Free Republic

Iran is, literally, being blown away. Stifling dust storms frequently now envelop both big cities and rural towns across much of Iran, the world’s 17th largest country. They threaten to disrupt crucial parts of public and economic life, education, commerce, public health, agriculture, trade and transportation. Swirling clouds of windblown silt, soil, and sediment - already affected 23 of Iran’s 31 provinces in 2013, according to Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, head of the country’s Environmental Protection Organization. Iran’s massive dust storms could also spill well across Iran’s borders, generating serious regional consequences and tensions. Dust clouds veiled Tehran for 117...

(Reuters) - Iranian-American Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine whose previous death sentence in Iran on espionage charges was overturned, has been secretly retried, convicted of collaborating with the U.S. government and sentenced to 10 years in prison, the New York Times reported on Friday, quoting his lawyer. The newspaper quoted lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei as saying Hekmati, held since 2011, was not told by Iranian officials about the retrial, conviction or prison sentence. The Times quoted Tabatabaei as saying Hekmati was retried by a revolutionary court in December and convicted of "practical collaboration with the American government." :snip: The...

There are reports of a possible chemical weapons attack in at least one area of Syria, but possibly more. Below we will be analyzing the information as it comes in. 2034 GMT: A potentially very important video. This claims to have been taken this evening in Kafr Zita, and it is uploaded by a channel that has posted videos nearly exclusively from Kafr Zita. It claims to show a helicopter dropping a barrel bomb filled with the chemical weapons. SNIP- Just today, the Local Coordination Committees reported that five people were killed in Harasta and several more were injured in...

Under pressure from Arab nations, the United Nations Human Rights Council has rejected a U.S.-backed choice to replace its outgoing point man on Palestine, and is now eyeing two candidates who share a long history of alleged anti-Israel bias. The current front-runner to replace Richard Falk, a 9/11 truther who once praised Ayatollah Khomeinei and was reliably anti-Israel while serving as the council's special rapporteur on Palestinian rights, is Christine Chinkin, a law professor at the London School of Economics. Chinkin authored the Goldstone report, an infamous UN study on the Gaza conflict that was repudiated by Israel. A dark...

The White House says the administration won’t grant a visa to Hamid Aboutalebi, who had a role in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and is Iran’s pick to serve as its ambassador to the UN. White House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration has told Iran at multiple levels that Aboutalebi’s selection was “not viable.” The move effectively keeps Aboutalebi out of the country. But it still isn’t clear whether President Obama will sign legislation that would prevent Aboutalebi from coming here as a matter of law.

April 11, 2014, 01:06 pm Obama denies visa to Iran diplomat By Justin Sink The White House said Friday it would not issue a visa to Iran's next ambassador to the United Nations, who has ties to the Iranian hostage crisis. “We have informed the United Nations and Iran that we will not issue a visa to Mr. Hamid Abutalebi,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. Abutalebi has admitted that he worked as a translator and negotiator for the student group that held Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran for 444 days. "We’ve confirmed what we’ve conveyed....

The White House announced today that it would refuse to issue a visa to Hamid Aboutalebi, the Iranian envoy to the United Nations, over his connection to the 1979 hostage crisis in Tehran. Aboutalebi belonged to the “student group” who seized Americans from the US embassy despite having diplomatic immunity, and the Iranian government held them captive for 444 days:

An American commentator who appeared on state-owned Iranian Press TV suggested that Israel was responsible for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which went missing on March 8. “Why are they giving us photoshopped pictures of Iranian passengers?” said Barrett, referring to the two Iranian nationals who boarded the flight with stolen passports. “Obviously there was some kind of a set-up to try to blame this on Iran,” he continued. “Precisely what that is we don’t know, but the Israelis have been using their assets, including the head of El-Al security, who was a 9/11 suspect – he lives...

Weak administration foreign policy is causing Senators from both parties, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, to fix and lead diplomacy. The administration has been relatively silent about Iran’s nominating a known terrorist, who hates America, to be their U.N. Ambassador. The terrorist, Hamid Aboutalebi, participated in the 1979 takeover and hostage taking at the American embassy in Tehran, Iran. The terrorist kept our people for 444 days; an atrocity that is still celebrated on the website of the takeover group. Such behavior from Iran is typical and dangerous. The administration has been, in diplomatic and geopolitical terms, nearly silent about...

Chris Matthews for an interview on Hardball Wednesday and made some news by saying he does not think the United States should bomb Iran even if they were to succeed in building an operational nuclear weapon. This statement differs not only from recent comments made by former Vice President Dick Cheney but also from the stated position of President Barack Obama. “I never have felt that Israel had a capability militarily to go 1,200 miles or more and bomb Iran effectively and then return back to Israel,” said of Cheney’s suggestion that Israel could attack Iran unilaterally. “The only country...

