Free Republic

<p>They talked of hiding in the woods, being mocked by Georgian soldiers and passing the dead on the roadside.</p> <p>The hundreds of refugees from the fighting in the Georgian breakaway region sought shelter in Russia on Sunday. They were among thousands who fled the region, and in particular the capital city of Tskhinvali, in recent days as Georgian forces battled for control.</p>

BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbian authorities have started a disciplinary procedure against two of its diplomats accused of helping a Serbian college basketball player flee the U.S. after being charged with severely beating a classmate, a radio station reported Monday. The Serbian Foreign Ministry said it will "be extremely efficient" in solving the case of Miladin Kovacevic, Belgrade's independent B92 radio reported, without providing any details about what it would do. The 6-foot-9-inch (2.05-meter), 260-pound (118-kilogram) Kovacevic, who was recruited to play basketball for Binghamton University in upstate New York, was arrested after a May 4 fight at a downtown Binghamton bar...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Scores of families fled their homes in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday as foreign and Afghan forces prepare to drive out Taliban insurgents who have overrun several villages, officials and witnesses said. About 600 Taliban insurgents took over several villages in Arghandab district in the south on Monday, days after they had freed hundreds of prisoners, including about 400 militants, after an attack on the main jail in Kandahar city. "There are hundreds of them [Taliban] with sophisticated weapons. They have blown up several bridges and are planting mines everywhere," Mohammad Usman, a taxi driver who evacuated a...

"She's the last person I would have expected of this."

Mugabe's mobs force 40,000 to flee homes By Sebastien Berger, Southern Africa Correspondent Last Updated: 8:31PM BST 08/05/2008 Around 40,000 Zimbabwean farm workers have had to flee as a result of the violence inflicted by Robert Mugabe’s mobs since the country’s general election in March, a union leader said today. The Movement for Democratic Change also said that the violence is getting worse, with three of its supporters shot dead earlier this week. Farm workers, whose livelihoods have been destroyed since Mr Mugabe launched his assault on white-owned land in 2000, are often supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic...

Conservative activist Peter LaBarbera is urging GOP presidential nominee John McCain to cancel his plans to meet with leaders of the homosexual activist group known as the Log Cabin Republicans. Although Senator McCain (R-Arizona) did not address the Log Cabin Republicans convention in San Diego over the weekend, he did send California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as his surrogate to address the event. CBS News chief political consultant Mark Ambinder, associate editor of TheAtlantic.com, reports that McCain plans to meet soon with executives of the Log Cabin Republicans. LaBarbera, founder of the website Republicans for Family Values, says McCain should dump...

A summary to date of operations in Multi-National Division - North as part of Operation Iron Harvest, part of the countrywide Operation Phantom Phoenix in Iraq. Graphic by Fred W. Baker III. WASHINGTON — A surge in military operations and a shift in local support in northern Iraq has driven many al Qaeda fighters out of cities that once provided them safe haven and into the desert, or even out of the country, a commander in the region said Monday. Citizens in the four-province region of Multi-National Division - North have begun shifting their support to Coalition and Iraqi forces...

As Masai warriors guarded the Kenyan orphanage where sisters Brittanie and Aubrie Vander Mey and friend Jamie Cook worked, the three wondered how they would make it back to West Michigan. They had planned to spend two months caring for orphans affected by HIV or AIDS at the Omwabini Centre in Kimilili, but post-election violence cut short their stay. Newscasts told them the violence was coming closer each day to the orphanage, about 180 miles from Nairobi and 45 miles from Eldoret, where 35 people died when a church filled with women and children was burned last week. Today, the...

Bush thought Saddam was prepared to flee: report By Jason Webb 29 minutes ago Saddam Hussein was prepared to take $1 billion and go into exile before the Iraq war, according to a transcript of talks between U.S. President George W. Bush and an ally, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Wednesday. During a meeting at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on February 22, 2003, Bush told former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar that Saddam could also be assassinated, according to the transcript published in El Pais in Spanish. In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe...

