Free Republic

The Embassy of Venezuela in Mexico has been shown, by very different sectors in that country and in Mexico, to be an instrument of the ideological propaganda and political expansion of the personal interests of Hugo Chávez. Observations of interventionism include giving electoral support to the PRD [Democratic Revolutionary Party of Mexico], even "espionage," as well as a presumed importation of high caliber weapons and contacts with the FARC, ETA and Al Qaeda. Mexico City | Tuesday, 15 November 2005 | Vladimir Villegas is a person of Euro-African heritage showing a good sense of humor and charisma. Tall, robust, sporting...

The Kremlin warned Monday of possible retaliation against the United States for sanctions imposed on two major companies in the Russian defense industry. "We cannot rule out certain negative consequences for bilateral relations" between Russia and the United States, presidential administration spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday. "This was an unfriendly act toward Russia, and it was not done in a spirit of cooperation." Rosoboronexport chief Sergei Chemezov suggested Monday that a proposed deal for U.S. companies to deliver up to $1 billion in Russian military hardware to Afghanistan and Iraq could be jeopardized by the sanctions, Interfax reported. Meanwhile in...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA took the first step toward a criminal investigation of a leak of possibly classified information on secret prisons to The Washington Post, a U.S. official said Tuesday. The agency's general counsel sent a report to the Justice Department about the Post story, which reported the existence of secret U.S. detention centers for suspected terrorists in Eastern Europe. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue deals with classified information, said the referral was made shortly after the Nov. 2 story. The leak investigation into the disclosure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's...

From NBC12 News A federal appeals court in Richmond is set to hear arguments in the case of a convicted Al Qaeda supporter. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is a U.S. citizen born to a Jordanian father. He was raised in Falls Church. He was convicted in November 2005 of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack an aircraft and providing support to Al Qaeda. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

From today's Telegraph the strange tale of how a stray dog (pictured) has gained a place in the country's [Iran's] affections. The creature, of a local breed employed to herd livestock and guard homes, appeared one day outside the tomb of Imam Reza, the eighth imam, in the town of Mashad, near the Afghan border. Its arrival on November 15 was feted in the national press this weekend, and now visitors to the shrine can buy their own pictures of the hound. What made the dog so special was its apparent respect for Shia custom. It had managed to find...

JOHN KERRY OUTS CIA AGENT Remember all of the outrage and liberal indignation awhile ago when former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA agent? Evidently it was an unnamed Bush administration official that supplied the name....and the results of that investigation have yet to be made public. Well, it's happened again. Guess who publicly outed a CIA agent this time? Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. That's right...The Poodle's faux pas came yesterday as he was slamming U.N. Ambassador-nominee John Bolton at his confirmation hearings. Here's how it went down. For the majority of the hearings, Bolton...

I am warming up to watch the documentary Rather, celebrating the career of the disgraced former CBS News anchor. It is to be aired this coming Wednesday on Netflix. Apparently having access to a screener for media critics, the Star Tribune’s Neal Justin found the documentary to be wanting (“when it comes to the stumbles, like walking off the set when a tennis match went long, the legendary broadcaster goes missing”). Speaking of “stumbles,” we have the matter of Rathergate. However, “stumble” doesn’t quite capture it. “Disgrace,” “disaster,” and “fraud” are more like it. Award-winning CBS News producer Mary Mapes...

Media Matters president and far-left activist Angelo Carusone is under fire after The Daily Caller unearthed hateful and inflammatory comments he made in the past about everything from transvestites to ethnicity. Carusone has been leading a campaign against Fox News host Tucker Carlson for things he said on a radio program several years ago. Sensing hypocrisy, Daily Caller reporter Peter Hasson uncovered an old blog in which Carusone allegedly used hateful rhetoric against a series of groups. “Carusone’s now-defunct blog included degrading references to ‘trannies,’ ‘jewry’ and Bangladeshis,” Hasson wrote. “Carusone posted a lengthy diatribe in November 2005 about a...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An earthquake of magnitude 6.0 and a series of aftershocks struck the southern Iranian province of Hormuzgan on Saturday, causing minor damage, officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. "The earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.0, was centered near the rural area of Fin in Hormuzgan province," Farhad Jabari, head of Hormuzgan's Red Crescent rescue service told Reuters. Before leaving for the quake-hit area, Jabari said by telephone he did not think the first quake at 10.58 a.m. (0728 GMT) had done much damage but feared a third aftershock at about 1.30 p.m. (1000 GMT)...

