Free Republic

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia (AFP) - Huge crowds seeking autonomy for eastern Bolivia rallied Saturday against leftist President Evo Morales, as tens of thousands marched to support him in the capital, La Paz. The governors in the eastern lowland and energy-rich states of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando all declared greater self-rule at celebratory rallies Saturday, a move strongly opposed by Morales, who ordered extra police deployed to the region. The four rebel provinces -- out of the nine that make up Bolivia -- account for around two-thirds of the total gross domestic product and are home to a more...

Eagles! Don’t let these people interfere with Melanie and her Move America Forward caravan! It has come to our attention that our good friends at Move America Forward are being targeted by the anti-American left. It is not enough that these ultra-liberal forces think it fine to disparage our men and women in uniform. They are now targeting our supporters as they make their way to stand with us in Washington, DC, on 15 September. They have threatened Melanie Morgan personally and have used the vilest language to harass our friends. Obviously, they have underestimated our resolve and the resolve...

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2007 – Islamic terrorists still pose a threat to the U.S. homeland, but America’s efforts against them abroad have weakened their position, President Bush said during his weekly radio address today. “The men who run al Qaeda are determined, capable, and ruthless,” the president said. “They would be in a far stronger position to attack our people if America’s military, law enforcement, intelligence services, and other elements of our government were not engaged in a worldwide effort to stop them.” Bush said the National Intelligence Estimate on the Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland, released this week,...

LOS OLIVOS, Calif. - Residents of several hundred homes, including Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, were asked to evacuate as a wildfire in the mountains of Santa Barbara's wine country threatened to shift in the wind, a fire official said Tuesday. The 43-square-mile blaze in the Los Padres National Forest had come within about two miles of some homes when more than 1,000 residents living in and around Los Olivos were advised to leave Monday night, said Santa Barbara County Fire Capt. Eli Iskow. The notice covered a swath of land where Jackson's ranch sits. The pop star has not been...

Democrats threaten Cheney's office budget WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) -- Democrats are warning that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney could face a funding cutoff if he resists a directive on the handling of classified documents. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent a letter to the vice president Monday criticizing Cheney's efforts to claim an exemption from the directive on the grounds his office is fully part of neither the executive nor the legislative branch. Durbin is chairman of the subcommittee that handles the budget for the vice president's office. The Hill said Tuesday the letter didn't specify how a funding...

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-inspired militants in north Lebanon threatened on Wednesday to take their fight to other parts of the country and beyond if the Lebanese army did not stop attacking a Palestinian refugee camp. "If the army continues to bomb civilians and pursue its inhumane practices ... we will move within the next two days to the second phase of the battle," Fatah al-Islam military commander Shahin Shahin told Reuters by telephone from the camp. "We will show them the capabilities of Fatah al-Islam, starting with Lebanon and then moving to the whole of Greater Syria,"...

INFRA-red footage showing a "superbreed" of giant flesh-eating house mice chewing into an albatross chick has been used as a stark warning of what awaits pest-infested Macquarie Island.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - More than 1 billion people live in low-lying areas where a sudden surge in sea level could prove as disastrous as the 2004 Asian tsunami, according to new research presented on Thursday. New mapping techniques show how much land would be lost and how many people affected by rapid sea level rises that are often triggered by storms and earthquakes, a U.S. Geological Survey-led team determined. E. Lynn Usery, who led the team, said nearly one-quarter of the world's population lives below 100 feet above sea level -- the size of the biggest surge during the...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian engineers began filling a new dam Thursday as archaeologists warned that its reservoir will flood newly discovered antiquities and could damage Iran's grandest site, the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis. At the inauguration ceremony, attended by Energy Ministry officials, pipes were opened for water to start flowing into an artificial lake created by the dam spanning the Sivand River, 520 miles south of the capital, Tehran. The lake's waters will be used to irrigate the area's farms. Iranian state-run television said the dam was opened "on the order of the President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the hard-line...

Did the Dems Threaten ABC? The Democrats have gone nuts over the ABC miniseries, The Path to 9/11. But it's a little hard to see why. Maybe it's because Disney and ABC have been reliably pro-Democrat in the past, so the Dems feel betrayed. Looking at the big picture, though, it's a little hard to see what the Dems are complaining about. I haven't seen the miniseries, but I take it that it doesn't portray the Clinton administration as having taken very effective action against the growing threat from Islamic terrorists. What I don't understand is how the Democrats think...

