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Libyan officials attached to the government in Tripoli are warning that the country will have to halt the majority of its output from southeastern fields within a month’s time as the Hariga port remains under blockade over an export dispute between rival governments. Fields in the south-east which provide the majority of the Libyan oil output will be shut down in a month unless blockade on the Mediterranean Sea terminal Marsa el-Hariga if lifted, officials in Tripoli have warned on Tuesday. Factions loyal to the eastern government in Tobruk, and the parallel National Oil Company in Benghazi, have been in...

The Huffington Post has published a photograph (above) of former Mexican president Vicente Fox giving Donald Trump the finger, taken a day before Fox apologized to Trump in an interview with Breitbart News. He also said some of Trump’s proposals could lead to war. “Don’t play around with us,” Fox said. “We can jump walls. We can swim rivers. And we can defend ourselves.”

A Confederate monument capped with a statue of Jefferson Davis will be removed from a spot near the University of Louisville campus where it has stood since 1895. The stone monument honoring Kentuckians who died for the Confederacy in the Civil War will be moved to another location, University President James Ramsey and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said during a surprise announcement Friday.

Hidden among the ballyhoo about a collaborative freeze in production growth, a less visible but far more effective dynamic has affected, and likely will affect, oil supply and price: military intervention. There have always been three routes out of the unsustainably low prices: natural decline/growth of supply/demand, collaboration constraints on supply, and military conflict. Since January, while the talk of a growth freeze had no effect whatsoever on actual supply, the natural decline/growth did reduce the overhang by a couple of hundred thousand barrels of oil per day. Meanwhile, two little-discussed and less-understood military interventions took a combined 900,000 bopd...

President Barack Obama, speaking in Germany on Monday, said we’re fortunate to be living in the “most peaceful” era in human history. […] “That may surprise young people who are watching TV or looking at your phones,” he said, “and it seems like only bad news comes through every day, but consider it’s been decades since the last war between major powers.” […] “Around the world we’re more tolerant, with more opportunity for women and gays and lesbians as we push back on bigotry and prejudice,” he said. (He notably did not mention transgenders, a topic that is making headlines...

The Eidgenossen matter. The who? What? Why? OK, let me back up. Two weeks ago, while talking about the Battle of Crecy I mentioned the concept of a Revolution in Military Affairs. At that time I gave a fairly simple definition. A better, or perhaps just more complete definition of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) might go like this: “A fundamental change in the practice of warfare

Don't look for any happy ending here. Or any ending. The debate over the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) can be expected to last as long as there are isolationists and interventionists arguing over American foreign policy -- that is, approximately forever. Few if any conflicts illustrate the tragic nature of history so well, for there were no simple choices in Spain. There were more than enough heroes and villains, not-so-innocent bystanders and gawkers galore -- along with an endless supply of impossible choices. No one's hands were Ivory Soap clean, but curiously enough none were hopelessly dirty. Time, the great...

On Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Hiroshima. While there meeting with this G-7 counterparts, Kerry strongly hinted that his visit was a precursor to a visit to the site of the first nuclear bombing by President Barack Obama next month. The irony of course is that for all his professed commitment to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, Obama is responsible for drastically increasing the chance of nuclear war. Indeed, Obama’s own actions lend easily to the conclusion that he wishes to do penance for America’s decision to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, (and so...

For years the Obama administration has been accused of micromanaging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from inside the White House. Now in an astonishing report from Fox News anchor Bret Baier, three former Obama Defense Secretaries are openly slamming him for his distrust of the military, his failure to lead and they're exposing his inexperienced and closest advisors for second guessing senior field commanders with phone calls to the battlefield. "President Obama, he's one of the youngest presidents we've ever had. One of the most inexperienced presidents we've ever had. He has a staff around him that is very...

Russian-backed separatist forces continue shelling Ukrainian positions despite truce agreement Despite the ceasefire granted by Minsk peace accords, the war in eastern Ukraine continues. In March, at least 19 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 128 were wounded, according to Ukrainian Deutsche Welle service. On March 31, one servicemen was killed and eight wounded as a result of armed hostilities in the Donbas region. Four Ukrainian servicemen were killed on March 20 and 25. However, not all casualties were a result of fighting. One soldier was killed in a traffic accident on March 29, according to the report released by ATO...

