Free Republic

The first train to connect China and Iran arrived in Tehran on Monday loaded with Chinese goods, reviving the ancient Silk Road, the Iranian railway company said. The train, carrying 32 containers of commercial products from eastern Zhejiang province, took 14 days to make the 9,500-kilometer (5,900-mile) journey through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. [...] According to Iranian media, more than a third of Iran's foreign trade is with China, which is Tehran's top customer for oil exports. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed last month to build economic ties worth up to $600 billion within the next...

BBC Correspondent gives his first interview

Iran reveals true face by defending terror acts: KSA Published -- Sunday 3 January 2016 RIYADH: Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said Tehran revealed its true face "by its defense of terrorist acts" after Iran criticized the Kingdom's execution of a Shiite cleric convicted of terrorism charges. In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the ministry accused Tehran of "blind sectarianism" and said Iran's reaction only shows that it is a "partner in their crimes in the entire region." The ministry summoned Iran's ambassador to the kingdom to protest Iran's criticism of the execution, saying it...

Saudi Arabia's execution of 47 'terrorists' in one day including top Shiite cleric triggers wave of protests across Middle East and around the world Saudi Arabia has executed 47 people convicted of 'terrorism' today, including a prominent Shiite cleric behind anti-government protests, according to the interior ministry. Shiite Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a 56-year-old cleric was a driving force of the protests that broke out in 2011 in the Sunni-ruled kingdom's east, where the Shiite minority complains of marginalisation. Scores of Shi'ite Muslims marched through the Qatif district of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province in protest at the execution of cleric Nimr...

The FBI on Friday morning raided the home of a high-ranking DEA official under Barack Obama and charged him for conspiring to launder millions of dollars for a Mexican drug cartel. The Feds charged former DEA Deputy Chief of the Office of Financial Operations Paul Campo and friend Robert Sensi for conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Paul Campo and Robert Sensi were charged with narcoterrorism, terrorism, narcotics distribution, and money laundering charges. Campo and Sensi were arrested on Thursday afternoon in New York, according to the DOJ. Campo and Sensi agreed to launder $12 million...

A former longtime Drug Enforcement Administration agent who rose to help oversee the agency’s financial operations has been charged with agreeing to launder millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds for a Mexican drug cartel, according to an indictment unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The former agent, Paul Campo, worked for the DEA for about 25 years, the indictment said, first as a special agent in New York and eventually rising to become a high-level official — the deputy chief of the Office of Financial Operations. He retired in January 2016 and...

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told Hill.TV’s John Solomon in an interview aired on Wednesday that he has opened a probe into alleged attempts by Ukrainians to interfere in the United States' 2016 presidential election. “Today we will launch a criminal investigation about this and we will give legal assessment of this information,” Lutsenko said last week. Lutsenko is probing a claim from a member of the Ukrainian parliament that the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Artem Sytnyk, attempted to the benefit of the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of Hillary Clinton. A State Department...

December 2015 was a pivotal month in many respects. During the first week of December 2015, Donald Trump began to establish a substantial lead over his Republican primary opponents. Vice President Joseph Biden traveled to Ukraine to announce, on December 7th, a $190 million program to “fight corruption in law enforcement and reform the justice sector,” but behind the scenes explicitly linked a $1 billion loan guarantee to the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating the energy company Burisma, which employed Biden’s son Hunter. On December 9, 2015, the reported whistleblower Eric Ciaramella held a meeting...

Failed Prosecutor John Durham’s report on the Hillary Clinton campaign plot to convince the American electorate and U.S. allies that Donald Trump was a stooge of Russia totally ignores the role that intelligence operatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel played in helping set the stage to provide the FBI with the pretext of predication for launching its now discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump Campaign. Let me take you back to an article I wrote in May 2019. John Durham and his team failed to address any of the issues and leads I raised:...

For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia... Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war. But that is above ground. Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders. On one screen, a red line followed the route of an explosive...

Lima (AFP) – Peru's opposition-dominated Congress will on Wednesday debate whether to impeach President Pedro Castillo in the third attempt to unseat him since his election a year and a half ago. Castillo, a former school teacher who unexpectedly took power from Peru's traditional political elite, has faced non-stop crises since coming to office, with repeated cabinet reshuffles, multiple corruption investigations and protests against his leadership. The opposition seeks to impeach him for moral incapacity, a constitutional provision that has seen two presidents sacked since 2018.

