Free Republic

An illegal arms shipment including rockets and grenades discovered in Nigeria this week was loaded in Iran by an Iranian trader, the firm that operates the vessel that delivered it said on Friday. Security agents this week intercepted 13 containers declared as building materials and discharged from the CMA CGM Everest vessel at the country's busiest port of Apapa in Nigeria's economic hub of Lagos. "The shipment in question was booked as a 'shippers owned container' and supplied loaded and sealed by the shipper, an Iranian trader who does not appear on any 'forbidden persons' listing," said CMA CGM, which...

Nigeria's secret service said on Tuesday it had intercepted 13 containers of weapons from Iran in what Israeli defense sources believe may be part of a new smuggling route from Iran to Hamas in Gaza. Rocket launchers, grenades and other explosives camouflaged as building material were seized in the Nigerian port of Lagos after being unloaded from an Iranian ship. Nigerian media reports said the ship, which came from Iran, docked in Lagos port for a few hours only, unloaded 13 containers and sailed on.

OIL prices edged back toward record highs yesterday as the threat of war on Iran and the disruption of supplies from Nigeria kept international traders nervous. Nerves were frayed further when US energy giant ExxonMobil announced it had pulled out non-essential staff from the Nigeria's largest oil export terminal amid growing fears dissidents were liable to attack the site. Meanwhile, Iran has refused to rule out the use of oil as a weapon in the worsening stand-off over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear quest. In New York yesterday the new main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, rose...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil climbed further on Tuesday as a militant threat to Nigerian oil exports and Iran's standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions kept the market worried about supply disruptions. London Brent crude for March was up 27 cents to $63.45 a barrel by 0329 GMT, after rising 58 cents on Monday. U.S. light crude for February jumped 86 cents to $64.78 in catch-up gains after being closed for a national holiday on Monday. U.S. crude earlier touched $64.95 a barrel, its highest since October 4. Crude flows from Nigeria, the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, are being...

Crude futures rose Monday after another attack on an oil platform in Nigeria and Iran warned that any sanctions imposed over the country's nuclear program could send oil prices even higher. Brent crude for February delivery gained 77 cents to $63.03 a barrel on London's ICE Futures exchange, ahead of the contract's expiration Monday. Trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange was closed for the Martin Luther King Day holiday. Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it had evacuated over 300 staffers and contractors from facilities in the Niger Delta. Heavily armed attackers damaged the Benisede oil platform in the Niger...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Iranian diplomat is in Nigerian police custody on suspicion of spying on the Israeli embassy and other sensitive compounds in the capital Abuja, Israeli security sources said Monday. They said the Iranian was arrested on Jan. 23 when staff reported him "staking out" the embassy. Although he carried no credentials, police discovered he was a diplomat, they said. "A digital camera was found in his possession, with surveillance pictures of the embassy and several other international and local official buildings in the capital," a senior Israeli security source said. A Nigerian police spokesman said last Thursday...

... A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against. ...The new law is not yet in force in Iran: it requires another vote in parliament, and then the signature of the Ayatollah. But that could happen within a matter of weeks. "Or," says Papadouris, "it could conceivably be allowed to drop, were there a...

Chobani, owned by a Turkish Muslim immigrant, has filled 30 percent of its 600 positions at the world’s largest Yogurt plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, ... This comes at a time when Twin Falls is embroiled in a firestorm of controversy involving a sexual assault of a 5-year-old special-needs girl by refugee boys from Sudan and Iraq. The city’s mayor, Shawn Barigar ... was instrumental in recruiting Chobani to Twin Falls back in 2011, and he now plays a dual role of elected official and president/CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce. ... Goldman Sachs, United Parcel Service, HP ,...

Green cards, or Lawful Permanent Residency, puts immigrants on the path to citizenship and allows for lifetime residency, federal benefits, and work authorization. Included in the totals are refugees, who are required to apply for a green card after one year of residency in the U.S. Unlike other types of immigrants, refugees are immediately eligible for welfare benefits including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and Medicaid Green Card Totals, FY09-FY14: Pakistan (102K), Iraq (102K), Bangladesh (90K), Iran (85K), Egypt (56K), Somalia (37K), Uzbekistan (30K), Turkey (26K), Morocco (25K), Jordan (25K), Albania (24K), Afghanistan (21K), Lebanon (20K), Yemen...

South Sudan’s Child Soldiers and Hillary Clinton’s Complicity Published 10 June 2016 The former Secretary of State’s department allowed military aid to the region, despite laws against this. Rebel forces in South Sudan used child soldiers and the U.S. State Department under Hillary Clinton sent arms there despite passing a law that banned providing military assistance to nations that used child soldiers, The Intercept reported Friday. Waivers were issued by the White House that kept aid flowing there and U.S. President Barack Obama said in 2012 the waivers were in “the national interest of the United States.” The move was...

