Free Republic

Egyptian armed forces are preparing for the execution of an extensive operation inside Libya in order to fight the revolutionaries and support the militias that are loyal to the UAE in Tripoli and Benghazi including troops commandeered by Brigadier General Khalifa Haftar, high ranking officials revealed. The operation may include a possible ground invasion in East Libya with French aerial cover and funding from the UAE in order to enable Haftar to decisively win the battle, the sources told the Asrar Arabiya website. The site said Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thani's visit to the UAE on Tuesday last week came...

Angry passengers on board an Islamabad-bound Pakistan International Airways (PIA) flight from Karachi forced two prominent Pakistani politicians off the plane accusing them of holding it for more than two hours. PIA's flight PK-370 was scheduled to depart from Karachi's Jinnah International Airport at 7pm on Monday but according to passengers on board it started two hours late. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader and former interior minister Rehman Malik and Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) member of National Assembly Dr Ramesh Kumar Wakwani allegedly arrived two hours after the scheduled boarding time and were not allowed to travel by...

Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat called on Interpol to arrest fleeing members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, who are wanted for engaging in criminal activities, according to state run Al-Ahram. Barakat has demanded the renewal of Interpol’s red notices against Brotherhood members residing in Qatar and Turkey, to be presented for trial in Egyptian courts. General Sayid Shafiq, assistant to the Minister of Interior, was cited by Al-Ahram as saying that Egyptian security forces and Interpol acquired intelligence confirming that Qatari officials have allowed “Muslim Brotherhood leaders to flee to London”. Shafiq added that Egypt has not received an official announcement...

Mockery has long been a favorite -- and effective -- weapon of President Barack Obama. His usage of mockery to demean and belittle his opponents comes straight from one of the men he most admired, the leftist Chicago radical Saul Alinsky, whose Rules for Radicals is the bible of the far left. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon," Alinsky wrote in his primer for revolutionaries. "It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage." Obama over the years has developed the use of mockery almost to an art form -- as...

Displaced Syrians will likely make up the next big wave of Muslim refugees coming to America. Since the early 1990s, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees has selected more than 200,000 refugees from Islamic countries to be resettled in the United States. Most of them have come from Somalia and Iraq. Syria could soon be added to the mix in the midst of that country’s brutal civil war. The Obama administration has been greasing the skids for the Syrian refugees for months, WND has learned, and the refugees will soon be dumped on American cities throughout the U.S. In...

There are about 200,000 Africans from countries hosting the deadly Ebola virus who hold temporary visas to visit the United States, greatly raising the stakes it could spread to America, according to a group following the immigration issue. “Based on State Department nonimmigrant visa issuance statistics, I estimate that there are about 5,000 people in Guinea, 5,000 people in Sierra Leone, and 3,500 people in Liberia who possess visas to come to the United States today,” said Jessica M. Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. Add to that “more than 195,000 Nigerians” with visas to...

North Korea: We have the 'most advantageous human rights system' By Madison Park, CNN September 15, 2014 -- Updated 0851 GMT (1651 HKT) (CNN) -- North Korea has "the world's most advantageous human rights system," the country declared in a lengthy report released on Saturday. Its political system "bestows upon (its citizens) priceless political integrity." Its economic system "ensures people an independent and creative working life, as well as affluent and civilized living standard," according to a report by the DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies. The 53,000-word report -- which repeats the phrase "human rights" over 700 times --...

Thai police Tuesday questioned three Myanmar men over the murder of two British tourists on the southern resort island of Koh Tao, as their bodies were due to arrive in Bangkok for forensic tests. David Miller, 24, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, were found naked and beaten to death early Monday near a beachside bungalow on the island, a diving hot-spot near Koh Phangan in the Gulf of Thailand. A bloodied hoe was discovered 35 meters from the murder scene. “Three male Myanmar migrant workers are under police detention for investigation,” southern regional police commander Panya Maman told AFP, without providing...

Ukraine's parliament ratified an agreement to deepen economic and political ties with the European Union on Tuesday, and passed legislation to grant autonomy to the rebellious east as part of a peace deal. The ratification vote draws a line under the issue that last year sparked Ukraine's crisis, which resulted in the ousting of the president, the annexation of Crimea by Russia and a war with the Russia-backed separatists that has killed more than 2,600 people.

One of the most successful aspects of the Yes campaign has been its ability to hide the economic, social and historical consequences of a vote for independence. The choice for the people of Scotland has been framed by Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond as an opportunity to take revenge on an out of touch Westminster elite, a narrative which for several reasons has struck of chord with a significant portion of Scottish voters. The centrepiece of the Yes campaign’s message is a three and a half minute video from Kirsty, who we are told will be born just...

