Free Republic

They never had a chance. Fumbling blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training. Now, they were piled onto the tops of overcrowded armored vehicles, lumbering through fallow autumn fields with Kalashnikov rifles from a half-century ago and virtually nothing to...

Reasons why he's changed his mind provided o the clip.

The embattled leader says Europe has an obligation to take more displaced people from Syria and Iraq. She also said Islam "is not the cause of terrorism" and that combatting extremism needs the cooperation of Muslim countries. In a wide-ranging speech at a Munich security conference, the German chief also vowed to work closely with Vladimir Putin's Russia in the fight with ISIS in the Middle East. Mrs Merkel has come under fire for taking in up to one million refugees amid security concerns and a string of migrant sex attacks across Germany. After the Berlin lorry attack at a...

A Florida prosecutor has decided not to prosecute Donald Trump’s campaign manager for battery after a March run-in with former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO. The decision not to press charges against Corey Lewandowski is scheduled to be announced on Thursday afternoon by Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg. Fields may still pursue a defamation case against Lewandowski, a source said. Fields filed a police report last month after Lewandowski grabbed her by the arm and moved her out of Trump’s way following a press conference at Trump National Gold Club in...

....For the Obama administration, it is a time for restraint that is respectful of our own limited knowledge, not only of the workings of the regime Kim Jong Il left behind but of the people of North Korea so evidently in the grip of that regime. President Barack Obama's first response was to quietly contact President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea to reassure him of the U.S. commitment to its longtime ally. By contrast, two of the Republican presidential hopefuls for 2012, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, jumped in with gratuitous comments. Mr. Romney suggested that the death of the...

A 21-year-old German tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in the Australian metropolis Sydney landed 13,000 kilometers (8,077 miles) away near Sidney, Montana, after mistyping his destination on a flight booking Web site. Dressed for the Australian summer in T-shirt and shorts, Tobi Gutt left Germany on Saturday for a four-week holiday. Instead of arriving "down under", Gutt found himself on a different continent and bound for the chilly state of Montana. "I did wonder but I didn't want to say anything," Gutt told the Bild newspaper. "I thought to myself, you can fly to Australia via the United...