Free Republic

Iran has discovered a new oil field in the country’s south with over 50 billion barrels of crude, its president said Sunday, a find that could boost the country’s proven reserves by a third as it struggles to sell energy abroad over U.S. sanctions. The announcement by Hassan Rouhani comes as Iran faces crushing American sanctions after the U.S. pulled out of its nuclear deal with world powers last year. Rouhani made the announcement in a speech in the desert city of Yazd. He said the field was located in Iran’s southern Khuzestan province, home to its crucial oil industry....

President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria last month kicked up a hornet’s nest, resulting in bitter backlash from members of both parties in Congress, the media, and the American public. The president’s decision was quickly cast as a simplistic, binary decision – in which the removal of American troops all but guaranteed genocide for the abandoned Kurds who have fought valiantly in the battle against ISIS. But the true geopolitical situation is much more nuanced. Protecting Kurdish lives and preserving American troops and assets are not mutually exclusive. It is important to remember the initial motivation for the...

Elizabeth Warren may be surging in the polls, but you wouldn’t know it by the size of the crowd that heard her speak on Friday. The senator from Massachusetts spoke at a sparsely attended environmental forum in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on Friday. The auditorium where the event was held appeared as if it could hold hundreds of spectators, but there were no more than a few dozen who could be seen watching the event. **SNIP** Most of the Democratic candidates in the race skipped the event. When asked if it was wrong for the Democratic Party not to stage an...

Hamas Spokesman Fawzi Barhum has blamed the Israeli government as being fully responsible for the violence that is happening in the Arab sector, which is also reflected in homicides. Barhum said in a statement that the crimes of murder and violence in the "occupied Palestinian interior" (the Arab sector in Israel) carry the characteristics of "the Israeli occupation and its security arms that always seek to destroy the social fabric and damage the image of our (Palestinian) people." He said the purpose of these crimes is to engage the Arabs in Israel in a vicious cycle of violence and murder,...

A media outlet affiliated with ISIS has been instructing the group's radical adherents to set forest fires in the United States and Europe to cause mass ecological disasters, according to posts on an internet forum dedicated to the terror group. At least four propaganda posters that have appeared on the pro-ISIS Quraysh media outlet have urged followers to "ignite fires" as part of an ongoing jihad against America and its allies.

The United Arab Emirates intends to allow Israeli tourists to freely visit the country and is engaged in high-level talks with Israeli authorities to put the policy into practice, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily newspaper reported Wednesday. Israelis will initially be allowed to enter the UAE so that they can attend the Expo 2020 world fair in Dubai, which will include an Israeli pavilion. However, Expo and UAE sources confirmed to the paper that the intention is to leave the door open to Israeli visitors even after the exhibition closes. Israel has no diplomatic ties with the UAE, though relations between...

Last week the Egyptian court system denied justice to Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christian minority by again postponing judgment on two notorious cases that have been at court for years. The first concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a 70-year-old Coptic grandmother. On May 20, 2016, a mob of some 300 Muslim men descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets of al-Karm village (in Minya governorate) to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” Earlier that day she and her husband had gone to local police and complained that they were being harassed...

Independent Vermont senator and 2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is not impressed by tech giant Apple’s efforts to increase the supply of affordable housing in California amid a growing crisis. In a statement on Monday evening, Sanders called out the Cupertino, California-based company out for trying to distract from a problem it helped create. “Apple's announcement that it is entering the real estate lending business is an effort to distract from the fact that it has helped create California's housing crisis – all while raking in $800 million of taxpayer subsidies, and keeping a quarter trillion dollars of profit offshore,...

The Guardian reported that Junius Ho a Pro-Beijing lawmaker in Hong Kong was stabbed in what appears to be a politically motivated...

: At least fifteen people were killed and another four injured in attacks by suspected Muslim rebels in Thailand's violence-wracked south, an army spokesman said on Wednesday, the largest death toll in years. The Malay-Muslim south has been in the grip of a bloody insurgency that has killed more than 7,000 people over the last 15 years. Late Tuesday militants struck two checkpoints in Yala province manned by civil defence volunteers, opening fire on them as a group of villagers stopped to talk, southern army spokesman Pramote Prom-in told AFP. "Twelve were killed at the scene, two more (died) at...

The senior ministers of the Israeli government met twice last week to discuss the possibility of open war with Iran. They were mindful of the Iranian plan for a drone attack from Syria in August, aborted at the last minute by an Israeli air strike, as well as Iran’s need to deflect attention from the mass protests against Hezbollah’s rule in Lebanon. The ministers also reviewed the recent attack by Iranian drones and cruise missiles on two Saudi oil installations, reportedly concluding that a similar assault could be mounted against Israel from Iraq. The Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, announced the...

