Free Republic

Meeting on the margins of the Doha Forum, in Qatar, Turkey, Russia, and Iran urged the Syrian opposition to heed the call to end the fighting and to preserve Syria as an integrated and united country.Amid reports that Russian diplomats are fleeing Damascus in the face of the lightning opposition advance...Earlier this year, Assad had refused to speak to Turkey so long as Turkish forces remained in Syria. This refusal led the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to give the implicit green light to militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) last month to mount its stunningly successful attacks on Aleppo, and...

• Syrian rebels are speeding toward the major city of Homs, where residents are fleeing ahead of potential clashes between the rebels and regime forces. • The rebels seized Hama to the north on Thursday, the second major city taken from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in just over a week of fighting. • A new uprising has also emerged in the southern Daraa province, with rebels there claiming to have taken a major military base and announcing that their “destination is Damascus.” • Russia’s embassy in Syria has urged its citizens to leave the country, citing “the difficult military and...

Environmental negotiators at the U.N.’s COP29 climate alarmism summit issued their once and final demand Sunday for a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy countries to gift poorer countries between now and 2035. Climate doomers quickly wailed that was not nearly enough and demanded more – much more – to take the sum to $400 billion at least. COP29, formally the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is the 19th edition of the U.N.’s official assembly to discuss how to address the alleged global climate crisis. Around 50,000 people flew in from around...

The COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev says "time is not on our side" as the UN's climate summit is on the verge of collapse A bitter fallout erupted between richer and poorer countries over money to help tackle climate change and several countries walked out of negotiations Developing countries have dismissed an offer of $250bn (£199bn) per year to help them tackle climate change – some want a figure closer to $500bn One agreement has been made, on carbon markets, which has been "nine years in the making" The anger here from developing countries is palpable, our environment correspondent Matt McGrath...

BAKU, Azerbaijan — America’s top climate diplomat John Podesta told foreign officials Monday that the U.S. remains committed to fighting climate change, even if President-elect Donald Trump isn’t.

The Cop29 climate conference is on the verge of collapse, with delegates scrambling to agree an 11th-hour deal after officials from poorer nations walked out in a row over funding.

“Shame” shouted some climate campaigners, “pay up!” shouted others. The object of their venom was John Podesta, who is the US climate envoy, and was being escorted from a meeting room in chaotic scenes here in Baku. COP29 has taken a dramatic turn here this afternoon, with walkouts from developing countries from meetings with the Azerbaijani presidency over climate finance. There was palpable anger among the least developed countries and island states that they were being messed around by richer nations. They say that the financial offer being negotiated is insulting, they feel excluded and ignored. In this atmosphere, campaigners...

Former Vice President Al Gore raged against “polluters” during an address at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, demanding that people listen to scientists about climate change. The COP29 summit, which started Monday, previously featured speakers who proposed taxes on the meat and dairy industry and “climate finance” initiatives for less-developed countries. While addressing the conference, Gore claimed that predictions by climate scientists had been proven to be “dead right.” “The fact that the scientists who predicted all of this decades ago have been proven dead right should cause the rest of us to pay more attention...

A senior official at COP29 climate change conference in Azerbaijan appears to have used his role to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals, the BBC can report. A secret recording shows the chief executive of Azerbaijan's COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, discussing "investment opportunities" in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor. "We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed," he says. A former head of the UN body responsible for the climate talks told the BBC that Soltanov's actions were "completely unacceptable" and a "betrayal" of...

Pope Francis calls for global financial revolution to fight ‘climate change’The Pope's message to the United Nations' COP29 event contained support for the group's goal to orient global finance to the implementation of 'climate change' policies, something drawn from the Great Reset agenda of Klaus Schwab. In an address delivered to the COP29 climate change conference today, Pope Francis urged the international community to respond swiftly to climate change and to implement climate-oriented “finance” plans.“The scientific data available to us do not allow any further delay and make it clear that the preservation of creation is one of the most...

