Free Republic

Kyrgyzstan may be a landlocked country with a population of less than 5.5 million, but it still looms large in the regional calculations of China, Russia and the United States. The Kyrgyz Republic is the only country to host both a Russian and a US military base. The Russian base at Kant symbolises Moscow’s preeminent security role in the region, while the US base at Manas plays a vital role in sustaining NATO military operations in Afghanistan. And Kyrgyzstan also borders Xinjiang, prompting concerns among Chinese policymakers over infiltration by terrorists and narcotics smuggling into this sensitive province as well...

(CNSNews.com) - Amid growing concern about the illicit drug trade across the U.S.-Mexico border, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas have been linked to South American drug trafficking organizations–and the money Hezbollah and Hamas make from narco-trafficking is used to finance their organizations, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS). “International terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have also reportedly raised funding for their terrorist activities through linkages formed with DTOs in South America, particularly those operating in the tri-border area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina,” stated CRS in an April 30 report. As evidence that Hezbollah and...

Angry outbursts over agreement allowing Russian Navy to stay.Politicians pelted Ukrainian lawmakers with a smoke bomb and eggs as the parliament approved an agreement that will keep the Russian navy based in the Crimean Peninsula. Chamber speaker Volodymyr Litvyn was forced to take shelter under his umbrella as he was hit by eggs after deputies from newly elected President Viktor Yanukovich's coalition approved the extension to the Russian Black Sea Fleet's base in Crimea. Ukrainian nationalists, led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former President Viktor Yushchenko, regard the base as a betrayal of Ukraine's national interests. They wanted...

(CNN) -- Adrian Lamo, the former computer hacker who tipped off federal authorities to WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning, says two men in the Boston area have told Lamo in phone conversations that they assisted Manning. Lamo said both men attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he refused to identify them because, he said, at least one of them has threatened him. One of these men allegedly told Lamo they gave encryption software to Manning and taught the Army private how to use it, Lamo said. Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, is being held in solitary confinement at a Virginia...

What gives here? Conservative talk show host, Mark Levin, makes an excellent observation as well as ask an excellent question. First the Obaminator: "...and the Department of the Interior has announced that they will be sending Swat teamns to the Gulf to inspect all platforms and rigs." Mark Levin: "Swat teams from the Department of the Interior? When I was Deputy Secretary of the Interior Department (during the Reagan administration), I don't remember any Swat teams. Now you heard hims say that the Department of the Interior was going to send Swat teams, I didn't know that they had Swat...

'Probably don’t want to mention to Transatlantic in case we can’t deliver though I guess...' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ President Joe Biden and embattled son Hunter find themselves under scrutiny as their close ties to indicted Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., surface through a 2010 email obtained from Hunter’s infamous laptop. This revelation has raised questions about the extent of Biden’s connections with Menendez and has added to the mounting controversies surrounding the president, who is facing allegations of bribery himself. The emails reveal that Menendez’s chief of staff, Danny O’Brien, reached out to Hunter and his former business partner, Eric Schwerin, with a...

While she worked in the Treasury Department during the Obama-Biden Administration, President Biden’s niece, Casey Owens, reportedly sent information on China Investment Corporation (CIC), China’s largest sovereign wealth fund, to Hunter Biden and the other president of his firm through email. When Owens spoke with Hunter and his longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, about the CIC, a state-owned organization that oversees a portion of the Chinese government’s foreign exchange reserves, she was working as a special assistant for the United States-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue at the Treasury Department. At the time, Schwerin was president of Hunter’s now-defunct Rosemont Seneca...

FIRST ON FOX: Hunter Biden traveled to at least 13 countries with his then-vice president father when he was leading his now-defunct firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, a Fox News Digital review found. Video footage, which first aired on "Jesse Watters Primetime," along with Secret Service records and messages previously reported from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, show that Hunter, who co-founded Rosemont Seneca in 2009 with Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz, accompanied then-Vice President Joe Biden during official trips to Europe, Africa, Asia and Mexico. In April 2010, Hunter proposed meeting state officials in Serbia with his business associate Mark Doyle, who...

OK, a lot of y'all will freak on this, but I am not a Christian. Not that I have any problem at all with His teachings, but I decided a long time ago I didn't want Jesus to die on that cross to expunge my sins. I'll take the hit to my own Karma. Laugh if you want, but this is what I believe: Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism. I was raised Southern Baptist. My grandfather was a deacon in the church in Shawnee, Oklahoma. I remember unlocking the church with him before the sun came up, and going to Sunday School....