The commander of the Navy's Carrier Strike Group 15 based in San Diego was relieved of his duties Friday, the Navy said in a release on Saturday. Rear Adm. Rick Williams was removed from his position due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command, the release said. The Navy's Third Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Nora Tyson relieved Williams based on the results of an investigation into allegations of misuse of government computer equipment. Williams took command of Carrier Strike Group 15 in July 2015. He has been administratively reassigned, the release said, to the staff of Commander,...

A stunning new Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that one of the United States Navy’s top commanders was relieved of his command a few hours ago after he sent out an “email/posting” revealing that President Barack Obama was in the process of purchasing a multi-million dollar seaside luxury villa in the United Arab Emirates city (UAE) of Dubai. According to this report, the Commander of the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 15, Rear Admiral Rick Williams, posted a “pointed” query on 8 January [since deleted] to the US Naval Institute’s “Readiness Kill Chain” “recipients/responders”...

Hamas has built “a labyrinth of tunnels under Gaza, as wide as a city,” CNN reported on October 14. The tunnels were used to facilitate the Hamas pogrom, and the 150 Israelis whom Hamas kidnapped probably are being held there. So how did Hamas acquire the cement, despite Israel’s blockade of such materials? Apparently Hamas had some help from former U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis Ross—according to Ross himself. Ross has been appearing as an expert commentator on major media outlets in recent days, including on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” on October 8, CNN’s “Amanpour and Company” on October 13, and...

Most people are unaware that USAID, the U.S. government agency tasked with foreign aid and development, gifted in 2016, $310 million of taxpayer money to start a Palestinian cement factory project. The project was a private venture, by a company called Sanad Construction Resources Company (SANAD), the establishment of multiple cement mills and factories which ultimately helped create Hamas' terror infrastructure in Gaza. Sanad Construction Resources Company (SANAD) is a Palestinian publicly traded company, in PEX (Palestine Stock Exchange), it has profited handsomely from the purchase of cement as foreign aid, particularly from USAID, UNRWA and the UN. Much of...

A man identified as an Iraqi refugee has been arrested in Houston as part of a federal investigation into an alleged terrorist plan with links to two other U.S. cities, state officials confirmed Thursday. Federal officials would not immediately confirm details, but Gov. Greg Abbott and other officials said the suspect is believed to have provided support to terrorists -- including connections to ISIS.

Authorities say they have arrested two people on terrorism-related charges in Texas and California. Federal officials said 24-year-old Omar Faraj Al Hardan, a Palestinian born in Iraq, was arrested in Houston on Thursday. According to the federal indictment, Al Hardan has been charged with three counts alleging that he attempted to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization. He is charged with one count each of attempting to provide material support to ISIL, procurement of citizenship or naturalization unlawfully and making false statements. Federal authorities told NBC News that...

Bernie Sanders .. if you get paid a couple hundred thousand dollars for a speech, it must be a great speech. I think we should release it and let the American people see what that transcript was." Of course Hillary Clinton is not only refusing to release the transcripts, while claiming to be the most transparent modern politician, but her arrangement for those speeches required video to be pulled once the campaign began.

One of President Trump’s lawyers asked another one to lie about the extent of Mr. Trump’s business interests in Russia, according to Michael Cohen, one of the lawyers involved in the exchange. Cohen told Congress in testimony earlier this year that Jay Sekulow told him to say the president’s dealings on a Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, or before the GOP primary season kicked off. In fact, Mr. Trump’s team pursued the project through June of that year, according to investigators.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has a curious set of priorities. He bailed out of a Senate hearing in August to use a private jet to take him to a very important personal vacation in the Adirondacks. Wray doesn't like answering questions- especially the critical ones. And so it was once again last Tuesday that Wray refused to answer rather important questions. FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to answer multiple questions Tuesday from a Republican congressman concerning whether FBI sources were embedded among Jan. 6 protesters during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Worldwide Threats to the Homeland. Republican Louisiana...