Free Republic

PUNTA BRITO, Nicaragua — One of the largest engineering projects in history would start here, on this desolate and pristine crescent of dark-sand Pacific beach. From in front of the hammock-swinging shrimpers on the porches of their tin-and-wood shanties, the trench would run east in sinuous curves up through the mangroves and banana fields until it reaches the shores of Central America’s largest freshwater lake, then cut across the Caribbean highlands and through indigenous territory, ending its journey 172 miles away on the beaches of the Atlantic. They call it the Grand Inter-Oceanic Canal: an audacious $50 billion plan by an...

The head of Brazil's state-run oil giant Petrobras and five senior executives have resigned in the wake of a huge corruption scandal. Maria das Graças Foster's departure follows the arrest and testimony of some three dozen executives at Petrobras and many of its suppliers. The board of Petrobras is due to meet on Friday to elect new executives. The scandal involves alleged price-fixing, bribes and kickbacks, which implicates Brazil's ruling party. Prosecutors have uncovered around $800m in bribes and other illegal funds. More than 200 businesses are being investigated and more than 80 people, including three former executives from Petrobras,...

Despite living in the world's biggest residential palace that cost £384 million, Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists he is not seeking to be a sultan, but more like the British Queen. The Turkish president referred to the UK as an example for Turkey to follow as he explained that changes to the role of the president would not alter the Turkish republic's democracy... Mr Erdogan's comments, reported in Hurriyet Daily News, included an attack on those who said Turkey was becoming like a monarchy and that he aspired to be like an Ottoman sultan despite other countries also having presidents... Padishah...

India has rejected pleas from the Obama administration to enter into an agreement to put a future limit on its greenhouse gas emissions in order to fight global warming. President Barack Obama went abroad hoping to strike a climate deal with India — the world’s third-largest greenhouse-gas emitter — in order to build support for an international global warming treaty ahead of a United Nations summit later this year. But India had other ideas. Obama wanted India to announce it would peak its greenhouse gas emissions by a certain year, mirroring a pledge China made last year to peak its...

Brasília (AFP) - Brazilian scientists have discovered a protein in coffee that has effects similar to pain reliever morphine, researchers at the state University of Brasilia (UnB) and state-owned Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation Embrapa said Saturday. Embrapa said its genetics and biotech division, teaming up with UnB scientists, had discovered "previously unknown protein fragments" with morphine-like effects in that they possess "analgesic and mildly tranquilizing" qualities. The company added tests on laboratory mice showed that the opioid peptides, which are naturally occurring biological molecules, appeared to have a longer-lasting effect on the mice than morphine itself....

Jakarta (AFP) - Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia and expressed fury on Sunday after Jakarta defied their pleas and executed two of their citizens along with four other drug offenders by firing squad.

As I was sitting down to write about the atrocity in France, my wife Barbara hove into view, always a delicious sight, and announced that she was writing elsewhere on the same subject and that I could not do it. So I will not, other than to say that France had to admit more than a million Algerian Muslims in the mid-sixties, who had been loyal to France in the savage war of independence in that country, as well as a million European Algerians. It has been comparatively indulgent of Muslims since then, but this incident, or a few others...

Our dishwasher broke just after Christmas. The timer stopped working, and a new one costs about $100. My wife suggested that since the dishwasher is nineteen years old, we should buy a new one. Up until now it was working very quietly and efficiently, washing and drying a full load in about an hour. We visited the appliance shop where we had recently purchased a new clothes washing machine a few months earlier. I mentioned to the salesman that our new washer was very slow, taking nearly two hours to finish a large load compared to our old one, which...

21,000 new regulations have been enacted under Obama, and 2,375 are scheduled so far for 2015. Congress does not have the power to stop this avalanche, and can do very little to slow it down. The sad and frustrating part of this “government gone wild” scenario is that it is highly doubtful any of these regulations can be rescinded or fixed before they potentially cause significant permanent damage to our individual freedoms, to say nothing of how they will negatively impact our day-to-day lives. This is how Obama’s “fundamental change” of America is accomplished.

There is a trapdoor on Christ's right shoulder. To mount the steps and slowly, fearfully peer out is to see the world through the eyes of a bird, or even a god. Far below, white blocks of flats and offices cluster among folds of tropical green. Down there are the poor in the favelas, the rich in the luxury high-rise apartments, the homeless, the famous football stadiums and Guanabara bay with its scattered islands and boats. Beyond the sands of Copacabana and Ipanema, the limitless Atlantic ocean. To the left, standing twice a man's height, is the slightly bowed head...