Frank Van Den Bleeken, a Belgian man in prison for multiple rapes and a rape-murder, has decided he wants to die and authorities have decided they can grant that request. Van Den Bleeken, 50, has been in prison for nearly 30 years and has declined to seek parole because he believes his uncontrollable urges make him a danger to society, but he says he can no longer bear prison conditions and his own "unbearable psychic suffering," AFP reports. "I am a human being, and regardless of what I've done, I remain a human being," he told Belgian TV. "So, yes,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek7vKh4vOzI On Sunday, Bill and Hillary Clinton were Iowa attending the final Tom Harkin Steak Fry event, and Bill was repeatedly pinned down in conversation by folks in attendance. During one such encounter, Clinton got into a discussion with a pro-Palestinian activist who managed to elicit a surprising, or not so surprising, comment from the former President. Activist: If we don’t force [Netanyahu] to make peace, we will not have peace. Clinton: Wait, wait, wait. First of all, I agree with that. But in 2000, Ehud Barak, I got him to agree to something that I'm not sure I would...

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, tore apart President Obama’s claim that “ISIL is not Islamic,” calling Obama both the “excommunicator-in-chief” and “enabler-in-chief” for islamist groups. Jasser labeled Obama the “excommunicator-in-chief” for publicly declaring who is and isn’t ‘Islamic’ during his prime-time address on the Islamic State. Jasser argued the Islamic State is indeed ‘Islamic’ and is representative of the dangerous combination of religion and state in Islamic countries: [The Islamist groups] want nothing more than to suppress the voices of reform. If you talk to reformers, they will tell you that the Islamic State...

The United States has a problem with Islamic State. Its problem is that it refuses to acknowledge why Islamic State is a problem. The problem with Islamic State is not that it is brutal. Plenty of regimes are brutal.Islamic State poses two challenges for the US. First, unlike the Saudis and even the Iranians, IS actively recruits Americans and other Westerners to join its lines.This is a problem because these Americans and other Westerners have embraced an ideology that is viciously hostile to every aspect of Western civilization.Last Friday, Buzz Feed published a compilation of social media posts published by...

Turkey's newly elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aided by his faithful new Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, begins his term of office with a major overhaul of the country's education system. Although adopted a year ago, the reform plan, which has largely gone unnoticed, begins this year and extends Islamic religious education to all school grades. Only religious high schools (Imam Hatip Lisesi) offered such an education as part of their training programme for the country's Muslim clergy. At the same time, the reform extends compulsory schooling from Grade 8 to Grade 12. Erdogan's new Turkey, which plans to celebrate the...

The United States government is sending thousands of military troops to the west African nation of Liberia as part of the Obama administration's Ebola virus-response strategy, the White House said late Monday night. ....'A general from U.S. Army Africa, the Army component of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), will lead this effort, which will involve an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces.'

The United States government is sending thousands of military troops to the west African nation of Liberia as part of the Obama administration's Ebola virus-response strategy, the White House said late Monday night. 'U.S. Africa Command will set up a Joint Force Command headquartered in Monrovia, Liberia, to provide regional command and control support to U.S. military activities and facilitate coordination with U.S. government and international relief efforts,' a statement from the White House press office said. 'A general from U.S. Army Africa, the Army component of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), will lead this effort, which will involve an estimated...

BEIJING --- The PLA Daily reported that the naval and air forces of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will conduct its first free air-combat confrontation drill. According to the drill plan, an aviation detachment equipped with several fighters under the East China Sea Fleet of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLAN) and a troop unit under the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) will join the confrontation drill. It is the first of its kind in the history of the PLAN and the PLAAF. The free air-combat confrontation drill will be conducted on the one-to-one and two-to-two basis...

It's unusual for the United States - by far the biggest defense spender in the world - to seek scrapped military equipment from other nations. Typically, those roles are reversed. But for the past several years, according to internal emails obtained by The Virginian-Pilot, the U.S. Navy has been negotiating to acquire Japan's retired fleet of MH-53E Sea Dragons. The Navy wants to harvest the old helicopters for parts to help keep its own Sea Dragons flying until 2025. "It's telling when we are put in a position where we need to buy scrapped aircraft to keep ours going," said...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was meant to be a purely defensive organization. When the Brussels Treaty of 1948 established the European Defence Alliance of five European countries, it was Canada’s Minister of Foreign affairs, Louis St. Laurent, who proposed the alliance be expanded to include the United States and Canada. One year later, in April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was born. The primary purpose of the new organization was to defend member states from any attack from the Soviet Union and to act in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. NATO was born...