Free Republic

When a group of European officials arrived in Kyiv to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day last month, they got some worrying news. The European Union, a key backer, had earlier this year finalized a loan of more than $100 billion for the country. But Ukraine now faced an unexpectedly large defense budget shortfall, President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies. To get through the year, he would need $27 billion more. Europeans understand Ukraine is in a fight for its existence but did not expect such a large budget shortfall, according to four European diplomats who, like others quoted in this piece, spoke...

Top White ⁠House ⁠advisers, including Vice ⁠President JD Vance and Secretary ​of State Marco Rubio, have privately warned ‌President Donald Trump that ‌the conflict with Iran could ⁠extend ⁠through the remainder of his presidency, the Wall ​Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials. The White House did not immediately ​respond to a Reuters request for comment. The ⁠advisers ⁠told Trump in private ⁠discussions ​in the Oval Office and the Situation ​Room that ⁠Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure, potentially prolonging the conflict beyond Inauguration Day in January 2029, the ⁠Journal added. The reported warning contrasts with Trump's own...

In one of the most underreported happenings in the Persian Gulf conflict, Yemen’s internationally recognized government and allied militias have inflicted a series of ground setbacks on Iran-backed Houthi forces over the past month. These defeats are reversing parts of a late-summer Houthi push toward the Red Sea undertaken as part of the Iranian strategy of widening its conflict with the U.S. The Yemeni government is sufficiently confident in the new fronts that they now describe this as the start of a campaign to take the Houthi capital of Sanaa. The Iranian-backed Houthis have been Iran's key ace-in-the-hole for years....

President Trump’s administration just landed a major blow against the industrial-scale scam networks stealing from Americans. In one coordinated operation, federal authorities restrained more than $52 million in cryptocurrency, sanctioned a Chinese-language criminal marketplace and helped foreign partners dismantle 13 Chinese-run scam compounds in Madagascar. This was not a small cybercrime bust. It was a strike at the infrastructure that allows fraud rings to recruit workers, build fake investment platforms, move stolen money and prey on victims across the world. The target at the center of the operation was Xinbi Guarantee, a Telegram-based marketplace that the Treasury Department says has...

.....Even more remarkably, Sen Const Barraza had been transferred to Bondi just six weeks earlier after praying he would be posted to the station where he was most needed......Sen Const Barraza, an experienced police marksman, was eating nachos at Bondi police station when a call came through on the police radio: “Possible armed offenders. Shots fired.”.....Sen Const Barraza didn’t waste another moment. He didn’t take his body-worn video camera, he didn’t take his mobile phone or even stop to put his bulletproof vest on. He didn’t take any spare pistol magazines. He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing –...

AR: ....The UAE refused to comment on the report but did not deny it and underscored that the Emirati and Israeli governments maintained open and direct communication since establishing relations more than 5 Years ago. For his part, Netanyahu wrote on social media that no such call took place between September and October 7th and called the story a malicious fabrication with a clear political timing. For more on this story and how the actions of Netanyahu before the October 7th attack are impacting the current election campaign in Israel, we turn to David Makovsky, distinguished fellow at the Washington...

Vladimir Putin has not changed his war aims a jot since 2022 and remains determined on fighting on. Donald Trump has no new plan for peace other than bringing the Ukraine war to an end on Putin’s terms. And Kyiv is running out of money and men to defend itself, just as surely as it has already run out of Patriot interceptors to defend its skies against the Kremlin’s barrages. Those are the three depressing takeaways from the latest round of shuttle diplomacy in Moscow and Kyiv by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff. On the eve...

Simultaneously with contacts conducted by US President Donald Trump’s representatives Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a delegation of prominent American political scientists visited Moscow. Professor John Mearsheimer, a faculty member at the University of Chicago who took part in the delegation, answered questions from the Russian daily Kommersant on the sidelines of a round-table meeting jointly organised by the Russian Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and the Higher School of Economics. Mearsheimer said that while the Washington administration possesses the potential to play a constructive role in ending the war in Ukraine, it has not yet translated this capacity...

KEY POINTS Iceland summoned the U.S. ambassador after Trump posted a map showing Iceland under the American flag. Reykjavik said the image was unacceptable, while reaffirming its support for Greenland amid Trump’s annexation threats. Denmark and Mexico also objected, underscoring the diplomatic backlash to Trump’s territorial ambitions. Iceland has sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media post of a map that appears to show the island and several other countries covered by the American flag. Trump posted the image on Truth Social on Monday, depicting the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean under the Stars...

Iran’s oil shipments are plunging, tanker reserves are rapidly shrinking, and China is seeking alternative suppliers.Iran’s economy is coming under increasing pressure as damage to its oil exports, a weakening currency and shrinking access to foreign currency threaten one of Tehran’s most important sources of revenue. According to a report published Wednesday by Independent Arabia, the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian oil exports has significantly reduced Tehran’s ability to move crude from the Persian Gulf to international markets. The report said that since the blockade was renewed in mid-July, no major new shipments of Iranian crude have managed to pass...