A march against "Islamisation of the West" is due to take place in Dresden, with turnout expected to reach about 10,000 in the eastern German city. A big counter-demonstration is also being organised, similar in size. Dresden is the birthplace of a movement called "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West" (Pegida), which staged a big rally a week ago. Justice Minister Heiko Maas called Pegida's protests "a disgrace". But the Eurosceptic party AfD is sympathetic. "Most of their demands are legitimate," said Bernd Lucke, leader of the conservative Alternativ fuer Deutschland (AfD), which has campaigned for a tougher...

The German PEGIDA movement held its largest meeting yet last night to protest what they call the ‘Islamisation of the Western World’, despite stiff opposition from all sections of Germany’s elite including politicians, media, and the arts. PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West) has grown rapidly since its inception in October, a peaceful ‘strolling’ movement opposing the exceptional violence seen in street battles between Salafist Muslims and ethnic Kurds seen in many German cities this year and enormous immigration. Now on it’s tenth ‘evening stroll’, it has grown from a couple of hundred people, to 15,000 last week,...

Germans Protest Islam, Leftwing Media Denounces Putin By Julio Severo On Monday, December 15, some 15,000 people in Germany took part in a demonstration labeled by the German press as ‘xenophobic.’ The demonstration was held by the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA, by its German-language acronym), whose main objective is to oppose Islamic immigration from the Middle East and Africa. Since October, PEGIDA has held weekly rallies against Islam. German chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned PEGIDA, declaring, “There is no place in Germany for those who are instigating hatred against immigrants.” She also denounced the...

There's only one real way to compare military strength, and thankfully the world hasn't had many opportunities lately. Despite the potential powder keg in the South China Sea, standoffs in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, inter-state warfare between the world's military powers has been all but banished from the global scene (for the time being, at least). For a simpler evaluation of military power, we turned to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors including overall military budget, available manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in...

Who Really Discovered America? Did ancient Hebrews reach the shores of the North and South American continents thousands of years before Christopher Columbus? What evidence is there for Hebrew and Israelite occupation of the Western Hemisphere even a thousand years before Christ? Was trans-Atlantic commerce and travel fairly routine in the days of king Solomon of Israel? Read here the intriguing, fascinating saga of the TRUE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA! William F. Dankenbring A stone in a dry creek bed in New Mexico, discovered by early settlers in the region, is one of the most amazing archaeological discoveries in the Western...

My children of light you have arrived for you abide in My presence in Zion yet many remain earthbound in distractions. Therefore throw off these hindrances "yeah" fast the earth for though I am coming I have already arrived in "you" My Zion on earth. You see as you strip your wellspring of earthly desires Heaven arises in you in all the fullness of The Godhead and it is then My will "is" done. Let there be freedom for My Spirit to "speak" to you of new things and allow Me to bless you through your obedience to My Voice...

The Opec meeting of Nov. 27 brought new strategic thinking to Opec's deliberations and redirected its fixation away from short-term oil pricing toward greater commercial transparency and market-based commodity pricing. This was due in no small measure to Saudi Arabia's determination to eliminate ill-advised oil price manipulations and restore Opec's credibility as the price setting leader of international oil markets. This reality check became inevitable when Opec finally focused on the stark facts of a weak global economy and soft oil demand at a time of abundant oil supplies and inflated prices. The kingdom was forceful in advocating the reality...

Brazilian Families Want Legal Homeschooling By Julio Severo A group of families made a 12-hour trip to be in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city, to attend a vote in the Brazilian Congress on homeschooling. The vote was postponed, but the presence of these families and their children touched the hearts of many congressional representatives. Homeschool families in the Brazilian Congress These families, who were sponsored by ANED (Associação Nacional de Educação Domiciliar, National Home Education Association), promise to be in Brasilia again next Wednesday, when there will be a possible new vote. Congressmen touched by homeschool families The current Brazilian...

Only by overlooking important forces in markets and politics can anyone assert that Saudi Arabia is letting crude prices fall mainly to extinguish competition from North American shale oil. With oil, the Saudi regime always takes the long view. With security, however, its motivations are more immediate. The kingdom faces unusually intense threats: Islamic State (IS) militancy in Iraq and Syria, the chance that Iran won’t agree by a Nov. 24 deadline to suspend its nuclear ambitions, terrorist insurrections from restive Yemen, durability of the menacing government of Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus. Falling oil prices hurt the IS and Iran,...

Rising Turkish Menace: U.S. and NATO Ally Wants Islamic Advance in Latin America By Julio Severo The president of Turkey has re-written history by claiming Muslim explorers, not Christopher Columbus, discovered America. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, chief of America’s NATO ally, said November 15 that Islamic sailors found the New World in 1178. He said, “Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus.” Turkey is the only Islamic nation in the NATO. His theory — which is supported only by Islamic historians — came to light in a televised speech during an Istanbul summit of...