Free Republic

As Europe seeks to diversify its sources of natural gas as an alternative to the politically sensitive Russian supply, a massive off-shore gas source in the Mediterranean is ready for exploration and drilling. There are game-changing stakes at play. Unfortunately, the Turkish leadership has threatened to use force to stop this from happening. Last October, Turkey sent the BARBAROS, its geophysics exploration ship, accompanied by naval vessels, into the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone waters. In November 2014, Turkish naval commander Admiral Bülent Bostanoğlu threatened the use of force against Greece, while speaking on board a Turkish naval corvette in Greek...

Estimates are that the amount of oil found will make Israel self sufficient for very many years to come. After more than a year of round-the-clock drilling, large amounts of oil have been found on the Golan Heights. Estimates are that the amount of oil discovered will make Israel self sufficient for very many years to come. Afek Oil and Gas chief geologist Dr. Yuval Bartov told Channel 2 News, "We are talking about a strata which is 350 meters thick and what is important is the thickness and the porosity. On average in the world strata are 20-30 meters...

Before there was pottery in Cyprus, there was barbecue. And in the spirit of the Stone Age, archaeologists on the Mediterranean island recreated a prehistoric pit feast this summer — feeding 200 people with pig and goat, slow-roasted underground — to test the cooking methods of Neolithic chefs. A 9,000-year-old barbecue pit was recently discovered at Prastio Mesorotsos, a site in the Diarizos Valley outside of Paphos, which has been almost continuously occupied from the Neolithic era to the present. It took three years of excavations before archaeologists from the University of Edinburgh got to the bottom of the stone-lined,...

In 1983 a sponge diver found funny metal biscuits with ears at the ocean floor. That is how the excavation got started, Hirschfeld said. The ship carried ten tons of copper ingots, which after being analyzed, were determined to be from Cyprus. Each ingot weighs approximately 60 pounds, she said. She and her team also excavated glass ingots, tons of tin, and three Italian swords that were not part of the cargo of the ship. Among the 130 Canaanite jars they found, there were traces of wine in the jars and one was full of glass beads. The team also...

If the Greeks were to vote ‘No’ what would happen next? Well no one can say. But here is a quick thought on what I hope the Greek government might have been exploring if they are excluded from the euro. It’s just food for thought nothing more. They have to be prepared to have a currency that does not depend on Europe supplying Euros. So they will need another currency – hopefully their own. I think we can be sure no western company has been printing them. There are few such companies and there is, I think, no possibility that...

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday. The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said.

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said. A Greek bail-in could resemble the rescue plan agreed by Cyprus in 2013, when customers’ funds were seized to shore up the banks, with a haircut imposed on uninsured deposits over €100,000. Meanwhile, Yanis Varoufakis swears this is nothing but a "malicious rumor": FT report of a Gk Bank Bail In is a malicious rumour...

It’s axiomatic that when a socialist regime hits the skids, the left will generally try to claim that such regime is ‘right wing’ somehow. Such claims can and will be completely irrational on their face, but for the national socialist Left it’s all about talking points and a simplistic ( but ‘superior’) mentality that favors headlines and shallow thought on the subject And before you complain that I dare use the word ‘national’ next to the word ‘socialist’ I would ask that you please explain in detail (with documentation) Just how in Hades’ the word national modifies the meaning of...

Former US Presidential candidate and publisher of Forbes Magazine, Steve Forbes, used the platform of his magazine to pen an open letter to the prime minister and finance minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis. The full text of his letter appears below. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dear Prime Minister Tsipras and Finance Minister Varoufakis: You may have won a four-month reprieve of sorts from your creditors, but your situation is desperate, and everyone knows it, most particularly Europe’s paymasters, the Germans. As you just painfully learned, your ability to blackmail your creditors is a fraction of what it once was. Businesses,...

For a head of state to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip seen in Jerusalem tonight as a disastrous humiliation. After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on Jewish settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at...

Uproar in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has relieved Gen. Qassem Soleimani,the Al Qods Brigades chief and supreme commander of Iranian Middle East forces, of his Syria command after a series of war debacles. He was left in charge of Iran’s military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. This is revealed by exclusive Iranian intelligence sources. Since Soleimani last visited Damascus on June 2, in the aftershock of the historic town of Palmyra’s fall to the Islamic State, the situation of President Bashar Assad and his army has gone from bad to worse. The Iranian general’s...

In Jerusalem flyers were spread throughout the old city claiming to be ISIS.The bulletin which had the ISIS logo demanded that all Christian Arabs must leave eastern Jerusalem by the end of Ramadan accused of being “Israeli collaborators”. ISIS also demanded that in the case the Christians refuse to leave that Muslims in eastern Jerusalem are mandated to kill all the Christians living there.Photo Credit: Islamic State / JerusalemAl-Quds (Jerusalem Newspaper), the main Arab newspaper there had posted a reply from Theodosios (Hanna) of Sebastia, the Archbishop from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In his reply the Archbishop condemned the...