Thousands of Hispanics have fled the Tulsa, Okla., area in the shadow of a looming state law that limits benefits and mandates deportation for illegal aliens, according to a report from KTUL television in Tulsa. The state of Oklahoma recently approved a new law that requires deportation for illegal aliens who are arrested, and limits benefits and jobs to those individuals. The report said in East Tulsa, where a community of Hispanics has grown over recent years, there's been a sudden drop in population. Business owner Simon Navarro has been in business there 11 years, and said the tough law...

Eight Baghdad Jews who represent the remnants of that city's Jewish community are facing security threats so grave that they need to flee the country, the community's caretaker, Canon Andrew White, told The Jerusalem Post from London on Tuesday. Locals try to move wreckage from the scene of a massive car bomb attack in the Sadr City area of Baghdad. Photo: AP [file] According to White, who himself has fled from Baghdad due to terrorist threats, the situation has become dire for the 2,600-year-old community, which only 100 years ago made up a third of Baghdad's population. Ever since sectarian...

Iraqi Kurdish officials expressed deepening concern yesterday at an upsurge in fierce clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian forces in the remote border area of north-east Iraq, where Tehran has recently deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards. Jabar Yawar, a deputy minister in the Kurdistan regional government, said four days of intermittent shelling by Iranian forces had hit mountain villages high up on the Iraqi side of the border, wounding two women, destroying livestock and property, and displacing about 1,000 people from their homes. Mr Yawer said there had also been intense fighting on the Iraqi border between Iranian forces and...

Thousands of civilians have fled their homes in the southern Philippine island of Jolo after deadly clashes between troops and militants, officials say. More than 50 people were killed on Thursday, almost half of them soldiers. Reinforcements have begun to arrive in Jolo, as the military steps up its campaign against Islamist rebels. Troops backed by US military trainers have been fighting militants affiliated to various groups, hiding in the island's mountainous terrain. Thursday's fighting began when a troop convoy was ambushed near the town of Maimburg, leaving 10 soldiers dead. Fifteen more soldiers were killed and 17 were wounded...

(HAVANA) - After a lull following Fidel Castro's illness last year, Cubans once again are taking to homemade boats or powerful speedboats manned by smugglers on a trip to the United States that often includes a detour through Mexico. Since May, the U.S. Coast Guard has been intercepting more boat people in precarious craft crossing the Straits of Florida in the calm summer waters. The U.S. Border Patrol also has been processing rising numbers turning up at the U.S. frontier with Mexico. Cubans coming across the 90-mile gap with Florida try to make it in anything that floats and has...

Excerpt - An Egyptian security official says Al Qaeda members have revealed the head of the group in the country has fled for the Gaza Strip. The official says the arrested members have revealed during interrogation that Khaled Mahmud Ahmed escaped to Gaza when Egyptian authorities began arresting members of his group in April. ~ snip ~

BEIRUT, Lebanon - At least 150 Palestinians fled a northern refugee camp Wednesday in anticipation of an assault by the Lebanese army battling Islamic militants holed up inside. Most of the refugees left with the help of the Palestinian Red Crescent, said Samar Kadi, an International Committee of the Red Cross communications officer. Those fleeing arrived on foot at the southern entrance of the Nahr el-Bared camp. They were searched by soldiers at a Lebanese army checkpoint and then climbed into vehicles sent by the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Lebanese army held many of them for interrogation, Kadi said. Witnesses...

RENO, Nev. - An 8,000-acre wildfire had forced hundreds of people to leave their homes in the northern Nevada town of Winnemucca, and scores fled homes in the path of a blaze in Washington state on Sunday. They were among several wildfires across the West on Sunday as a heat wave made parched terrain even drier. The Winnemucca fire was one of more than a dozen that had charred a combined 55 square miles. The Utah Highway Patrol on Sunday reopened a 100-mile stretch of Interstate 15 and 25 miles of I-70 that were closed when a 250-square-mile fire jumped...

