Free Republic

STATE DEPARTMENT — With Russia's most vocal critics imposing economic sanctions over Crimea, some of Moscow's allies are also questioning its actions in Ukraine. In Syria's civil war, China and Russia have together blocked tougher action against President Bashar al-Assad, denouncing foreign support for the rebels as a breach of Syrian sovereignty. Now, China has quietly split from Russia over Crimea -- on the same issue of sovereignty. "China always respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states. The Crimean crisis should be resolved politically under the frameworks of law and order. We call on all sides to remain...

The search for MH370 enters a new phase based on new satellite data received, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. He told a press conference on Saturday that the search and rescue operations at the South China Sea has ended and all assets will be focussed on two new corridors. “A northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean,” he said. Najib said based on satellite data, MH370’s last communication with the satellite was in one of two possible corridors. Najib said the...

Ukraine's Crimean parliament voted Monday to nationalize energy companies Ukrtransgaz and Chornomornaftohaz, according to a statement on the Parliament's website. A Crimean official said last week that the local authorities may sell the oil and gas company Chornomornaftohaz to a Russian firm "such as Gazprom" once the region assumes control of it. On Sunday, a Russia-backed referendum in Crimea demonstrated overwhelming support for joining the Russian federation. The US and its European allies are expected to announced sanctions against Russia on Monday after Crimea announced that just under 97% of voters in the region supported leaving Ukraine and becoming a...

Women took to the streets wearing panties on their heads Sunday as they protested new laws banning lace underwear in Kazakhstan. The legislation - which includes provisions covering the required level of moisture absorbtion in the garments - will come into force this summer in Kazakhstan as well as Russia and Belarus, according to the Moscow Times. This sparked the so-called "Panties for the President" demonstrations in the Kazakh capital, Almaty, on Sunday. "It irritates me the most that the authorities want to decide what I should wear," Iryna Davydenko, a bank manager who travels regularly between Kazakhstan, Russia and...

The Lithuanian Foreign Minister says his country could block land transport to Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad if Russia maintains its opposition to stronger trade ties between Ukraine and the European Union. "As you know, the Kaliningrad region is isolated, geographically isolated, so we could apply some measures also to cut something," the Reuters news agency quoted Linas Linkevicius as saying on Wednesday. "Transport, we could cut off trains, but not only trains, also the supply of goods, whatever. It is theoretically possible," the official added. The reporters raised the topic as Lithuania, which currently holds the rotating presidency in...

Explanation: With parachute deployed and retro-rockets blazing, this spacecraft landed on planet Earth on September 11 (UT) in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Seen in silhouette against the rockets' glare, the spacecraft is a Soyuz TMA-08M. Its crew, Expedition 36 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA were returning after five and half months aboard the International Space Station. The Soyuz retro-rockets fire very quickly and for an extremely short duration near touchdown. Capturing the moment, the well-timed photograph was taken...

BOSTON (Reuters) - A grand jury on Thursday indicted two students from Kazakhstan on obstruction of justice charges, alleging they helped hide evidence related to the April Boston marathon bombing that killed three and injured 264, the U.S. Attorney's office for Massachusetts said. Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both 19, were college friends of surviving bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. They are charged with removing a backpack containing fireworks and a laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room after the FBI released pictures of Dzhokhar and his older brother Tamerlan in an effort to learn the names of the bombers.

Feel free to send her our way, Ivan! The Russians are having an eventful year, preparing for the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi and slated to host this year's 'Miss Universe 2013' pageant in Moscow. And today's Russian Federation -like the Soviet Union- officially prides itself on being an ethnically-diverse country. Yet while there's fear of Muslim terrorism at Sochi, it's some Russians' own soccer-hooligan type racism has had them making terroristic death threats to Miss Russia 2013 -Elmira Abdrazakova- simply for not being of pure Russian blood. Miss Abdrazakova is half Tartar/half Russian- her father brought the young girl...

Our country and the world marked a great moment: 50 years since the flight of the first woman in space: June 16th, 1963, by Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. At the time of her space flight she was only 26. The first woman cosmonaut, Hero of the Soviet Union Tereshkova graduated from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy with honors, and received a PhD in technical sciences. She was a professor and the author of over 50 scientific papers. She holds the rank of air force major general and was a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Valentina Tereshkova has...

The things found in at the burial site certify that the woman was from a distinguished tribe. According to the archaeologists, the golden head wear that looks like Kazakh Saukele (national headgear of women) is the most valuable item for the research. “The pointed golden head wear with zoomorphic ornaments has the top that looks like the arrows and is decorated with a spiral made of golden wire and jewels. A similar head wear used to be part of the official costume of the Saka tribe chieftains. It is quite possible that the woman was a daughter of a king...