A journalist listed as a potential Army witness in the case of an officer refusing to go to Iraq is concerned the military is threatening free speech and free press rights as it builds its case against the soldier. Sarah Olson, a radio producer and freelance journalist in Oakland, Calif., is one of two reporters listed as potential witnesses in the government's case against 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, his attorney Eric Seitz said. The officer refused to deploy to Iraq on June 22 with his Stryker unit, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based at Fort Lewis, about 50 miles...

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2006 – A senior military spokesman in Baghdad today dismissed as untrue a U.S. newspaper article claiming the U.S. military launched a propaganda campaign to exaggerate terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's significance in Iraq to turn Iraqis against him and sway American public opinion. "A recent article citing a military briefing from 2004 has called into question the threat that Abu Musab Zarqawi and al Qaeda in Iraq pose to Iraq, dismissing it as 'propaganda' - nothing could be further from the truth," Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said in a written statement...

Guatemala City, Dec 29 (EFE).- Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein on Thursday described as "an insult to Latin America" the U.S. proposal to build a wall along its border with Mexico. "We take it as a total insult to all Latin America that a government calling itself a friend and partner in the region only wants our money and our goods, but sees our people as if they were an epidemic. They treat us as if we were a sub-hemisphere of criminals," Stein told reporters. The vice president was talking about United States plans to build an wall along its...

Michelle Malkin has the update on a 527 organization's attempt (Main Street Individual Fund) to hide the George Soros' $50,000 donation to moderate Republicans (Republican in name only - RINOs) who are essentially against President Bush. This organization funds "Main Street" moderate Republicans. Even if the Google cache is supposedly gone (Soros) you can always try the Internet Archive site to find the cache where it would look like this. Click on any of the three that were archived in 2004 and see that Soros' name is still there. This'll add a bit more legitimacy on what Malkin pointed out...

FAITH UNDER FIRE Radicals threaten to burn Christians to death Warn of consequences if they don't reconvert to Hinduism by Sunday Posted: November 17, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com More than 60 Christian converts in northern India will be burned to death if they refuse to return to Hinduism by Sunday, a group of extremists has warned. The radical Hindus severely beat the converts' pastor, Feroz Masih, in a Nov. 4 attack in the state of Himachal Pradesh, accusing him of "forcibly converting" Hindus, reported Compass Direct, a news service that monitors persecution of Christians. Masih sustained internal...

ARLINGTON, Va. – Instead of crawling out of bed at 4 a.m. to beat the morning rush, Frank Murphy sleeps late these days. He says he owes it all to his hybrid car – and a law that has some of his fellow commuters upset. Drivers of the environmentally friendly cars are allowed to cruise solo in Virginia's car pool lanes, slicing Murphy's daily two-hour commute in half. And since buying a hybrid 18 months ago, Murphy is leaving his home as much as three hours later. "The quality of life has gone up tremendously," he said. But Murphy's joy...

The Chinese government has objected to the visit and threatened to take measures against the Icelandic government that would effect the diplomatic relationship between the two nations. According to Iceland State Radio, RÚV, on hearing of the planned visited, China's ambassador in Iceland met with Iceland's foregin minister, Davíð Oddsson, declaring that the visit, seen as part of a political war with China, would have serious consequences. The Icelandic Foreign Ministry reiterated that it recognized only one China, the People's Republic of China, and said that Chen's visit did not change that. According to news from the Foreign Ministry yesterday,...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California's population will reach up to 48 million by 2025, with most growth in inland areas lacking the infrastructure to support it, according to a report released Wednesday outlining challenges the state faces. While the economy sheds manufacturing for service jobs that require a college education, Hispanics - the state's fastest growing demographic group and less likely to hold college diplomas - are at risk of being marginalized in the evolving work force. The report by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that despite those difficulties, the state can manage its growth over the...

Trade wars threaten world recession By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 21/05/2005) To the British high street shopper, a made-in-China sweater is a cheap addition to the children's wardrobe. But to economists and politicians from President George W Bush to Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, to China's secretive Politburo, it embodies the threat of a new world recession. The value of the yuan is kept artifically lowEver harsher words are being exchanged between Brussels, Beijing and Washington about growing imbalances in trade, as illustrated by Chinese goods piled high in western shops. The low-cost factories of China, which have...

OSLO (Reuters) - It sounds insignificant alongside the Indian Ocean tsunami, yet an almost imperceptible annual rise in the world's oceans may pose a huge threat to ports, coasts and islands by 2100. Leaders of 37 small island states meet in Mauritius this week to discuss an early warning system to protect against tsunamis and a creeping rise in ocean levels, blamed widely on global warming. Rising sea levels, now about 0.08 inch a year, could swamp low-lying countries like Tuvalu in the Pacific or the Maldives in the Indian Ocean if temperatures keep rising. They could also lead to...