THE leader of a radical Pakistani mosque was arrested while trying to flee in a woman's burqa as security forces stepped up pressure on a few hundred hardcore followers still holed up inside. Firebrand cleric Abdul Aziz's capture sparked an exodus from Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, with 1,200 male and female students surrendering to the authorities a day after clashes there left 16 people dead. The government of embattled President Pervez Musharraf hailed the capture of the firebrand preacher as a major success, after months of criticism that it was failing to tackle extremism. "After all the things...

HARARE PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is fearing for his safety in Harare and is now sleeping in Zvimba because of a letter he received, purportedly signed by members of the army threatening to get him soon. CAJ News is in possession of a copy of the letter, with the address of army KGV1 headquarters in Harare sent to "Robert Mugabe of Number 7 Chancellor Avenue in Harare", which is the address for the State House, Mugabe's official residence. The letter is signed off at the bottom by "1000 soldiers fed up with you" and sources say it was submitted to Mugabe...

(IsraelNN.com) The Arab “man in the street” living under the Hamas-ruled Palestinian Authority government is starting to realize that voting for the terrorist organization has not brought the shining salvation it promised. Thousands of Muslim worshippers living in PA-controlled territories are trying to flee their increasingly violent surroundings. Their religious leaders are doing what they can to force them to stay. Sheikh Hamad Al-Bitawi, a Muslim religious leader and Hamas member, has announced that Arab Muslims are forbidden to emigrate from Israel. Al-Bitawi ruled recently that Muslims must remain in order to counteract the fast growth of the Jewish population....

NEIVA, Colombia - Thousands of people were evacuated after a long-dormant volcano erupted late Tuesday and again early Wednesday, provoking avalanches and floods that swept away houses and bridges. The Nevado del Huila volcano's eruptions were its first on record since Colombia was colonized by the Spanish 500 years ago. There are about 10,000 people living in the area around the volcano, and about 3,500 had been evacuated, Luz Amanda Pulido, director of the national disaster office, told The Associated Press after flying over the volcano in southwest Colombia. There were no reports of deaths or injuries. The eruption sent...

CAMP FALLUJAH -- Amid a steady counter-insurgency campaign in Baghdad, Fallujah and surrounding areas, combined U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to achieve major successes in locating and destroying enemy weapons caches hidden in those regions. During recent clearing operations in Adhamiyah - as part of Operation Together Forward - Iraqi forces and Soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, captured an improvised-explosive device-making facility. The find included a supply of bomb-making components, three mortar caches and engineering manuals.On the heels of success in Adhamiyah, Marines from Regimental Combat Team 5, moving as part of Operation...

Hundreds of Chechens forced to flee Russian town as restaurant brawl erupts into race riot · Xenophobic groups use fight to urge ethnic attacks· Minorities targeted in internet campaign Tom Parfitt in Moscow Tuesday September 5, 2006 The Guardian UK Several hundred Chechens and dark-skinned people from the Caucasus have been forced to flee a town in north-west Russia after a brawl in a restaurant prompted a race riot at the weekend. The exodus of minorities from Kondopoga in the Karelia region near the border with Finland follows events on Saturday when a mob rampaged through the town and burned...

Sec. Rice Implores Cubans Not to Flee Island WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is sending a message to the Cuban people imploring them not to flee the island for Florida because of political uncertainty.

But for some of the Christians who had made it out in this convoy, it was not just privations they wanted to talk about, but their ordeal at the hands of Hezbollah — a contrast to the Shiites, who make up a vast majority of the population in southern Lebanon and broadly support the militia. “Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young Christian man, referring to his village. “They are shooting from between our houses.” “Please,’’ he added, “write that in your newspaper.” In past wars, Christian militias were close to Israelis,...

ABOUT 70 per cent of the population of southern Lebanon - up to 350,000 people - have fled the region in the face of relentless Israeli bombardments, police said. The police estimate covered the frontier sectors of Tyre, Nabatiye and Zahrani, where the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah holds sway. The United Nations sounded the alarm yesterday on the "catastrophic" humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, reporting 500,000 people across the country have fled their homes in the week since the Israeli campaign began. Israel has urged residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate the region so Hizbollah would not use them as human...

