Free Republic

George Clooney continues his charitable giving– now half a million dollars to the March for Our Lives. He and wife Amal will make an appearance at the gun control rally. Clooney is an ardent supporter of civil rights in places like Sudan with the still-going Not On Our Watch (They are still giving hundreds of thousands of dollars there to protect the South Sudan). But this may signal a new political move by him by actual going to Washington DC on March 24th. Clooney– thanks to the sale of his Casamigas Tequila company for $1 billion– now has the money...

full title................Amal Clooney claims Trump proposals amount to 'state-sponsored torture and religious tests for immigrants that violate international human rights law'.........................Amal Clooney has warned that many of president-elect Trump's proposals would be 'violations of international law.' Speaking at the Texas Conference For Women at the Austin Convention Center on Tuesday, the international human rights lawyer, and wife of George Clooney, said she had concerns about America's reputation under the real estate mogul's plans. She noted that Trump's comments during his campaign, 'that there should be a religious test imposed on entering the U.S. or the fact that there should be...

Senator: At Least One Foreign Country Assisted the 9/11 Terrorists Senator Graham knows where the bodies are buried>>> On 11 December 2002, the Senate and House Intelligence Committees released portions of their joint report on intelligence failures regarding the September 11 terrorist attacks. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, on PBS, reported on the release that day. After asking her guests a bunch of predictable questions, and receiving predictable answers, guest host Gwen Ifill asked Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a good question and got an amazing answer. GWEN IFILL: Senator Graham, are there elements...

The deed is done - George Clooney is a bachelor no more, having married stunning Amal Alamuddin in Venice. 'George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin were married today in a private ceremony in Venice, Italy,' a rep for the silver fox confirmed. And the news comes as all eyes have been trained on the glamorous Grande Canal, which was flanked by a cavalcade of police boats and photographers as he travelled to his lavish wedding reception.

George Clooney has rejected the Daily Mail's apology for a false story about his fiancee's mother, describing the paper as "the worst kind of tabloid". Two days ago, the actor said the newspaper had published a false and irresponsible story about his fiancee, Amal Alamuddin.

The FBI has arrested a San Antonio man on charges that he lied to get into the United States and tried to get a sensitive Defense Department position. Wissam Allouche, 44, appeared for an initial hearing Friday afternoon, and shook his head when U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad read the charges leveled in a federal indictment. The judge ordered him held pending a bail hearing and his arraignment on Tuesday. “He allegedly tried to cover up his affiliation with Hezbollah,” said special agent Erik Vasys, spokesman for the FBI in San Antonio. “It is believed he was looking to secure...

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said the issue of Hezbollah's arms can only be resolved via the National Dialogue and without resorting to sectarian partisanship, in remarks published Saturday. Commenting on the Sidon sit-in demanding the demilitarization of the resistance party, Jumblatt told An-Nahar: "The defense strategy should be formulated in a stable atmosphere away from tensions and sectarian partisanship." "This issue [Hezbollah's arms] cannot be resolved by blocking roads and disrupting people's lives in Sidon, the south and other areas," he added. On Wednesday, Sheikh Ahmad Assir, a Sidon-based Islamist and critic of Hezbollah's arsenal, blocked the...

Two of Osama's widows were involved in a vicious catfight in a Pakistani prison over the youngest wife's suspicion that the eldest had betrayed the slain al-Qaeda leader, a media report said on Thursday. The brawl took place as Khairiah Saber, Osama Bin Laden's eldest wife branded her younger rival Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, a slut, sparking off a vicious catfight in the prison. The brawling pair, kept in custody since the world's most wanted terrorist was killed last May, had to be pulled apart by shocked guards. Guards were under "strict instructions" never to leave oldest wife Khairiah, 61, alone...

BEIRUT: A tense calm held in the Beirut neighborhood of Aisha Bakkar during the day Monday after armed clashes on Sunday left one person killed and several wounded. A large number of Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers tanks and armored personnel carriers lined Rachidine Street, which divides Aisha Bakkar between supporters of the Future and Amal parties, as the military tried to keep calm in the neighborhood. Despite the military presence, the atmosphere in the neighborhood was strained, as groups of men congregated on sidewalks and around vandalized cars and shattered glass from Sunday's fighting. On both sides of the road...

