Free Republic

A total of 60 Bulgarian citizens have now been arrested by police authorities across Europe for participating in a large international scheme for credit card forgery and other crimes.The gang has been active since nine years and has accumulated a fortune estimated at over EUR 50. Around 5000 police officers from Spain Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Germany, US intelligence agents and experts from Europol have contributed to the operation, codenamed Night Clone Card.The Bulgarian crime ring, which has been described as the world's largest in the sphere of bank card cloning, has been active mostly in Italy, where nine suspects were...

Five Russian scientists who died in a plane crash on Tuesday had been helping Iran with nuclear secrets, it has been revealed. They were among 45 killed when the plane's lights failed in heavy fog and careered into a motorway before bursting into flames - leading conspiracy theorists to believe it was a deliberate plot to kill the nuclear experts. Russian security sources confirmed that the dead scientists worked at the controversial Bushehr nuclear plant on the Iranian Persian Gulf.

Russia believes Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi should give up his rule and is prepared to help broker his departure, a senior Russian official said on Friday. The offer -- a change in tone from the Kremlin's previous criticism of Western intervention in Libya -- will provide a boost to NATO powers who say they are determined to finish the job they started and end Gaddafi's 41-year rule. "Colonel Gaddafi has deprived himself of legitimacy with his actions, we should help him leave," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in Deauville. He said Russia could take on a mediation role...

MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- U.S. and British diplomats discussed exerting pressure on Pope Pius XII to be silent about the Nazi deportations of Hungarian Jews, according to newly discovered documentation. The British feared that the wartime pope might make a "radio appeal on behalf of the Jews in Hungary" and that in the course of his broadcast would "also criticize what the Russians are doing in occupied territory." Sir Francis D'Arcy Osborne, the British ambassador to the Vatican, told an American diplomat that "something should be done to prevail upon the pope not to do this as it will have...

After decades of short-sighted parochialism, our space policy chickens are finally coming home to roost. This past Friday, Russian news agencies quoted a Russian Space Agency official as refusing to let “unsafe” vehicles dock to the International Space Station (ISS). Sounds reasonable, right? But it’s not what it seems. In reality, it is a bare-knuckled attempt to prevent competition from an upstart American company.

Somali pirates murder 4 Americans in cold blood but Navy captured 13 pirates alive by Bill Levinson As reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Somali pirates killed four American captives while the United States was negotiating peacefully for their release. US Central Command said four Navy warships were deployed in an effort to secure the Americans' release, and "negotiations were ongoing" when the shooting occurred at 1 a.m. today. Upon hearing gunfire, US forces boarded the Quest and confronted the pirates, capturing 13 and killing two. Attempts to revive the four Americans were unsuccessful and all four died from the...

Those responsible for the large-scale terrorist attack are named in a new criminal case The Moscow prosecutor’s office has canceled the order that terminated the criminal case concerning the terrorist attack on Dubrovka, which took place in October 2002. Igor Trunov, the attorney representing the victims’ interest, revealed this to ‘Svobodnaya Pressa’ (‘SP’). According to Trunov, the Moscow prosecutor’s office was instructed by the chief of the Russian Investigative Committee to carry out a supplementary investigation into the incident. Igor Trunov explains why prosecutors are once again investigating‘Nord-Ost’ ‘SP’: Igor Leonidovich (Trunov), the prosecutor’s decision to continue the investigation, what...

Does the sun revolve around the Earth? One in every three Russians thinks so, a spokeswoman for state pollster VsTIOM said on Friday. In a survey released this week, 32 percent of Russians believed the Earth was the center of the Solar system; 55 percent that all radioactivity is man-made; and 29 percent that the first humans lived when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.

Does the sun revolve around the Earth? About one third of Russians appear to believe so, according to a survey published today. Thirty-two percent of Russians reject a sun-centered Solar system, four percent more than in 2007 when a similar survey was conducted (Snip) The survey also found 55 percent of Russians believe that radioactivity is a human invention. Twenty-nine percent believe humans lived in the era of dinosaurs. Women are more likely than men to believe scientific superstitions, the survey found.

