Free Republic

A judge has ordered 17 suspected members of Italy's Red Brigades militant group to stand trial next year, on charges including murder. Five suspects will be tried for the murder of a Labour ministry consultant shot dead in 1999. They include Nadia Lioce, already in jail for murdering a police officer. The ultra-left Red Brigades terrorised Italy during the 1970s and 80s, with a wave of attacks and bombings blamed for killing 415 people. Most of their leaders were eventually arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. Shoot-out But the group re-emerged with the murder of consultant Massimo d'Antona in...

 March 21, 2002 Red Brigades Say They 'Executed' Italy Official By REUTERS Filed at 3:35 p.m. ETROME (Reuters) - An offshoot of Italy's Red Brigades urban guerrilla movement published a 26-page Internet message on Thursday saying it had ``executed'' a top government adviser and reviving fears of a new era in political killings.Marco Biagi, 52, was shot dead on Tuesday night in the northern city of Bologna with the same pistol that the Red Brigades for the Construction of the Fighting Communist Party had used to kill another government aide in 1999.Police pored over video material collected from security...

<p>LONDON -- Last Wednesday, I was privileged to speak at a ceremony at which the George C. Marshall Foundation Award was given to my friend, Colin Powell. It was a wonderful, all-American occasion (us Brits notwithstanding). Beyond its specific task of honoring a local hero, it was, to me, a celebration of the best of America and its international role. Marshall's contribution to the building of a free Europe was at least as great as Winston Churchill's, Jean Monnet's or Robert Schumann's. Pervading the event was the recognition that what flows from the U.S. -- which, with 5% of the world's population produces 25% of the world's wealth, and spends more on defense than the next nine nations combined -- is not raw power but an awareness of responsibility.</p>