Free Republic

China has “enforced maritime management and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” over an uninhabited reef in the disputed South China Sea, planting the country’s flag on the tiny sand bank just kilometers from a key Philippine military outpost. Photographs released by Chinese state-run media on Saturday showed China Coast Guard officers unfurling the flag as part of an effort to effectively seize Sandy Cay reef, which Beijing calls Tiexian Jiao, earlier this month. The reef, located in the flash point Spratly Island chain, is also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Sandy Cay also sits just over 3 kilometers from Thitu...

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...

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has not ruled out the emergence of new regions in Russia. "Actually, this experience (of Donbass and Novorossiya’s integration - TASS) may be useful in the future as well, if new but very close-by regions appear in our country soon. This is quite possible," he said at the 22nd United Russia party congress.

The official website of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia had announced that it will be putting forward a motion in the Russian State Duma to relieve Ilya Ponomarev of his duties as an MP. Ponomarev became the only lawmaker out of 446 who voted against ratification of the treaty annexing Crimea. "On April 7th, the faction will introduce a motion before the State Duma to recognize that Ilya Ponomarev had lost the authority of a deputy, because he opposed the interests of the state, blindly obeying the Nazis who want to split the country " – was said in...

A Russian propagandist has called for the reinstatement of the Russian Empire, saying that's the country's ultimate goal. As Russia continues its military offensive against Ukraine, Russian propagandist Sergey Mardan alluded to a misconception that Russia wishes to restore the USSR, which collapsed in 1991, and instead suggested the country could rewind the clock back beyond the days of the Russian Empire. His comments come as President Vladimir Putin announced a new Russian holiday, the "Day of Unification," on September 30, to mark the illegal annexation of the Dontesk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. Putin declared them to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Ukraine responded by calling Putin’s proposal “manipulative” and “absurd.”Putin’s remarks came as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders -- but not from Moscow -- this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine.They also coincided with a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations in Italy and after the U.S. and Ukraine this week...

Putin is reportedly on the brink of a new land grab to defy the West by possibly announcing soon that Russia is taking control of a breakaway Moldovan region. There is speculation that unofficial state Transnistria is poised to make an appeal to Putin to join Russia. The landlocked strip along the Dniester River is wedged between Moldova and Ukraine. Putin already has a 'peacekeeping' force of up to 2,000 troops in the territory which Russia says overwhelmingly wishes to be incorporated by Moscow. There are also likely thousands of Russian paramilitaries on the ground. A fear is Putin will...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Belarus on Monday for talks with his counterpart and ally Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus leader’s office said. The Belarus presidency said Friday the pair will hold discussions at the Independence Palace, Lukashenko’s office, in Minsk during Putin’s “working visit”. -snip- Minsk said the pair will hold one-on-one talks as well as wider negotiations with their ministers on “Belarusian-Russian integration”.

Don't the Czechs want an aircraft carrier? Politicians and embassies also picked up on the joke about the annexation of Královec The joke about joining Kaliningrad, or Královec, to the Czech Republic continues to be picked up by top politicians and embassies. The American Embassy in Prague offers the Czech Republic an aircraft carrier, Deputy Minister of Finance Jiří Valenta jokingly plans that it will be necessary to increase the GDP of the annexed region after taking over Královec. Senator Miroslava Němcová proposes a letter in which the Czechia would inform the Russians about the accession of Kaliningrad to the...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions a “farce” on Sunday. “Recently, someone somewhere held pseudo-referendums, and when the Ukrainian flag is returned, no one remembers the Russian farce with some pieces of paper and some annexations,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “Except, of course, law enforcement agencies of Ukraine,” he continued. “Because everyone who is involved in any elements of aggression against our state will be accountable for it.” Russia on Friday annexed four regions in Ukraine’s east and south, a major escalation in the seven-month war after Russian President Vladimir Putin called up...

Let's see Dementia Joe ever get such an exuberant crowd.

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (Reuters) -"It's funny. Nobody voted, yet the results are in," laughed Lyubomir Boyko, 43, from Golo Pristan, a village in Russian-occupied Kherson province as he waited on Wednesday outside a United Nations aid office with his family at a refugee reception centre. As Russia prepares to annex a swathe of Ukrainian territory the size of Portugal after staging what it calls referendums in four provinces, hundreds of Ukrainians escaped through the last Russian checkpoint. Many said they had fled while they still can. "A lot of people are just leaving everything behind. There are places that are completely...

This week, Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, announced that “the Trump policy requiring that Mexicans remain in Mexico until legally admitted into the United States will no longer be enforced. President Biden has instructed us to ‘let them come in’ and that’s what we’re going to do.” The Secretary explained that “Trump’s policy had endemic flaws and imposes unjustifiable human costs. It will be unwound in a quick, and orderly manner. Resources that had been used to keep people out will be redeployed. Up to now immigrants had to travel to the border at their own...

Ireland has become the first EU country to formally designate Israeli settlement expansion as “annexation” of Palestinian land. The Irish parliament, the Dáil, said so in a motion passed unanimously on Wednesday (26 May). “The scale, pace, and strategic nature of Israel’s actions on settlement expansion and the intent behind it have brought us to a point where we need to be honest about what is actually happening on the ground … it is de facto annexation,” Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney also told MPs in a debate on Tuesday prior to voting. “This is not something that I, or...

the plan, which would involve Idaho expanding its border to the Pacific Ocean, could grow Idaho's population by 50% and make it the nation's third-largest state in terms of area, KTVB reports. The plan calls for around three-quarters of Oregon becoming part of Idaho. Supporters say residents of parts of southeast Washington and northern California would also welcome the chance to become part of a red state.

Consider U.S. farmers happy. They are exporting record volumes of products to China. Shipments of soybeans, corn and pork are bringing smiles back to the American heartland. Or, to put this another way, Beijing is effectively acknowledging it cannot feed the Chinese people. China's leader, Xi Jinping, recently made such an admission. Last August, he announced what became known as the "clean your plate" campaign to end what he called a "shocking and distressing" waste of food. Just about everyone saw this effort, to get the Chinese people to eat less, as a warning of food shortages to come. Chinese...

Through Palestinian Eyes – Zvi Yechezkeli (Channel 13, Israel) and the hidden camera: What do the Palestinians in the territories really think about annexation?

The Vatican issued a statement Wednesday warning Israel that “unilateral actions” in the West Bank and Jordan Valley would seriously compromise peace efforts in the area. In its statement, the Holy See press office revealed the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, met with the Ambassadors of the United States of America and of the State of Israel on Tuesday. […] The Vatican’s “concern” relates to plans to extend Israeli law over parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley in an effort to safeguard Jewish settlements in the West Bank and shore up Israel’s western border by annexing...

Are we heading for the Bible’s great end-time conflict? We appear to be approaching yet more choppy waters in Israel’s turbulent history. The Jewish state’s proposed ‘annexation’ of the Jordan Valley, along with parts of Judea and Samaria – otherwise known as the West Bank despite being the heart of ancient Israel – is causing hackles to rise once again among the nations. This includes Britain who insist on sticking to their longstanding Foreign Office mantra of pushing for a ‘two-state solution’ – even though there is no evidence whatsoever that it will work, or indeed that it is justifiable....

More than half of the Democratic senators currently in office havespoken out in recent weeks against Israeli annexation of settlements in the West Bank. Together with the opposition to annexation expressed by former Vice President Joe Biden, the senators’ statements on the subject show that annexation could harm Israel’s standing with Democratic politicians and voters. As of Monday, at least 28 of the 47 Democrats in the Senate have expressed their opposition to annexation, most of them by sending letters on the subject to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz. A Democratic source in the Senate told...