WikiLeaks cables: US agrees to tell Russia Britain's nuclear secrets The US secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.

President Obama signed the START nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia this morning. Despite the great attention the president has devoted to this treaty -- and the vast coverage of the treaty negotiations by the media -- the White House refused to allow reporters or TV cameras in the room. Still photographers were the only representatives of the free press permitted to record the historic moment. Those cameras captured President Obama signing the documents, seated at the Resolute Desk. Behind him stood Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,...

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (AP) Russia's gold-medal celebration went into overtime. And that prevented them from boarding their flight Thursday morning, a day after they won the World Junior Hockey Championships. About 30 members of the Russian contingent were asked to get off a Delta Air Lines flight for being unruly as they boarded for takeoff early Thursday morning, an airport spokesman said. After players and managers spent the day at the Days Hotel across the street - where a front desk clerk said they were ''sleeping it off'' - a team spokesman said the group would fly out in two groups...

I saw this when Googling the blogs today. Interesting in many ways, but it really ties in with something I wrote back in August which should be a warning as to how far this country has edged towards the very Socialistic government that these people fled from. Many Russian immigrants to the "red borough" of Staten Island are flocking to the Republican Party, saying that the national Democrats' "socialistic" policies remind them too much of the top-down oligarchy they fled in their native land. With many of the borough's Russian arrivees already owning businesses and active in civic organizations,...

On Sunday night, after a weekend of wrangling, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) filed for cloture on the New START treaty, setting up a crucial Tuesday vote on whether to end debate. A final vote could come on Thursday. As Josh Rogin observes, keep an eye on Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) as the clock ticks...

White House officials said Friday that they have the 67 Senate votes needed to ratify a new U.S. nuclear-arms accord with Russia, and President Barack Obama will delay his planned vacation in Hawaii until the Senate votes. The declaration came after Maine's two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, declared their support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

The new START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) currently under consideration by Congress is irredeemably flawed. Instead of accepting the "tax cuts for START" deal, Republican senators should reject the treaty for several reasons. Firstly, the treaty will severely reduce America's nuclear stockpile (to just 1,550 warheads, down from 5,113) and the number of delivery systems (to no more than 700 deployed systems and 800 in total) -- i.e. to wholly insufficient levels. Vice Chairman of the JCS Gen. Cartwright (a former leader of the Strategic Command) says that the minimum number of delivery systems needed is 860. The current number...

When I was growing up, the dark miasma of the Holocaust was still so pervasive that the famous slogan "Never Forget!" seemed almost irrelevant. How could anyone forget Hitler and his murderous goose-steppers? It was hard to imagine a world where that supreme evil was not remembered as a stern and awful warning. I heard Holocaust survivors insisting that we must never forget, and I thought they were just repeating the obvious. Why did they have to keep on saying it? Well, they were right, after all. They understood more about human nature than I did. It was necessary to...

Sexy Russian spy Anna Chapman's boss was working for us. The head of Russia's spy operations in America defected just before he betrayed Chapman and her nine fellow sleeper agents last summer -- and the Kremlin has ordered a hit team to kill him as revenge, according to a bombshell report yesterday. Senior officials in Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's government said the double agent -- identified only as "Colonel Shcherbakov" -- was a devastating blow to Russia's SVR intelligence agency and touched off a probe.

The military airlifted the suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea and most of its Russian crew from Cape Verde to Moscow on Thursday, after the lumber freighter mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the Atlantic. Eleven of the 15 crew members arrived in Moscow, while the captain and three sailors remained on the ship, which was adrift about 200 nautical miles from the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the freighter was sailing to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The sailors and their suspected captors arrived in two separate Il-76 cargo jets at the...

The leaders of Moscow's 1.5 million strong Muslim community say they desperately need more places of worship. But a plan to build a new mosque has run into local opposition which is being fuelled by nationalists calling for a "clean Moscow" without Muslims and foreigners. Small trees are supposed to be keeping the Muslims out of Tekstilshchiki, a district in south eastern Moscow. A young man sets to work with his shovel, pushing it into the earth with a determined kick. Then he places a seedling into the hole and sprinkles earth over it. Using her watering can, Maria Sotova...