The Tsarnaev brothers’ brutal attack in Boston sparked renewed interest in terrorism in Eurasia. The subsequent disclosure that two students from Kazakhstan allegedly tried to hide incriminating evidence against Djokhar Tsarnaev has only heightened that interest. The not-guilty plea of Fazliddin Kurbanov, the alleged Uzbek terrorist in Idaho, underscores the new threat. And that’s a good thing. Understanding what was and is happening in Eurasia can help us better fight terrorism and prevent future attacks rooted in that region. Chechens and Uzbeks fought in Afghanistan with the Taliban, and fighters from the North Caucasus are involved in Syria on the...

(CNSNews.com) – Although no group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s deadly bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, a leading al-Qaeda ideologue last year recommended that jihadists in America include sporting events in their list of prospective terror targets.

Full Title:*****************************************************Owners of 'Terrorista #1' BMW license plate revealed as the SAME friends pictured with the Boston bomber in Times Square***************************************** Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev are from Kazakhstan They were classmates of bombing suspect Dzhokhar TsarnaevDzhokhar may have slept at their house on the night of the bombingThey've been in custody since last Saturday and a lawyer says they are 'shocked' by the allegations against their friend Friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev arrested last week who cruised around in a car with the ‘Terrorista #1’ license plate have also been revealed to be two of the group of friends recently...

ALMATY (Reuters) - NATO member Turkey signed up on Friday to became a "dialogue partner" of a security bloc dominated by China and Russia, and declared that its destiny is in Asia. "This is really a historic day for us," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty after signing a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev. "Now, with this choice, Turkey is declaring that our destiny is the same as the destiny of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) countries." China, Russia and four Central Asian nations - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and...

Lost in the shuffle over the last few days has been the story of the two students re-arrested in New Bedford after the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday. Originally detained in their apartment in the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, the FBI and DHS left shortly after Tsarnaev’s capture. They returned a few hours later, however, this time to arrest two men as a consular vehicle from a then-undisclosed nation picked up two women at the same time.Late yesterday, the FBI and DHS announced that the two Kazakhs had been arrested for visa violations, but that update...

The death of one suspected bomber and the capture of the other on Friday in the Boston Marathon bombing may not be the end of arrests in the case.  Yesterday afternoon, FBI and DHS agents arrived at the same New Bedford apartment complex where they had detained three people in the Friday manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, this time taking two away in handcuffs: Agents wearing FBI and Department of Homeland Security jackets detained two men at the Hidden Brook apartment complex just hours after releasing three people believed to be associated with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.A neighbor who...

The two men arrested last night in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings drive a car with the licence plate that reads: ‘Terrorista #1’ The students, named be neighbours by their first names Azmat and Diaz, drive a black BMW 330XI with the personalised plate and a sticker on the back which reads: ‘F*** you, you f****** f****’. They are thought to be from Kazakhstan and had not been seen since the bombings until last night when their ground floor apartment in New Bedford, MA, was raided by a dozen FBI agents at gunpoint.

The two men arrested last night in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings drive a car with the licence plate that reads: ‘Terrorista #1’ The students, named be neighbours by their first names Azmat and Diaz, drive a black BMW 330XI with the personalised plate and a sticker on the back which reads: ‘F*** you, you f****** f****’. They are thought to be from Kazakhstan and had not been seen since the bombings until last night when their ground floor apartment in New Bedford, MA, was raided by a dozen FBI agents at gunpoint.

Two pals of the accused Boston Marathon bombers were pulled from their New Bedford, Mass. home and taken into custody on Saturday. The two men, known to neighbors by their first names Azmat and Diaz — who share a black BMW SUV adorned with a novelty license plate that reads “Terrorista #1” — were cuffed and hauled out of their Carriage Dr. apartment shortly before 4 p.m.

John Kerry invents country of Kyrzakhstan John Kerry has suffered his first gaffe as the new US secretary of state, inventing the nation of 'Kyrzakhstan' By Jonathan Earle, Moscow 11:36AM GMT 25 Feb 2013 In an embarrassing slip of the tongue, Mr Kerry last week praised US diplomats working to secure "democratic institutions" in the Central Asian country, which does not exist. The newly minted diplomat was referring to Kyrgyzstan, a poor, landlocked nation of 5.5 million, which he appeared to confuse with its resource-rich neighbour to the north, Kazakhstan. The State Department kindly omitted the error in the official...