Free Republic

In 2018 — nearly two years before the start of the global coronavirus pandemic — U.S. officials in China sent warnings to Washington expressing safety concerns over a Wuhan facility's research into coronaviruses in horseshoe bats, adding weight to the theory that the novel virus originated in a lab and not at a Wuhan wet market. The news broke in a report Wednesday by Josh Rogin of the Washington Post, who said that he obtained access to the first of two diplomatic cables sent from State Department officials who had visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in January and March...

•Franck Louis-Victor is accused of assaulting his wife at their Michigan home The Frenchman is the CEO of Ford Next LLC and VP of new business platforms •He pled not guilty on Monday and was freed on a $25,000 bond A top Ford executive has been arrested after he allegedly tried to set his wife's designer purses on fire with a butane torch and physically assaulted her during a domestic dispute. Franck Louis-Victor is accused of slapping, headbutting and hitting his wife with a Nest Hub device after he threatened to burn two of her Hermès purses, each valued at...

A French pensioner survived being flung out of a plane at 2500 feet after grabbing the ejector handle to "steady himself". The incredible story has been revealed by a French aviation investigation report which has found significant failures in the safety procedures for the flight. In March 2019, the unnamed 64-year-old was given a flight in the jet to celebrate his retirement. He did not really want the flight but was convinced to do it anyway by his colleagues at the defence contractor where he had worked for most of his career. "This situation generated a feeling of stress for...

A Frenchman has set off to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a barrel-shaped orange capsule, using ocean currents alone to propel him. Jean-Jacques Savin, 71, left El Hierro in Spain's Canary Islands and hopes to reach the Caribbean in as little as three months. His reinforced capsule contains a sleeping bunk, kitchen and storage. He will drop markers along the way to help oceanographers study Atlantic currents. Updates on the journey are being posted on a Facebook page and the latest message said the barrel was "behaving well". In a telephone interview with AFP news agency, he said: "The weather...

A Frenchman has gone on a frustrated rampage in a tiny New Zealand fishing village after he spent four days waiting for a hitchhiking ride. The 27-year-old Frenchman arrived in the west coast settlement of Punakaiki late last week. the man spent four days attempting to hitchhike south. On the fourth day after no one had picked him up he went “berserk”, allegedly attacking the Welcome to Punakaiki sign with a rock, abusing motorists and throwing other road signs into the local river. “Oh he threw an absolute hissy fit; he was lying prone on the road screaming that New...

SNIPPET: "The police arrested two terrorist suspects at the house: Fahri Tanjung, also known as Hilmi, and Hamzah. The police also found chemicals they believed were to be used to make explosives and an activated hand-made high-explosive bomb inside the house. West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Sutarman said the police detonated the high-explosive bomb on location after failing to defuse it. Books and VCDs on jihad, as well as an air rifle were seized as evidence. One of the VCDs was titled Afghanistan jihad: The journey of the oppressed. Sutarman said the suspects had been involved in acts of...

<p>TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- A judge sentenced a woman to nearly the maximum prison term for negligent homicide after hearing a recorded jail conversation in which she made light of the bicyclist she killed.</p> <p>Don't Miss KGUN: Listen to recording of Arrington's phone call Melissa Arrington, 27, was convicted two months ago of negligent homicide and two counts of aggravated DUI in connection with the December 2006 death of Paul L'Ecuyer.</p>

A French national was arrested after tossing a package over a White House gate, sparking a security alert, although the object was found to be harmless, the US Secret Service said. Cyrille Mourotte, 36, who was arrested for "disorderly conduct" immediately after Wednesday's incident, had been arrested and deported following a similar occurrence in June 2004, Secret Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry said. Mourotte is accused of tossing a package over a gate at the White House on Wednesday, causing security forces to call in a bomb squad and cordon off the surrounding area, Cherry said. He would not specify the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Taiwanese citizen was charged in the United States on Thursday with being a covert agent for Beijing, and accused together with a Frenchman of trying to illegally export an F-16 jet engine, Blackhawk helicopter engines and cruise missiles to China. U.S. prosecutors in Miami said a federal grand jury had returned a nine-count indictment against Ko-Suen Moo, of Taipei, and Maurice Serge Voros, of Paris. The indictment alleged that the defendants violated the Arms Export Control Act by trying to export controlled items without a license to China, including the engines, the cruise missiles and air-to-air...