A little known Swedish-Canadian oil and mining conglomerate human rights groups have repeatedly charged produces “blood minerals” is among the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors, thanks to a ($100 million pledge) in 2007, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.“Blood minerals” are related to “blood diamonds,” which are allegedly mined in war zones or sold as commodities to help finance political insurgencies or despotic warlords. When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the “Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,” the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the...

full title : FRANCE: Sudanese Muslim freeloader sets fire to government welfare offices when they don’t give him a nice house right away A Sudanese Muslim who had just obtained the status of refugee was arrested after having set fire to the branch of the city council welfare offices. He claimed the employees had not found him a home "right away," which, according to him, was his "due," in view of his new refugee status. DVM The employees of Pôle Solidarités [Government Welfare Office] in Annecy still can't come back to it. On Tuesday 17 May, a so-called refugee locked...

The US State Department has approved a request by Egypt to purchase 20 Harpoon Block II encapsulated missiles for submarines as well as related equipment and training, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced in a statement. In addition to the Harpoon missiles, the proposed sale, worth approximately USD 143 million, includes two encapsulated harpoon certification training vehicles, technical assistance, personnel training and logistics support provided by the US. The missiles will be used by Egypt’s new Type 209 submarines, built by the German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, according to military intelligence and analysis website IHS Jane’s 30. “The proposed sale...

A group of 51 Muslim states has blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from attending a high-level meeting at the United Nations next month on ending Aids, sparking a protest by the US, Canada and the EU. Egypt wrote to the president of the 193-member general assembly on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to object to the participation of the 11 groups. It did not give a reason in the letter, which Reuters has seen. Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, wrote to the general assembly president, Mogens Lykketoft, and said the groups appeared to have been...

"Thus saith the LORD: I return unto Tzion and will dwell in the midst of Yerushalayim; and Yerushalayim shall be called the city of truth; and the mountain of the LORD of hosts the holy mountain." Zechariah 8:3 (The Israel BibleTM) On Friday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Executive Board in Paris adopted a resolution erasing Israel's ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. The UNESCO resolution referred to the Temple Mount area solely as the Al-Aqsa Mosque or Al-Haram Al Sharif, ignoring the Jewish claim to the site. The resolution called Israel "the...

Ever wonder why the federal government would be sending hundreds of foreign refugees to a relatively small town in Idaho? Wonder no more. They’re sent there, many of them, to work in the world’s largest yogurt factory. As WND previously reported, Twin Falls is in line to receive about 300 refugees this year, many of them Muslims from Syria. And the state of Idaho, despite its reputation as a mostly white, conservative farm state, has been a popular destination for refugees in recent years. Boise Mayor David Bieter has gone on record as a huge supporter of President Obama’s welcoming...

In the mid-seventh century, Egypt was conquered by Muslim armies. The pressure of the invading army, advancing south along the Nile Valley, stopped the Christian kingdom of Makuria. The relics of this civilization have been discovered by Poznań archaeologists in the area of the Letti Basin, about 350 km north of Khartoum. Makuria was a powerful kingdom, which existed from the sixth to the fourteenth century between II and V cataracts of the Nile. For several centuries its power reached even farther north almost to the modern Aswan... Now archaeologists confirmed the presence of previously known sites, but also discovered...

In March of 2012, two 24-year-old white males were abducted by a group of South Sudanese Africans in Antioch, TN. It was early in the morning and the victims were getting ready to do a paper route. The victims were subjected to 45 minutes of humiliating torture. They were forced to perform sexual acts on each other, sexually tortured, beaten, and stabbed. The perpetrators taunted them the entire time. After the torture, the men were left to die. They were dumped on the side of the road naked and covered in blood. Each had ten stab wounds. One of the...

While most of the attention on Hillary Clinton's emails dealt with a document that included instructions from Clinton to tamper with the headings of a possibly classified subject, another, even more explosive email is big news in Sudan and could potentially lead to criminal charges. The email in question is from Sid Blumenthal, close Clinton friend and ally, who was in Libya trying to drum up business with the Libyan government for some business associates. To ingratiate himself with Secretary Clinton and get the State Department to intercede with the Libyan government on his behalf, he sent her "intelligence" briefs...

A new trove of documents unearthed by Judicial Watch with a Freedom of Information Act request sheds more light on the Clinton email scandal, revealing that Hillary Clinton demanded changes to the National Security Agency’s protocols so she could use her smartphone and secret email server.