End austerity: it’s cheating us all; Jobs not Trident; No cuts; Defy Tory rule; Cut war not welfare; Stop fracking; a Living Wage for mothers; and, The Pope gets it, why can’t you? With the slogans emblazoned on banners, posters and flags, anti-austerity marchers shouted slogans, sang, and beat drums, as they walked through London in what is being called the biggest protest march that the city has seen. The ‘End Austerity Now’ demonstration saw participation by an estimated crowd of between 70,000 and 250,000, all coming together to protest against cuts imposed due to austerity, the threats to the...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said after Friday's talks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that a prospective Russian natural gas pipeline should help Greece service its debt, but the Kremlin said the question of direct Russian financial aid to Greece was not discussed. Speaking of the pipeline deal at a meeting with top executives of global news agencies, including The Associated Press, which began nearly three hours behind schedule at around midnight, Putin said he saw no support for the Greeks from the EU. "If EU wants Greece to pay its debts it should be...

Why Is The EU Forcing European Nations To Adopt 'Bail-In' Legislation by the End of the Summer? Are they expecting something to happen? As you will read about below, the European Union says that any nation within the EU that does not enact "bail-in" legislation within the next two months will face legal action. The countries that are being threatened in this manner include Italy and France. If you fast forward two months from this moment, that puts us in early August. So clearly the European Union wants everything to be squared away by the end of the summer. Is...

https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/609341858045497344 https://twitter.com/TraderStef/status/609355146842275840 https://twitter.com/JAFF3/status/609343992803774464 https://twitter.com/russian_market/status/609341880623591424 The bank runs (and capital controls) begin. Macedonia Central Bank Governor Bogov states: *GREEK BANKS IN MACEDONIA CAN’T WITHDRAW CASH: BOGOV*MACEDONIAN BANKS PROTECTED IN CASE OF GREXIT: BOGOV How long before the rest of Europe follows suit and a bank holiday is declared Monday to "Cyprus" depositors? He further added: *MACEDONIAN CENTRAL BANK SEES MAJOR RISKS FROM POLITICAL CRISIS http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-12/macedonia-central-bank-blocks-greek-bank-withdrawals-case-grexit Macedonia Central Bank blocks Greek bank withdrawals FXStreet (Córdoba) - Macedonian Central Bank's Governor Dimitar Bogov has stated that Greek banks are not able to withdraw cash. According to Bogov, this withdrawal halt is protection against...

olitics: The danger of foreign influence-buying through foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation is seen in millions of dollars of donations from Issam Fares, a Lebanese politician and billionaire enemy of Israel. In the case of Hillary Clinton, the adage that the past is prologue is both a truism and a warning of possible things to come. Just as Johnny Chung famously compared the first Clinton White House to a subway turnstile in which you put money to gain access, the Clinton Foundation is looking to be that turnstile on steroids, with dangerous implications for both American and Israeli security....

A pair of RAF Lakenheath based USAF F-15E Strike Eagles that were bristling with live bombs and air-to-air missiles, along five KC-135R tankers, flew on a secretive and grueling 12 hour mission over the Southern Mediterranean on Monday, May 25th, Memorial Day. Multiple radio interceptors and plane spotters state that four F-15E’s, callsigns ABLE 01 through 04, took off from their home base at RAF Lakenheath laden with yellow banded (live) AIM-9M sidewinders, AIM-120 AMRAAMS and no less than seven 500lb Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs). These aircraft were accompanied by five KC-135Rs tankers, callsign QUID 91 through 95, that...

ISTANBUL: Images and video footage allegedly showing trucks belonging to Turkey's state intelligence service carrying weapons en route to jihadist rebels in Syria were published Friday in a Turkish daily. The Turkish government has vehemently denied earlier claims that it is arming rebels fighting in Syria and accused dozens of prosecutors, soldiers and security officers involved in the searching of trucks of attempting to bring it down by suggesting that it is doing so. Earlier this month, Turkey arrested four prosecutors who ordered searches in a similar incident in January 2014 and they are now in prison pending trial. More...

Do you remember what happened when Cyprus decided to defy the EU? In the end, the entire banking system of the nation collapsed and money was confiscated from private bank accounts. Well, the nation of Greece is now approaching a similar endgame. At this point, the Greek government has not received any money from the EU or the IMF since August 2014. As you can imagine, that means that Greek government accounts are just about bone dry. The new Greek government continues to insist that it will never “violate its anti-austerity mandate”, but the screws are tightening. Right now the...