Free Republic

A new United Nations report says Gaza could be “uninhabitable” in less than five years if current economic trends continue. The report released Tuesday by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development points to the eight years of economic blockade of Gaza as well as the three wars between Israel and the Palestinians there over the past six years. Last year’s war displaced half a million people and left parts of Gaza destroyed. The war “has effectively eliminated what was left of the middle class, sending almost all of the population into destitution and dependence on international humanitarian aid,” the...

The Democratic senator who holds the seat long occupied by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. has put the Obama administration on the verge of victory on the Iran deal.Sen. Chris Coons announced on the campus of the University of Delaware Tuesday that he would provide the 33rd vote against a resolution of disapproval for the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran. That puts the agreement one vote short of the number needed to sustain a presidential veto.Coons began his speech to an abundance of local television cameras by expressing concerns about provisions of the deal, including enforcement mechanisms.(video at link)“I...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that her country would welcome Iran’s participation in negotiations aimed at ending the civil war in Syria, but also criticized the Islamic Republic for its comments against Israel. […] Previously, most Western powers were reluctant to see Iran have any role in diplomacy over the Syrian crisis, as Tehran is the strongest supporter of President Bashar Al-Assad and has provided him with financial and military support. At the same time, Merkel added that Iran’s opposition to Israel needed to change. “It is not acceptable how Iran continues to talk about Israel,” she said,...

In late July, about 3,800 miles away from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's last known location, a piece of plane debris washed up. It was found on the coast of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean and appeared to be part of a plane wing from a Boeing 777. MH370, which disappeared March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board, is a Boeing 777. Immediately, rumors began flying that the plane—or at least a piece of it—had been found. ...

Mark Levin, a nationally-syndicated conservative talk show host and former Reagan administration official, announced on Tuesday that he will be attending and speaking at the “Stop The Iran Deal Rally” at the Capitol on September 9.

A culture official in Poland said radar imagery appears to confirm a story by two men who said they know the location of a mysterious Nazi train that may contain gold or other treasures. Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski said Friday he's "more than 99 percent sure that the train is there," but couldn't confirm what was inside the train. ...... ........ The mystery train is believed to be in an abandoned tunnel near Ksiaz Castle, in southwestern Poland. Local legend says the train contains gold, precious stones, art and weapons. The two men who brought the train to the...

This is a tacit admission that the U.S. can’t find enough “moderates” to do the job against the Islamic State, even after spending $500 million to create a “moderate” fighting force. This is an effective admission that not only the Administration’s entire strategy of dealing with the Islamic State, but its entire diagnosis of the jihad threat, is wrongheaded. Even to suggest this, moreover, demonstrates that Petraeus is entirely clueless about what al-Qaeda is all about, what the global jihad is all about, and how to deal with both.“Petraeus: Use Al Qaeda Fighters to Beat ISIS,” by Shane Harris and...

A Turkish court has charged three journalists working with Vice News with “aiding a terrorist organisation” and ordered their arrest pending trial in a move that has caused indignation and outrage amongst journalists and international human rights groups. Correspondent Jake Hanrahan and cameraman Philip Pendlebury, who are British, and their Turkey-based fixer and a driver were taken into police custody on Thursday while working in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir. They were covering recent clashes between Turkish security forces and the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement, the youth wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). ...

ALEX Hildebrandt looked like any other passenger when he walked calmly onto the Trans-Australia Airlines passenger jet bound for Brisbane. It was the last flight out of Sydney and the Russian immigrant, along with his 42 fellow passengers, had just passed through airport security that is nothing like we know today. Which could go some way to explaining why Hildebrandt, then 22, had managed to pack a sawn-off shotgun in his carry-on luggage, as well as all the tools needed to make a bomb. By the time the plane touched down in Brisbane that night, July 19, 1960, Australia —...

“I should say a few words about politics too … Then I would talk about how Muslims are flooding, occupying, in clear verbs, destroying Europe, and how Europe relates to this, the suicidal liberalism and the stupid democracy … It always ends the same way: civilization reaches a certain stage of maturation where it is not only (un)able to defend itself, but where it is in a seemingly incomprehensible worship of their own enemy.”

Russia formally staked its claim Tuesday to a large portion of the Arctic Ocean that includes the North Pole, even planting a flag on the floor of the ocean below the area to exercise its control. If the United Nations committee that arbitrates sea boundaries accepts Russia’s claim, the waters will be subject to Moscow’s oversight on economic matters, including fishing and oil and gas drilling, though Russia will not have full sovereignty. Under a 1982 United Nations convention, the Law of the Sea, a nation may claim an exclusive economic zone over the continental shelf abutting its shores. If...