Nov. 19, 2005 — - Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., believes U.S. troops do not necessarily need to be pulled out of Iraq right away, as a senior Democrat suggested this week, but they need more leadership from the Bush administration. "What we need is a little more commander-in-chief, and a little less campaigner-in-chief," Kerry said in an exclusive interview on "Good Morning America Weekend Edition." The question of whether or not troops should be withdrawn from Iraq moved to the front burner Thursday when Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called for all the troops to be withdrawn immediately -- a call...

Finally, we have a solution to the threat of Islamic Jihad. Just shy of a year after the Jihadist murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and only weeks past the four-year anniversary of 9/11, that fateful day when the world discovered such a war even existed, Holland’s Princess Irene, sister to Queen Beatrix, offers up a strategy for world peace: “Let’s talk.”

I have solved riddle of the Sphinx, says Frenchman By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent (Filed: 14/12/2004) Archaeologists, who are able to tell us who built the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, have puzzled over the riddle of the Sphinx for generations. The identity of the ruler who ordered the building of the 65ft high, 260ft long limestone half-human statue that has guarded the Giza Plateau for 4,500 years has been lost in the sands of time. Workers on the Sphinx in a television reconstruction Now, following a 20-year re-examination of historical records and uncovering new evidence, Vassil Dobrev, a French Egyptologist,...

9 French troops and a U.S. citizen were killed when Ivory Coast fighter planes bombed a rebel position in the north of that country. The French have hit back, destroying 5 Ivorian helicopters and 2 bombers near the capital city of Yamoussoukro. Ivorians aren’t happy with France’s reprisals. Angry mobs are rioting, looting French properties, and yelling “Everybody get your Frenchman!” and “French go home!” Well, well, well, isn’t France’s criticism of the U.S. Coalition presence in Iraq a bit like the pot calling the kettle black? Listen to the French government’s words, as reported by the BBC: President Jacques...

Frédéric Desagneaux, consul general of France for San Francisco, is not happy with the light being shown on his country’s involvement with U.N. corruption in Iraq. Poor thing. Yesterday, the independent committee investigating corruption in the U.N.’s “oil-for-food” program for Iraq made public the names of 3,545 companies that sold goods to Saddam. Also published were the names of 248 companies which received Iraqi oil under the program. Through oil-for-food, Saddam stole “$10.1 billion through oil smuggling and kickbacks from suppliers.” Leave it to the U.N. to pull off one of the biggest scandals in world history. Evidence is emerging...

A Frenchman who converted to Islam has been jailed for links with militants. David Courtailler is also said to have links to Jamal Zougam, a key suspect in the Madrid train bombings. Courtailler, 28, was found guilty of conspiring with criminals engaged in a terrorist enterprise. He was given two years in jail with two years suspended. He denied the charges. Prosecutors say he aided extremist Muslims in Europe after staying at a training camp in Afghanistan soon after his conversion. Others jailed Another suspect, Algerian Mohamed Chaouki Baadache, was found guilty of the same offence and jailed for the...

Frenchman Pierre Robert has received a life prison term for plotting terrorist attacks in Morocco. Rabat's criminal court found him guilty of charges of preparing terrorist acts, possessing weapons and endangering state security. Robert's trial was part of investigations into the May 16 suicide bombings in Casablanca that claimed 45 lives. Robert and his 33 co-defendants were each given the right to a "last word" before the five judges began 12 hours of deliberations earlier on Thursday, local time. Two of his co-accused also received life terms, for the murder of a woman in Tangiers. Only two of the accused...

RABAT: An alleged accomplice of Frenchman Pierre Robert, on trial here on charges of leading a Muslim cell involved in suicide bombings in Casablanca, admitted in a court hearing overnight Monday that he received and hid a cache of chemical weapons in the country in the 1980s. Mohammed Neggaoui also told Rabat’s criminal court that he had met Robert three times at the home of another suspect in the northern city of Tangiers. He denied, however that they had discussed terrorist projects in Morocco. Robert and his 33 co-accused are charged with criminal conspiracy, conspiracy to undermine state security, premeditated...