Free Republic

A private jet owned by a North Texas company has been impounded for the past 2 1/2 weeks and its passengers and crew detained by the Congolese government in central Africa, where officials say it was used to smuggle gold from rebel territories in the nation's eastern provinces. The plane was leased by Southlake Aviation, based in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, to a subsidiary of CAMAC International, The Dallas Morning News reported in its Sunday editions. CAMAC company is owned by Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born Houston oil tycoon an appointee of President Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy...

Through their U.S. front groups, Muslim radicals overtaking the Middle East have found support in the Obama administration The last time we saw one whole despotic region of the world come tumbling down we could name the heroes and the moments that propelled it: An electrician named Lech Walesa, jumping a wall at the Gdansk shipyard. Boris Yeltsin atop a tank in front of the Russian White House, defying the Communist old guard in 1991. Pastor Laszlo Tokes, refusing an eviction notice from his Romanian flat as crowds of demonstrators gathered. A playwright named Vaclav Havel before a joint session...

MIRAMSHAH: A US drone attack targeting a militant compound killed 10 insurgents in a troubled Pakistani tribal region on Wednesday, security officials said. Moreover, a BBC Urdu report quoted local authorities as saying that those killed in the strike were militants from the Haqqani network. Two missiles hit the compound located in Tappi, 10 kilometres southeast of Miramshah, the main town in volatile North Waziristan near the Afghan border, a military official in Peshawar said. “The attack triggered fire in the compound and 10 militants were killed,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised...

Operatives linked to Iran tried to kill foreign diplomats, including Israelis and Americans, in at least seven countries over 13 months, the Washington Post reported. New evidence uncovered by investigators in four countries linked the assassination attempts to either Iran-backed Hezbollah militants or operatives based inside Iran, the Post reported Monday, citing U.S. and Middle Eastern security officials. The officials reportedly said that the assassination attempts stopped in early spring, when Iran began to take a softer tone with the West. Shortly after, Iranian officials formally accepted a proposal to resume negotiations with six world powers on proposals to limit...

Gulf media is reporting on the “International Conference for the Defence of occupied Jerusalem” opening in Qatar today. According to a Gulf News report: February 22, 2012 Manama: Qatar’s Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani will open the International Conference for the Defence of occupied Jerusalem, to be held in Doha next week. The conference will include speeches by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Arab League Secretary-General Nabeel Arabi, Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekme Al Deen Ihsanoglu, and United Nations Coordinator for the peace process in the Middle East Robert Serry. Some 350 figures...