Free Republic

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's three-hour meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was "positive and conducted in a good spirit," according to a statement from his office. "The prime minister reiterated Israel's commitment to the latest American proposal regarding the release of our hostages —taking into account Israel's security needs, which he insists on firmly," Netanyahu's office said.

The United States is reportedly hoping that Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva uses his “influence” to convince Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro to commit to a “free and fair” election following his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday. The “free and fair” presidential election agreement — which the Maduro regime and Venezuelan opposition signed in 2023 and Blinken has repeatedly promoted over the years — has, so far, resulted in a major blunder for the Biden Administration. Venezuela’s political situation was one of the subjects reportedly discussed in Blinken’s meeting with Lula,...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a veiled rebuke to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday night, pushing back against Blinken’s claim that Israel could not defeat Hamas in Gaza, and that it should accept a Palestinian state. Without naming Blinken specifically, Netanyahu criticized those who, he said wanted to tie Israel’s hands and said that Israel could not win. On Wednesday, reports emerged that Blinken had told Netanyahu last week that Israel would not succeed in destroying Hamas’s military capabilities — an assertion at odds with Israel’s ongoing military success, and strong Israeli public support for the...

Sixty heads of state and government are packing their bags and readying to fly into the luxury Swiss mountain resort of Davos ahead of the next World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting that begins Monday. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres are among the self-styled global luminaries set to alight from their private jet transports for a week of meetings, cocktails, and back slapping. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will also take part...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Israel, where an unknown number of Americans are being imprisoned by Hamas militants who have threatened to begin executing hostages. The State Department announced the trip in a press release Tuesday, but did not mention the hostages: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will travel to Israel and Jordan October 11-13, 2023, where he will meet with senior officials. The Secretary will reiterate his condolences for the victims of the terrorist attacks against Israel and condemn those attacks in the strongest terms. The Secretary will also reaffirm the United States’ solidarity with...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called recent barrages of Russian missile strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure “barbaric” on Wednesday, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to “freeze and starve Ukrainians.” Ukraine says Russia has stepped up its attacks against energy infrastructure targets in recent weeks, leading to rolling blackouts across the country and leaving many residents without heat and water as freezing winter temperatures set in. “Heat, water, electricity — for children, for the elderly, for the sick — these are President Putin’s new targets. He’s hitting them hard,” Blinken said in Romania while attending a NATO foreign minister...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday in which the latter chided Blinken to “stop trying to put up new obstacles to bilateral relations.” The State Department readout of the call, published on Sunday (the call appears to have taken place on Monday Beijing time), does not mention anything that Wang said, instead focusing on Blinken, who allegedly “raised Russia’s war against Ukraine” and the “security situation in Haiti.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the government, through state propaganda outlet Global Times, offered much more specificity, depicting a...

​Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Iran of inciting the knife attack on “The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie​, blasting the regime as “despicable” Sunday. Blinken lauded Rushdie, 75, as more than a “literary giant.”​​​ The author has “consistently stood up for the universal rights of freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and freedom of the press​,” the secretary of state said in a statement released on Sunday.​ “While law enforcement officials continue to investigate the attack, I am reminded of the pernicious forces that seek to undermine these rights, including through hate speech and incitement to violence​,”...