Free Republic

Post by Franciscan Media Saint Berard and Companions Saint of the Day for January 16 (d. January 16, 1220) Audio Player Saint Berard and Companions’ Story Preaching the gospel is often dangerous work. Leaving one’s homeland and adjusting to new cultures, governments and languages is difficult enough; but martyrdom caps all the other sacrifices. In 1219, with the blessing of Saint Francis, Berard left Italy with Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis to preach in Morocco. En route in Spain, Vitalis became sick and commanded the other friars to continue their mission without him. They tried preaching in Seville, then...

Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said died on Friday evening, state media said early on Saturday. Qaboos, 79, had ruled the Gulf Arab state since he took over in a bloodless coup in 1970. Qaboos had no children and had not publicly appointed a successor. A 1996 statute says the ruling family will choose a successor within three days of the throne becoming vacant. If they fail to agree, a council of military and security officials, supreme court chiefs and heads of the two assemblies will put in power the person whose name has been secretly written by the sultan in...

An iconic photograph of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton using her BlackBerry while wearing sunglasses on a military plane in 2011 prompted a recordkeeping official in her office to inquire about whether Clinton had been assigned a State.gov email address, the State Department disclosed this week.Clarence Finney, who oversaw an office responsible for Freedom of Information Act searches, raised the question about an official account after seeing the photo in the media, according to testimony at a deposition held Wednesday and released Thursday. The image went viral on social media in 2012, prompting a "Texts from Hillary" meme."When Mrs. Clinton's...

Amir gives a Prophecy Update, addressing Iran, Syria, Russia, USA, Sudan, Lebanon, Israel, fake news and much more!

By Hasan Hasan*On Sunday, 16 April a referendum will be held in Turkey to codify Erdogan’s dictatorial ambitions and his plenipotentiary powers as an absolute executive whose power and authority cannot be challenged or checked. Think of an Anatolian version of Adolf Hitler and you’ll begin to get the idea.Erdogan’s ambition is nothing less than to be a modern-day Sultan or a new Caliph of the faithful. An aspiring despot seems more than ready to do whatever it takes in his desperate bid to maintain his grip on power even if it means ripping the country apart and putting...

In many conversations and encounters I had over the years with former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, he emphatically echoed his boss President Erdogan’s grandiose vision that by 2023 (the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic), Turkey will become as powerful and influential as the Ottoman Empire was during its heyday. Under the best of circumstances, Turkey cannot realize Erdogan’s far-fetched dream. Had he stayed the course, however, with his socio-political and judiciary reforms and economic developments, as he had during his first nine years in power, Turkey could have become a major player on the global stage and a...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday stepped up his attacks on foreign media a day ahead of legislative elections, telling the Guardian to “know your limits” and lamenting that “Jewish capital” was behind the New York Times. Erdogan has during the campaign leading up to Sunday’s polls repeatedly criticised foreign media, amid growing concerns over an erosion of freedom of expression in Turkey under his rule. In one of its final pre-election rallies in the eastern province of Ardahan, Erdogan took offence at an article in the Guardian critical of his rule, including an editorial titled “Growing autocracy threatens...

CAIRO: Dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen Mohamed Sultan, who has been on a hunger strike since January 2014, was deported to the United States, family member Omar Sultan said in his facebook account Saturday. “Mohamed is on his way home after nearly two years in captivity. After extensive efforts, the U.S. government has successfully secured Mohamed’s deportation back home to the U.S., mercifully concluding this dark chapter for Mohamed and our family,” read the statement. According to the Anadolu Turkish news agency, Sultan was deported after he relinquished his Egyptian citizenship; however, the Egyptian Prisons Authority has denied in a statement to...

Americans are becoming increasingly more suspicious struggling to find rhyme or reason for Obama’s latest Middle East policies. Rudy Giuliani seems to attribute Obama’s policies to be influenced through his affiliations with radical socialists like Frank Marshall Davis. But serious questions will prove that Obama’s policies are not different than a Muslim who supports the revival of the Muslim grand caliphate. Was Obama influenced only by a Marxist-Leninist agenda or did he also not grow up Muslim, having learned how to recite the Muslim call to prayer in the classical Arabic tongue as he clearly admits? Can anyone even deny...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he isn't a sultan - rather he wishes to be like the Queen in a constitutional monarchy - but his actions suggest otherwise. He lives in the world's biggest residential palace that cost £384 million . ... Erdogan's White Palace .. boasts 1,000 rooms and has a total floor area of 3.1 million square feet. This makes it four times the size of Versailles, home of the lavish Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of France. ... the "quixotic architectural style seems to cross the Ottoman and Seljuk traditions with that of a modern Chinese railway station"....

