Free Republic

We all know that the American energy revolution, led by the new technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, has created a flood of new shale-oil and natural-gas production that has overwhelmed world markets and driven prices down by roughly 40 percent. End-of-week crude oil closed near $57 a barrel, and the national average gasoline price finished at $2.60. No matter what the naysayers are trying to sell, the new energy reality is unambiguously good for the U.S. and global economies. There may be some dislocations among countries, sectors, or companies, but the overwhelming impact is positive. In fact, the...

Chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), dozens of armed men in camouflage uniforms from Russia's republic of Chechnya train in snow in a camp in the rebel-held east Ukraine. They say their "Death" unit fighting Ukrainian forces has 300 people, mostly former state security troops in the mainly-Muslim region where Moscow waged two wars against Islamic insurgents and which is now run by a Kremlin-backed strongman. Seasoned Chechen fighters, whose combat experience often dates back to the 1994-96 and 1999-2000 wars, fight on both sides in east Ukraine, adding to the complexity of a conflict in which the West says...

Russia has called on the United States to punish those responsible for the use of “inquisition-style” interrogation methods in the “global war on terror”, as revealed in the US Senate report on torture this week. Konstantin Dolgov, the human rights ombudsman of Russia’s foreign ministry, said the results of the “shocking” report were “the latest confirmation of gross, systemic human rights violations by the American authorities”. .... The Senate report showed that “prisoners in secret torture chambers were subjected to inhuman, humiliating treatment” including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and threats against suspects’ families in order to “beat confessions out of often...

DONETSK, Ukraine -- The website of the pro-Kyiv authorities in the eastern city of Donetsk features the photographs of dozens of local residents that have disappeared and are believed to be in the custody of the pro-Russian separatists that control parts of southeastern Ukraine around both Donetsk and Luhansk. There are many ways to end up in a separatist jail -- being caught outside after curfew, failure to produce acceptable documents, or simply arousing the suspicion of one of the many masked men patrolling the streets with automatic weapons. And, increasingly, one can end up there as a result of...

The United States Congress approved a massive defense spending bill Friday that provides for an enhanced air campaign against the "Islamic State" terror group, as well as the training of Iraqis and moderate Syrian rebels. The legislation, which passed 89 votes to 11 in the Senate, includes US President Barack Obama's $5-billion (4-billion-euro) request for funds to combat the Islamic State. Of that, $3.4 billion will be allocated to the deployment of US forces as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, and $1.6 billion will be used to equip and train Kurdish forces for two years. "American air power had changed...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is so easy to dislike because he really is a bad guy and there are few things more pleasurable than contemplating his fall from power. It is reasonably clear that might just happen. Even though he continues to be widely popular in his own country, there are several reasons why he could be brought down. The principle ones are the fall in oil prices and the financial crisis brought on by the sanctions imposed by the West. There are many others: a 40 percent decline in the value of Russian currency; an impending recession; the cost...

MOSCOW (AP) — A furniture store has taken over a Moscow cinema, allowing theatergoers to enjoy what more closely resembles an enormous slumber party than an afternoon at the movies. This week the Swedish furniture giant IKEA replaced a movie theater's seats with beds in its Russian "Awake Love" campaign. The switchover took place in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, not far from a branch of the store beloved by many Russians. The campaign, which lasts until Dec. 14, is modeled after a similar event in 2010 at a Paris music hall.

A Russian loan to France’s National Front. Invitations to Moscow for leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party. Praise for Vladimir Putin from the head of Britain’s anti-European Union party. As the diplomatic chill over Ukraine deepens, the Kremlin seems keener than ever to enlist Europe’s far-right parties in its campaign for influence in the West, seeking new relationships based largely on shared concern over the growing clout of the EU. […] The fact that many of Moscow’s allies are right to far-right reflects the Kremlin's full turn. Under communism, xenophobic nationalist parties were shunned. Now they are embraced as partners who...

...its lowest levels against the dollar for almost a year, amid investor nervousness about emerging markets. By evening trade in Istanbul the currency had fallen beyond TL2.30 to the US dollar, more than 1 per cent down on the day and the weakest level since January, when the Turkish central bank moved to increase interest rates -- a dramatic shift in policy that at the time halted a precipitous drop in its value. ...Turkey is far from alone in being affected by strong US economic data that has heightened expectations of a US Federal Reserve interest rate rise and so...

EU commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has warned Greece against electing “extreme forces” into power and said he would prefer “known faces”—so far the strongest intervention of the EU top brass in the Greek campaign. “I think that the Greeks—who have a very difficult life—know very well what a wrong election result would mean for Greece and the eurozone,” Juncker said during an Austrian public TV debate with EUobserver and several other Brussels-based journalists. He steered clear of explicit political advice ahead of presidential elections in Greece next week, but said: “I wouldn’t like extreme forces to come to power.” The...

