Free Republic

(Aug 2, 2012) POLISH officials have unveiled a statue of former President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, honouring two men widely credited in this Eastern European country with helping to topple communism 23 years ago. The statue was unveiled in Gdansk, the birthplace of Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, in the presence of about 120 former Solidarity activists, many of whom were imprisoned in the 1980s for their roles in organising or taking part in strikes against the communist regime. The bronze statue, erected in the lush seaside President Ronald Reagan Park, is a slightly larger-than-life rendering of the...

Soviet Communism, the dark tyranny that controlled nearly 40 nations and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 100 million victims during the 20th century, suddenly collapsed 20 years ago without a shot being fired. In just two years--from 1989 to 1991--the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Marxism- Leninism was dumped unceremoniously on the ash heap of history. There was dancing in the street and champagne toasts on top of the Brandenburg Gate. For 40 years, the United States and the West had been following a policy of containment, détente, accommodation. Ronald Reagan decided it was...

Hardly had the RF and Byelorussia struck a compromise over gas price, a new conflict flared up between the two countries. This time oil or, to be more exact, the cost of supplies to Byelorussia became the sticking point. The first oil difficulties came into the picture in December of the last year, when the head of the RF government signed the decree implying oil supplies to Byelorussia are to be imposed export duty on starting January 1, 2007. The decree applies to all the countries cooperating with the RF. The authorities clarify the following decision by the fact of...

MADRID — Spanish police arrested 16 people Monday who are suspected of recruiting Al Qaeda fighters to send to Iraq, officials said. The group's alleged leader, a 25-year-old Iraqi known as Abu Sufian, had access to Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, and probably sent his recruits on suicide missions, the Interior Ministry said. The 16, of several nationalities, sent volunteers to Iraq "to wage jihad as members of the Al Qaeda network," Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso told a news conference. He said the group had two fighters ready to send to Iraq at the time...