Free Republic

<p>TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian news agency says President Barack Obama and Iran’s foreign minister shook hands when they ran into one another on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.</p> <p>Tuesday’s report by the official IRNA agency quotes an unnamed diplomatic official as saying Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif came upon Obama “accidentally” and the two shook hands.</p>

President Obama chided Iran for focusing on violent rhetoric rather than doing work to advance its economic interests during his speech Monday before the United Nations General Assembly, saying that “chanting ‘death to America’ does not create jobs or make Iran more secure.” “That path is now available to a nation like Iran, which, as of this moment, continues to deploy violent proxies to advance its interests,” Obama said. “These efforts may appear to give Iran leverage in disputes with neighbors, but they fuel sectarian conflict that endangers the entire region and isolates Iran from the promise of trade and...

The Iranian president said that America's support for Israel provides an excuse for terrorism worldwide. "If we did not have the US military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the US’s unwarranted support for the inhumane actions of the Zionist regime against the oppressed nation of Palestine, today the terrorists would not have an excuse for the justification of their crimes," Rouhani said.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran bureau chief for The New York Times, looks at what message Mr. Rouhani has for international leaders and how it might be received. What’s different from the last time President Rouhani spoke to the General Assembly? Mr. Rouhani, Iran’s leader since 2013, now has something to show for his presidency at the assembly: He concluded a nuclear deal with six world powers, including Iran’s nemesis, the United States. And, for the first time in years, Iran can look forward to...

The Republican candidates for U.S. president who are attacking the nuclear deal with Iran could hardly find the country on a map, or know that Tehran is the capital, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Sunday. "Sometimes when I would have time, some of it was broadcast live and I would watch it -- some of it was quite laughable. It was very strange, the things that they spoke of," he said through an interpreter. "Some of them wouldn't even know where Tehran was in relation to Iran. Some of them didn't know where Iran was geographically,...

The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency insisted Monday that a probe of a suspected nuclear weapons research site in Iran does meet strict agency standards, while acknowledging that Iranian experts provided samples from the site for analysis. Such sampling is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested. The arrangement was first revealed in confidential draft agreement between the sides seen last month by The...

I suppose that headline is a bit optimistic -- the media is very good about suppressing stories that expose them as frauds; see the Gosnell coverage. But we're coming to a point where the media's continue refusal to acknowledge the obvious is going to become very embarrassing to them. IBD states the obvious. (I can't quote it because it's short, but it dispels so much of the previous myth-making here; do read it.) Suggesting, to me, that we're about to hit the moment of Peak Media Embarrassment is the fact that the tech community is now openly referring to this...

UNITED NATIONS: Pope Francis on Friday threw his support behind Iran's accord with major powers as he backed a goal of global abolition of nuclear weapons. The Iran agreement "is proof of the potential of political goodwill, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy," Francis said in an address to the United Nations. "I express my hope that this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved," he said. Francis made his remarks a day after a friendly welcome at the U.S. Congress, where many Republican lawmakers have vehemently...

Each year the United States gives approximately $8 billion in mandatory payments and voluntary contributions to the United Nations and its affiliated organizations. The biggest portion of this money – about $3 billion this year – goes to the U.N.’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. If that seems like a lot, it is—far more than anyone else pays And it’s also, in some cases, bad value for money. The U.N. system for calculating member nations’ “fair share” payment toward its regular and peacekeeping budgets has increasingly shifted the burden away from the vast majority of the 193 members and onto a...

The sister of the boy who brought a suspected hoax-bomb to his Texas high school said she was suspended from a school in a prior bomb scare. Her suspension occurred in 2009 while she was attending middle school in the same district. Lesley Weaver, a spokeswoman for the district, said school officials can’t release any information about the 18-year-old sister’s episode because the Sudanese parents won’t sign the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, The school has already sent the form to the immigrant Sudanese parents, but they won’t sign it, she said. The sister is named Eyman Mohamed. “I...

Mayor Beth Van Duyne of Irving, Texas is blaming death threats received by Irving’s police chief, police officers, teachers and school administrators on President Barack Obama for his hasty support before the facts were known. Fourteen-year-old high school freshman Ahmed Mohamed was briefly arrested after bringing a suspicious ‘briefcase clock’ to school last week.Mohamed’s claim to have made the clock himself has been exposed by experts as a hoax. The experts state Mohamed took a manufactured digital alarm clock (a 1986 Radio Shack Micronta brand clock-radio) out of its housing and placed it in a pencil box that made it...

