Free Republic

Never mind the negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program. Far more urgent developments are afoot. While the foreign ministers were busily counting how many centrifuges could spin in Iranian facilities, President Obama and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have arranged a working relationship throughout the Middle East that effectively puts American policy at the service of Iran.Long the goal of Obama, who sent a private emissary to Tehran as early as the 2008 election campaign to tell the Khamenei regime he wanted to be their friend, there is now a de facto alliance between the two...

An Israeli firm will supply Egypt with natural gas, a company spokesman said Monday, more than two years after sabotage halted the flow of Egyptian gas to Israel. For more than a decade Israel relied on Egypt for roughly 40 percent of its gas needs in line with an export accord signed in 2005 by the two countries which are bound by a peace treaty. But in April 2012 Egypt annulled the contract, saying Israel had not met the financial obligations of the agreement, in a decision that came amid a spate of bomb attacks that targeted the pipeline used...

Fars, the semi-official press agency of Iran, has reported that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the visiting Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement, Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, in Tehran on Thursday, "The enemy [Israel] should feel the same worries in the West Bank as it does in Gaza." The comments came at the same meeting in which Shalah praised Iran's own role in the conflict. “The Islamic Republic and the Iranian people are proud of your [Islamic Jihad’s] ‘victory’ and resistance [in Gaza], and hope that the back-to-back ‘triumphs’ of resistance groups will continue until final victory,” Iran's Supreme...

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has spelled out his plan for restoring order to neighborhoods in Jerusalem where Arab attacks on Jews have become daily occurrences, and said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also forcefully demanded action by the security forces in a recent high-level discussion. Barkat enumerated the neighborhoods currently under attack – from Armon Hanatziv, Har Homa, and Gilo in southern Jerusalem, through the Mount of Olives area, Issawiya and Silwan, northward to Shuafat and Beit Hanina, where the Light Rail has repeatedly come under brutal attack. He commended Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who he said took very seriously...

The term “conspiracy theory” refers to a covert geopolitical grand plan that cannot be proven (hence a theory) but can be discerned (meaning there is “evidence”). It is like smelling a rat that cannot be found. When the “evidence” becomes overwhelming, the theory begins to move into a gray area toward reality. It is therefore up to readers to make their own conclusions. The “theory” that the Islamic State of Iran and Syria (Isis) was created by the US-Israeli-UK triumvirate is all over the Internet. The supposed grand plan hits two birds with one stone: to pit Arab against Arab...

Members of Knesset, Orit Struk and Yariv Levin, heads of the Land of Israel Lobby in the Knesset, have prepared ten laws for applying sovereignty over ten different areas in Judea and Samaria. We discussed with MK Struk the laws that have been proposed and that are awaiting for the right moment to be moved along in the path of parliamentary legislation. “The laws of sovereignty are actually intended for the application of Israeli sovereignty gradually over the areas of settlement in Judea and Samaria, which is called Area C, in keeping with the idea that the entire process of...

THE Australian sailor who was the first to identify and then attack a Japanese midget submarine in Sydney Harbour in 1942 has been written out of history because of spite, according to his son Brian Anderson. Mr Anderson says the heroic actions of his father, Warrant ­Officer Herbert Anderson, were glossed over in official reports ­because he had clashed that evening with his “drunken” commander, Rear Admiral Gerard Muirhead-Gould. Now Mr Anderson has ­appealed to Tony Abbott to correct the record after an eight-year legal battle with Defence to seek recognition for his father’s ­actions, which he claims saved many...

Troops from the 101st Airborne Division leading the military response to Ebola in West Africa will only need gloves and masks to protect themselves from the deadly virus, so said Gen. David Rodriguez at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday. “They don’t need the whole suit – as such – because they’re not going to be in contact with any of the people,” the commander of U.S. troops in Africa said. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne will primarily be building hospitals, ultimately leading what could be a contingent of 4,000 American service members. They’ll be housed either in tent cities at military...

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is moving with a steady pace to establish his total control over Russia. He’s now pushing a law to help him deal with the last pesky parts of the post-Soviet period of Russian history—that annoying free press. In this Washington Post story, we see that President Putin is doing in Russia what Sen. Harry Reid and fifty-three of his Senate colleagues attempted to do recently with a constitutional amendment to limit free speech. Putin knows he is fairly free to act on the world scene and at home. President Obama is distracted. His administration is perplexed. Having...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) plans to introduce legislation that would ban new visas for people from the three countries affected by the Ebola epidemic; Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. In a statement from his office on Monday, Rubio described a visa ban as a "common sense" restriction. "While Ebola’s deadly reach has proven to be a complex and unique international challenge, the many uncertainties surrounding this virus continue to threaten U.S. national security," Rubio said. "Our biggest priority is ensuring that sufficient safeguards are in place to limit the spread of Ebola, contain it at the source, and protect Americans."...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Jurors deliberating the fate of four former Blackwater security guards in the shootings of more than 30 Iraqi citizens were granted a request to watch a videotape showing the aftermath of the violence.</p> <p>Monday was the 25th day of deliberations by the jury of eight women and four men. They asked to see the tape, which had been shown during the trial.</p>

