Free Republic

Chinese spies in U.S. hunting for man who could be the 'most significant defector in decades' are warned off by White House US warned Beijing about covert Chinese agents operating in America to pressure fugitives such as defector Ling Wancheng to return to China Operation Fox Hunt part of large effort by Beijing to repatriate fugitives China’s former president, Hu Jintao, employed Ling’s brother as an aide Brother in July accused of bribe-taking and illegally obtaining state secrets Ling may have got sensitive information about Chinese leaders from him Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first state visit to...

A high-ranking communist official who defected to the United States in the 1970s now says the Soviet KGB was behind the tidal wave of “liberation theology” that swept through Catholic countries in Latin America before the opposition of Pope John Paul II effectively ended the movement. Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former three-star general in Romania's Securitate, or secret police, said he first learned of liberation theology during meetings with Nikita Khrushchev and General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, then chief director of the KGB, when Sakharovsky accompanied the Soviet premier on a six-day visit to Romania in October of 1959. “Khrushchev wanted to...

An Iranian journalist writing about the nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran has defected. In an interview Amir Hossein Motaghi, has some harsh words for his native Iran. He also has a damning indictment of America's role in the nuclear negotiations. “The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal," Motaghi told a TV station after just defecting from the Iranian delegation while abroad for the nuclear talks. The P 5 + 1 is made up of United States, United Kingdom, Russia,...

The Pentagon is under fire for making a ransom payment to an Afghan earlier this year as part of a failed bid to win the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, according to U.S. officials. Sgt. Bergdahl was released in May after nearly five years in captivity as part of a controversial exchange for five terrorists held at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The ransom payment was first disclosed by Rep. Duncan Hunter in a Nov. 5 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Mr. Hunter stated in the letter that Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) made...

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has finally broken his silence, using his first statement since being released from the Taliban to thank President Barack Obama for his support. "Sergeant Bergdahl is deeply grateful to President Obama for saving his life," said Bergdahl's new attorney Eugene Fidell. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Fidell said the former prisoner of war had authorized him to make that statement on his behalf. The exchange of Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners in U.S. custody has been controversial in part because several members of the Bergdahl's former unit have called him a deserter. They say he...

On Megyn Kelly's show (Fox News Channel), she will be showing a panel of 6 of Bergdahl's platoon members shortly. No link/live show

James Rosen via FOX News - U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl at one point during his captivity converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a “mujahid,” or warrior for Islam, according to secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account and obtained by Fox News. The reports indicate that Bergdahl’s relations with his Haqqani captors morphed over time, from periods of hostility, where he was treated very much like a hostage, to periods where, as one source told Fox News, “he became much more of an accepted fellow” than is popularly understood. He...

An Obama administration official has floated the idea that Bowe Bergdahl was justified in deserting his platoon in Afghanistan and joining the Taliban over disagreements with the platoon's leadership. Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a series of tweets Wednesday evening in which he speculated that Bergdahl deserted over bad leadership of his platoon and that is why his fellow soldiers were smearing him."Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)"" What if he grew...

As one of the characters in “Anchorman” observed of its bloody brawl between news teams: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast. Two days after President Obama broke the law to arrange an insanely reckless swap of five incredibly dangerous Taliban terrorists for captive American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, virtually every aspect of the deal has blown up in Obama’s face, and the whole thing has soured into another five-star scandal for an Administration riddled with them. Maybe it’s the accumulated weight of Obama fatigue, or the sheer stupidity and arrogance the President displayed in...

Yesterday “TheBlaze” published an interview with Romanian Lt. Gen Ion Pacepa, a discussion which arose around the publishing of his work, “Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism.” Pacepa is a defector to the United States, but not just any run-of-the-mill defector. He is the highest-ranking Soviet intelligence officer to ever defect. He crossed over back in 1978 and was given political asylum by then President Jimmy Carter. He has made a practice since that time to write in defense of freedom while living his life under threat of assassination, hiding out...

Libya's General National Congress (GNC) elected Ali Zeidan, a long-time opponent of deposed dictator Moamer Kadhafi, as prime minister on Sunday, the assembly's chief said. "Ali Zeidan is elected prime minister and is asked to propose a cabinet within two weeks," Mohammed Megaryef, president of the national assembly, said in remarks broadcast on television. Benefitting from the backing of the liberal coalition in the 200-seat assembly, Zeidan won 93 of the votes cast, trumping the 85 garnered by the only other candidate, local government minister Mohammed al-Hrari. The GNC must approve the government team proposed by Zeidan in order for...