Biden-linked Lobbyist Bought Property from Biden’s Bro, Gave Him Mtg Loan in 2005 <><>Lobbyist got two Federal Emergency Mgmt Agency govt contracts worth $5.8M in 2010. <><> Lobbyist was decade-long Senate staffer for Joe Biden Financial records reviewed by Politico show that Joe Biden’s brother James sold one of his three parcels of land in the U.S. Virgin Islands at a substantial profit to a well-connected lobbyist who then extended a mortgage to James on the remaining two parcels. In May 2005, James Biden purchased an acre of land on Water Island for $150,000. He then applied for and received...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it received records from the U.S. Secret Service showing that, for the first five and a half years of the Obama administration, Hunter Biden traveled extensively while receiving a Secret Service protective detail. During the time period of the records provided, Hunter Biden, son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, took 411 separate domestic and international flights, including to 29 different foreign countries. He visited China five times. Judicial Watch’s February 7, 2020, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request sought: Records reflecting the dates and locations of travel, international and domestic, for Hunter Biden...

The Obama administration withdrew updated quarantine regulations in 2010, prompting questions about how the policy change may have impacted the current Ebola situation. In April 2010, Politico reported the administration “quietly dumped quarantine rules that would have required air passengers to submit more information to airlines and strengthened the government’s authority to detain travelers suspected of carrying disease.” Politico initially reported in August of 2009 that the Obama administration examined Bush administration 2005 quarantine regulations, which were criticized by civil liberty advocates. “The proposals to limit liberty represent a dangerous precedent to constitutional theory, particularly when there’s almost no evidence...

In about 6 months time.

TORONTO, ON – The Information Warfare Monitor (Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and the SecDev Group, Ottawa) and the Shadowserver Foundation announce the release of Shadows in the Cloud: An investigation into cyber espionage 2.0. The report documents a complex ecosystem of cyber espionage that systematically targeted and compromised computer systems in India, the Offices of the Dalai Lama, the United Nations, and several other countries. Members of the research team are holding a news conference at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 6, to discuss their latest findings and to answer questions from the media....

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer pleaded guilty today to conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia, Assistant Director for Counterintelligence John Brown of the FBI and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement after Senior U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III accepted the plea.

(CRIMINAL EVENT) KIDNAPPING RPT B CO 1-501 PIR : 0 INJ/DAM This apparently was one of the documents compliments of Bradly Manning's leaking. The timeline fits. Assigned in 2009 to an Army unit in Iraq as an intelligence analyst, Manning had access to classified databases. In early 2010 she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance. Lamo informed Army Counterintelligence, and Manning was arrested in May that same year. The material included videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 500,000...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged Thursday with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks of classified information to a newspaper. Federal prosecutors said Thomas Drake, 52, served as a source for many articles about the NSA in an unidentified newspaper, including articles that contained classified information.</p>

WASHINGTON — A former C.I.A. officer suspected of helping China unravel the agency’s spy network in that country was indicted on Tuesday on a charge of conspiring to commit espionage. The officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, was arrested by F.B.I. agents in January after federal prosecutors accused him of illegally possessing classified information. But the new charge reflected a willingness of prosecutors to disclose sensitive details they might have been reluctant to acknowledge publicly. According to prosecutors, two Chinese intelligence officers approached Mr. Lee in April 2010 and offered to pay him for information. The intelligence officers “provided Lee...

South Korea reiterated warnings to Pyongyang over future military attacks as South Korea commemorates the fatal 2010 sinking of the patrol ship Cheonan allegedly by North Korea. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said South Korea will "thoroughly retaliate against North Korea" if provoked again," a report by Yonhap news agency said. Last week Lee and Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik visited the National Cemetery in Daejeon to pay respects to the dead sailors. The 1,200-ton naval corvette Cheonan sank rapidly after an explosion from a suspected torpedo ripped the vessel in half in March 2010. It sank just more than 1...

SKorean buries 46 sailors killed in warship sinking at military funeral, vows to retaliate South Korea buries sailors killed in ship sinking By YOUNG-JOON AHN and HYUNG-JIN KIM | Associated Press | 21 minutes ago in World Wailing families placed white chrysanthemums, burned incense and bowed in front of the framed photos of the men before their cremated ashes were buried at the country's national cemetery in the central city of Daejeon. Buddhist and Christian clergy offered prayers and a dirge was played. Some mothers clad in black Korean traditional mourning dress wailed uncontrollably, touching photos of their sons and...