Reuters - TWO VILLAGES DESTROYED BY QUAKE IN SOUTH IRAN - GOVERNOR'S OFFICE IN HORMUZGAN PROVINCE THIRD VILLAGE, KHALEDI, ALSO RAVAGED BY SOUTH IRAN QUAKE - STATE TV

MANAMA, Bahrain-A U.S.-backed conference to promote Middle East democracy ended in chaos yesterday, with Egyptians leaving early after blocking Bush administration proposals to subsidize groups that promote political reform.

[Subtitle: “I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests,” Browder writes.]The financier Bill Browder has emerged as an unlikely central player in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney Browder hired to investigate official corruption, died in Russian custody in 2009. Congress subsequently imposed sanctions on the officials it held responsible for his death, passing the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government retaliated, among other ways,...

SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found. Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq. An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either...

Evidence accumulates of a hoax in Haditha. The weblog Sweetness & Light has done an estimable service gathering together the articles which cast substantial doubt on the charge of a massacre of civilians at Haditha . Because the blog is too busy gathering and fisking the news, I offered and the publisher accepted my offer to put what he has uncovered in a narrative form. Having done so, I can tell you that the story has a whiff of yet another mediagenic scandal like the TANG memos or the Plame “outing.” While the Marines quite correctly will not comment on...

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government denied on Wednesday reports that its secret services passed fake documents to the United States to help bolster claims about Baghdad's pre-war nuclear ambitions. Italian newspaper La Repubblica has been running daily articles since Monday alleging that Sismi intelligence officials helped pass-off forged documents that accused Iraq of trying to buy 500 tons of "yellowcake" uranium from Niger. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office said in a statement the government and Sismi had no "direct or indirect role in the fabrication and the transmission of the 'fake dossier on Niger uranium."' La Repubblica accuses Sismi,...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - Troubled by news accounts of medical participation in coercive interrogations at Guantánamo Bay and the resulting unease in the professional medical community, the Pentagon led an intense one-day tour of the detention camp last month, several participants said in recent days. The purpose of the trip, some of the participants said, was for the military leadership to convince the ethicists, psychiatrists, psychologists and others who visited the detention camp at the United States Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that what was occurring there did not violate medical ethics and was necessary to strengthen the nation's...

Meanwhile, There's A War On by John HinderakerWe noted here the mysteriously under-covered story of the three would-be terrorists who were arrested in Italy after vowing to launch an attack on America that would dwarf September 11. A reader sent us a link to this article, which has more: The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups. News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely...

Nigergate: the dangerous relations between Democrat Senators and ex spies Here follows an interesting article from the Italian newspaper Il Giornale. I make no comment at all other than ‘read it’. Very soon, under the title “The Rockefeller Connection”, I will post something revealing, something important that until now passed completely under the Radar Screen. Stay tuned .. Nigergate: the dangerous relations between Democrat Senators and ex spies Il GIORNALE 13 November 2005 By Gian Marco Chiocci and Mario Sechi October 9 2002, Rome. Elisabetta Burba, journalist with Panorama magazine, crosses Via Veneto. At the American Embassy someone is waiting...

A three-judge panel overseeing Independent Counsel David Barrett's investigation into abuses by the Internal Revenue Service under the Clinton administration has ordered Barrett to make "discrete deletions" is the draft he submitted 15 months ago. The deletion order "has stoked speculation that [it] has more to do with the next presidential campaign," reports the Wall Street Journal, noting widespread rumors that "the draft report contains information potentially embarrassing to another Clinton administration figure, former first lady and current New York Sen. Hillary Clinton." "The one Clinton official rumored to be implicated in the report is former IRS Commissioner Margaret Richardson,...

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer NORTH COUNTY ---- Marine Corps officials confirmed Friday that Lt. Gen. James Mattis has called for an investigation into who leaked documents recently from a massive investigation of the 2005 deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq. An attorney representing one of eight Camp Pendleton Marines charged in connection with the incident said Friday it was essential Mattis order the probe given the notoriety caused by a Jan. 6 Washington Post article. The newspaper cited interviews with eyewitnesses who allege four of the Marines had gunned down five men. "A lot of...