Free Republic

Thousands more lose homes to Mugabe By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg (Filed: 16/06/2005) Zimbabwean security forces armed with batons and teargas have evicted thousands from a township outside the second city of Bulawayo. Police fought running battles with residents of the Makokoba township after torching or bulldozing their homes, as a woman stripped naked in the street in mute protest. According to police, more than 20,000 people have already seen their shanty homes or businesses destroyed since President Mugabe's "Restore Order" campaign began on May 19. The United Nations believes at least 200,000 people have been left homeless by the...

Refugees put Uzbek dead in thousands By Deirdre Tynan in Kara Suu, Kyrgyzstan (Filed: 17/05/2005) Refugees who fled from the massacre committed by Uzbek security forces agreed on one thing yesterday: the number of dead is not 500 - the most common reported figure - but could be in the thousands. As reports continued to come in of clashes spreading outside the town of Andizhan, a sergeant in charge of the bridge at the border village of Kara Suu said he believed that 2,000 had been massacred during three days. Kyrgz border guards check papers of Uzbek refugees at Kara-Suu...

Hypocrisy is the mother of all credibility problems, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has it in spades. While loudly complaining about the "unethical" treatment of animals by restaurant owners, grocers, farmers, scientists, anglers, and countless other Americans, the group has its own dirty little secret. PETA kills animals. By the thousands. From July 1998 through the end of 2003, PETA killed over 10,000 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" -- at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California's ex-cons are not required to submit DNA samples under a sweeping anti-crime measure voters approved last year, as civil rights groups had feared, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Fern Smith's decision, released Wednesday in San Francisco, reinforces an opinion by the state attorney general's office that Proposition 69 does not apply to the thousands of convicts who served time for crimes and completed their post-incarceration supervision before voters passed it Nov. 2. The class-action was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which sought to clarify a statewide initiative approved by California voters...

FES, Morocco (AP) The infant son of King Mohammed VI was circumcised Thursday, and thousands of Moroccans also went through the procedure in a massive show of solidarity for the prince, a news agency reported. The circumcision of Moulay Hassan, the king’s only son, marked the start of three days of nationwide celebrations across the north African kingdom to honor the event. The boy turns 2 next month. Some 5,000 boys were circumcised in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, and thousands more in other cities and towns, the official news agency MAP reported. The ritual of circumcision, known as “t’hara” or...

Thousands Marooned by Blizzard at Airports 15 minutes ago By THEO EMERY, Associated Press Writer Residents dig out as a blizzard dumps some two feet of snow in the area, Sunday, Jan. 23, 2005, in Boston. Whiteout conditions grounded airplanes and sent fleets of plow and salt trucks trundling through snow-clogged roadways before the storm began to ebb at midday.(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) BOSTON - A howling blizzard slammed the Northeast on Sunday with more than 2 feet of snow and hurricane-strength wind gusts, halting air travel for thousands of people, keeping others off slippery highways and burying parked cars under...

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn has raised at least $11,000 for a legal-defense fund in response to investigations of "pay-to-play" contracting in his administration -- a sign, his opponents said, that the mayor is deeply worried about the joint local and federal probes. Hahn established the fund on Nov. 18 without fanfare and raised $1,000 each from 11 donors through Dec. 31, according to City Ethics Commission records. In creating the fund, Hahn is tapping many of the same donors who have contributed to a separate legal-defense account to pay a $53,523 fine over violations in his 2001 mayoral campaign....

PARIS (Reuters) - Some 210,000 public sector workers marched through French cities on Thursday in widening protests over pay, reforms and job cuts that have sent a sharp warning to President Jacques Chirac's conservative government. On the third day of protests, some schools closed because of a one-day strike by teachers, and a stoppage by air traffic controllers grounded flights at Bordeaux in western France. The protests followed a warning strike by rail workers that severely disrupted rail traffic across France on Wednesday and protests by energy and postal workers earlier this week. Unions said 50,000 had joined a protest...

Dear saints of our Lord Praise be to the Lord Jesus Hope you watch on TV news about the big earthquake and the Tsunami. Really I'm unable to describe about it. Horrible scenes I've ever seen. I'm so much tired in mind and body. We're nearby the stricken areas. By God's grace I and my family are OK. But some of our believers are missing and many lost everything. One of our mission fields called "Anchugramam" near Kanyakumari is wiped off. It's a seashore village of around 85 families. People are under terrible fear. Thousands of thousands people leaving their...

