Free Republic

Defense Secretary Mark Esper met with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune today in the first visit of a Pentagon chief to the North African country since 2006. It was also the highest-level US diplomatic meeting with the new Algerian president since longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted amid popular protests last year. The meeting came a day after Esper signed a 10-year road map for defense cooperation agreement with Tunisia's defense minister and one day before an expected stop in Morocco. The trip is the latest sign that the United States sees strategic opportunity in bolstering its partnerships in North Africa...

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates minister of state for foreign affairs said on Saturday that Turkey should stop interfering in Arab affairs, criticizing comments on Libya made by Turkey’s defense minister. Turkish media had reported the Turkish minister making remarks critical of the UAE’s actions over Libya. The UAE, alongside Egypt and Russia, backs eastern Libya commander Khalifa Haftar, whose fighters have been battling the forces of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli. Turkey has stepped up support for the Tripoli government. “Relations are not managed by threats and there is no place for colonialist delusions in this day and...

U.S. Africa Command says that at least two MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets, possibly piloted by shadowy Russian mercenaries, have crashed in Libya. Jared Szuba, the Pentagon correspondent for AI-Monitor, Tweeted out that one of the jets was apparently lost on June 28, while the other went down on September 7, 2020. This information had come in a statement from Rear Admiral Heidi Berg, U.S. Africa Command's (AFRICOM) director of intelligence. Another tweet indicates that Berg believes that "Russian fighter aircraft," presumably MiG-29s too, but potentially also Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft, have conducted airstrikes in Libya. AI-Monitor's Szuba follows that up...

A member of the Swedish Parliament has nominated the United States under President Donald Trump for a second Nobel Prize in honor of work in Kosovo and Serbia. The nomination was announced by Magnus Jacobson a member of the Swedish Parliament for the Christian Democrats party. “I have nominated the US Gov. and the governments of Kosovo and Serbia for the Nobel Peace Prize for their joint work for peace and economic development, through the cooperation agreement signed in the White House,” he wrote in English on Twitter. “Trade and communications are important building blocks for peace.” Jacobson shared his...

More unprecedented peace in the Trumpian era. Every day, historic, history defining achievements are being ignored by the mainstream media while they write whole fiction tales – books, even- trying to destroy the President. It is like nothing we have ever seen in our life time.Think about it – Middle East Peace, UAE, Malawi, Chad, Saudi flyovers, Bahrain, the Arab League rejecting Palestinian demand to condemn Israel-UAE dealGreece-Cyprus-Israel is a natural coalition considering our collective histories of persecution, oppression and genocide by the annihilationist Caliphate.President Trump’s Growing List of Foreign Policy Successes Greece-Cyprus-Israel sign the tripartite military cooperation program for...

A senior official from Chad told Israel on Tuesday that the country was willing to open an official diplomatic mission in Jerusalem. Chad’s cabinet chairman, Abdelkerim Déby, who is also its president’s son, visited Israel for a series of meetings, including with Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen. A statement from the Intelligence Ministry said Déby expressed “willingness to open an official mission in Jerusalem.”

This really should be one of the biggest public health scandals of the decade, but instead it’s given little attention – mainly because of the high-profile nature of the people and organisations involved. The United Nations has been forced to admit that a major international vaccine initiative is actually causing a deadly outbreak of the very disease it was supposed to wipe-out. While international organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO) will regularly boast about ‘eradicating polio’ with vaccines—the opposite seems to be the case, with vaccines causing the deaths of scores of young people living in Africa. Health officials...

Despite being hailed as a "peace deal," the UAE-Israel agreement will more likely prolong ongoing regional wars. It will intensify conflict in those contested zones of the Middle East where the two blocs back rival actors -- primarily Yemen, Libya, and Syria. The insurgent bloc is winning in all three conflicts. The UAE has proved that its main strategy in these conflicts is to control the policymaking of its allies. Emirati leaders have leveraged their relationships in Riyadh and Washington over the last three years to give them or their proxies a free hand to fight in these contested zones....

Turkey and Qatar have reiterated their support for Libya's internationally recognised government during a trip by their defence chiefs to the capital, Tripoli, where Germany's foreign minister also paid an unexpected visit... The country has been split since 2014 between factions based in the east and west, and regional powers have aligned themselves with the competing sides. While Turkey and its regional ally Qatar support the GNA, forces in the east led by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar have received backing from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia. "We believe that we will achieve the wanted results by supporting...

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse have been detained by mutinying soldiers in the capital during an apparent coup attempt. The development on Tuesday came hours after soldiers took up arms and staged a mutiny at a key base in Kati, a town close to Bamako. It followed a weeks-long political crisis that has seen opposition protesters taking to the streets to demand the departure of Keita, accusing him of allowing the country's economy to collapse and mishandling a worsening security situation. Mali's years-long conflict, in which ideologically-motivated armed groups have stoked ethnic tensions while jockeying...