TEHRAN, Sep. 22 (MNA) – Iran’s Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces has said Iran’s forces ‘actively welcomes first strike by Israel against Iran only to precipitate their own annihilation.’ Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi who was talking to reporters on the sidelines of the Army parade held on the occasion of Sacred Defense Week, said that Iran had not perceived any threat by any of its neighbors; “we will definitely confront any threat and would wipe Israel out of the map; we actively welcome first strike and provocation by the Zionist regime only to initiate an operation which brings the regime...

60 Minutes traveled to Tehran for an interview with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani last week (whole thing and a little more here). Steve Kroft conducted the interview. Among other things, Kroft joined President Obama in defaming the American opponents of the deal with Iran. This is part and parcel of the operation of CBS News as an arm of the Democratic Party (see, e.g., Sharyl Attkisson’s invaluable memoir Stonewalled). David Rhodes is the president of CBS News and the brother of Obama national security adviser Ben Rhodes. But it is worse than that. There is a long and dishonorable tradition...

Washington, DC (September 22, 2015) — American Enterprise Institute (AEI) president Arthur C. Brooks announced today that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will receive the 2015 Irving Kristol Award on November 9, 2015, in Washington, DC. The annual award, AEI’s highest honor, is given to individuals who have made exceptional practical and intellectual contributions to improve government policy, social welfare, or political understanding. The winner is selected by AEI’s Council of Academic Advisers. The award ceremony and dinner will be held at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Currently in his fourth term, Prime Minister Netanyahu will share his...

Even a broken clock like Bill Maher (pun intended) can be right twice a day...Maher points out that people thought Ahmed Mohamed's clock was mistaken for a bomb because it looks like a bomb. Of course he's right. When I was in high school there was an incident with a "bomb" in the boys locker room. Someone was rumored to have made an explosive device using a tennis ball with matches and some other stuff (I don't remember what) packed into it. That was before 9-11. With materials way more innocuous than what Ahmed had on him. I know liberals...

On Wednesday, the Internet rallied support for a bright 14-year-old boy, Ahmed Mohamed, who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. Ahmed was proud of his invention, but school officials and police in Irvine, Texas, did not feel the same way. Ahmed found support from big leaguers like President Obama, who tweeted his well wishes, and the original clockmaster himself, Flavor Flav, who told the world to “STOP clock blocking.” Everyone loves Ahmed except for Bristol Palin and — you guessed it — Bill Maher. On Friday evening’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, the host assured...

Environmental samples have been taken at a sensitive military site in Iran, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Monday, citing "significant progress" in its investigation of Tehran's past activities. Such sampling is usually done by experts of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano says that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin. The transfer appeared to be part of a confidential draft agreement with the agency that allows Iran to gather its own samples. Inspecting the Parchin military site is a crucial part of the International Atomic Energy Agency's...

Bristol Palin knocks it out of the park in her faith-base, pro-American blog: I know not all law enforcement is ethically correct (we have crooks everywhere), but I cannot even imagine how much more ‘protocols’ they will have to follow during an investigation of anyone who isn’t white. Not everything is race based and most police, and law enforcement in general, are just trying to do their jobs. Let them do their jobs, and stop looking for reasons to cause riots.

STEVE KROFT: I'm sure you realized the difficulty for many Americans to get past the fact that President Obama has signed an agreement with a country that says: "Death to America, death to Israel." What are they to make of it? Is this for internal Iranian political consumption? What are Americans to make of the language? PRESIDENT ROUHANI: The Iranian people are not looking for war with any country. "There has been much ferocious, negative comments about the deal in Iran as there have been in the United States," Kroft told "CBS This Morning" Friday about the long-awaited nuclear agreement....

Count Sarah Palin among the sane who clearly doesn’t think a clock or school supplies should look like an explosive device. The former Alaska governor has weighed in on the story of a teen in Texas who suddenly has a White House invitation. Palin posted on Facebook: I Guess Muhammad’s Pencil Box is Cooler Than the Palin Kids’. The post includes a link to Bristol Palin’s take on the story and then some strong words from Sarah Palin herself regarding the matter. Governor Palin wrote: “It doesn’t look like a pencil box to me.” Palin provided a link to her...