BEIRUT -- Sunni supporters of Lebanon's prime minister-designate and Shiite rivals from the parliament speaker's political faction traded gunfire in a Beirut neighborhood Sunday. Security officials said one civilian was killed and two others were wounded in the first outbreak of violence since this month's elections. Automatic rifle fire and three explosions were heard in the brief gunbattle that underlined the continued sectarian tensions despite recent pledges by political leaders to work together. Those pledges followed a bruising election campaign. Hours earlier, the Western-backed billionaire who is to become the country's next prime minister, Saad Hariri, was holding talks with...

The Lebanese cabinet approved on Monday a U.N. draft text setting up an international tribunal to try former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's suspected assassins. "We unanimously approved the draft," Saniora told a news conference after the three-hour meeting. "With this decision we tell the murderers that we will not give up our rights no matter what the difficulties and obstacles are," he said. "Our only aim is to achieve justice and only justice. Without it and without knowing the truth, the Lebanese will not rest and we cannot protect our democratic system and political freedom now and in the...

BEIRUT (AFP) -All five Shiite ministers from Hezbollah and ally Amal quit the Lebanese government, including the foreign minister who will miss an Arab League meeting, but the prime minister said they must stay. "We have resigned because the majority insists on exercising power on its own," the head of the group's parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad said Saturday, referring to the anti-Syrian majority that has baulked at forming a unity government without first having guarantees that pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud will step down. "We don't want ministers who blindly follow the majority," Raad said. "This is about giving a warning...

All five Shia Muslim pro-Syrian ministers in the Lebanese government have resigned, Hezbollah has said. They include two Hezbollah members and two from the Amal movement, its ally. In multi-party talks, Hezbollah had asked for cabinet seats that would give it and its allies power of veto but the majority group in parliament refused. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said he refused to accept the resignations but the five say they will stick by their decision. Growing tension The resignations came just two days before the government was due to discuss a draft UN document on a tribunal for...

The relations between Russia and the Shiite's religious leadership in Lebanon started to develop in the beginning of the seventies. The spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shia community, Imam Moussa Al-Sadr, visited Moscow in 1972 and asked Soviet authorities to issue humanitarian aid to his people. At the same time cooperation between the Marxist factions of the PLO that were active in Lebanon and Soviet military intelligence – GRU, intensified greatly. Several soviet officers (speaking fluent Arabic) even visited Palestinian terrorist training camps in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon between 1972-1975. Using their connections in PLO they managed to establish...

In assessing the current phase of events in the Middle East, it is essential to link events in Syria with events in Iran. These, in turn, must be linked to the state of the war in Iraq and conditions in the Arabian Peninsula. The region is of one fabric, to say the least, and it is impossible to understand unfolding events -- the pressure against Syria involving the murder of a former Lebanese prime minister; feints and thrusts with Iran and talk of direct political engagement with the United States; the emergence of a new government in Baghdad, or obstacles...

A MAN linked to Al-Qaeda and believed to have helped to mastermind the Madrid train bombings was overheard last month describing a plot for a woman to carry out a chemical or germ attack in America that he said would “wipe out an entire neighbourhood”. The Italian warrant for the arrest of Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, 32, an Egyptian seized in a suburb of Milan last week, details transcripts of bugged conversations and telephone calls in which he not only boasted of his involvement in the Spanish attack of March 11 but also spoke of future plans. The Spanish government...

Hizbullah and Amal southern representatives agreed Friday to intensify cooperation and coordination a day after a gun battle erupted between the two parties. A statement released after the meeting said that the two groups had agreed that domestic stability was necessary to confront the regional tensions. On Thursday, Hizbullah fighters and Amal members fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at each other near Zibqine in the western sector of the border district. The fight started when several Hizbullah fighters blocked a group of Amal scouts from setting up a camp on the southern edge of the village. Hizbullah and Amal...