Supports the efforts by President Poroshenko and the people of Ukraine to establish a lasting peace for Ukraine that includes: full withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory, full control of its international borders, disarming of separatist and paramilitary forces in eastern Ukraine, adoption of policies to reduce the Russian Federation's ability to use energy exports and trade barriers as weapons to apply economic and political pressure, and an end to interference by the Russian Federation in Ukraine's internal affairs.

Greek authorities are investigating a pre-dawn, drive-by gunfire attack on the Israeli embassy in Athens, which caused no injuries or damage. […] There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. …

Google is going to close its engineering office in Russia, the Financial Times says. Russian authorities have been cracking down on internet activity throughout 2014. In Russia, a new law forces tech companies to keep all data about Russians inside the country's borders. Google has so far declined to comment. The government asked Google to remove 253 links from its search engine during a six-month period in 2013, the FT reports. Google may well be joined in its escape by a host of entrepreneurs and engineers who want to work in less restrictive environments.

Among the familiar hucksters who sought to capitalize on the troubles in Ferguson, Missouri, came a new face: Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights and self-styled heir to the non-existent royal houses of Iraq and Syria. “I am deeply concerned,” Prince Zeid said in a press release, about “institutionalized discrimination” in America, and “I urge the U.S. authorities” to conduct “in-depth examinations” of racial justice. Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that Michael Brown’s death resulted from the criminal acts he engaged in before and during his encounter with officer Darren Wilson, Zeid’s Human Rights Council...

The Russian ruble fell below 57 to the dollar in trading on December 12, continuing a slide that has cut its value nearly in half this year. The ruble's value against the dollar and the euro has continued to decline despite Russia's effort to shore it up by raising a key interest rate by one percentage point on December 11, the fifth increase this year. The ruble was trading at about 57.31 to the dollar at midday on the Moscow exchange and later fell below 57.5. One euro was buying more than 71 rubles. The Russian central bank raised its...

New Delhi: Russia said it’s ready to lease India more nuclear-powered submarines a day after President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to deepen defence ties. “If India decides to have more contracts to lease nuclear submarines, we are ready to supply,” Russian trade minister Denis Manturov said in an interview in New Delhi today. The vessels would bolster India’s ability to patrol its waters as it seeks to thwart China’s efforts to extend influence in the Indian Ocean. Russia, whose economy is being pushed toward a recession by sanctions over Ukraine, aims to boost defence sales and...

A GOVERNMENT television channel dubbed Vladimir Putin’s latest state of the nation address “A Message from Above”. Dmitry Kiselev, Mr Putin’s chief propagandist, even likened it to speeches by Roosevelt, Churchill and De Gaulle. Mr Putin’s sermon had both messianic and defensive overtones. He called Crimea a sacred place, rather like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. “It was in Crimea, in the ancient city of Chersonesus or Korsun, that Grand Prince Vladimir was baptised before bringing Christianity to Rus…this allows us to say that Crimea and Sevastopol have invaluable civilisational and even sacred importance for Russia. And this is how...

Stand on the sea wall next to the port in Varna and you can see the bits and pieces of South Stream piled up in front of you. Hundreds of long black sections of piping - some on the dockside, and others still stacked on cargo ships. They were supposed to have been laid beneath the gloomy waters of the Black Sea, bypassing Ukraine and bringing Russian gas directly to south-eastern Europe. But - suddenly and unilaterally - Vladimir Putin has declared the project dead. Gas, he said, will be sent to Turkey instead. "It's really not clear what's going...

Russian media has reported that China's latest indigenous Type 1130 close-in weapon system can fire 10,000 rounds per minute and destroy 90% of hypersonic missiles traveling at a speed four times the speed of sound, reports our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily. The system, which is the third-generation of the close-in weapon system developed by China, was recently spotted being installed on a PLA Type 054A frigate. Compared to its seven-barreled Type 730 predecessor, the Type 1130's Gatling-type gun has the same 30 mm caliber but the number of barrels increased to 11. While the Type 730 has only one...

The Land of Magical Thinking: Inside Putin’s Russia Snip... In Russia, “corrupt” is not an adjective. Corrupt is a noun, a proper noun, the word for the name and nature of the place. Corrupt crony capitalism is familiar everywhere. But in Russia the corruption is so pervasive that even the cronies have to pay bribes, not just to the higher-ups but to the lower-downs. Pomerantsev visits a TV studio owned by Kremlin-connected moguls. It’s in a shabby warehouse on the wrong side of town. There’s no sign or address on the metal door. Inside is a dirty little room with...