Free Republic

A Syrian businessman described as the "middleman" for oil deals between ISIS and Bashar al-Assad's regime will be targeted for European Union sanctions on Saturday. The listing of George Haswani, the owner of HESCO engineering company, sheds more light on financial links between Syria's regime and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or Isil or Islamic State or Daiesh).

Sen. John McCain is charging the Obama administration’s foreign policy is “delusional” and says Secretary of State John Kerry’s global diplomacy has “accomplished nothing except mileage.” In an appearance on MSNBC, the Arizona Republican also calls Russian President Vladimir Putin a “meglomaniac” and “pariah.”

Below, we demonstrate that the U.S. keeps “losing” war after war. There are 3 potential reasons this might be happening: •Is this chaos an intentional way to implement regime change and grab resources? •Or is this a sign of the decline of the American empire … and we just can’t win a war anymore? •Or do those in charge just not really give a damn about winning … and are they just focusing on one short-term goal after another?

LRA victim: 'I cannot forget and forgive' Following recent comments from Lord's Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony in which he denied committing atrocities, Ugandan Ochola John, 25, responds by telling his story. He was abducted by rebels from his village, Namkora in northern Uganda, which was attacked in February 2002. During the attack 50 people were axed to death and he was one of 35 abductees. Ochola John was deformed by rebels from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army I wish I could be born again. It hurts me to see my reflection because of the way I now look....

Many of the nearly two million people displaced by northern Uganda's long-running conflict were set to return home after the country's presidential election, if President Yoweri Museveni was defeated. He won. Now, many in northern Uganda are bracing for another five years of suffering. Aid agencies say as many as 100,000 people have died, and nearly a 1,000 more die every week, mainly from conflict-related hunger and lack of medicine. Nearly two million people have been displaced at the hands of a shadowy militia with ties to Sudan's Arab-led government. It sounds like western Sudan's Darfur conflict, but it's not....

At about $50 a barrel, crude oil prices are down by more than half from their June 2014 peak of $107. They may fall more, perhaps even as low as $10 to $20. Here’s why.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/economics/2007/12/17/Why-Oil-Prices-Will-Drop

Militants declaring loyalty to Islamic State in Libya single out Rome as a targetIslamist militants claiming loyalty to ISIS have released a video appearing to show the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians who were taken hostage in Libya several weeks ago. The video shows men apparently being beheaded after being forced to kneel next to the Mediterranean Sea. A militant says they are sending a message “from the south of Rome”. At the end of the footage the same English-speaking fighter raises his knife to the water and says ISIS would “conquer Rome”. This morning Egypt and the Libyan government...

U.S. military forces have discovered a smuggling ring moving copious quantities of explosives and weapons from Iraq to terrorist training camps constructed by the Saddam Hussein regime inside Syria prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The Pentagon also announced that the structure bombed by U.S. warplanes last week, described by many major media outlets as a wedding celebration at a private ranching operation, was actually a "dormitory-like" facility used as a "safe house" to facilitate the clandestine movement of foreign terrorists into Iraq from Syria. According to Pentagon officials, small arms, explosives, and bomb making materials are being removed from...

It’s always a pleasure returning to the beautiful Lone Star State. This week I’m in Houston speaking with the industrious men and women of America’s oil patch at the North American Prospect Expo. These are the unsung heroes of our nation’s energy renaissance. In the brutal economic environment of the last six years, one sector had good news to report, and it came straight out of America’s oil patch. From 2007 to 2012, employment in the energy industry rose a dramatic 31.6 percent while employment nationwide fell 2.7 percent. U.S. oil production increased from 6.5 million barrels per day in...

Governor Palin wrote a great article for the Houston Tribune today loaded with a lot of good facts on energy.  She also notes an interesting flip flop from our president on the matter. It’s always a pleasure returning to the beautiful Lone Star State. This week I’m in Houston speaking with the industrious men and women of America’s oil patch at the North American Prospect Expo. These are the unsung heroes of our nation’s energy renaissance.In the brutal economic environment of the last six years, one sector had good news to report, and it came straight out of America’s oil patch. From...

A research team successfully identified ancient barley and wheat residues in grave goods and on teeth from two Neolithic cemeteries in Central Sudan and Nubia, showing that humans in Africa were already exploited domestic cereals 7,000 years ago and thus five hundred years earlier than previously known. Dr. Welmoed Out from Kiel University said, “With our results we can verify that people along the Nile did not only exploit gathered wild plants and animals but had crops of barley and wheat.” These types of crops were first cultivated in the Middle East about 10,500 years ago and spread out from...

The White House has finally divulged the names of American Muslim leaders who met with President Obama this week, including Imam Mohamed Magid, who has advised the administration on formulating responses to incidents that Islamists consider offensive. After stonewalling journalists for two days about the names of the participants at the meeting Wednesday, the White House quietly attached the list of attendees to the end of its daily press briefing transcript Thursday evening. The guest list identified Imam Magid as a representative of the Adams Center, a large mosque in Sterling, Virginia. He has also served as president of the...

Hannah Arendt is known for her book, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.” She fled Germany in the 1930s during the rise of Hitler. Her book and its title came from her reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, who was a key organizer of the Holocaust. She coined the phrase, “banality of evil” because of the moral detachment of a man just doing his job. Our State Department, Congress and the organizers of the National Prayer Breakfast are accepting Sudanese Prime Minister Ali Karti as a man who is just doing his job....

Courtesy Mark Hackett, Operation Broken Silence Sudan’s foreign minister, a hardcore Islamist with a long history of orchestrating mass atrocities and other crimes against humanity, has been invited to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC on Thursday, February 4. The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual event hosted by members of the United States Congress and organized on their behalf by The Fellowship Foundation. Religious and political leaders from around the world are invited to the breakfast, also known as the “Presidential Prayer Breakfast,” since the President of the United States is always in attendance.

Executives at a Bermudan firm funneling money to U.S. environmentalists run investment funds with Russian tycoons. A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president...

Writing for the online Politico newsmagazine, Ross argues that American allies in the region are growing more apprehensive over what they see as growing Iranian influence in the region. Former US peace envoy Dennis Ross (L), seen here with late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 2000 Former US peace envoy Dennis Ross (L), seen here with late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 2000. (photo credit:REUTERS) Dennis Ross, the veteran Mideast hand and former peace envoy, criticized his former boss, US President Barack Obama, for “not being tough enough” with Iran in light of the stalled nuclear talks and the recent...

Germany would be prepared to negotiate a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Russia as a way out of the deadlocked Ukraine conflict, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday. Merkel told the World Economic Forum in Davos that Germany was “ready” to open talks about “possibilities for cooperating in a collective trade area”, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. But she said that a precondition for the plan, suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin several years ago but ignored by European leaders, would be a comprehensive peace agreement in Ukraine. …

The five most miserable countries in the world at the end of 2014 are, in order: Venezuela, Argentina, Syria, Ukraine, and Iran. In 2014, Argentina and Ukraine moved into the top five, displacing Sudan and Sao Tome and Principe. The five least miserable are Brunei, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, and Japan. The United States ranks 95th, which makes it the 14th least miserable nation

If you think that Vladimir Putin would be dissuaded from his territorial ambitions by a few billionaires more or less being punished in Moscow, then you probably deserve to condemned to a Purgatory that resembles Obama’s White House. Despite assurances that Russia was on the ropes via economic sanctions imposed by the West after the Bear stirred up ethnic conflict in Ukraine, there are no signs but that Russia under Putin is restless. And hungry. New fighting has erupted near Donetsk with Russian supported separatists firing shells resulting in the death of 11 people. Since so-called “peace-talks” are underway between...