Free Republic

A Marine who died during World War II was laid to rest Thursday, 68 years after his family was told he was lost at sea.

Gov. Sam Brownback has signed into law a bill aimed at keeping Kansas courts or government agencies from basing decisions on Islamic or other foreign legal codes...

Who could not despise the tottering Bashar Assad dictatorship?The Syrian strongman has killed some 10,000 protesters over the last year; thousands of Syrians are now refugees.The autocracy arms and aids the terrorist organization Hezbollah. It targets democratic Israel with thousands of missiles and still does its best to ruin neighboring Lebanon.Theocratic and terrorist-sponsoring Iran has few allies — but Syria remains its staunchest. Almost no other country over the last half-century has proved more hostile to the United States than has Syria.With sanctions not working, and with the Chinese, Iranians, and Russians not eager to see Assad go, there...

United Nations nuclear inspectors have found uranium particles refined to a higher-than-expected level at an underground site where Iran has installed more than 50 percent more enrichment centrifuges, a U.N. watchdog report said on Friday. It said Tehran had told the U.N. agency that the presence of traces of highly-refined uranium—still well below potential nuclear weapons-grade material—"may happen for technical reasons beyond the operator's control". The United States—which like its Western allies and Israel accuse Iran of seeking to develop atomic bomb capability—said the Iranian explanation could be correct and a leading U.S. expert said he saw nothing "nefarious" in...

The candidate of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood won a spot in a run-off election, according to partial results Friday from Egypt's first genuinely competitive presidential election. A former prime minister an a leftist were in a tight race for second place and a chance to run against him to become the country's next leader. The run-off will be held on June 16-17, pitting the two top contenders from the first round of voting held Wednesday and Thursday. The victor is to be announced June 21. The landmark vote—the fruit of last year's uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak—turned into a...

The UK's fiscal consolidation was always likely to have a negative impact on output, at least in the short term. To make it work, the Government needed decent growth elsewhere in the world economy. Instead, it’s facing a hurricane. We look set to be broken by the storm. But fear not – salvation is at hand. Next week, there comes to these shores a Messiah, a prophet of great wisdom and understanding whose teachings promise to vanquish despair and “end this depression”. He is Prof Paul Krugman, a superstar polemicist who has been described by The Economist as “the most...

Germany has reportedly drawn up a six-point plan to rescue Greece and the eurozone’s other failed economies in the same way East Germany was rebuilt after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to revitalise the eurozone’s weaker countries with a package of privatisations, according to German weekly Der Spiegel. This would be overseen by an agency modelled on the Treuhand or “trust agency” which sold off most of the East’s state-owned businesses. Berlin also wants to relax employment laws to bring them in line with the German model and to set up special economic zones to...

European stock markets tumbled and Spain's borrowing costs shot up as the country's wealthiest autonomous region, Catalonia, called for assistance from central government to pay its bills. Catalonia, which represents one fifth of the Spanish economy, has more than €13bn in debt to refinance this year “We don't mind how they do it if it allows us to have enough liquid assets in order to pay, and do it in time, because we all have bills to pay at the end of the month. And this has to be at an homogeneous cost: if not at the European average values,...

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today said it has lowered its ratings on five Spain-based financial institutions, affirmed the ratings on nine, and maintained the ratings on five on CreditWatch with negative implications (see Ratings List). We have also revised down our assessments of the stand-alone credit profiles (SACPs) of six financial institutions, with revisions ranging from one to

WASHINGTON — As a crowd of high-school students offloaded from the tour bus for a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial aka "The Wall," he yelled, "There are no good wars!" Hemmed in on the crowded sidewalk, I tried to ignore his rant and noted the bus had a Pennsylvania license. The shouter was far too young to have fought in Vietnam, and he was wearing a dirty T-shirt, ragged jeans — and Gucci loafers. He held a sheet of cardboard, hand-inscribed with the words "I'm the 99 percent" on one side and "Help me, I'm Homeless" on the...

Australia, long called the "lucky country," officially is the happiest country on earth. That's at least according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, whose economists reckon they can distill human emotion into statistics. At least the OECD's number crunchers acknowledge there is something more to happiness than money. In addition to household income, they also take into account how much of that is required for shelter; the percentage of the population that is employed; the percentage that have to work "very long hours;" educational attainment; voter turnout, and pollution. Norway comes in second, while the U.S. ranks third,...