PM facing embarrassment over links between adviser and Islamist group. Adviser Tariq Ramadan is grandson of Muslim Brotherhood's founder . ... Tariq Ramadan is one of 14 members of the Foreign Office’s Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief, chaired by Tory peer Baroness Warsi. He is Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, and was a member of a taskforce set up by Tony Blair after 7/7. But Prof Ramadan, 51, is grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder Hassan al-Banna and his father Said Ramadan was a leading light. ... He was kept out of France in...

What, if anything, do "we" now stand for and why?An article published on April 9th by the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council is titled U.S.: The Great Problem that Needs to be Solved. Written by Elliot Abrams, it contends that the problem has at its center the world view of President Obama. His world view is based primarily on ideology rather than reality; its bases are evident in all that He and His minions do and fail to do. The problem also impacts domestic policy, implemented by Executive Decree when He "won't wait." If the Democrats control neither house of the Congress following the November elections, there...

Today, three Republican U.S. Senators and one Representative who feel stymied on their investigation into the Benghazi, Libya Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks are calling for House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) to convene a Select Congressional Committee. “Segmenting the investigation will never get to the truth,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is holding a news conference on the effort today with Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC). There have been multiple hearings in the nearly 17 months since the terrorist attacks that killed four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The hearings, subpoenaed...

This is a bad morning. I was greeted by a headline in the New York Times that said Defense Secretary “Chuck Mullet” Hagel was planning to submit a budget to Congress to cut the size of the military to a level not seen since 1940, before the U.S. entered World War II. The article went on to say that the Pentagon realized that this would be an inadequate force for even very small wars and certainly would not allow the U.S. to police the world and keep control of contingencies like a North Korean attack on the South or a...

The US Senate has unanimously passed a bill barring known terrorists from entering the United States as ambassadors to the United Nations. The move came in response to the decision by Iran to appoint Hamid Aboutalebi, who participated in the 1979 hostage-taking of Americans in Tehran, as its UN ambassador. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf had called the decision "extremely troubling", and at least 29 Republican Senators had appealed to the Obama administration to deny Aboutalebi a visa to enter the US. One of those Senators was Ted Cruz (R-TX), who said he would not make do with a simple...

Look At What America Is Giving To Terrorists By Ted on April 8, 2014 in General By Theodore Shoebat Look at what America is giving these terrorists in Syria. This is a BGM-71, one of the most widely used anti-tank guided missiles.The weapon is used in anti-armor, anti-bunker, anti-fortification and anti-amphibious landing roles. The TOW is in service with over 45 militaries and is integrated on over 15,000 ground, vehicle and helicopter platforms worldwide. In other words, its serious weaponry, and its in the hands of these savages all thanks to politicians like Obama and McCain.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz Monday night, which would block known terrorists from getting visas to enter the United States as U.N. ambassadors. He thanked several senators by name on the Senate floor he said were “instrumental in the passage,” including Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat and a very unlikely ally. Iran’s newest U.N. ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi, was an active participant in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days in Tehran. He was appointed earlier this year by Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Shchumer said in a statement...

Dozens of Fatah supporters demonstrated in Ramallah on Wednesday in support of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The demonstration is the first of its kind in the West Bank since the beginning of the uprising in Egypt. RELATED:For Palestinians, Egyptian unrest is bittersweet The demonstration coincided with the attack that was launched by Mubarak's supporters against anti-government protesters in Cairo. Sources in Ramallah said that the demonstration was initiated by the PA leadership, which has banned anti-Mubarak protests in the West Bank. The demonstrators shouted slogans condemning Egyptian opposition figure Mohammed ElBaradei as a “CIA agent” and warned against foreign...

BERLIN (AP) -- German authorities have banned an organization they say has raised millions of dollars for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which the European Union considers a terrorist organization. Emily Haber, a deputy interior minister, said police raided 19 locations early Tuesday in six German states used by the so-called "Orphaned Children Project - Lebanon."

John Kerry Defends His Diplomatic Efforts: ‘I May Fail – I Don’t Care’ By Ali Weinberg Apr 8, 2014 4:03pm Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry defiantly defended his diplomatic efforts, saying that while ambitious, they were better than doing nothing. While the purpose of Tuesday’s hearing was to pick through the State Department’s budget, it was Kerry’s record that came under scrutiny as his old colleagues on the committee accused him of taking on too many responsibilities with too few results. “I think you’re about to hit the trifecta,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,...