Hezbollah’s CFO defected to Israel today with millions in stolen money from Iran. The 29 year-old Hussein Fahs also took with him classified documents and maps. Al-Arabiya reported: Hezbollah’s CFO has fled to Israel taking with him large sum of stolen money, classified documents and maps, local news media reported on Friday. The news website, Now Lebanon, cited Hezbollah officials saying that the 29-year old telecommunication engineer, Hussein Fahs, has crossed to Israel carrying with him $5 million in embezzled money from the group. Fahs is also head of Hezbollah’s operational communications network. In September, Fahs, who is native of...

Yes, we won the Cold War, but unlike other wars the Cold War did not end with an act of surrender and with the defeated enemy throwing down his weapons. But no, we are not fighting Marxism in our country, because the American people have not yet been warned that their country is being contaminated by Marxism. ...

Joyful toasts and bitter memories: North Korean defectors grapple with death of Kim Jong Il By Associated Press, Published: December 25 SEOUL, South Korea — More than 21,000 North Koreans now live in South Korea. For many, the news of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s death stirred mixed emotions. Several interviewed in Seoul by The Associated Press described a burst of joy upon hearing that Kim had died, but also a surge of unease over the fate of relatives and friends and even a shadow of homesickness. There was celebration — one man had drinks with a friend— and...

22 N.Koreans Brave Perilous West Sea Escape Route A five-ton wooden boat carrying 22 North Korean defectors was spotted by a South Korean Navy ship around 3 a.m. on Oct. 30 some 38 km south of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border, and 41 km west of Daecheong Island. The 12 male and 10 female defectors included eight children, including three under 10, according to a South Korean security official. A South Korean government official said all of them want to defect to the South. This was the fourth time North Koreans took the perilous route across...

North Korean artist in Egypt defects to S. Korea 2011-10-17 21:07 A North Korean artist formerly residing in Egypt has arrived in South Korea in a rare defection through the South Korean embassy in the Middle East country, a diplomatic source said Monday. The North Korean did not return to Pyongyang after his term in Egypt expired and sought refuge in the embassy about two months ago, the source said. The source did not give further details and asked not to be identified, citing the issue's sensitivity. The defection comes months after popular uprisings in Egypt and across the Arab...

Elite N. Korean defector joins S. Korea's spy agency SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Yonhap) -- A former regional head of a key North Korean youth organization was recently named a research fellow of an institute run by South Korea's spy agency, a source said Tuesday. Sol Jong-sik represented Ryanggang Province for the League of Kim Il-sung Socialist Working Youth before defecting to South Korea in 2009. The League, named after the late founder of the communist country, is a major social unit that mobilizes young North Koreans, including teenagers, and publishes a propaganda newspaper for them. The 41-year-old was named as...

N.Korean Defectors Strain Seoul-Beijing Relations Relations between South Korea and China are strained after Beijing on Tuesday said it is sending 20 North Korean defectors back to their country after arresting them late last month, despite urgent requests from South Korea not to send them to almost certain internment in a gulag, torture or death in the North. But the South Korean government is under internal pressure for failing to do its Constitutional duty to protect them. Under the Constitution, all North Koreans are automatically South Korean citizens. Chinese authorities recently cracked down on North Korean defectors in its three...

Sep 16, 2011 8:45am Poison-Needle Assassination Plot Busted in South Korea It could be a plot out of an action thriller. South Korean officials have arrested a North Korean defector in an alleged poison-needle plot targeting a high-profile anti-Pyongyang activist. The suspect, only identified by the police as Ahn, is said to be a former commando in his 40s who defected to South Korea in the late 1990s. The target was activist Park Sang-hak. A North Korean defector himself, Park leads a group called Fighters for Free North Korea that routinely flies balloons over the two countries’ border with leaflets...

Mosab, "son of Hamas," has been exposed as a fraud by counter jihad fighter Walid Shoebat. many of us, myself included, blogged about the phenom Mosab. Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of a jailed Hamas terrorist leader and MP, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization. Mosab, as a young man, assisted his father for years in his political activities. He converted to Christianity and operated undercover in the service of Israel's intelligence agency for a decade. Yousef reveals this information in an upcoming book, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal,...