President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday, announcing that the country would begin injecting uranium gas into 1,044 centrifuges that had been spinning empty at its Fordow plant. Injecting the gas is part of the process to enrich uranium, which could ultimately be used to develop a nuclear weapon, though Iran has repeatedly denied it has any ambitions of building a bomb. The move marks a significant break from the terms of the 2015 accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the deal, Iran was limited to operating around 5,000 older-model centrifuges. The international community has long...

Hasan has remained on death row for seven years and counting. Manning said he hopes "justice gets served" but realizes Hasan may never be executed. ... When it came to Hasan, Manning said, there was a double standard. Hasan wrote emails to radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki seeking advice on reconciling his Muslim faith with serving in the Army. This fact was known to the FBI. “You could lose your security clearance in the Army for having bad credit and be kicked out of the Army. But you can't lose your security clearance for talking to a member of Al...

After a series of protests led by several radical anti-Israel organizations, the Portland Trail Blazers recently announced the termination of their relationship with an Oregon-based rifle scope manufacturer who supplies rifle optics to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). An assortment of various activist groups, many of which are affiliated with the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, have put pressure on the Blazers to end their relationship with Leupold & Stevens. According to Oregon Live: Members of the Portland Democratic Socialists of America, Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land, Portland’s Resistance and Jewish Voice For Peace staged protests last...

he Portland Trail Blazers announced that they have severed relations with a company that does business with Israel following a pressure campaign by activists tied to the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. As the NBA is facing outrage after the general manager of the Houston Rockets capitulated to censorship by the Chinese communist government, the Trail Blazers quietly severed ties with the manufacturer Leupold, which has a contract to produce accessories for the Israeli Defense Forces. Trail Blazers president and CEO Chris McGowan recently announced the decision to bow to pressure from BDS activists, telling a reporter for the...

Labour UK chairman Jeremy Corbyn tried to reassure Jewish voters in Britain that they have nothing to fear from a possible Labour government. Speaking with The Guardian Sunday night, Corbyn condemned anti-Semitism as “evil”, and said British Jews have no reason to fear his possible election as Prime Minister in next month’s general election. “Anti-Semitism and racism is an evil within our society,” Corbyn told The Guardian. “We want this country to be safe for all people. An attack on a synagogue, an attack on a mosque, an attack on a church – an attack on a person walking down...

US Secretary of State John Kerry will offer Israeli and Palestinian negotiators a political trade-off: Israeli recognition of the 1967 lines as a basis for the future Palestinian state, in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, Palestinian sources told the Saudi daily Al-Watan on Sunday. According to the sources, the mutual recognition will constitute the core of a framework agreement to be signed by the end of January, and negotiated in greater detail during the following months. "The coming weeks will be difficult for the Palestinian and Israeli sides, since they will need...

Russia’s advanced S-400 air defense batteries at the Khmeimim Air Base in Syria have been quietly “deactivated,” according to Russian military sources and publications. This has not been officially confirmed or denied. One source said that today, not a single S-400 is operational anywhere in Syria. Three months ago, DEBKAfile’s military sources cited the Syrian military as reporting that the Russian S-400s posted outside the important Syrian military compound at Masyaf in the west had been “deactivated” indicating the shutdown of their radar systems. Our sources note that, although Russian S-300 and S-400 air defense systems have been deployed in...

US President Donald Trump’s many critics insist he has no idea what he is doing in Syria. The assassination of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend by US special forces showed this criticism is misplaced. Trump has a very good idea of what he is doing in Syria, not only regarding ISIS, but regarding the diverse competing actors on the ground. Regarding ISIS, the obvious lesson of the al-Baghdadi raid is that Trump’s critics’ claim that his withdrawal of US forces from Syria’s border with Turkey meant that he was going to allow ISIS to regenerate was...

Islamic Republic of Pakistan army instructed jihadis to wear military uniforms to dodge foreign observers NOV 2, 2019 4:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER “War is deceit,” said Muhammad (Bukhari 4.52.268). But why is this jihad state still considered an ally of the United States? “Pakistan Army instructed terrorists to wear military uniforms to dodge foreign observers: Govt sources,” by Manjeet Singh Negi, India Today, October 31, 2019 (thanks to The Religion of Peace): Terrorists have been asked to dress up in Pakistan military uniform to avoid identification. In a bid to avoid getting caught by the international community, the Pakistan...