Five men have been arrested as they attempted to cross the Bulgarian-Macedonian border with decapitation videos and Islamic State propaganda on their phones. The terrorist suspects had been posing as refugees. Bulgarian authorities near the Gyueshevo border checkpoint detained the five men, aged between 20 and 24, late on Wednesday, Bulgarian broadcaster NOVA TV reported. The men were stopped by a border guard, who they attempted to bribe with a “wad of dollars.” However, they were searched and Islamic State propaganda, specific Jihadists prayers and decapitation videos were found on their phones. In a move that suggests how seriously authorities...

Packed trains have arrived in Austria and Germany after Hungarian police suddenly allowed migrants camped around Budapest rail stations to leave the country without visa checks. Frustrated refugees, entering Hungary at a rate of more than 2,000 a day during August, have set up ever-growing makeshift camps outside the two main stations in Budapest. “Germany Yes! Hungary No! Let us leave!” chanted hundreds of mostly Syrians during weekend protests, demanding that a recent easing of asylum rules by Berlin meant they could finally go. The Schengen agreement requires refugees to seek asylum in the first country they enter under the...

Austrian and Hungarian efforts to stem a growing tide of migrants sowed chaos along their frontier on Monday as Germany’s chancellor warned that Europe’s open-border policy was in danger unless it united in its response to the crisis. In Austria, police toughened controls on the border, triggering miles of traffic jams as they checked cars and trucks for evidence of people smuggling. They said they were compelled to conduct the highway searches after discovering the decomposed bodies of 71 people, most of them believed to be Syrian refugees, in an abandoned truck last week. Authorities also stopped and boarded several...

Berlin (dpa) - The southern German state of Bavaria pleaded for aid from the rest of the country Tuesday as it became the latest beachhead in the epic arrival of African and Middle Eastern migrants in Europe. Trains full of migrants who have made it to Greece and then through Eastern Europe on the so-called Balkan Route have begun arriving in Germany - the country many of them wanted to reach in the first place. Even though the arrivals had been expected and Germany has committed itself to taking in 800,000 migrants this year, the arrival has still come as...

U.S. Ambassador Brett McGurk said that 17,000 Syrian refugees have applied to enter the U.S. and that the nation will likely take in “more” of them next year. “We took in about 1,500 last year. We think we’ll take in more next year,” McGurk, who serves as the deputy special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, said Sunday on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. McGurk’s comments came in response to Todd’s question about whether the U.S. would increase the number of refugees it takes in from Syria. “The United States takes in more refugees than any...

BUDAPEST — The Keleti train station in Budapest, which has emerged as ground zero in Europe’s spiraling migration crisis, cut off service to migrants on Tuesday as European countries remained bitterly divided and confused over how to handle the thousands trekking northward. As migrants were greeted early Tuesday by an announcement that the station was “shut down for departure and arrivals for an indefinite time” and told to leave, thousands of others were pouring into stations at the preferred destination for many of the migrants, Germany, and being greeted with promises of accommodations and legalized status. The contrasting scenes in...

Italy’s simmering anti-immigrant sentiment has been stoked by the murder of an elderly couple in their home in Sicily, allegedly by an African asylum seeker. Mamadou Kamara, an 18-year-old from the Ivory Coast, allegedly slit the throat of Vincenzo Solano, 68, and then attacked his Spanish-born wife, Mercedes Ibanez, 70. Ms Ibanez fell to her death from a second-floor balcony, during a robbery that turned violent. Mr Kamara is one of thousands of migrants and refugees living at a vast reception centre at nearby Mineo, in south-eastern Sicily. They are accommodated there after arriving by boat from Libya, and wait...

Mr. O’Keefe’s team — which he billed as an investigative SEAL Team Six — fired an opening salvo on Tuesday by calling a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington to reveal a purported violation of campaign finance laws by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s staff members. In a five-minute video compilation, Veritas showed senior members of Mrs. Clinton’s team appearing to accept a donation from a Canadian women at Mrs. Clinton’s campaign announcement rally in exchange for hats and pins bearing the candidate’s name. The staff members — Molly Barker and Erin Tibe — express awareness that they cannot...

Fifteen people were arrested this month in Spain for smuggling Moroccan migrants into the country on water scooters, authorities said on Saturday, terming it a "very dangerous practice." The revelation came as Europe's migrant crisis snowballed with Austrian police rescuing a group of dehydrated migrants found in a truck, days after the bodies of 71 migrants, believed to be Syrian, were found in an abandoned former poultry lorry. "In August, 15 people were arrested for bringing Moroccan migrants to Spanish shores," the Guardia Civil, a paramilitary police force, said in a statement without specifying the nationality of those held. In...