Free Republic

Israel will not be invited to NATO's May 20-21 summit in Chicago, the alliance's top official said Friday. But he denied that alliance member Turkey had blocked Israel's participation. Instead, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the reason is because Israel does not participate in NATO's main military missions. News reports have claimed that Turkey blocked Israel's participation because of the raid in 2010 by Israeli troops on ships heading to Gaza in which eight Turks and a Turkish-American died. NATO has a system of partnerships with dozens of nations across the globe such as the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO...

ALMOST half of all Britons are “seriously considering” moving overseas, an exclusive survey for The Sun has found. Australia is top of the relocation wish list followed by the US, Canada and New Zealand. The cost of living, weather, unemployment and crime are the most common reasons for wanting to quit Britain. Pollsters YouGov quizzed 1,650 adults after The Sun told last week about Dave and Jackie Jones who emigrated to Australia with their 12 kids. The family from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria — who have never claimed benefits — quit in despair at what they see as soft-touch Britain’s emphasis on...

Even though the practice is a criminal offense, one pro-lifer asserts that body parts are being harvested from aborted babies and used for research purposes in the U.S. and abroad. After an investigation by Life Dynamics revealed the practice, Investigate Magazine, a New Zealand-based current affairs publication from a conservative Christian standpoint, went on to determine that a Maryland brokerage firm has been arranging the sale of parts of American aborted babies to the University of Auckland medical school in New Zealand for experiments. Mark Crutcher, founder and president of Life Dynamics, says there is no excuse for this project...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- It's a sticky black sandwich spread that much of New Zealand adores, though detractors liken it to axle grease. And when it runs out, it's Marmageddon. The manufacturer of Marmite says its supplies of the yeast-extract product ran out this week, four months after earthquakes forced it to close the only factory that made New Zealand's version. "Don't freak. We will be back soon!" the company, Sanitarium, says on the Marmite website. But there are signs of freaking in this country of 4.4 million people, which eats its way through 640 metric tons of the savory...

The tallest and heaviest ever known penguin stood nearly 5 feet tall and tipped the scales at around 130 pounds, according to a 27-million-year-old fossil found in New Zealand.

Read Between The Lines: Hollywood Mogul Buys 2,600 Acres Of Farmland; Moving To New Zealand Mac Slavo February 1st, 2012 James Cameron, the Hollywood producer responsible for blockbuster films like Terminator, Titanic and Avatar, is reportedly preparing to exit stage left. While the move for the Canadian born Cameron may initially be perceived as a rejection or denouncement of American policies and ideals, Cameron, who has made campaign donations to the Democrat Party in the past, most notably during the 2004 Presidential election where he supported democrat John Kerry, may have ulterior motivations, as evidenced by where he’s planning on...

SEOUL - South Korean security authorities were ready to carry out on-board inspections of a Bahama-registered freighter after being tipped off that the ship might carry some members of Al-Qaeda, police said on Thursday. The 17,000-tonne freighter, the Athenia, which was suspected of carrying members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group, was due to arrive at the southwestern port of Kunsan late Thursday, the police said. “We have been informed that Al Qaeda members might be hiding in the ship,” a police officer in charge of foreign affairs in Kunsan Police station told AFP. “When the ship reaches the...

HONOLULU: Canada, Mexico and at least two other countries have expressed interest in joining US-led talks for a pan-Pacific trade pact, a US Republican lawmaker said on Friday after Japan asked to take part. “There’s a good deal of momentum for the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership),” Representative Kevin Brady said after meetings with members of President Barack Obama’s administration at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. That momentum was evidenced by Japan’s announcement earlier on Friday that it was interested in joining the talks “and what seem to be very solid inquiries from Canada, Mexico and a few others,” Brady...

The failed Range Fuels wood-to-ethanol factory in southeastern Georgia that sucked up $65 million in federal and state tax dollars was sold Tuesday for pennies on the dollar to another bio-fuel maker with equally grand plans to transform the alternative energy world. LanzaTech, a New Zealand-based biofuel company, paid $5.1 million for the plant in Soperton. Its main financial backer: Vinod Khosla, a California entrepreneur who also bankrolled Range Fuels, and helped secure its government loans, before Range went bust last year. LanzaTech hasn't received the same type of loans, but the company has received $7 million from the U.S....

