Free Republic

A conductor was in the cab with the train engineer before a deadly derailment in Washington state, a federal transportation board member said Tuesday, adding that the train’s brakes were eventually engaged automatically, not by the engineer. "Absolutely distraction is one of our most-wanted-list priorities at NTSB," National Transportation Safety Board member Bella Dinh-Zarr said at a news conference Tuesday, although she added that the federal board has not determined a cause of the deadly accident outside Tacoma. Three people were killed when the Amtrak train headed from Seattle to Portland, Oregon, careened off a bridge at around 7:33 a.m....

Although Puerto Rico is on its way to holding a status plebiscite over the summer and the governing New Progressive Party has petitioned Congress for Puerto Rico’s admission as a state, some argue the island will have a higher chance of becoming a state if U.S. lawmakers were to declare Puerto Rico an incorporated territory en route to statehood. Right now, the dominant argument among all sectors is that Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory, but pro-statehood lawyer Gregorio Igartúa, who has taken several cases to the courts that seek to grant more rights to Puerto Ricans living in Puerto...

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear an appeal in Tuaua v. United States, which poses the question of whether the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment applies to American Samoa. That this is a question at all is puzzling, and not just because it’s called American Samoa. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The United States annexed the eastern half of a group of Pacific islands known as the Samoas at the end of the 19th century. As a...

A newly contentious phase appears to be under way in the South China Sea, where China has made expansive territorial claims, after the head of US naval operations said today in Tokyo that US vessels are free to travel “wherever international law allows." Echoing earlier remarks by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, John Richardson, the US chief of naval operations, stated that, "It should not come as a surprise to anybody that we will exercise freedom of navigation wherever international law allows.” He added that "I don't see how this can be interpreted as provocative." A Chinese spokesman responded by...

As if poking the Russian bear wasn’t enough, the Obama administration has now chosen to rile the Chinese dragon. In a move meant to project U.S. military power to the Chinese government, American officials announced that U.S. Navy warships will sail directly through a Chinese claimed 12-nautical mile zone in the disputed region of the South China Sea. The contested waters around the Spratly Islands, which China claims as its own sovereign territory, have been the cause of intense controversy. The U.S. has refused to recognize China’s territorial claims and believes the disputed area resides in international waters. Last month,...

WWIII over CIA backed rebels? No thanks. We needed a President and Secretary of State who could stymie Russia on the diplomatic front. We needed a President who was up to the task of managing the world stage. We needed a Commander in Chief who would be either feared or respected by our allies and enemies alike. We don't have that. Instead, we're faced with Middle Eastern chaos, a rapidly expanding global terrorist force, and a refugee crisis that is spreading to every corner of the globe. The President's response has, so far, consisted of a feckless UN speech and...

China has built an offshore oil drilling rig, numbered HD-981, specifically for the purpose invalidating other nations’ claims to seabed they thought was theirs. There is no doubt about the purpose of the rig given that a Chinese state oil company official once called it “our mobile national territory.” Its primary purpose isn’t commercial. If China can drill an oil well on some other country’s seabed, they can then claim that it was China’s territory all along. The rig is having its first outing to that purpose off the coast of Vietnam, accompanied by 86 Chinese vessels including a submarine....

Ire of the tiger! Stunning pictures capture bloodied beasts slashing each other with their claws in dramatic battle over territory • Dramatic battle caught on camera in the Londolozi private game reserve in Pretoria, South Africa • The clash erupted after one of the tigers delivered a vicious blow to the neck of its rival • After 45 minutes of bloody battle the larger tiger was deemed the winner This is the incredible moment a pair of bloodied tigers slashed each other with their claws in a dramatic fight over territory. The dramatic battle was caught on camera at the...

U.S. Territory of Guam photographed from the NASA Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite on December 30, 2011. Map 1 and Map 2. 2013 x 3020, 2680 x 4020, 3346 x 5020, 4014 x 6021. Via http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-201304.htm

At least two hundred rebel soldiers had taken over Beerajam and Bariqa, two isolated villages nestled in the buffer zone established between the two countries following the Yom Kippur war in 1973.