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - 'Home Alone' star Macaulay Culkin fled Israel to escape the rocket attacks by terrorist organisation Hezbollah. The former child star had been holidaying in Haifa with 'That '70s Show' actress Mila Kunis when the group attacked the city.Fearing his safety and the safety of Junis, Culkin decided the pair should leave the country immediately rather than risk their lives. However, Kunis was not happy with her friend's decision. She is quoted by the Jerusalem Post newspaper as saying: "He's a drama queen."

Terror suspects 'flee Saudi jail' The Interior Ministry said the fugitives were 'religious extremists' Seven terror suspects have escaped from prison in Saudi Arabia, according to the country's Interior Ministry. Saudi-owned television Al Arabiya said the fugitives - six Saudis and one Yemeni - were linked to al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia has been battling a campaign of violence by al-Qaeda aimed at toppling the pro-US monarchy. The suspects fled Malaz prison in the capital Riyadh, where they had been held over "security related issues," an Interior Ministry statement said. The term is used by Saudi authorities to describe terrorism charges. Radical...

 HONG KONG, July 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported this weekend that a woman pregnant with twins has fallen to her death while fleeing a forced abortion in a hospital in Himei Li Shimei, who was seven months pregnant, was seized at her home and taken to the hospital in the eastern city of Hefei because she already had one child when she became pregnant. Shimei fell from the Shuguang Hospital’s second floor while trying to leave because she thought the procedure was too dangerous, the Information Centre said. The Information Centre provides information...

Stephen Hawking is best known for thinking about time, space, and those teratoid trash mashers known as black holes. But in a recent talk in Hong Kong, the famous physicist digressed from his usual subject matter to tell the audience that they'd better get off the island, and he didn't mean Kowloon. Instead, the Cambridge don was urging the crowd to get off the whole, gosh-darn planet. Hawking was hawking space colonization. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is weighing responses to a possible North Korean missile test that include attempting to shoot it down in flight over the Pacific, defense officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Because North Korea has made it a practice not to announce its missile tests in advance, U.S. officials say they cannot be sure of the government's intentions. Under that circumstance, the Pentagon is considering the possibility that it might need to attempt an interception, two defense officials said. The officials agreed to discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity because of its political sensitivity....

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is weighing responses to a possible North Korean missile test that include attempting to shoot it down in flight over the Pacific, defence officials said Tuesday. Because North Korea has made it a practice not to announce its missile tests in advance, U.S. officials say they cannot be sure of the government's intentions. Under that circumstance, the Pentagon is considering the possibility that it might need to attempt an interception, two defence officials told the Associated Press. The officials agreed to discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity because of its political sensitivity....

CONCORD, N.H. - Torrential rain forced hundreds of people from their homes in parts of New England on Sunday, as water flowed over dams and washed out roads. The governors of New Hampshire and Massachusetts declared states of emergency, activating the National Guard to help communities respond to the storm. Maine's governor also declared a state of emergency for one county. "It's a very serious situation," said New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, adding that forecasters were predicting 12 to 15 inches of rain by the end of the storm in parts of southern New Hampshire. "It continues to change and...

JAKARTA, Indonesia May 13, 2006 (AP)— Indonesian authorities on Saturday ordered the immediate evacuation of thousands of people who for weeks have refused to heed the ominous rumblings of Mount Merapi and the burning lava oozing from its mouth. Hundreds of people began fleeing the 9,700-foot peak after authorities put the area on highest alert, having observed two days of steady lava flow. Bambang Dwiyanto, the head of the region's volcanology center, said an eruption may be imminent. "Because there has been constant lava flows that cause hot gases, we have raised the status to the highest level," Dwiyanto...

