Free Republic

The U.S.-Israel war against Iran was to a great extent predictable. The United States feared Iran becoming a nuclear power. Israel feared that as well, and was also concerned about the Islamist forces – in this case, Hezbollah – that Iran supported in Lebanon. For the United States, the latter was at most a secondary concern, but the nuclear threat was potentially existential. The United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities almost one year ago, damaging but not destroying the program. In subsequent negotiations, Iran rejected the U.S. and Israeli demand that it end its nuclear program, and so war was...

How Trump Is Running the Most Aggressive Geopolitical Play in a Generation—and Why It Has to Be This Way From 1973 to 1977 the National Hockey League was the wild west, and Bob “Gasser” Gassoff—a 5’10”, 190-pound wrecking ball who skated for the St. Louis Blues—was one of the best enforcers in the game. His job was not to score. It was to protect the players who did. High-stick, slash, board or manhandle a Blues skill player and Gasser would drop the gloves and answer the bell, over and over, until somebody turtled or a referee had the stones to...

Oil prices have risen after plans for a second round of peace talks between the US and Iran stalled again. Brent, the global benchmark, rose by around 2% to $109.33 (£80.72) a barrel, while US-traded crude also increased by 2% at $96.78. US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Washington had cancelled plans to send a team to Pakistan for negotiations with their Iranian counterparts. Brent crude has risen by more than 10% since Trump announced last week that he would extend a ceasefire with Tehran to give its leadership a chance to present a "unified proposal".

MOST Scots would vote for independence if a referendum were held tomorrow, a fresh poll carried out in the middle of the Holyrood election campaign has found. A poll of just over 1000 Scots commissioned by James Kelly of the pro-independence Scot Goes Pop blog found 53% would vote Yes, excluding don't knows. When don't knows are left in, 50% would vote Yes while 44% would vote to remain in the Union. The survey was carried out between April 15 and 20 for Scot Goes Pop. According to Kelly, there have been nine polls this year that suggest Scots would...

Argentine President Javier Milei has launched a new effort to claim control of the Falkland Islands, reigniting a long-standing dispute with the United Kingdom over the archipelago, which once led to war. "THE MALVINAS WERE, ARE, AND ALWAYS WILL BE ARGENTINE,” Milei said on X in Spanish on Friday, using the Argentine name for the islands. In a separate interview with the Argentine digital channel Neura posted by Milei on Friday, he said that the country was doing “everything humanly possible” to return the Falklands to Argentina. “Sovereignty is non-negotiable, but it must be handled judiciously, with brains,” said Milei,...

Mali's defence minister has been killed in an apparent suicide truck bombing on his residence near the capital Bamako.Multiple news outlets reported the death of Sadio Camara, part of a wave of coordinated attacks by jihadist militants and separatists carried out across the country.State TV confirmed the death several hours later, saying he died of wounds received while engaging with the attackers. Reports say the head of the military junta, Gen Assimi Goita, was moved to a safe location after his home was targeted.Further north Russian mercenaries hired by Mali's military agreed to withdraw from Kidal after two days of...

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Hungary’s amended Child Protection Law violates EU law and discriminates against gay and transgender people. It is the first time the court has found that an EU member state breached the fundamental values set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The law was pushed by Viktor Orbán in a referendum coinciding with a general election vote. At the time, the law faced accusations that it unfairly criminalised gay men as pedophiles. The ruling on Tuesday comes nine days after Hungary’s parliamentary elections, in which the opposition Tisza Party defeated Orbán’s...

Narrated video embedded An explosive device killed 13 people traveling on a bus in southwestern Colombia on Saturday, an attack the country's army chief described as a “terrorist act" that also left at least 38 injured as violence linked to drug trafficking in the region escalates. ...

ARLINGTON— The Navy took a major step forward in delivering game-changing hypersonic strike power to carrier pilots when it awarded California startup Castelion a contract nearing $105 million to fully integrate the Blackbeard hypersonic weapon onto the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The deal puts U.S. forces on a fast track to field its first operational air-launched hypersonic strike weapon from carrier decks by 2027. Unlike land-based ballistic missiles, Blackbeard is made for Navy aircraft carriers and can be launched from an F/A-18 fighter jet operating hundreds of miles from shore, giving the U.S. enhanced capabilities to strike an adversary’s missile batteries...

Ministry says it will take a deeper dive into cause once current slide stops movingOn a sunny Friday morning, Kelly Ziebart walks through mountains of mud and dead grass that have heaved off the hills, just south of Fort St John, B.C. "Look how far the road slid down here," he said, pointing to damage along the closed road into Old Fort. "I think they're talking 50, 60 metres." This is the third landslide to hit the community of roughly 150 people since 2018. Once again, it has destroyed the only road in or out of the hamlet along the...

