Free Republic

DOHA, Qatar (Christian Examiner) – A female Arab journalist who lives in Qatar has penned a bold article that asks Muslims in the Middle East how they would respond if Christian suicide bombers struck their public markets, collapsed their tall buildings or tried to force Muslims to convert to Christianity. Liberal Saudi journalist Nadine Al-Budair writes in Kuwait's Al-Rai newspaper that Arab countries have refused to address the problem of terrorism and have yet to create a climate that matches the liberal, humanitarian climate of the West. She asked Muslims to consider what their world would be like if Christians...

Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based broadcaster, said Sunday it is slashing about 500 jobs a little more than two months after announcing the closure of its U.S. offshoot. The cutbacks come as 2022 World Cup host Qatar refocuses its spending priorities amid a steep drop in prices for oil and gas, the backbone of the OPEC nation’s economy. The Al-Jazeera Media Network described the cuts as part of a “workforce optimization initiative” tied to an evolving media landscape. …

The fate of the F-15 assembly line in St. Louis, and thousands of jobs tied to it, may hinge on the White House’s attitude toward a tiny oil-rich monarchy that sometimes riles its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf. The Emirate of Qatar wants to buy at least 36 of the air-superiority jets, and possibly 72, but the purchase has been held up for two years as the administration of President Barack Obama ponders whether to allow it. The issue is entangled in the shifting geopolitics and strained alliances of the Middle East, along with Israel’s concern that the sale...

BEIRUT -- A Saudi-dominated political bloc on Wednesday formally designated Lebanon's Hezbollah militia a terrorist organization, a move that signals dangerously escalating tensions between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Gulf Cooperation Council's decision against the Iranian-allied group comes two weeks after Saudi Arabia canceled $4 billion aid package for strengthening Lebanese security services. Saudi Arabia and other GCC member states have advised their citizens to leave Lebanon. An announcement posted on the GCC website accused Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite Muslim movement, of unspecified hostile acts in the six states in the bloc: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,...

One of the few interesting items in the New York Times' whitewash of Hillary and Obama's illegal Libyan war is the confirmation of weapons shipments. ... The story blames the problem on Qatar aiding Jihadists and Obama's unwillingness to defy the terror oil state. But the claim that we had to arm terrorists to fight Qatar's arming of terrorists doesn't hold up too well. Furthermore we already know that US forces were told to turn a blind eye to Qatar's weapons shipments. We could have blocked them instead. ... Qatar was backing the Muslim Brotherhood. Just like Hillary and Obama.

Russia's energy ministry says it has agreed with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela to freeze oil production levels if other producers do the same. [...] Getting other producers to go along with that could be tricky. Prices have fallen sharply slump in prices since summer 2014, leaving producers scrambling to win market share from competitors. ...

Qatar Airways has announced plans to launch the world’s longest direct flight: a 9,034-mile schlep from Doha to Auckland. Should the route get the green light, it would beat the current record holder – Qantas’s Dallas-Sydney service – by almost 500 miles. The journey time would be an estimated 18 hours and 34 minutes, according to the journey planning website travelmath.com.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump has broken just about every rule of conventional US presidential campaigning. Short on a long-term political vision to help shape the destiny of the nation, he has gleefully insulted Muslims, Mexicans, women and virtually all of his opponents. A Trump-in-the-White-House scenario poses high stakes for the Gulf region. Gulf Arabs could pull billion in investment money from the US if Trump, who triggered a global outrage when he advocated a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the US, wins the presidency later this year, prominent UAE businessman Khalaf al-Habtoor said. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal,...

Qatar asked for clearance from the U.S. Government to purchase 72 F-15E Strike Eagle derivatives, but the request has been slow-rolled. Now, almost two years later and after the Iran Nuclear Agreement has been implemented, there are high hopes the deal may finally be allowed to move forward. Considering that Qatar remains a close ally of the U.S. in the region, and their fighter business has traditionally gone to European manufacturers, penning a deal for dozens of F-15 Strike Eagles seems like a no-brainer. Yet, politically, this would seem not to be the case. Aside from Israel and Saudi Arabia,...

The White House has appointed pro-Muslim Brotherhood Robert Malley as a new special assistant to President Barack Obama. As if this is not bad enough, Malley is in charge to cover the whole kitten caboodle: The Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf region. This appointment happens to be at the same time that Erdogan of Turkey and Qatar had a millstone breakthrough in reviving the Muslim Brotherhood by gaining special provisions for the Islamist organization in Saudi Arabia and the Arab gulf. Malley, who now works as Senior Director of National Security Council of the White House (NSC) on...

A stunning new Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that one of the United States Navy’s top commanders was relieved of his command a few hours ago after he sent out an “email/posting” revealing that President Barack Obama was in the process of purchasing a multi-million dollar seaside luxury villa in the United Arab Emirates city (UAE) of Dubai. According to this report, the Commander of the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 15, Rear Admiral Rick Williams, posted a “pointed” query on 8 January [since deleted] to the US Naval Institute’s “Readiness Kill Chain” “recipients/responders”...