Roughly 100 world leaders are traveling to Baku, Azerbaijan, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference — even as scores are skipping the annual talks, known this year as COP29. In a Tuesday address before world leaders speak at the summit, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres described the previous year as a “master class in climate destruction,” adding, “The sound you hear is the ticking clock.” He also expressed optimism about the transition to clean energy, saying that “no group, no business, and no government” can stop it. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg chose to skip the conference: Speaking Monday at a...

Representatives of the Taliban terrorist organization ruling Afghanistan landed in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday to attend COP29, the annual United Nations climate alarmism summit, where environmentalists are agitating to secure up to $1 trillion in “climate finance.”

William Faulkner once mused that the past is never dead, in fact it’s not even past. The story of the coup that toppled Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 may not be dead, but it is unhinged from history. Tall tales by a scion of the American establishment—former CIA agent and presidential grandson Kermit Roosevelt—and reams of studies by left-wing professors have sustained the myth that the Eisenhower administration ousted Mossadeq. The Iranians are mere bystanders in this story, watching helplessly as a malevolent America manipulates their nation’s destiny. Most academic speculations remain cloistered in college campuses, but the...

LBJ’s corrupt ghost still haunts South Texas during this most most important of American elections. The Commander Jay Furman for Congress Campaign reports that an alarming number of voters in Webb County Texas (Laredo) were not presented with correct electronic ballots during Early Voting. Apparently robbed of their most sacred American voice, the good citizens of Webb County are not surprised that the race to replace Department of Justice indicted (28-count) U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar is fraught with such bold injustice. Beginning several days into early voting, the campaign received reports from voters that Furman’s name was not appearing on...

“I smell cigarette smoke,” one of my travel companions noted. That was the moment I knew that we should not linger any longer. We had been warned twice on the way up the hillside not to come here. In one instance, it was claimed that two treasure hunters had been arrested by the police a week or two earlier. In the other case, we were told that if the military or police caught us there, we would be arrested. Such is the experience of interrupting the destruction of Armenian cultural sites in Turkey. There are few photographs of the monastery...

Could Finland´s next President be a foreigner? Finland´s current President Alexander Stubb speaking to the public. Finland´s President Alexander Stubb Credit: Alexander Stubb, Facebook Finland´s future President may be a foreigner, said current President Alexander Stubb during a recent presidential Q&A session on the local Yle Radio Suomi. The Finnish President emphasised that 10 per cent of residents in Finland have foreign backgrounds and argued that the future could see a foreign national leading the country. “Racism should not be politicised. Every nation has to go through this discussion,” emphasised Stubb. “In Finland, 10 per cent of people were not...

On Saturday, the CEO of the popular messaging app Telegram was arrested at Le Bourget airport in France for refusing to comply with the country’s censorship laws.Pavel Durov, 39, was arrested on the tarmac as he got off his private jet from Azerbaijan.On Saturday evening Mike Benz, the founder and Executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online released a video explaining who he believes is behind this arrest – The US State Department.Benz is an authority of the Deep State and the US government operations in Europe and abroad.Mike Benz:SNIPOne of the things they’re talking about in the space...

PARIS/MOSCOW, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody, three sources told Reuters. The arrest of the 39-year-old technology billionaire prompted on Sunday a warning from Moscow to Paris that he should be accorded his rights and criticism from X owner Elon Musk who said that free speech in Europe was under attack. There was no official confirmation from France of the arrest, but two French police sources and...

Alexander S. Vindman @AVindman While Durov holds French citizenship, is arrested for violating French law, this has broader implications for other social media, including Twitter. There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous.

Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov has been arrested by French police at an airport north of Paris. Mr Durov was detained after his private jet had landed at Le Bourget Airport, French media reported. According to officials the 39-year-old had been arrested under a warrant for offences related to the popular messaging app. Russia's embassy in France is taking "immediate steps" to clarify the situation, according to Russia's TASS state news agency.