Free Republic

If you think Vladimir Putin has enough worries on his plate ..., the turmoil in Ukraine and Russia’s sputtering economy, think again. A new potential source of trouble is brewing out in the eastern Mediterranean — one that could not only undermine Putin’s efforts to rebuild Russia’s influence in the Middle East, but his current strong hand in Europe. The threat: Israel’s recently discovered offshore gas deposits — one of the biggest global finds of the past decade. Those fields, dubbed Tamar and Leviathan, promise Israel an unprecedented degree of energy independence and a lucrative export market to its Arab...

The hashtag #boycottexodusmovie has been trending on Twitter as posters express there anger over the film's casting of white actors as Egyptians Director Ridley Scott has been bullish about the issue of casting and said it was a business decision to hire white actors He claimed he wouldn't get financing if he hired 'Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such' The cast does includes a number of actors of color, although it is mainly in minors roles including as servants. Sir Ridley Scott has found himself embroiled in a race row after his latest film was branded ‘too white’. Twitter users are urging...

An Egyptian court on Saturday dismissed murder charges against former president Hosni Mubarak in connection with the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ended his nearly three-decade reign. The ruling marks another major setback for the young activists who spearheaded the Arab Spring-inspired uprising nearly four years ago -- many of whom are now in jail or have withdrawn from politics -- and will reinforce the perception that Mubarak's autocratic state remains in place, albeit led by a new president, former military chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Saturday's verdict concludes Mubarak's retrial along with his two sons, his security chief...

According to French financial newspaper La Tribune, Egypt would like to quickly procure a FREMM multi-mission frigate from France, following the deal the country has just signed with DCNS for four Gowind 2500 corvettes (the lead ship to be built in France and the 3 others to be built in Egypt as part of a transfer of technology). Egypt is reported to have requested a FREMM for as early as 2015. La Tribune is reporting that France could sell Aquitaine class Frigate Normandie which is set to be delivered to the French Navy by year end. This would come as...

The Facebook page of Mamoun Abunaser, an UNRWA school principal in Syria, carries an exhortation to support Palestinian "resistance." Image: Facebook Further examples of officials employed by UNRWA engaging in anti-Semitic activities online continue to surface, with no indication that the international organization’s management intends to clamp down on the incitement. As The Algemeiner reported last week, several UNRWA employees were among the many Palestinians who openly celebrated last Tuesday’s terrorist atrocity at a synagogue in Jerusalem, during which four worshippers and a police officer were brutally murdered. UNRWA is a body devoted solely to Palestinian Arab refugees from the...

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday the international community’s failure to advance a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is spurring governments and parliaments to take action to recognize the state of Palestine—and “that momentum will grow.” The U.N. chief said at the U.N. commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People that the international community must assume “a collective failure” for not being able to get a peace deal. “Indeed—as we see around the world—governments and parliaments are taking action,” Ban said. …

Malik Obama, the president’s Kenyan half brother, was photographed in 2010 at a public event in Yemen wearing a “keffiyeh”—a special scarf—bearing two anti-Israel slogans of the terror group Hamas, it emerged today. “Jerusalem is ours—WE ARE COMING,” reads one saying. “From the river to the sea,” says the other statement. That rallying cry refers to Palestinian militants’ belief that the territory representing Israel, with the Jordan River to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, rightfully belongs to them—and Israel should not exist. The photo appears on the website of the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a group...

MALIK OBAMA, brother of Barack Obama has been pictured at a charity function wearing a Hamas scarf (keffiyeh) that bears a well-known Palestinian slogan – ‘Jerusalem is ours – WE ARE COMING!’ While in Sanaa, Yemein in 2010, President Barack Obama’s brother Malik Obama was at an event billed as the Orphans Development Fund (ODF) Conference. It’s quite the ironic title considering a group photo Malik is in that he has posted to his website. In the photo, he can be seen wearing a Hamas scarf (keffiyeh) that bears a well-known Palestinian slogan – ‘Jerusalem is ours – WE ARE...

WASHINGTON - The White House said on Monday Iran should be given more time to answer concerns about its nuclear program and that imposing fresh sanctions on the Iranians could be counterproductive. White House spokesman Josh Earnest made the comments after Iran and six powers including the United States gave themselves seven more months to overcome a deadlock over the Iranian program.

US Tells Iran to Consider Nuclear Talks Extension VIENNA — Nov 23, 2014 By GEORGE JAHN and MATTHEW LEE The U.S. told Iran Sunday that it's time to consider extending nuclear talks, in the first formal recognition by Washington that frenzied last-minute diplomacy may not be enough to seal a deal by a rapidly approaching deadline. A senior U.S. official said that with the Monday evening cutoff date a little more than a day away, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proposed to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Java Zarf that the two sides start discussing post-deadline talks in their latest...