This story about a divorce in the United Arab Emirates begins in not-so-unusual fashion: A wife refuses to sleep with her husband, and he is not pleased. Then it gets weird: She tells him to talk to her parents, who explain that their daughter can't have sex with him because she is, in fact, a supernatural creature called a jinn that the BBCequates to a genie. This results in divorce. But if the excuse was a tall tale, the joke's on the ex-wife, because a court in Dubai ruled that she is not entitled to alimony, reports Gulf News. Reason?...

ISIS militants launched about 15 near-simultaneous attacks on Kurdish forces in northern Iraq on Monday in what Kurdish government officials and the Kurdish news agency Rudaw said was a fierce and renewed push for Kurdish-held territory. The deadliest of the attacks targeted Mosul Dam, a hugely important location. First, an ISIS-commandeered military truck loaded with explosives targeted a Peshmerga checkpoint along the security belt circling the dam, killing six Peshmerga security forces and injuring seven others critically, according to Peshmerga forces spokesman Said Mamazeen. At almost the same time, ISIS militants launched an attack on the Nineveh Valley near the...

A few weeks ago an emergency room doctor called our infectious disease physician group concerning a patient who had returned from Liberia and was having nausea and vomiting. Several of the patient's family members had died of Ebola. As panic struck us, our decisive question was: When did he return from Liberia? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for screening and isolating patients for possible Ebola infection are clear: Any person who is presenting with symptoms (which include fever, headache, vomiting and stomach pain) along with a history of travel to West African countries including Liberia, Guinea and...

MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Turkey will allow Iraqi Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, to cross its border with Syria to help fight militants from the group called the Islamic State who have besieged the Syrian town of Kobani for more than a month, the Turkish foreign minister announced Monday. The decision represents an important shift by the Turkish government, which has angered Kurdish leaders and frustrated Washington for weeks by refusing to allow fighters or weapons to cross its border in support of the Kurdish fighters defending the town. Speaking at a news conference in Ankara, the Turkish foreign minister,...

Nigeria has been declared officially free of Ebola after six weeks with no new cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. WHO representative Rui Gama Vaz, speaking in the capital Abuja, said it was a "spectacular success story". Nigeria won praise for its swift response after a Liberian diplomat brought the disease there in July. The outbreak has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. An estimated 70% of those infected have died in those countries. The WHO officially declared Senegal Ebola-free on Friday. Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers are meeting in...

he war in Ukraine is no longer only about Ukraine. The conflict has transformed Russia. This increasingly is what European leaders and diplomats believe: that Vladimir Putin and his security establishment have used the fog of war in Ukraine to shroud the final establishment of his brittle imperialist dictatorship in Moscow. Among those who believe that this is happening, and that Europe will be facing down a more menacing Russia for a long time to come, is Radek Sikorski, who was Poland’s foreign minister from 2007 until September. “I think psychologically the regime has been transformed by the annexation of...

Harvard University has imposed an effective travel ban on Ebola-striken countries, requiring students, faculty, and staff to obtain official permission from the university administration before traveling to affected parts of West Africa, and possibly staying off campus for 21 days after returning to the U.S. from those countries. The severe restrictions at Harvard, reported early Monday by the Harvard Crimson, "expand on those detailed in August that asked for Harvard students, faculty, and staff to avoid nonessential travel to the three countries." The new restrictions also exceed any guidelines imposed by the U.S. government. The new policy comes in the...

Turkey’s top diplomat has announced that his country is helping Iraqi Kurdish fighters cross into Syria to “give support” to fellow Kurds defending the border town of Kobani from Islamic State militants. The remarks by Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, at a press conference in Ankara, followed the announcement by the US military that it had for the first time airdropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq to the Kurdish forces in Kobani. Sunday’s airdrops followed weeks of US and coalition air strikes in and near Kobani, along the Syrian-Turkish border. There was no immediate...

JAPAN is preparing to change the sub-surface propulsion system for its Soryu submarines, dumping German and Swedish technology in a move that could clear a potential barrier to Australia purchasing the Japanese boats. Tokyo’s plans to switch from the Kockums propulsion system to specially developed lithium ion batteries eliminates the potential embarrassment for Australia in ­rejecting German and Swedish bids in favour of using a sub that is powered by their intellectual property. The Kockums air-independent propulsion (AIP) system was designed in Sweden but licensed to Kawasaki Heavy Industries to incorporate into the Soryu class to power the subs on...