Iran’s Basij Press is claiming a purported Gospel of Barnabas, discovered in 2000, will prove that Islam is the final and righteous religion, causing the collapse worldwide of Christianity. In the Barnabas text held by Turkey, chapter 41 states: “God has hidden himself as Archangel Michael ran them (Adam and Eve) out of heaven, (and) when Adam turned, he noticed that at top of the gateway to heaven, it was written ‘La elah ela Allah, Mohamad rasool Allah,’” meaning Allah is the only God and Muhammad his prophet. According to the Barnabas Gospel in Turkey’s hands, Jesus was never crucified,...

During the Medal of Honor ceremony for Spc. Leslie Sabo on Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced he’ll speak at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Memorial Day, as part of the Defense Department’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of that war. “Instead of being celebrated, our Vietnam veterans were often shunned,” Obama said. “They were called many things, when there was only one thing that they deserved to be called: American patriots. “[The event] will be another chance for America to say to our Vietnam veterans what should have been said when you first came home: You did your job. You...

SHOPS and restaurants could face fines up to $1.1 million if waiters or sales staff wrongly blame the carbon tax for price rises or exaggerate the impact. And households are being warned to watch out for telephone scammers offering to deposit carbon tax compensation into their bank accounts. The prices watchdog, the ACCC, will today launch its countdown to the July 1 carbon tax with a special focus on helping small businesses understand their obligations and consumers to be vigilant for false claims. It is releasing internet videos to help business, a 16-page guide and has set up a dedicated...

I served in the military for 30 years. But it was impossible to fully understand the sacrifices of our troops and their families until April 29, 2007, the day my son, First Lt. Travis Manion, was killed in Iraq. Travis was just 26 years old when an enemy sniper's bullet pierced his heart after he had just helped save two wounded comrades. Even though our family knew the risks of Travis fighting on the violent streets of Fallujah, being notified of his death on a warm Sunday afternoon in Doylestown, Pa., was the worst moment of our lives. While my...

Bangladesh has struck its first oil, in two gas fields in the northeastern Sylhet region, the chairman of the state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) has said. "This is first time that we have found economically viable oil resources, estimated at about 153 million barrels, in the two gas fields, 280km from the capital," Mohammad Hussain Monsur told reporters on Sunday, adding that production could begin within a year.

Claims are coming from Iran of the discovery of new Caspian Sea oil reserves. If confirmed, it would be the first discovery of new reserves in the area for over 100 years. Using the Amir Kabir semi-submersible rig, the Khazar Exploration and Production Company has estimated the size of the find at around 10 billion barrels and according to Iran’s oil ministry, the oil is high quality. The offshore reserves are described as deepwater, but an exact depth has not been given. According to Khazar, the find is completely within Iranian territorial waters. The Caspian Sea is also bordered by...

Just because you were once the most powerful nation on earth does not mean that you will always be the most powerful nation on earth. Every single year, hundreds of billions of dollars leaves the United States and goes to China. This enormous transfer of wealth has had a dramatic effect on both countries. In case you haven't noticed, many of our formerly great manufacturing cities such as Detroit are rotting away while shining new factories and skyscrapers are going up all over China. If you go into any major retail store today and start turning over products, you will...

The Pollyannas who thought the European recession would be short, shallow, and contained to the periphery have another thing coming. All three ideas were downright silly as I have long stated. French Manufacturing PMI Plunges to 44.4, Sharpest Contraction in 3 Years Markit reports French private sector output falls at sharpest rate for over three years. Key points: Flash France Composite Output Index drops to 44.7 (45.9 in April), 37-month lowFlash France Services Activity Index unchanged at 45.2Flash France Manufacturing PMI falls to 44.4 (46.9 in April), 36-month lowFlash France Manufacturing Output Index declines to 43.6 (47.5 in April), 36-month...

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Friday that "significant differences" remain over Iran's nuclear program following two days of talks in Baghdad. Clinton says the P5+1 – the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany – presented Tehran with a detailed proposal on all aspects of Iran's uranium enrichment during this week's talks in Baghdad. The P5+1 plan reportedly calls on Iran to halt enrichment past 3.5%, ship its stores of 20% enriched uranium out of the country, and shut down its heavily fortified Fordow enrichment facility. They had also called on Iran to live up to...