Free Republic

On a remote Pacific island not much bigger than Manhattan, there are ancient pyramids built out of living coral. New evidence reveals that these tombs could be up to 700 years old — much older than experts had previously thought. The royal tombs are tucked away in an artificially built ancient city called Leluh just off the mainland of Kosrae, a Micronesian island. Leluh was home to Kosraean high chiefs (as well as some lower chiefs and commoners, too) from about 1250 until the mid-1800s, when foreign whalers, traders and missionaries started to arrive on the island. With impressive canals...

Last week Col. Yoav Zikaron, the deputy commander of the Haruv (Carrob) battalion, was dismissed for a deadly fire incident that occurred during a riot in the village of Kosrae on the eve of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas' statehood bid at the United Nations. The decision to dismiss Zikaron from his post was taken by senior IDF officers despite the fact that the IDF's own investigation determined that soldiers in his platoon only opened fire, killing one, when their lives were clearly under threat. During the riot soldiers used less-than-lethal means and standard riot control techniques, but at one...