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will visit Turkey as the U.S. government tries to build a “coalition of the willing” take on Islamic militants in Syria, the Pentagon announced Friday. “Turkey is a key NATO ally. And given its border with Syria and Iraq, they share our deep concerns with … the regional threat posed by ISIL,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters. ISIL is one of the acronyms used to refer to the militant group the Islamic State, which has taken over large swathes of Syria and Iraq in recent months. The U.S. military has been...

Obama was never going to stop Iran from going nuclear, but his promises gave people who should have known better, including American Jewish leaders and the Prime Minister of Israel, the idea that he would stand firm. “Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama said last year. “Rest assured that the Iranian government will know our resolve and that our coordination with Israel will continue.” Instead Obama reached a secret deal to relax Iran sanctions and accept an Iranian nuclear program...

Welsh schoolteacher Norma Walmsley has opened up on her time when she worked for one of the richest families on the planet - the Brunei Royal Family.It's a tale straight out of Oscar Hammerstein’s classic musical The King and I. Former Holywell schoolteacher Norma Walmsley has lifted the lid on her time as a governess to the Brunei Royal Family, who have ruled the country for more than 600 years. She tutored their 12 children for 10 years after being personally head- hunted by the Sultan of Brunei himself. Now 73 and settled in Pantsasaph, near Holywell, Norma’s life now...

Come right in and step right up. See the bright lights and the oddities of nature. Inside folks, for the low price of twenty-two trillion dollars, you can see Binders of Women, Team Big Bird and entire reams of green windmills and fields full of bayonets and horses. Here lies become the truth and everything is full of sugar. And the highlight of the show with be Barack, the Exotic Prince from the Wilds of Indonesia and Kenya, with a special appearance by Oprah and a hologram of JFK. Here in the Carnival of Fools, the party never stops and...

(CNN) -- Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has died, a State Department official told CNN on Friday. There were no more immediate details about his death.

SULTAN, Wash. (AP) - A Sultan nudist club is suing to stop a public shooting range from being built near the park it runs for nude outdoor enthusiasts. Lake Bronson Club sued the state Board of Natural Resources and Snohomish County last week, saying the state can't transfer 150 acres of forestland to the county for a gun range. The lawsuit alleges state law requires the land be used for a public park. Club secretary Jodi Halfhill says it's not a good idea to have a shooting range a mile from a social camping club. The club has about 320...

In the West's attempt to remain politically correct, they have failed to identify the source of our problem, our true enemy. The Evil that the Free World is facing is not radical Islam or militant Islam or any other group within Islam. IT IS ISLAM! Sure there are good Muslims, but they are not practicing Muslims... if they were they would be seeking the death of ALL infidels. The have an agenda and it is clear. It was handed down to them by their only prophet. Even the secular Muslims are not speaking out against the atrocities committed by fellow...

St Francis and the Sultan: the making of a pious myth Jonathan Wright on a wonderful book that explains how a legendary meeting was reinterpreted over eight centuries 26 June 2009 St Francis of Assisi: His trip to Egypt became one of the centrepieces of Franciscan hagiography In September 1219, as yet another crusade was raging, Francis of Assisi popped across the military lines in order to talk with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil of Egypt. We have no accurate idea of why he went or what was said but, in an important sense, this doesn't much matter. Here was a legendary...

The Federal Government announced charges today against a ring of foreign corporations and executives who conspired to bring antibiotic-laden Chinese honey illegally into the US, in an attempt to avoid paying millions in fees. A federal grand jury in Chicago indicted top executives of German food conglomerate Alfred L Wolff GmbH, and several of its affiliated companies for allegedly importing more than $US40 million in Chinese honey, but saying it originated elsewhere in order to avoid paying duties of nearly $US80 million that were levied on Chinese honey.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has achieved fame and notoriety in America based on his effort to build a mosque at a Ground Zero site that sustained damage from the attack. If we take him at his word, that his intention is build bridges not to aggravate tensions, then his rise illustrates the Peter Principle. The 1969 bestselling book The Peter Principle contends that people get promoted at work until they finally are assigned a job they cannot grow into, resulting in competent people eventually becoming incompetent as they rise, ironically, to a position of failure. Readily available data suggests this...