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia - Thousands of people fled the fertile slopes of Indonesia's most dangerous volcano Saturday as glowing lava oozed down the side and ash and rock spewed from the mountaintop, leading authorities to warn that an eruption could come soon. Villages on Mount Merapi were left virtually empty. Women, children and the elderly filled buses and trucks to be driven to shelters set up at government buildings and schools in nearby towns on the island of Java. Throughout the day, volcanic tremors shook the ground, some strong enough to send people running in fear. After nightfall, fiery magma...

Census: Americans Are Fleeing Big Cities By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 20, 12:15 AM ET WASHINGTON - Americans are leaving the nation's big cities in search of cheaper homes and open spaces farther out. Nearly every large metropolitan area had more people move out than move in from 2000 to 2004, with a few exceptions in the South and Southwest, according to a report being released Thursday by the Census Bureau. Northeasterners are moving South and West. West Coast residents are moving inland. Midwesterners are chasing better job markets. And just about everywhere, people are escaping to...

Hundreds Flee Northwestern Pakistan Unrest Sunday March 5, 2006 6:31 PM By BASHIRULLAH KHAN Associated Press Writer MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan (AP) - Hundreds of Pakistanis lugging bags and bundles of clothes fled a northwestern town Sunday after pro-Taliban tribesmen and foreign militants battled security forces in clashes near the Afghan border that left at least 53 people dead. The fighting, which started Saturday and largely died down early Sunday, was the worst in two years in the lawless North Waziristan region, where well-armed, fiercely independent tribes have long resisted government control. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said sporadic gunfire...

Mullah sought after boys flee school in chains By Massoud Ansari in Karachi (Filed: 05/02/2006) Pakistani police have issued an arrest warrant for a mullah at one of the country's Islamic schools after two young pupils claimed to have been beaten up and kept in chains for failing to memorise Koranic scripture. Mohammad Ammar, eight, and Ahsan Mawia, 10, were found crawling through the streets in shackles in the dead of night after fleeing in terror from a strict school in Karachi. The pair were in a "hysterical state" and showed "visible sign of torture", according to police who examined...

Bangladeshi United Nations peacekeepers have pulled out of a camp in western Ivory Coast after clashing with supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo. Four people are reported to have been killed when a UN base in Guiglo, 300km (187 miles) from Abidjan, was attacked. France has called for calm in towns and cities in the government-controlled south after three days of protests. Mr Gbagbo supporters are angry at international mediators wanting to dissolve the pro-Gbagbo parliament. The ruling party subsequently pulled out of the transitional government and UN-backed peace talks and is calling on the 10,000 French and UN troops keeping...

Retired General Ali Duba, known as father of Syrian intelligence and loyal aide of Presidents Assad father and son has fled to London from Damascus. This defection follows the blunt charges leveled against Bashar Assad by former Syrian vice president Khalam Haddam last Friday, and the UN inquiry commission’s demand that the Syrian president make himself available for questioning in the Hariri assassination.

Anarchy in the Palestinian Authority (PA) spread to the Rafiah border crossing, which was closed Friday morning after European Union (EU) observers fled 100 armed PA policemen who formed a blockade. The gunmen who stormed the compound belong to the unstable ruling Fatah party of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas. One of their members was killed in a clash Thursday between terrorists. After the compound was stormed, the EU's observers stationed at the crossing quickly fled the scene in panic while the gunmen prevented vehicles from reaching the crossing. The observers are responsible for monitoring the crossing and enforcing the agreement...

BREAKING NEWS Saddam lawyer flees Iraq By CORINNE ABRAMS Sun OnlineA LAWYER for Saddam Hussein today said he had fled Iraq following an violent ambush in which his colleague was killed.  Thamir al-Khuzaie was injured in the attack, which took place on November 8.Mr al-Khuzaie is now appealing to the leader of the Gulf state of Qatar to grant him asylum from a secret location. "I was only a lawyer who practiced his profession in Iraq. Yet I was subjected to an assassination attempt and to danger that might have even touched my family," Mr al-Khuzaie said."So I decided...