U.S. agrees to Nazi "gold train" settlement By Michael Christie Tuesday December 21, 2:30 AM MIAMI (Reuters) - The U.S. government has agreed to settle a lawsuit with tens of thousands of Hungarian Holocaust survivors over a trainload of gold, jewelry and other property seized by the U.S. Army at the end of World War Two, lawyers said on Monday. The agreement over 24 boxcars filled with $50 million to $200 million worth of art and household goods stolen by the Nazis and then confiscated by the United States still has to be worked out in detail, a lawyer for...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Aristide warns of 'thousands killed' if Haiti rebels capture capital By Marcus Warren in Saint-Marc (Filed: 25/02/2004) A small group of elite police and a bottleneck in the landscape are all that can stop Haiti's rebels marching on the capital. Insurgents determined to overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have swept through the north but must next force their way through a twisting valley against their toughest opposition so far on the road to Port-au-Prince. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is under threat from rebels Mr Aristide pleaded for international help last night, predicting mass slaughter if the rebels were not stopped. "Should...

Homestead racked up thousands in travel 2-5-04 By Lex Alexander, Staff Writer News & Record Posted 7:30 a.m. GREENSBORO — More than a dozen cruises, with expenses topping $112,000, were paid for with credit cards belonging to nonprofit home builder Project Homestead between 1997 and 2001, city records show. The records, compiled during the city’s recent audit of Homestead and released this week, also document other non-cruise travel purchases for places such as St. Thomas and the Bahamas with corporate credit cards issued to senior employees of the nonprofit. Some of the travel paid for by Homestead involved people who...

Instability spreads as thousands flee from Zimbabwe (Filed: 08/11/2003) The effects of Robert Mugabe's regime are forcing thousands of people to seek sanctuary in neighbouring countries - a situation that is threatening to destabalise the whole region, writes Tim Butcher in Gabrone. Less than a mile from the mirror-panelled banks and high-rise offices of Botswana's richest firms, penniless Zimbabweans gather on dusty street corners begging for work. Unregistered, unkempt and unlawful in a foreign land, the desperate men whisper "Piece work, piece work" sotto voce, meaning "odd job" to any passer-by. If you are brave enough to stop your car...

Pentagon will call up thousands more troops to go to Iraq By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 06 November 2003 The Pentagon has begun issuing call-up notices for thousands more active-duty troops and reservists to go to Iraq from early next year.General Peter Pace, deputy chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, gave no precise figures during testimony to a House of Representatives committee yesterday. But the indications are that up to 30,000 men could be involved, including active-duty marine and army units based in the US and in Germany, as well as newly mobilised National Guard and reserve troops. The...

Thousands of Britons expelled by Kenya By Adrian Blomfield in Nairobi (Filed: 29/10/2003) Thousands of Britons are facing banishment from Kenya following the announcement by President Mwai Kibaki's government yesterday that it would expel two-thirds of the country's expatriate workforce. President Mwai Kibaki British businessmen and economists denounced the decision, which will force out more than 16,000 of Kenya's 25,352 working expatriates, along with their families. Between 30,000 and 50,000 Britons live in Kenya, more than half of whom are thought to be British Asians, prompting comparisons with Idi Amin's expulsion of Asians from Uganda in 1972. "This is a...

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) -- Unidentifed intruders released more than 7,000 minks from their cages in the middle of the night, the biggest raid on a mink farm in Finland, farmers and officials said Monday. Police were alerted to the minks around 3 a.m. by a passer-by, Detective Chief Inspector Erkki Kerola said. "We got a call from a person who said the area was swarming with minks," he told The Associated Press. "Local inhabitants, the fire brigade and others are helping catch them." No one claimed responsibility for freeing the animals, which are used to make fur coats, Kerola said,...

Almost two years after they were defeated, thousands join the Taliban's new jihad (Filed: 07/09/2003) Massoud Ansari travels with militia fighters around the Kandahar region of Afghanistan They are known as the Sarbaz - those who care nothing for their own lives - and they represent one of the greatest threats to the government of Mohammed Karzai and the international forces seeking to bring stability to the shattered country of Afghanistan. The Taliban, supposedly vanquished in December 2001 when American and Northern Alliance forces drove them from power, are reviving and fighting back across southern Afghanistan. Siddiqullah is one of...

Thousands flee from their homes in fierce battle for Liberia's capital By Declan Walsh in Monrovia 28 July 2003 A fresh wave of fighting in the battle for Liberia's coastal capital, Monrovia, sent thousands more fleeing their homes yesterday as clashes erupted around the city's key bridges. Mortars slammed into the central and diplomatic districts, where only hours earlier the US ambassador, John W Blaney, called on the rebels to pull 12km back from Monrovia to the Po river to allow African peacekeepers to deploy. But the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy replied with a fierce attack on government...

Demonstrations against the G-8 summit in Evian, France, turned violent in front of the Hotel Royal in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Sunday. Demonstrators converge on G-8 summit Thousands block roads, clash with police ASSOCIATED PRESS ANNEMASSE, France, June 1 — Thousands of protesters blocked highways and bridges, set fire to barricades and drew volleys of tear gas and rubber pellets Sunday from anti-riot police near the Group of Eight summit in the French town of Evian. THE MOST VIOLENT protests early Sunday were in the Swiss city Lausanne, across Lake Geneva from the G-8 summit site. Demonstrators wearing masks hurled rocks...