New Zealand's earthquake-devastated city of Christchurch has been rocked by two powerful earthquakes in quick succession, damaging some buildings and forcing evacuations. The shallow tremors, both measuring 5.8 in magnitude, were 70 minutes apart but police say there are no reports of any serious injury or damage. It is being reported that one person was injured inside a shopping centre and has been taken to hospital. The first quake struck 20 kilometres north-east of Christchurch at a depth of less than five kilometres at 1:58pm (local time). The Christchurch airport and several other buildings in the area have been evacuated....

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his British counterpart David Cameron both stood up for their respective national interests last week and stared down a host of unelected (and unaccountable) bureaucratic rule makers. In doing so, they confirmed their position in the vanguard of conservative political leadership slowly gathering momentum in the anglophone world. How did they do this? They just said “no.” In Harper’s case, it was the rent seekers and incorrigible do-gooders behind the Kyoto protocols who were given their comeuppance. Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent told Kyoto cheerleaders in Durban that Canada is counting itself out of...

“I’d rather go to war in a Typhoon than in a F-18 (Super) Hornet” an Aussie exchange pilot says December 5, 2011 “I’d rather go to war in a Typhoon than in a F-18 Hornet”. This alleged Australian exchange pilot’s statement is one of the most interesting outcomes (and marketing slogans) of BERSAMA LIMA 11 an exercise marking the 40th Anniversary of the Five Powers Defence Agreement (FPDA) the only multilateral defence agreement in South East Asia with an operational element commitment undertaken by five nations (UK, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Australia) to consult in the event of an...

A church in New Zealand has put up a billboard showing the Virgin Mary looking worriedly at a pregnancy test. This is brought to you by the same jerks that brought you this billboard last year. This church has fallen into the same trap that so many fall into. There's no point to these billboards other than "look at me!" This isn't theology. It's not even evangelizing. It's advertising. It's we're the funny hep church. We're cool. They're just moron publicity seekers.

US offered F-16s ‘to anticipate rising China’ Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta The United States has reportedly asked for Indonesia’s help to counter the increasing influence of China, particularly in the South China Sea, which some foreign policy analysts say reflects the US’ strategy of “proxy by war”. An Indonesian source, who closely followed the contacts between the two countries, recently told The Jakarta Post that the US had asked Indonesia to receive 24 used F-16 fighter jets from the US, rather than purchasing new ones that would come in a fourth number of the granted units. The Indonesian...

New Zealand's giant weta is the heaviest insect in the world and this one is the largest ever recorded.

Apologies if this has already been postedAs you sit down with your family on Thanksgiving and consider offering a prayer of gratitude, be aware the turkey at the center of the table may have already been "blessed" – in the name of Allah. Customer service representatives from Butterball, one of America's most popular Turkey brands, confirmed to WND that the company's whole turkeys are – without being labeled as such – slaughtered according to Islamic "halal" standards. "Halal slaughter involves cutting the trachea, the esophagus and the jugular vein and letting the blood drain out while saying, 'Bismillah allahu akbar'...

A three-year-old girl fended for herself for two days by eating cheese and leftover lasagne after her mother died suddenly. Shylah Silbery, from Wellington, New Zealand, hugged her favourite toy - a teddy bear named Possum - as she waited alone in the house near her mother's body. She was rescued when 28-year-old Lauren Silbery's brother alerted the authorities when he did not hear from his sister, whom he talked to every night.

Death Row Inmate Sues Over Lack of Halal Meals

A snapshot of New Zealand's climate 40 million years ago reveals a greenhouse Earth, with warmer seas and little or no ice in Antarctica, according to research recently published in the journal Geology. The study suggests that Antarctica at that time was yet to develop extensive ice sheets. Back then, New Zealand was about 1100 km further south, at the same latitude as the southern tip of South America -- so was closer to Antarctica -- but the researchers found that the water temperature was 23-25°C at the sea surface and 11-13°C at the bottom. "This is too warm to...

MiG-21 touches down on Auckland roof By Greg Waldron on September 14, 2011 Came across a great story on the Auckland Now web site of a New Zealand businessman who has mounted a Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-21 on the roof of his office building. The report says Manfred Bennet plans to put fabric around the aircraft's tail and then blow it with a fan to give the impression the aircraft is flying. Bennet is also planning on setting up a flight simulation centre for types such as the F-16, F-111, and the F-18. He is also working on prototype helicopter that...