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The latest reports of senior nuclear scientists defecting from Iran to the West have caused considerable embarrassment and concern to the regime in Tehran. The reports first broke in Londown-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, and were followed up in the Iranian media. The reports suggest that at least one scientist, Shahram Amiri, who worked on nuclear research and development, defected several months ago to the west during the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. One more person, whose identity and specialization remains unclear - he may have been a scientist or held another key position in Iran's nuclear program - may have...

Two small parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia have quit the denomination over gay ordination and joined a like-minded group of dissident churches based in Northern Virginia. The break-away Anglican District of Virginia announced Friday that Christ Church in Emporia and Grace Church in Purdy had become members. The district now includes 23 parishes that have cut ties with the Episcopal Church. Church of the Messiah in Chesapeake quit the Episcopal denomination in 2006. Grace Episcopal Church in Newport News quit a couple years earlier. The Southern Virginia diocese has about 120 parishes, including more than two dozen...

Seven members of Cuba's Under-23 soccer team defect in the United States, according to newspaper reports With one player already suspended following a red card, Cuba coach Raul Gonzalez had only ten players available to him and his team began the match against Honduras with a one-man disadvantage and no substitutes.

Friday, March 14, 2008 Cuba's defection dilemma Andrew Hush As dawn broke on the morning after one of the nation's greatest footballing results, the mood in the Cuban camp should have been buoyant. Instead, the prevailing emotions were of confusion and dismay. The remaining Cuban players show their respect to their fans. (AP) Barely twelve hours after Raul Gonzalez's side had begun their Olympic qualifying campaign with a 1-1 draw against the USA, the team had been torn apart by the defection of seven of its number. As remarkable as Cuba's draw was with the host nation in Tampa,...

Anyone who follows the MSM knows that Cuba is a virtual paradise. A land of free health care, universal literacy and low infant-mortality rates where kids don't care about freedom and the only big problems are those caused by the U.S. Yes, Cuba is the sort of place no one would ever want to leave. Certainly not to go to live in the United States, where, as everyone knows thanks to Michael Moore's "Sicko," health care is so bad that 9-11 heroes are forced to seek help from Havana. And yet . . . According to AP: Defection fears to...

Cubans defect in Toronto Leave patriotic choir on tour By TOM GODFREY, TORONTO SUN More than 20 members of Cuba's world-famous national chorus are singing songs of freedom today after defecting in Toronto. Members of the National Chorus of Cuba dodged security officers and jumped into waiting cars, some on Sunday and others yesterday, said Cuban exiles who planned the defections. "These people are scared for their lives," said Ismail Sambra, president of the Cuban Canadian Foundation. "They are worried about their families back home. "It took a lot of planning to get this far." The highly acclaimed 40-member group,...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A Chinese diplomat pleading for political asylum in Australia has said he would rather die than go home, as Prime Minister John Howard tried on Thursday to calm concerns the asylum bid may harm Sino-Australian relations. Howard said an application for political asylum by Chen Yonglin, a 37-year-old political affairs consul at China's Sydney consulate, would not be influenced by Australia's booming trade and economic ties with China. "Let me simply say that, just as in relation to the U.S., we have steadfastly refused to mix trade with politics and strategy and national security. So it is...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A Chinese diplomat who has sought political asylum in Australia and claims spies are hunting him for aiding pro-democracy groups has contacted a U.S. consulate about his situation, an official said on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy told Reuters that Chen Yonglin, a 37-year-old political affairs consul at China's consulate in Sydney, had contacted a U.S. consulate in Australia about his situation, but was unable to comment further. Local media reported on Tuesday that Chen had asked if he could defect to the United States. Chen, who has worked in Sydney for the past four...

SACRAMENTO -- A group of moderate Democrats, many of them Latino lawmakers from Southern California and the Central Valley, united in the Assembly this week to defeat or significantly weaken a number of bills by fellow Democrats designed to impose new environmental regulations or consumer safeguards. Their success stunned other Democrats and environmental advocates. "This has been one of the worst years I can remember," said Mark Murray, who has been executive director of Californians Against Waste for 11 years. "It's shocking. I thought we had a majority of Democrats, but apparently we don't. ... Environmentalists are not getting any...

Link Dang copyright laws.

Title: Great General (Kim Jong il) Lives in Fear of Assassins By Shane Green, Tokyo, October 15, 2003 (The Australian Age) North Korean leader Kim Jong-il lives in constant fear for his life, using a fleet of luxury cars to act as decoys to confuse would-be assassins, a former bodyguard has claimed. Lee Young-kook, who has defected to South Korea, claimed the communist leader is concerned he will meet the same fate as Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, shot by a firing squad after a 1989 revolt. "Kim is in a serious dilemma," Mr Lee said. "If he opens the...

WITH THE THIRD INFANTRY DIVISION, Northwestern Kuwait, March 19 As more than 20,000 soldiers attached to the Third Infantry Division moved close to the Iraqi border within sight of it, in some cases 15 Iraqi soldiers guarding the border surrendered and crossed over to Kuwait this evening, officers here said. They are believed to be the first Iraqis to have surrendered, something the American Air Force has been actively encouraging by dropping more than 1 million leaflets in anticipation of a ground invasion. The soldiers not technically prisoners of war, since the war has not yet started are in the...

Kuwait given date for invasion, Iraqi diplomats pressed to defect SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COMTuesday, March 18, 2003 ABU DHABI — Kuwait has been given a date for the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has requested military units trained to respond to nonconventional weapons attacks. Meanwhile the Iraqi embassy in Bahrain complained that the United States and Britain were pressuring Iraqi diplomats to defect. Kuwait's military has been placed on war alert. Officials said military units were placed on Level One alert, the highest grade, on late Monday. They said Kuwaiti land, air and naval forces have completed preparations for...

Baghdad -- Apparently in response to a blanket e-mail campaign by the U.S. military urging dissent and defections, the Iraqi government shut down -- at least temporarily -- all Internet access and the country's two e-mail servers. Although no official explanation was given, e-mail service stopped midafternoon on Friday. Some service was resumed Saturday morning. CNN reported Friday that the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies were sending e-mails from disguised sources encouraging dissent and military defections. Messages also reportedly warned against carrying out any order from President Saddam Hussein to use chemical or germ weapons against U.S. or allied...

Here are sequence photos of the mass defection last week by freedom-seeking North Koreans in Beijing at the Spanish Embassy. They stormed the gates and entered. A standoff pursued. China's intention was to return the defectors to their ally, Communist North Korea which would be tantamount to certain torture and execution. The hunkered-down defectors' unified reply from within the Spanish Embassy: "Better Dead Than Red!" (They threatened suicide if they could not be granted onward passage to South Korea and freedom.) China has since expelled the group to The Philippines, and finally they arrived in South Korea yesterday as very...