Rania Al-Baz flees Saudi Arabia, "won't come back" Rania al-Baz (Arab News) Battered Saudi wife and former TV presenter Rania Al-Baz has left Saudi Arabia and will not go back. After all, with Sura 4:34 (the wife-beating verse) still part of the Qur'an, what's to prevent this sort of thing from happening again and again, to other women as well as to Rania herself? And before you start reminding me that there are battered women in the West also, let me remind you that in the West the perpetrators of such crimes are prosecuted. They are not given a pass...

Wealthy French fleeing a tax system that's no joke THE French like to tell rude jokes about Belgians, but this time the laugh is on them. To escape their punitive tax regime, the Gallic elite are fleeing to the flat country mocked in France for its dismal weather and enjoyment of chips. "Boring Brussels" is the bolthole of choice for French tax exiles, and Belgium is laughing all the way to the bank. Having flown the draconian French tax coop, well-endowed industrialists are helping to balance Belgian books with their taxes. "It means less money for the French Government," said...

The Chief of Police in New Orleans has said the city has been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Almost nobody remains in the flooded area. Edwin Compass denied that the few remaining survivors are being forced to leave, but said there is no reason to stay in New Orleans. “There are no jobs, there are no homes to go to, no hotels to go to-there is absolutely nothing here. "We advise people that this city has been destroyed. It has completely been destroyed. We try to direct them to get out of town so that they can get with family members...

A top US general has said al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, will try to relocate to the Horn of Africa if Iraq is stabilised. Major-General Douglas Lute cited Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia as likely "safe havens" for jihadists.He said that "vast ungoverned spaces" of east Africa were likely to appeal to Zarqawi's insurgents as operations in Iraq and Afghanistan become difficult. US troops based in Djibouti already aim to stop infiltration from the Red Sea. "There will come a time when Zarqawi will face too much resistance in Iraq and will move on," Maj Gen Lute said....

Two Britons reported dead in resort atrocity as tourists flee Egypt fearing fresh wave of attacks By Hugh Miles in Sharm el-Sheikh and Colin Freeman (Filed: 24/07/2005) Hundreds of British tourists fled Egypt last night, fearing fresh terrorist attacks after three bombs ripped through the popular Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Hospital officials said that two Britons were among 88 dead, though last night the Foreign Office confirmed only that two men were missing. The market place in Sharm el-Sheikh after the blast A further eight Britons were among the 120 wounded, including a 14-year-old girl and a 30-year-old...

The leader of Iraq's most feared terror group fled Baghdad about two weeks ago because a U.S.-Iraqi military operation in the capital was threatening his al-Qaida movement, Iraq's interior minister said in a television interview aired Friday. Bayan Jabr told the U.S.-owned Al Hurra television that the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and many of his al-Qaida in Iraq followers fled Baghdad because of the success of Operation Lightning, launched May 28. He nonetheless claimed many al-Qaida members had left the capital "because they have lost the battle." Al-Zarqawi fled Baghdad 12 days ago after several car-rigging factories were discovered in...

LONDON (CNS) -- A Catholic bishop said Anglican clerics opposed to the ordination of women bishops should not be received into the Catholic Church for "negative reasons." Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton, one of England's leading Catholic ecumenists, spoke amid rising speculation that the vote taken by the Church of England July 11 to remove legal obstacles to the episcopal ordination of women would lead to mass defections of traditionalist clergy. Bishop Lang, co-chairman of the English Anglican-Roman Catholic Committee, a group that meets twice a year to promote ecumenical projects and the joint study of theology, said mechanisms existed...

The floods have left thousands trying to salvage their belongings Devastating floods in southern China have killed at least 29 people and forced more than 250,000 people to flee their homes, officials say. Flood waters swept through the south-western city of Dazhou, where thousands of homes collapsed. At least seven people are missing. The floods are the latest in a lethal early summer, and come after some of the heaviest rains for a century. At least 600 people in the south have died from floods already this year. In Dazhou, some 26,000 homes collapsed as flood waters rose to the...