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann January 06, 2016 One thing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have in common -- they both like to have big things named after them. The latest batch of emails released by the State Department uncovers a massive ego trip by the former secretary of state. Anxious to etch her name in glass, as well as in history, she and her closest aides raised $37 million from corporations and foreign governments to build a U.S. Diplomacy Center to be named after Clinton. In a Feb. 1, 2013 email -- the last days of Clinton's tenure...

Amid financial hardship, Erdogan looks to Qatar as 'rich daddy' Zülfikar Doğan Posted December 29, 2015 A series of controversial steps in the region has left Turkey increasingly isolated in its neighborhood. As a result, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has gone on a hunt for new "friends." Normalizing ties with Israel is now back on the agenda. The second door the government has knocked on is Qatar's. Yet, even Qatar's friendship could not stop the Arab League from adopting a joint statement last week condemning the Turkish troop deployment in Bashiqa, near Mosul, and urging Ankara to...

Qatari royals rush to Switzerland in nine planes after emir breaks leg A fleet of jets, including an Airbus, made emergency landings at Zurich-Kloten airport after Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani suffered a fracture Agence France-Presse Tuesday 29 December 2015 07.05 GMT Unidentified individuals travelling in as many as nine planes belonging to Qatar's royal family made an emergency trip to Switzerland over the weekend for medical reasons, according to a Swiss official. A spokesman for Switzerland's federal office of civil aviation confirmed local media reports that multiple aircraft made unscheduled landings at the Zurich-Kloten airport overnight from 25...

Man, Boeing (NYSE:BA) just cannot catch a break. For a while there, 2015 was starting to look like the year Boeing defense got its wings back. In February, opining that "stealth may be overrated," U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert began laying the groundwork for the U.S. Navy breaking up with Lockheed Martin's F-35C fighter jet, and buying a bunch of Boeing F/A-18s for its carriers instead. Earlier this month, the Air Force floated a trial balloon of its own. In a controversial revelation, the Air Force suggested it was considering buying as many as six dozen cheaper...

Nine of the Qataris kidnapped from Iraq's Samawa desert are members of the ruling family: sources Published December 19th, 2015 - 20:00 GMT via SyndiGate.info As the mystery surrounding the abduction last week of a Qatari hunting party in Iraq deepened, a report in Kuwait said that nine of its members were from the Al Thani Ruling family. The Al Thani hunters abducted are Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Mohammad Al Thani, Shaikh Nayed Bin Eid Mohammad Al Thani, Shaikh Abdul Rahman Bin Jasem Abdul Aziz Jassem Al Thani, Shaikh Jassem Bin Fahad Mohammad Thani Al Thani, Shaikh Khalid Bin Jassem...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted the visa ban on the European theoretician of radical Islam and virtuoso Jew-baiter, Tariq Ramadan, allowing him to take up a position similar to that he was offered at Notre Dame University, but which was filled because of his unavailability. At the same time, a U.S. entry prohibition against a South African leftist, Adam Habib of Johannesburg University, was voided. The decision to admit Tariq Ramadan is profoundly wrong. Adam Habib is an innocuous figure. Tariq Ramadan is not. Ramadan was first barred from the U.S. in 2004 ... the denial of...

At some point between 2006 and 2008, the American people decided to turn their backs on the world. Between the seeming futility of the war in Iraq and the financial collapse of 2008, Americans decided they'd had enough. In Barack Obama, they found a leader who could channel their frustration. Obama's foreign policy, based on denying the existence of radical Islam and projecting the responsibility for Islamic aggression on the US and its allies, suited their mood just fine. If America is responsible, then America can walk away. Once it is gone, so the thinking has gone, the Muslims will...

Gunmen kidnap 26 from Qatari hunting group in Iraq Gunmen kidnapped 26 members of a Qatari hunting party in southern Iraq, officials said on Wednesday, the second high-profile seizure of foreign nationals in the country in three months. Posted December 16, 2015 12:35 GMT "Twenty-six Qatari hunters were kidnapped at about 3:00 am (0000 GMT) by unknown gunmen," according to a police major from Muthanna province, where the kidnappings took place. A local council member from the province confirmed the number of people kidnapped but did not specify their nationality. "Unknown gunmen in dozens of pick-up trucks attacked a place...

Charges of unlawful assembly and use of uniform in public were brought against 11 members of a group trying to enforce aspects of strict Islamic Sharia law in the North Rhine-Westphalia city, a spokeswoman for the Wuppertal police told The Local. Officers stopped the 11-man group on the street on Wednesday. Some were wearing orange vests bearing the words 'Shariah Police', in violation of federal German law, the spokeswoman said. The group has been stopping young people at local drinking and gambling establishments and urging them to abstain from activities deemed to be ungodly according to Islam. The Wednesday incident...