the many fares who complain to him about their difficulties in finding a date, has started a matchmaking service. He says he finds dates for about eight passengers a week. He records a brief conversation with them as they express an interest in meeting Mr or Miss Right and, after taking their telephone number, tries to find someone appropriate from his database. Mr Ibrahim, 50, an Egyptian immigrant, does not charge for the service, insisting, with echoes of Cilla...