Family, friends and supporters of Virginia Giuffre held an emotional memorial vigil in Washington DC marking the first anniversary of her death. With the White House in the background, her brother Sky Roberts spoke of how his sister, a prominent accuser of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, had turned "pain into purpose". The event was held ahead of the arrival of the King and Queen in Washington DC on a state visit. Giuffre's lawyer Sigrid McCawley repeated calls for the King to meet Epstein survivors, saying it was a "missed opportunity". McCawley said she appreciated the concerns about the King not...

The Mexican government says two US agents who died last weekend in a car crash had not been authorised to operate in the country.The officials, who reportedly worked for the CIA, had taken part in a raid on suspected drug labs in the northern state of Chihuahua before their vehicle skidded off a mountain road and exploded.Following an investigation ordered by President Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's security ministry said that "neither had formal accreditation to participate in operational activities" and that federal authorities had not been informed of their presence.The incident comes amid at-times fraught relations between Mexico and the US...

JPPI says Beijing’s escalating rivalry with the US, alignment with Muslim nations, and adoption of anti-Western narratives is changing its previously positive attitude to JewsAntisemitism is rising in China, a country previously considered almost free of anti-Jewish hatred, according to a new research report by the Jewish People Policy Institute. Anti-Jewish tropes have moved from marginal online spaces into official media, academia, and state-sanctioned discourse, often through a deliberate and complete blurring of distinctions between Israel, Jews, and Judaism, the study found. Update: After publication of this article, the Chinese Embassy in Israel firmly rejected the findings in the study,...

TEHRAN/ANKARA: Iran has inflicted more “extensive” damage to United States bases and equipment in the Middle East since the start of US and Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28, NBC News reported on Saturday, citing sources. The report said that the damages from Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US military bases in seven Middle Eastern countries were “far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair”. Iran has hit dozens of targets, including warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft, the report said. It added...

Suspected Somali pirates hijacked a fuel tanker off the northeastern coast of Somalia, according to a local official and the British military. The vessel was seized on Wednesday in waters between the coastal towns of Hafun and Bandarbeyla in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland along the Indian Ocean. The tanker had departed from the port of Berbera and was heading to the Somali capital of Mogadishu when it was intercepted, a colonel with the Puntland Maritime Police Force told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to a journalist.

President Donald Trump on Saturday abruptly canceled a planned trip by special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan, pulling back from what had been billed just a day earlier as a potential jump-start to fragile Iran talks. “I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going is [to] Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’ Nobody knows who on earth is in charge, including them. Also, we have all...

Jaskirat Singh Sidhu's application accepted by Federal Court judge at hearing on FridayDays from being deported, an 11th-hour decision by a Federal Court justice on Friday means that Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, who was found responsible for the fatal Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018, can stay in Canada for a little while longer. Sidhu was behind the wheel of the semi-truck that blew through an oversized stop sign with a flashing yellow light, right into the path of the Saskatchewan junior hockey team’s bus, on April 6, 2018. The collision killed 16 players and staff and injured 13 others. He...

While the Trump administration continues to put the economic squeeze on what and who is left of the Iranian government, the Iranian royal family in exile hasn't been silent. Reza Pahlavi, the Crown Prince and heir to his father, the late Shah of Iran, has been keeping up the constant drumbeat of return, even though he has been effectively iced out of any negotiations between the Trump administration and the Islamic regime. That is as it must be. Operation Epic Fury had distinct parameters for the security of the world and the United States, and not one of them was...

A Nigerian woman from Plateau State, Lisa Stephens, has shared a harrowing account of an attack on her family in a documentary by British news outlet, Channel 4, which has begun trending online. The documentary, titled “Investigating a Village of Widows in Nigeria Amid Fears of a ‘Christian Genocide’,” highlights the impact of violence on communities in parts of the country. In an emotional narration, Stephens recounted how armed attackers allegedly broke into her home in the middle of the night. She explained that the assailants forced their way into the house after damaging the door. She said in part,...

The site Responsible Statecraft says some kind of deal with Cuba seems to be getting closer, though the U.S. might be running out of time to get the kind of deal it wanted. div class="thm-piano-mop">Even as U.S. President Donald Trump vows to usher in a “new dawn” for Cuba, possibly through military force, his administration is pursuing high-level diplomatic talks that seem to be producing some concrete results.Over the weekend, the New York Times and AP confirmed reporting by Axios that a U.S. government plane with a senior State Department delegation landed in Havana on April 10 for direct talks...