WH: Iran could keep ‘domestic enrichment’ program The White House is currently examining ways to enable Iran to have its own “domestic” uranium enrichment program, according to a senior Obama administration official. As the details of a six month interim nuclear deal between Iran and Western nations are hashed out, the White House is exploring the practicality of permitting Iran to continue certain enrichment activities, an issue that Iranian officials have described as a “redline.” “Over the next six months, we will explore, in practical terms, whether and how Iran might end up with a limited, tightly constrained, and intensively...

- A new deadline for a political framework agreement for Iran's Nuclear talks has been set for March 1, 2015, a Western diplomat tells CNN on Monday, with a deadline for final agreement including annexes on July 1. Negotiators had been scrambling to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program before a Monday night deadline. The negotiators included representatives from Iran and the P5+1 countries -- the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain), plus Germany.

The Kentucky senator, seeking to define himself as a foreign-policy heavyweight ahead of 2016, will introduce a measure in the Senate next month declaring war on the terror group. “The most important” part of Rand Paul’s assessment of “questions of war,” the Kentucky senator told The Daily Beast this fall, is “how you go to war.” Now he’s putting that assessment into action with a plan to introduce a declaration of war against ISIS in the Senate next month. The move is part of Paul’s ongoing campaign to position himself as a foreign-policy heavyweight ahead of the Republican presidential primaries,...

In the areas where over 1,000 rockets and missiles fell, Israeli farmers will plant 100,000 new fruit trees! Planting Trees on the Golan Photo Credit: Zo Artzeinu With the war in Israel over, the people who left their bomb shelters were looking for a strong response to Hamas, and they found what they were looking for. Hamas wanted death so they have decided to respond with LIFE! An interesting project has begun – and has immediately entered into high gear, since time is of the essence. In the exact areas where over 1,000 rockets and missiles fell, Israeli farmers will...

Egyptian antiquities authorities on Thursday revealed an ancient pharaonic embalming bed unearthed from a mysterious tomb near Luxor used to prepare bodies for mummification more than 3,000 years ago. The wooden bed was painstakingly restored after being discovered in pieces in the KV-63 tomb in southern Egypt's famous Valley of the Kings, next to Tutankhamun's tomb, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement. The bed, featuring carved heads of a lion and a lioness at its foot, slopes downwards five centimeters (two inches) from head to toe to help drain bodies being prepared for mummification... Antiquities supremo Zahi...

Could the small tomb, designated KV63, hold a royal mummy, perhaps that of Tutankhamen's widow or even his mother? ...Otto Schaden, the man who found them, leads the American team. He believes they may have located the mummy of Tutankhamen's widow, Ankhesenamen, after traces of her name were found on the seal of one urn. The secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, thinks the final coffins may contain the remains of the pharaoh's mother, whose identity is unknown, and not the wife of Tutankhamen, the boy king who died at age 18.

LONDON: It has been 84 years since Egypt's famed Valley of the Kings revealed its last great riches – the fabulous gold of Tutankhamen's tomb. Now archaeologists believe they have stumbled across one final secret: The mummified remains of the boy king's widow buried 3000 years ago. In a mysterious shaft less than 15m from Tutankhamen's burial ground, US archaeologists found seven coffins. They believe one they have not yet been able to open may contain the remains of Queen Ankhesenpaaten. The tomb – found by accident by Memphis University team leader Dr Otto Schaden – contained seven coffins stacked...

In 1903 the renowned archaeologist Howard Carter had found Hatshepsut's sarcophagus in the 20th tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings -- KV20. The sarcophagus, one of three Hatshepsut had prepared, was empty. Scholars did not know where her mummy was or whether it had even survived the campaign to eradicate the record of her rule during the reign of her co-regent and ultimate successor, Thutmose III, when almost all the images of her as king were systematically chiseled off temples, monuments, and obelisks... Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Mummy Project and secretary general of the Supreme Council...

From the comfort of his study in Norwich, England, Colin Newton, a retired television repairman, explores rare Giza maps and expedition diaries in an effort to catalog all Old Kingdom tombs. Meanwhile, Laurel Flentye, an Egyptologist who specializes in art and archaeology, downloads excavation photos and roams inside subterranean chambers, zooming in on relief decorations in tombs around the Sphinx and Great Pyramid from her Cairo home... The Giza Archives Project, established by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts in January 2005, aims to become the world's central online repository for all archaeological activity at the necropolis, beginning with the major...

Tutankhamun, ancient Egypt's famous boy pharaoh, grew up 3,300 years ago in the royal court at Amarna, the ancient city of Akhet-aten, whose name meant the "Horizon of the Aten." This extraordinary royal city grew, flourished -- and vanished -- in hardly more than a generation's time. Amarna, Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun, a new exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, offers a rare look at the meteoric rise and fall of this unique royal city during one of Egypt's most intriguing times. The exhibition, the centerpiece of the Museum's event-filled "Year...