The Popular Resistance is a militia linked to Yemen's Islah party, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate that has good relations with both Saudi Arabia and its regional rival Turkey. Part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi movement, the party and the militia have enemies within the alliance battling on behalf of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi's government - particularly groups allied with the United Arab Emirates, which is a major backer of eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar. Recent reports by anti-Islah media in Yemen have accused the party of sending Yemenis to Turkey under the guise of receiving medical treatment,...

A Russian think tank reported on Sunday, that Turkey has allegedly concluded a military cooperation agreement with a country bordering Libya. According to Eurasia Political Studies website, "Katehon", who quoted private sources in the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), Turkey had signed a military cooperation agreement with the country of Niger, which is located at the southern border of Libya. The site indicated that this agreement between Turkey and Niger will strengthen Ankara's control in the region, as the latter will support African countries, especially the Sahel countries, to be more effective in the issue of resolving the Libyan...

AUTONOMOUS ZONE, WA—In response to news that Communist pansies have taken over several city blocks of downtown Seattle and filled them with whiny little girly-men, Trump announced today he will act decisively to establish a much more “manly and way cooler” CHAD zone right across the street. “Only true chads will be allowed in the CHAD zone,” said Trump in a press conference. “CHAD will be so much more epic than CHAZ. It will really be fantastic. Everyone agrees. At least everyone who isn’t a loser-face dweeb. No soy boys will be allowed to enter the kingdom of CHAD.” An...

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and police chief Carmen Best are at odds over the city's handling of the self-declared autonomous zone set up by protesters spanning several blocks surrounding a police precinct. Best has accused the mayor of shirking her responsibilities as an elected official and allowing protesters to oust police officers from a precinct located inside the 6-block radius now deemed a "cop free zone." Demonstraters inside the perimeter of the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" - or "CHAZ" - have battened down for almost a week decrying police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and are...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man is charged with providing material support to the Islamic State extremist group, including attempting to buy multiple weapons and scouting potential targets for an attack in the Tampa Bay area, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. A criminal complaint charges Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The charge carries a potential 20-year prison term. **SNIP** According to the affidavit, Al-Azhari scouted a number of targets in the Tampa Bay region, including beaches, parks and even the Tampa FBI field...

An MSNBC reporter was called out by a bystander for attempts to shame people not wearing masks when half of his own camera crew were not wearing them. Cal Perry was delivering a Memorial Day report from Lake Geneva as hundreds traveled to enjoy the holiday weekend in Wisconsin, where businesses have reopened post lockdown. He was caught out while delivering a live report, when he attempted to use a passer-by as an example of people not wearing masks, only for the man to hit back with 'half your crew's not wearing masks!' Perry looked sheepish as he finished up...

(WHAM) - A man was arrested after Monroe County Sheriff's deputies said he blocked a woman in with his car and threatened her in Pittsford. On May 16, Monroe County Sheriff's deputies were called to French Road in Pittsford around 1:45 p.m. When they arrived, a woman said she had left a 'RestartROC' rally to protest against businesses being closed in the Rochester area. The rally was held at Pittsford Plaza early in the afternoon. After leaving, the woman said she was driving down French Road when a car stopped suddenly next to a parked van so that no traffic...

Are you the type of gal who demands to speak to the manager when you feel you’ve been wronged? You just might be a “Karen.” Karen is the latest in a growing line of internet memes poking fun at real-life archetypes. Names such as Karen, Becky and Chad have been co-opted to call out social faux pas online, think: calling the police to shut down a kids’ lemonade stand because they don’t have a permit, or as slangy put-downs like, “Don’t be such a Becky.” Other names have become so entangled in pop culture that they’ve taken on a new...

China has been appointed to a panel on the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council, where it will help vet candidates for important posts -- despite its decades-long record of systematic human rights abuse that the U.S. has said fueled the coronavirus pandemic. Jiang Duan, minister at the Chinese Mission in Geneva, was appointed to the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Consultative Group -- where he will serve as the representative of the Asia-Pacific states. He will serve as one of five representatives for blocs of countries and is joined by delegates from Spain, Slovenia and Chad.

Military strongman Khalifa Haftar's reluctance to sign up to a Turkish-Russian orchestrated ceasefire accord underlines the complexity of Libya's conflict and pressures exerted by key foreign players, analysts say. He left Moscow on Tuesday without signing a permanent truce aimed at ending nine months of fighting against the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Sarraj. His abrupt departure was a setback for an international diplomatic push, after Sarraj had signed up to halting Haftar's offensive to seize Tripoli from the GNA. For Emad Badi of the Washington-based Middle East Institute, there are two plausible explanations for Haftar...