For much of its history, Albania remained as shadowy and remote as the fictional Syldavia of the Tintin comics. Letters to Albania were sometimes returned from Albany, New York, with the postal direction “Try Europe.” The country came into existence only after 1912, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Its first ruler, King Zog, was hounded out by Mussolini when he invaded in 1939. Five years later, the Italians and their Nazi German allies were expelled in turn by the Albanian nationalist leader Enver Hoxha. A Muslim-born communist, Hoxha turned his Balkan fiefdom into a self-immolated model of Stalinist...

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials appointed Sen. Mitch McConnell’s wife to multiple government positions, many of which partially overlapped with her two U.S. Cabinet posts, according to Chinese government and state media reports unearthed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Elaine Chao, who married the Kentucky Republican in 1993, has held numerous U.S. government positions since the 1980s, including serving as Department of Labor (DOL) secretary throughout President George W. Bush’s tenure and as Department of Transportation (DOT) secretary during President Donald Trump’s first term. After resigning from the Trump administration in January 2021, Chao then served on the board...

American forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers near Kharg Island and Jask on Tuesday as the US added military might to its economic squeeze of the Islamic Republic. US Central Command said in a statement that it carried out the strikes that downed five Iranian crude oil carriers in response to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) targeting of an American warship with ballistic missiles in the last two days. That US warship evaded the Iranian attacks and no American personnel were harmed, per CENTCOM. But the IRGC lost its crude oil carriers “M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1,...

A federal agent's contemporaneous notes suggest he may have been documenting the very weapons pipeline his own government was running, Slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry kept a diary showing he was tracking AK-47s at the border weeks before his 2010 murder exposed the Obama administration’s disastrous Fast and Furious gun-running scheme, according to excerpts from the journal obtained by Just the News. Terry's journal shows he stopped a shipment of AK-47s from entering the country just a month before he was murdered, according to his brother, Kent Terry. But his supervisors told him to allow the weapons to cross...

Public sentiment is turning against Zelensky amid corruption concerns and weariness with his rule. For most of his presidency and especially since Russia launched its full-scale war, Ukrainian voters have rallied around Volodymyr Zelensky as a pillar of national resilience and unity. That’s for good reason: But now, after more than seven years in office, four and a half years of war with Russia, and a series of scandals involving his leadership team and close friends, Zelensky appears to have lost the nation’s political support. Indeed, polling published in early August points to a major mood swing among Ukrainians, suggesting...

McAllen, Texas — Less than two weeks after the military first used a high-energy laser weapon system to down suspicious drones, military officials told CBS News there has been a roughly 75% decrease in the number of drones probing the southern border in the Rio Grande Valley. The system made its debut by taking down three drones on Aug. 25 and 26 after months of training, including an episode that caused the Federal Aviation Administration to briefly shut down El Paso's airport earlier this year. Since then, military officials told CBS News there is regular coordination with the FAA to...

More than 200 members of churches in Nepal's flood-hit Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts remain unaccounted for, while at least nine church buildings have been damaged following the devastating Bhote Koshi–Trishuli floods that struck the region on August 26. The catastrophic flooding came through the Bhote Koshi River from the Kerung area of China, causing widespread destruction across Rasuwa and downstream areas. Pastor Dr. Kiran Kumar Das, president of the National Churches Fellowship of Nepal (NCF Nepal), said that nine church buildings in the flood-affected districts of Rasuwa and Nuwakot have so far been damaged, while more than 200 church members...

The Brits’ simmering anger over mass migration is getting hotter than a tea kettle. Their fury spilled onto the beaches of Portsmouth on Sunday — complete with protesters in the water, blocked coaches, a major police response and even women arriving in kayaks to try to block roughly 140 immigrants from reaching shore. The extraordinary scenes unfolded at Eastney after a migrant boat was intercepted in the Solent off England's southern coast. https://x.com/GBPolitcs/status/2096695801028194313? It was not the typical Channel crossing ending at Dover. The vessel had reportedly traveled from the Normandy coast before reaching waters near Portsmouth, where Border Force,...

Canada and China held their Fifth Defence Coordination Dialogue in Canada on Friday, the first session of that channel since April 2018. Beijing’s defense ministry provided this anodyne announcement: “The two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on international and regional issues of mutual interest, expressed willingness to strengthen practical exchanges and cooperation between the two militaries, and enhanced mutual understanding and trust.” Notably, Canada’s government-beholden media have not mentioned the meeting. https://x.com/cbcwatcher/status/2096915174376558702? "Why do Canadians always have to find out from foreign media? What other negotiations is Carney hiding? Even a major South Korean newspaper writes...

Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have directed the IDF to target senior Palestinian Authority officials in an “all-out war” on terrorism in the West Bank, should Israel identify a plan to launch an “October-7 style” attack on Israeli forces and Jewish settlements. “If the security apparatuses of the Palestinian Authority and the bodies associated with them launch, or we know for certain that they are about to launch, an October 7-style terrorist attack against forces and Jewish settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I instructed the IDF to prepare to launch an all-out...