Israel filed a complaint against Syria Monday in the United Nations, alleging that Syrian forces crossed the border between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights last week. Israel's Deputy UN Ambassador, Haim Waxman, sent a letter to the UN Security Council Secretary General, in which he said that during fighting Thursday between the Syrian Army and rebel forces at Jubta al-Hasheb, Syrian forces crossed the 1974 Armistice Line.

Campbell: US to make proposals on S. China Sea US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell says the United States will make new proposals on the territorial disputes in the South China Sea at the ASEAN Regional Forum later this month. Campbell, who is in charge of East Asian and Pacific affairs, made the remark in an exclusive interview with NHK. He will attend the ARF meeting, to be held on the Indonesian island of Bali on July 23rd. The meeting comes as tension is rising between China and Southeast Asian nations over the control of islands in the South...

Vietnam signs military order amid tensions Posted: 15 June 2011 0216 hrs HANOI: The prime minister of Vietnam has signed an order on eligibility for military conscription, at a time of high maritime tension with China, the official army newspaper reported on Tuesday. The decree is not a mobilisation order but clarifies who will be exempt from military service in the event of war, including key government officials and men with no siblings, Quan Doi Nhan Dan said. It will take effect on August 1. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung signed the document on Monday, the same day Vietnam's navy...

Hundreds protest in Vietnam against China amid sea row 12:09pm IST HANOI (Reuters) - Up to 300 people shouting "Down with China" marched to the Chinese embassy in Vietnam on Sunday to protest against what they see as Chinese violations of Vietnam's sovereignty in the disputed South China Sea. Tension between Vietnam and China has been on the rise since last month when Vietnam said Chinese patrol boats harassed a Vietnamese oil-exploration ship conducting a seismic survey 120 km (80 miles) off Vietnam's south-central coast. The two countries, which fought a brief but intense war on their land border in...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly rejected President Obama's call Thursday for Israel to pull back to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War, calling those lines militarily "indefensible."...

I'm having a discussion with a friend who is a liberal and he keeps stating over and over that Puerto Rico is an official state of the United States. I on the other hand keep telling him its a territory NOT a State. He keeps saying he can prove it, except he never produces any evidence. I've showed him some older documents on the subject that Puerto Rico is a territory and not a state, but that will not convince him. Does any Freeper out there in freeland have any recent documents and can prove Puerto Rico is in fact...

(LEAD) Military: artillery sound from within North's territory, no shells land in southern waters SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Yonhap) -- The series of explosion sounds heard Friday on the border island attacked by North Korea earlier this week appear related to training within the North's territory, military officials said. No shells landed in waters on either side of the Koreas' Yellow Sea border or near Yeonpyeong Island, said Col. Lee Bung-woo, a spokesman at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The firing was not aimed at us, and we believe the sounds were heard as North Korea conducted its routine training...

China opposes Vietnam's accusation on South China Sea islands English.news.cn 2010-08-07 01:52:50 BEIJING, Aug. 6 (Xinhua)-- China firmly opposes any remarks and actions that violate its sovereignty over Xisha Islands and adjacent waters in the South China Sea, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu here on Friday. Jiang made the comment after Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga said Thursday, according to media reports, that Chinese vessels' seismic exploration activities near Xisha Islands had violated Vietnam's sovereignty. "China has indisputable sovereignty over Xisha Islands and adjacent waters," Jiang reiterated in a news release. Editor: Mu Xuequan

Growing efforts by Mexican narcotics cartels to gain political control over regions where they dominate trafficking has led to violence in many parts of Mexico, especially in the Mexican border cities and along major shipping routes. But as I have been warning since I wrote in 1995, the money acquired by the criminal gangs is not just going to support their operations. It is being used to buy government, and assume the role of government, on both sides of the border. The problem was well presented in A Lawyer's View of the Justice System, Joseph H. Delaney, July/August, 1999, issue...

An armed conflict in the Arctic area is not far away unless USA leads the way toward a multilateral diplomatic solution. Washington has forfeited its ability to assert sovereignty in the Arctic by allowing its icebreaker fleet to atrophy, says former U. S. Coast Guard officer Thanks to global warming, the Arctic icecap is rapidly melting, opening up access to massive natural resources and creating shipping shortcuts that could save billions of dollars a year. But there are currently no clear rules governing this economically and strategically vital region. Unless Washington leads the way toward a multilateral diplomatic solution, the...