"It was reported last week that several religious groups had received threats that Father Thomas would be crucified on Good Friday, but this was denied by his church in hometown of Bangalore. However, the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, told a congregation gathered in St. Stephen's Cathedral in the Austrian capital that the priest had been crucified." "It is not known how the Archbishop became aware of Father Thomas' alleged fate, but his confirmation of the crucifixion during Easter Vigil Mass was reported in Austrian media. "

How it must have pained Marine Corps General John Paxton to tell Congress that his service might not be prepared for war. Last week, the Assistant Commandant, who has racked up 42 of honorable military service, candidly admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the US Marine Corps isn't what it used to be. "I worry about the capability and the capacity to win in a major fight somewhere else right now," said the general. He fretted over inadequate training and equipment particularly in the fields of communications, intelligence, and aviation. Cynics might see Paxton's testimony as a plea...

Tuesday on CNN’s “Wolf,” while discussing the terror attacks in Brussels at the Maalbeek Metro station and and Zaventem airport, which resulted in deaths of at least 31 and hundreds injured, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said the accusations from politicians on the right that part of the problem is President Barack Obama won’t even say the words radical Islamic terrorism is “dangerous” because it would imply we are at war with an entire religion.

Sitting next to Cuban President Raul Castro (R), US President Barack Obama (L) gestures during the state dinner at the Revolution Palace in Havana on March 21, 2016. Adalberto Roque | AFP | Getty Images Sitting next to Cuban President Raul Castro (R), US President Barack Obama (L) gestures during the state dinner at the Revolution Palace in Havana on March 21, 2016. U.S. President Barack Obama declared on Tuesday that he had come to Havana to "bury the last remnant" of the Cold War in the Americas as he spoke directly to the Cuban people in a historic speech...

There is no quick route by which one may approach Verdun. No superhighway passes through this sleepy town, nor do any of France’s fabled “Trains de Grande Vitesse” stop here. There is only the local line, and even that humbled creaking route terminates in Verdun. In the end, one can only come to this hallowed ground slowly, by a small four-car train or by narrow two-lane road. This is as it should be. Some 250,000 men died in these few square miles of turf, and one should not rush into a graveyard.

(The two links herein MAY have to be copied and pasted by any who care to visit those sites.) Today's radio show (aka "rant") with Dr. Lori Wilson out of WLBB in Carrollton, Georgia. I succeeded in dragging Lori kicking and screaming into a discussion of the most serious domestic threat we face today: Islam and why Trump is probably the only candidate to effectively deal with it! If you have an interest in listening, go to this link http://www.gradickcommunications.com and the center "PODCASTS" Menu and click on "The Wednesday Show with Dick Bachert" for the current program. How come...

If no candidate arrives in Cleveland with a majority of delegates, resulting in a brokered convention, who would be your top choice to be the Republican’s nominee? Take NR’s latest poll and let your voice be heard.

The Russian Air Force is taking no prisoners in the eastern Homs countryside and they are certainly not willing to allow ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) to use the roads that lead north towards the Al-Raqqa Governorate. For two straight days now, the Russian Air Force has relentlessly targeted ISIL’s primary oil transport routes in the deserts of northeastern Homs, striking the aforementioned terrorist group’s positions at the villages of Al-Zara’yah, Wadi Al-Dhakara, Al-Sakhanah, and ‘Arak.

The Department of Commerce today announced its affirmative preliminary determinations in the anti-dumping duty investigations of imports of cold-rolled steel flat products from Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In the Brazil investigation, mandatory respondent Companhia Siderurgica Nacional received a calculated preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. The second mandatory respondent, Usiminas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais, did not respond to all of Commerce’s requests for information, and therefore received a dumping margin based on adverse facts available. Usiminas and all other producers/exporters in Brazil also received a preliminary dumping margin of 38.93%. China Receives Heavy Duties...

There is something hard, cold, and brutal about the structure. It looks like a concrete airplane hangar and rising above it is what is called the “Lantern of the Dead." The shape suggests, appropriately, an artillery shell. When you walk around the outside of the building you find small windows, and when you look through them what you see are bones. Human bones and skulls. Piles of them. They are the remains of more than 130,000 men who were killed here and whose bodies could not be recovered or identified and so remained in the mud, blown apart again and...